25 Aug.—Mr. Henry Barnes, who lately arrived from England, has requested him, the Governor, to cover a letter from him to his Lordship, and to represent his sufferings and services in the cause of Government. Has not been made acquainted with the contents of the letter. Mr. Barnes has certainly suffered greatly by refusing to comply with the scheme of non-importation, and by his endeavours to support the authority of the magistrate; but in his solicitations for compensation he shows more impatience than could be wished. Is willing to attribute it to a mind chafed with his troubles, and impressed with a strong sense of his merit, which he supposes to exceed that of many others who have received the favours of Government. He complains of his, the Governor’s, neglecting him, in not particularly recommending his case when he went to England. Though he did not ask it, he yet concluded it had been done in the course of public correspondence. He, the Governor, transmitted an account of the incendiary letters, and would have been more particular had he been requested. Thought that for his general character, which is very good, he depended on Sir Francis Barnard, who held him in esteem, and to whom he was more particularly known. If there were anything in the province in his, the Governor’s, disposal worth accepting, would give it him, but there is not.
Makes his grateful acknowledgments to his Lordship for H.M.’s warrant to the Commissioners of the Customs for the payment of his salary. The fund on which the warrant is charged would rise to a very large sum if the illicit trade with Holland could be prevented.
The consumption of tea in America exceeds what anybody in England imagines. Some suppose five-sixths of the consumption in the last two years has been smuggled, and in Philadelphia and New York it is judged nine-tenths. The traders make such an extravagant profit that it will require more frequent seizures to discourage them than there is any reason to hope for. If the India Company had continued the sale of their teas at 2s. 2d. to 2s. 4d., as they sold them two years ago, the Dutch trade would have been over by this time; but now that teas are 3s. and upwards in England, the illicit trader can afford to lose one chest in three, whereas not one in a hundred has been seized. The custom-house officers on shore have strong inducements to do their duty, being entitled to a proportion of one-third or more, but they are really afraid of the rage of the people. The sea officers have of late been more active, and Admiral Montague appears disposed to keep out his cruisers. Doubts, however, whether this trade will ever be discouraged in any other way than by reducing the price in England to the exporter very near the price it is at in Holland. For want of this, the revenue has lost, the last and present years, at least 60,000l. sterling, from the 3d. duty only. Believes the cruisers are capable of doing more. Suggests that a greater proportion is necessary for the particular officer who makes the seizure under a commission from the Customs than what he is now entitled to. Has discovered, when he has sworn some of the Navy officers to qualify them for their commissions from the Customs, a great indifference and disinclination to make themselves obnoxious to the people without any great advantage to themselves.—Boston. R. 29th Oct.
Thos. Hutchinson, Governor of [Massachusetts Bay], to Lord [Hillsborough].
10 Sept.—In reply to his Lordship’s private letter of 30 May, not received till he had closed his letter of the 25th August. Now submits an estimate of the consumption of Bohea tea in America. The two towns of Boston and Charlestown consume a chest, or about 340 lbs., per day. The towns are not more than one-eighth, perhaps not more than one-tenth of the province. Suppose they consume only 300 chests in the year, and allow that they are one-eighth, it will make 2,400 chests for the whole province. This is much short, for in the country towns there is much more tea drunk in proportion than at Boston. This province is not one-eighth part of the colonies; and in other Governments, New York especially, they consume tea in much greater proportion. If it be one-eighth, the whole continent consumes 19,200 chests, which at 4l. per chest, the 3d. duty only, amounts to 76,800l. But the computation is short in every part. In New York they import scarce any other than Dutch teas. In Rhode Island and Pennsylvania it is little better. In this province the Dutch traders are increasing. Has frequent information of large quantities when too late; and sometimes such persons are concerned as he thought could not have been capable of countenancing perjury or fraud. Cannot help repeating that unless the East India Company bring the price of tea so near to the price in Holland as to make the profit of importing from thence not equal to the risk, there will scarce be any imported from England. The acting collector at Falmouth, in Casco Bay, acknowledged it to be true that the Acts of Trade were broken every day in his district, but said the officers on shore could not prevent it. He suggested that the only way to prevent it was to increase the number of small schooners, and to keep one or more constantly cruising in the bay, rigged and fitted like schooners. “We have not virtue enough to become obnoxious to the people merely from a sense of duty.” It seems, therefore, best to have one officer only in each vessel with a commission from the Customs, and he to have the command, and to be entitled to all but the King’s half of the forfeiture; which would give him a good chance of making a small fortune. There does not seem to be the same reason for sharing any part among the crew or other officers as in cases of prizes taken in war, where all their lives are exposed; for in the present case there is no danger of resistance to an armed vessel, seeing that all the smugglers are themselves unarmed and depend entirely on concealment.—Boston. R. 29 October.
REFORMERS IN PARLIAMENT RECOMMENDED TO SINK DIFFERENCES AND PROMOTE UNION (1771).
Source.—Letters of Junius (Letter LIX.). London: G. Bell and Sons. 1910. Vol. i.
To the Printer of the “Public Advertiser,” October 5, 1771.
Sir,
No man laments more sincerely than I do the unhappy differences which have arisen among the friends of the people, and divided them from each other. The cause undoubtedly suffers as well by the diminution of that strength which union carries with it as by the separate loss of personal reputation, which every man sustains when his character and conduct are frequently held forth in odious or contemptible colours. These differences are only advantageous to the common enemy of the country; the hearty friends of the cause are provoked and disgusted; the lukewarm advocate avails himself of any pretence to relapse into that indolent indifference about everything that ought to interest an Englishman, so unjustly dignified with the title of moderation; the false, insidious partisan, who creates or foments the disorder, sees the fruit of his dishonest industry ripen beyond his hopes, and rejoices in the promise of a banquet, only delicious to such an appetite as his own. It is time for those who really mean the cause and the people, who have no view to private advantage, and who have virtue enough to prefer the general good of the community to the gratification of personal animosities,—it is time for such men to interpose; let us try whether these fatal dissensions may not yet be reconciled; or, if that be impracticable, let us guard at least against the worst effects of division, and endeavour to persuade these furious partisans, if they will not consent to draw together, to be separately useful to that cause which they all pretend to be attached to. Honour and honesty must not be renounced, although a thousand modes of right and wrong were to occupy the degrees of morality between Zeno and Epicurus. The fundamental principles of Christianity may still be preserved, though every zealous sectary adheres to his own exclusive doctrine, and pious ecclesiastics make it part of their religion to persecute one another. The civil constitution, too, that legal liberty, that general creed, which every Englishman professes, may still be supported, though Wilkes and Horne, Townshend and Sawbridge, should obstinately refuse to communicate; and even if the fathers of the church, if Savile, Richmond, Camden, Rockingham, and Chatham, should disagree in the ceremonies of their political worship, and even in the interpretation of twenty texts in Magna Charta. I speak to the people as one of the people. Let us employ these men in whatever departments their various abilities are best suited to, and as much to the advantage of the common cause as their different inclinations will permit. They cannot serve us without essentially serving themselves.
If Mr. Nash be elected, he will hardly venture, after so recent a mark of the personal esteem of his fellow-citizens, to declare himself immediately a courtier. The spirit and activity of the sheriffs will, I hope, be sufficient to counteract any sinister intentions of the lord mayor; in collision with their virtue, perhaps he may take fire.