These aspersions the merchants knew how to ignore. Their determination not to continue the non-importation was nevertheless sufficiently indicated in connection with the annual celebration, in March, of the repeal of the Stamp Act. On this occasion the merchants refused to meet as formerly with the Sons of Liberty, but made provision for a dinner of their own at another place, where all the Friends of Liberty and Trade were invited to be present. Both dinners were well attended, and at both the repeal of the Stamp Act was celebrated with patriotic enthusiasm, the main difference being that whereas the Sons of Liberty drank a toast to Mr. MacDougall and to “a continuance of the non-importation agreement until the revenue acts are repealed,” the Friends of Liberty and Trade ignored Mr. MacDougall and drank to “trade and navigation and a speedy removal of their embarrassments.”
In the determination not to continue the old agreement, the Friends of Liberty and Trade were meanwhile strongly confirmed when it was learned that Britain was willing on her part to make concessions. By the middle of May it was known that the Townshend duties (except the duty on tea) had been repealed; and in June it was learned that Parliament had at last, after many representations from the Assembly, passed a special act permitting New York to issue £120,000 in Bills of Credit receivable at the Treasury. It was thought that concession on the part of Great Britain ought in justice to meet with concession on the part of America. Accordingly, on the ground that other towns, and Boston in particular, were more active “in resolving what they ought to do than in doing what they had resolved,” and on the ground that the present non-importation agreement no longer served “any other purpose than tying the hands of honest men, to let rogues, smugglers, and men of no character plunder their country,” the New York merchants, on July 9, 1770, resolved that for the future they would import from Great Britain all kinds of commodities except such as might be subject to duties imposed by Parliament.
The New York merchants were on every hand loudly denounced for having betrayed the cause of liberty; but before the year was out the old agreement was everywhere set aside. Yet everywhere, as at New York, the merchants bound themselves not to import any British teas. The duty on British teas was slight. Americans might have paid the duty without increasing the price of their much prized luxury; ministers might have collected the same duty in England to the advantage of the Exchequer. That Britain should have insisted on this peppercorn in acknowledgement of her right, that America should have refused it in vindication of her liberty, may be taken as a high tribute from two eminently practical peoples to the power of abstract ideas.
[CHAPTER V]
A LITTLE DISCREET CONDUCT
It has been his [Thomas Hutchinson’s] principle from a boy that mankind are to be governed by the discerning few, and it has been ever since his ambition to be the hero of the few.—Samuel Adams.
We have not been so quiet these five years.… If it were not for two or three Adamses, we should do well enough.—Thomas Hutchinson.
In December, 1771, Horace Walpole, a persistent if not an infallible political prophet, was of opinion that all the storms that for a decade had distressed the Empire were at last happily blown over; among which storms he included, as relatively of minor importance, the disputes with the colonies. During two years following, this prediction might well have appeared to moderate minded men entirely justified. American affairs were barely mentioned in Parliament, and a few paragraphs in the Annual Register were thought sufficient to chronicle for English readers events of interest occurring across the Atlantic. In the colonies themselves an unwonted tranquillity prevailed. Rioting, as an established social custom, disappeared in most of the places where it had formerly been so much practised. The Sons of Liberty, retaining the semblance of an organization, were rarely in the public eye save at the annual celebrations of the repeal of the Stamp Act, quite harmless occasions devoted to the expression of patriotic sentiments. Merchants and landowners, again prosperous, were content to fall back into accustomed habits of life, conscious of duty done without too much stress, readily believing their liberties finally vindicated against encroachments from abroad and their privileges secure against unwarranted and dangerous pretensions at home. “The people appear to be weary of their altercations with the mother country,” Mr. Johnson, the Connecticut agent, wrote to Wedderburn, in October, 1771; “a little discreet conduct on both sides would perfectly reëstablish that warm affection and respect towards Great Britain for which this country was once remarkable.”
Discreet conduct was nowhere more necessary than in Massachusetts, where the people, perhaps because they were much accustomed to them, grew weary of altercations less easily than in most colonies. Yet even in Massachusetts there was a marked waning of enthusiasm after the high excitement occasioned by the Boston Massacre, a certain disintegration of the patriot party. James Otis recovered from a temporary fit of insanity only to grow strangely suspicious of Samuel Adams. Mr. Hancock, discreetly holding his peace, attended to his many thriving and very profitable business ventures. John Adams, somewhat unpopular for having defended and procured the acquittal of the soldiers implicated in the Massacre, retired in high dudgeon from public affairs to the practice of his profession; in high dudgeon with everyone concerned—with himself first of all, and with the people who so easily forgot their interests and those who had served them, and with the British Government and all fawning tools of ministers, of whom Mr. Thomas Hutchinson was chief. Meanwhile, Mr. Hutchinson, so roughly handled in the secret diary of the rising young lawyer, was the recipient of new honors, having been made Governor of the province to succeed Francis Bernard. For once finding himself almost popular, he thought he perceived a disposition in all the colonies, and even in Massachusetts, to let the controversy subside. “Though there are a small majority sour enough, yet when they seek matter for protests, remonstrances, they are puzzled where to charge the grievances which they look for.” The new Governor looked forward to happier days and an easy administration. “Hancock and most of the party are quiet,” he said, “and all of them, except Adams, abate of their virulence. Adams would push the Continent into a rebellion tomorrow, if it was in his power.”