Give Me Liberty: The Struggle for Self-Government in Virginia

by Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker

But in 1730 the Assembly went too far when, in the revenue bill of that year, they exempted Virginia owners from half the tax in a rather forlorn attempt to build up local shipping. The merchants were indignant. It was a very partial procedure, they thought, for the colonists to tax his Majesty's subjects at large to a higher degree than themselves. Moreover, it set up the shipping of Virginia in opposition to and in great prejudice to the navigation of Great Britain. Needless to say the act was disallowed.[27] It was now the turn of the planters to be indignant. Gooch wrote the Board: "I cannot conceal from your Lordships the resentment of the people against the merchants."[28]

The Virginians, like the peoples of the other colonies, were angered at the passage of the Molasses Act, which placed prohibitive duties on the trade between the British colonies on the American continent and the foreign West Indies. Virginia's stake in the trade to the French and Spanish islands was much less than that of New England, but it was great enough to draw a protest from Gooch. And the good Governor seems to have winked at the violations of the act. In 1734 he wrote the Lords of Trade: "As to trade, upon the strictest inquiry I can make I can find none ... but with Great Britain, the British islands in the West Indies, and the island of Madeira."[29] The Board might well have asked why it was, if this were true, that so many Spanish pieces of eight and so many pistoles and French guineas and crowns were circulating in the colony.

Even more serious than the conflict between planters and merchants over the restrictions of trade, was the quarrel over debts. The trade with Great Britain was carried on chiefly by credit, and in times when the price of tobacco was high and profits good the planters lived well and spent freely. Then it was that they made heavy purchases of silverware, handsome furniture, or even blooded horses. And only too often, when prices of tobacco fell, they could not bring themselves to curtail expenditures in proportion. In fact, when they placed their orders they could not foresee just what their year's crop would yield. Many of them became involved in debt. When they could not meet their obligations, the merchants demanded that their lands be forfeited. On the other hand, the planters, from time to time, tried to lessen the burden by paying their creditors in depreciated paper money.

When the merchants appealed to the Virginia courts to force payment of debts they found them usually sympathetic with the debtors. Moreover, in most cases they could not appeal to the British courts for there was a law forbidding it in cases involving less than £300. For larger suits the shoe was on the other foot, for when they were taken before the Privy Council, the advantage was all with the merchants. Residing in Great Britain, most of them in London, they could appeal in person to present their cause. Since the prosperity of the kingdom was so dependent upon its commerce, they always received a sympathetic hearing.

Typical was the suit of the executors of Micajah and Richard Perry to recover debts from the estate of Colonel William Randolph, who had had a long-standing account with them. When the Virginia courts decided in favor of the defendants, the executors of the Perrys appealed to the King. The Privy Council referred the matter to a commission of four merchants, three of whom gave it as their judgment that with compound interest and insurance charges the defendants owed £2,460. So the verdict of the Virginia court was reversed.

The Council and Burgesses protested in an address to the King. They were alarmed that this case had been decided without a legal trial by jury, they said. It had never been the practice to charge "interest upon interest" in "open running accounts." They thought it wrong that "the reports of merchants" who were not under oath and were inclined to favor one another, should be permitted to overrule the verdict of legal juries. If the planters were to be loaded with whatever charges their factors thought fit, it would greatly discourage trade and industry.[30]

But they were unprepared for the extreme lengths to which the merchants would go. At a meeting of the Council in October, 1731, they could hardly credit their ears when Gooch read them a letter stating that they were about to present a petition to Parliament concerning the colonies. They wanted first a law prohibiting the Assemblies from passing any acts affecting trade and navigation, second, a law making real estate liable for debts, and third, a law permitting appeals from the Virginia General Court to the Privy Council in suits involving £100 or more.[31]

Gooch wrote at once to the Board denouncing this attempt to muzzle the Assembly. "When I considered, my Lords, how long and happily the British subjects have traded to America and acquired great riches under the ancient establishment made in these points by the Crown, set forth in the royal charters and instructions, without seeking to abridge the people of the plantations of their birthright as Englishmen, or limiting the Crown in the methods of government, I must confess I was somewhat startled."[32]

The Council also protested vigorously. It was impossible for the Assembly to avoid all legislation affecting trade, they said in a letter to the Board, since it might prohibit certain vitally necessary laws. If the merchants objected to any act of Assembly, they could lay the matter before the King. As for making the land of the planters liable for debts, it was pointed out that there was no law making the lands of the merchants liable to the demands of the colonists. Yet the factors were as often in the planters' debt as the planters in theirs. It would create uneasiness in the minds of a loyal people to find they had not equal justice. And to allow appeals to the King in cases involving as little as £100 would be a heavy burden; for the expense of the planter, who would have to make a voyage to England to defend his rights, would be as great as the sum involved.[33]

It was no doubt to anticipate any action to forbid legislation in the colony affecting trade that a clause was added to certain acts suspending their operation until the King had given his assent. During Gooch's administration the first such act appropriated £1,000 for the erection of a lighthouse of brick and stone on Cape Henry, provided Maryland appropriate a like amount and the King gave his assent. A duty of one penny a ton was to be levied on all vessels passing the light. Gooch urged the Lords of Trade to influence Lord Baltimore to recommend the matter to the Maryland Assembly. But he was treading on dangerous ground when he suggested that if the Marylanders balked, the Board secure an act of Parliament "to bind both governments to do that good to themselves and the trade of Great Britain."[34] Fortunately the Board refused to take such a drastic step, and it was only in 1772 that the lighthouse was erected.[35]