But the
thinking
people don't speak so plainly on
the right as others; they complain of the oppression" ; he apprehended
that " the Idea of Oppression awakened the Idea of Right.
the right as others; they complain of the oppression" ; he apprehended
that " the Idea of Oppression awakened the Idea of Right.
Arthur Schlesinger - Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution
FIRST CONTEST FOR REFORM 6l
met at Burn's Long Room on January 27, 1764 and took
under consideration the declining state of trade. _^. com-
mittee was appointed to memorialize the-Jejdslature on the
situat1on and to ask their interposition with Parliament.
The committee later established regular meeting nights. 1
A communication in the New York Gasette and Post-Boy
of February 2 commended the rational action of the mer-
chants and declared riotous opposition would be " seditious
and injurious to Government" when redress might be ob-
tained by dutiful petition. At the suggestion of theJMew
York Committee of Merchants, the merchants of Phila-
delphia became active, and appointed a committee to urge
the Pennsylvania Assembly to solicit Parliament to dis-
continue the molasses duties of 1733. 2
In every case the legislatures took the desired step, al-
though little was done until after the new duties of 1764
had become a law. 8 Only Rhode Island had been fore-
handed enough to petition for the repeal of the old Molasses
Act prior to the new legislation of Parliament. In June,
the Massachusetts House of Representatives ordered its
agent in London to press for a repeal of the new dut1es and
also to protest against the Sfflmp Art 'iru;"t' J"og TM" the
government's program for 1765. A committee was ap-
pointed to urge the other legislatures on the continent to
join in the movement. In July the Rhode Island Assembly
appointed a committee for the same purpose; and a com-
mittee of the New York Assembly began a similar pro-
paganda in October. *~
1 Weyler's N. Y. Co*. , Jan. 30, 1764; N. Y. Gas. & Post-Boy, Feb. a;
N. Y. Merc. , Mch. 5, 1764. The memorial was read in the provincial
assembly on Apr. 20, 1764.
* Bos. Post-Boy, Mch. 26, 1764.
* Frothingham, R. , The Rise of the Republic of the United States
(Boston, 1881), pp. 173-174.
* The New York committee was instructed to correspond "on the
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? 62 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
(The problem of the commercial provinces was to enlist
the support of the plantation provinces in their campaign
for remedial legislation. In this way, a united front could
be shown to Parliament and the chances for success greatly
increased. The tobacco provinces were readier of response
than any of the others, because of the unsatisfactory condi-
tion of crops and crop prices and because of the scarcity
of money J " The Courts are filled with Law-Suits, and
many People are obliged to sell their Estates," wrote a Vir-
ginian. 1 George Washington, one of the large Virginia
planters, was forced to explain to a creditor that he had
fallen " so much in arrears " because he had not had " even
tolerable crops" for three straight years, and when he had
one, it did not sell well. 2 But these conditions could not
be attributed to the acts of 1764, and did not seem to pre-
vail in the more southerly provinces.
The position of the commercial provinces was greatly
strengthened strategically by the fact that the Stamp Act
was on the boards for active consideration by Parliament
in 1765. A stamp tax was clearly a departure from the
ancient custom of the home government. It was more
purely a fiscal measure than was the so-called Sugar Act of
1 764, its incidence was more obvious and it fell on people in
all the provinces. Thus, -nncprl stam r"
an opportunitv to the mercantile 1"frffjfftff f^tir IIP -a
Subject Matter of the Act, commonly called the Sugar Act; on the
Act restraining Paper Bills of Credit in the Colonies from being a
legal Tender; and of the several other Acts of Parliament lately passed,
with relation to the Trade of the Northern Colonies: And also on the
Subject of the impending Dangers which threaten the Colonies, of being
taxed by Laws to be passed in Great-Britain. " Note the sequence.
Pa. Gas. , Nov. 28, 1764.
1 Virginia and Maryland news in Prov. Gas. , Jan. 19, 1765; Bos.
Post-Boy, June 10, July 29.
1 Writings (Ford, W. C, ed. ), vol. ii, pp. 200-202.
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? FIRST CONTEST FOR REFORM 63
general disrnntpnf as w^ll ag tn I'nrr^go Wal His
Consciously or not, the northern legislatures made the most
of the occasion. In their official utterances, they dovetailed
in with their economic indictment of the Sugar Act a protest
against the proposed Stamp Act as an inexpedient and un-
constitutional measure. 1 Their efforts to secure continental
co-operation were successful : . petitions and remonstrances
were sent from Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina,
and, with considerablp reluctance, from Georgia. 2
Meantime, the hard times had been causing people in the
commercial provinces to retrench expenses; and in some
cases this object was accomplished by concerted effort. A
clear-seeing writer in the Providence Gazette, October 6,
1 764, proposed a continental agreement to suspend tradg
with the British West Indies, in order to strike a body blow
at the West India interest in Parliament; but it was ten
years too soon for such a proposal to win favorable re-
sponse. Fifty merchants of Boston set an example in
August, 1 764. by signing an agreement to discard laces and
ruffles, to buy no English cloths but at a fixed price, and
to forego the elaboratp and eyp^^vo mourning nf'thp
t1mes for the very simplest display. * The mourning reso-
1 As Oswald observed to Dartmouth in 1775, the disgruntled mer-
chants had had "the art to interweave in their System of Grievances
. . . some others of a political nature and apparently of a more liberal
cast than do[e]s really lye at the bottom of their designs. " Stevens,
Facsimiles, vol. xxiv, no. 2032, p. 5.
1 Of the commercial group, Connecticut and Pennsylvania now joined
in with the others. The southern legislatures generally included a com-
plaint against certain restrictions placed in 1764 upon the exportation
of lumber, a matter that was satisfactorily adjusted by Parliament in
1765. South Carolina also complained of the Currency Act. Docu-
mentary History of the American Revolution (Gibbes, R. W. , ed. ), vol.
ii, pp. l-d. The Virginia Committee of Correspondence expressed
alarm at the duties on Madeira wine but seemed pleased at the Cur-
rency Act. Va. Mag. , vol. xii, pp. 6-1 1.
* Newport Merc. , Aug. 20, 1764; also AT. Y. Gas. & Post-Boy, Aug. 30.
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? 64 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
lutions were so well kept by the people generally that it was
reported that there had been only one or two violations after
four months' trial, although almost one hundred funerals
had occurred; and it was estimated that the saving would be
more than ? 10,000 sterling a year. 1 Burials " according to
the new mode" were recorded by the newspapers in New
Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey and New York.
In September the tradesmen of Boston followed in the
path of the merchants, by agreeing to wear only leather of
Massachusetts manufacture for their work clothes. 2 In
November the students of Yale took unanimous action to
abstain from the use of foreign liquors. * The people of
New York apparently took no formal action; but five fire
companies of Philadelphia attempted to counteract the high
price of mutton by agreeing to refrain from the purchase of
lamb. * One company added a pledge against the drinking
of imported beer.
The logical counterpart of the efforts for the disuse of
imported superfluities was the
_manufactures. This movement had greatest vitality in New
York, where a number of prominent men in December, 1764,
organized the " Society for H1o frnmnn'op r,f A rtv Agri-
culture and Oecpnomy, and proceeded to award premiums
fora great variety of local productions, to print informing
pamphlets, and to promote the formation of similar societies
throughout the province8 Ja_other provinces, the news-
1 Bos. Eve. Post, Jan. 21, 1765; Bos. Post-Boy, Oct. 1, 8, 1764, July 1,
1/65.
'Ibid. , Oct . 1, 1764.
*N. Y. Gas. & Post-Boy, Nov. 22, 1764.
4 Pa. Gaz. , Feb. 28, Mch. 7, 14, May 16, 1765.
? F1les of Weyler's N. Y. Gas. and of the AT. Y. Merc, from Dec. 3,
1764, to June 1, 1767. The notice of Dec. 3, 1764, declared that the
society was formed upon a plan "wholly detached from all Party
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? FIRST CONTEST FOR REFORM 65
papers teemed with instructive articles on the methods and
opportunity of American manufactures; and the provinces
north of Maryland showed many instances of increased pro-
duction of linen and woolen homespun. Outside of New
York, greatest progress seems to have been made at Boston,
where the " Linen Manufactory" produced four hundred
yards of "Bengals, Lillepusias and Broglios" in a period
of three months, and " Lynn Shoes " won a merited popu-
larity. 1
On March 22, 1765, the Stamp Act received the royal as-
sent, and by its terms was to go into effect on November
the first of that year. The act was an integral part of the
taxation program inaugurated by Grenville in 1764. Stamp
duties were placed on commercial papers of various kinds,
on deeds, bonds, leases and other legal documents, on pam-
phlets, newspapers and advertisements, and on articles of
apprenticeship, liquor licenses, etc. Heavy fines and for-
feitures were provided for infractions of the law, and these
might be collected through the vice-admiralty courts at the
tion of the informer or prosecutor. 2
1 In view of the later revolutionary movement, it is not too
much to say that the Stamp Act derived its chief import-
ance from the fact . that it lifted the controversy from the
profit-and-loss considerations of the northern colonists and
furnished a common ground on which the planting provinces
might join with the commercial provinces in protest. ! The
eighteenth century Anglo-Saxon liked nothing better than
Spirit, personal Interest, political Views or private Motives. " The next
week, it was stated that the severe times had caused the formation of
the society.
1 Bos. Post-Boy, Oct. 8, 1764, Jan. 24, 1765. John Hancock's wealthy
uncle had bequeathed ? 200 to this society on his death on Aug. 1, 1764.
Ibid. , Aug. 13, 1764.
1 5 George III, c. 12.
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? 66 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
the expansive phrases of the natural rights theory; and the
Stamp Act readily lent itself to protests against " taxation
without representation" and "trial without jury. " 1
The economic burden of the new law, as in the case of the
duties of 1764, fell very largely on the commercial provinces.
The merchants, lawyers and printers were the classes par-
ticularly affected; and these classes, as we shall see, felt im-
pelled to take a leading part in instigating popular demon-
strations against the measure.
The taxes on commercial documents threatened to
paralyze such business as had survived the restrictive legis-
lation of the preceding year. "Under this additional
Burthen of the Stamp Act," wrote one of the merchant
princes of Boston, "I cannot carry it [trade] on to any
profit and we were before Cramp'd in our Trade & suffi-
ciently Burthen'd, that any farther Taxes must Ruin us. "
In another letter, Hancock declared that if the act were
carried into execution, itC' will entirely Stagnate Trade
here, for it is universally determined here never to submit
1 Colonel George Mercer, of Virginia, told a committee of Parliament
in Feb. , 1766: "I have heard the Complaints of Right and oppression
blended together.
But the thinking people don't speak so plainly on
the right as others; they complain of the oppression" ; he apprehended
that " the Idea of Oppression awakened the Idea of Right. " Brit. Mus.
Addl. Mss. , no. 33030 (L. C. Transcripts), ff. 126, 129. A letter from a
New Yorker to an English friend said: "It is thought the stamp act
would not have met with so violent an opposition if the colonies had
not previously been chagrined at the rigorous execution of the laws
against their trade. " Bos. Eve. Post, Feb. 17, 1766. Dean Tucker
wrote in his pamphlet, A Letter from a Merchant in London to his
Nephew in North America (1766): "What is the Cause of such an
amazing Outcry as you raise at present? Not the Stamp Duty itself;
. . . none can be so ignorant, or so stupid, as not to see that this is a
mere Sham and Pretence. What, then, are the real Grievances . . . ?
Why, some of you are exasperated against the Mother Country on the
Account of the Revival of certain iRestrictions laid upon their Trade. "
Pa. Mag. , vol. xxvi, p. 86.
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? FIRST CONTEST FOR REFORM 67
to it, and the principal merchants here will by no means
carry on Business under a StampTj Early in October, he
told Governor Bernard that he would rather perform the
severest manual labor than continue business under the bur-
den of the pending Stamp Act, and that " I am Determin'd
as soon as I know that they are Resolv'd to insist on this act
to Sell my Stock in Trade & Shut up my Warehouse Doors. "
In a letter a few days later, he protested that " there is not
cash enough here to support it. " I lancock's commercial
correspondence of this period snyndeH a gremnnf; nnte of
despair; and only as an afterthought did he allude, once or
twice, to the unconstitutionallv of the act. 1
vo1cing the apprehensions of the merchants of Pennsyl-
vania, John Dickinson questioned whether, under present
panic conditions, a merchant's commerce could bear "the
payment of all the taxes imposed by the Stamp Act on his
policies, fees with clerks, charter parties, protests, his other
notarial acts, his letters, and even his advertisements. " He
showed that hard times were having a cumulative effect.
Money, where any remained, had gone into hiding. When
creditors took out executions, they discovered that the lands
and personal estates could be sold only at a fraction of their
value. The records of the courts attested that the number
of debtors had increased enormously; at the last term, no
less than thirty-five persons from Philadelphia County alone
had sought relief under the insolvency act, although the law
applied only to those who owed no single debt above ? 150.
This being the situation, said Dickinson, " from whence is
the silver to come, with which the taxes imposed by this act,
and the duties imposed by other late acts, are to be paid? " 2
1 Brown, John Hancock His Book, pp. 83, 87, 88, 90. Vide also pp.
69, 70, 81, 86-90, 103-104, 115.
1 The Late Regulations etc. , Dickinson, Writings (Ford, L. , ed. ),
pp. 227-230. Vide also pp. 440-441.
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? 68 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
Jonathan Watts, a member of the New York Council,
was writing home in the same strain: "I cannot conceive
there will be silver or gold enough to carry this Act and the
high duties that are laid, through, and what shall people
then do in a new country where property so frequently
changes hands, must everything stagnate, and will not a
universal discontent prevail? Man is man, and will feel
and will resent, too . . . "l The Philadelphia merchant,
Stephen Collins, repeated the plaintive note in many letters
to London creditors, alleging that, owing to the stagnation
of trade, " I have not been able to Forward your Remitances
more timely. " 2
Benjamin Franklin hplipv-pH that the new act would fall
"particularly hard on us lawvers and printers. " 8 The
lawyers throughout British America were affected by the
duties imposed on all important legal documents. "It is
well known," commented a writer in the New York Gasette
and Post-Boy, February 20, 1766, "that some of the
Lawyers in the several Provinces have been, and still con-
tinue, the principal Writers on the Side of American
Liberty. " Indeed, one of the ablest pamphlets against the
Stamp Act was written by Daniel Dulany, the foremost
lawyer of Maryland, a man who opposed no subsequent tax
of Great Britain and who eventually became a loyalist. 4
1 4 M. H. S. Colls. , vol. x, p. 576. "N" claimed in the Pa. Journ. ,
Sept. 5, 1765, that there was not nearly enough money in America to
pay the current debt to British merchants, let alone the new taxes.
"Publicola" calculated in the N. Y. Gas. & Post-Boy, May 30, 1765,
that all the gold and silver would be drained off in two years at most.
1Letter Book, 1760-1773 (L. C. Mss. ), May 18, June 24, 1765; Aug.
14, Nov. 10, 1766.
1Writings (Smyth), vol. iv, pp. 361-363.
4 Considerations on the Propriety of imposing Taxes in the British
Colonies (October, 1765), reprinted in Md. Hist. Mag. , vol. vi, pp. 376-
406. Dulany was largely responsible for the nullification of the Stamp
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? FIRST CONTEST FOR REFORM gg
Although he based his opposition largely on constitutional
grounds, he did not fail to show that the tax fell on a prov-
ince, "not in proportion to its wealth, but to the multi-
plicity of juridical forms, the quantity of vacant land, the
frequency of transferring landed property, the extent of
paper negotiations, the scarcity of money, and the number
of debtors," and he argued that " the principal part of the
revenue will be drawn from the poorest individuals in the
poorest colonies, from mortgagers, obligors, and defend-
ants. " Lieutenant Governor Colden of New York had
"the strongest presumption from numerous Circumstances
to believe that the Lawyers of this Place are the Authors,
Promoters & Leaders " of the local opposition to the stamp
duties. 1
Printers were directly involved in the new act as pub-
lishers of newspapers and pamphlets. The foremost print-
er of the continent, Benjamin Franklin, wrote to his fellow-
publisher of the Pennsylvania Gasette that he believed the
Stamp Act "will affect the Printers more than anybody,
as a Sterling Halfpenny Stamp on every Half Sheet of a.
Newspaper, and Two Shillings Sterling on every Adver-
tisement, will go near to knock up one Half of both. There
Act in Maryland. Latrobe, J. H. , "Daniel Dulany," Pa. Mag. , vol. iii,
pp. 4-5. Vide also the views of William Smith, Jr. , a New York lawyer
whom Colden characterized as "a violent republican independent" and
an organizer of mobs. 4 M. H. S. Colls. , vol. x, pp. 570-571.
1 Letter Books, vol. ii, pp. 61-62. He continued: "People in general
believe it, and many must with certainty know it. I must add that all
the Judges have given too much Countenance to their Proceedings . . . "
Vide also ibid. , p. 92. The lawyers of New York were discontented
w^th other matters besides the Stamp Act; and Colden claimed that
they were more powerful there than anywhere else in America. "Noth-
ing is too wicked for them to attempt which serves their purposes--
tile Press is to them what the Pulpit was in times of Popery. "
p. 71.
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? 70 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
is also Fourpence Sterling on every Almanack. "1 . The
twenty-odd newspapers of Amen^ r? rri? A op, a tremen-
dously effective propaganda against the Stamp Act,2 and in
no later crisis exhibited such unanimity of protest.
Aside from their influence as directors of popular opposi-
tion, the merchants, lawyers and printers were faced with
the problem of making a living while their business was
legally subject to the use of stamps. The merchants re-
fused to use stamps in their business transactions and usu-
ally succeeded in keeping the ports open for commerce, when
it became apparent to the authorities that the sale of stamps
was impracticable or impossible. * The lawyers* in first
instance, agreed that all lega] hngi"pgg shr^M he suspended
until the Stamp Act should be repealed; but when their
purses began to grow lean from lack of clients' fees and the
merchants and creditors clamored for the opportunity to
collect their debts, they generally induced the courts to open
for business without stamps. 4 "This long interval of in-
dolence and idleness will make a large chasm in my affairs,"
wrote the lawyer John Adams in the period before the
courts were re-opened. He added: " I have groped in dark
obscurity, till of late, and had but just known and gained a
small degree of reputation, when this project was set on
foot for my ruin as well as that of America in general, and
1 Writings (Smyth), vol. iv, pp. 363-364.
*? . g. , Jonathan Watts, of New York, wrote on Sept. 24, 1765:
"You will think the printers all mad, Holt particularly, who has been
'cautioned over and over again, and would have been prosecuted, but
people's minds are so inflamed about this stamp act, it would only be
exposing Government to attempt it. " 4 M. H. S. Colls. , vol. x, p. 576.
Holt published the New York Gazette-and Post-Boy at this time.
'E. g. , vide Hutchinson, Mass. Bay, vol. iii, p. 141; 4 M. H. S. Colls. ,
vol. x, p. 587.
4 E. g. , vide I N. J. Arch. , vol.
met at Burn's Long Room on January 27, 1764 and took
under consideration the declining state of trade. _^. com-
mittee was appointed to memorialize the-Jejdslature on the
situat1on and to ask their interposition with Parliament.
The committee later established regular meeting nights. 1
A communication in the New York Gasette and Post-Boy
of February 2 commended the rational action of the mer-
chants and declared riotous opposition would be " seditious
and injurious to Government" when redress might be ob-
tained by dutiful petition. At the suggestion of theJMew
York Committee of Merchants, the merchants of Phila-
delphia became active, and appointed a committee to urge
the Pennsylvania Assembly to solicit Parliament to dis-
continue the molasses duties of 1733. 2
In every case the legislatures took the desired step, al-
though little was done until after the new duties of 1764
had become a law. 8 Only Rhode Island had been fore-
handed enough to petition for the repeal of the old Molasses
Act prior to the new legislation of Parliament. In June,
the Massachusetts House of Representatives ordered its
agent in London to press for a repeal of the new dut1es and
also to protest against the Sfflmp Art 'iru;"t' J"og TM" the
government's program for 1765. A committee was ap-
pointed to urge the other legislatures on the continent to
join in the movement. In July the Rhode Island Assembly
appointed a committee for the same purpose; and a com-
mittee of the New York Assembly began a similar pro-
paganda in October. *~
1 Weyler's N. Y. Co*. , Jan. 30, 1764; N. Y. Gas. & Post-Boy, Feb. a;
N. Y. Merc. , Mch. 5, 1764. The memorial was read in the provincial
assembly on Apr. 20, 1764.
* Bos. Post-Boy, Mch. 26, 1764.
* Frothingham, R. , The Rise of the Republic of the United States
(Boston, 1881), pp. 173-174.
* The New York committee was instructed to correspond "on the
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? 62 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
(The problem of the commercial provinces was to enlist
the support of the plantation provinces in their campaign
for remedial legislation. In this way, a united front could
be shown to Parliament and the chances for success greatly
increased. The tobacco provinces were readier of response
than any of the others, because of the unsatisfactory condi-
tion of crops and crop prices and because of the scarcity
of money J " The Courts are filled with Law-Suits, and
many People are obliged to sell their Estates," wrote a Vir-
ginian. 1 George Washington, one of the large Virginia
planters, was forced to explain to a creditor that he had
fallen " so much in arrears " because he had not had " even
tolerable crops" for three straight years, and when he had
one, it did not sell well. 2 But these conditions could not
be attributed to the acts of 1764, and did not seem to pre-
vail in the more southerly provinces.
The position of the commercial provinces was greatly
strengthened strategically by the fact that the Stamp Act
was on the boards for active consideration by Parliament
in 1765. A stamp tax was clearly a departure from the
ancient custom of the home government. It was more
purely a fiscal measure than was the so-called Sugar Act of
1 764, its incidence was more obvious and it fell on people in
all the provinces. Thus, -nncprl stam r"
an opportunitv to the mercantile 1"frffjfftff f^tir IIP -a
Subject Matter of the Act, commonly called the Sugar Act; on the
Act restraining Paper Bills of Credit in the Colonies from being a
legal Tender; and of the several other Acts of Parliament lately passed,
with relation to the Trade of the Northern Colonies: And also on the
Subject of the impending Dangers which threaten the Colonies, of being
taxed by Laws to be passed in Great-Britain. " Note the sequence.
Pa. Gas. , Nov. 28, 1764.
1 Virginia and Maryland news in Prov. Gas. , Jan. 19, 1765; Bos.
Post-Boy, June 10, July 29.
1 Writings (Ford, W. C, ed. ), vol. ii, pp. 200-202.
? ? 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
? FIRST CONTEST FOR REFORM 63
general disrnntpnf as w^ll ag tn I'nrr^go Wal His
Consciously or not, the northern legislatures made the most
of the occasion. In their official utterances, they dovetailed
in with their economic indictment of the Sugar Act a protest
against the proposed Stamp Act as an inexpedient and un-
constitutional measure. 1 Their efforts to secure continental
co-operation were successful : . petitions and remonstrances
were sent from Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina,
and, with considerablp reluctance, from Georgia. 2
Meantime, the hard times had been causing people in the
commercial provinces to retrench expenses; and in some
cases this object was accomplished by concerted effort. A
clear-seeing writer in the Providence Gazette, October 6,
1 764, proposed a continental agreement to suspend tradg
with the British West Indies, in order to strike a body blow
at the West India interest in Parliament; but it was ten
years too soon for such a proposal to win favorable re-
sponse. Fifty merchants of Boston set an example in
August, 1 764. by signing an agreement to discard laces and
ruffles, to buy no English cloths but at a fixed price, and
to forego the elaboratp and eyp^^vo mourning nf'thp
t1mes for the very simplest display. * The mourning reso-
1 As Oswald observed to Dartmouth in 1775, the disgruntled mer-
chants had had "the art to interweave in their System of Grievances
. . . some others of a political nature and apparently of a more liberal
cast than do[e]s really lye at the bottom of their designs. " Stevens,
Facsimiles, vol. xxiv, no. 2032, p. 5.
1 Of the commercial group, Connecticut and Pennsylvania now joined
in with the others. The southern legislatures generally included a com-
plaint against certain restrictions placed in 1764 upon the exportation
of lumber, a matter that was satisfactorily adjusted by Parliament in
1765. South Carolina also complained of the Currency Act. Docu-
mentary History of the American Revolution (Gibbes, R. W. , ed. ), vol.
ii, pp. l-d. The Virginia Committee of Correspondence expressed
alarm at the duties on Madeira wine but seemed pleased at the Cur-
rency Act. Va. Mag. , vol. xii, pp. 6-1 1.
* Newport Merc. , Aug. 20, 1764; also AT. Y. Gas. & Post-Boy, Aug. 30.
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? 64 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
lutions were so well kept by the people generally that it was
reported that there had been only one or two violations after
four months' trial, although almost one hundred funerals
had occurred; and it was estimated that the saving would be
more than ? 10,000 sterling a year. 1 Burials " according to
the new mode" were recorded by the newspapers in New
Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey and New York.
In September the tradesmen of Boston followed in the
path of the merchants, by agreeing to wear only leather of
Massachusetts manufacture for their work clothes. 2 In
November the students of Yale took unanimous action to
abstain from the use of foreign liquors. * The people of
New York apparently took no formal action; but five fire
companies of Philadelphia attempted to counteract the high
price of mutton by agreeing to refrain from the purchase of
lamb. * One company added a pledge against the drinking
of imported beer.
The logical counterpart of the efforts for the disuse of
imported superfluities was the
_manufactures. This movement had greatest vitality in New
York, where a number of prominent men in December, 1764,
organized the " Society for H1o frnmnn'op r,f A rtv Agri-
culture and Oecpnomy, and proceeded to award premiums
fora great variety of local productions, to print informing
pamphlets, and to promote the formation of similar societies
throughout the province8 Ja_other provinces, the news-
1 Bos. Eve. Post, Jan. 21, 1765; Bos. Post-Boy, Oct. 1, 8, 1764, July 1,
1/65.
'Ibid. , Oct . 1, 1764.
*N. Y. Gas. & Post-Boy, Nov. 22, 1764.
4 Pa. Gaz. , Feb. 28, Mch. 7, 14, May 16, 1765.
? F1les of Weyler's N. Y. Gas. and of the AT. Y. Merc, from Dec. 3,
1764, to June 1, 1767. The notice of Dec. 3, 1764, declared that the
society was formed upon a plan "wholly detached from all Party
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? FIRST CONTEST FOR REFORM 65
papers teemed with instructive articles on the methods and
opportunity of American manufactures; and the provinces
north of Maryland showed many instances of increased pro-
duction of linen and woolen homespun. Outside of New
York, greatest progress seems to have been made at Boston,
where the " Linen Manufactory" produced four hundred
yards of "Bengals, Lillepusias and Broglios" in a period
of three months, and " Lynn Shoes " won a merited popu-
larity. 1
On March 22, 1765, the Stamp Act received the royal as-
sent, and by its terms was to go into effect on November
the first of that year. The act was an integral part of the
taxation program inaugurated by Grenville in 1764. Stamp
duties were placed on commercial papers of various kinds,
on deeds, bonds, leases and other legal documents, on pam-
phlets, newspapers and advertisements, and on articles of
apprenticeship, liquor licenses, etc. Heavy fines and for-
feitures were provided for infractions of the law, and these
might be collected through the vice-admiralty courts at the
tion of the informer or prosecutor. 2
1 In view of the later revolutionary movement, it is not too
much to say that the Stamp Act derived its chief import-
ance from the fact . that it lifted the controversy from the
profit-and-loss considerations of the northern colonists and
furnished a common ground on which the planting provinces
might join with the commercial provinces in protest. ! The
eighteenth century Anglo-Saxon liked nothing better than
Spirit, personal Interest, political Views or private Motives. " The next
week, it was stated that the severe times had caused the formation of
the society.
1 Bos. Post-Boy, Oct. 8, 1764, Jan. 24, 1765. John Hancock's wealthy
uncle had bequeathed ? 200 to this society on his death on Aug. 1, 1764.
Ibid. , Aug. 13, 1764.
1 5 George III, c. 12.
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? 66 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
the expansive phrases of the natural rights theory; and the
Stamp Act readily lent itself to protests against " taxation
without representation" and "trial without jury. " 1
The economic burden of the new law, as in the case of the
duties of 1764, fell very largely on the commercial provinces.
The merchants, lawyers and printers were the classes par-
ticularly affected; and these classes, as we shall see, felt im-
pelled to take a leading part in instigating popular demon-
strations against the measure.
The taxes on commercial documents threatened to
paralyze such business as had survived the restrictive legis-
lation of the preceding year. "Under this additional
Burthen of the Stamp Act," wrote one of the merchant
princes of Boston, "I cannot carry it [trade] on to any
profit and we were before Cramp'd in our Trade & suffi-
ciently Burthen'd, that any farther Taxes must Ruin us. "
In another letter, Hancock declared that if the act were
carried into execution, itC' will entirely Stagnate Trade
here, for it is universally determined here never to submit
1 Colonel George Mercer, of Virginia, told a committee of Parliament
in Feb. , 1766: "I have heard the Complaints of Right and oppression
blended together.
But the thinking people don't speak so plainly on
the right as others; they complain of the oppression" ; he apprehended
that " the Idea of Oppression awakened the Idea of Right. " Brit. Mus.
Addl. Mss. , no. 33030 (L. C. Transcripts), ff. 126, 129. A letter from a
New Yorker to an English friend said: "It is thought the stamp act
would not have met with so violent an opposition if the colonies had
not previously been chagrined at the rigorous execution of the laws
against their trade. " Bos. Eve. Post, Feb. 17, 1766. Dean Tucker
wrote in his pamphlet, A Letter from a Merchant in London to his
Nephew in North America (1766): "What is the Cause of such an
amazing Outcry as you raise at present? Not the Stamp Duty itself;
. . . none can be so ignorant, or so stupid, as not to see that this is a
mere Sham and Pretence. What, then, are the real Grievances . . . ?
Why, some of you are exasperated against the Mother Country on the
Account of the Revival of certain iRestrictions laid upon their Trade. "
Pa. Mag. , vol. xxvi, p. 86.
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? FIRST CONTEST FOR REFORM 67
to it, and the principal merchants here will by no means
carry on Business under a StampTj Early in October, he
told Governor Bernard that he would rather perform the
severest manual labor than continue business under the bur-
den of the pending Stamp Act, and that " I am Determin'd
as soon as I know that they are Resolv'd to insist on this act
to Sell my Stock in Trade & Shut up my Warehouse Doors. "
In a letter a few days later, he protested that " there is not
cash enough here to support it. " I lancock's commercial
correspondence of this period snyndeH a gremnnf; nnte of
despair; and only as an afterthought did he allude, once or
twice, to the unconstitutionallv of the act. 1
vo1cing the apprehensions of the merchants of Pennsyl-
vania, John Dickinson questioned whether, under present
panic conditions, a merchant's commerce could bear "the
payment of all the taxes imposed by the Stamp Act on his
policies, fees with clerks, charter parties, protests, his other
notarial acts, his letters, and even his advertisements. " He
showed that hard times were having a cumulative effect.
Money, where any remained, had gone into hiding. When
creditors took out executions, they discovered that the lands
and personal estates could be sold only at a fraction of their
value. The records of the courts attested that the number
of debtors had increased enormously; at the last term, no
less than thirty-five persons from Philadelphia County alone
had sought relief under the insolvency act, although the law
applied only to those who owed no single debt above ? 150.
This being the situation, said Dickinson, " from whence is
the silver to come, with which the taxes imposed by this act,
and the duties imposed by other late acts, are to be paid? " 2
1 Brown, John Hancock His Book, pp. 83, 87, 88, 90. Vide also pp.
69, 70, 81, 86-90, 103-104, 115.
1 The Late Regulations etc. , Dickinson, Writings (Ford, L. , ed. ),
pp. 227-230. Vide also pp. 440-441.
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? 68 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
Jonathan Watts, a member of the New York Council,
was writing home in the same strain: "I cannot conceive
there will be silver or gold enough to carry this Act and the
high duties that are laid, through, and what shall people
then do in a new country where property so frequently
changes hands, must everything stagnate, and will not a
universal discontent prevail? Man is man, and will feel
and will resent, too . . . "l The Philadelphia merchant,
Stephen Collins, repeated the plaintive note in many letters
to London creditors, alleging that, owing to the stagnation
of trade, " I have not been able to Forward your Remitances
more timely. " 2
Benjamin Franklin hplipv-pH that the new act would fall
"particularly hard on us lawvers and printers. " 8 The
lawyers throughout British America were affected by the
duties imposed on all important legal documents. "It is
well known," commented a writer in the New York Gasette
and Post-Boy, February 20, 1766, "that some of the
Lawyers in the several Provinces have been, and still con-
tinue, the principal Writers on the Side of American
Liberty. " Indeed, one of the ablest pamphlets against the
Stamp Act was written by Daniel Dulany, the foremost
lawyer of Maryland, a man who opposed no subsequent tax
of Great Britain and who eventually became a loyalist. 4
1 4 M. H. S. Colls. , vol. x, p. 576. "N" claimed in the Pa. Journ. ,
Sept. 5, 1765, that there was not nearly enough money in America to
pay the current debt to British merchants, let alone the new taxes.
"Publicola" calculated in the N. Y. Gas. & Post-Boy, May 30, 1765,
that all the gold and silver would be drained off in two years at most.
1Letter Book, 1760-1773 (L. C. Mss. ), May 18, June 24, 1765; Aug.
14, Nov. 10, 1766.
1Writings (Smyth), vol. iv, pp. 361-363.
4 Considerations on the Propriety of imposing Taxes in the British
Colonies (October, 1765), reprinted in Md. Hist. Mag. , vol. vi, pp. 376-
406. Dulany was largely responsible for the nullification of the Stamp
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? FIRST CONTEST FOR REFORM gg
Although he based his opposition largely on constitutional
grounds, he did not fail to show that the tax fell on a prov-
ince, "not in proportion to its wealth, but to the multi-
plicity of juridical forms, the quantity of vacant land, the
frequency of transferring landed property, the extent of
paper negotiations, the scarcity of money, and the number
of debtors," and he argued that " the principal part of the
revenue will be drawn from the poorest individuals in the
poorest colonies, from mortgagers, obligors, and defend-
ants. " Lieutenant Governor Colden of New York had
"the strongest presumption from numerous Circumstances
to believe that the Lawyers of this Place are the Authors,
Promoters & Leaders " of the local opposition to the stamp
duties. 1
Printers were directly involved in the new act as pub-
lishers of newspapers and pamphlets. The foremost print-
er of the continent, Benjamin Franklin, wrote to his fellow-
publisher of the Pennsylvania Gasette that he believed the
Stamp Act "will affect the Printers more than anybody,
as a Sterling Halfpenny Stamp on every Half Sheet of a.
Newspaper, and Two Shillings Sterling on every Adver-
tisement, will go near to knock up one Half of both. There
Act in Maryland. Latrobe, J. H. , "Daniel Dulany," Pa. Mag. , vol. iii,
pp. 4-5. Vide also the views of William Smith, Jr. , a New York lawyer
whom Colden characterized as "a violent republican independent" and
an organizer of mobs. 4 M. H. S. Colls. , vol. x, pp. 570-571.
1 Letter Books, vol. ii, pp. 61-62. He continued: "People in general
believe it, and many must with certainty know it. I must add that all
the Judges have given too much Countenance to their Proceedings . . . "
Vide also ibid. , p. 92. The lawyers of New York were discontented
w^th other matters besides the Stamp Act; and Colden claimed that
they were more powerful there than anywhere else in America. "Noth-
ing is too wicked for them to attempt which serves their purposes--
tile Press is to them what the Pulpit was in times of Popery. "
p. 71.
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? 70 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
is also Fourpence Sterling on every Almanack. "1 . The
twenty-odd newspapers of Amen^ r? rri? A op, a tremen-
dously effective propaganda against the Stamp Act,2 and in
no later crisis exhibited such unanimity of protest.
Aside from their influence as directors of popular opposi-
tion, the merchants, lawyers and printers were faced with
the problem of making a living while their business was
legally subject to the use of stamps. The merchants re-
fused to use stamps in their business transactions and usu-
ally succeeded in keeping the ports open for commerce, when
it became apparent to the authorities that the sale of stamps
was impracticable or impossible. * The lawyers* in first
instance, agreed that all lega] hngi"pgg shr^M he suspended
until the Stamp Act should be repealed; but when their
purses began to grow lean from lack of clients' fees and the
merchants and creditors clamored for the opportunity to
collect their debts, they generally induced the courts to open
for business without stamps. 4 "This long interval of in-
dolence and idleness will make a large chasm in my affairs,"
wrote the lawyer John Adams in the period before the
courts were re-opened. He added: " I have groped in dark
obscurity, till of late, and had but just known and gained a
small degree of reputation, when this project was set on
foot for my ruin as well as that of America in general, and
1 Writings (Smyth), vol. iv, pp. 363-364.
*? . g. , Jonathan Watts, of New York, wrote on Sept. 24, 1765:
"You will think the printers all mad, Holt particularly, who has been
'cautioned over and over again, and would have been prosecuted, but
people's minds are so inflamed about this stamp act, it would only be
exposing Government to attempt it. " 4 M. H. S. Colls. , vol. x, p. 576.
Holt published the New York Gazette-and Post-Boy at this time.
'E. g. , vide Hutchinson, Mass. Bay, vol. iii, p. 141; 4 M. H. S. Colls. ,
vol. x, p. 587.
4 E. g. , vide I N. J. Arch. , vol.
