A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III

by Justin McCarthy; Justin H. McCarthy

THE STAMP ACT.

[Sidenote: 1766—Benjamin Franklin]

That the colonies were not well understood in England was no fault of the colonists. There was at that time and hour in England a man specially authorized to speak on behalf of the colony of Pennsylvania, and indirectly entitled as he was admirably qualified to represent the other colonies. At that time Benjamin Franklin was the most distinguished American living and the most distinguished American who had ever lived. It was not his first visit to England. He had crossed the Atlantic forty years before when he was a youth of eighteen, eager to set up for himself as a master printer, and anxious to obtain the materials for his trade in the old country. In those eighteen years he had learned many things. He had learned how to print; he had learned how to bear poverty with courage and ambition with patience; he could never remember a time when he was unable to read, but he had learned how to read with inexhaustible pleasure and unfailing profit, and he had learned how to write. When he was seventeen he had run away from his birthplace, Boston, and the home of an ill-tempered brother, and made his way as best he might to Philadelphia. As he tramped into the city with a loaf under each arm for provender, a young woman leaning in a doorway laughed at the singular figure. Six years later she married Franklin, who in the interval had been a journeyman printer in Philadelphia, a journeyman printer in London, and had at last been able to set up for himself in Philadelphia. From 1729 the story of Franklin's life is the story of a steady and splendid advance in popularity and wealth, and in the greater gifts of knowledge, wisdom, and humanity. He published a newspaper, {103} the Philadelphia Gazette; he disseminated frugality, thrift, industry, and the cheerful virtues in "Poor Richard's Almanack," he was the benefactor and the blessing of the city of his adoption. He founded her famous library; he devoted the results of his scientific studies to her comfort, welfare, and comeliness; he maintained her defences as a military engineer, and was prepared to serve her gallantly in the field against the Indians as a colonel of Militia of his own raising. No man ever lived a fuller life or did so many things with more indomitable zeal or more honorable thoroughness. The colony of Pennsylvania was very proud of her illustrious citizen and delighted to do him honor. When he visited England for the second time, in 1757, he was the Agent for the General Assembly of Pennsylvania, he was Deputy Postmaster-General for the British colonies, he was famous throughout the civilized world for his discovery of the identity of lightning with the electric fluid. He was in London for the third time when Rockingham took office. He had lived nearly sixty years of a crowded, memorable, admirable life; he was loaded with laurels, ripe in the learning of books and the learning of the book of the world. Even he whom few things surprised or took unawares would have been surprised if he could have been told that the life he had lived was eventless, bloodless, purposeless in comparison with the life he had yet to live, and that all he had done for his country was but as dust in the balance when weighed against the work he was yet to do for her. He was standing on the threshold of his new career in the year when Edmund Burke entered Parliament.

The Rockingham Administration did its best to undo the folly of Grenville's Government. After long debates in both Houses, after examination of Franklin at the bar of the Commons, after the strength and acumen of Mansfield had been employed to sustain the prerogative against the colonies and the voice of Burke had championed the colonies against the prerogative, after Grenville had defended himself with shrewdness and Pitt had added to the splendor of his fame, the Stamp Act was formally {104} repealed. Unhappily, the new Ministry was only permitted to do good by halves. The same session that repealed the Stamp Act promulgated the Declaratory Act, asserting the full power of the King, on the advice of Parliament, to make laws binding the American colonies in all cases whatsoever. This desperate attempt to assert what the repeal of the Stamp Act virtually surrendered was intended as a solace to the King and as a warning—perhaps a friendly warning—to the colonies. Those who were most opposed to it in England may well have hoped that it might be accepted without too much straining in the general satisfaction caused by the repeal of the hated measure. Even Franklin seemed to believe that the Declaratory Act would not cause much trouble in America. The event denied the hope, and indignation at the Declaratory Act outlasted in America the rejoicing over the subversion of Grenville's policy. Nevertheless, the rejoicing was very great. On May 16, 1766, the public spirit of Boston was stimulated by the distribution of a broadsheet headed "Glorious News." This broadsheet announced the arrival of John Hancock's brig "Harrison," in six weeks and two days from London, with the important tidings of the repeal of the Stamp Act. The broadsheet painted a lively picture of the enthusiasm at Westminster and the rejoicings in the City of London over the total repeal of the measure. It told of the ships in the river displaying all their colors, of illuminations and bonfires in many parts; "in short, the rejoicings were as great as was ever known on any occasion." This broadsheet, "printed for the benefit of the public," ended in a rapture of delight. "It is impossible to express the joy the town is now in, on receiving the above great, glorious, and important news. The bells on all the churches were immediately set a-ringing, and we hear the day for a general rejoicing will be the beginning of next week." Boston had every reason to rejoice, to ring its bells and fly its flags, and set poor debtors free from prison in honor of the occasion. The colonies had stood together against the Home Government, and had learned something of {105} the strength of their union by the repeal of the Stamp Act.

[Sidenote: 1766—Action of the Colonial Governors]

But when the bells had stopped ringing and the flags were hauled down and the released debtors had ceased to congratulate themselves upon their newly recovered liberty, Boston and the other colonial cities found that their satisfaction was not untempered. The broadsheet that had blazoned the repeal had also assured its readers that the Acts of Trade relating to America would be taken under consideration and all grievances removed. "The friends to America are very powerful and disposed to assist us to the best of their ability." The friends to America were powerful, but they fought against tremendous odds. Dulness and mediocrity, a spite that was always stupid, and a stupidity that was often spiteful, an alliance of ignorance and arrogance were the forces against which they struggled in vain. The Acts of Trade were to be enforced as rigidly as ever. The Declaratory Act pompously asserted the unimpeachable prerogative of British Majesty to make what laws it pleased for the colonies. The good that had been done seemed small in comparison with the harm that might yet be done, that in all probability would be done.

For the time more was to be feared from the viceroys of the provinces than from the Home Government. Mr. Secretary Conway addressed a circular letter to the governors of the different colonies, reproving the colonists, indeed, for the recent disturbances, but with a measured mildness of reproof that seemed carefully calculated not to give needless offence or cause unnecessary irritation. "If by lenient persuasive methods," Conway wrote, "you can contribute to restore the peace and tranquillity to the provinces on which their welfare and happiness depend, you will do a most acceptable and essential service to your country." An appeal so suave, advice so judicious, did not seem the less prudent and humane because the Secretary insisted upon the repression of violence and outrage and reminded those to whom his letter was addressed that if they needed aid in the maintenance of law and order {106} they were to require it at the hands of the commanders of his Majesty's land and naval forces in America. If all the gentlemen to whom the Secretary's circular was addressed had been as reasonable and as restrained in language as its writer, things might even then have turned out very differently. It was not to be expected, and the colonists did not expect, that outrage and violence were to go unchallenged and unpunished, and it is probable that few even in Massachusetts would have objected to the formal expression of thanks for firmness and zeal which was made by Conway to the governor of that colony. But the temperance that was possible to Conway was impossible to Bernard. Bernard was one of the worst of a long line of inappropriate colonial governors. He was a hot-headed, hot-hearted man who seemed to think that to play the part of a domineering, blustering bully was to show discretion and discernment in the duties of his office. He always acted under the conviction that he must always be in the right and every one else always in the wrong, and he blazed up into fantastic rages at the slightest show of opposition. As this was not the spirit in which to deal with the proud and independent men of Massachusetts, Governor Bernard passed the better part of his life in a passion and was forever quarrelling with his provincial legislature and forever complaining to the Home Government of his hard lot and of the mischievous, mutinous set of fellows he had to deal with.

When Bernard received the Secretary's letters and the accompanying copies of the two Bills that had been passed by the British Parliament, he hastened to make them known to the Assembly of Massachusetts. But he made them known in a speech that was wholly lacking in either temperance or discretion. Had it been at once his desire and his duty to inflame his hearers against himself and the Government which he represented he could hardly have chosen words more admirably adapted for the purpose. With a wholly unchastened arrogance and a wholly ungoverned truculence, the governor of the province lectured or rather hectored the gentlemen of the Council and the {107} gentlemen of the House of Representatives after a fashion that would have seemed in questionable taste on the part of an old-fashioned pedagogue to a parcel of unruly schoolboys. He was for bullying and blustering them into a better behavior, and he assured those who were willing to make amends and to promise to be good in the future that their past offences would be buried in a charitable oblivion. "Too ready a forgetfulness of injuries hath been said to be my weakness," Bernard urged with strange ignorance. "However, it is a failing which I had rather suffer by than be without."

The House of Representatives replied to the reproofs of their governor in an address that was remarkable for the firmness with which it maintained its own position and the irony with which it reviewed the governor's pretensions. To prove their independence of action, they delayed the Act of Indemnity demanded by Secretary Conway for several months, and then accompanied it with a general pardon to all persons who had been concerned in the riots provoked by the Stamp Act. Though this Act was promptly disallowed by the Home Government on the ground that the power of pardon belonged exclusively to the Crown, it took effect nevertheless, and added another to the grievances of Bernard and of his backers in England.

[Sidenote: 1766—End of the Rockingham Administration]