[IN PARLIAMENT.]
The Treaty of Peace signed at Paris, Feb. 10, 1763, terminated the prolonged struggle between England and France, for supremacy in the New World. For seven long years it had lasted, and its cost had been treasure and blood. Justly proud were the British Colonies of the martial success of their mother country, a goodly part of which they had valorously won themselves.
During the war, and at its close, England had been generous in remitting to the Colonial Treasuries large sums in partial liquidation of the war expenses advanced by them; but subsequently it was esteemed wise, by a majority of her statesmen, to gradually replace such sums in the royal coffers, by a system of colonial taxation very similar to modern methods of raising war revenues. In the abstract this fact was not particularly disagreeable to the colonists, for the necessity was admitted, but the arbitrary method of levying those taxes was bitterly contested.
England's Parliament claimed the right to tax the distant Colonies even as it taxed the neighboring Boroughs, and as a commencement of its financial plan enacted a Stamp Act, so called, to take effect Nov. 1, 1765, similar in intent and working, to the modern revenue stamp of our Government. These stamps were to be purchased of the Crown's officers and affixed to certain articles of merchandise and in denominations according to a schedule of taxable value.
The opposition to this Act was immediate, continuous, and bitter in the extreme, and the result was that it was repealed March 18, 1766.
The next move on the part of the Mother Country was the passage of a Military Act which provided for the partial subsistence of armed troops on the Colonies. Violent opposition to this was also immediate and general, but without avail. In Boston one result was a conflict between the troops and the inhabitants on March 5, 1770, and now referred to as the Boston Massacre.
In June, 1767, another Act was passed, taxing tea and other commodities, which was repealed April 12, 1770, on all articles except the tea. Large consignments were sent to America. Ships thus laden that arrived in New York were sent back with their full cargoes. At Charleston the tea was landed but remained unsold. At Boston, a party disguised as Indians threw it from the ship into the sea.[1] Parliament in consequence passed the Boston Port Bill, March 7, 1774, closing Boston as a commercial port, and removing the Custom House to Salem in another harbor a dozen miles or more northward up the coast.
This Act went into effect June 1, 1774, and was immediately felt by all classes, for all commerce ceased. Boston merchants became poor, and Boston poor became beggars. The hand of relief, however, was extended, even from beyond the sea. The City of London in its corporate capacity subscribed £30,000[2]. In America the assistance was liberal and speedy. George Washington headed a subscription paper with £50[3].
These severe measures of Parliament, with their natural effect of ruin and starvation among the people of America, served to stimulate a feeling of insubordination, and hatred of the Mother Country, from which crystalized the First Continental Congress which assembled at Philadelphia, Sept. 5, 1774, soon followed by the First Provincial Congress of Massachusetts which met at Salem, Oct. 7, of the same year.
On the question of Colonial Government Great Britain and her American colonies were not divided by the Atlantic Ocean, for on the American side the Crown had its ardent supporters, while on the other side friends of the American cause were almost as numerous as were the oppressors. We have seen how the great City of London contributed liberally to the Bostonians, shut off from the world by the Port Bill, and on the floor of Parliament many gifted orators espoused the American cause.