1764. INDISCRIMINATE SUPPRESSION OF SMUGGLING. 139

CHAPTER V.

THE COLONIAL QUARREL-INDISCRIMINATE SUPPRESSION OF SMUGGLING

-STAMP ACT-RIGHT OF ENGLISH PARLIAMENT TO TAX THE COLONIES THE EQUITY OF IMPERIAL TAXATION.

DURING the discussions relative to Wilkes, the minorities had on one or two occasions attained such an extent as to create serious alarm for the Increase of the stability of the Government; but when minority. that exciting question was disposed of, they subsided to their former level, and there was a fair prospect that public business would, for some time at least, pursue a smooth though sluggish course. But storm and peril suddenly arose from a quarter where appearances were most serene.

At the termination of the war, it became necessary to take vigorous measures for the suppression of a host of smugglers which infested the British coasts, and rendered the Customs' laws nearly inoperative. The royal navy were for the occasion employed as revenue cruisers, and the commanders of ships of war were regularly invested with commissions as customhouse officers. It is easy to believe that men, accustomed to the exercise of arbitrary authority, armed with these extraordinary powers, and ignorant of the usages of commerce, should sometimes perform the new duties assigned to them with a vigour beyond the law. For such excesses, however, when committed in the British waters, prompt and effectual redress was attainable. But when this system was extended to distant dependencies, grievous cases of

140

Character of

gling.

SMUGGLING IN THE COLONIES.

CH. V.

oppression and wrong were practically without remedy. And the same system which was resorted to for the purpose of clearing St. George's Channel and the Irish Sea from piratical adventurers was deemed equally applicable throughout the wide Atlantic. It is hardly possible to state a stronger instance of the improvidence of the administration than their conduct in this particular. Contraband was, in strict law, the same on the coast of Norfolk as of Newfoundland; but, in fact, there was no comparison between such cases. Smuggling on the British colonial smug- coasts caused a serious injury to the fair trader and to the revenue, while it afforded occupation to the most lawless and desperate of mankind. But the contraband carried on by the American and West Indian colonies was beneficial to the mother-country, in a degree which more than compensated for the inconsiderable loss of revenue which it entailed; it was contraband only in name, and unless one nation is bound to respect the revenue laws of another—a position which at least is very questionable—there was nothing immoral in the traffic. For a series of years, America had sent large quantities of the manufactures which she imported from Great Britain to the Spanish colonies, receiving in exchange bullion, live stock, medicinal drugs, and other commodities. The beneficial effects, to all the parties concerned, of this trade, which the blind policy of rulers would have repressed, are sufficiently obvious. To England, especially, it was advantageous; for while it created an extraordinary demand for the products of her industry, it enabled the colonists to adjust the balance of trade, which was always greatly adverse to them, by remittances in specie.* Thus it was by her free trade alone that America was in a condition to carry on that regulated

*

* Petition of the Merchants of New York to the House of Commons, 1767.

1764.

INDIGNATION OF AMERICA.

141

commerce which the mother-country prescribed for her own exclusive benefit. No intimation whatever was given by the Home Government of their Indignation of intention to prohibit this traffic, which, the colonists. having been connived at for so many years, had, in the estimation of the colonists, almost lost the character of contraband, and was carried on with the punctuality of legitimate commerce. In the midst of its prosperous and harmless career, the colonial trade was suddenly and violently suppressed as a scandal and a nuisance. Such a blow naturally produced the utmost consternation and resentment. Under a rule, ever strict, if not somewhat harsh, the conduct of the colonies towards the mother-country had been, for the most part, dutiful, loyal, and even affectionate.* If they sometimes murmured at her authority, they still had confidence in her justice; and whatever might have been the feelings of a few restless and ambitious spirits, we are assured, on the best authority,† that, up to this time, the Americans had no desire for independence. But now their welfare was assailed, as it would seem, in the mere wantonness of power, by a blow not less deadly than any which the vindictive rage of a conqueror could inflict. Their trade and shipping were in a moment threatened with ruin; and the very means of performing their current engagements with the mothercountry were taken away from them. Under these portentous circumstances, necessity, as well as resentment, dictated a measure which tended immediately to alienation. The colonists resolved to abstain as far as possible from the use of English manufactures, and were prepared to practise the utmost self-denial rather than have any dealings with a nation which

Franklin's Examination before the House of Commons,

1766.

Franklin in conversation with Lord Chatham.

142

SEIZURE OF COLONIAL MERCHANDISE.

CH. V.

had visited them with such cruel insult and oppression.*

Mistaken policy

ment.

It probably would have been no easy matter to reconcile the colonies to their ancient of the Govern- loyalty and allegiance, even if this grievous error had been promptly rectified on the part of Great Britain. But the policy which the Home Government pursued was fatally consistent. While the British cruisers were sweeping the seas of colonial merchandise, the Parliament, to which the colonists had always looked up as the ultimate guardian of their liberties, was giving its sanction to a succession of measures which seemed to have been conceived in a spirit hostile to their prosperity and freedom. By one of these acts, the preamble of which asserted for the first time the right of the imperial legislature to impose taxation on the colonies, customs duties were charged upon the importation into the colonies of various articles of foreign produce, partly for the purpose of raising a revenue, and partly for the protection of the newly-acquired sugar-growing plantations. The proceeds of these taxes were, by an entirely new regulation, to be paid in specie into the imperial exchequer, and to be applied, under the direction of Parliament, towards defraying the 'necessary expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the British colonies and plantations. This act was accompanied by another,‡

*They entered into general combinations to eat no more lamb, and very few lambs were killed last year.

"They considered the Parliament as the great bulwark and security of their liberties and privileges, and always spoke of it with the utmost respect and veneration. Arbitrary ministers, they thought, might possibly at times attempt to oppress them; but they relied on it, that the

Parliament, on application, would always give redress. They remembered, with gratitude, a strong instance of this, when a bill was brought into Parliament with a clause, to make royal instructions law in the colonies, which the House of Commons would not pass; and it was thrown out.'-FRANKLIN's Eramination, 1766.

† 4 Geo. III. c. 15.

4 Geo. III. c. 34.

1764.

FRENCH INFLUENCES ON THE ABORIGINES.

143

which substituted throughout America a metallic for the paper currency to which the colonists had been forced to resort, because they had not money enough, after making their remittances to England, to meet the exigencies of their internal trade and commerce. To complete this perverse scheme of policy, a resolution was proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and readily assented to by the House of Commons, affirming the propriety of raising a new and additional revenue in the colonies, by means of a stamp duty.

Disputes with the Indians.

If any accidental circumstance could aggravate the irritation produced by these accumulated wrongs, that circumstance was not wanting. At the time when the British men-of-war appeared off the coast of America in the character of revenue cruisers, a great part of the country was suffering devastation from one of those cruel wars which occasionally broke out between the European settlers and the native Indians. The French, more amiable in manners, and less aggressive than the English, aided besides by the insinuating priesthood of that politic Church which can recommend itself to every condition of human society, had maintained a better correspondence with the natives than the British settlers ever attempted to cultivate. The savage tribes, or nations, as they were termed, had been rapidly compelled to retire before the progress of civilisation, under the vigorous conduct of the Anglo-Saxon; and the intruders had not been scrupulous in trespassing upon the hunting grounds still remaining to the original inhabitants, or in resorting to fraud, as well as force, to dispossess them. The natives had always, therefore, favoured the French rather than the English settlers; and were now

* It was proposed and agreed to in a thin House, late at night, and just at the rising, without

any debate.-ALMON'S Collection of Papers.