Knollenberg Bernhard. Growth of the American Revolution: 1766-1775
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March (after presenting to the House of Commons a “Petition of the
Merchants and Traders of the City of London trading to North Amer-
ica” begging for some relief from the injury to their trade attributable
to that act),¹⁴ North moved for leave to bring in a bill to repeal the du-
ties on paper, glass, and paint manufactured in Great Britain.¹⁵
In introducing his motion for partial repeal, North said he favored
repeal of the duties on British-made glass, paper, and paint because the
duties ran counter to the long-established policy of encouraging the ex-
portation of British manufactures;¹⁶ but that the other duties could not
be repealed “without giving up that just right which I shall ever wish the
mother country to possess, the right of taxing the Americans.”¹⁷ More-
over, yielding on the point of taxation, far from satisfying the colonists,
would, North declared, simply encourage them to demand the repeal
of other British acts which they disliked.¹⁸
North was challenged by Thomas Pownall, former Governor of
Massachusetts,¹⁹ who moved for complete repeal on the ground that
the duty on tea, by encouraging the smuggling of Dutch tea into the col-
onies, occasioned heavy losses to the British East India Company. The
Company itself, so far as is known, gave Pownall no support;²⁰ but he
was supported by Conway and Colonel Isaac Barré, not only on com-
mercial grounds, but because total repeal would, they pointed out, be
the most decisive way of convincing the colonists that Parliament did
not mean to tax them for purposes of revenue.
Welbore Ellis, who had been in the Grenville Ministry, opposed both
North and Conway on the ground that all the Townshend Act duties,
whether commercially sound or not, should be retained lest even par-
tial repeal be considered as yielding to colonial threats. Lord Barring-
ton²¹ proposed to repeal the act as a whole in the colonies that had sub-
mitted to it and retain it without change in the colonies that had not.²²
When Pownall’s proposed amendment was finally brought to a vote,
it was defeated to ; and North’s original motion was adopted,
apparently without a division.²³ A bill along the lines of this motion was
passed by the House of Commons on April .²⁴ The bill was passed
by the House of Lords, a few days later, without a division, and on
April , , the act was approved by the King.²⁵
Following receipt of news of the partial repeal of the Townshend Act,
a committee of New York merchants took action to secure revision
of the non-importation agreements. They sent a circular letter dated
June , , to merchants in Boston, Philadelphia, Connecticut, and
Rhode Island, proposing a consultation as to the advisability of relaxing
the existing non-importation agreements to cover only such articles as
were subject to colonial import duties imposed by Parliament.²⁶ On rejec-
tion of this proposal,²⁷ they voted, July ,²⁸ immediately to modify their
own agreement (whatever others might do) along the line suggested in
their circular letter.²⁹
There was a great outcry in the other colonies against the New York-
ers’ desertion of the common cause.³⁰ But, as shown in the appendix to
this chapter, the New York merchants had much justification for their ac-
tion in that they had more faithfully observed their agreement than the
associators elsewhere, and hence had suffered more severely in trade than
the others, a justification which they naturally were quick to point out.³¹
With so important a competitive port as New York open to impor-
tation from Great Britain of all except dutied articles, the merchants of
Philadelphia and Boston probably would have followed suit under any
circumstances. But there was another important factor in the break-
down of the non-importation agreements: the unfairness in operation
of each agreement among the signatory merchants of the particular
port to which it applied.
There was much specialization among colonial merchants; one
might engage chiefly in trade with Great Britain, another with Ireland,
another with the West Indies, and still another in illegal trade with the
continental countries, particularly in smuggling tea and other goods
from Holland. In the short run, if the agreement was faithfully kept, an
importer ordinarily engaged chiefly in importing British goods might
not find the agreement onerous, since the general drying up of the sup-
ply of new goods would give him the opportunity profitably to unload
out-of-style or shopworn goods which he must otherwise have sold at a
loss. But in the long run he would be hit hard by the agreement; whereas
those engaged chiefly in smuggling or in legal trade with Ireland or the
West Indies would be comparatively little affected.
The merchants of Philadelphia on September , and those of Bos-
ton on October , voted to revise their agreements to harmonize with
the modified New York agreement.³² On October , the merchants of
Baltimore announced that they, too, would henceforth limit their boy-
cott to dutied articles from Great Britain,³³ and, two months later, the
merchants of South Carolina took similar action.³⁴
There is no evidence of any formal termination of the agreements in
North Carolina and Georgia, probably because the agreements there
had been so little observed³⁵ that formal termination was regarded as
superfluous. The Virginians did not formally modify their agreement
until July, ,³⁶ but efforts made in June, , to tighten its enforce-
ment had signally failed.³⁷
The poor observance of the non-importation agreement in some of
the colonies³⁸ and the virtual collapse of the movement gravely weakened
the most important source of colonial influence on the British govern-
ment and Parliament: the fear among the politically powerful merchants
and manufacturers of Great Britain that if the British government seri-
ously antagonized America, they might lose the colonial market for
their wares.*
Furthermore, the virtual failure of the movement tended to discour-
age all British sympathizers with the colonies and encourage their oppo-
nents. William Temple, for example, wrote in that the recent “pusi-
lanimity & mean acquiescence [of the colonists] . . . has in some measure
sacrificed every friend they had here...,and from such experience I
believe it will be with some caution that any person of rank or conse-
quence will ever again step forth in their cause....”³⁹ And three years
later, Ralph Izard of South Carolina, writing from England to a friend
at home, remarked on the “wonderful confidence” that the collapse of
the colonial non-importation movement of – had since given
to those in Great Britain favoring stern measures against the colonies.⁴⁰
One of the most interesting aspects of the colonial non-importation
movement is evidence of the part played by skilled manual workmen,
called variously tradesmen, mechanics, craftsmen, artisans, artificers,
and manufacturers,⁴¹ in connection with the non-importation agree-
ments in New York, Charleston, Philadelphia, and Boston.
* Peter D. G. Thomas, Tea Party to Independence: The Third Phase of the American Revolution, –
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, ), –, argues that by the mid-s the British had found other
markets for their goods and did not fear American boycotts. [B.W.S.]
As brought out in Chapter , immediately after adoption of the
New York City merchants’ non-importation agreement in August, ,
New York City “tradesmen” agreed to boycott and publicize any “mer-
chant, storekeeper or retailer” who refused to sign the merchants’ non-
importation agreement.
In Charleston, the tradesmen (referred to there as “mechanics”)
took an active part in the adoption and provision for enforcement of the
local non-importation agreement.⁴²
In Boston, when the local non-importation agreement was tottering
in September, , “the most respectable Tradesmen of the Town”
were among those attending a meeting⁴³ which voted in favor of an in-
tercolonial congress of merchants to devise means for continuing and
strengthening non-importation.
In Philadelphia, when it became known in May, , that some of
the local merchants proposed to relax their non-importation agreement,
a mass meeting of “the artisans, manufacturers, tradesmen and others”
voted to sustain the local non-importation agreement “by all prudential
ways and means.” And the subsequent decision of the local merchants
on June not to relax their agreement was said to have been effected by
intrusion into the meeting of a “body of disaffected Mechanics.”⁴⁴
In considering the clash between merchants and tradesmen over
continuation of the non-importation agreement, it must be borne in
mind that, as soon as colonial merchants engaged chiefly in the impor-
tation and sale of goods from Great Britain sold their existing stock,
they were hard hit by stoppage of new supplies. Whereas colonial trades-
men
—shoemakers (“cordwainers”), tailors, hatters, potters, weavers, cab-
inet makers, iron-workers, braziers, ropemakers, soap boilers, coach-
makers, etc.
—who made things competing with British imports from
material available in the colonies,⁴⁵ stood to benefit from prolonging
the non-importation agreements; the agreements operated as a kind of
prohibitively high protective tariff in their favor.
Though immediately successful, the Ministry’s plan was, in the long
run, calamitous, and foreseeably so. For retention of the duty on tea,
avowedly as a symbol of Parliament’s continuing assertion of the right
to tax the colonists as it pleased, was almost certain, sooner or later, to
result in a collision between the British government and the colonies.
BRITISH TROOPS AT BOSTON AND
THE “BOSTON MASSACRE”
A
in Chapter , as early as February and March,
, the American Customs Board and Governor Bernard of
Massachusetts had suggested sending British troops to Boston. But or-
ders for this were not given until June , , when Lord Hillsborough
instructed General Thomas Gage, Commander in Chief of the British
army in North America, to dispatch “such Force as You shall think nec-
essary to Boston, to be Quartered in that Town, and to give every legal
assistance to the Civil Magistrate in the Preservation of the Public
Peace; and to the Officers of the Revenue.”¹
On receipt of this order, which was long in arriving, Gage ordered
two regiments to be sent to Boston from the British garrison at Halifax,
Nova Scotia,² and on September , Governor Bernard let it be known
in Boston that troops were on their way.³
There was immediate talk by local radicals of preventing the troops
from landing,⁴ and those attending a Boston town meeting on Septem-
ber seemed prepared to back them up. The “Inhabitants of the Town
of Boston,” it was resolved, “will at the utmost peril of their Lives and
Fortunes take all legal and constitutional measures to defend...all and
singular the rights...belonging to us as British subjects,” and, “as by
a good and wholesome Law of this Province, every listed Soldier and
other House-holder...shall always be provided with a well fixed Fire
Lock, Musket, Accoutrement and Ammunition...and as there is at
this Time a prevailing apprehension in the minds of many, of an ap-
proaching War with France,...those of the said Inhabitants who may
at present be unprovided be and hereby are requested fully to observe
the said Law at this Time.”⁵ (The reference to preparation for fighting
the French was, of course, a subterfuge, as was made clear by the mod-
erator of the meeting, James Otis, who, when asked “to be more ex-
plicit,” pointed to a large chest of arms stored in the town hall where the
meeting was held and said, “There are the arms; when an attempt is
made against your liberties, they will be delivered.”)⁶ The keeping of a
standing army in the colony without the consent of the people also was
denounced as unconstitutional.⁷
At this meeting, the town elected a committee consisting of its
members in the Massachusetts House of Representatives to meet with
similar committees from other towns in the province and directed its
selectmen to write those of the other towns enclosing copies of the
proceedings at Boston and proposing a general convention to be held
at Faneuil Hall on September .⁸ But if Boston radical leaders hoped
to secure province-wide support for resistance to the landing of the ex-
pected British troops, they must have been sorely disappointed. For,
while there was a good turnout in response to the Boston invitation
(nearly a hundred towns, or about two-thirds of the total in the province
were represented),⁹ the convention, which sat for just a week, was very
moderate in its resolves.¹⁰
It did, to be sure, complain of “the late acts of Parliament for an
American revenue” and the introduction of a “standing army...among
the people, contrary, as we apprehend, to the Bill of Rights,” but a ma-
jority of those present were evidently more eager to record their specific
intentions than to encourage armed resistance. Disclaiming “all pre-
tence to any authoritative or governmental acts,” they declared, as in-
dividual citizens, that they wished “no irregular steps” to be taken by
the people; that “the gracious attention of his sacred Majesty to the
cause and grounds of our complaints, is the only regular source of relief
from our present distresses,” and that “We think ourselves happy in be-
ing connected with the parent state in that subordination which forms
the happiest bond of union between the colonies themselves.”¹¹
On October , , three days after the convention was disbanded,
the British troops from Halifax, drawn chiefly from the Fourteenth and
Twenty-ninth Infantry Regiments and numbering about seven hun-
dred men,¹² landed at Boston without opposition.¹³ Six weeks later the
Sixty-fourth and Sixty-fifth Regiments, of about five hundred men
each, began to arrive from Ireland,¹⁴ and remained at Boston until
transferred to Halifax the following July.¹⁵
Reassured by the presence of the troops sent for their protection, the
Commissioners of Customs, who, as we saw in Chapter , fled after the
Boston riot of June, , now returned to town.¹⁶
Even before the first soldiers arrived, Governor Bernard and the
Massachusetts provincial Council quarreled over the latter’s refusal to
prepare quarters for the troops in Boston on the ground that adequate
barracks were already available for them at Castle William¹⁷ near the
mouth of Boston harbor.¹⁸ There was also a clash later between Bernard
and the Massachusetts House of Representatives over his request for
funds to cover the cost of supplies for the troops required by the British
Quartering Act (described in Chapter ). Flatly refusing to vote the re-
quired funds, the House denounced this and all other British acts taxing
the colonies as “acts for raising a tribute in America, for...disposition
among placemen and pensioners” reminiscent of the period when im-
perial Rome, having drawn to itself “all the treasures of the East,...fell
a sacrifice to the unbounded corruption and venality of its grandees.”¹⁹
According to a series of articles concerning events in Boston, pub-
lished in the New-York Journal from October , , to November ,
, clashes between the troops and civilians began within a few weeks
of the arrival of the British troops in Boston.²⁰ But the reports of these
clashes before the one in July, , apparently were either concocted
or greatly exaggerated.²¹ The only serious incident during this period
involved the British warship Rose cruising near Boston, one of whose
officers was killed in April, , by a merchant seaman, Michael Cor-
bet, in resisting impressment.²² (This incident and Corbet’s ensuing
trial at Boston by a special court consisting exclusively of Crown offi-
cers is described in the first appendix to this chapter.)
The earliest well-authenticated incident of a serious nature between
British troops and civilians in or near Boston occurred in July, .
On July , John Riley, a grenadier in the Fourteenth Regiment,
taunted by a butcher, Jonathan Winship, knocked him down.²³ Winship
“ ”
complained to Riley’s commanding officer, Col. William Dalrymple,
but the latter, far from reprimanding Riley, said he was glad that Riley
had taught Winship a lesson.²⁴ Furthermore, when haled before a justice
of the peace and fined for his assault on Winship, Riley refused to pay
the fine and slashed and wounded a constable who tried to arrest him.²⁵
In September, there was a further ugly incident, this time between
James Otis and John Robinson, of the American Customs Commis-
sion, in which some British officers also were involved.²⁶
In October, another serious clash took place between soldiers and
civilians, stemming from the alleged trespass by the British military in
building a guard house and stationing a guard of British soldiers on
land on Boston Neck leased by the town of Boston to Robert Pierpont.²⁷
On October , Pierpont and a crowd of supporters attacked with
bricks, stones, and sticks a detachment of soldiers under Ensign (Sec-
ond Lieutenant) John Ness while they were marching back from the
guard house to their barracks. In the course of this attack two of the sol-
diers were injured.²⁸
Quarrels continued between Boston civilians and British soldiers
during the fall and winter of –;²⁹ but no other serious incident
disturbed the peace of the town until late in February, , when
Boston was set ablaze by the killing of a twelve- or thirteen-year-old boy,
Christopher Snider (or Seider), under the following circumstances.
At a meeting of the so-called “body” of merchants on December ,
, a majority voted to change the local non-importation agreement
(described in Chapter ), which banned the importation of articles sub-
ject to duty under the Townshend Act until that act was repealed, but of
other articles only until the end of . The new agreement continued
the ban on these articles, too, until the Townshend Act was repealed.³⁰
Despite heavy pressure,³¹ eight local merchants or mercantile firms
refused to sign the new agreement,³² and, on January , , in the
teeth of orders from Acting Governor Thomas Hutchinson to disperse,³³
the body of merchants took drastic action against the holdouts. They
published a broadside, naming and denouncing the latter as traitors.³⁴
Among these was Theophilus Lillie, who not only was one of the
earlier Boston holdouts, referred to in Chapter , but had recently
made himself particularly conspicuous by publishing a letter complain-
ing of those who in the name of liberty were trying to deprive him and
others of their liberty to do business as they pleased.³⁵
On February , a crowd of boys made sport of Lillie by planting a
large sign in front of his store, displaying caricatures of him and other
holdouts and a hand pointing to his store.³⁶ A neighbor, Ebenezer
Richardson, who, as a notorious customs informer,³⁷ was as unpopular
as Lillie himself, tried to tear down the sign. The boys thereupon turned
their attention to him; they chased him to his house and threw rocks
through the windows, some of which hit Richardson, his wife, and one
of his daughters. They were soon joined by several men, including one
who came to the door, shouting “Come out you damn Son of Bitch, I’ll
have your Heart out. . . .” At this point, Richardson fired a charge of
bird shot into the crowd, fatally wounding young Snider and injuring
another boy, John Gore.³⁸
Richardson was dragged before a justice of the peace, committed to
jail, and, on Snider’s death eight hours later, was held on a charge of
murder.³⁹
The anti-British feeling aroused by young Snider’s death rose to
fever pitch on the day of the boy’s funeral. “My Eyes never beheld such
a funeral,” wrote John Adams in his diary for February . “A vast
Number of Boys walked before the Coffin, a vast Number of Women
and Men after it...This Shewes there are many more Lives to spend
if wanted in the Service of their Country...,that the Ardor of the
People is not to be quelled by the Slaughter of one Child and the
Wounding of another.”⁴⁰
The British troops in Boston had no part in the killing of Snider, but
the friction between them and the citizens of Boston over the past year
made them a natural target for the outburst of anti-British feeling over
the boy’s death and funeral.
Also, here again, as we find repeatedly in the progress of the Revo-
lution, the proceedings in one colony influenced those of another.
On February , the Boston Gazette and the Boston Evening-Post pub-
lished accounts drawn from New York newspapers of recent clashes be-
tween civilians and British soldiers in New York City, which (quoting
John Adams once more) had “excited the resentment of the soldiers
here as well as exultation among some sorts of the inhabitants.”⁴¹
“ ”
Apparently inspired by the accounts from New York, a workman
at John Gray’s rope-walk, called out to a passing British soldier on
March , “Soldier, will you work.” “Yes,” said the soldier. “Then go and
clean my shit house,” replied the workman. Swearing by the Holy Ghost
that he would be revenged for this insult, the soldier returned first with
eight or nine, later with thirty or more, soldiers armed with clubs and
cutlasses and headed by a tall negro drummer. Workmen at the rope-
walk, wielding the formidable tools of their trade known as wouldring
sticks, succeeded in driving the soldiers away.⁴² But it was rumored that
the soldiers would seek revenge the following Monday night, March ,⁴³
and there were in fact several clashes between soldiers and civilians that
moonlit night before the affair known to history as the Boston Massacre
took place.⁴⁴
The testimony concerning this tragedy is conflicting, but the follow-
ing account is supported by what seems to be the weight of evidence.
Hugh White, a soldier of the Twenty-ninth Regiment, stationed as
a sentry before the Customs House, provoked by Edward Garrick or
Gerrish, a young barber’s apprentice, struck him with his gun.⁴⁵ Soon
afterward the boy returned with a sizable crowd, chiefly boys and
youths, and, pointing at White, said, “There is the son of a bitch that
knocked me down.”⁴⁶ Whereupon some of the crowd shouted “Kill
him, kill him, knock him down,” and pelted White with snowballs, ice,
and other missiles.⁴⁷
Learning of the sentry’s predicament, Captain Thomas Preston of
the Twenty-ninth, officer of the day at the so-called “Main Guard” sta-
tioned near the Customs House, marched with a party of six privates
and a corporal,⁴⁸ with guns unloaded but with fixed bayonets,⁴⁹ to
White’s relief. A large crowd, led by Crispus Attucks, “a mulatto fel-
low,”⁵⁰ soon gathered and pelted Preston and his men with snowballs,
pieces of ice, oyster shells, and sticks.⁵¹ The men loaded their guns,⁵² but
the crowd, far from drawing back, came close, calling out, “Come on
you rascals, you bloody backs, you lobster scoundrels, fire if you dare,
G
——d damn you, fire and be damned, we know you dare not,” and
striking at the soldiers with clubs and a cutlass.⁵³ Whereupon they fired
—
whether with or without orders from Preston is not clear.⁵⁴ Attucks,
Samuel Gray, and James Caldwell were killed on the spot; Samuel Mav-