THE
COLONIAL
MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
the Constitution of their Country, and must expect that
those who have any Regard for it will endeavour in every
constitutional Way to prevent their Building themselves
up on the ruin of their Fellow-Citizens.
the Constitution of their Country, and must expect that
those who have any Regard for it will endeavour in every
constitutional Way to prevent their Building themselves
up on the ruin of their Fellow-Citizens.
Arthur Schlesinger - Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution
This account contained no names.
The
complete report of the committee, with the names of the importers,
etc. , maybe found in M. H. S. Ms. , 91 L. , p. 42. There were actually
twenty-eight importers who were non-signers, but the contents of their
orders were not known in most instances.
*J5os. Gas. , May I, 1769; also N. Y. Gas. & Merc. , May 8.
*Bos. News-Letter, May 11, 1769; also Bos. Town Recs. (,1758-1769),
p. 289.
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? NON-IMPORTATION
159
all people to shun the shops of the following firms as
men who preferred private advantage to public welfare:
William Jackson, Jonathan Simpson, J. and R. Selkrig,1
John Taylor, Samuel Fletcher, Theophilus Lillie, James
McMasters & Co. , Thomas and Elisha Hutchinson, and
Nathaniel Rogers. 2 Thomas and Elisha Hutchinson, it
should be noted, were sons of the lieutenant governor
and carried on a business of tea importation in which
the elder Thomas himself was interested. 8 Nathaniel
Rogers, another of the proscribed men, was a nephew of
the lieutenant governor. All these men were respected
merchants of the city; and so far as any records would
indicate, none of them were interested in illicit traffic or
even in the West Indian trade. No doubt most of them,
like the Hutchinsons, were conducting lawful businesses
which throve best under the regulations of Parliament;
and a number of them had friends and relatives among
the official class. They were not Tories in any political
sense, and neither then nor afterwards did they hold
posts under the government. They were men who, how-
ever, objected as fiercely to a direction of their affairs by
the populace as the smugglers of 1761 did to an inter-
ference with their business by a governmental writ of
assistance.
The effort to inaugurate a boycott against these men
brought to their defense the doughty champion, to whom
reference has already been made. John Mein. a co-pub-
1 Also spelled Selkridge and Selking.
1A''. Y. Journ. , June 29, 1769.
1 Vide infra, p. 282. I have found no evidence to support William Pal-
frey's allegation, made in a private letter to John Wilkes, October 30,
1770, that the elder Hutchinson, after graduation at Harvard, "was for
many years in the Holland trade, where he constantly practised all the
various methods of smuggling. " Palfrey, J. G. , William Palfrey (2
Libr. Am. ffiog. , Sparks, ed. , vol. vii), pp. 368-369.
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? THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
lisher of the Boston Chronicle. Mein was a native of
Scotland and had been a book dealer in Boston since his
arrival in October, 1764. He had received a good
education, he possessed a faculty for effective literary ex-
pression and made himself a useful citizen generally. He
had established a circulating library; and in December,
1767, he founded, with John Fleeming, the Boston Chron-
icle, which quickly showed itself to be the most enter-
prising sheet on the continent in content as well as
typographical appearance. After a time, he converted it
from a weekly to a semi-weekly, without any addition in
price, and it thus became the only journal in New Eng-
land published with such frequency. Mein had hitherto
avoided any part in the turmoil of the times and, with
the other editors, he had published the entire series of
the Farmer's Letters. In arousing the ire of John Mein,
the merchants of Boston had stirred up a veritable hor-
net's nest. '
1 For the facts of Mein's life, vide Thomas, I. . History of Printing
in America (Albany, 1874), vol. i, pp. 151-154, vol. ii, pp. 50-61; Ayer,
M. F. , and Mathews, A. , Check-List of Boston Newspapers 1704-1780
(Col. Sac. Mass. Pubs. , vol. ix), pp. 480-481. Thomas inclines to the
contemporary opinion that Mein was in the pay of the government at
this period. Hutchinson's correspondence in the Mass. Archives fails
to give any hint of such a connection. Mein himself denied again and
again that he was acting in behalf of "a Party," and he maintained
that he was "unbiassed by fear or affection, prejudice or party. " It is
evident, of course, that he held the confidence of the Customs Board
and had access to the information contained in their books. There are
some reasons for thinking that Mein left America in November, 1769,
and never returned. The present account has assumed, for good
reasons, that he was not away from Boston for any perceptible length
of time. E. g. , vide Hutchinson,^/aw. Bay, vol. iii, p. 260. After all,
the chief consideration is that the articles in the Chronicle, of which he
was universally reputed to be the author, continued to appear without
interruption until the Chronicle ceased publication. Professor Andrews
has recently brought to light some new facts concerning Mein's exper-
iences in Boston in " The Boston Merchants and the Non-Importation
Movement," Col. Soc. Mass. Pubs. , vol. xix, pp. 227-230.
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? NON-IMPORTATION
Mein's first blast came in an unsigned article in the
Chronicle of June 1, 1769. Declaring that the handbills,
recently circulated, gave the impression that the firms
named were the only importers of British goods in the
city, the article asserted that it was only just to make
known the truth. An exact account showed that twenty-
one vessels had arrived from Great Britain at Boston
from January 1, the date on which the agreement became
operative, to June 1, 1769; and that one hundred and
ninety different persons, many of them signers of the
agreement, had imported 162 trunks, 270 bales, 182 cases,
233 boxes, 1116 casks, 139 chests, 72 hampers, and other
quantities, all carefully detailed.
The attack elicited a quick response. A writer, evi-
dently speaking for the Committee of Merchants, replied
in the Boston Gaaette of June 12. In the number of
importers, he declared that Mein included almost one
hundred belonging to other ports, also clergymen,
masters of vessels and private persons who had imported
only a single article for family use. He called attention
to the fact that Mein had stated the quantity of goods
without differentiating between those permitted and
those debarred by the agreement and without noting the
number of packages imported for army and navy use.
Mein, he averred, included four vessels which, but for
storms and other delays, would have reached Boston be-
fore the agreement went into effect, and three vessels
from Scotland, belonging to strangers who had come
over to build ships. These being omitted from the list,
it was evident that the merchandise imported by the
people of Boston in violation of the agreement was "tri-
fling and of little Value. " So far as signers were con-
cerned, the report of the merchants' committee of
inspection was cited to prove that they had imported,
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? THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
contrary to the agreement, only 14 cases, 27 chests,
mostly of oil, 36 casks of beer, linseed oil and cheese,
50 hampers, chiefly of empty bottles, and 15 bundles;
all of which had been immediately placed under direction
of the committee. Not a single article of woolens nor
any kind of piece-goods had been imported by the signers.
The author of the earlier article was called upon to pub-
lish the names of the importers and to point out any
signers who had failed to submit their goods to the
committee of inspection.
Mein closed the discussion, for the time, simply by
announcing in his issue of the nineteenth that a list of
importers and manifests, from which his facts had been
drawn, was now lodged at the Chronicle office, and could
there be consulted by the candid and impartial public.
Up to this point, the chief effect of Mein's pugnacity on
public opinion concerning him was his expulsion from
the Free American Fire Society, on grounds that he was
an importer and was concerned in a " partial, evasive and
scandalous" attack on the respectable merchants of the
town. 1
Realizing the necessity for more effective measures of
dealing with importing merchants, the Boston trade
proceeded to work out an ingenious system of boycott.
At a meeting of July 26, 1769, they agreed to withhold
their business from any vessel which should load at any
British port with goods forbidden by the agreement.
In addition, a committee was appointed to examine the
manifests of any vessels which should arrive from Great
Britain before January 1, 1770, and to insert in the public
prints the names of violators of the agreement, unless
they should deliver the goods into charge of the stand-
1 Bos. Gas. July 10, 1769.
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? NON-IMPORTATION
ing committee of the merchants. Another committee
was appointed to secure a subscription of Boston inhab-
itants to boycott those men whose names had been pub-
lished in the handbills. 1 A few days later, a house-to-
house canvass was made among the citizens for signa-
tures to buy no goods debarred by the merchants' agree-
ment, and to support any further measures of the mer-
chants. " Lieutenant Governor Hutchinson, in a letter
about this time, wrote angrily that merchants' meetings
"are called and held by adjournments, whose resolutions
are come into, Committees appointed, and other proceed-
ings had in as formal a manner as in a body corporate
legally assembled and known and established by the Con-
stitution; and those meetings have had such effect that
. . . most of the Traders who until now had firmness to
stand out have joined in the subscription to import no
goods. "3 Indeed, of the importers who had been ex-
posed by the handbill, Jackson, Simpson, the Selkrigs,
Taylor and Fletcher now hastened to accept the agree-
ment and to promise that their fall importations would
be stored with the Committee of Merchants. 4
Having made such headway, the merchants determined
to press their advantage. At a meeting at Faneuil
Hall on August n, they voted that, whereas all the "Well
Disposed Merchants" (note well the expression! ) of
almost every province on the continent had resolved on
non-importation, local merchants who persisted in defy-
ing the agreement "must be considered as Enemies to
1 Mass. Gas. July 31, 1769; also N, Y. Goz. & Merc. , Aug. 7.
*Af. H. S. Ms,, 151, 1, 15. This non-mercantile agreement, dated
July 31, was soon signed by 113 persons.
? Letter to Hillsborough, Aug. 8, 1769. Brit. Papers ("Sparks
Mss. "), vol. i, p. 111.
4 Bos. Gas. , Aug. 14, 1769; N. Y. Journ. , Feb. 8, 1770.
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?
THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
the Constitution of their Country, and must expect that
those who have any Regard for it will endeavour in every
constitutional Way to prevent their Building themselves
up on the ruin of their Fellow-Citizens. " Thereupon,
the names of the following men were ordered to be in-
serted in the newspapers as objects of boycott: Theo-
philus Lillie, McMasters & Co. , T. and E. Hutchinson
and Nathaniel Rogers, all unrepentant though named in
the original handbills, and, in addition, John Mein, John
Bernard and Richard Clarke & Son. Richard Clarke
was another nephew of Hutchinson. John Greenlaw,
being called before the meeting upon charge of having
bought goods of violators of the agreement, acknowl-
edged his fault, and he surrendered the goods to the
custody of the committee. 1 A few days later Clarke &
Son, who had been published as importers, fully acceded
to the agreement and were ordered to be reinstated in
the public estimation. '
These new developments brought John Mein to the
firing-line again. In the Chronicle of August 17, he
devoted almost three entire pages to a vindication of
his conduct and leveled a charge of dishonesty against
the signers of the agreement. In his various occupa-
tions, he declared, he daily supported seventeen people,
fourteen of whom lived under his own roof and most of
whom would have lost employment if he had signed the
agreement. In his two years as printer, he had purchased
something like ? 400 worth of paper from the mill at
Milton. He employed four or five people in his book-
bindery and paid his foreman a yearly salary of ? 69 6s. 8d
lawful money. Moreover, it was notorious, he continued,
1 Bos. Go*. , Aug. 14, 1769; also N. Y. Go*. & Merc. , Aug. 28.
1Bos. Goz. Aug. 21, 1769.
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? NON-IMPORTATION ^5
that the non-importation was not generally observed.
In support of his statement, he announced his design to
publish, in the course of the following months, a detailed
account of the cargoes of the vessels which had arrived
at Boston since the beginning of the year. He began by
presenting the itemized manifest of the snow Pitt, which
had arrived at Boston on June 1.
This was the opening gun of a bitter campaign, which
continued at semi-weekly intervals, almost without in-
terruption, until the event of the Boston Massacre in
March, 1770. ' Mein's usual course was to place at the
head of the first column of page one of the Chronicle a
copy of the merchants' agreement, with the allowed
articles in enlarged black letters; then to follow with a
trenchant attack on the good faith of signers of the
agreement; and to conclude with a manifest, which pur-
ported to show, by name and item, that signers were
continuing to import clandestinely. Mein revealed him-
self to be a keen and relentless disputant; he utilized
every favorable point to the utmost, and was a past
master of phrase and retort. For instance, inasmuch as
the merchants' resolutions of August n had alluded to
the advocates of non-importation as the "Well Dis-
posed," Mein never lost a chance to apply the term to
the Committee of Merchants; and he did it with many a
satiric turn that must have entirely destroyed the peace
of mind of those worthies.
The statement of "the Merchants of the Town of
Boston" on August 28, with the fusillade of personal
1These articles were published during the period August 17, 1769 to
March I, 1770. After the issue of October 19, the publication of mani-
fests, though not of jibes and queries directed at the Committee of
Merchants, ceased until December n, when they were resumed. Fifty-
five cargoes were listed in all.
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? THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
vindications that followed, was a fair example of the
answering volleys which the supporters of the agreement
delivered. 1 Taking the five manifests which had been
published up to that time, they analyzed the figures care-
fully and showed that in no case had a signer deliberately
sought to evade the spirit of the agreement, and that
when a fault had been committed unintentionally, the
goods had been stored. Their analysis of the manifest
of the Pitt will suffice for purposes of illustration. Of
the thirty-one importers interested in the cargo, only
fifteen were Bostonians; and, of these, only four were
signers: Timothy Newell, John Rowe, John Erving and
the Hubbards. Newell had imported tin and iron plates,
which, it was stated, though not inserted in the original
agreement as permissible, were so understood from the
beginning and had since been made so by express vote,
and also several other articles open to importation in
other provinces. Rowe had imported shot and lines,
allowed by the agreement, and blankets and lines, con-
signed to him for use of the army. Erving had imported
Irish linen and beer, which had been ordered prior to
the agreement and were now under care of the commit-
tee. The goods sent to the Messrs. Hubbard had been
directed to their care for Stephen Ayrault, the Newport
merchant. Of the four other manifests discussed by the
committee, three of the vessels, Lydia, Last Attempt
and Paoli, were owned by John Hancock; and each
cargo contained articles forbidden by the agreement.
In one instance, that of N. Green, it was shown that the
34 casks of pork, which he had imported, had originally
been sent by him to London and had failed of sale. In
numerous cases, it was shown that the packages had been
1 Sot. Eve. Post, Aug. 28, 1769; also Bos. News-Letter, Aug. 31.
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? NON-IMPORTATION
wrongly labeled in the manifests. In conclusion, the
committee reiterated their former position that the
agreement was being closely obeyed, except by a few
non-signers; and Mein was charged with an attempt to
misrepresent and defraud.
Replies to Mein's attacks came from other sources as
well, usually in the form of flat disclaimers from the in-
dividual merchants accused. 1 Mein again paid his re-
spects to the Committee of Merchants in a lengthy reply
in the Chronicle of October 9 and 12. He made much
of the admission that Newell's importations were ad-
mitted on June 1 although not made an allowed article
until July 26, a palpable injustice to other dealers. He
had "good reason" to believe that Rowe's blankets
were not for army use; and he demanded to know just
where or how Erving's importations had been stored.
As for N. Green's pork, even admitting the circumstances,
was pork an allowed article? "Do the Public begin to
suspect," he wrote on October 23 in his "Catechism of
the 'Well Disposed'," " that a certain scheme is princi-
pally calculated to crush all the young Merchants and
Importers, that the trade may still remain in the hands
of a few grave ' well disposed' Dons, who are believed
to be exceedingly well stocked with Goods? "
Perhaps the most interesting charge which Mein
made was against John Hancock, merchant prince and
1Thus, John Avery denied absolutely that he had imported china
and British linen from London in the Sukey and declared that he had
imported nothing from Great Britain for two years. Bos. News-Letter,
Aug. 31, 1769. Vide statements of F. Johonnot and Benj. Andrews in
the same issue. Francis Green declared wrathily that he "did not de-
viate from the Agreement in any Instance, of Course did not import
any Tea," and he dubbed Mein a " Mushroom Judge" and "conceited
empty Noddle of a most profound Blockhead. " Ibid. , Sept. 21. For
examples'of Mein's rejoinders, vide Bos. Chron. , Sept. 4, 25.
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? ! <58 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
non-importer, for having imported five bales of "British
Linen" in the Lydia, which arrived at Boston on April
18, 1769. As that gentleman was out of the city, his
manager, William Palfrey, came to his defense in a sworn
statement that the contents of the bales had been misre-
presented by Mein, and that they were, in reality, " Rus-
sia Duck," allowed by the agreement. Mein replied by
publishing a copy of the cocket, certified by the customs
collector and comptroller, which attested the correctness
of his description. This verbal exchange continued for
some time,1 and received some attention in the Newport
Mercury, September 4, 1769, where it was observed that
Hancock as "one of the foremost of the Patriots in Boston
. . . would perhaps shine more conspicuously . . . if he
did not keep a number of vessels running to London and
back, full freighted, getting rich, by receiving freight on
goods made contraband by the Colonies. "" Hancock him-
self took no notice of Mein's attack until a letter from the
New York Committee of Merchants made allusion to it;
and in a signed statement he announced: "This is ONCE
FOR ALL to certify to whom it may concern, That I
have not in one single Instance, directly or indirectly,
deviated from said Agreement; and I now publickly defy
all Mankind to prove the CONTRARY. " 3 The truth
seems to be that the worst irregularity of which he was
guilty was an occasional carelessness on the part of his
ship-masters in receiving prohibited goods as freight;
and this did not become an offense under the Boston
1 For this dispute, vide Bos. CAron. , Aug. 21, 28, Sept. 4, 18, Oct.
9; and Bos. News-Letter, Aug. 31, 1769.
1"Civis" in the N. ff. Gas. , July 6, 13, 1770, expressed surprise
that " Mr. Hancock would suffer a consignment of 35 chests of tea to
a gentleman in this town, to come in a vessel of his from London . . . "
1 Under date of January 4. A'. Y. Journ. Jan. 18, 1770-
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? NON-IMPORTATION 1gp
agreement until July 26, 1769. 1 The discrepancy be-
tween the description in the manifest and the actual con-
tents of Hancock's bales was, in all probability, due to
clerical carelessness or possibly to the notorious practice
of merchants to doctor their freight lists in order to
evade export duties in England.
In the Chronicle of October 19, Mein announced that,
if the '"well disposed' Committee" did not discontinue
"their abusive hints and publications either here or at
New York, the Public shall be entertained with Anec-
dotes of the lives and practices of many of these Worthies
as individuals; for all due pains shall be taken to unkennel
them; and already . . . a great store of materials has
been collected. " This promised expose, however, never
progressed further than a preliminary description, a week
later, of "The Characters of some who are thought to
be 'W. D. '," wherein much was said of "Deacon Clod-
pate, alias Tribulation Turnery, Esq. ," "William the
Knave,"' and other personages scarcely recognizable by
readers of the twentieth century. A few weeks later,
Mein collected the various controversial articles and
published them in a pamphlet of one hundred and thirty
'Hancock's vessel, Boston Packet, arrived on August 10 with 54
chests of tea in her cargo. Hancock wrote on Sept. 6, 1769 to his
London representatives, Haley & Hopkins: "The merchants of this
town having come into a new agreement not to suffer any freight to be
taken on board their vessels, I beg you would note the same, & prevent
any of it, except Coals, Hemp, Duck & Grindstones being put on board
any of my vessels. You will please to inform my ship masters that
they may conform themselves accordingly. " Brown, John Hancovk
His Book, p. 166.
'Probably John Barrett and William Palfrey. Barrett had imported
woolcards but had been credited on the manifest with " turnery. " This
labored performance gave " great offense" to the non-importing party,
according to Hutchinson, Mass. Bay, vol. iii, p. 259.
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? THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
pages, under the title, Slate of the Importations from
Great Britain into Boston, from Jan. 1769 to Aug. 17,
1769. 1 Editions were gotten out the following year
which tabulated the later importations. These pam-
phlets were widely read in the other commercial prov-
inces and were frequently dispersed by employees of the
Customs Board. 2
The merits of the dispute between Mein and the mer-
chants may now be sufficiently clear. The strength of
Mein's position lay in being a literalist in his interpreta-
tion of the agreement; in failing to differentiate between
permissible and prohibited importations; and in testing
the efficacy of the agreement by examining the importa-
tions of non-signers as well as signers, of outsiders as
well as Bostonians, of non-merchants as well as mer-
chants. The success of the non-importation regulation,
on the other hand, lay in the sagacious exercise of a rule
of reason by the Committee of Merchants with regard
to the interpretation of the agreement, meantime placing
stress upon the performance of signers, and bringing all
possible pressure to bear upon recalcitrant merchants.
This was the course of action that was adroitly carried
out by the merchants.
While Mein was the one unrelenting opponent of non-
importation, it should not be thought that he was with-
out earnest support. Opponents of non-importation
began, after a time, to perceive the apparent contradic-
tion between the methods of the merchants and their
shibboleths. Shall we "still pretend to talk of LIBERTY,
PROPERTY and RIGHTS without a blush? " demanded
"Martyr. " "Have we not . . . established courts of
inquisition in the colonies unparalleled in any age or na-
1 Boston Chron. , Nov.
complete report of the committee, with the names of the importers,
etc. , maybe found in M. H. S. Ms. , 91 L. , p. 42. There were actually
twenty-eight importers who were non-signers, but the contents of their
orders were not known in most instances.
*J5os. Gas. , May I, 1769; also N. Y. Gas. & Merc. , May 8.
*Bos. News-Letter, May 11, 1769; also Bos. Town Recs. (,1758-1769),
p. 289.
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? NON-IMPORTATION
159
all people to shun the shops of the following firms as
men who preferred private advantage to public welfare:
William Jackson, Jonathan Simpson, J. and R. Selkrig,1
John Taylor, Samuel Fletcher, Theophilus Lillie, James
McMasters & Co. , Thomas and Elisha Hutchinson, and
Nathaniel Rogers. 2 Thomas and Elisha Hutchinson, it
should be noted, were sons of the lieutenant governor
and carried on a business of tea importation in which
the elder Thomas himself was interested. 8 Nathaniel
Rogers, another of the proscribed men, was a nephew of
the lieutenant governor. All these men were respected
merchants of the city; and so far as any records would
indicate, none of them were interested in illicit traffic or
even in the West Indian trade. No doubt most of them,
like the Hutchinsons, were conducting lawful businesses
which throve best under the regulations of Parliament;
and a number of them had friends and relatives among
the official class. They were not Tories in any political
sense, and neither then nor afterwards did they hold
posts under the government. They were men who, how-
ever, objected as fiercely to a direction of their affairs by
the populace as the smugglers of 1761 did to an inter-
ference with their business by a governmental writ of
assistance.
The effort to inaugurate a boycott against these men
brought to their defense the doughty champion, to whom
reference has already been made. John Mein. a co-pub-
1 Also spelled Selkridge and Selking.
1A''. Y. Journ. , June 29, 1769.
1 Vide infra, p. 282. I have found no evidence to support William Pal-
frey's allegation, made in a private letter to John Wilkes, October 30,
1770, that the elder Hutchinson, after graduation at Harvard, "was for
many years in the Holland trade, where he constantly practised all the
various methods of smuggling. " Palfrey, J. G. , William Palfrey (2
Libr. Am. ffiog. , Sparks, ed. , vol. vii), pp. 368-369.
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? THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
lisher of the Boston Chronicle. Mein was a native of
Scotland and had been a book dealer in Boston since his
arrival in October, 1764. He had received a good
education, he possessed a faculty for effective literary ex-
pression and made himself a useful citizen generally. He
had established a circulating library; and in December,
1767, he founded, with John Fleeming, the Boston Chron-
icle, which quickly showed itself to be the most enter-
prising sheet on the continent in content as well as
typographical appearance. After a time, he converted it
from a weekly to a semi-weekly, without any addition in
price, and it thus became the only journal in New Eng-
land published with such frequency. Mein had hitherto
avoided any part in the turmoil of the times and, with
the other editors, he had published the entire series of
the Farmer's Letters. In arousing the ire of John Mein,
the merchants of Boston had stirred up a veritable hor-
net's nest. '
1 For the facts of Mein's life, vide Thomas, I. . History of Printing
in America (Albany, 1874), vol. i, pp. 151-154, vol. ii, pp. 50-61; Ayer,
M. F. , and Mathews, A. , Check-List of Boston Newspapers 1704-1780
(Col. Sac. Mass. Pubs. , vol. ix), pp. 480-481. Thomas inclines to the
contemporary opinion that Mein was in the pay of the government at
this period. Hutchinson's correspondence in the Mass. Archives fails
to give any hint of such a connection. Mein himself denied again and
again that he was acting in behalf of "a Party," and he maintained
that he was "unbiassed by fear or affection, prejudice or party. " It is
evident, of course, that he held the confidence of the Customs Board
and had access to the information contained in their books. There are
some reasons for thinking that Mein left America in November, 1769,
and never returned. The present account has assumed, for good
reasons, that he was not away from Boston for any perceptible length
of time. E. g. , vide Hutchinson,^/aw. Bay, vol. iii, p. 260. After all,
the chief consideration is that the articles in the Chronicle, of which he
was universally reputed to be the author, continued to appear without
interruption until the Chronicle ceased publication. Professor Andrews
has recently brought to light some new facts concerning Mein's exper-
iences in Boston in " The Boston Merchants and the Non-Importation
Movement," Col. Soc. Mass. Pubs. , vol. xix, pp. 227-230.
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? NON-IMPORTATION
Mein's first blast came in an unsigned article in the
Chronicle of June 1, 1769. Declaring that the handbills,
recently circulated, gave the impression that the firms
named were the only importers of British goods in the
city, the article asserted that it was only just to make
known the truth. An exact account showed that twenty-
one vessels had arrived from Great Britain at Boston
from January 1, the date on which the agreement became
operative, to June 1, 1769; and that one hundred and
ninety different persons, many of them signers of the
agreement, had imported 162 trunks, 270 bales, 182 cases,
233 boxes, 1116 casks, 139 chests, 72 hampers, and other
quantities, all carefully detailed.
The attack elicited a quick response. A writer, evi-
dently speaking for the Committee of Merchants, replied
in the Boston Gaaette of June 12. In the number of
importers, he declared that Mein included almost one
hundred belonging to other ports, also clergymen,
masters of vessels and private persons who had imported
only a single article for family use. He called attention
to the fact that Mein had stated the quantity of goods
without differentiating between those permitted and
those debarred by the agreement and without noting the
number of packages imported for army and navy use.
Mein, he averred, included four vessels which, but for
storms and other delays, would have reached Boston be-
fore the agreement went into effect, and three vessels
from Scotland, belonging to strangers who had come
over to build ships. These being omitted from the list,
it was evident that the merchandise imported by the
people of Boston in violation of the agreement was "tri-
fling and of little Value. " So far as signers were con-
cerned, the report of the merchants' committee of
inspection was cited to prove that they had imported,
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? THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
contrary to the agreement, only 14 cases, 27 chests,
mostly of oil, 36 casks of beer, linseed oil and cheese,
50 hampers, chiefly of empty bottles, and 15 bundles;
all of which had been immediately placed under direction
of the committee. Not a single article of woolens nor
any kind of piece-goods had been imported by the signers.
The author of the earlier article was called upon to pub-
lish the names of the importers and to point out any
signers who had failed to submit their goods to the
committee of inspection.
Mein closed the discussion, for the time, simply by
announcing in his issue of the nineteenth that a list of
importers and manifests, from which his facts had been
drawn, was now lodged at the Chronicle office, and could
there be consulted by the candid and impartial public.
Up to this point, the chief effect of Mein's pugnacity on
public opinion concerning him was his expulsion from
the Free American Fire Society, on grounds that he was
an importer and was concerned in a " partial, evasive and
scandalous" attack on the respectable merchants of the
town. 1
Realizing the necessity for more effective measures of
dealing with importing merchants, the Boston trade
proceeded to work out an ingenious system of boycott.
At a meeting of July 26, 1769, they agreed to withhold
their business from any vessel which should load at any
British port with goods forbidden by the agreement.
In addition, a committee was appointed to examine the
manifests of any vessels which should arrive from Great
Britain before January 1, 1770, and to insert in the public
prints the names of violators of the agreement, unless
they should deliver the goods into charge of the stand-
1 Bos. Gas. July 10, 1769.
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? NON-IMPORTATION
ing committee of the merchants. Another committee
was appointed to secure a subscription of Boston inhab-
itants to boycott those men whose names had been pub-
lished in the handbills. 1 A few days later, a house-to-
house canvass was made among the citizens for signa-
tures to buy no goods debarred by the merchants' agree-
ment, and to support any further measures of the mer-
chants. " Lieutenant Governor Hutchinson, in a letter
about this time, wrote angrily that merchants' meetings
"are called and held by adjournments, whose resolutions
are come into, Committees appointed, and other proceed-
ings had in as formal a manner as in a body corporate
legally assembled and known and established by the Con-
stitution; and those meetings have had such effect that
. . . most of the Traders who until now had firmness to
stand out have joined in the subscription to import no
goods. "3 Indeed, of the importers who had been ex-
posed by the handbill, Jackson, Simpson, the Selkrigs,
Taylor and Fletcher now hastened to accept the agree-
ment and to promise that their fall importations would
be stored with the Committee of Merchants. 4
Having made such headway, the merchants determined
to press their advantage. At a meeting at Faneuil
Hall on August n, they voted that, whereas all the "Well
Disposed Merchants" (note well the expression! ) of
almost every province on the continent had resolved on
non-importation, local merchants who persisted in defy-
ing the agreement "must be considered as Enemies to
1 Mass. Gas. July 31, 1769; also N, Y. Goz. & Merc. , Aug. 7.
*Af. H. S. Ms,, 151, 1, 15. This non-mercantile agreement, dated
July 31, was soon signed by 113 persons.
? Letter to Hillsborough, Aug. 8, 1769. Brit. Papers ("Sparks
Mss. "), vol. i, p. 111.
4 Bos. Gas. , Aug. 14, 1769; N. Y. Journ. , Feb. 8, 1770.
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?
THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
the Constitution of their Country, and must expect that
those who have any Regard for it will endeavour in every
constitutional Way to prevent their Building themselves
up on the ruin of their Fellow-Citizens. " Thereupon,
the names of the following men were ordered to be in-
serted in the newspapers as objects of boycott: Theo-
philus Lillie, McMasters & Co. , T. and E. Hutchinson
and Nathaniel Rogers, all unrepentant though named in
the original handbills, and, in addition, John Mein, John
Bernard and Richard Clarke & Son. Richard Clarke
was another nephew of Hutchinson. John Greenlaw,
being called before the meeting upon charge of having
bought goods of violators of the agreement, acknowl-
edged his fault, and he surrendered the goods to the
custody of the committee. 1 A few days later Clarke &
Son, who had been published as importers, fully acceded
to the agreement and were ordered to be reinstated in
the public estimation. '
These new developments brought John Mein to the
firing-line again. In the Chronicle of August 17, he
devoted almost three entire pages to a vindication of
his conduct and leveled a charge of dishonesty against
the signers of the agreement. In his various occupa-
tions, he declared, he daily supported seventeen people,
fourteen of whom lived under his own roof and most of
whom would have lost employment if he had signed the
agreement. In his two years as printer, he had purchased
something like ? 400 worth of paper from the mill at
Milton. He employed four or five people in his book-
bindery and paid his foreman a yearly salary of ? 69 6s. 8d
lawful money. Moreover, it was notorious, he continued,
1 Bos. Go*. , Aug. 14, 1769; also N. Y. Go*. & Merc. , Aug. 28.
1Bos. Goz. Aug. 21, 1769.
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? NON-IMPORTATION ^5
that the non-importation was not generally observed.
In support of his statement, he announced his design to
publish, in the course of the following months, a detailed
account of the cargoes of the vessels which had arrived
at Boston since the beginning of the year. He began by
presenting the itemized manifest of the snow Pitt, which
had arrived at Boston on June 1.
This was the opening gun of a bitter campaign, which
continued at semi-weekly intervals, almost without in-
terruption, until the event of the Boston Massacre in
March, 1770. ' Mein's usual course was to place at the
head of the first column of page one of the Chronicle a
copy of the merchants' agreement, with the allowed
articles in enlarged black letters; then to follow with a
trenchant attack on the good faith of signers of the
agreement; and to conclude with a manifest, which pur-
ported to show, by name and item, that signers were
continuing to import clandestinely. Mein revealed him-
self to be a keen and relentless disputant; he utilized
every favorable point to the utmost, and was a past
master of phrase and retort. For instance, inasmuch as
the merchants' resolutions of August n had alluded to
the advocates of non-importation as the "Well Dis-
posed," Mein never lost a chance to apply the term to
the Committee of Merchants; and he did it with many a
satiric turn that must have entirely destroyed the peace
of mind of those worthies.
The statement of "the Merchants of the Town of
Boston" on August 28, with the fusillade of personal
1These articles were published during the period August 17, 1769 to
March I, 1770. After the issue of October 19, the publication of mani-
fests, though not of jibes and queries directed at the Committee of
Merchants, ceased until December n, when they were resumed. Fifty-
five cargoes were listed in all.
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? THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
vindications that followed, was a fair example of the
answering volleys which the supporters of the agreement
delivered. 1 Taking the five manifests which had been
published up to that time, they analyzed the figures care-
fully and showed that in no case had a signer deliberately
sought to evade the spirit of the agreement, and that
when a fault had been committed unintentionally, the
goods had been stored. Their analysis of the manifest
of the Pitt will suffice for purposes of illustration. Of
the thirty-one importers interested in the cargo, only
fifteen were Bostonians; and, of these, only four were
signers: Timothy Newell, John Rowe, John Erving and
the Hubbards. Newell had imported tin and iron plates,
which, it was stated, though not inserted in the original
agreement as permissible, were so understood from the
beginning and had since been made so by express vote,
and also several other articles open to importation in
other provinces. Rowe had imported shot and lines,
allowed by the agreement, and blankets and lines, con-
signed to him for use of the army. Erving had imported
Irish linen and beer, which had been ordered prior to
the agreement and were now under care of the commit-
tee. The goods sent to the Messrs. Hubbard had been
directed to their care for Stephen Ayrault, the Newport
merchant. Of the four other manifests discussed by the
committee, three of the vessels, Lydia, Last Attempt
and Paoli, were owned by John Hancock; and each
cargo contained articles forbidden by the agreement.
In one instance, that of N. Green, it was shown that the
34 casks of pork, which he had imported, had originally
been sent by him to London and had failed of sale. In
numerous cases, it was shown that the packages had been
1 Sot. Eve. Post, Aug. 28, 1769; also Bos. News-Letter, Aug. 31.
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? NON-IMPORTATION
wrongly labeled in the manifests. In conclusion, the
committee reiterated their former position that the
agreement was being closely obeyed, except by a few
non-signers; and Mein was charged with an attempt to
misrepresent and defraud.
Replies to Mein's attacks came from other sources as
well, usually in the form of flat disclaimers from the in-
dividual merchants accused. 1 Mein again paid his re-
spects to the Committee of Merchants in a lengthy reply
in the Chronicle of October 9 and 12. He made much
of the admission that Newell's importations were ad-
mitted on June 1 although not made an allowed article
until July 26, a palpable injustice to other dealers. He
had "good reason" to believe that Rowe's blankets
were not for army use; and he demanded to know just
where or how Erving's importations had been stored.
As for N. Green's pork, even admitting the circumstances,
was pork an allowed article? "Do the Public begin to
suspect," he wrote on October 23 in his "Catechism of
the 'Well Disposed'," " that a certain scheme is princi-
pally calculated to crush all the young Merchants and
Importers, that the trade may still remain in the hands
of a few grave ' well disposed' Dons, who are believed
to be exceedingly well stocked with Goods? "
Perhaps the most interesting charge which Mein
made was against John Hancock, merchant prince and
1Thus, John Avery denied absolutely that he had imported china
and British linen from London in the Sukey and declared that he had
imported nothing from Great Britain for two years. Bos. News-Letter,
Aug. 31, 1769. Vide statements of F. Johonnot and Benj. Andrews in
the same issue. Francis Green declared wrathily that he "did not de-
viate from the Agreement in any Instance, of Course did not import
any Tea," and he dubbed Mein a " Mushroom Judge" and "conceited
empty Noddle of a most profound Blockhead. " Ibid. , Sept. 21. For
examples'of Mein's rejoinders, vide Bos. Chron. , Sept. 4, 25.
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? ! <58 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
non-importer, for having imported five bales of "British
Linen" in the Lydia, which arrived at Boston on April
18, 1769. As that gentleman was out of the city, his
manager, William Palfrey, came to his defense in a sworn
statement that the contents of the bales had been misre-
presented by Mein, and that they were, in reality, " Rus-
sia Duck," allowed by the agreement. Mein replied by
publishing a copy of the cocket, certified by the customs
collector and comptroller, which attested the correctness
of his description. This verbal exchange continued for
some time,1 and received some attention in the Newport
Mercury, September 4, 1769, where it was observed that
Hancock as "one of the foremost of the Patriots in Boston
. . . would perhaps shine more conspicuously . . . if he
did not keep a number of vessels running to London and
back, full freighted, getting rich, by receiving freight on
goods made contraband by the Colonies. "" Hancock him-
self took no notice of Mein's attack until a letter from the
New York Committee of Merchants made allusion to it;
and in a signed statement he announced: "This is ONCE
FOR ALL to certify to whom it may concern, That I
have not in one single Instance, directly or indirectly,
deviated from said Agreement; and I now publickly defy
all Mankind to prove the CONTRARY. " 3 The truth
seems to be that the worst irregularity of which he was
guilty was an occasional carelessness on the part of his
ship-masters in receiving prohibited goods as freight;
and this did not become an offense under the Boston
1 For this dispute, vide Bos. CAron. , Aug. 21, 28, Sept. 4, 18, Oct.
9; and Bos. News-Letter, Aug. 31, 1769.
1"Civis" in the N. ff. Gas. , July 6, 13, 1770, expressed surprise
that " Mr. Hancock would suffer a consignment of 35 chests of tea to
a gentleman in this town, to come in a vessel of his from London . . . "
1 Under date of January 4. A'. Y. Journ. Jan. 18, 1770-
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? NON-IMPORTATION 1gp
agreement until July 26, 1769. 1 The discrepancy be-
tween the description in the manifest and the actual con-
tents of Hancock's bales was, in all probability, due to
clerical carelessness or possibly to the notorious practice
of merchants to doctor their freight lists in order to
evade export duties in England.
In the Chronicle of October 19, Mein announced that,
if the '"well disposed' Committee" did not discontinue
"their abusive hints and publications either here or at
New York, the Public shall be entertained with Anec-
dotes of the lives and practices of many of these Worthies
as individuals; for all due pains shall be taken to unkennel
them; and already . . . a great store of materials has
been collected. " This promised expose, however, never
progressed further than a preliminary description, a week
later, of "The Characters of some who are thought to
be 'W. D. '," wherein much was said of "Deacon Clod-
pate, alias Tribulation Turnery, Esq. ," "William the
Knave,"' and other personages scarcely recognizable by
readers of the twentieth century. A few weeks later,
Mein collected the various controversial articles and
published them in a pamphlet of one hundred and thirty
'Hancock's vessel, Boston Packet, arrived on August 10 with 54
chests of tea in her cargo. Hancock wrote on Sept. 6, 1769 to his
London representatives, Haley & Hopkins: "The merchants of this
town having come into a new agreement not to suffer any freight to be
taken on board their vessels, I beg you would note the same, & prevent
any of it, except Coals, Hemp, Duck & Grindstones being put on board
any of my vessels. You will please to inform my ship masters that
they may conform themselves accordingly. " Brown, John Hancovk
His Book, p. 166.
'Probably John Barrett and William Palfrey. Barrett had imported
woolcards but had been credited on the manifest with " turnery. " This
labored performance gave " great offense" to the non-importing party,
according to Hutchinson, Mass. Bay, vol. iii, p. 259.
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? THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
pages, under the title, Slate of the Importations from
Great Britain into Boston, from Jan. 1769 to Aug. 17,
1769. 1 Editions were gotten out the following year
which tabulated the later importations. These pam-
phlets were widely read in the other commercial prov-
inces and were frequently dispersed by employees of the
Customs Board. 2
The merits of the dispute between Mein and the mer-
chants may now be sufficiently clear. The strength of
Mein's position lay in being a literalist in his interpreta-
tion of the agreement; in failing to differentiate between
permissible and prohibited importations; and in testing
the efficacy of the agreement by examining the importa-
tions of non-signers as well as signers, of outsiders as
well as Bostonians, of non-merchants as well as mer-
chants. The success of the non-importation regulation,
on the other hand, lay in the sagacious exercise of a rule
of reason by the Committee of Merchants with regard
to the interpretation of the agreement, meantime placing
stress upon the performance of signers, and bringing all
possible pressure to bear upon recalcitrant merchants.
This was the course of action that was adroitly carried
out by the merchants.
While Mein was the one unrelenting opponent of non-
importation, it should not be thought that he was with-
out earnest support. Opponents of non-importation
began, after a time, to perceive the apparent contradic-
tion between the methods of the merchants and their
shibboleths. Shall we "still pretend to talk of LIBERTY,
PROPERTY and RIGHTS without a blush? " demanded
"Martyr. " "Have we not . . . established courts of
inquisition in the colonies unparalleled in any age or na-
1 Boston Chron. , Nov.
