1
Although of decided economic advantage to the com-
mercial provinces, the non-enforcement of the Molasses
Act proved a serious political blunder for the home gov-
ernment.
Although of decided economic advantage to the com-
mercial provinces, the non-enforcement of the Molasses
Act proved a serious political blunder for the home gov-
ernment.
Arthur Schlesinger - Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution
owing
both to the lack of evidence and to its unsatisfactory character. "
1 " Essay on Trade of Northern Colonies," Prov. Gas. , Jan. 14, 21,
1764. Surveyor General Temple accused Governor Bernard of sharing
in such illegal gain. Quincy, S. L. , Mass. Reports, 1761-1772, pp. 423-
424. Hutchinson wrote on Sept. 17, 1763: "The real cause of the
illicit trade in this province has been the indulgence of the officers of
the customs, and we are told that . . . without bribery and corruption
they must starve. " Ibid. , p. 430. On Feb. 8, 1764, Governor Franklin
of New Jersey reported to the Board of Trade that the custom-house
officers entered "into a Composition with the Merchants and took a
Dollar a Hogshead, or some such small matter, in Lieu of the Duties
imposed by Act of Parliament," and he had no knowledge that they
ever remitted the "Composition Money" to England. 1 N. J. Arch. ,
vol. ix, pp. 403-404. It should be noted that by law the collectors had a
discretionary power to accept partial payment of duties as full payment
(13 and 14 Charles II, c. 11).
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? THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 41
taste of it in the mouth, nor can any people like them
slip through a penal statute. "'
For the most part, colonial smuggling took two
forms. * First, there was a direct traffic, back and forth
across the Atlantic, between the British provinces and
foreign countries. The outgoing commerce was likely
to infringe the regulation which confined certain colonial
exports to Great Britain alone; and the incoming trade
unavoidably violated the requirement that practically all
products of Europe and Asia should reach the colonies
via England. The illicit traffic in colonial exports was
apparently very small. Of much larger proportions was
the clandestine importation of foreign commodities and
manufactures, although its relation to the total volume
of legitimate trade was not important. Colonial mer-
chants carrying legal cargoes to Holland, Hamburg and
France sometimes returned with drygoods, tea, wines
and gunpowder, which they had not troubled to enter at
a British port. 3 Or these wares found a more circuitous
entrance into the colonies by way of the foreign islands
in the West Indies. Or New England merchants, hav-
ing disposed of their fish in Portugal, Spain or Italy and
having, in accordance with the law, loaded all the salt
they wished, completed their cargoes with fruit, oil and
1 Letter of July 12, 1736, Am. Hist. Rev. , vol. i, p. 88.
1 One form of smuggling disappeared after the seventeenth- century
and is not discussed here. This was the direct exportation of colonial
tobacco to Scotland. The illegal character of this traffic was removed
when the acts of trade were extended to Scotland in 1708. Morriss,
Colonial Trade of Maryland, pp. 116-120.
1 E. g. , vide reports of Lt. Gov. Colden of New York, Golden, Letter
Books, 1760-1775 (N. Y. Hist. Soc. Colls. , vols. ix and x), vol. i, pp.
257-259, 375-376; letter of William Bollan, Feb. 26, 1742, Col. Soc. Mass.
Pubs. , vol. vi, pp. 299-304. The letter of an Amsterdam commission
house to a Rhode Island merchant, dated Jan. 31, 1764, is interesting
first-hand evidence on this point. R. I. Commerce, vol. i, pp. 105-106.
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? 42 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
wine, and made straightway for America. Governor
Bernard of Massachusetts spoke of "an Indulgence time
out of mind allowed in a trifling but necessary article,
. . . the permitting Lisbon Lemons & wine in small
quantities to pass as Ships Stores";1 and, acting upon
the same understanding, Peyton Randolph, attorney
general of Virginia, drew upon himself the withering
wrath of Governor Dinwiddie, for dismissing a case in-
volving this breach-- " inconsistant with Justice, the
Sense and Spirit of the Laws that were produc'd on the
Tryal," as Dinwiddie declared. 2
By far the greatest mass of contraband trade consisted
in the importation of undutied molasses, sugar and rum
from the foreign West Indies, particularly molasses.
The heavy restrictions of 1733 had been imposed regard-
less of the protests of colonial merchants, the avowed
purpose of Parliament being to give to the British
planters in the West Indies a monopoly of marketing
their molasses in the commercial provinces. The act
had been passed at the behest of the "West India in-
terest" in Parliament;8 and to colonial merchants, it
appeared a sinister piece of exploitation intended to en-
able "a few pamper'd Creolians" to " roll in their gilded
1 He added: "I have always understood that this was well known in
England,--allowed, as being no object of trade, or if it was, no way
injurious to that of Great Britain. " Quincy, op. eit. , pp. 430-431. Vide
also article in Bos. Eve. Post, Jan. 2, 1764. S. Toovey, clerk to the
customs collector at Salem, described, in convincing detail, how the
customs entries were manipulated for this purpose, in a deposition of
Sept. 27, 1764. Bos. Gas. , June 12, 1769.
1 Official Records of Robert Dinwiddie (Richmond, 1884), voL ii, pp.
679-681. Gov. Fauquier of Virginia reported on Nov. 20, 1764, that
ships returning from Lisbon generally brought a small quantity of
fruit and sometimes wine. Brit. Papers ("Sparks Mss. "), vol. ii, p. 43.
1 About forty members were usually so classified. Bos. Eve. Post,
Nov. 21, 1763; Bos. Post-Boy, Aug. 4, 1766.
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? THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 43
equipages thro' the streets" of London, at the expense
of two million American subjects. '
If any serious attempt had been made to enforce the
statute, the prosperity of the commercial provinces
would have been laid prostrate. It was the West India
trade, more than anything else, which had enabled them
to utilize their fisheries, forests and fertile soil, to build
up their towns and cities, to supply cargoes for their
merchant marine, and to liquidate their indebtedness to
British merchants and manufacturers. The entire mo-
lasses output of the British islands did not equal two-
thirds of the quantity imported into Rhode Island alone,
and was estimated to amount to only about one-eighth
of the quantity consumed annually by all the provinces. '
Moreover, the prices of the British planters were twenty-
five to forty per cent higher than those asked at the
foreign islands; although the foreign planters would
accept business only for cash. * That smuggling with
the foreign islands was extensive and important, the
evidence is plentiful and uncontradicted. It is to be
found in such a variety of sources as letters of colonial
1 Bos. Eve. Post, July 8, 1765, quoting an article by " Anti-Smuggler"
in the London Public Ledger. Vide also ibid. , Jan. 2, 1764. For the
best explanation of the motives of Parliament in passing this law, vide
Andrews, C. M. , "Anglo-French Commercial Rivalry," Am. Hist. Rev. ,
vol. xx, pp. 761-780.
1 Of the 14,000 hogsheads of molasses imported into Rhode Island
. each year, 11,500 hogsheads came from the foreign West Indies, pay-
1ng no duty. Representation of R. I. Assembly, in R. I. Col. Recs. , vol.
vi, pp. 378-383. Of the 15,000 hogsheads imported into Massachusetts
in 1763, all but 500 came from the foreign islands. Bernard, F. , Letters
on Trade, p. 7; evidence of William Kelly before a committee of Par-
liament, Brit. Mus. Addl. Mss. , no. 33030 (L. C. Transcripts), i. 135
* Postlethwayt, Great Britain's Interest, etc. , vol. i, p. 494; letter from
New York in London Chronicle, Oct. a, 1764. There were also heavy
duties levied on the products of the British sugar plantations at expor-
tation. Charming, op. fit. , vol. it, p. 511.
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? 44 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
governors and customs officials, newspaper articles and
merchants' letter books, instructions to governors, and
the writings of economists.
1
Although of decided economic advantage to the com-
mercial provinces, the non-enforcement of the Molasses
Act proved a serious political blunder for the home gov-
ernment. As British statesmanship should have foreseen,
it gave to colonial smuggling every aspect of respecta-
bility. Numbers have become '' reconciled to it by ex-
ample, habit, and custom," declared a contemporary
observer, " and have gradually consented to amuse them-
selves with some very superficial arguments in its favour,
such as, that every man has a natural right to exchange
his property with whom he pleases, and where he can
make the most advantage of it; that there is no injustice
in the nature of the thing, being no otherwise unlawful
than as the partial restrictions of power have made it;
arguments which may be . . . adopted in extenuation
of many other disorderly and pernicious practices. " ?
"There is no error jn a commercial nation so fruitful
of mischief," was the keen observation of another writer,
"as making acts and regulations oppressive to trade [with-
out enforcing them]. This opens a door to corruption.
This introduces a looseness in morals. This destroys the
1 E. g. , the commissioners of the customs in England reported on
Sept. 16, 1763, that "it appears to Us, from the Smallness of the Sum
Collected from these Duties and from other Evidence, that they have
been for the most part, either wholly evaded or Fraudulently Com-
pounded . . . " Brit. Mus. Add! . Mss. , no. 8133c (L. C. Transcripts).
A writer in the Bos. Eve. Post, Nov. 21, 1763, voiced the current colo-
nial opinion when he averred: "The sugar act has from its first pub-
lication been adjudged so unnatural that hardly any attempts have been
made to carry it into execution. "
1"A Tradesman of Philadelphia" in Pa. Journ. , Aug. 17, 1774- Cf.
Bollan's letter, Col. Soc. Mass. Pubs. , vol. vi, p. 300.
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? THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 45
reverence and regard for oaths, on which government so
much depends. This occasions a disregard to those acts
of trade which are calculated for its real benefit. This
entirely destroys the distinction which ought invariably
to be preserved in all trading communities between a
merchant and a smuggler. But the sugar act has thrown
down all distinction: Before this was published, a mer-
chant disdain'd to associate with the unfair trader. "1
The truth was that the income of many wealthy families
in the North--yea, the prosperity of whole provinces--
depended upon a trade which was approved by a robust
public opinion but forbidden by parliamentary statute.
The "Smuggling Interest" became a factor of great
potential strength in public affairs in the trading towns
of the North. '
Colonial smugglers felt the first impact of an opposing
imperial interest during the last intercolonial war,
when, covetous of large profits, they supplied the French
belligerents in America with foodstuffs, whereby they
were enabled to prolong the war. 3 In defiance of pa-
triotic duty, acts of Parliament, and the efforts of the
British and provincial administrations, not only was the
old iUicit intercourse with the French, continued but
many new routes were opened up. The early efforts of
the British government to suppress the traffic resulted
in more than doubling the average annual revenue from
the Molasses Act during the war, at a time, however,
1 Bos. Eve. Post, Nov. 21, 1763.
* Vide the important letters of Richard Oswald to Lord Dartmouth
in Stevens, Facsimiles, vol. xxiv, nos. 2032, 2034, 2037; Sagittarius's
Letters and Political Speculations (Boston, 1775), nos. i and iii, passim.
* The present account is based largely upon the excellent treatment
in Beer, Brit. Col. Policy, 1754-1765, pp. 72-131, and Root, Rels. of Pa.
with Brit. Govt. , pp. 76-84.
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? 46 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
when the volume of smuggling had probably trebled or
quadrupled. 1 In 1760 and 1761, a vigorous employment
of the navy resulted in disturbing the centers of smug-
gling in the West Indies and in further disminishing its
volume.
The experience of the British government during the
war sharply revealed the strength, sordidness and energy
of the forces supporting the contraband trade. Prov-
incial governors had been bought out by the smugglers
in one or two instances; and from Massachusetts to
South Carolina, the Americans managed pretty success-
fully to control the vice-admiralty courts in their favor.
Governor Hamilton, of Pennsylvania, reported in 1760
that the most eminent lawyers of that province were re-
tained by the smugglers. In New-York, Lieutenant
Governor Colden complained in 1762 that his efforts
against illicit trade had failed of the desired effect be-
cause the enforcement of the law rested largely with
persons who had connections with smugglers or who
feared their resentment. 2 A prominent Rhode Island
lawyer averred that the courts of vice-admiralty had be-
come "subject to mercantile influence; and the king's
revenue sacrificed to the venality and perfidiousness of
courts and officers. "8
In Massachusetts, the smuggling merchants struggled
1The extent of this partial enforcement is indicated by the aggregate
amount of the revenue derived from the Molasses Act. The total
duties paid on molasses from 1734 to the close of 1755 amounted to
? 5,686, or a yearly average of ? 259. In the seven years, 1756-1762,
? 4,375 was collected, the yearly average being ? 625. For the years 1760
and 1761 the amounts were ? 1,170 and ? 1,189. Beer, op. cit. , pp. 115-
116 and f. n.
1Letter Books, vol. i, pp. 195-196.
1 Howard, M. , A Letter from a Gentleman at Halifax to his Friend
in Rhode Island (Newport, 1765).
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? THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH
47
hard to impair the efficiency of the customs collection
by instituting damage suits against customs officials in
unfriendly common-law courts. Toward the end of the
war, the services of James Otis, recently prosecuting
officer for the local vice-admiralty court and the most
eloquent lawyer of the province, were retained by the
merchants of Boston and Salem, in an attack on the leg-
ality of the general search warrants, or "writs of assist-
ance," which had proved an effective means of locating
contraband goods. Like Henry in Virginia, Otis made
a perfervid plea for the "inherent, inalienable, and inde-
feasible" rights of the colonists and particularly for the
privacy of one's home and warehouses from prying
customs officers acting under general search warrants. 1
But he lost his case. This failure led the Massachusetts
General Court to pass an act, which, if Governor Bernard
had not vetoed it, would have drawn the teeth from the
writs. This bill, the governor assured the Board of
Trade, was "the last effort of the confederacy against
the custom-house and Laws of Trade. "*
nf smuggling had been originally
undertaken by the British government as a war measure;
but before the war had term1nated, 1t became apparent
that a strict enforcement of the acts of trade was to be a
permanent peace policy. Pitt's circular dispatch of
August 23, 1760 marked the transition;3 the year 1763
brought a succession of unqualified steps in this direc-
tion. An act of Parliament of that year authorized the
1 For a bibliography of Otis's speech, vide Green, S. A. , g M. H. S.
Procs. , vol. vi, pp. 190-196.
'Palfrey, J. G. , Compendious History of New England (Boston,
1884), vol. iv, p. 313.
'Text in Quincy, Mass. Reports, p. 407.
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? 48 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
use of the navy against smuggling in the colonies. 1 The
vicious practice of absenteeism in the customs service
was terminated: all colonial customs officials residing in
England were ordered to repair to their stations in
America. 2 In July, special instructions were sent to
colonial governors and naval commanders to suppress
illicit trade, especially the clandestine traffic carried on
directly with continental Europe. 3 In the last days of
the year, strict orders were issued from all the custom
houses in the northern district, requiring masters of
vessels to conform to the old Molasses Act "in all its
parts. "4 Earlv in T^AJ A~itrirnn newspapers recorded
the arrival of warships at various ports. The frequency
of seizures 1ncreased. 5
The publication of the orders to enforce the Molasses
Act "caused a greater alarm in this country than the
taking of Fort William Henry did in 1757," declared
Governor Bernard, of Massachusetts. 6 He reported that
it was common talk among Boston merchants that the
trade of the province was at an end, "sacrificed to the
West Indian Planters," and that every prudent man
should resort to farming and homespun. Lieutenant
13 George III, c. 22.
1 Kimball, G. S. , ed. , Correspondence of the Colonial Governors of
Rhode Island, 1723-1775 (Boston, 1002), vol. ii, p. 355.
1 Md. Arch. , vol. xiv, pp. 102-103; Prov. Gas. , Sept. 24, 1763, also
Mass. Gas. and News-Letter, Sept. 29.
4 Bos. Post-Boy, Jan. 2 and 9, 1764, contained such orders, under
date of Dec. 26, 1763, from the custom houses of the ports of Boston,
Salem, Piscataqua and Falmouth; Newport; New London and New
Haven; New York; Perth Amboy, Burlington and Salem, N. J.
6 Hutchinson, Hist, of Mass. Bay, vol. iii, pp. 160-163.
6 Bernard, Letters, p. 9. Commenting on this comparison, John
Adams declared in 1818: "This I fully believe and certainly know to
be true; for I was an eye and an ear witness to both of these alarms. "
Works (Adams, C. F. , ed. ), vol. x, p. 345.
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both to the lack of evidence and to its unsatisfactory character. "
1 " Essay on Trade of Northern Colonies," Prov. Gas. , Jan. 14, 21,
1764. Surveyor General Temple accused Governor Bernard of sharing
in such illegal gain. Quincy, S. L. , Mass. Reports, 1761-1772, pp. 423-
424. Hutchinson wrote on Sept. 17, 1763: "The real cause of the
illicit trade in this province has been the indulgence of the officers of
the customs, and we are told that . . . without bribery and corruption
they must starve. " Ibid. , p. 430. On Feb. 8, 1764, Governor Franklin
of New Jersey reported to the Board of Trade that the custom-house
officers entered "into a Composition with the Merchants and took a
Dollar a Hogshead, or some such small matter, in Lieu of the Duties
imposed by Act of Parliament," and he had no knowledge that they
ever remitted the "Composition Money" to England. 1 N. J. Arch. ,
vol. ix, pp. 403-404. It should be noted that by law the collectors had a
discretionary power to accept partial payment of duties as full payment
(13 and 14 Charles II, c. 11).
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? THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 41
taste of it in the mouth, nor can any people like them
slip through a penal statute. "'
For the most part, colonial smuggling took two
forms. * First, there was a direct traffic, back and forth
across the Atlantic, between the British provinces and
foreign countries. The outgoing commerce was likely
to infringe the regulation which confined certain colonial
exports to Great Britain alone; and the incoming trade
unavoidably violated the requirement that practically all
products of Europe and Asia should reach the colonies
via England. The illicit traffic in colonial exports was
apparently very small. Of much larger proportions was
the clandestine importation of foreign commodities and
manufactures, although its relation to the total volume
of legitimate trade was not important. Colonial mer-
chants carrying legal cargoes to Holland, Hamburg and
France sometimes returned with drygoods, tea, wines
and gunpowder, which they had not troubled to enter at
a British port. 3 Or these wares found a more circuitous
entrance into the colonies by way of the foreign islands
in the West Indies. Or New England merchants, hav-
ing disposed of their fish in Portugal, Spain or Italy and
having, in accordance with the law, loaded all the salt
they wished, completed their cargoes with fruit, oil and
1 Letter of July 12, 1736, Am. Hist. Rev. , vol. i, p. 88.
1 One form of smuggling disappeared after the seventeenth- century
and is not discussed here. This was the direct exportation of colonial
tobacco to Scotland. The illegal character of this traffic was removed
when the acts of trade were extended to Scotland in 1708. Morriss,
Colonial Trade of Maryland, pp. 116-120.
1 E. g. , vide reports of Lt. Gov. Colden of New York, Golden, Letter
Books, 1760-1775 (N. Y. Hist. Soc. Colls. , vols. ix and x), vol. i, pp.
257-259, 375-376; letter of William Bollan, Feb. 26, 1742, Col. Soc. Mass.
Pubs. , vol. vi, pp. 299-304. The letter of an Amsterdam commission
house to a Rhode Island merchant, dated Jan. 31, 1764, is interesting
first-hand evidence on this point. R. I. Commerce, vol. i, pp. 105-106.
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? 42 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
wine, and made straightway for America. Governor
Bernard of Massachusetts spoke of "an Indulgence time
out of mind allowed in a trifling but necessary article,
. . . the permitting Lisbon Lemons & wine in small
quantities to pass as Ships Stores";1 and, acting upon
the same understanding, Peyton Randolph, attorney
general of Virginia, drew upon himself the withering
wrath of Governor Dinwiddie, for dismissing a case in-
volving this breach-- " inconsistant with Justice, the
Sense and Spirit of the Laws that were produc'd on the
Tryal," as Dinwiddie declared. 2
By far the greatest mass of contraband trade consisted
in the importation of undutied molasses, sugar and rum
from the foreign West Indies, particularly molasses.
The heavy restrictions of 1733 had been imposed regard-
less of the protests of colonial merchants, the avowed
purpose of Parliament being to give to the British
planters in the West Indies a monopoly of marketing
their molasses in the commercial provinces. The act
had been passed at the behest of the "West India in-
terest" in Parliament;8 and to colonial merchants, it
appeared a sinister piece of exploitation intended to en-
able "a few pamper'd Creolians" to " roll in their gilded
1 He added: "I have always understood that this was well known in
England,--allowed, as being no object of trade, or if it was, no way
injurious to that of Great Britain. " Quincy, op. eit. , pp. 430-431. Vide
also article in Bos. Eve. Post, Jan. 2, 1764. S. Toovey, clerk to the
customs collector at Salem, described, in convincing detail, how the
customs entries were manipulated for this purpose, in a deposition of
Sept. 27, 1764. Bos. Gas. , June 12, 1769.
1 Official Records of Robert Dinwiddie (Richmond, 1884), voL ii, pp.
679-681. Gov. Fauquier of Virginia reported on Nov. 20, 1764, that
ships returning from Lisbon generally brought a small quantity of
fruit and sometimes wine. Brit. Papers ("Sparks Mss. "), vol. ii, p. 43.
1 About forty members were usually so classified. Bos. Eve. Post,
Nov. 21, 1763; Bos. Post-Boy, Aug. 4, 1766.
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? THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 43
equipages thro' the streets" of London, at the expense
of two million American subjects. '
If any serious attempt had been made to enforce the
statute, the prosperity of the commercial provinces
would have been laid prostrate. It was the West India
trade, more than anything else, which had enabled them
to utilize their fisheries, forests and fertile soil, to build
up their towns and cities, to supply cargoes for their
merchant marine, and to liquidate their indebtedness to
British merchants and manufacturers. The entire mo-
lasses output of the British islands did not equal two-
thirds of the quantity imported into Rhode Island alone,
and was estimated to amount to only about one-eighth
of the quantity consumed annually by all the provinces. '
Moreover, the prices of the British planters were twenty-
five to forty per cent higher than those asked at the
foreign islands; although the foreign planters would
accept business only for cash. * That smuggling with
the foreign islands was extensive and important, the
evidence is plentiful and uncontradicted. It is to be
found in such a variety of sources as letters of colonial
1 Bos. Eve. Post, July 8, 1765, quoting an article by " Anti-Smuggler"
in the London Public Ledger. Vide also ibid. , Jan. 2, 1764. For the
best explanation of the motives of Parliament in passing this law, vide
Andrews, C. M. , "Anglo-French Commercial Rivalry," Am. Hist. Rev. ,
vol. xx, pp. 761-780.
1 Of the 14,000 hogsheads of molasses imported into Rhode Island
. each year, 11,500 hogsheads came from the foreign West Indies, pay-
1ng no duty. Representation of R. I. Assembly, in R. I. Col. Recs. , vol.
vi, pp. 378-383. Of the 15,000 hogsheads imported into Massachusetts
in 1763, all but 500 came from the foreign islands. Bernard, F. , Letters
on Trade, p. 7; evidence of William Kelly before a committee of Par-
liament, Brit. Mus. Addl. Mss. , no. 33030 (L. C. Transcripts), i. 135
* Postlethwayt, Great Britain's Interest, etc. , vol. i, p. 494; letter from
New York in London Chronicle, Oct. a, 1764. There were also heavy
duties levied on the products of the British sugar plantations at expor-
tation. Charming, op. fit. , vol. it, p. 511.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-08-19 01:35 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015011480665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? 44 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
governors and customs officials, newspaper articles and
merchants' letter books, instructions to governors, and
the writings of economists.
1
Although of decided economic advantage to the com-
mercial provinces, the non-enforcement of the Molasses
Act proved a serious political blunder for the home gov-
ernment. As British statesmanship should have foreseen,
it gave to colonial smuggling every aspect of respecta-
bility. Numbers have become '' reconciled to it by ex-
ample, habit, and custom," declared a contemporary
observer, " and have gradually consented to amuse them-
selves with some very superficial arguments in its favour,
such as, that every man has a natural right to exchange
his property with whom he pleases, and where he can
make the most advantage of it; that there is no injustice
in the nature of the thing, being no otherwise unlawful
than as the partial restrictions of power have made it;
arguments which may be . . . adopted in extenuation
of many other disorderly and pernicious practices. " ?
"There is no error jn a commercial nation so fruitful
of mischief," was the keen observation of another writer,
"as making acts and regulations oppressive to trade [with-
out enforcing them]. This opens a door to corruption.
This introduces a looseness in morals. This destroys the
1 E. g. , the commissioners of the customs in England reported on
Sept. 16, 1763, that "it appears to Us, from the Smallness of the Sum
Collected from these Duties and from other Evidence, that they have
been for the most part, either wholly evaded or Fraudulently Com-
pounded . . . " Brit. Mus. Add! . Mss. , no. 8133c (L. C. Transcripts).
A writer in the Bos. Eve. Post, Nov. 21, 1763, voiced the current colo-
nial opinion when he averred: "The sugar act has from its first pub-
lication been adjudged so unnatural that hardly any attempts have been
made to carry it into execution. "
1"A Tradesman of Philadelphia" in Pa. Journ. , Aug. 17, 1774- Cf.
Bollan's letter, Col. Soc. Mass. Pubs. , vol. vi, p. 300.
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? THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 45
reverence and regard for oaths, on which government so
much depends. This occasions a disregard to those acts
of trade which are calculated for its real benefit. This
entirely destroys the distinction which ought invariably
to be preserved in all trading communities between a
merchant and a smuggler. But the sugar act has thrown
down all distinction: Before this was published, a mer-
chant disdain'd to associate with the unfair trader. "1
The truth was that the income of many wealthy families
in the North--yea, the prosperity of whole provinces--
depended upon a trade which was approved by a robust
public opinion but forbidden by parliamentary statute.
The "Smuggling Interest" became a factor of great
potential strength in public affairs in the trading towns
of the North. '
Colonial smugglers felt the first impact of an opposing
imperial interest during the last intercolonial war,
when, covetous of large profits, they supplied the French
belligerents in America with foodstuffs, whereby they
were enabled to prolong the war. 3 In defiance of pa-
triotic duty, acts of Parliament, and the efforts of the
British and provincial administrations, not only was the
old iUicit intercourse with the French, continued but
many new routes were opened up. The early efforts of
the British government to suppress the traffic resulted
in more than doubling the average annual revenue from
the Molasses Act during the war, at a time, however,
1 Bos. Eve. Post, Nov. 21, 1763.
* Vide the important letters of Richard Oswald to Lord Dartmouth
in Stevens, Facsimiles, vol. xxiv, nos. 2032, 2034, 2037; Sagittarius's
Letters and Political Speculations (Boston, 1775), nos. i and iii, passim.
* The present account is based largely upon the excellent treatment
in Beer, Brit. Col. Policy, 1754-1765, pp. 72-131, and Root, Rels. of Pa.
with Brit. Govt. , pp. 76-84.
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? 46 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
when the volume of smuggling had probably trebled or
quadrupled. 1 In 1760 and 1761, a vigorous employment
of the navy resulted in disturbing the centers of smug-
gling in the West Indies and in further disminishing its
volume.
The experience of the British government during the
war sharply revealed the strength, sordidness and energy
of the forces supporting the contraband trade. Prov-
incial governors had been bought out by the smugglers
in one or two instances; and from Massachusetts to
South Carolina, the Americans managed pretty success-
fully to control the vice-admiralty courts in their favor.
Governor Hamilton, of Pennsylvania, reported in 1760
that the most eminent lawyers of that province were re-
tained by the smugglers. In New-York, Lieutenant
Governor Colden complained in 1762 that his efforts
against illicit trade had failed of the desired effect be-
cause the enforcement of the law rested largely with
persons who had connections with smugglers or who
feared their resentment. 2 A prominent Rhode Island
lawyer averred that the courts of vice-admiralty had be-
come "subject to mercantile influence; and the king's
revenue sacrificed to the venality and perfidiousness of
courts and officers. "8
In Massachusetts, the smuggling merchants struggled
1The extent of this partial enforcement is indicated by the aggregate
amount of the revenue derived from the Molasses Act. The total
duties paid on molasses from 1734 to the close of 1755 amounted to
? 5,686, or a yearly average of ? 259. In the seven years, 1756-1762,
? 4,375 was collected, the yearly average being ? 625. For the years 1760
and 1761 the amounts were ? 1,170 and ? 1,189. Beer, op. cit. , pp. 115-
116 and f. n.
1Letter Books, vol. i, pp. 195-196.
1 Howard, M. , A Letter from a Gentleman at Halifax to his Friend
in Rhode Island (Newport, 1765).
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? THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH
47
hard to impair the efficiency of the customs collection
by instituting damage suits against customs officials in
unfriendly common-law courts. Toward the end of the
war, the services of James Otis, recently prosecuting
officer for the local vice-admiralty court and the most
eloquent lawyer of the province, were retained by the
merchants of Boston and Salem, in an attack on the leg-
ality of the general search warrants, or "writs of assist-
ance," which had proved an effective means of locating
contraband goods. Like Henry in Virginia, Otis made
a perfervid plea for the "inherent, inalienable, and inde-
feasible" rights of the colonists and particularly for the
privacy of one's home and warehouses from prying
customs officers acting under general search warrants. 1
But he lost his case. This failure led the Massachusetts
General Court to pass an act, which, if Governor Bernard
had not vetoed it, would have drawn the teeth from the
writs. This bill, the governor assured the Board of
Trade, was "the last effort of the confederacy against
the custom-house and Laws of Trade. "*
nf smuggling had been originally
undertaken by the British government as a war measure;
but before the war had term1nated, 1t became apparent
that a strict enforcement of the acts of trade was to be a
permanent peace policy. Pitt's circular dispatch of
August 23, 1760 marked the transition;3 the year 1763
brought a succession of unqualified steps in this direc-
tion. An act of Parliament of that year authorized the
1 For a bibliography of Otis's speech, vide Green, S. A. , g M. H. S.
Procs. , vol. vi, pp. 190-196.
'Palfrey, J. G. , Compendious History of New England (Boston,
1884), vol. iv, p. 313.
'Text in Quincy, Mass. Reports, p. 407.
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? 48 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
use of the navy against smuggling in the colonies. 1 The
vicious practice of absenteeism in the customs service
was terminated: all colonial customs officials residing in
England were ordered to repair to their stations in
America. 2 In July, special instructions were sent to
colonial governors and naval commanders to suppress
illicit trade, especially the clandestine traffic carried on
directly with continental Europe. 3 In the last days of
the year, strict orders were issued from all the custom
houses in the northern district, requiring masters of
vessels to conform to the old Molasses Act "in all its
parts. "4 Earlv in T^AJ A~itrirnn newspapers recorded
the arrival of warships at various ports. The frequency
of seizures 1ncreased. 5
The publication of the orders to enforce the Molasses
Act "caused a greater alarm in this country than the
taking of Fort William Henry did in 1757," declared
Governor Bernard, of Massachusetts. 6 He reported that
it was common talk among Boston merchants that the
trade of the province was at an end, "sacrificed to the
West Indian Planters," and that every prudent man
should resort to farming and homespun. Lieutenant
13 George III, c. 22.
1 Kimball, G. S. , ed. , Correspondence of the Colonial Governors of
Rhode Island, 1723-1775 (Boston, 1002), vol. ii, p. 355.
1 Md. Arch. , vol. xiv, pp. 102-103; Prov. Gas. , Sept. 24, 1763, also
Mass. Gas. and News-Letter, Sept. 29.
4 Bos. Post-Boy, Jan. 2 and 9, 1764, contained such orders, under
date of Dec. 26, 1763, from the custom houses of the ports of Boston,
Salem, Piscataqua and Falmouth; Newport; New London and New
Haven; New York; Perth Amboy, Burlington and Salem, N. J.
6 Hutchinson, Hist, of Mass. Bay, vol. iii, pp. 160-163.
6 Bernard, Letters, p. 9. Commenting on this comparison, John
Adams declared in 1818: "This I fully believe and certainly know to
be true; for I was an eye and an ear witness to both of these alarms. "
Works (Adams, C. F. , ed. ), vol. x, p. 345.
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