Virginia proposes non-importation, 1769. *Frothingham's Republic, 238. Partial repeal of the Revolution, some of them even used the words of the Virginia Resolves. 131. Non-importation Agreements, 1769. The dissolution of the Virginia Assembly only hastened the crisis. The burgesses met in a neighboring house and signed an agreement binding themselves neither to use nor to import any goods on which a tax was levied by act of Parliament. This document had been drawn up by George Mason; it was presented to the burgesses by George Washington, and among the signatures to it was that of Thomas Jefferson. The other colonies soon adopted similar agreements, and by the end of the year (1769) the non-importation policy was in full operation. The object of the colonists in "boycotting" certain goods, which were either the products of England or were imported through English mercantile houses, was to exert a pressure on English merchants engaged in colonial trade, and through them to influence the government. This policy proved to be effectual; the merchants petitioned for the repeal of the act, and the government acceded to their wishes. In point of fact, the Townshend duties, instead of producing a revenue, had proved to be a source of expense. It was estimated that they had brought into the exchequer only two hundred and ninety-five pounds above the cost of collection; and the opposition to them had necessitated increased expenditures to the amount of one hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds. Instead, however, of repealing them all, the government, at the express command of the king, retained the duty on tea to serve as a precedent for future parliamentary taxation of the colonists. The tea tax had yielded a total gross revenue of some three hundred pounds, and was retained probably on account of its insignificance, for being unnoticed, it might not be resisted. The Navigation Acts and the trade laws still remained; conflicts with the revenue officers became more frequent, and the colonists regarded with increasing dislike the British soldiers stationed at New York and Boston. 1770] The Boston Massacre 177 Boston, 1766-70. VI, 49. Chandler's 132. The Boston Massacre, 1770. - While the govern- British ment and Parliament had been considering the question of soldiers in repeal, a serious affray, known as the "Boston Massacre," had greatly complicated the situation (March, 1770), Winsor's although tidings of the disturbance had not reached Eng- America, land until after the partial repeal of the Townshend duties (April, 1770). A few soldiers had been stationed at Boston as early as 1766; but it was not until after the rioting consequent on the seizure of the Liberty that any considerable body of troops was sent to that town. It is difficult to conceive why they were sent, as two regiments could have offered slight resistance to the soldiery of Massachusetts, and their presence was certain to embitter the already Impressstrained relations between the colonists and the British ment, 1769. authorities. Early in 1769, blood was shed in an attempt Criminal by a party from the Rose frigate to press men from a Trials, colonial vessel; and a short time after, a boy had been I, 297. accidentally shot in the streets of Boston. On Saturday night, March 3, a party of soldiers, while off duty, engaged The in a conflict with some workingmen returning from their Massacre. labor. The next Monday, March 5, 1770, renewed conflict began with the soldiers, this time with those on duty on Trials, I, King, now State, Street. Before the matter ended, the main 303-418; guard was turned out and the mob fired upon by the angry Revolution, and frightened soldiers; four citizens were killed and sev- 1, 66–72. eral wounded. It was evident to the leaders on both sides that a most serious crisis had arisen; in the temper then prevailing, the soldiers must be removed or they would be slaughtered and a conflict with Great Britain precipitated, which was desired at that time by few colonists. Chandler's Fiske's Hutchinson. At the head of a committee appointed in town meeting, Adams and Samuel Adams waited upon Hutchinson, then acting as governor in the absence of Bernard, and demanded the removal of the troops. Hutchinson offered to remove the regiment which had fired on the people. Adams reported this answer to the town meeting. He soon reappeared and said to Hutchinson: "If you can remove one, you can N remove both; there are three thousand people in yonder town meeting; the country is rising; the night is falling, and we must have our answer." Hutchinson promised to send them all out of the town, but it took another town meeting to secure their departure. The officers and men present at the time of the firing were arrested and tried on the charge of murder. They were defended by John Adams and Josiah Quincy, Jr., two patriots, who risked their popularity and influence that the soldiers might have the fullest justice done to them. All were acquitted on the charge of murder by a jury drawn from Boston and the neighborhood; two of them, however, were found guilty of manslaughter and branded in the hand. Probably the issues underlying no other event in American history have been so misrepresented by friends and foes as those relating to this so-called 1771] Local Committees of Correspondence 179 "massacre." The colonists regarded the British army as existing under British law and, therefore, they maintained that not a soldier could be constitutionally stationed in any colony without the consent of the colonial legislature. This theory was similar to that upon which the opposition to the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts was based. From another point of view the "massacre was important, as it showed the danger to the liberty of the subject incurred by the substitution of military for civil power. The event was therefore commemorated in Boston as a victory for freedom, until the adoption Thomas Hutchinson He tives as to the rights and duties of the colonists. argued that the position assumed by the colonial leaders was unsound and asserted that they must either submit or become independent. Undoubtedly Hutchinson was right; there was no constitutional mode of redress; the colonists were face to face with the alternative of submission or rebellion and the latter might lead to revolution and independence. Samuel Adams saw at once the opportunity such a debate gave him to call attention to the real issues in controversy. He spread the discussion abroad through Local Committees of Correspondence. Fiske's Revolution, I, 77-80; *Frothingham's Republic, 259-271. Hutchinson and Adams. Stedman and III, 61; Samuel Adams. Burning of the Gaspee, 1772. The Commission of Inquiry. out the whole province by means of town committees of correspondence. At the moment, however, Massachusetts seemed to stand alone. An over-zealous naval officer, by the rigorous way in which he sought to enforce the navigation laws, brought on a crisis that ended in the formation of colonial committees of correspondence, the second step in the formation of a complete revolutionary organization. 134. Colonial Committees of Correspondence. Among the many acts of violence committed by the colonists before the destruction of the tea by the Boston men, none led to more important consequences than the burning of the Gaspee by the people of Providence. There were not wanting deeds of daring in other colonies, as the destruction of the Peggy Stewart by the Marylanders; but the Gaspee affair assumed a national importance from the action of the British authorities. The Gaspee was an armed government vessel commanded by Lieutenant Dudington of the royal navy. His duty was to patrol Narragansett Bay and connecting waters with a view to the enforcement of the Navigation Acts. One day, while chasing a colonial vessel, the Gaspee ran aground and remained immovable on a narrow spit, which has since been called Gaspee Point. Led by the most prominent and respected merchant in the town, men from Providence boarded her in the night, seized the crew, and set the vessel on fire (1772). Instead of passing over the matter as a personal quarrel between Dudington and the Providence men, the British government determined to avenge it as an insult to the British flag. A Commission of Inquiry was sent to Rhode Island to sift the matter, to seize the perpetrators, and to convey them out of the colony for trial. The names of those who had taken part in the affair were known to a thousand persons at least, but no one could be found to inform the commissioners against them. Moreover, Stephen Hopkins, the courageous chief justice. of Rhode Island, declared that not a person should be |