Knollenberg Bernhard. Growth of the American Revolution: 1766-1775
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Governor—was elected annually by joint vote of the incoming members
of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and the outgoing mem-
bers of the Council. The Massachusetts Regulating bill provided that
beginning August , , the Council was to be appointed by the King.⁶
Under the charter, the Governor could commission provincial judges,
justices of the peace, county sheriffs, and the Attorney-General only
with the advice and consent of the Council. The Regulating bill pro-
vided that beginning July , these officers were to be appointed by the
royal Governor independently of the Council,⁷ and also might be re-
moved without consent of the Council.⁸
Under a Massachusetts act dating back to , the popularly elected
town selectmen were empowered to call a meeting at any time for any
business “of publick concernment to the town.” The Regulating bill
provided that beginning August , town meetings could not be called
more than once a year without written permission from the Governor.⁹
Under various other Massachusetts acts approved by the Crown,
grand jurors were elected at town meetings and panels of petty jurors
were drawn by lot at such meetings from a list of persons prepared by
the selectmen of the towns within the jurisdiction of court in which they
were to serve. The Regulating bill provided that beginning October ,
jurors should be chosen by the Crown-appointed county sheriffs.¹⁰
This bill, debated at length on its second reading, April , met with
stronger opposition than the Boston Port bill. Most of those who had
spoken against the earlier bill spoke also against the second, and they
now were joined by Henry S. Conway, Isaac Barré, Thomas Pownall,
former Governor of Massachusetts,¹¹ John Dunning, Solicitor-General
in the Grafton Ministry, Charles James Fox, and three leading follow-
ers of Lord Rockingham
—Edmund Burke, Sir Edward Astley, and Sir
George Saville.¹² But even so, on a call for a division, opponents of the
bill mustered only votes, while votes were cast in favor of the bill,
which was passed without further division on May .¹³
Taken up the next day by the House of Lords, the bill was opposed by
much the same peers as had opposed the Boston Port bill, but again in
vain.¹⁴ On the call for a division, the opponents numbered only or ,
as compared with at least in favor of the bill.¹⁵ After some unimportant
amendments, the bill passed the Lords on May without further divi-
sion, was promptly accepted as amended by the House of Commons,
and was assented to by the King on May .¹⁶
This act was extremely menacing not only to the other charter col-
onies
—Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Maryland—the
threat to whose charters from Parliament’s amendment of the Massa-
chusetts charter was obvious, but also to the colonies having no charters.
The very foundation of government of these colonies rested on the
long-established rule that once a provincial act had been approved by
the Crown, the Crown had no authority thereafter to repeal or amend
it.¹⁷ The Massachusetts Regulating Act, as we have seen, changed not
only the Massachusetts charter, but provincial acts approved by the
Crown. If Parliament had power to do this with respect to the laws of
Massachusetts, what was to prevent it from doing what it pleased with
the laws of all the colonies?
While the bill for the Massachusetts Regulating Act was pending,
Rose Fuller moved in the House of Commons (April ) for the repeal
of the Townshend Act duty on tea,¹⁸ and was supported by Edmund
Burke in his famous speech on American taxation.¹⁹ However, the mo-
tion was defeated to .²⁰
In opposing Fuller’s motion, North said, “Convince your Colonies
that you are able and not afraid to controul them, and, depend upon it,
obedience in them will be the result...;let us conduct ourselves with
firmness and resolution throughout the whole of these measures, and
there is no doubt but peace and quietude will soon be restored.”²¹
The expectation that four regiments, supported by a number of
warships, would suffice to enable General Gage to enforce the Boston
Port Act was perfectly reasonable. But to expect, as North and a great
majority in Parliament apparently did, that four regiments would suffice
to enforce the Massachusetts Regulating Act throughout the province
evidenced an egregious misconception of the temper of the people of
Massachusetts.
Governors Francis Bernard and Hutchinson had contributed to the
dangerous misconception in British governmental circles. As we saw in
Chapter , their letters urging British action to enforce Parliament’s
asserted unlimited authority over the colonies repeatedly implied that,
once the government had the firmness to use a little force, the colonists
would submit.
But Gage himself was chiefly responsible for the misconception. In
letter after letter to members of the British Ministry (quoted and dis-
cussed in Chapter ), he indicated that there would be no serious re-
sistance in the colonies to the coercive measures suggested by him. Fur-
thermore, in a recent audience with the King, Gage had assured him
that the colonists “will be Lyons, whilst we are Lambs but if we take the
resolute part they will undoubtedly prove very meek.”²²
The Boston Port and Massachusetts Regulating Acts were supple-
mented by a third act: an act for “the impartial administration of jus-
tice in...Massachuset’s Bay . . .” commonly called in the colonies,
“the Murdering Act.”
The act provided that if any person “acting under the direction and
order of any magistrate, for the suppression of riots or for the carrying
into effect the laws of revenue,” was indicted in Massachusetts for
murder or other capital offenses and it appeared that an impartial trial
could not be had there, the Governor might, with the consent of the
provincial Council, shift the trial from Massachusetts to Great Britain
or such other British colony as he chose.²³ The act was to take effect
June , , and run for three years.
Introduced in the House of Commons on April , the bill for the act
passed with relatively little opposition there or in the House of Lords.²⁴
Eight of the peers, including Lord Rockingham and the Duke of Rich-
mond, filed a protest against it, pointing out that the Ministry had pre-
sented no evidence tending to show the accused would not be given a fair
trial and that the only British officer, civil or military, tried for murder in
Massachusetts (Captain Thomas Preston) had in fact received a fair trial
and was acquitted. But the bill was promptly assented to by the King.²⁵
One other act passed in must be noticed, an act to supplement
the annual colonial Quartering Act, by providing that if, after due de-
mand, any colony failed to furnish barracks for British troops stationed
in the colony at places where their “presence may be necessary and re-
quired,” the Governor of the colony could requisition “so many unin-
habited...or other buildings” as he considered necessary for quarter-
ing the troops, allowing reasonable allowance for their use.²⁶
Apparently, no one in the House of Commons spoke against the bill
for this act, which rapidly passed all stages there without a division.²⁷ In
the House of Lords, on the third reading of the bill, Chatham, appear-
ing publicly for the first time in two years,²⁸ spoke against it.²⁹ But,
though his surprising appearance lent a dramatic touch to the pro-
ceedings, he was able to muster only votes against the administra-
tion’s in support of the bill.³⁰
THE QUEBEC ACT
W
M R was pend-
ing in Parliament, Lord Dartmouth introduced a bill in the
House of Lords for government of the province of Quebec, which, since
its cession by France in , had been essentially under military gov-
ernment.¹ The bill also provided for extension of the boundaries of the
province to include a large part of the vast region reserved as Indian ter-
ritory by the famous Royal Proclamation of .²
Introduced in the Lords on May , the Quebec bill quickly passed
that House without even a division.³ When laid before the House of
Commons for concurrence on May , the bill was attacked by much
the same members as had recently opposed the Massachusetts Regu-
lating bill;⁴ but, after some amendment, it easily passed there, too
—by
a majority of to .⁵ On return of the amended bill to the Upper
House, Lord Chatham, who had not been present when the bill was ini-
tially before that House, appeared and bitterly denounced it,⁶ but in
vain; the bill was adopted in the Lords, to .⁷*
The Lord Mayor and Alderman of London thereupon petitioned the
King to withhold his assent, on the ground that the act was unconstitu-
tional.⁸ But this failed; on June the act was assented to by the King.⁹
This act, unlike the Boston Port Act and the Massachusetts Gov-
* Philip Lawson, The Imperial Challenge: Quebec and Britain in the Age of the American Revolution (Mon-
treal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, ), ch. . [B.W.S.]
ernment Acts, was projected before destruction of the East India Com-
pany’s tea at Boston, and a bill along the general lines of the act prob-
ably would have been introduced and passed at the session of Par-
liament even if there had been no Boston Tea Party.
As early as August , , the Lord Chancellor, Baron Apsley, wrote
Lord Dartmouth, “The Chancellor’s Compliments to Lord Dartmouth;
takes the liberty to send him some Papers relative to Canada, which, to-
gether with the Reports of the Kings Advocate, the Attorney-General
& the Solicitor-General, will, he believes, enable his Lordship to form
a plan of Government for that Province fit to be laid before Parliament;
& the Chancellor is happy in having received assurance from his Lord-
ship that He means to undertake it.”¹⁰
A few weeks later, Francis Maseres, former Attorney-General of
Quebec, who had just seen Lord North, wrote that the latter was ap-
parently “fully determined to do something towards the settlement of
that Province [Quebec] in the next session of parliament...,” and on
December , Under Secretary of State, John Pownall, wrote of North’s
pressing him for “a precis of the affairs of Quebec.”¹¹
Furthermore, on December , Dartmouth himself wrote Hector
Cramahé, Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec, that “arrangements...
[concerning] the Civil Government of the Colony...will probably be
settled in a very short Time”; that he would “urge the Justice and Ex-
pediency of giving all possible Satisfaction to the new [French Cana-
dian] subjects on the Head of Religion”; and that “The Limits of the
Colony” also would be considered, since “the existence of settlements
in the interior Country” and “a variety of other Considerations...in-
duce a doubt both of the Justice and Propriety of restraining the Col-
ony to the narrow limits prescribed in the Proclamation [of ].”¹²
As foreshadowed by Dartmouth’s letter, the bill for the government
of Quebec (Canada) contained not only provision for the future gov-
ernment of the province but a vast extension of its boundaries.
The most important provisions for the government of the province
were embodied in sections , , , , , , and of the Quebec Act.
Section gave the Roman Catholic clergy of Quebec the right to re-
ceive from all professing Roman Catholics in the province the “dues and
rights” to which they had been entitled under the old French regime in
Canada.¹³
Section amended the act of Elizabeth ch. () to enable Ro-
man Catholic residents of Quebec to hold Crown offices in the province
by substituting a simple oath of allegiance on taking office for the oath
denying the “ecclesiastical or spiritual” authority of the Pope previously
required.¹⁴
Section confirmed or restored property rights in the province es-
tablished under French rule,¹⁵ and restored trial of civil cases without
jury as had been the practice under French rule.
Section provided that trial by jury in criminal cases introduced
under British rule should be retained.
Sections and provided for appointment by the Crown of a
Council consisting of not more than twenty-three, nor less than seven-
teen, residents of the province¹⁶ authorized “to make ordinances for the
good government of the said province,” but having no power to tax ex-
cept to authorize towns or districts in the province to levy taxes “re-
specting the local convenience and oeconomy of such town or district.”
(A provincial revenue was provided by a supplementary act, the Que-
bec Revenue Act of , discussed later in this chapter.) The act was
silent as to the councilor’s tenure of office, thus empowering the King
to ensure control over them by granting them commissions revocable at
his pleasure, which is what he did.¹⁷
Sections and provided that ordinances passed by the provin-
cial Council were subject to veto by the Crown-appointed Governor of
the province and if approved by him were still subject to disallowance
by the King in Council.¹⁸
A statement in Section that “it is at present inexpedient to call an
assembly” tended to imply that government of the province without an
elected Assembly was temporary, but, in the event, no provision was
made for this until .¹⁹
The Quebec Act also in effect (by silence) confirmed the old French
system of land grant by “fief or seigneurie,” which the British govern-
ment had reestablished in Quebec in . The system imposed semi-
feudal servitude, such as requiring that on a re-sale of land the purchaser
render homage and fealty on bended knee to the Governor as repre-
sentative of the King²⁰ and that the vendor pay the King part of the pro-
ceeds from the sale (“Fines and Dues”) for the privilege of selling it.²¹
When the province was ceded to Great Britain in , the system of
granting Crown land prevailing under the old French regime was abol-
ished in favor of the liberal English system of grant in so-called free and
common socage prevailing in the old British colonies.²² But Colonel
Guy Carleton, Governor of Quebec, was in favor of restoring the sys-
tem of grant in fief and seigneurie because of the “Fines and Dues” that
would come to the Crown and because, under this form of tenure “the
Vassals” were required to take an oath to the King binding them “to ap-
pear in Arms for his Defence, in case His Province is ever attacked” and
ensuring “a proper subordination” to him.²³
Carleton’s view prevailed; in , the King instructed him hereafter
to grant Crown land in the province “in Fief or Seigneurie, as hath been
practiced heretofore antecedent to the Conquest thereof, omitting how-
ever in such Grants, so to be made by you, the reservation of the exer-
cise [ by the grantee] of such judicial Powers as hath been long disused
within Our said Province.”²⁴
The other principal provision of the act, the provision for extension
of the boundaries of the province, was embodied in Sections and .
The province as established in comprised roughly the present prov-
ince of Quebec and the eastern part of the present province of On-
tario.²⁵ Sections and enlarged the boundaries of Quebec to include
the vast territory extending from the western boundary of Pennsylvania
west to the Mississippi River and from the Ohio River north to the Hud-
son Bay Territory, with the proviso that “nothing herein contained, rel-
ative to the boundary of the province of Quebec, shall in anywise affect
the boundaries of any other colony.”²⁶ Just what this proviso meant is un-
certain,²⁷ but it seems to have been generally understood in the colonies
that, whatever the meaning of this proviso, the addition to the province
comprised most of so-called Northwest Territory, including the present
states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and the eastern
part of Minnesota.²⁸ This apparently was the understanding in Great
Britain, too.²⁹ A major reason for the new boundary was that it per-
mitted the establishment of civil government over French settlements
in that region.
Even if the Quebec Act had been passed at a less troubled time, in-
corporation of much of the Northwest Territory in a province having so
autocratic a form of government and so un-English a form of land tenure
would have been unpalatable to residents of the old British colonies,
who were looking forward to the opening up of this rich territory to
settlement.³⁰ But the timing of the act made it particularly objectionable.
John Sullivan, a delegate from New Hampshire to the Continental
Congress, in session when news of the act reached the colonies, wrote
that “the Canada Bill in my opinion [is] the most dangerous to Ameri-
can Liberties among the whole train [of the Intolerable Acts], for when
we...Contemplate that by the late Act their [the French Canadians’]
Territory is so far extended as to include by far the greater part of North
America; that this will be a City of Refuge for Roman Catholics,³¹ who
will ever appear in favor of the Prerogative of the Crown,...aided by
the whole force of Great Britain &...the same Indian Nations [that
fought us in the late war], we must suppose our Situation be Infinitely
more Dangerous now than it was then....”³²
Richard Henry Lee denounced the act on the floor of Congress as
“the worst grievance” of all,³³ and Joseph Reed wrote Dartmouth from
Philadelphia that “the Quebec Bill added [such] fuel to the fire...that
all those deliberate measures of petitioning previous to opposition [ini-
tially contemplated] were laid aside as inadequate to the apprehended
mischief and danger, and now the people are generally ripe for any plan
the Congress advise, should it be war itself.”³⁴ It may be said that the
act was condemned because it favored Roman Catholics and because
it injured them.
Suspicion that the Quebec Act was cooked up at this particular time
as a threat to the old British colonies was, as we have seen, unjustified.
Nevertheless, the idea of pleasing the French Canadians in order to en-
list their help against the old British colonies in case of rebellion cer-
tainly was present in the minds of some of the framers and supporters
of the Quebec bill.
Governor Carleton, in England on leave of absence from his gov-
ernment, and consulted by the Ministry on the bill,³⁵ had written Gen-
eral Gage in that “no Pains, Address nor Expence” would be too
great to attach the French Canadians to Great Britain. This, he pointed
out, would help secure a strong line of military communication between
Quebec and New York City that would “separate the Northern from the
Southern Colonies.” The following year (at the height of the colonial
non-importation movement), Carleton wrote Hillsborough of the desir-
ability of gaining “the affections of the Canadians,” who were “not united
in any common principle, interest or wish with the other Provinces....”³⁶
Furthermore, in pamphlets concerning the Quebec Act, Under Sec-
retary of State William Knox, who also was consulted by Dartmouth
concerning the bill,³⁷ wrote that “the avowed purpose of the old colonies
to oppose the execution of the laws of England” was one of the induce-
ments for adopting “a plan of lenity and indulgence” toward the Cana-
dians and that one of the advantages of the act was giving “a politic
check to the independence of our American children.”³⁸
In similar vein, Lord Lyttelton, in supporting the Quebec bill in the
House of Lords, remarked that “if British America was determined to
resist the lawful power...of Great Britain, he saw no reason why the
loyal inhabitants of Canada should not co-operate...in subduing
them” and thought it fortunate that, “from their local situation, they
might be some check to those fierce fanatic spirits...who pretended to
be contending for liberty....”³⁹
The Quebec Revenue Act of ,⁴⁰ mentioned earlier in this chap-
ter, was an added grievance to the people of the old British North Amer-
ican colonies, not only because of its fresh assertion of Parliament’s
claim of right to tax the colonies, but because it discriminated against
the business interests of the old North American colonies in favor of the
British West Indies, Great Britain, Ireland, and Quebec.
Rum or spirits distilled in the British North American colonies was
taxed nine pence a gallon, while rum distilled in the British West Indies
was taxed only six pence, and brandy and spirits distilled in Great Britain
only three pence a gallon. The duty on molasses and syrups imported
in ships owned in the North American colonies was six pence a gallon;
if imported in ships owned in Quebec, Great Britain, or Ireland, only
three pence.⁴¹