Knollenberg Bernhard. Growth of the American Revolution: 1766-1775
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and had apparently “from an intemperate, if not reprehensible zeal to
aid the revenue service, exceeded the bounds of his duty.”⁴⁵
Following receipt of this report, the British government let the mat-
ter drop.⁴⁶ (Dartmouth, if his sentiments were correctly reported,⁴⁷ al-
most certainly welcomed the occasion for this.) So, in the end, no one
was sent to England for trial for alleged complicity in the attack on the
Gaspee.
But this outcome was unforeseeable when, in December, , Gov-
ernor Wanton laid Dartmouth’s letter of September , quoted above,
before the Rhode Island General Assembly.⁴⁸
Soon afterward (December ) the Providence Gazette reported that
“commissioners are to sit at Newport, and examine such persons as
Admiral Montagu shall direct to be apprehended...[who] are to be
sent to England where they are to be tried for high treasons.”⁴⁹ This
alarming report was, of course, picked up by newspapers throughout
the colonies.⁵⁰
In March, the Virginia House of Burgesses took steps (as it had un-
der the similar circumstances in , described in Chapter ) to secure
united colonial opposition to this new British threat.
The House elected “a standing Committee of Correspondence,” in-
cluding the Speaker, Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee,⁵¹ Patrick
Henry, and Thomas Jefferson, “whose business it shall be to obtain the
most early and Authentic intelligence of all such Acts and Resolutions
of the British Parliament, or proceedings of Administration, as may re-
late to or affect the British Colonies in America, and to keep up and
maintain a Correspondence and Communication with our sister Colo-
nies, respecting these important Considerations...and that they do,
without delay, inform themselves particularly of...a Court of inquiry,
said to have been lately held in Rhode Island with Powers to transmit
Persons accused of Offences committed in America to places beyond
the Seas, to be tried.”⁵²
The Speaker was ordered to transmit copies of these proceedings to
the Speakers of the other Assemblies in British North America with the
request that they appoint similar committees. This he promptly did in
a circular letter of March , enclosing the Virginia proceedings and
asking the other Speakers to “lay them before your Assembly as early as
possible, and request them to appoint some of their body to communicate
from time to time with the corresponding committee of Virginia.”⁵³*
Within the next year, the Assemblies of all twelve colonies adopted
Virginia’s suggestion,⁵⁴ thus establishing a network of committees rep-
resenting the popular Assemblies of all thirteen colonies to cooperate in
matters of common concern.
At the time the colonists in general were disturbed by the proposed
proceedings against participants in the attack on the Gaspee, the people
of Massachusetts were further alarmed over a move by the British gov-
ernment to pay the judges of the Superior Court of the province out of
the duties for revenue levied by Parliament on the colonies.
In England, an act of provided for judicial tenure during good be-
havior and for permanent, fixed salaries for the judges,⁵⁵ but this act did
not extend to the colonies. There, the tenure of judges was either unreg-
ulated or, in the royal colonies other than Massachusetts, was regulated
by commissions⁵⁶ and instructions⁵⁷ issued to successive Governors of the
colony. The usual practice was for the Governor to grant judicial com-
missions revocable at the pleasure of the Crown.⁵⁸ But for some years
prior to the Governors of New York and New Jersey had granted
good behavior commissions,⁵⁹ leading to bitter controversy in New York
when the Crown insisted on the abandonment of this local practice.⁶⁰
In Massachusetts, which alone among the royal colonies still had
a charter, the appointment of judges was governed by a provision in
the charter empowering the Crown-appointed Governor of the colony,
with the advice and consent of the provincial Council, “to constitute
and appoint judges,” without any restriction as to the kind of tenure to
be granted.⁶¹ Furthermore, the commission and instructions from the
Crown to successive Governors of the colony did not impose any re-
striction on their freedom to grant judges tenure on such terms as they
chose.⁶²
The practice in Massachusetts was to appoint judges without any
reference in their commissions as to tenure.⁶³ There was a difference of
* Richard D. Brown, Revolutionary Politics in Massachusetts: The Boston Committee of Correspondence and
the Towns, – (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, ). [B.W.S.]
opinion as to whether such a commission gave the judges tenure during
good behavior or only during the pleasure of the Crown; but in a series
of learned letters to the press, John Adams established that such a com-
mission gave the judges the latter kind of tenure.⁶⁴
However, until , the influence of the Crown over judges in the
colony through retention of power to dismiss them at pleasure had been
balanced by the influence over them retained by the people of the col-
ony through the practice of the Massachusetts House of Representa-
tives to vote the judges’ salaries for only a year at a time.⁶⁵
Shortly before leaving office, Lord Hillsborough issued an order
( July , ) to the British Treasury to pay the salaries for the current
year of Peter Oliver, Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Superior (Su-
preme) Court, and the associate judges of the court.⁶⁶ Ten days later the
Treasury carried out this order by issuing warrants for payment of
these salaries “from the Duties on Tea imported into America.”⁶⁷
Rumors of this move to make the judges of the Supreme Court of
Massachusetts dependent exclusively on the Crown were afloat in Bos-
ton as early as the end of August, and in October, Samuel Adams was
told by an unidentified member of the Massachusetts Council that
Governor Hutchinson had recently received authentic word of it.⁶⁸ The
Massachusetts Legislature was not in session; but on October , a
Boston town meeting chose a committee headed by Adams to ask the
Governor if the report were true.⁶⁹
Hutchinson evaded the question, stating that it would not be proper
for him to inform the people of Boston whether or not he had “received
any advice relative to the public Affairs of the Government,” where-
upon the town chose another committee to take further action in the
matter.⁷⁰ This second committee, the famous Boston Committee of
Correspondence, prepared a statement reciting many alleged infringe-
ments by Parliament and the Crown of the “Rights, Liberties and Priv-
ileges” of the people of Massachusetts, including the recent innovation
concerning payment of the judges’ salaries, and a proposed circular let-
ter to all the towns of the province urging a “free communication of
your sentiments to this Town of our common danger.”⁷¹
This statement and the accompanying letter, approved at a Boston
town meeting on November , were sent by the town clerk (William
Cooper) to the selectmen of every town in the colony,⁷² and over a hun-
dred towns, including nearly all of those in the vicinity of Boston, re-
sponded favorably.⁷³ Thus was launched a network of Committees of
Correspondence throughout the province, headed by the Boston Com-
mittee, of which Samuel Adams was the driving force.
Worried by this development, Governor Hutchinson delivered a
speech at the opening of the winter session of the Massachusetts Legis-
lature in January, , declaring the right of Parliament to legislate in
all respects for the colonies, insisting that he knew “of no line that can
be drawn between the supreme authority of Parliament and the total in-
dependence of the colonies” and pointing out that if “there should be
two independent Legislatures in one and the same state...the two
Legislative bodies will make two governments as distinct as the king-
doms of England and Scotland before the union....”⁷⁴
The provincial Council replied that, granting Parliament had “supreme
authority” throughout the empire, it did not have “unlimited authority,”
and that, however difficult it might be to determine just where the line
was to be drawn, Parliament had no authority to levy taxes on the
people of Massachusetts without their consent given directly or through
representatives elected by them.⁷⁵
The House of Representatives, on January , went further. Agree-
ing with Hutchinson as to the difficulty of drawing “a line between the
universal authority of Parliament [over the colonies] and no authority
at all,” it declared that this difficulty did not really present itself in Mas-
sachusetts because, under the charter of the province properly construed,
Parliament had no authority there of any kind. Having two legislative
bodies, each independent of the other, would, indeed, as Hutchinson
said, “make two governments as distinct as the kingdoms of England
and Scotland” before the union, but there was nothing amiss with this
since the two governments were still “united in one head and common
Sovereign....”⁷⁶
No action was currently taken by the British Ministry on this bold
reply.⁷⁷ But it was among the documents laid before Parliament in
in support of the Ministry’s resolution for the fateful Massachusetts
Regulating Act of , revising the charter and laws of Massachusetts
to tighten Crown control over the government of the province.⁷⁸
THE TEA ACT OF 1773
P
T A of , the East India Company’s ac-
tion authorized by it, and the ensuing Boston Tea Party led directly
to the American Revolution. Consequently, the background and adop-
tion of the act demand close examination.
Under an act of , the Company of English merchants trading to
the East Indies, (hereinafter called the East India Company or simply
the Company) had the exclusive right to import East Indian products,
including tea, into Great Britain, with the proviso that they must be sold
by the Company to all comers at auction.¹ In Parliament passed
the act, referred to in earlier chapters, prohibiting the importation of
East Indian products into the British colonies from any place but Great
Britain.² Under these two acts, the only tea that could legally be im-
ported into the British colonies in (with a minor exception as to tea
imported into Great Britain under special Treasury license)³ was tea
imported into Great Britain by the Company.
The Act of was widely evaded by smuggling tea into the colo-
nies from foreign countries,⁴ estimated to average at least ,
pounds a year.⁵ Even so, customs records show large exports of tea each
year from England to the thirteen old British colonies in North Amer-
ica. For example, in the years from through , immediately
preceding the operation of the colonial non-importation agreements
(described in Chapters and ), the exports of tea from England to
these colonies averaged , pounds a year.⁶
In the years –, during which the non-importation agree-
ments were in force, the export of tea to the thirteen colonies dropped to
an average of , pounds a year.⁷ Due in part to this severe decline,
the Company was in serious financial difficulty by the end of .⁸
On January , , the stockholders (“General Court”) of the Com-
pany voted to have the directors petition for “an Act of Parliament...
taking off the three pence per Pound Duty in America.”⁹ But on Feb-
ruary , the stockholders changed their earlier vote to petition
“that leave may be given to export teas duty free to America,”¹⁰ and
the petition presented by the Company to the House of Commons on
March conformed to this vote.¹¹
The relief proposed by this vote and the ensuing petition by the
Company to the House of Commons differed from the relief proposed
by the stockholders on January . The earlier proposal was for repeal
of the Townshend Act duty on tea; the relief now requested was for re-
fund of the entire British import duty on tea reexported to the colonies.
Under an act of , the Company was entitled to a refund of three-
fifths of the British import duty.¹² The relief now requested was for re-
fund of the remaining two-fifths.
The duty on imports of tea into Great Britain was about % ad va-
lorem.¹³ The additional refund now requested was, therefore, two-fifths
of about %, or about .% ad valorem. As shown in an appendix to
this chapter, this requested refund would probably just about offset the
import duty of three pence per pound payable in the colonies under the
Townshend Act. But, though this refund would enable the Company to
sell its tea in the colonies for about the same price as if the Townshend
Act duty were repealed, the Company would still be faced with the bar-
rier imposed by the colonial non-importation agreements on the im-
portation of tea subject to the Townshend Act duty.
Why the stockholders of the Company decided to request this less fa-
vorable form of relief has not come to light; but it is reasonable to sup-
pose that the Ministry let it be known it would refuse to support repeal
of the Townshend Act duty.
An obvious reason for such a refusal was that repeal of this duty
would be construed as a victory for the colonists tending to weaken Par-
liament’s claim of right to tax them. Another probable reason was that,
as pointed out in Chapter , the Townshend Act provided for the appli-
cation of the revenue from this act primarily to “defraying the charges
of the administration of justice and the support of civil government” in
the colonies. This duty thus laid the foundation for giving the British
government exclusive control over colonial Governors and judges by
having them depend on the Crown, rather than on the colonial Legis-
latures for their salaries.
It was the latter reason that Lord North apparently had in mind in
stating to the House of Commons in April, , “I am unwilling to give
up that [the tea] duty upon America....If the East India Company
will export tea to America they will very much increase the duty, and
consequently very much facilitate the carrying of Government in that
part....I must see a very substantial reason before I part with a fund
so applicable to the support of Civil [government in the colonies.]”¹⁴
On April , North proposed resolutions in the House of Commons
sitting in Committee of the Whole that, if enacted into law, would not
allow a refund of the entire British import duty on tea reexported to the
colonies, but would amend the act of to permit the Company, un-
der license from the Treasury, to export tea on its own account to the
colonies. The resolutions stated:
“That upon all teas, which shall be sold at any of the East India
Company’s public sales or be imported under license after the th Day
of May , and shall be exported to any of the British Plantations in
America, a Drawback [refund] be allowed of all the Duties of Customs
paid upon the Importation of such Teas.
“That Provision be made for impowering the Commissioners of the
Treasury to grant Licenses to the East India Company to export Teas
to the British Plantations in America, or to Foreign Parts; provided that,
at the Time of taking out such Teas for Exportation, there be left re-
maining in the Company’s Warehouses a Quantity of Tea not less than
Ten millions of Pounds Weight; and that upon all Teas which shall be
so exported, a Drawback be allowed of all the Duties of Customs paid
upon the Importation of such Teas, and an Exemption from the Inland
Duties charged thereupon.”¹⁵
So far as appears from the two known reports of the debate on
the resolutions, no one opposed granting the Company relief. But five
members—William Dowdeswell, Barlow Trecothick, George Johnstone,
his brother William Johnstone, who had changed his name to Pulteney,
and Charles Wolfram Cornwall¹⁶
—spoke in favor of repeal of the Town-
shend Act duty as a method more likely to induce the colonists to buy
the Company’s tea.
Dowdeswell, Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Rockingham ad-
ministration and one of the leading members of the Rockingham party
in the House of Commons, said to North, “I tell the Noble Lord now if
he don’t take off the [Townshend Act] duty they won’t take the tea.”¹⁷
Dowdeswell was followed by Trecothick, one of four members for
London in the House and London Agent for New Hampshire. His
speech was reported in a letter from Charles Garth, a member of the
House and London Agent for South Carolina, to the South Carolina
Committee of Correspondence.
Garth wrote, “In the Committee upon East India matters, after
Lord North had proposed the Resolutions...relative to the encrease
of Consumption of Tea in North America, Mr. Trecothick observed
that the most effectual Method to obtain this Point would be to take off
the Import Duty in America of d per pound,” through which, without
affecting the revenues any more than the proposed refund of British im-
port duty, “the Company would be...benefited to a much greater De-
gree, by a larger Consumption when the People in America should find
themselves relieved of this import Duty.” However, “The Ministry re-
fused to alter their Plan, being of Opinion that America would, when
this Law passes, to be able to buy Tea at a lower Rate from the Com-
pany than from any other European Nation, and that Men will always
go to the Cheapest Market....”¹⁸
Johnstone, Pulteney, and Cornwall concurred in what Dowdeswell
and Trecothick had said.¹⁹
According to Garth, the Ministry “declined any political Argument
touching the Right of Parliament to impose Taxes on the Americans”;²⁰
but, as Dowdeswell pointed out, the obvious reason for proposing the
allowance of an additional refund of British import duty, instead of re-
peal of the Townshend Act duty on tea, was to maintain the asserted
right of Parliament to tax the colonies.²¹
There is no indication that Dowdeswell, in proposing amendment of
the resolutions to repeal the Townshend Act duty on tea, spoke on be-
half of the Rockingham party. Apparently none of the other members
of the party, including Edmund Burke, who customarily spoke against
any measure opposed by the party, said anything on this occasion.²²
The following day (April ), the resolutions approved in the Com-
mittee of the Whole were adopted by the House, and on May the bill
incorporating them was passed by the House without a division at any
stage of the proceedings.²³
The bill was adopted without opposition in the House of Lords on
May and assented to by the King three days later.²⁴
Thus, one of the most important bills ever passed by Parliament was
adopted without serious opposition at any stage.
Some months later, Arthur Lee wrote Samuel Adams that he
thought the Tea Act was “a ministerial trick of Lord North’s...to stir
up again some violence on your [the colonies’] part, which might jus-
tify them [the Ministry] in continuing the present impositions by coer-
cive measures,”²⁵ and many years later John Almon accused the King
of having refused to permit the Ministry to consider any change in plan
to avoid provoking the colonies because he was determined to try “the
question [of taxation] with America.”²⁶ But no evidence of any such
sinister motives was adduced by Lee or Almon or has been found.²⁷
The true explanation seems to be that the Ministry expected that
the Tea Act would afford relief to the Company²⁸ and at the same time
increase the revenue from the Townshend Act duty by increasing colo-
nial consumption of legally imported, duty-paid tea.²⁹
In July, , the Company, which had more than the required
ten million pounds of tea in reserve,³⁰ decided to ask the Treasury for
a license to export tea to the colonies on its own account,³¹ and, a
month later, applied for and promptly obtained a license to export
up to , pounds.³² During the succeeding two months, the Com-
pany shipped , pounds in seven ships, four to Boston, and one
each to New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston.³³
The Company appointed thirteen firms of colonial merchants as its
distributing agents: Richard Clarke and Sons, Thomas and Elisha
Hutchinson (sons of Governor Thomas Hutchinson), Benjamin Faneuil
and John Winslow in Boston; Henry White, Abraham Lott and Co.
and Pigou and Booth in New York; Thomas and Isaac Wharton, Abel
James and Henry Drinker, Jonathan Brown and Gilbert Barkly in
Philadelphia; and Peter Leger and William Greenwood and Roger
Smith in Charleston.³⁴
The agents were to be allowed a commission of six percent of the
proceeds from their sales of tea at prices suggested by the Company,³⁵
out of which they were to pay for cartage, warehousing, and other ex-
penses in the colonies.³⁶ They were to sell the tea at public sale, the buy-
ers to pay at least one-eighth of the purchase price immediately, the bal-
ance in two months.³⁷
The agents were also to arrange for payment of the duty on behalf
of the Company by offering the customs officers security to pay at a later
date (presumably after the tea was sold) or giving them bills of exchange
drawn on the Company, or, if neither of these methods could be arranged,
by selling such bills and using the proceeds to pay the duty.³⁸
Not long after the Tea Act was passed, William Bollan, London
Agent for the Massachusetts Council, warned the Council, “Unlimited
authority is the great fact which they appear determined to defend;
and, as that comprises a power to take money out of your pockets at the
discretion of others, to be applied to purposes you do not approve;...
[a power which] is capable of such exercise in future as will subject you
to pay dear....”³⁹
If safely landed and sold, the Company’s shipments of tea would im-
mediately yield over £, duty under the Townshend Act,⁴⁰ and more
important, lay the foundation for other duty-paid shipments in years to
come. Would the colonists submit to this new effort to strengthen the act?