For more than a hundred years the colonies had been regarded as appendages to the crown rather than as an integral part of the empire; and when Parliament, at the instigation of the mercantile classes and in derogation of royal prerogative, began at the close of the seventeenth century to assume control over them, and, a few years later, to vote large sums from the imperial treasury for their protection, and, in some cases, for the support of their civil governments, that body looked for reimbursement to the profits which would inure to British merchants from the monopoly of colonial trade and navigation, and flow indirectly into the national Exchequer. But with the close of the French War a new policy seemed to become necessary. The debt had swelled to frightful proportions. The British people were groaning under the weight of the annual interest and their current expenses. Every source of revenue seemed to be drained, and the ministry turned their eyes for relief to the colonies; not, indeed, for relief from the present debt, but from the necessity of adding to it the whole expense of defending the colonies. This was the fatal mistake which precipitated the Revolution. On this subject, however, there seems to be some misapprehension. The popular idea was, and still is, that the colonists were to be taxed to pay the interest on the national debt and the current expenses of the government, and that all moneys raised in the colonies were to pass into the British Exchequer (thus draining them of their specie), there to remain subject to the king's warrant. Such, however, was not the scheme of the ministry. Not a farthing was to leave America. All sums collected were to be deposited in the colonial treasuries, and only certificates thereof were to be sent to the Exchequer. These were to be kept apart from the general funds, and, after defraying the charges of the administration of justice and the support of the civil government within all or any of the colonies, they were to be subject to parliamentary appropriation for their defence, protection, and security, and for no other purpose.[39]
The alleged necessity was this: The government had broken the French power in Canada, and shaken its hold upon the lakes and great rivers of the West. This achievement, so glorious to the empire, and therefore to the colonies as parts of it, and more immediately for their benefit, had added one hundred and forty millions to the national debt, under which the subjects within the realm were staggering. While some colonies had been tardy or negligent in furnishing their quotas of men and money for the war, yet it was acknowledged that as a whole they had borne their fair proportion of the expense, and that some had exceeded their share. So far all was clear. Although Canada had been conquered mainly for the colonies, still the conquest added to the security and glory of the empire, and the accounts for past expenditures were squared. But what of the future? As these possessions had been acquired, a stable government was needed for them, both for the safety of the colonies and for the honor of England. They were still inhabited by Indians under French influence, and they might become dangerous unless controlled by military power. Choiseul, the great French minister, informed by the reports of his secret agent, foresaw the complications likely to arise in the government of the colonies, and was not without hope of retrieving by diplomacy the losses which had occurred from war. Forts and garrisons were necessary. Although the Northern colonies were comparatively secure, the Carolinas and Georgia were menaced by powerful and hostile tribes. The government must regard the colonies as a unit, of which all parts were entitled to imperial protection. To this view of the case there could be no sound objection. Twenty thousand troops,—Pitt thought more would be needed,—besides civil officers to regulate such affairs as did not fall within colonial jurisdictions, were to be sent to the colonies. At whose expense ought these military and civil forces to be maintained? The British farmer objected to pay for the protection of his untaxed colonial competitor in the British market. If the colonies were to continue to be governed in the interest of the mercantile classes, upon them might reasonably fall the expense of their protection. But the acquisition of vast territories required a new policy, and it was deemed equitable that they should be defended at the expense of the empire of which the colonies were a part. They had claimed and received imperial protection, and they ought to bear a proportional part of the cost, which might be collected under the imperial authority with the same certainty and promptness as were taxes on other subjects of the king. This was the ministerial view of the matter as I gather it from the debates in Parliament.
This claim of the ministry was met by the liberal party on both sides of the water in two ways. It was asserted that the late war, and in fact all the wars which affected the colonies, had been waged in the interest of commerce and for the aggrandizement of the realm of which they were no part, and that the newly acquired territories were of doubtful advantage to colonies as yet sparsely populated. But if these considerations were not conclusive, still the colonists ought not to be taxed, because the imperial government by monopolizing their trade received far more than the colonial share of the expense attending their defence. The liberals also asserted that there was no disposition on the part of the colonists to seek exemption from a reasonable share of these imperial expenses; but as in the past they had voluntarily contributed their part, and in some cases even more, so they would in the future; and that in the future, as in the past, these contributions ought to be voluntary, and the frequency and amount to be determined by the provincial assemblies. Moreover, as the colonists neither had, nor could have, any equitable or efficient representation in the imperial Parliament, they could not consent to have their property taken from them by representatives not chosen by themselves.
The ministry and their adherents replied that the foregoing arguments, even if sound, were such as no party charged with the administration of affairs, and obliged to raise a certain amount of money from a people clamorous for relief from present taxes, could accept; that no reliance could be placed on voluntary contributions; that the necessities of government required that money should be raised by some system which would act with regularity and certainty, and reach the unwilling as well as the willing; that even in the last war, when the existence of the English colonies was threatened by a foe moving with celerity by reason of its unity, the movements of English troops had been delayed by the backwardness of the colonies in furnishing their quotas; and now that the pressure of the French power was removed from New England, that section would leave the Middle and Southern colonies to their own resources, especially when it was remembered how remiss those colonies had been in assisting the north and east when attacked.[40] It was also answered that so far from the monopoly of the colonial trade being a set-off to the expenses incurred by the mother country in defending the colonies, the fact was notorious that by the evasion of the navigation laws and acts of trade the colonists had escaped the restrictions intended by those laws, and at the same time had received bounties and drawbacks from the British Exchequer which enabled them to undersell the British merchants in the markets of Europe.
Here was a deadlock. The arguments on both sides seemed conclusive. No practical solution of the difficulty was proposed at the time, nor has been since. Both parties were firm in their convictions. Neither could yield without the surrender of essential rights. A conflict was unavoidable unless one party would relinquish the authority claimed by the imperial government; unavoidable unless the colonies, essentially free by growth, development, and distance, would yield to pretensions incompatible with their rights as British subjects. The new policy contemplated after the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 was carried into effect after the treaty of Paris in 1763. But nothing could have been more unfortunate than the time at which Great Britain inaugurated this policy, and no ministers than those by whom it was to be carried out. On essential political questions which divided the colonists and the mother country Great Britain herself was in the midst of a revolution. The new policy which was inaugurated fell into the hands of those opposed to it. Whig ministers were charged with the execution of an illiberal and reactionary scheme. Consequently, the administration of American affairs was weak and vacillating. The result was inevitable. Had Pitt, with his large views and great administrative abilities, been at the head of affairs for ten years after the peace, the Revolution might have been postponed. On the other hand, had the mercantile system during the same period been administered with the unity of purpose and thoroughness of measures which characterized Carleton's administration in Canada, and had it been enforced by the military genius of Clive, the rebellion might have been temporarily suppressed.
In the journals and statutes of the provincial assemblies we find from the beginning a similarity of causes leading to the final rupture. There are the same quarrels about the royal prerogative; the same repugnance to the navigation laws and acts of trade; the same unwillingness to make permanent provision for the support of the royal governors and judges, and the same restiveness under interference with their internal affairs; but owing either to differences in their original constitutions or of interests, commercial and agricultural, or because of varied nationality and religion, or by reason of all these causes combined, discontent was less general in the Southern than in the Northern colonies. Of the Northern colonies, in Massachusetts we find the causes which brought on the war operative and continuous from the beginning. Party strife between friends and opponents of prerogative existed in other colonies, but in Massachusetts the conflict broke out with special virulence between the adherents of Otis and those of Hutchinson. It was also intensified by the pecuniary interests of a large part of the inhabitants of Boston, which were affected by the enforcement of the navigation laws through the aid of writs of assistance. It was for this enforcement that Hutchinson was held responsible when the mob sacked his house, and were ready to do violence to his person.
The province had received from the British Exchequer more than £60,000 sterling for the war expenses of 1759, and nearly £43,000 for those of 1761. Money was plentiful, and more was expected from the same source. There was a lull in the angry storm of local politics when news of the preliminaries of peace reached Boston in January, 1763. With this came assurances that Parliament would reimburse the colonies for expenses incurred, beyond their proportion, in the last year of the war; and the two Houses of the General Court agreed upon an address expressing gratitude to the king for protection against the French power, and full of loyalty and duty. But quiet was not of long continuance. The close of the war dried up several sources of profitable trade or adventure,[41]—some legal, such as furnishing supplies to the king's forces, and some illicit. Then came orders from the Board of Trade to enforce the navigation laws, heretofore chiefly evaded, but now to be enforced with the aid of writs of assistance. At the same time plans were entertained by the cabinet for making changes in the constitutions of the colonies; and what was hardly less opportune, the English bishops incessantly pressed upon the ministry the adoption of archbishop Secker's scheme of introducing an episcopal hierarchy into America, which would have carried with it some of the worst features of the prerogative.[42] The history of the period from the treaty of 1763 to the meeting of the Continental Congress at Philadelphia in 1774 is a narrative of an attempt by the British ministry to enforce certain measures upon unwilling colonists, and of the resistance of the colonists to those measures. Who were the ministers, what were their measures, and how did the colonists resist them?
Pitt had carried the country through a long and glorious war; but he was not satisfied with the results. The cost had been heavy, and as a guaranty against future expense he meditated the substantial annihilation of the French power. He knew that France and Spain had entered into the Family Compact with a view to a war with England. War with Spain was only a question of time, and he would have anticipated its declaration by seizing the immense treasure belonging to that power, then on the sea. This would have replenished the British Exchequer, and perhaps have deferred a resort to American taxation. Pitt urged this measure at a cabinet meeting, September 18, 1761. His advice was not followed, and he resigned October 5. But war was declared against Spain, January 1, 1762, and carried on with brilliant results, though the golden opportunity of securing the Spanish treasure was lost. The preliminaries of peace were signed at Fontainebleau, November 3, 1763.
GEORGE III.