Knollenberg Bernhard. Growth of the American Revolution: 1766-1775
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persons not themselves holding Crown office or supported by the Society for
the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.
The foregoing discussion relates solely to Toryism during the period before
the war. As previously noted, many who had been Whigs, neutral, or indiffer-
ent had been drawn into the Tory ranks early in the war through fear of British
invincibility aroused by the easy victories of the British at Brooklyn and New
York City during the summer of . Later, more became Tories or classified
as Tories when, during the British occupation of the whole of lower New York
and much of New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Georgia,
a large part of the residents of the occupied territory submitted to restored
British rule.
It was “Tories” such as these latter whom the American Colonel William
Stephens Smith evidently had in mind in writing George Washington in ,
of the “fifteen thousand inhabitants” about to “be driven from this Country
[New York state]” who are “not conscious of any other Crime than of residing
in the British Lines....”¹²
Estimates have been made from time to time as to the numbers or per-
centages of loyalists in particular colonies or in the thirteen colonies as a whole.
John Adams, writing as “Novanglus” in February, , stated that in Mas-
sachusetts Whigs outnumbered Tories nineteen to one.¹³ Many years later ()
Adams wrote that the colonists had been almost unanimous in resisting the
Stamp Act, but that, by , the British had “formed and drilled and disci-
plined a party in favor of Great Britain and...seduced nearly one third of the
people of the colonies,”¹⁴ meaning apparently those of the thirteen colonies.
A statement in by Phineas Bond, British consul in Philadelphia, that
the loss of inhabitants of the thirteen colonies “occasioned by the war” was
“perhaps little short of , men,” has sometimes been interpreted to mean
that almost , loyalist families left the colonies. But this interpretation of
Bond’s letter is open to doubt.¹⁵
Three notable studies of colonial loyalism, Nelson’s The American Tory;
Smith’s “The American Loyalists; Notes on Their Organization and Numerical
Strength”; and Brown’s The King’s Friends, have tackled the perplexing question
of how large a percentage of the residents of the thirteen colonies were loyalists.
On various grounds Nelson estimates the following: “Only in New York is it
reasonably certain that the Loyalists numbered half the population. Through-
out the Middle Colonies, including New York, the Loyalists may have been al-
most as numerous as their opponents. In the South, however, they could hardly
have amounted to more than a fourth or a third of the population, and in New
England to scarcely a tenth.” His overall estimate is that the Loyalists were
roughly “a third, and the revolutionists two-thirds of the politically active pop-
ulation of the colonies.”¹⁶
Smith’s estimate, based on evidence of the colonists who, at one time or an-
other during the Revolution, “formally took up arms in support of the Crown to
suppress the American rebellion,” is about “.% of the white Americans.”¹⁷
Brown’s estimate, based chiefly on the remaining records of the claims al-
lowed at least in part by the “Claims commission set up by the British govern-
ment to indemnify American Loyalists for losses caused by the Revolution,” is
“between . and . per cent of the white population of ,,.” But he
adds that “if equivocal and quietist Loyalists were considered, the figures
would go up again.”¹⁸
I, too, have tried some figuring as to the percentage of Tories both before
and during the war. But I have not found sufficient evidence to make even a
guess, beyond saying I think John Adams’ estimate that in nearly one-
third of the people of the thirteen colonies were loyalists is much too high.
One of the most interesting features of Brown’s study is the evidence, con-
firming earlier studies, of the small number of American-born Tories in Vir-
ginia compared with Massachusetts, whose white population was approxi-
mately the same as Virginia’s.
Of the , persons part or all of whose claims were allowed by the com-
missioners, only were from Virginia, and, of these, only are identified as
American born.¹⁹ Massachusetts furnished claimants of whom nearly two-
thirds () are identified as American born.²⁰
In the earliest detailed study of Virginia Tories, Harrell’s Loyalism in Virginia,
the author suggested that the weakness of loyalism among native Virginians
was perhaps due chiefly to economic factors, particularly the very heavy in-
debtedness of Virginia planters to British creditors. The planters were, wrote
Harrell, “hopelessly in debt to the British merchants,” with the result that
“current [political] theories in the colonies and the economic interests of the
planters were in harmony.”²¹ This explanation is also advanced by Gipson in
his British Empire and his “Virginia Planter Debts.”²²
There is ample evidence that before and at the outbreak of the Revolu-
tionary War, many Virginia planters were very heavily in debt to British cred-
itors.²³ But, if Harrell and Gipson’s explanation is sound, one would expect to
find evidence that, in general, the planters heavily in debt were Whigs and
those less heavily in debt, or not in debt at all, were Tories. Harrell and Gipson
give no evidence of this, and I have found none.
Brown’s The King’s Friends suggests another possible explanation: “The weak-
ness of Loyalism in Virginia,” he wrote, “may not be a paradox at all. Virginia
was a homogeneous society in the sense of being free from serious internal di-
visions. There was no equivalent of the Hutchinson and Oliver–Adams and
Otis split in Massachusetts.”²⁴
Brown’s statement that Virginia was free from serious internal divisions
likewise is open to question.
Votes in the Virginia House of Burgesses were very rarely recorded, so that
it is difficult to detect divisions, serious or otherwise, in the House. But the jour-
nals of the Virginia Council record many instances of the Council’s refusal to
concur in bills or resolutions adopted by a majority of the House,²⁵ some re-
lating to matters apparently of serious import.²⁶ The active members of the
Council in Virginia, unlike those in some of the other colonies, were nearly all
natives of the colony.²⁷
Furthermore, though there is evidence of a split along party lines in Mas-
sachusetts in ,²⁸ I have found no evidence of this in connection with the
later controversy over British taxation of the colonies.²⁹
A striking difference in the position taken in by the Lower Houses of
Virginia and Massachusetts respectively, and the known influence of Lieu-
tenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson of Massachusetts on the position taken
by the Massachusetts House, suggest a third possible explanation.
In the fall of , the House of Burgesses in Virginia and the House of Rep-
resentatives in Massachusetts adopted protests against British taxation of the
colonies. The Virginia protest was based on the ground that British taxation of
the colonies infringed upon a constitutional “right” of the people of Virginia to
be taxed exclusively by a body in which they were represented.³⁰ The Massa-
chusetts protest was based on the weak, Tory-oriented ground that British tax-
ation of the colonies infringed upon merely a long-enjoyed “privilege” of the
people of Massachusetts to be taxed exclusively by a body in which they were
represented.³¹
The adoption by the Massachusetts House of this protest was apparently
due chiefly to the influence of the most distinguished citizen and influential po-
litical leader of the colony, Thomas Hutchinson.³²
In , Hutchinson, scion of an old, important Massachusetts family, was
the Lieutenant Governor of the colony by appointment of the Crown, judge of
probate for Suffolk County, and Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Superior
(Supreme) Court by appointment of successive royal Governors of the colony,
and a senior member of the provincial Council by annual election for every
year since by joint vote of members of the outgoing Council and incom-
ing House of Representatives.³³
Though Hutchinson was dropped from the Council in , he at all times
held posts of great political influence in the colony until he left for England
in ,³⁴ and continued openly to support the right of Parliament to tax the
colonies.
The leading political figure in Virginia in was John Robinson, Speaker
of the House of Burgesses and Treasurer of the colony, who died in .³⁵ I
have found no direct evidence of the stand taken by Robinson on the Virginia
protest, but the fact that the protest committee was probably chosen by him as
Speaker suggests that he himself favored the stand taken by the committee.³⁶
At any rate, there is no evidence that he or any other politically influential
leader in Virginia openly espoused the stand taken by Hutchinson.
Possibly there were not many latent Tories among native Virginians,³⁷ but,
if there were, they had no such encouragement as had those in Massachusetts
to declare themselves.
GEORGE III AND ESTABLISHMENT
OF THE ROCKINGHAM MINISTRY
D (–), George III on several occasions ex-
ercised the great political power of the King still existing at this period (largely
through retention of almost unlimited authority of appointment to, and dis-
missal from, public office) to overturn a Ministry which he had come to dislike.
One of his most striking actions was the dismissal of the powerful Grenville
Ministry and the establishment of the relatively weak Rockingham Ministry,
in office at the opening of our period.*
In March, , George Grenville, head of the Treasury and First Minister,
importuned the King to appoint as Governor of Cork in Ireland the Ministry’s
candidate for this office, instead of a candidate favored by Lord Northumber-
land, whose son was married to a daughter of the King’s dear friend, Lord
Bute.¹ Grenville also plagued the King to appoint as Registrar to the Scottish
Order of the Thistle the Ministry’s candidate favored by Bute’s brother, James
Stuart Mackenzie. According to his own account, Grenville, on learning from
the King that “he had determined to give that office to Sir Henry Erskine...,
argued and pressed strongly for Mr. Duff, but in vain.”²
Soon after this controversy with Grenville over appointment to Crown
offices, the King encouraged Northumberland to have a talk with the King’s
long-estranged uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, one of the leaders of the prin-
* Fred Anderson, Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America,
– (New York: Vintage Books, ), ch. ; P. Langford, The First Rockingham Administration,
– (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ); Ross J. S. Hoffman, The Marquis: A Study of Lord
Rockingham, – (New York: Fordham University, ), ch. ; John L. Bullion, A Great and Nec-
essary Measure: George Grenville and the Genesis of the Stamp Act, – (Columbia: University of Mis-
souri Press, ), ch. . [B.W.S.]
cipal opposition parties, the Newcastle–Rockingham Whigs, in the course of
which Cumberland indicated a readiness for reconciliation with the King.³
But, so far as is known, the King made no further advance to Cumberland at
this time.
However, a few weeks later the King was again provoked by the Ministry.
At his request a bill was introduced into Parliament by the Ministry, providing
for a regency in case the King died before his oldest surviving son reached the
age of eighteen. Yet the King’s mother was omitted from the list of those eli-
gible to serve as regent⁴—an omission seeming to countenance gossip that she
and Bute were lovers.⁵ Though the bill was later amended to include the queen
mother,⁶ Northumberland, presumably at the King’s request, now had an-
other talk with Cumberland in which Northumberland said that “the King
was determined to part” with his chief Ministers and authorized Cumberland
to negotiate with William Pitt; his brother-in-law, Lord Temple; the Duke of
Newcastle; and Lord Rockingham to form a new Ministry.⁷
The following day, George III confirmed this at a conference with Cum-
berland, in the course of which the King said that “his present Ministers...
treated him personally ill...forced him to do every thing they would,” that
“reversions, pensions, etc. to support themselves, were all they had in view; that
they promised...to do great things for the publick,” but that he “found noth-
ing done; North America greatly discontented and...the same discontent at
home also.”⁸
Cumberland tried to form a Ministry along the lines indicated by the King,
but Pitt and Temple declined for various reasons⁹ to take office, and the proj-
ect failed.¹⁰
On learning of the unsuccessful effort to displace them, Grenville and three
other members of the Cabinet (the President of the Council, the Duke of Bed-
ford, and the Secretaries of State, Lords Halifax and Sandwich) threatened to
resign unless the King agreed to the following conditions: Bute to “have noth-
ing to do in His Majesty’s Councils or Government, in any manner or shape
whatever”; Mackenzie to “be removed from his office of Lord Privy Seal of
Scotland, and from the authority and influence which has been given to him
in that Kingdom”; Lord Holland to be dismissed as Paymaster-General and
that office disposed of as had been usual in the House of Commons; Lord
Granby to be appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Army; and the Govern-
ment of Ireland to be settled, not by the King independently, but “with his
Ministers.”¹¹
Though much distressed, particularly over “the article relating to Mr.
Mackenzie,”¹² the King yielded.¹³
On June , Bedford again offended the King by complaining of his
marked coldness to members of the Ministry and of his continuing to consult
with Bute, and threatening to resign if the members of the Ministry “did
not meet with a kind reception, & those they thought their Enemys were not
frown’d upon.”¹⁴
Bursting with “indignation...at so very offensive a declaration,”¹⁵ the
King now moved decisively to form a new Ministry.¹⁶ He first tried to persuade
Pitt and Temple to take office;¹⁷ but, though Pitt was willing to come in,¹⁸
Temple was not,¹⁹ and Pitt declined to take office without him. Whereupon
Cumberland persuaded Newcastle, Rockingham, and Henry S. Conway to
form a Ministry without Pitt and Temple.²⁰
The new Ministry, with Rockingham as head of the Treasury and First
Minister, was launched July , .
THE ACT OF 1696 AND THE
DECLARATORY ACT OF 1766
I V XIII of The British Empire before the American Revolution, Gipson,
one of the most respected, and justly respected, of our colonial historians,
seems to maintain that the Declaratory Act of merely reaffirmed a claim
of authority to legislate for the colonies made as early as .¹
The legislative background² and the title, preamble, and context of the per-
tinent section (section ) of the Act of ³ indicate that this act was intended
solely to declare that acts of Parliament regulating colonial trade were binding
on the colonies irrespective (quoting section of the act) of “all laws, by-laws,
usages or customs...in any of the said plantations [colonies] which are in any
wise repugnant to the before mentioned laws.” There is no evidence or reason
to believe that Parliament intended to declare in this act that it had unlimited
authority, i.e., authority unbounded by constitutional limitations, to legislate
for the colonies.
The Declaratory Act of was of a different character. In stating that
“the King’s majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual
and temporal, and commons of Great Britain, in Parliament assembled, had,
hath, and of right ought to have, full power and authority to make laws and
statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of Amer-
ica, subjects of the crown of Great Britain, in all cases whatsoever,” this act ap-
parently was intended to establish that Parliament was not bound by constitu-
tional limitations in dealing with the colonies.
The colonists, as Gipson points out,⁴ had generally accepted the proposition
enunciated in the Act of that Parliament had authority to pass acts regu-
lating colonial trade.⁵ But such acceptance by no means implied that the colo-
nists had accepted or were prepared to accept the doctrine that Parliament had
unlimited authority to pass any kind of laws it pleased in dealing with them.
As brought out in my Origin of the Revolution, after the publication in of
Blackstone’s influential An Analysis of the Laws of England, the doctrine of the un-
limited legislative authority of the King in Parliament seems to have become
generally, though by no means universally,⁶ accepted in Great Britain, but not
in the colonies.⁷
There is ample evidence that the following statement in a letter of Febru-
ary , , from Thomas Cushing, Speaker of the Massachusetts House of
Representatives, to Lord Shelburne, Secretary of State for the Southern De-
partment, expressed general colonial opinion.
“There are, my Lord,” wrote Cushing, “fundamental rules of the constitu-
tion, which it is humbly presumed, neither the supreme legislative [i.e., the
King in Parliament] nor the supreme executive [i.e., the Crown acting alone]
can alter...[and] it is humbly referred to your Lordship’s judgment, whether
the supreme legislature of the empire may rightly leap the bounds of it [the
constitution] in the exercize of power over the subjects in America any more
than those of Great Britain.”⁸
Indeed, there was more reason to believe and maintain that there were
constitutional limitations on the authority of Parliament in dealing with the
colonies than in dealing with Great Britain itself. The people of Great Britain
were to some extent, however inadequately, represented in Parliament. Fur-
thermore, legislation for Great Britain affected the members of Parliament
themselves. Consequently, there was some safeguard for the people of Great
Britain against oppressive legislation by Parliament, even without constitu-
tional limitations. But in the case of Parliamentary legislation affecting the col-
onies exclusively, there were not even these safeguards against oppressive laws.
The danger to the colonists was peculiarly great in the field of taxation,
since, as Governor Stephen Hopkins of Rhode Island observed, “if the people
of America are to be taxed by the representatives of the people in Britain, their
malady...must always grow greater by time. Whatever burdens are laid upon
the Americans will be so much taken off the Britons’ and doing it will soon be
[so] extremely popular...that members of the House of Commons must ob-
tain the votes of the people by promising to take more and more of the taxes off
them by putting it on the Americans.”⁹
In the Declaratory Act of was modified by an act, Geo. III
ch. , stating that thereafter Parliament would levy no taxes or duties on
the colonies “except only such duties as it may be expedient to impose for the
Regulation of Commerce: the net produce of such duties to be always paid and
applied to and for the use of the Colony...in which the same shall be respec-
tively levied...,”¹⁰ but this protection was not afforded the colonies until
three years after war had begun.
Gipson’s further statement, “So long as a subject recognized his obligation
to obey the law in question until it was changed, he was free to protest that it
was unconstitutional,”¹¹ also is questionable. After , the House of Com-
mons consistently refused to receive petitions or remonstrances from colonial
Assemblies challenging the constitutionality of acts of Parliament taxing the
colonies, on the ground that the Declaratory Act foreclosed denial of the right
of Parliament to tax the colonies.¹²