Novanglus, and Massachusettensis / or, Political Essays, Published in the Years 1774 and 1775, on the Principal Points of Controversy, between Great Britain and Her Colonies

by John Adams; Daniel Leonard

Then we are told, by this sincere writer, that when we obtained a partial repeal of the statute imposing duties on glass, paper, and teas, this was the lucky moment, when to have closed the dispute. What? With a Board of commissioners remaining the sole end of whose creation was to form and conduct a revenue—with an act of parliament remaining, the professed design of which expressed in the preamble, was to raise a revenue, and appropriate it to the payment of governors' and judges' salaries, the duty remaining too upon an article, which must raise a large sum, the consumption of which would constantly increase? Was this a time to retreat? Let me ask this sincere writer a simple question. Does he seriously believe that the designs of imposing other taxes, and of new modelling our governments, would have been bid aside, by the ministry or by the servants of the crown here? Does he think that Mr. Bernard, Mr. Hutchinson, the commissioners and others, would have been content then to have desisted? If he really thinks so, he knows little of the human heart, and still less of those gentlemen's hearts. It was at this very time that the salary was given to the governor, and an order soliciting for that to the judges.

Then we are entertained with a great deal of ingenious talk about whigs and tories, and at last are told that some of the whigs owed all their importance to popularity. And what then? Did not as many of the tories owe their importance to popularity?—And did not many more owe all their importance to unpopularity? If it had not been for their taking an active part on the side of the ministry, would not some of the most conspicuous and eminent of them have been unimportant enough? Indeed, through the two last administrations to despise and hate the people, and to be despised and hated by them were the principal recommendations to the favours of government, and all the qualification that was required.

The tories, says he, were for closing the controversy. That is, they were for contending no more, and it was equally true that they never were for contending at all, but lying at mercy. It was the very end they had aimed at from the beginning. They had now got the governor's salary out of the revenue—a number of pensions and places, and they knew they could at any time get the judges' salaries from the same fountain, and they wanted to get the people reconciled and familiarised to this, before they went upon any new projects.

The whigs were averse to restoring government, they even refused to revive a temporary riot act, which expired about this time. Government had as much vigour then as ever, excepting only in those cases which affected this dispute. The riot act expired in 1770, immediately after the massacre in King Street. It was not revived and never will be in this Colony, nor will any one ever be made in any other, while a standing army is illegally posted here, to butcher the people, whenever a governor, or a magistrate, who may be a tool, shall order it. "Perhaps the whigs thought that mobs were a necessary ingredient in their system of opposition." Whether they did or no, it is certain that mobs have been thought a necessary ingredient by the tories in their system of administration, mobs of the worst sort with red coats, fuzees and bayonets, and the lives and limbs of the whigs have been in greater danger from these, than ever the tories were from others.

"The scheme of the whigs flattered the people with the idea of independence; the tories' plan supposed a degree of subordination." This is artful enough, as usual not to say jesuitical. The word independence is one of those, which this writer uses, as he does treason and rebellion, to impose upon the undistinguishing on both sides of the Atlantic. But let us take him to pieces. What does he mean by independence? Does he mean independent of the crown of Great Britain, and an independent republic in America, or a confederation of independent republics? No doubt he intended the undistinguishing should understand him so. If he did; nothing can be more wicked, or a greater slander on the whigs; because he knows there is not a man in the province, among the whigs, nor ever was, who harbours a wish of that sort. Does he mean that the people were flattered with the idea of total independence on parliament? If he does, this is equally malicious and injurious; because he knows that the equity and necessity of parliament's regulating trade has always been acknowledged, our determination to consent and submit to such regulations constantly expressed, and all the acts of trade in fact, to this very day, much more submitted to and strictly executed in this province, than any other in America.

There is equal ambiguity in the words "degree of subordination." The whigs acknowledge a subordination to the king, in as strict and strong a sense as the tories. The whigs acknowledge a voluntary subordination to parliament, as far as the regulation of trade. What degree of subordination then do the tories acknowledge? An absolute dependance upon parliament as their supreme legislative, in all cases whatever, in their internal polity as well as taxation? This would be too gross and would lose him all his readers; for there is nobody here who will expose his understanding so much, as explicitly to adopt such a sentiment. Yet it is such an absolute dependance and submission, that these writers would persuade us to, or else there is no need of changing our sentiments and conduct. Why will not these gentlemen speak out, shew us plainly their opinion that the new government, they have fabricated for this province, is better than the old, and that all the other measures, we complain of, are for our and the public good, and exhort us directly to submit to them? The reason is, because they know they should lose their readers.

"The whigs were sensible that there was no oppression that could be seen or felt." The tories have so often said and wrote this to one another, that I sometimes suspect they believe it to be true. But it is quite otherwise. The castle of the province was taken out of their hand and garrisoned by regular soldiers: this they could see, and they thought it indicated an hostile intention and disposition towards them. They continually paid their money to collectors of duties: this they could both see and feel. An host of placemen, whose whole business it was to collect a revenue, were continually rolling before them in their chariots. These they saw. Their governor was no longer paid by themselves, according to their charter, but out of the new revenue, in order to render their assemblies useless and indeed contemptible. The judges' salaries were threatened every day to be paid in the same unconstitutional manner. The dullest eye-sight could not but see to what all this tended, viz.; to prepare the way for greater innovations and oppressions. They knew a minister would never spend his money in this way, if he had not some end to answer by it. Another thing they both saw and felt. Every man, of every character, who by voting, writing, speaking, or otherwise, had favoured the stamp act, the tea act, and every other measure of a minister or governor, who they knew was aiming at the destruction of their form of government, and introducing parliamentary taxation, was uniformly, in some department or other, promoted to some place of honour or profit for ten years together: and, on the other hand, every man who favoured the people in their opposition to those innovations, was depressed, degraded and persecuted, as far as it was in the power of the government to do it.

This they considered as a systematical means of encouraging every man of abilities to espouse the cause of parliamentary taxation, and the plan of destroying their charter privilege, and to discourage all from exerting themselves, in opposition to them. This they thought a plan to enslave them, for they uniformly think that the destruction of their charter, making the council and judges wholly dependant on the crown, and the people subject to the unlimited power of parliament, as their supreme legislative, is slavery. They were certainly rightly told, then, that the ministry and their governors together had formed a design to enslave them; and that when once this was done, they had the highest reason to expect window taxes, hearth taxes, land taxes and all others: and that these were only paving the way for reducing the country to lordships. Were the people mistaken in these suspicions? Is it not now certain that governor Bernard in 1764, had formed a design of this sort? Read his principles of polity—And that lieutenant governor Oliver as late as 1768 or 9, inforced the same plan? Read his letters.

Now if Massachusettensis will be ingenuous, avow this design, shew the people its utility, and that it ought to be done by parliament, he will act the part of an honest man. But to insinuate that there was no such plan, when he knows there was, is acting the part of one of the junto.

It is true that the people of this country in general, and of this province in special, have an hereditary apprehension of and aversion to lordships, temporal and spiritual. Their ancestors fled to this wilderness to avoid them—they suffered sufficiently under them in England. And there are few of the present generation, who have not been warned of the danger of them by their fathers or grandfathers, and injoined to oppose them. And neither Bernard nor Oliver ever dared to avow, before them, the designs which they had certainly formed to introduce them. Nor does Massachusettensis dare to avow his opinion in their favour. I do not mean that such avowal would expose their persons to danger, but their characters and writings to universal contempt.