The Eve of the Revolution

ncreasing the wealth, commerce, and power of the mother country, at the hazard of their lives a

er the Atlantic seaboard might be thought no great number; but it was a new thing in the world, well worth noting-which had in fact been carefully noted by Benjamin Franklin in a pamphlet on The Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc.-that within three-quarters of a century the population of the continental colonies had doubled every twenty-five years, whereas the population of Old England during a hundred years past had not doubled once and now stood at only some six and a half millions. If this should go on-and, considering the immense stretches of free lan

, was now no more than an ancient tradition. "Every man of industry has it in his power to live well," according to William Smith of New York, "and many are the instances of persons who came here distressed in their poverty who now enjoy easy and plentiful fortunes." If Americans were not always aware that they were rich men individually, they were at all events well instructed, by old-world visitors who came to observe them with a certain air of cond

ountry than they had formerly been. Very old men could remember the time when English statesmen and economists, viewing colonies as providentially designed to promote the increase of trade, had regarded the northern colonies as little better than heavy incumbrances on the Empire, and their commerce scarcely worth the cost of protection. It was no longer so; it could no longer be said that

northern colonies had advanced to nearly two millions. Nor was it likely that this rate of increase would fall off in the future. "The trade to our northern colonies," said Franklin, "is not only greater but yearly increasing with the increase of the people.… The occasion for English goods in North America, and the inclination to have and use them, is and must be for ages to come, much greater than the ability of the people to buy them." For English merchants the prospect was therefore an inviting one; and if Canada rather than Guadeloupe was kept at the close of the war, it was because statesmen and economists were coming to estim

sfully; but that he should not "lose his native rights" any American could more readily understand when he recalled that his ancestors had without assistance from the mother country transformed a wilderness into populous and thriving communities whose trade was now becoming indispensable to Britain. Therefore, in the summer of 1764, before the doctrine of colonial rights had been very clearly stated or much refined, every American knew that the Sugar Act and also the propose

ing from them than by an internal tax. Not one tenth part of the people of Great Britain have a voice in the elections to Parliament; and, therefore, the colonies can have no claim to it; but every man of property in England may have his voice

of them. The people of New England fled for the sake of civil and religious liberty; multitudes flocked to America with this dependence, that their liberties should be safe. They and their posterity have enjoyed them to their content, and therefore have endured with gre

ar to year made them compensation; in several of the colonies for several years together more men were raised, in proportion, than by the nation. In the trading towns, one fourth part of the profit of trade, besides imposts and excise, was annually paid to the sup

ers; and had rather do the whole of it by a tax of their own raising, than pay their proportion in any other way. Moreover, it must be prejudicial to the national interest to impose parliamentary taxes. The advantages promised by an increase of the revenue are al

threatened by the insidious designs of colonial governors, who were for the most part appointed by the Crown and very likely therefore to be infected with the spirit of prerogative than which nothing could be more dangerous, as everyone must know who recalled the great events of the last century. With those great events, the eminent men who directed the colonial assemblies-heads or scions or protégés of the best families in America, men of wealth and not wit

mpetence against the day when they might return to England. But if they were not kings, at least they had certain royal characteristics; and a certain flavor of despotism, clinging as it were to their o

on or Williamsburg assembly was not, to be sure, as high a privilege as to obstruct legislation in Westminster; but men of the best American families, fashioning their minds as well as their houses on good English models, thought of themselves, in withholding a governor's salary or limiting his executive power, as but re?nacting on a lesser stage the great parliamentary s

num; the vessels employed in it, which would be nearly useless, at ￡100,000; the provisions used in it, the casks for packing fish, and other articles, at ￡22,700 and upwards: to all which there was to be added the loss of the advantage of sending lumber, horses, provisions, and other commodities to the foreign plantations as cargoes, the vessels employed to carry the fish to Spain and Portugal, the dismissin

specie to the amount of ￡150,000 besides ￡90,000 in Treasurer's bills for the reimbursement money." Any man must thus see, since even Governor Bernard was convinced of it, that the new duties would drain the colony of all its hard money, and so, as the Governor said,

ay, 1764, in order to instruct their representatives how they ought to act in these serious times; and knowing that they ought to protest but perhaps not knowing precisely on what grounds, they committed the drafting of their instructions to Samuel Adams, a middl

or make use of? This we apprehend annihilates our charter right to govern and tax ourselves. It strikes at our British privileges which, as we have never forfeited them, we hold in common with our fellow-subjects who are natives of Great Britain. If taxes are laid upon us in any shape without our having a legal representative where they a

of many a Brutus and Cato, been made to depend upon withholding a governor's salary or defining precisely how he should expend a hundred pounds or so, that moderate terms could hardly be trusted to cope with the serious business o

duty to submit and patiently bear them till they be pleased to relieve us." Franklin assured his friends that the passage of the Stamp Act could not have been prevented any more easily than the sun's setting, recommended that they endure the one mischance with the same equanimity with which they faced the other necessity, and even saw certain advantages in the way of self-discipline which might come of it through the practice of

ore not surprising that the many obscure freeholders, minor planters, and lesser men who filled the House of Burgesses had followed the able leadership of that little coterie of interrelated families comprising the Virginia aristocracy. John Robinson, Speaker of the House and Treasurer of the colony, of good repute still in the spring of 1765, was doubtless the head and front of this aristocracy, the inner circle of which would also include Peyton Randolph, then King's Attorney, and Edmund Pendleton, well known for his cool persuasiveness in debate, the learned constitutional lawyer, Richard Bland, the sturdy and honest but ungrace

or and destined to be the leader and interpreter of the silent "simple folk" of the Old Dominion. In Hanover County, in which this tribune of the people was born and reared and which he now represented, there were, as in all the back-country counties, few great estates and few slaves, no notable country-seats with pretension to architectural excellence, no modishly dressed aristocracy with leisure for reading and

e days of popular discussion, whether liberty could very well flourish among men whose wealth was derived from the labor of negro slaves, or be well guarded under all circumstances by those who, regarding themselves as superior to the general run of men, might be in danger of mistaking their particular interests for the common welfare. And inde

ied by his own eloquence, which had been so effectively exhibited in the famous Parson's Cause, and in opposition to the shady scheme which the old leaders in the House of Burgesses had contrived to protect John Robinson, the Treasurer, from being exposed to a charge of embezzlement. Such courageous exploits, widely noised abroad, had won for the young man great applause and had got h

this unlearned lawyer accordingly wrote out some resolutions of protest which he showed to his friends, George Johnston and John Fleming, for their approval. Their approval once obtained, Mr. Johnston moved, with Mr. Henry as second, that the House of Burgesses s

supposed the business of the Assembly finished, had not already gone home. Among those who had thus departed, it is not likely that there were many of Patrick Henry's followers. Yet even so there was much opposi

s, but on the ground that the same sentiments had been, at their preceding session, expressed in a more conciliatory form, to which the answers were not yet received. But torrents of sublime eloquence from Mr. Henry, backed by the solid reasoning of Johnston, prevailed." It was in connection with the fifth resolution, upon which the debate was "most bloody," that Patrick Henry is said to have declared that "Tarquin and C?sar had each his Brutu

under the compelling eye of Patrick Henry, had voted for the last defiant resolution. Thinking the matter settled, Patri

, "thumbing over the volumes of journals to find a precedent for expunging a vote of the House." Whether the precedent was found the young law student did not afterwards recollect; but it is known that on motion of Peyton Randolph the fifth resolution was

ared to be as surely possessed of these privileges as if they had been born and were then abiding within the realm; that the taxation of the people by themselves or by persons chosen by themselves to represent them "is the only security against a burthensome taxation, and the distinguishing characteristick of British freedom, without which the ancient constitution cannot exist"; and that t

uscript of the unrevised resolves soon reached Philadelphia, having been sent off immediately upon their passing, that the earliest information of what had been done might be obtained by the Sons of Liberty." From Philadelphia a copy was forwarded, on June 17, to New York, in which loyal city the resolutions were thought "so treasonable that their possessors declined printing them"; b

he House of Burgesses was "most bloody" and which had been there adopted by a single vote and afterward

oever upon them, other than the laws and ordinances of the General Assembly aforesaid. Resolved, That any person who shall, by speaking or writing, assert or maintain that any per

14th of September, Messrs. Randolph, Wythe, and Nicholas were appointed a committee to apprise the Assembly's agent "of a spurious copy of the resolves of the last Assembly … being dispersed and printed in the News P

mit to the Stamp Act. Murmurs were indeed continually heard, but they seemed to be such as would die away. The publishing the Virginia Resolutions proved an alarm-bell to the disaffected." We read the resolutions, said Jonathan Sewell, "with wonder. They savored of independence; they flattered the human passions; the reasoning was specious; we wished it conclusive. The transitio

Otis made a speech in favor of the rights of the colonists as men and Englishmen. All that is known of it is contained in some rough notes taken at the time by John Adams (Works of John Adams, ii., 125). An elaboration of these notes was printed

, were well known not to be great admirers of the precise Puritans of New England, whose moral fervor and conscious rectitude seemed to them a species of fanaticism savoring more of canting hypocrisy than of that natural virtue affected by men of parts. Franklin may well have had Virginia and Massachusetts in mind when he said, but a few years earlier, no one need fear that the colonies "will unite against their own nation … which 'tis well known they all love much more than they love one another." Nor could anyone have supposed that the "Ancient and Loyal Colony of Virginia" woul

yally and reasonably desire." For two months there was no indication that any colony would think it "proper to be active"; but during August and September the assemblies of six colonies chose deputies to the congress, and when that body finally assembled in October, less formally designated representatives from thr

thing which all could agree to was of even greater importance. "There ought to be no New England man, no New Yorker, known on the continent," wrote Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina, "but all of us Americans." New Yorkers and New England men could not indeed be so easily transformed over night; but the Stamp Act Congress was significant as marking a kind of

ocal circumstances, cannot be represented in the House of Commons," it follows that taxes cannot be "imposed upon them, but by their respective legislatures." The Stamp Act, being a direct tax, was therefore declared to have a "manifest tendency to subvert the rights and liberties of the colonies." Of the Sugar Act, which wa

ed, the treasonable flavor of their boldest phrases no doubt grew less pronounced, and high talk took on more and more the character of good sense. During the summer of 1765 the happy phrase of Isaac Barré-"these sons of liberty"-was everywhere repeated, and was put on as a kind of protective coloring by strong patriots, who hence

onsistent that a man so often honored by the people should meanwhile pledge himself to destroy their liberties; and so on the morning of the 14th of August, Mr. Oliver's effigy, together with a horned devil's head peeping out of an old boot, was to be seen hanging from the Liberty Tree at the south end of Boston, near the distillery of Thomas Chase, brewer and warm Son of Liberty. During the day people stopped to make merry over the spectacle; and in the evening, after work hours, a great crowd gathered to see what would happen. When the effigy was cut down and carried away, the crowd very naturally followed along

outs to the Dwelling House of the Hon-l. Thos. Hutchinson, Esq., Lieut. Governor, & enter'd in a voyalent manner." At that moment the Lieutenant-Governor was sitting comfortably at dinner and had barely time to escape with his family before the massive front door was broken in with axes. As young Mr. Hutchinson went out by the back way he heard someone say: "Damn him, he's upstairs, we'll have him yet." They did not indeed accomplish this purpose; but when the morning broke the splendid house was seen to be completely gutted, the partition walls broken in, the roof partly off, and the priceless possessions of the owner ruined past repair: mahogany and walnut furniture finished in morocco and crimso

p Act was the cause of the Mob's riseing." It would be well to punish the mob, but punishing the mob would not cure the evil which was the cause of the mob; for where there was oppression the lower sort of people, as was well known, would be sure to express opposition in the way commonly practiced by them everywhere, in London as well as in Boston, by gathering in the streets in crowds, in which event some deplorable excesses were bound to follow,

seen; and the mere sight of them was likely to be a sufficient challenge to action. It seemed a simple matter to resist a law which could be of no effect without the existence of certain papers, paper being a substance easily disposed of. And everywhere in fact the stamps were disposed of-disposed of by mobs, with the tacit consent and impalpable encouragement of many men

heir houses would presently be pulled down. Mr. Livingston was himself the owner of houses, had an immense respect for property rights and for the law that guaranteed them, and therefore wished very much that the lower sort of people would give over their mobbish practices now that the stamps had been disposed of. Since the law could not now operate without stamps, what more was necessary except to wait in good order, patiently denying themselves those activities that involved a violation of the law, until the law should be repealed? The Stamp Act

y at dinner every day and well knowing where they could lay hands on money to pay current bills, they enjoyed a high sense of being defenders of liberty and at the same time eminently law-abiding citizens. They professed a decided preference for nullifying the Stamp Act without violating it. Sitting at dinner over their wine, they swore that they would let ships lie in harbor and rot there if necessary, and would let the courts close for a year or two years, rather than employ taxed papers to c

Were the courts to be closed on the ground that no legal business could be done without stamped papers? Or were they to go on trying cases, enforcing the collection of debts, and probating wills precisely as if no Stamp Act had ever been heard of? The Boston superior court was being adjourned continuously, for a fortnight at a time, through the influence of Messrs. Hutchinson and Oliver, to the great and steadily rising wrath of young Mr. Adams. The courts must soon be opened, he said to himself; their inactivity "will make a large chasm in my affairs, if it should not reduce me to distress." Young Mr. Adams, who had, no less than Mr. Oliver, a family to support and children to provide for, was just at the point of making a repu

espotism, far more intent upon the ruin of Mr. Adams and of America in general than any minister could be shown to be. For the policy of dispensing with activities requiring stamped papers, much lauded by these gentry as an effective and constitutional means of defeating the law, was after all nothing but "a sort of admittance of the legality of the Stamp Act, and had a tendency to enforce it, since there was just reason to apprehend that th

the object was, by "putting business in motion again, in the usual channels, without stamps," to prevent the Stamp Act ever being enforced. Such a society composed mainly of the lower orders of people and led by rising young lawyers, was for

ince; Resolved: That any person who shall deliver out or receive any instrument of writing upon stamped paper … shall incur the highest resentment of this society, and b

and to all the colonies except Georgia, proposing the formation of an intercolonial association of the true Sons of Liberty; to which letters many replies were received, some of which are still preserved among the papers of the secretary, Mr. John Lamb. The general sense of these letters was that an intercolonial association and close correspondence were hig

land; the inferior courts at least were sooner or later opened in nearly every colony; and not infrequently unstamped clearance papers were issued to shipmasters willing to take the risk of seizure in London or elsewhere. Mr. John Hancock, easily persuading himself that there should be no risk, shipped a cargo of oil with the Boston packet in December. "I am under no apprehensio

seemed, as Governor Moore said, "morally impossible that the people here can subsist any time under such inconveniences as they have brought on themselves." Such inconveniences became more irksome as time passed, with the result that

On April 21, 1766, the vigilant Boston Sons voted that when the rumors should be confirmed they would celebrate the momentous event in a befitting manner-would celebrate it "Under the deepest Sense of Duty and Loyalty to our Most Gracious Sovereign King George, and in respect and Gratitude to the Patriotic Ministry, Mr. Pitt, and the