The Siege of Boston

by Allen French

WRITS OF ASSISTANCE AND THE STAMP ACT

The men who, whether in America or England, took sides with the king or the colonies as Tories and Whigs, or as "prerogative men" and "friends of liberty," fall naturally into two classes. A line of cleavage could be seen at the time, and can even be traced now, among the supporters of either side, according as they followed principle or self-interest. There were those who sought profit in supporting the colonies, as well as those who knowingly faced loss in defending the king. It is well for Americans to remember, therefore, that while many sided with the king for what they could get, there were others whose minds could not conceive a country without a king, or a subject with inalienable rights. The best of the Tories honestly believed the Whig agitation to be "unnatural, causeless, wanton, and wicked."[10] Such Americans were, in the inevitable struggle, truly martyrs to their beliefs.

Nevertheless, just as there was naturally more profit or prominence (and the two were often the same) on the king's side, so his party had the more self-seekers. "The cause is not worth dying for," said Ingersoll, facing the Connecticut farmers, and spoke the sentiment of all the stamp-officers who resigned their positions at the demand of the people. The cause, however, did seem worth working for. There were many, in England and America, who, like those whom Otis saw around him, "built much upon the fine salaries they should receive from the plantation branch of the revenue." Position, pay, and the chance to exploit the revenues as this was done in England, were the temptations which brought many to the side of the king, and which made men unite to urge upon him the acts which he desired for less selfish reasons.

Urged by principle, then, or excited by self-interest, the proposers of new measures were strong. The earliest act of the king's reign showed what could and what would be done, and brought upon the Boston stage the first of the actors in the drama. On the one hand were the governor, the justices, and the minor officials, on the other the people's self-appointed—but willingly accepted—leaders.

Francis Bernard was the first Massachusetts governor under George III. Bernard arrived August 2, 1760; the old king died on October 25; and in November the customs officials, stimulated by orders from home to enforce the provisions of the Sugar Act of 1733, petitioned for "writs of assistance," to empower them to summon help in forcible entries in search of smuggled goods. Now there can be no doubt that there was smuggling in the colony, even in Boston itself. On the other hand, the officials were inquisitorial and rapacious. Once they were armed with writs of assistance, no dwelling would be safe from entry by them. The struggle was at once begun, and in the council chamber of the old Town House was fought out before the eyes of the province.

The scene is pictured on the walls of the modern State House. Chief among the justices sat Thomas Hutchinson, a man of property and education, and an excellent historian, but the very type of office-holder, and by prejudice and interest a partisan of the king. Against him stood James Otis, the first of the Massachusetts orators of liberty, a man of good family, and, like so many of the patriot leaders, a lawyer. His speech was the first definite pronouncement for a new order of things.

"I am determined," he said, "to sacrifice estate, ease, health, applause, and even life, to the sacred calls of my country." He referred to the "kind of power, the exercise of which cost one king of England his head and another his throne." Such language, publicly spoken, was new. His argument was, to Englishmen, irrefutable. No precedent, no English statute, could stand against the Constitution. "This writ, if declared legal, totally annihilates" the privacy of the home. "Custom-house officers might enter our houses when they please, and we could not resist them. Upon bare suspicion they could exercise this wanton power.... Both reason and the Constitution are against this writ.... Every act against the Constitution is void."[11] The speech, continued for four hours, was a brilliant example of keen logic combined with burning eloquence.

This is Otis's great service to the cause of the Revolution. Fiery and magnetic, but moody and eventually unbalanced, he gave place in the public confidence to men perhaps of lesser talents, but with equal zeal and steadier purpose. Yet his service was invaluable. His speech expressed for his countrymen the indignation of the hour, and it pointed the way to younger men. To one at least of his hearers, John Adams, it was "like the oath of Hamilcar administered to Hannibal."[12] To many it was the final appeal that settled them in their patriotism. For history the scene has been called the beginning of the Revolution.

Yet it had no immediate results, for Hutchinson—and the service was forgotten by neither his friends nor his opponents—secured delay of judgment in the case until the English courts could uphold him against his wavering associates. Nevertheless, it is safe to assume that the public indignation secured moderate measures on the part of the customs officials, since we hear of few complaints. And the affair had its influence on the public attitude toward the Stamp Act, five years later.

The Stamp Act was the first definite assertion of the right to tax America. In 1763 the Sugar Act had been reënacted, but its provisions, taxing only importations from foreign colonies, yielded little revenue. The king's treasury was already feeling the drains upon it, and a pack of eager office-seekers was clamoring to be let loose upon the revenues of the colonies. Together the king and his friends pushed through Parliament the legislation which was to secure their purposes. To meet any such danger as in the recent French and Indian wars, ten thousand soldiers were to be quartered on the colonies, which were to pay for their maintenance. Certain sops to public sentiment were given, in the shape of concessions, yet new restrictions were laid on foreign trade. And finally and most important, a stamp-tax, the easiest to collect, was laid on business and legal formalities of all kinds. After its passage no land title might be passed, no legal papers issued, no ship might clear from a home port, without a stamp affixed to the necessary documents. Not even inheritances might be transferred, nor marriages be legalized.