A Taste of Shumate’s Sugar Act

At the Journal of the American Revolution, John Gilbert McCurdy (author of Quarters) just reviewed Ken Shumate’s new book, The Sugar Act and the American Revolution.

I’m pleased to know about this study because I’ve long seen histories mention the Sugar Act of 1764 as colonial Americans’ first grievance of the decade. It prompted James Otis’s pamphlet The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved, which established “no taxation without representation” as the logical foundation for colonial resistance (without using that phrase, which didn’t appear until 1768).

And yet in looking at the more widespread resistance to the Crown in the late 1760s, and reading the colonists’ own arguments, the taxes and restrictions on sugar (and molasses, and rum, and later coffee and wine) show up barely at all.

Shumate’s study offers some explanations. First, the traders of the 1760s were used to an imperial tax on molasses, which was first instituted in 1733. The main purpose of that law was to discourage trading with French, Spanish, and Dutch West Indies, so objecting to it didn’t come across as patriotic or law-abiding. It was easier to smuggle quietly.

Then in 1764 prime minister George Grenville revised the law, actually cutting the duty in the hope that more American merchants would see obeying the law as the economical alternative. Then in early 1766 the Marquess of Rockingham’s government reduced the duty still further. There was literally less to complain about. To be sure, that last revision meant the government was taxing molasses from the British islands, too, but the North Americans were so pleased with Rockingham’s repeal of the Stamp Act that they didn’t raise a fuss.

Another big factor in the colonial response, I think, was that that Sugar Act’s taxes and trade restrictions affected only a small portion of the population. Molasses traders and rum distillers were a special interest. The biggest threat to their business actually came from distillers on the British Caribbean islands producing their own rum instead of shipping all the raw material to the mainland.

In contrast, the Stamp Act affected everyone in the colonies who filed or responded to lawsuits, read newspapers, got married, and more, which meant everyone. Though rum made from molasses was popular, tea was even more popular, so Charles Townshend’s 1767 tax on that import produced more widespread, longer-lasting opposition.

As McCurdy writes:

Although strict enforcement actually increased with the 1766 revision, the Americans raised few objections to the Sugar Act. Instead, between 1768 and 1772, the law brought in nearly £165,000 from duties on molasses, sugar, madeira, and other goods. But taxing British sugars did little to stem the tide of foreign products as 97 percent of the four million gallons of molasses that came into America derived from foreign sources.

Colonial ambivalence toward the Sugar Act continued despite the Townshend duties of 1767. Although Boston merchants demanded that no British goods would be imported until all taxes were repealed — including the Sugar Act — resistance from merchants in Philadelphia and New York forced them to drop this demand. Indeed, it was not until after the Boston Tea Party of 1773 and the Coercive Acts of 1774 that Americans turned against the Sugar Act.

Looking back, writers started to treat the Sugar Act as the start of their troubles. At the time, however, colonists saw bigger things to complain about.

Getting to Know the Prime Ministers

George Grenville was the prime minister of Great Britain in 1765, when he pushed Parliament to pass the Stamp Act.

The Duke of Portland was prime minister in 1783 when British diplomats signed the Treaty of Paris.

Between those two men, five others served as prime minister, one in two separate stints. Lord North held the job for longer than all the others put together, so he was the most important to the American Revolution. Even so, all those men led governments that made crucial decisions on Britain’s colonial policy.

It’s tempting to view Downing Street politics of that time through the model of today’s British government, but that would be a mistake. Changes in the British cabinet during the eighteenth century had more to do with personalities, the king’s preferences, and chance than with national party politics and majorities.

I’m therefore grateful to have found the Prime Ministers podcast. In each episode, the political journalist and former Conservative office-seeker Iain Dale interviews a historian about one person who served as Britain’s prime minister since Robert Walpole first defined the office. I’ve been picking out the episodes on the eighteenth century.

The podcast and Dale’s choice of interlocutors are based on his anthology of profiles The Prime Ministers: 55 Leaders, 55 Authors, 300 Years of History. It was published in the U.K. last year and is scheduled to come out in the U.S. of A. at the end of 2021.

One insight from those discussions was how experience in the House of Commons was usually important for a prime minister’s success, yet the system still favored candidates from the hereditary aristocracy. After Grenville the prime ministers included two dukes, a marquess, and two earls.

One of those earls, Chatham, had the best years of his career as William Pitt in the House of Commons. The other, Shelburne, never got to sit in Parliament as a young man and therefore, the podcast discussion suggests, he lacked the negotiating experience needed to win members over to his policies.

Lord North’s title was a courtesy; he wasn’t yet a peer but only the son and heir of the Earl of Guilford, so he was eligible for the Commons. That seat gave North lots of experience in party politics and legislation, leading to that long tenure as prime minister. In fact, less than two years after losing office because of Yorktown, North maneuvered himself back into being one of the real powers behind the Duke of Portland.

Another valuable lesson of these profiles is that events in America rarely played a role in changes at the top of the British government. Grenville lost favor with the royal family, depression led the Chatham ministry to crumble, and the Duke of Grafton left because of developments in Corsica. Only Lord North lost the post because of what happened on the far side of the Atlantic.

For the record, the prime ministers during America’s Revolution were:

• George Grenville (1763-1765)
• Marquess of Rockingham (1765-1766, head of a coalition initially dominated by the Duke of Cumberland, the king’s uncle)
• Earl of Chatham (1766-1768)
• Duke of Grafton (1768-1770)
• Lord North (1770-1782)
• Marquess of Rockingham again (1782)
• Earl of Shelburne (1782-1783)
• Duke of Portland (1783, figurehead of a coalition dominated by Lord North and Charles James Fox)

Then came William Pitt the Younger, who held onto the office for eighteen years and then came back for more.

The Life and Death of Nathaniel Rogers

Nathaniel Rogers was born in Boston in 1737. His mother was a sister of Thomas Hutchinson, who later that year was chosen to be both a selectman and the town’s representative to the Massachusetts General Court.

Young Natty was orphaned as a small boy, and his Uncle Thomas raised him, treating him as another son. He didn’t attend Harvard College, but he nonetheless gained a degree by getting a master’s degree from the University of Glasgow and then asking Harvard to recognize that with a reciprocal (ad eundem) bachelor’s.

While Rogers was in Britain, he came across a copy of New-England’s Prospect by William Wood, a guide to joining the new Massachusetts Bay Colony published in 1634. This was just the sort of historical source his uncle liked. Rogers arranged for it to be reprinted in Boston in 1764, adding a long introduction that fit the founding of Massachusetts into the overall Whig history of Britain.

The political philosophy Rogers expressed in that introduction fit well alongside the arguments James Otis, Jr., was making in his pamphlets about recent Crown laws violating long established rights. In fact, James Bowdoin apparently assumed Otis wrote the introduction, writing his name into a copy.

Rogers saw himself as a Whig and a proponent of American interests. On a trip to London in 1767, he wrote to his uncle about former prime minister George Grenville:

Mr Greenville seems our most bitter enemy, & takes every opportunity to render us obnoxious. The only motion this session upon American matters was made by him, that an Enquiry should be entered into by the House upon a certain Boston paper of Octo. 5. containing the most virulent aspersions & insinuations . . .

As far as I can judge from the very short time I have been here, nothing like threatning will do here, it will serve to enflame minds already much agitated but representations supported by facts & strong reasoning will be attended to. America appears of Consequence, & the Nation in general seems interested, the Manufacturers & commercial people so far as their Interest is Affected are on our side, but all the Landed Interest are against us.

He also blamed the Customs service for having “stretched their Authority to the utmost,” which was “one great cause of their ill usage.”

Nonetheless, as Rogers’s warning against “threatning” suggests, he opposed the political methods of the Boston Whigs: public demonstrations, boycotts, harsh rhetoric in the newspapers, legislative confrontations with the governor, and of course riots. He was pleased when the Crown cracked down on his home town, writing, “We were grown into a most wretched state before the arrival of the troops. . . . the firmness of parliament will be the only cure of these Evils.”

Ultimately, Rogers was invested in the imperial patronage system. He used his connections with Lt. Gov. Hutchinson in business and in seeking royal appointments. He married into the extended Wentworth family that supplied New Hampshire with its governors, and he adopted his wife’s Anglicanism. In London he tried to line up support for himself to succeed Andrew Oliver, his uncle’s brother-in-law, as royal secretary of Massachusetts.

In the fall of 1769, Customs house records revealed that Rogers had continued to ship in goods from Britain in defiance of the non-importation agreement. A 4 October Boston town meeting condemned him along with a few other importers. That same day Hutchinson wrote to the absent governor:

Rogers…thinks himself in immediate danger and desired to know if I could protect him. I told him that if he could pitch upon any particular person he might go & make oath before a Justice of peace & he would bind him to keep the peace &c. I could do no more for him. He will not be able to hold out unless he quits the Town.

In early January 1770, William Molineux led a polite but ominous crowd to Rogers’s door. He still refused to yield—unlike his cousins, the Hutchinson brothers. Hosting British army officers in his house might have helped. But in May, with the regiments removed and the Whigs ramping up pressure, Rogers left for New York.

By then, however, Nathaniel Rogers’s name had become notorious. The Sons of Liberty paraded his effigy around the city, then hanged and burned it. He left Manhattan in the middle of the night. A few days later, another effigy appeared outside his inn on Long Island. Back in Boston in June, he found people “repeatedly breaking his windows and in a most beastly manner casting tubs of ordure at his door.” He tried New Hampshire but turned down a seat on that colony’s high court because he still held out hope for an appointment in Massachusetts.

Returning in Boston, on 9 August Rogers visited Justice Edmund Quincy to swear out a complaint against someone for harassing him. Hutchinson wrote:

As he held up his hand to swear that he had grounds to suspect the person the Justice observed a Tremor and asked if he was not well and advised him not to give himself so much concern. He had got but a few steps from the Justices door by the Post Office when he complained of being ill to a woman who stood at her shop door and who asked him in where he remain’d near half an hour fancying he should grow better but an apoplectic fit came on, his countenance changed to black instantly and before I could get to him after notice given to me he was in the Agonies of death.

Nathaniel Rogers died at the age of thirty-three, 250 years ago today.

TOMORROW: Posthumous notoriety.

A New Approach to “American Affairs” in 1767

On 6 July 1767, 250 years ago today, the Boston Post-Boy printed important news from London. A letter dated 11 May described the new policy of Britain’s finance minister, Charles Townshend:

A few Days before the House of Commons adjourned for the Easter Holidays, the Ch[ancello]r of the Ex[cheque]r opened his budget, with very great Applause, even Mr. G——lle [George Grenville, former prime minister] complimented him on the Occasion: among other things he made it appear, that besides paying the Navy and Army and all other Charges for Government for the Last Year, he had sunk [i.e., reduced] Three Millions, nine hundred Thousand Pounds of the National Debt, and assured them that the next Year he would discharge a much greater Sum, notwithstanding they had reduced the Land-Tax one Shilling in the Pound.

He took an Occasion Yesterday to say, that it was reported out of Doors that he was for taxing America. I declare, says he, I am not, nor never was; I thought the Stamp-Act a very improper Measure, and us’d my Endeavours for the Repeal; and (holding out his Hand) he said he would cut off that Hand before he would vote for taxing America; and if any of the Duties laid on Trade shall appear burthensome, nothing shall be wanting in me to remove them.

“Duties laid on Trade”? What did that refer to? The newspaper then printed under the dateline of 14 May:

Yesterday the Chancellor of the Exchequer mov’d the House for Leave to bring in the following Bills, which was agreed to.

An Act to permit Wine, Fruit and Oil to be carried from Spain and Portugal directly to North-America

An Act laying a Duty on China, Paper, Glass, and Painters Colours, shipped from Great-Britain to the Colonies.

An Act for settling a Salary on the Governor, and Judges, &c in North America.

An Act for Establishing a Board of Revenue in North America.

And there was yet more information in letters sent by “some Gentlemen at the New-England Coffee House”—merchants doing business with the region, some of whom had family there as well. Those came with some passengers on a ship that left London on 14 May.

The Parliament met the 13th of May upon American Affairs, and resolved that a Bill be brought in after the following Manner,

That a Tax be laid on Painters Colours, Paper, Glass and China. That the Americans may have Liberty of importing Lemmons, Wine, Fruit & Oil directly from Spain and Portugal, subject to a Duty, the Duty on Wine to be 7£ per Ton

That the Duty on Tea remaining in England be taken off, and a Duty of 3d. per lb. be laid on the Importation in America.

That there be a Board of Customs, as also a Court of Exchequer in New England.

That the Legislative Power of New-York cease until they comply with the Billeting Bill.

That the Governors and Judges be made independent by encreasing their Salary, which is to be paid out of the Revenues of the Customs.

George Grenville made a Motion to oblige the Americans to take an Oath of Allegiance and Obedience to the Parliament of Great Britain, which was put to Vote—for the Question 90[;] against it 180 odd.

The chancellor of the exchequer’s new bills became known as the Townshend Acts—a program that installed new tariffs on selected goods shipped from Britain to America, strengthened the Customs service to collect that revenue, and directed it to officials appointed by the London government.

Another new law put pressure on the New York assembly to supply barracks and firewood for royal troops in that province. Though the House of Commons voted down Grenville’s proposal that Americans have to swear an oath of allegiance, the rest of the package had a lot to concern North American Whigs, regardless of Townshend’s assurance that he opposed “taxing America.”

And by the time the Post-Boy and other newspapers printed that intelligence, the laws had already sailed through the entire Parliament. On 29 June, King George III gave his assent, and the Townshend Acts became law.

TOMORROW: Who assured Townshend that Americans wouldn’t object to tariffs?

Franklin’s Questioning Continued

Here’s more of Benjamin Franklin’s testimony before Parliament about the unfavorable American reaction to the Stamp Act.

These questions come from a stretch of the recorded questions that Franklin identified as asked “chiefly by the former Ministry”—i.e., George Grenville and his supporters, who had enacted that law and were still trying to argue that it was the best option:

Q. You say the Colonies have always submitted to external taxes, and object to the right of parliament only in laying internal taxes; now can you shew that there is any kind of difference between the two taxes to the Colony on which they may be laid?

A. I think the difference is very great. An external tax is a duty laid on commodities imported; that duty is added to the first cost, and other charges on the commodity, and when it is offered to sale, makes a part of the price. If the people do not like it at that price, they refuse it; they are not obliged to pay it. But an internal tax is forced from the people without their consent, if not laid by their own representatives. The stamp-act says, we shall have no commerce, make no exchange of property with each other, neither purchase nor grant, nor recover debts; we shall neither marry, nor make our wills, unless we pay such and such sums, and thus it is intended to extort our money from us, or ruin us by the consequences of refusing to pay it.

Q. But supposing the external tax or duty to be laid on the necessaries of life imported into your Colony, will not that be the same thing in its effects as an internal tax?

A. I do not know a single article imported into the Northern Colonies, but what they can either do without, or make themselves.

Q. Don’t you think cloth from England absolutely necessary to them?

A. No, by no means absolutely necessary; with industry and good management, they may very well supply themselves with all they want.

Q. Will it not take a long time to establish that manufacture among them? and must they not in the mean while suffer greatly?

A. I think not. They have made a surprising progress already. And I am of opinion, that before their old clothes are worn out, they will have new ones of their own making.

Q. Can they possibly find wool enough in North-America?

A. They have taken steps to increase the wool. They entered into general combinations to eat no more lamb, and very few lambs were killed last year. This course persisted in, will soon make a prodigious difference in the quantity of wool. And the establishing of great manufactories, like those in the clothing towns here, is not necessary, as it is where the business is to be carried on for the purposes of trade. The people will all spin, and work for themselves, in their own houses.

Q. Can there be wool and manufacture enough in one or two years?

A. In three years, I think, there may.

Q. Does not the severity of the winter, in the Northern Colonies, occasion the wool to be of bad quality?

A. No; the wool is very fine and good.

Q. In the more Southern Colonies, as in Virginia; don’t you know that the wool is coarse, and only a kind of hair?

A. I don’t know it. I never heard it. Yet I have been sometimes in Virginia. I cannot say I ever took particular notice of the wool there, but I believe it is good, though I cannot speak positively of it; but Virginia, and the Colonies south of it, have less occasion for wool; their winters are short, and not very severe, and they can very well clothe themselves with linen and cotton of their own raising for the rest of the year.

Q. Are not the people, in the more Northern Colonies, obliged to fodder their sheep all the winter?

A. In some of the most Northern Colonies they may be obliged to do it some part of the winter.

They were literally getting down into the weeds there.

Despite Franklin’s confidence, America didn’t stop importing cloth from Britain for decades. At the same time, Parliament never attempted a cloth tax; most likely the Englishmen involved in that business would have complained.

Franklin’s distinction between types of taxes did not mean that he endorsed the idea that Parliament could levy external taxes and not provoke protests from America. But his words did suggest to the lawmakers that there were fewer argument against external taxes.

The next time Parliament tried to raise revenue in North America, therefore, it avoided internal taxes but enacted Customs duties on some imported goods, particularly tea.

“Happy Years to the Sons of LIBERTY”

Since there’s no better time to quote carrier verses about the Stamp Act than now, the sestercentennial of the period when that law remained a hot topic in North American politics, here’s another example.

This one comes from New York and is credited to a well known newspaper seller there—Lawrence Sweeny, not a young apprentice but a grown man from Ireland.

New Year’s
ODE
For the YEAR 1766,
Being actually dictated,
BY
LAWRENCE SWINNEY,
Carrier of News, Enemy to Stamps, a Friend to the Constitution, and an Englishman every Inch.

I AM against the Stamp Act;
If it takes Place, I’m ruined for ever.
C———’s Coach and J———’s House!
Lord Colvil, General Murray!
I’m in Debt to the Doctors,
And never a Farthing to pay.
The Weather is severely cold.
I have the Rheumatism in my Leg,
And but little Hay for my little Horse,
And if Famine should stamp him to Death,
More than half my Fortune in gone!
What shall I say for the Boys of New-York?
Happy Years to the Sons of LIBERTY.

Ding Dong.
Ding Dong.
Long live the KING,
The KING live long.
But the DEVIL may Shoot,
Wicked G————l and B——.

Well, that certainly has the sound of something someone might dictate, especially late at night in a tavern. But what’s it all about?

At the bottom “G————l and B———” are clearly George Grenville and Lord Bute, the prime minister who proposed the Stamp Act and his predecessor who didn’t but still got blamed for it all over North America.

“C———’s Coach” refers to Lt. Gov. Cadwallader Colden’s coach, fed to a bonfire during New York’s anti-Stamp Act protest on 1 Nov 1765. “J———’s House” refers to the house rented by Maj. Thomas James and torn apart by rioters that night.

“Lord Colvil” must be Adm. Lord Colville, the man in charge of the Royal Navy in North America at that time. He was based in Halifax, not New York, but as the new year began he was threatening to have the navy seize any ship trying to leave harbor without the correct papers.

“General Murray” was Gen. James Murray, governor of Quebec. He doesn’t seem to have had anything to do with the Stamp Act in New York. But his accommodation of the French Canadians—the vast majority of the people he governed—was making him unpopular with the English settlers up in Canada.

The names of Colville and Murray would have been especially resonant for Sweeny since they were both commanders during the recent Seven Years’ War. According to an article in the Magazine of American History in 1877, the news carrier became known as “Bloody News” Sweeny for his habit of shouting out that phrase to sell newspapers during the war.

Finally, Sweeny is studied today as an early example of Irish-American humor and pride. For example, the American Antiquarian Society has featured the New Year’s verse he distributed in 1769, which is proudly and loudly Irish. That makes the 1766 handbill’s phrase “an Englishman every Inch” somewhat problematic. I take that as Sweeny’s claim to all the rights of Englishmen, including not having a Stamp Tax foisted upon you (even though by that year Englishmen had been paying a Stamp Tax for decades).

TOMORROW: Sweeny against the Stamp Act.

John Huske on “an inland tax” for North America

As shown yesterday, on 1 Nov 1765 Bostonians hung an effigy of John Huske from Liberty Tree. Most histories say this was based on the mistaken notion that Huske had proposed the Stamp Act in Parliament when in fact he had opposed it.

I’ve found two profiles of Huske online, one built around his political career in Britain and the other in the Franklin Papers and thus more focused on his links back to America.

A lot of Bostonians knew Huske. He was a son of Ellis Huske, postmaster of Boston and chief justice of New Hampshire. He was named for an uncle who became a prominent general. After being born in Portsmouth, the young Huske moved to Boston for schooling and to begin his career in business.

In 1748 Huske headed to London to make his fortune. He seems to have done that in several ways over the next two decades, losing his money an equal number of times. He also went into politics, attaching himself to Charles Townshend. His campaigning in the district of Hull in 1757 prompted a letter to a duke that said:

Mr. Huske finding that he could make no impression even upon the mob which I had secured, and which he expected great matters from, thought it yesterday most prudent to retire which saved us the trouble of throwing him into the Humber

In 1763, Huske finally got elected to the House of Commons from Maldon.

As a native of America and a merchant doing business with the colonies, Huske often spoke in Parliament about American policy. Some people were more impressed than others. Horace Walpole called him “a wild, absurd man.” He had a lot of ideas, but he wasn’t close enough to the Grenville administration for most people to pay attention to them.

In March 1764, George Grenville and his ministers first proposed a Stamp Tax for North America. Charles Garth, an agent for South Carolina, reported on Huske’s response:

The chancellor of the Exchequer at first proposed it as a measure to take place this sessions, but Mr. Alderman [William] Beckford and Mr. Huske signifying their wish to have the colonies apprized of the intention of Parliament, Mr. Grenville readily acquiesced, declaring it was far from his inclination to press any measure upon any part of the dominions without giving them time to be heard, should they have objections thereto.

Thus, rather than proposing the Stamp Act, Huske actually helped to delay it for a year.

In August 1764, Huske sent a letter to his brother-in-law Edmund Quincy, Jr. (1726-1782), who published it in the 29 Oct 1764 Boston Gazette. It was a reply to “the Committee of Merchants in Boston” who had addressed him about the state of trade the previous February, and was long enough to take up a full page of the paper.

In that letter Huske lamented the Sugar Act and warned that a Stamp Act was likely to pass in Parliament’s upcoming session. He asked the Massachusetts merchants to send any him information he could use to argue against it: “why the provincial stamp did not succeed with you and at New-York;…with every reason you can assign against the establishment of a general stamp duty throughout America.”

Huske blamed “the indiscreet conversation of some Americans, who deny the rights of Kings, Lords and Commons, to impose such a tax on America.” Raising that argument had forced the ministry’s hand, he suggested; the only way for them to confirm Parliament’s sovereignty across the whole Empire now was to enact just such “an inland tax.”

Huske then went to grumble about “the principal author and abettor of this mushroom policy” becoming known “as the person to whom the colonists are indebted for the postponing of the Stamp duty.” He wrote opaquely about “the other undiscerning American he has drawn into the adoption of his sentiments,” and of yet “another Gentleman” whom Americans saw “as their honestest, ablest, firmest, and most successful friend.” All that suggests there was a lot of jockeying, and some backstabbing, among the men in London who claimed to represent American interests. Huske obviously wanted his Massachusetts correspondents to give him more credit for the Stamp Act’s delay.

However, Huske had apparently made his own proposal for raising revenue in North America. According to James Harris’s notes on parliamentary speeches, on 31 Jan 1764 Huske had “proposed an entire new bill of his own—a capitation tax, I think—to be extended through Scotland, Ireland and America.” That’s another term for a poll tax, and it would have hit every free adult male on top of the colonies’ own poll taxes. A few days after that speech, someone wrote to Boston warning that Huske was not “standing an advocate for his injured Country” but had “officiously proposed…a tax on the Colonies.”

Thus, although John Huske was an opponent of the Stamp Act, he was a proponent of imperial taxes on American colonists. Indeed, his proposal would have directly affected more householders than the Stamp Act. Bostonians were receiving contradictory messages from Huske and other correspondents in London, which might have reinforced an existing idea that he was an ambitious, devious man who could play to both sides.

So was it fair or unfair for Bostonians to hang Huske in effigy from Liberty Tree?

“There’s that Villain H—k”

On 1 Nov 1765, Bostonians hung two men in effigy from Liberty Tree. One was George Grenville, the prime minister who had sponsored the Stamp Act.

The other was identified in the newspapers as “J–hn H–sk–” or “J—n H—k” and in a word balloon in Paul Revere’s engraving (shown here) as “that Villain H—k.”

On that effigy hung this label:

Quest. What, Brother H—sk this is bad?
Ans. Ah indeed! I am a wicked Lad;
My Mother always thought me wild,
The Gallows is thy Portion Child
She often said, behold ’tis true,
And now the Dog must have his due;
For idle Gewgaws, wretched Pelf,
I sold my County—d–m’d my self;
And for my great unequal’d Crime,
The D——l take H—sk before his Time.
But if some Brethren I could Name,
Who shar’d the Crime, should share the Shame,
This glorious Tree tho’ big and tall,
Indeed would never hold ’em all.

Which doesn’t often a whole lot of clues.

But back on 9 Apr 1764, the Boston Evening-Post had published a letter sent from London that February which warned the ministry was planning “Stamp Duties” for North America. It went on to say:

What is most unlucky for us, is, there is one Mr. HUSKE, who understands America very well, and has lately got a seat in the House of Commons; but instead of standing an advocate for his injured Country (for he is an American born, and educated at Boston) he has officiously proposed in the House of Commons, to lay a tax on the Colonies, which will amount to £500,000 per ann. sterl. which he says they are well able to pay; and was heard by the House with great joy and attention.

We can thus identify “J–hn H–sk–” as John Huske (1724-1773), a Member of Parliament born in New Hampshire who had begun his career as a merchant in Boston. And some folks in Boston thought he was responsible for the Stamp Act.

TOMORROW: But what was Huske’s connection to the Stamp Act?

“The day the stamp-Act was to take Place”

The Stamp Act was scheduled to take effect on the first day of November in 1765. After that date, all courts in British North America were supposed to reject filings that weren’t on stamped paper. All ships leaving American ports on or after that date were supposed to have Customs forms on stamped paper, and the Royal Navy was empowered to stop ships to check. Newspapers published after that date were required to appear on stamped paper.

And yet in the most populous British colonies on the continent, from New Hampshire to South Carolina, stamp masters had been intimidated into resigning. In many of those places the royal authorities were keeping the stamped paper under wraps lest it be stolen or destroyed. So the big question was whether judges, Customs officers, and other royal appointees would insist on following the law or let business go on without stamps.

In Boston, the Whigs kept up their anti-Stamp campaign by reprising the opening act: hanging effigies on the elm they had named Liberty Tree. Here’s a report that appeared in the newspapers of 4 November:

Last Friday being the day the stamp-Act was to take Place, the Public were not much alarmed or displeased at the Morning’s being ushered in by the Tolling of Bells in several Parts of the Town, and the Vessels in the Harbour displaying their Colours half mast high, in token of Mourning: and tho’ some previous Steps had been taken by Authority to prevent any Pageantry, fearing lest Tumult and Disorder might be the Consequence yet the People were soon informed that the Great Tree at the South part of the Town (known by the Name of the Tree of Liberty ever since the memorable 14th of August) was adorned with the Effigies of the two famous or rather infamous enemies of American Liberty; G—ge G—nv—e and J–hn H–sk–.

The Figures continued suspended without any Molestation till about 3 o’clock in the Afternoon, when they were cut down in the View and amid the Acclamations of several Thousand People of all Ranks, and being placed in a Cart, were with great Solemnity and Order followed by the Multitude, formed into regular Ranks, to the Court House, where the Assembly was then sitting; from thence proceeding to the North End of the Town and then returning up Middle Street, they pass’d back thro’ the Town to the Gallows on the Neck, where the Effigies were again hung up, and after continuing some Time were cut down, when the Populace, as a token of their utmost Detestation of the Men they were designed to represent, tore them in Pieces and flung their Limbs with Indignation into the Air.—

This being done, three Cheers were given, and every Man was desired to repair to his Home, which was so punctually performed, that the Evening was more remarkable for Peace and Quietness than common; a Circumstance that would at any Time redound to the Honour of the Town, but was still more agreeable, as the Fears of many were great least it should prove another 26th of August; for the horrid Violences of which Night we hope the good Order of this will in some measure atone, as it is a Proof such Conduct was not agreeable to the Sentiments of the Town, but was only the lawless Ravages of some foreign villains, who took Advantage of the over heated Temper, of a very few people of this place, and drew them in to commit such violences and disorders as they shuddered at with horror in their cooler hours.

No, Boston’s leaders didn’t want “another 26th of August,” when mobs had attacked royal officials’ houses, culminating in the near-destruction of Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson’s mansion in the North End. That event sullied the reputation of Boston, its political leaders, and the whole anti-Stamp Act movement.

And getting through the first of November wasn’t enough. As the 4 November issue of the Boston Gazette makes clear, the town was looking forward with great anxiety to the following day:

Notwithstanding the Insinuations of those who would represent the Inhabitants of this Town as Mobbish, it has no doubt given Pleasure to the General Assembly now sitting, to find it quite otherwise; and that the spirited Endeavours of those who would picture the Betrayers of their invaluable Liberties in a just and ridiculous View, are attended with the greatest Order and Decorum. . . .

We are well assured, and we have Reason to think, that the Inhabitants are satisfied in it, that if any Exhibitions are made, as usual, on the 5th of the Month, the same unexceptionable Behaviour will be observed; those true Sons of Liberty having agreed to unite as Brethren, in preventing Disorders of every Kind, and in promoting the COMMON CAUSE.

In other words, the North-End and South-End gangs should not take advantage of a historic anniversary to have a series of brawls testing who was tougher and more patriotic, no matter how fun that tradition was.

TOMORROW: “G—ge G—nv—e” was George Grenville, but who was “J–hn H–sk–”?

Virginia Considers a Firm Stand Against the Stamp Act

Britain’s North American colonies had a chance to weigh in on the Stamp Act before Parliament passed it, as described back here. All of them said it would be a Bad Thing. Few or none offered any alternative way for the Crown to raise revenue for its army on the continent. So Prime Minister George Grenville proposed the law, and it sailed through.

News of the Stamp Act arrived in North America in early May 1765. Virginia was the oldest, largest, and most populous of Britain’s colonies on the continent at that time, and 250 years ago today its House of Burgesses took up the matter.

That legislature’s official record for 29 May 1765 concludes like this:

On a Motion made,

Resolved, That the House resolve itself into a Committee of the whole House immediately, to consider of the Steps necessary to be taken in Consequence of the Resolutions of the House of Commons of Great Britain relative to the charging certain Stamp Duties in the Colonies and Plantations in America.

The House accordingly resolved itself into the said Committee, and after some Time spent therein Mr. Speaker resumed the Chair, and Mr. Attorney reported that the said Committee had had the said Matter under their Consideration, and had come to several s Resolutions thereon, which he was ready to deliver in at the Table.

Ordered, That the said Report be received Tomorrow.

By becoming a committee of the whole, the burgesses could set aside their usual procedures and record-keeping to debate more freely.

The speaker of the house was John Robinson. He was also the province’s treasurer. He had held both offices since 1738, or for more than a quarter-century. That turned out to have been a Bad Thing, as Virginians discovered the next year when he died suddenly and they checked his books.

The colony’s attorney general was Peyton Randolph, shown above. He had been the principal author of the colony’s objections to the proposed Stamp Act, which had yet to receive an official reply from London. Randolph had also served in his office for a long time: since 1744, with a one-year interruption. His father had held the same office before him. Virginia didn’t like change.

The principal author of the proposed resolutions, however, was a newcomer: a young lawyer named Patrick Henry. He had been elected partway through the year to fill an empty seat and had arrived in Williamsburg only nine days before. Nonetheless, he had things to say about the new Stamp Act.

Near the end of his life, Henry wrote:

I had been for the first time elected a Burgess a few days before, was young, inexperienced, unacquainted with the forms of the House, and the members that composed it. Finding the men of weight averse to opposition, and the commencement of the tax at hand, and that no person was likely to step forth, I determined to venture, and alone, unadvised, and unassisted, on a blank leaf of an old law-book, wrote the within.

This is what the older Henry put down as his draft version of the resolutions:

Resolved, That the first Adventurers and Settlers of this his Majesties Colony and Dominion brought with them and transmitted to their Posterity and all other his Majestie’s Subjects since inhabiting in this his Majestie’s said Colony all the Priviledges, Franchises & Immunities that have at any Time been held, enjoyed, & possessed by the People of Great Britain.

Resolved, That by the two royal Charters granted by King James the first the Colonists aforesaid are declared intituled to all the Priviledges, Liberties & Immunities of Denizens and natural born Subjects to all Intents and Purposes as if they had been abiding and born within the Realm of England.

Resolved, That the Taxation of the People by themselves or by Persons chosen by themselves to represent them who can only know what Taxes the People are able to bear and the easiest Mode of raising them and are equally affected by such Taxes themselves is the distinguishing Characteristick of British Freedom and without which the ancient Constitution cannot subsist.

Resolved, That his Majestie’s liege People of this most ancient Colony have uninteruptedly enjoyed the Right of being thus governed by their own assembly in the Article of their Taxes and internal Police and that the same hath never been forfeited or any other Way given up but hath been constantly recognized by the Kings of People of Great Britain.

Resolved, Therefore that the General Assembly of this Colony have the only and sole exclusive Right & Power to lay Taxes & Impositions upon the Inhabitants of this Colony and that every Attempt to vest such Power in any Person or Persons whatsoever other than the General Assembly aforesaid has a manifest Tendency to destroy British as well as American Freedom.

Those were very strong words for 1765.

Gov. Francis Fauquier complained to his superiors in London about how this complaint was brought up:

just at the end of the Session when most of the members had left the town, there being but 39 present out of 116 of which the House of Burgesses now consists, a motion was made to take into consideration the Stamp Act, a copy of which had crept into the House, and in a Committee of the whole House five resolutions were proposed and agreed to, all by very small majorities.

Though the top brass of the Virginia burgesses didn’t like the Stamp Act, they really didn’t like change. Still, once the committee of the whole had approved those resolutions, the house had to vote on them.

TOMORROW: Debate in the House of Burgesses.

Stamp Act Approved by King, Leading to a Change of Government

On 22 Mar 1765, the Stamp Act for North America received the royal sign-off necessary before becoming law. However, George III never approved the bill. He approved of it, it’s clear, but in March 1765 when the bill reached that stage he was ill and confined to his room. Therefore, a special royal commission approved the Stamp Act for the king.

That process led to the fall of George Grenville’s ministry—but not because the Stamp Act kicked up so much opposition in America, much as we might like to believe that. Grenville was replaced before those protests became widespread.

Instead, this is how Edward Baines described the situation in his History of the Reign of George III (1820):

This event impressed upon his majesty’s mind the propriety of appointing some individual, who might, in case of the royal demise, exercise the functions of royalty during the minority of the Prince of Wales. The troubles in which the country had been involved by regencies obnoxious to the parliament and the nation, induced the king to desire parliamentary sanction to his appointment; and for the attainment of this object he went to the house of peers on his recovery, and recommended the two houses to pass a bill, enabling him to vest the regency in the hands of some one personage, from any number which parliament might nominate, with a council composed of individuals, whose relationship, offices, or rank might render them fit advisers to the regent.

The house of peers accordingly passed a bill, empowering his majesty to appoint as regent, the queen, or any member of the royal family, by which was meant only the descendants of George II. usually residing in Great Britain, till the Prince of Wales attained the age of eighteen years. The council whom they appointed was composed of the Dukes of York and Gloucester, his majesty’s brothers; the Duke of Cumberland, his uncle; Princes Henry Frederick and Frederick William, his youngest brothers; and the chief officers of state tor the time being.

By these provisions, the Princess of Wales, his majesty’s mother, was excluded from the number of those who might be appointed regent, as well as from the council.

In some quarters, whispers held that the king’s mother [shown above] was already guiding him, on her own and through his former tutor and first choice for chief minister, the Earl of Bute. Some folks even suggested that the Princess of Wales and Bute had been having an affair.

After the 1763 Treaty of Paris, Bute’s opponents had complained that he was too lenient on France and Spain. Bute had resigned, to the king’s dismay, and his deputy Grenville took over. Bute and Grenville had basically the same policies, but the king never liked his new prime minister personally.

Back to Baines on the regency bill and the Princess of Wales:

In the house of commons,…Lord Bute’s influence was sufficient to procure her nomination as one of the personages eligible for the regency; but this compliment was paid with so indifferent a grace, that it was not proposed to add her name to the list of the council, and the bill, with its amendment, being returned to the lords, was agreed to and passed.

The conduct of ministers on this occasion was considered by the Princess of Wales as a studied insult towards herself; and the downfall of the administration, which had been long anticipated, became now no longer doubtful.

Here’s the text of the final bill. One lesson from this episode seems to be that if you’re worried about the king’s mother having too much power, you’d better make sure you can cut her off, or else she’ll take you down.

In July, George III offered the prime minister’s job to the Marquess of Rockingham, heretofore the leader of the opposition in the House of Lords. I guess the king figured if he wasn’t going to get along with the chief minister, it might as well be about politics instead of personalities.

That led to five years of Whig reformers sharing power in London. North Americans expected the London government to be a lot more friendly to them, and Rockingham did repeal the Stamp Act. But he and his successors saw the same needs as Grenville to maintain Parliament’s sovereignty and raise money from the colonies.

Stamp Act Approved by Lords

On 27 Feb 1765 the House of Commons gave final approval to the new Stamp Act for North America. The bill then moved on to the House of Lords.

The North American colonies had some friends in the British peerage, or at least men willing to argue against chief minister George Grenville. However, the Duke of Newcastle (1693-1768), a former chief minister, seems to have been mostly retired. The Marquess of Rockingham (1730-1782, shown here) was the rising leader of the Whig opposition, but on this point he was silent.

In another year, Rockingham’s legal ally Charles Pratt (1714-1794) would be Baron Camden, and wartime minister William Pitt (1708-1778) would be the Earl of Chatham. They would advocate for North America in the upper house during the following years, but not yet.

The Lords approved the law on 8 Mar 1765. There was no debate and no vote against.

The Stamp Act went to King George III for final approval. And then it ran into unexpected trouble.

Introducing the Stamp Act

On 6 Feb 1765, two and a half centuries ago, the chief British minister, George Grenville (1712-1770, shown here), formally introduced the Stamp Act into the House of Commons.

That wasn’t a sudden move. Grenville had floated the idea of a stamp tax—in practical terms, a tax on paper—for the North American colonies in the previous spring. That allowed the colonial legislatures to express their responses to the idea of paying new taxes to support the imperial government.

Not surprisingly, those responses were negative. In November the Massachusetts legislature, after much discussion between the House and the Council, had sent the House of Commons a petition which said, in part:

That there have been communicated to your petitioners sundry resolutions of the House of Commons in their last session for imposing stamp duties or taxes upon the inhabitants of the colonies, the consideration whereof was referred to the next session.

That your petitioners acknowledge with all gratitude the tenderness of the legislature of Great Britain of the liberties of the subjects in the colonies, who have always judged by their representatives both of the way and manner in which internal taxes should be raised within their respective governments, and of the ability of the inhabitants to pay them.

That they humbly hope the colonies in general have so demeaned themselves, more especially during the late war, as still to deserve the continuance of all those liberties which they have hitherto enjoyed.

Not surprisingly, those preemptive rejections of a stamp tax (and complaints about the latest Sugar Act as well) didn’t go over well in London. In fact, the 4 May Providence Gazette reported how Grenville handled them:

By several Letters from London we learn, That the Addresses from the Colonies were wrote with such warm and unbecoming Expressions, that it would have been dangerous to have presented them to the Parliament: That when the House of Commons entered upon the Consideration of the Colonies, Mr. G——le said much upon the subject, and with much Moderation; that after he had shewn the Equity and Necessity of taxing the Colonies, he expressed much Concern at the undue Spirit of the Addresses, but forbore to be particular, lest it should exasperate the House; and requested they would proceed with Coolness and Moderation.

So from the start, the American colonists and the Parliament had trouble even finding common ground for a discussion.

COMING UP: The debate in London.