Knollenberg Bernhard. Growth of the American Revolution: 1766-1775
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to” that, if unable to escape, they were likely to die.³³ Furthermore,
under a British act relating to impressment in the colonies, there was
strong ground for the position that impressment of any persons other
than deserters from the British navy was illegal there.³⁴
The unrest in Boston over the Board’s strict enforcement of the
British acts of trade and revenue, coupled with Captain Corner’s im-
pressments, came to a head a few weeks after his arrival.
As noted in Chapter , the Act of levied a much heavier duty on
wine imported into the colonies directly from Madeira, the Azores, and
the Canary Islands than if imported by way of Great Britain. Until re-
cently, the customs officers at Boston had tempered this act by indulging
the continued import of wine directly from the wine islands.³⁵ Just what
the “indulgence” was is not clear. But whatever it may have been,³⁶ it
was now stopped.³⁷ When the Commissioners were informed that Han-
cock’s sloop Liberty had imported more wine directly from Madeira
than the amount entered for duty,³⁸ they ordered the Collector of the
Port of Boston, Joseph Harrison, formally to seize the sloop as a pre-
liminary to suit in the local admiralty court for her condemnation.³⁹
After arranging with Captain Corner to send a party to his assistance
if needed, Harrison, accompanied by the Comptroller of the Port, Ben-
jamin Hallowell, carried out the Commissioners’ order on the evening
of June , by “putting the King’s mark [a broad arrow] on the Main
Mast” of the Liberty.⁴⁰ No opposition was made to this legal,⁴¹ formal
seizure,⁴² but when, on a signal from Hallowell, a boat from the Romney
was sent ashore, whose crew began to cut the Liberty from her moorings
with the evident intention of carrying her away, hell broke loose.
The affair was vividly described in a letter written a few days later
by Hutchinson to a friend in England.
“In the evening [of June ],” wrote Hutchinson, “the Custom
House Officers seized a Sloop belonging to Mr. Hancock...for mak-
ing a false entry....The Officers differed in Opinions, the Collector
thinking she might lay at the wharffe after she had the broad arrow but
the Comptroller thot it best to move her under the Guns of the Romney
which lay a quarter of a mile from the Shoar and made a signal for the
man of war boats to come ashoar.
“The people upon the wharffe said there was no occasion; she would
ly safe and no Officer had a right to move her; but the master of the Man
of War cut her moorings and carried her off. A Mob presently gathered
and insulted the Custom House Officers...,tore their cloaths and
bruised and otherwise hurt them until one after another [including
Harrison’s son, who also was assaulted] they escaped. The mob in-
creased to or ,, chiefly sturdy boys and negroes, and broke the
windows of the Comptroller’s house and then the Inspector Williams,”
and concluded its outrages by burning a boat belonging to Harrison.⁴³
The indication in Hutchinson’s letter that the landing party’s illegal
cutting of the Liberty’s moorings and taking her from her berth, and not
her seizure by the customs officers, provoked the attack on the customs
officers⁴⁴ is affirmed by numerous affidavits and eyewitnesses made
soon after June .⁴⁵
Fearing for their lives, the Commissioners fled to the Romney, from
which they wrote the Customs Board in London on June :
“In the evening [of June ] the Collector and Comptroller made
seizure of the said vessel, and delivered her into the charge of the Mas-
ter [at Arms] of his Majesty’s ship Romney, which lay near the wharf
where the seizure was made, who immediately carried her along side the
said ship, as there was a mob assembled, who attempted to rescue her.
“The Collector and Comptroller, with the son of the Collector, on
their return from the wharf into town were attacked by a numerous and
outrageous mob; Mr. [Thomas] Irving, Inspector of imports and ex-
ports, who happened to be passing...was likewise attacked by the
mob, who cried out, He is a Commissioner, kill him, kill him; these per-
sons were grossly insulted and much bruised, and escaped with the ut-
most hazard of their lives....”⁴⁶
This report, it will be observed, was misleading, as was also a simi-
lar report by Governor Bernard,⁴⁷ in omitting one of the most impor-
tant aspects of the affair
—that the fury of the mob was aroused not by
formal seizure of the Liberty, but by the high-handed and illegal⁴⁸ con-
duct of the party from the hated Romney in cutting the moorings of the
Liberty and towing her away from her berth.
Soon after the Liberty incident, Captain Corner eased the tension in
Boston over impressment by promising the Massachusetts Council to
refrain from impressing residents of Massachusetts.⁴⁹ But subsequent
proceedings for condemnation of the Liberty and suits against Hancock
and others for heavy penalties for alleged participation in illegal im-
portation of wine in the vessel continued to keep the Liberty and Han-
cock in the public eye for many months. (The vessel was condemned,
and the suits against Hancock and others were eventually dismissed.)⁵⁰
Furthermore, accounts of the Liberty riot, dispatched by the Ameri-
can Customs Commissioners and Bernard to officials in England led
to a measure which spread extreme alarm throughout the colonies: the
adoption by both Houses of Parliament of the treason resolution (de-
scribed in Chapter ).
THE TREASON RESOLUTION
:
PROPOSED REVISION OF THE
TOWNSHEND ACT
B
the – session of Parliament opened in
November, , Lord Chatham, who had long been mentally
ill,¹ though still retaining his lucrative sinecure of Lord Privy Seal, was
wholly incapacitated from giving any attention to public affairs.² The
post of First Minister passed to his follower and colleague, the Duke of
Grafton, First Lord of the Treasury, who, “immature, sensitive and un-
certain,”³ was little fitted by ability, temperament, or experience for this
responsibility.
Well aware of the need to strengthen the Ministry politically and in
experienced personnel, Grafton, as early as July, , had offered im-
portant places to followers of Lord Rockingham and of the Duke of
Bedford.⁴ But the negotiations for a “broad-bottom” Ministry, includ-
ing followers of Bedford’s temporary ally, George Grenville, failed, when
Bedford refused to accept Rockingham’s demands that Henry Seymour
Conway be continued as Leader in the House of Commons.⁵ Grafton’s
subsequent negotiations solely with the Rockinghams were likewise un-
successful because Rockingham refused to enter the Ministry, even as
its head, unless authorized by the King to form a wholly new Ministry.⁶
Finally, in December, , Bedford and Grafton struck a bargain pur-
suant to which two of Bedford’s followers, his son-in-law, Lord Gower,
and Lord Weymouth were given Cabinet office, Gower as President of
the Council, in place of Lord Northington, and Weymouth as Secretary
of State for the Northern Department, in place of Conway.⁷
Conway, however, remained in the Cabinet and also continued to
act as Leader in the House of Commons until February, , when he
was succeeded as Leader by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Freder-
ick North⁸ (usually called by his courtesy title of Lord North accorded
him as eldest son of the Earl of Guilford). North had been appointed to
this important office, with admission to the Cabinet, following the
death of Charles Townshend in September, .⁹
Another major change (described in Chapter ) was the transfer of
colonial affairs from the office of the Secretary of State for the South-
ern Department to a new, third Secretary, a Secretary of State for the
colonies, and the appointment of Lord Hillsborough to the new office.
Parliament itself, in its – session during which this impor-
tant change in colonial administration was made, passed only two acts
affecting the colonies, a further extension of the colonial Quartering
Act and a provision for several new colonial admiralty courts, discussed
in an appendix to this Chapter.
In May, , there was a general election for a new House of Com-
mons, but the complexion of the House was little altered¹⁰ and there
was no immediate change in the Cabinet.
However, shortly before the opening in November, , of the first
session of the new Parliament, Lord Shelburne, Secretary of State for
the Southern Department, who had long been at loggerheads with
most of the Cabinet ministers,¹¹ resigned.¹² He was replaced by Lord
Rochford, a career diplomat, apparently not attached to any political
group.¹³ Chatham, too, now resigned his office of Lord Privy Seal¹⁴ and
was replaced by one of his followers, Lord Bristol, who, however, was
not admitted to the Cabinet.¹⁵
Thus, when the new Parliament assembled in November, , the
Cabinet consisted of five Chathamites
—Grafton, Conway, Lord Cam-
den, Lord Granby, and Sir Edward Hawke; two Bedfordites
—Gower
and Weymouth; and Hillsborough, North, and Rochford, not closely
identified with any political party.¹⁶
The King’s speech at the opening of the – session of Par-
liament and the replies of both Houses implied that Massachusetts was
to be dealt with sternly,¹⁷ and, after the holiday recess, resolutions were
introduced in the House of Lords denouncing the conduct of Boston
and Massachusetts.¹⁸ Moreover, Bedford successfully moved in the
Lords for an address to the King asking him to secure information as to
treason or misprision (concealment) of treason in Massachusetts, with
a view to bringing the chief offenders to trial in England
—under an old
act of Henry VIII, providing for punishment of these crimes committed
outside, as well as within, the realm.¹⁹
The House of Commons, led by North,²⁰ concurred²¹ and the King
replied that he would take the requested action.²² This was done by a
letter of February , , from Hillsborough to Governor Francis
Bernard of Massachusetts directing him to procure and transmit “the
fullest information that can be obtained, touching all treasons and mis-
prision of treason committed within your Government since the th
day of December .”²³
Furthermore, at a Cabinet meeting on February , Hillsborough
proposed an act of Parliament to deprive Massachusetts immediately of
its charter right to an elective Council and to provide that “the passing
or entering upon the Journal of the House of Representatives of said
Province, any Note, Resolution or Order, by which the Power and Au-
thority of Parliament to make Laws and Statutes of sufficient Force and
Validity to bind the said Province in all Cases Whatsoever, are denied
or drawn into question, shall be ipso facto an avoidance and forfeiture
of the Charter granted for the government of said Province.”²⁴ But
when Camden and Conway opposed these proposals²⁵ and were sup-
ported by the King,²⁶ the proposals were dropped.²⁷
In April, Thomas Pownall, former Governor of Massachusetts and
now a member of the House of Commons, moved that the House con-
sider the repeal of the Townshend Act duties. Spokesmen for the Min-
istry opposed the motion, but they indicated they might favor consid-
eration of repeal at the next session of Parliament, and Conway even
went so far as to propose that the House commit itself to consider this
at its next session.²⁸
Furthermore, at a meeting on May , , attended by all the mem-
bers of the Cabinet except Hawke, the following resolution was adopted:
“It is the unanimous opinion of the lords present to submit to His
Majesty as their advice that no measure should be taken which can any
way derogate from the legislative authority of Great Britain over the
colonies. But that the Secretary of State [Hillsborough] in his corre-
spondence and conversation be permitted to state it as the opinion of
the king’s servants that it is by no means the intention of Administra-
tion nor do they think it expedient or for the interest of Great Britain or
America to propose or consent to the laying any further taxes upon
America for the purpose of raising a revenue, and that it is at present
their intention to propose in the next session of Parliament to take off
the duties upon paper, glass and colours imported into America, upon
consideration of such duties having been laid contrary to the true prin-
ciples of commerce.”²⁹
In an autobiography written many years later, Grafton stated that
he himself, Camden, Granby, and Conway voted in favor of total repeal
of the Townshend Act duties, but were outvoted by other members of
the Cabinet
—North, Gower, Weymouth, Rochford, and Hillsborough.³⁰
No contemporary evidence has come to light clearly supporting this
statement;³¹ but remarks by Grafton and Weymouth in debate in the
House of Lords in support its credibility. Grafton said “In ...
I moved in the Cabinet for a repeal, and was out-voted (if I recollect
right) by a majority of one.” Weymouth replied, “The noble Duke is
very right; I was present, and am free to declare that I was one of the
members of the Cabinet who gave my vote for having the tea duty re-
tained, and am not ashamed to own it....”³²
The administration let the colonists know of the Cabinet’s decision
quoted above by spreading word of it among merchants in Lon-
don,³³ who were worried over the loss of trade from the colonial non-
importation agreements, and by a circular letter from Hillsborough to
colonial Governors.
Hillsborough wrote, “the whole legislature concur in the opinion...
that no measure ought to be taken which can any way derogate from
the legislative authority of Great Britain over the colonies,...[but] I
can take it upon me to assure you, notwithstanding intimations to the
contrary from men with factious and seditious views, that His Majesty’s
present Administration have at no time entertained a design to propose
to Parliament to lay any further taxes upon America for the purpose of
raising a revenue, and that it is at present their intention to propose in
the next session of Parliament: to take off the duties upon glass, paper
and colours upon consideration of such duties having been laid con-
trary to the true principles of commerce.”³⁴
The Cabinet presumably hoped that the announcement of its in-
tention to support revision of the Townshend Act would allay the colo-
nial antagonism manifested by the spirited legislative protests against
the act, the non-importation agreements, and the Liberty incident at
Boston. But if so, it failed to take into account the foreseeable colonial
reaction to the report of the resolution in Parliament proposing that
Bostonians accused of treason be shipped to England to be tried for
treason and the evident intention to retain the duty for revenue on tea.
On May , , the Virginia House of Burgesses passed resolutions
declaring that “the seizing any Person or Persons, residing in this Colony,
suspect of any Crime whatsoever, committed therein, and sending such
Person or Persons, to Places beyond the Sea, to be tried, is highly deroga-
tory of the Rights of British subjects; as thereby the inestimable Privilege
of being tried by a Jury from the Vicinage, as well as the Liberty of sum-
moning and producing Witnesses on such Trial, will be taken away from
the Party accused.”³⁵ The House also passed a resolution again deny-
ing the right of Parliament to tax the people of Virginia, and directed its
Speaker to send a copy of both resolutions to Speakers of the other As-
semblies in British North America requesting their concurrence.³⁶
By the end of the year similar protests were passed by the Assemblies
of all thirteen colonies³⁷ except New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and
Georgia.³⁸ Those of the Massachusetts Houses were especially vigor-
ous. They included protests not only against British taxation of the col-
onists and the threatened sending of colonists to England for trial, but
against “the establishment of a standing army in the colony in time of
peace, without the consent of the General Assembly of the same....”³⁹
In the event, no one was arrested in Massachusetts to be sent to En-
gland for trial.⁴⁰ But the fact that Parliament proposed to have the gov-
ernment apply the ancient treason act of Henry VIII to the colonies was
alarming enough. Furthermore, since Hillsborough’s circular letter said
nothing about repeal of the Townshend Act duty on tea, the letter im-
plied that the Ministry was determined to maintain Parliament’s claim
of authority to tax the colonies by retaining this duty. Consequently, the
colonial non-importation agreements were retained.
REVISION OF THE TOWNSHEND
ACT AND DILUTION OF
NON-IMPORTATION
W
P in January, , the Min-
istry, still headed by the Duke of Grafton, faced the combined
opposition of the Rockingham group and of Lord Chatham (suffi-
ciently recovered in health to resume political activities) and his small
group of followers.
The chief point on which the two groups were united was condem-
nation of the recent action by the House of Commons, influenced by
the King,¹ in refusing John Wilkes a seat in the House for Middlesex
County, to which he had been elected by a great majority, and seating
his leading opponent, Colonel Henry Luttrell.²
But the Ministry’s colonial policy was evidently under fire, too, as
indicated by the language of motions in both Houses of Parliament for
amendment of a proposed address of thanks to the King for his speech
at the opening of Parliament. On January , , Chatham moved
in the Lords that the address be amended to call for inquiry into the
causes of discontent “in so many parts of Your Majesty’s dominions,”
obviously referring to discontent in the colonies, as well as in England.
William Dowdeswell (Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Rockingham
Ministry) made a similar motion in the Commons.³
The motions were defeated in both Houses, in the Lords by to
, in the Commons by to .⁴ Thereupon Lord Chancellor Cam-
den, who supported Chatham in the Lords, was dismissed,⁵ and Lord
Granby, Master General of the Ordnance, who supported Dowdeswell
in the Commons, resigned.⁶ Soon afterward, Grafton, pilloried un-
mercifully in the London Public Advertiser by the brilliant “Junius”⁷ and
bereft of two of the three remaining Cabinet ministers who had served
with him under Chatham, also resigned.⁸*
The office of Master General of the Ordnance was left vacant, the
office of Lord Chancellor was put into commission, and, on January ,
, Grafton was succeeded as head of the Treasury and First Minis-
ter by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of
Commons, Lord North.⁹†
The new First Minister had long been in public life. He had sat in the
House of Commons for fifteen years as a member for the borough of Ban-
bury controlled by his father, Lord Guilford. Appointed a member of
the Treasury Board in during the Newcastle–Pitt Ministry, he had
continued in this office throughout the Bute and Grenville Ministries.
He followed Grenville into retirement in ; but, on formation of the
Chatham Ministry, at Chatham’s particular request, was appointed to
the lucrative office of joint Paymaster-General of the Army, which he
held until appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in November, .¹⁰
Writing of North’s appointment to the latter office, William Samuel
Johnson, the able and well-informed London Agent for Connecticut,
said, “Lord North...is esteemed a man of good abilities...[and] it is
said he understands the business of the finances very well....He did not
speak very often in the House [the last session] but when he did, he was
well heard, and has a dignity in his manner that gives weight to his sen-
timents, which were generally sensible, cool and temperate.”¹¹ Johnson
made no comment on North’s attitude toward the colonies, but the fact
that he had voted against repeal of the Stamp Act¹² would tend to iden-
tify him with those favoring inflexible support of Parliament’s asserted
authority to tax the colonies.
Soon after becoming head of the Ministry, North informed John-
son, still in London as Agent for Connecticut, that the Ministry planned
to carry out the commitment made in for revision of the Town-
shend Act.¹³ This assurance was carried out in large measure when, on
* Tony H. Bowyer, “Junius, Philip Francis and Parliamentary Reform,” Albion, (), –.
[B.W.S.]
† Peter D. G. Thomas, Lord North (New York: St. Martin’s Press, ). [B.W.S.]