Events of 1768—Protests and Loyal Petitions of the Colonists against the English Parliamentary Acts for Raising Revenue in the Colonies.

The meetings and protests against the Revenue Acts and petitions for their repeal, which began in the autumn of 1767, increased throughout the colonies in 1768. In January, the General Assembly of Massachusetts voted a temperate and loyal petition to the King,[301] and letters urging the rights of the province, addressed to Lord Shelburne, General Conway, the Marquis of Rockingham, Lord Camden, and the Earl of Chatham. The petition and these letters were all to the same effect. The petition to the King was enclosed to Denis de Berdt, a London merchant (who was appointed agent for the colony), with a long letter of instructions. All these papers are pervaded with a spirit of loyalty, and ask for nothing more than the enjoyment of the rights and privileges which they had ever possessed and enjoyed down to the year after the peace of Paris in 1763.

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In addition to these representations and letters sent to England, the Massachusetts General Assembly adopted, on the 11th of February, and sent a circular letter to the Speakers of the respective Houses of Burgesses of the other American provinces. In this ably-written letter there is no dictation or assumption of authority, but a statement of their representations to England, and a desire for mutual consultation and harmonious action. They say: "This House hope that this letter will be candidly considered in no other light than as expressing a disposition freely to communicate their mind to a sister colony, upon a common concern, in the same manner as they would be glad to receive the sentiments of your or any other House of Assembly on the continent."

As this letter was the first step to the union of the American colonies, and was followed by results that culminated in the War of Independence, it may be proper to give such extracts from it as will show its character and design; in neither of which do I[Pg 339] find anything which I think is inconsistent with the principles and spirit of a loyal subject. The general principles on which they rested their claims to the rights and privileges of British subjects are stated as follows:

"The House have humbly represented to the Ministry their own sentiments: That his Majesty\'s High Court of Parliament is the supreme legislative power over the whole empire. That in all free States the constitution is fixed; and as the supreme legislative derives its power and authority from the constitution, it cannot overleap the bounds of it without destroying its foundation. That the constitution ascertains and limits both sovereignty and allegiance; and therefore his Majesty\'s American subjects, who acknowledge themselves bound by the ties of allegiance, have an equitable claim to the full enjoyment of the fundamental rules of the British constitution. That it is an essential, unalterable right in nature, ingrafted into the British constitution as a fundamental law, and ever held sacred and irrevocable by the subjects within the realm, that what a man hath honestly acquired is absolutely his own, which he may freely give, but cannot be taken from him without his consent. That the American subjects may, therefore, exclusive of any consideration of Charter rights, with a decent firmness adapted to the character of freemen and subjects, assert this natural constitutional right.

"It is moreover their humble opinion, which they express with the greatest deference to the wisdom of the Parliament, that the Acts made there, imposing duties on the people of this Province, with the sole and express purpose of raising a revenue, are infringements of their natural and constitutional rights; because, as they are not represented in the British Parliament, his Majesty\'s Commons in Great Britain by those Acts grant their property without their consent."

Then, after showing the impracticability, on various grounds, of the representation of the colonies in the British Parliament, on which account local subordinate Legislatures were established, that the colonists might enjoy the inalienable right of representation, the circular letter proceeds:

"Upon these principles, and also considering that were the right in the Parliament ever so clear, yet for obvious reasons it would be beyond the rule of equity, that their constituents[Pg 340] should be taxed on the manufactures of Great Britain here, in addition to the duties they pay for them in England, and other advantages arising to Great Britain from the Acts of Trade, this House have preferred a humble, dutiful, and loyal petition to our most gracious Sovereign, and made such representation to his Majesty\'s Ministers as they apprehend would tend to obtain redress.

"They have also submitted to consideration, whether any people can be said to enjoy any degree of freedom if the Crown, in addition to its undoubted authority of constituting a Governor, should appoint him such a stipend as it shall judge proper, without the consent of the people, and at their expense; and whether, while the judges of the land and other civil officers hold not their commissions during good behaviour, their having salaries appointed for them by the Crown, independent of the people, hath not a tendency to subvert the principles of equity and endanger the happiness and security of the subjects.

"In addition to these measures, the House have wrote a letter to their agent, Mr. De Berdt, the sentiments of which he is directed to lay before the Ministry, wherein they take notice of the hardship of the Act for Preventing Mutiny and Desertion, which requires the Governor and Council to provide enumerated articles for the King\'s marching troops, and the people to pay the expense; and also the commission of the gentlemen appointed Commissioners of Customs to reside in America, which authorizes them to make as many appointments as they think fit, and to pay the appointees what sums they please, for whose malconduct they are not accountable." ...

"These are the sentiments and proceedings of this House; and as they have too much reason to believe that the enemies of the colonies have represented them to his Majesty\'s Ministers and the Parliament as factious, disloyal, and having a disposition to make themselves independent of the mother country, they have taken occasion, in the most humble terms, to assure his Majesty and his Ministers that, with regard to the people of this province, and, as they doubt not, of all the colonies, the charge is unjust.

"The House is fully satisfied that your Assembly is too generous and enlarged in sentiment to believe that this letter[Pg 341] proceeds from an ambition of taking the lead, or dictating to other Assemblies; they freely submit their opinion to the judgment of others, and shall take it kind in your House to point out to them anything further that may be thought necessary.

"This House cannot conclude without expressing their firm confidence in the King, our common Head and Father, that the united and dutiful supplications of his distressed American subjects will meet with his Royal and favourable acceptance.

Signed by the Speaker."

This circular letter of the Massachusetts Assembly was exceedingly displeasing to the British Ministry, and called forth two letters from the Earl of Hillsborough, who had succeeded the Earl of Shelburne as Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies.

One of these letters was a circular addressed through the Governor to the General Assemblies of each of the several colonies. This letter is dated "Whitehall, April 21, 1768." The first paragraph is as follows:

"Gentlemen,—I have his Majesty\'s commands to transmit to you the enclosed copy of a letter from the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, addressed by order of that House to the Speaker of the Assembly of each colony upon the continent of North America; as his Majesty considers this measure to be of a most dangerous and factious tendency, calculated to inflame the minds of his good subjects in the colonies, to promote an unwarrantable combination, and to excite and encourage an open opposition to and denial of the authority of Parliament, and to subvert the true principles of the constitution, it is his Majesty\'s pleasure that you should, immediately upon the receipt hereof, exert your utmost influence to defeat this flagitious attempt to disturb the public peace, by prevailing upon the Assembly of your province to take no notice of it, which will be treating it with the contempt it deserves."

This most ill-advised letter of Lord Hillsborough had the very opposite effect from that which he had hoped and intended. It increased the importance of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in the estimation of other colonies, and produced responses of approval from most of their General Assemblies.

The Speaker of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, in a[Pg 342] letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, dated Virginia, May 9, 1768, says:

"The House of Burgesses of this colony proceeded, very soon after they met, to the consideration of your important letter of the 11th of February, 1768, written in the name and by the order of the House of Representatives of your province; and I have received their particular direction to desire you to inform that honourable House that they applaud them for their attention to American liberty, and that the steps they have taken thereon will convince them of their opinion of the fatal tendency of the Acts of Parliament complained of, and of their fixed resolution to concur with the other colonies in their application for redress.

"After the most deliberate consultation, they thought it their duty to represent to the Parliament of Great Britain that they are truly sensible of the happiness and security they derive from their connection with and dependence upon Great Britain, and are under the greatest concern that any unlucky incident should interrupt that salutary harmony which they wish ever to subsist. They lament that the remoteness of their situation often exposes them to such misrepresentations as are apt to involve them in censures of disloyalty to their Sovereign, and the want of proper respect to the British Parliament; whereas they have indulged themselves in the agreeable persuasion, that they ought to be considered as inferior to none of their fellow-subjects in loyalty and affection.

"They do not affect an independency of their parent kingdom, the prosperity of which they are bound to the utmost of their abilities to promote, but cheerfully acquiesce in the authority of Parliament to make laws for preserving a necessary dependence and for regulating the trade of the colonies. Yet they cannot conceive, and humbly insist it is not essential to support a proper relation between the mother country and colonies transplanted from her, that she should have a right to raise money from them without their consent, and presume they do not aspire to more than the natural rights of British subjects when they assert that no power on earth has a right to impose taxes on the people, or take the smallest portion of their property, without their consent given by their representatives in Parliament. This has ever been considered as the chief pillar of the constitution.[Pg 343] Without this support no man can be said to have the least shadow of liberty, since they can have no property in that which another can by right take from them when he pleases, without their consent."

After referring to the antiquity and grounds of their rights as British subjects, and to the fact of their not being represented in Parliament, of the impracticability of being so, and "the oppressive Stamp Act, confessedly imposing internal taxes, and the late Acts of Parliament giving and granting certain duties in the British colonies, mainly tending to the same end," the Virginia House of Burgesses proceed as follows:

"The Act suspending the legislative power of New York, they consider as still more alarming to the colonists, though it has that single province in view. If the Parliament can compel them to furnish a single article to the troops sent over, they may by the same rule oblige them to furnish clothes, arms, and every other necessary, even the pay of the officers and soldiers—a doctrine replete with every mischief, and utterly subversive of all that is dear and valuable. For what advantage can the people of the colonies derive from their right of choosing their own representatives, if those representatives, when chosen, were not permitted to exercise their own judgments—were under a necessity (on pain of being deprived of their legislative authority) of enforcing the mandates of the British Parliament?

"They trust they have expressed themselves with a firmness that becomes freemen pleading for essential rights, and with a decency that will take off every imputation of faction or disloyalty. They repose entire confidence in his Majesty, who is ever attentive to the complaints of his subjects, and is ever ready to relieve their distress; and they are not without hopes that the colonies, united in a decent and regular opposition, may prevail on the new House of Commons to put a stop to measures so directly repugnant to the interests both of the mother country and her colonies."

The day after these proceedings by the House of Burgesses, the Governor of Virginia dissolved them.

The House of Representatives of New Jersey, after gratefully acknowledging the receipt of the Massachusetts circular, observe:

"The freedom with which the House of Representatives of[Pg 344] the Massachusetts Bay have communicated their sentiments upon a matter of so great concern to all the colonies, hath been received by this House with that candour the spirit and design of your letter merits. And at the same time that they acknowledge themselves obliged to you for communicating your sentiments to them, they have directed me to assure you that they are desirous to keep up a correspondence with you, and to unite with the colonies, if necessary, in further supplications to his Majesty to relieve his distressed American subjects."

Answers to the Massachusetts circular from the Houses of Representatives of Connecticut, of Georgia, and of Maryland, were given to the same effect. The Maryland House of Representatives, in addition to the answer to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, presented an address to Governor Sharpe, of Maryland, in reply to the letter of Lord Hillsborough. Their address is dated June 23rd, 1768, and contains the following words:

"In answer to your Excellency\'s message of the 20th, we must observe, that if the letter from the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, addressed to and communicated by our Speaker to this House, be the same with the letter, a copy of which you are pleased to intimate hath been communicated to the King\'s Ministers, it is very alarming to find, at a time when the people of America think themselves aggrieved by the late Acts of Parliament imposing taxes on them for the sole and express purpose of raising a revenue, and in the most dutiful manner are seeking redress from the Throne, any endeavours to unite in laying before their Sovereign what is apprehended to be their just complaint, should be looked upon \'as a measure of most dangerous and factious tendency, calculated to inflame the minds of his Majesty\'s good subjects in the colonies, and to promote an unwarrantable combination, to excite and encourage an open opposition to and denial of the authority of Parliament, and to subvert the true principles of the constitution.\'

"We cannot but view this as an attempt in some of his Majesty\'s Ministers to suppress all communication of sentiments between the colonies, and to prevent the united supplications of America from reaching the royal ear. We hope the conduct of this House will ever evince their reverence and[Pg 345] respect for the laws, and faithful attachment to the constitution; but we cannot be brought to resent an exertion of the most undoubted constitutional right of petitioning the Throne, or any endeavours to procure and preserve a union of the colonies, as an unjustifiable attempt to revive those distractions which it is said have operated so fatally to the prejudice of both the colonies and the mother country. We have the warmest and most affectionate attachment to our most gracious Sovereign, and shall ever pay the readiest and most respectful regard to the just and constitutional power of the British Parliament; but we shall not be intimidated by a few sounding expressions from doing what we think is right."[302]

Thus the unconstitutional assumptions and despotic instructions of Lord Hillsborough to the Legislative Assemblies of the several colonies were manfully and in a moderate and loyal spirit repelled by them, in the clear knowledge of the constitutional rights of Englishmen, whether resident in America or England. But while Lord Hillsborough foolishly and vainly dictated to the several colonies to treat the colony of Massachusetts with contempt, he advanced a step further in his would-be domination over Massachusetts itself by directing Governor Barnard to order the House of Representatives, under a threat of dissolution, to rescind the resolution which they had adopted to send the circular to the representative Assemblies of other colonies. Lord Hillsborough, in a letter to the Governor of Massachusetts Bay, dated April 22nd, 1768, said:

"It is the King\'s pleasure, that so soon as the General Court is again assembled, at the time prescribed by the Charter, you should require of the House of Representatives, in his Majesty\'s name, to rescind the resolution which gave birth to the circular letter from the Speaker, and to declare their disapprobation thereof, and dissent to that rash and hasty proceeding." "But if, notwithstanding the apprehensions which may justly be entertained of the ill-consequences of a con............