[CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.]
THE change in British colonial policy contemplated by the ministry during the progress of the French War, and entered upon between 1763 and 1774, developed those causes of dissatisfaction which had been intermittently operative for more than a century, and finally led to war in 1775. In the preceding chapter I have omitted, or passed lightly over, many incidents of the period which had no particular political significance, and dwelt more at length on the principles and causes which led to the Revolution. I shall pursue the same course in this essay.
The growth and development of the colonies brought forward, in succession, two practical questions. The first was, how far the interests of the colonies, as appendages to the crown, but subject, nevertheless, to an undefined parliamentary authority, could be subordinated to the interests of the trading and manufacturing classes in England. This was purely an economic question, and the answer to it in England assumed the subjection of the colonies and the validity of the mercantile system, neither of which was vigorously contested by the colonists so long as neither was rigidly enforced. But the question changed during the progress, and more especially at the close, of the French War, and then became this: How far could the interests of the colonies be subordinated to the necessities of an imperial revenue and the political policy of an empire? Hence arose the second question: What degree of autonomy could be allowed to the colonies, as integral parts of the empire, entitled to its privileges and subject to its burdens, when both were to be determined consistently with the constitutional prerogatives of the king and the supremacy of Parliament on the one side, and on the other with the natural and acquired rights of the colonies?
Regarded purely as an economic question, it was a matter of indifference to the colonists whether their pockets were depleted by the enforcement of an old policy or by the adoption of a new policy. The Sugar Act of 1733, if enforced, would have produced a parliamentary tax. The Grenville Act of 1764 did no more. But the former was intended as a regulation of trade; the latter to produce a revenue. This difference of intent raised a constitutional question, and it was on this constitutional question, behind which lay the real economic question, that the patriotic party chose to fight the battle. Grenville's Act, as an external tax, produced but little; and the Stamp Act, as an internal tax, not a farthing.
It was, therefore, mainly on the constitutional question—of the right to tax, rather than to throw off intolerable burdens—that people divided into parties. As Webster said, "They went to war against a preamble. They fought seven years against a declaration."[137] To understand the attitude of the tories on the economic question as well as on the constitutional question, we must consider the state of colonial affairs which led to the Congress of 1754, and the tentative efforts of that body to find consistent and reciprocal relations of the colonies to the imperial government, for union, defence, and revenue. To understand the attitude of the patriots, we must consider the reasons of the ministry for rejecting such a union, and their efforts to force each colony into relations to the crown and Parliament deemed by them consistent and reciprocal, but regarded by the colonists as subversive of their rights as Englishmen, and of their rights acquired by charters, growth, development, and usage, which, as they justly claimed, had become constitutional.
Though the enforcement of the navigation laws and acts of trade, at the close of the French War, is regarded by historians as one of the principal causes of the Revolution, I fail to find a satisfactory or entirely accurate account of them, either as the basis of the mercantile system, or, later, of a revenue system. Such a treatment would hardly be practicable in the limits of a general history. These laws have been elaborately discussed by Thomas Mun, Sir Josiah Child, Sir William Patty, Charles Davenant, Joshua Gee, John Ashley, and, not to mention others, Adam Smith and Henry Brougham. But these authors wrote with reference to their influence, as part of the mercantile system, on British interests. How they affected colonial interests is the question which chiefly concerns us.
To answer this question we must know not merely what those laws enacted, but to what state of colonial trade they originally and successively applied. For instance, what, from time to time, by development of agricultural or other industries, between 1640 and 1774, had the colonists to sell, and what, as they increased in wealth, did they wish to purchase; and where, left to the unrestricted course of trade, would they have carried their products, and where purchased their merchandise? In other words, what would they have done and become under free trade?
Then we must know what changes in this normal condition of trade were intended by the navigation laws, and to what extent and with what effect their partial enforcement operated before 1763. With these facts before us, we could estimate with some exactness the valid objections to the new system on the part of the colonists, when enforced by the British navy, commissioners of customs, admiralty courts, and writs of assistance, and what was their influence in bringing on the Revolution.
Having made up the debit account, we should be able to set against it the compensations in naval protection, bounties,[138] drawbacks, British capital, and long credits, in developing colonial agriculture and commerce.[139]