1772] Colonial Union 181 removed for trial without the colony's limits. The commissioners abandoned the inquiry and reported their failure to the government. The Virginia Assembly was in session when the news of the appointment of this commission reached the Old Dominion. Now, as in 1769 (p. 175), the burgesses showed themselves peculiarly susceptible to any action which looked toward the infringement of the constitutional safeguards of the liberty of the colonists. Under the leadership of Patrick Henry and Thomas Jeffer- Colonial son, a permanent Committee of Correspondence was ap- Committees pointed to inform themselves particularly of the facts as to spondence, the Gaspee Commission, and "to maintain a correspondence 1773. with our sister colonies." Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and South Carolina ap- Republic, pointed similar committees. For the moment the other 279-283. colonies held aloof. The machinery for revolutionary organization had been discovered, however, and before long the action of the British government as to the tea duty forced all the colonies into line. of Corre *Frothingham's bribe the colonists to pay tea duty. *Froth 295-310. 135. Colonial Union. — The English East India Company Attempt to was now in severe financial straits, owing to the wars it was compelled to wage in India, to the extravagance with which the government of that country was administered, to the heavy payments it was obliged to make to its shareholders ingham's Republic, and to the English government, and to the heavy duties levied in England on goods produced in India. The Dutch East India Company was able to undersell its rival, and most of the tea consumed in the colonies was smuggled in from the Netherlands. The English duties on tea were especially heavy, being no less than twelvepence per pound on all teas drawn from the East India Company's warehouses in London for consumption in Great Britain or for exportation to any part of the empire; and so much of it. as was landed in the colonies was subject to a further duty of threepence per pound on importation. To help the East India Company, the government proposed to allow that company to export tea to the colonies without paying the inland duty of twelvepence, but the tea would still be liable to the Townshend colonial duty of threepence. Some one suggested that the easiest way to avoid any conflict with the colonists would be for the company to pay the latter tax in England and add the amount to the price of the tea; but the government was immovable on that point. They desired to establish a precedent for the par A CAR D. HE PUBLIC prefent their Compliments to Meffieurs have this Day received your Commiffion to enflave your native Country; and, as your frivolous Plea of having received no Advice, relative to the scandalous Part you were to act, in the TEA-SCHEME, can no longer ferve your Purpose, nor divert our Attention, we expect and defire you will immediately inform the PUBLIC, by a Line or two to be left at the COFFEE HOUSE, Whether you will, or will not, renounce all Pretenfions to execute that Commiflion?----- THAT WE MAY GOVERN OUR liamentary taxation of the colonies, and the present opportunity seemed most favorable. The colonists would even then obtain their tea at a cheaper rate than the people of England could buy it. Under these circumstances, it was supposed that they would not object to paying the duty; but the very cheapness of the tea at once convinced the colonists that all was not right. They regarded it as an attempt to bribe them into a surrender of the constitutional principle for which they had been contending and refused. to have anything to do with it at any price. The vessels 1773] Resistance to the Tea Tax 183 Fiske's bearing tea to Philadelphia and New York were allowed by the authorities to leave port without landing their cargoes. At Charleston the tea was landed; but it was stored in a wet cellar, where it soon spoiled. At Boston the cus- The Boston toms authorities, with the support of Governor Hutchinson, Tea Party. refused to permit the tea vessels to clear outwards unless Revolution, the tea were first landed. The rules of the customs service I, 82-93: prescribed that goods which were not landed, and on which duties were not paid within a certain time, should be seized by the collector and sold to the highest bidder. The Massachusetts men were determined that the tea should not be placed on the market, and it was thrown into Boston harbor by a mob. Not only did this attempt to bribe the colonists into a surrender of their rights fail, but six more colonies appointed Committees of Correspondence. Pennsylvania alone held back; with that exception the colonial union was complete. Old South Leaflets, No. 68, Gen. Ser. punished, Fiske's 317-327, 345-358. 136. Repressive Acts, 1774. — The determined attitude Massaof the colonists greatly incensed the governing classes in chusetts Great Britain, and they decided to punish the turbulent people of Boston and Massachusetts. With this end in view, Parliament passed four acts: (1) closing the port of Boston to commerce; (2) suspending the operation of the charter of Massachusetts; (3) providing for the trial outside ingham's of the colony of persons (soldiers and others) who might be Republic, charged with crime committed while quelling riots within the colony; and (4) providing for the quartering of British troops within the province. At about the same time Parliament also passed an act, known as the Quebec Act, which extended the boundaries of that province to the Ohio River and established an arbitrary form of government within it. The rights of holders of grants from the crown were expressly reserved to them in the act, and it is probable that the claims of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania to lands within the new province would have been recognized. The measure had been long in preparation, and its passage at the present crisis had no relation to the dispute The Quebec Hinsdale's Old Northwest, 141. Demand Elections to the Congress. Jefferson's with the colonies south of the St. Lawrence. It was inevitable, however, in the excited condition of the colonists' minds, that they should regard the Quebec Act as aimed against themselves; they saw in it a disposition on the part. of the British government to limit the further extension westward of the self-governing colonies. This was a matter which appealed to them all, and was the one thing required, if anything were needed, to unite them against the encroachments of the British government. The repressive acts dealt for the moment with Massachusetts alone; but it was clear that if Parliament could overthrow the constitution of one colony, it could of all, and the interests of all the colonists were really involved. Soon their sympathy was aroused by the sufferings of the people of Boston. New York and Rhode Island proposed that a general congress should be held; the Virginia burgesses appointed a day of fasting, and upon being dissolved for this action, they formed themselves into a convention, appointed a revolutionary Committee of Correspondence, advocated the holding of annual intercolonial congresses, and voted that "an attack upon one colony was an attack upon all British America." The actual call for the congress, however, came from Massachusetts (June 17, 1774). 137. The First Continental Congress, 1774. — Delegates to this meeting were chosen by all the colonies save Georgia, in some cases by the colonial assembly, as in Massachusetts, in others by conventions, as in Virginia; in a few colonies, where no such bodies were in session or could be summoned, the delegates were chosen by the Committees of Correspondence or by the people of the several towns. and counties. In New York and Pennsylvania, the moderates and conservatives, or Tories, as they were called, obtained control; in the other colonies, the radicals usually carried the day. The most important document called forth by the contest over these elections was Thomas Jefferson's Summary View of the Rights of British America, which was first drawn up 1774] The First Continental Congress 185 in the form of Instructions to the Virginia Delegates; but it American was too outspoken for the members of the Virginia conven- History tion, and was not adopted. In this essay, Jefferson boldly No. 11. Leaflets, denied the existence of a legislative union between the colonies and Great Britain, and utterly refused to admit the legislative supremacy of the British Parliament, even as to external trade. On the other hand, he declared that the union was simply through the crown, as the union between England and Scotland of the seventeenth century. He enumerated many acts of injustice on the part of the British king and urged the appointment of an American secretary for the colonies. 1774, the delegates. 359-380. The congress met at Philadelphia on September 5, 1774. Meeting of Franklin was still in England, and Jefferson was not selected Congress, as a delegate by the Virginia convention. With those exceptions, all the ablest men then in political life were *Frothpresent. From Massachusetts came the two Adamses, ingham's Samuel, the first American politician, and John, the keen Republic, constitutional lawyer; mental disease, greatly intensified by blows which he had received from a British official, incapacitated Otis from further service. Rhode Island sent her venerable judge, Stephen Hopkins, and Connecticut was represented by Roger Sherman, whose long services in Congress have given him an honored place in American history. John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States, came from New York, John Dickinson from Pennsylvania, and John Rutledge from South Carolina. Virginia was represented by a remarkable group of men: George Washington, whose sound judgment and solid information. made him the foremost member of the congress, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, and Peyton Randolph. 1775. *Froth The congress adopted a Declaration of Rights which Declaration was not much more radical in tone than that of the Stamp of Rights, Act Congress, and was much milder than the one advocated by Jefferson in the Summary View. The more ingham's important work of this congress was the establishment of Republic, the American Association, designed to secure the enforce 371. |