"8
Even from the plantation provinces came echoes of in-
dignation against the officiousness of customs officers and
the new powers of the vice-admiralty courts.
Even from the plantation provinces came echoes of in-
dignation against the officiousness of customs officers and
the new powers of the vice-admiralty courts.
Arthur Schlesinger - Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution
"2 This was the spirit
in which the second contest for commercial reform got
under way. Had the conflict been of shorter duration,
the desires of the leaders might have been realized. But the
length of the contest, with the increasing restlessness and
self-confidence of the radical elements, made the introduc-
tion of mob methods inevitable.
The course of opposition pursued by the merchants par-
1 Vide Bos. Post-Boy, Nov. 30, 1767, and. Frothingham, Rise of Re-
public, pp. 206-208, for these and other instances. Vide also Hutchin-
son, Mass. Bay, vol. iii, pp. 180-181.
1 The twelve articles appeared originally in issues of the Pa. Chronicle
from Dec. 2, 1767 to Feb. IS, 1768. For Dickinson's views on "hot,
rash, disorderly proceedings," vide in particular Letter III; Writings
(Ford), vol. i, pp. 322-328.
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? COMMERCIAL REFORM 97
took of a double character. Onjhe one hand, there were
the activities of the smuggling merchants, protected by
popular op1mon and bent upon the pursuit of gain in de-
fiance of parliamentary restrictions. On the other hand,
there stood the whole merchant class, confident oT their
power to coerce the nation of shopkeepers into concessions
through exercise of the boycott, and prepared to develop
this instrument beyond anything dreamed of during Stamp
Act times.
Smuggling proved to be the first channel through which
violence was injected into the struggle. There occurred
the usual vicious sequence: evasion of the law leading to
defiance of the law, and defiance of the law breeding vio-
lence. After the revision of the trade laws in 1 766 and the
passage of the new acts of 1767, the character of colonial
contraband trade changed greatly. The running of mo-
lasses, which had formerly formed the great bulk of illicit
traffic, had been rendered considerably less profitable by
the reduction of the duty. 1 The Townshend duties, with
a single exception, fell on articles manufactured in Great
Qi encouraging smuggl1ng' in these
g. >t-. r<<>^ oe Q gHfpnly^ tn their production in the
colonies.
The exception noted, the duty on tea, was so ingeniously
1 Since the duty has been reduced, "the whole, tho' grievous, has
been regularly paid. " Observations of tl1e Merchants at Boston upon
Several Acts of Parliament, etc. (1770), pp. 29-30. It should further
be noted that, beginning with the year 1768, a succession of temporary
acts removed the prohibition from the exportation of American meats
and butter to Great Britain, and sometimes from cereals and raw hides
as well. E. g. , vide 8 George III, c. 9; 9 George III, c. 39; 10 George
III, c. 1, c. 2; 11 George III, c. 8; 13 George III, c. 1, c. 2, c. 3, c. 4,
c. 5; 15 George III, c. 7. The passage of these acts made it less neces-
sary for colonial merchants to seek in foreign markets commodities
which might serve as remittances to England and thus reduce the
temptation to smuggling.
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? pg THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
contrived as to have the immediate effect of lowering the
price of customed tea in America below that of any that
could be smuggled from Holland or elsewhere. 1 This con-
dition lasted until 1769 when the East India Company,
hard pressed by creditors and seeking to recoup some of its
losses, advanced the upset price of tea at the public auctions
in Great Britain. This caused the exporting merchant, who
bid in the tea, to raise the price to the American merchant,
and the American merchant to raise the price to the colonial
retailer. So that the colonial consumer thereafter found
it advantageous to drink Dutch tea; and tea smuggling be-
gan to thrive. 2
Until that time, it would appear that the chief concern
of the smugglers was the running of wine from Madeira
and the Azores, a traffic vastly stimulated by the high duty
demanded for legal importation. * In view of the com-
motions that resulted, one might add in supplementation
of John Adams' remark concerning molasses that wine was
another essential ingredient of American independence.
The importation of Dutch, French and German manu-
factures without stoppage at Great Britain, as required by
1 Tea imported from Great Britain became nine-pence cheaper per
pound. Bos. Gas. , Aug. 15, 1768; Mass. Gas. & Post-Boy, Dec. 19, 1774.
1 Hutchinson to Hillsborough, Aug. 25, 1771, Bos. Gas. , Nov. 27, 1775.
Vide infra, p. 250.
1 This duty was no less than seven pounds per tun under the act of
1764. As Kelly, the New York merchant, told a committee of Parlia-
ment, "wherever there is a great difference of Price, there will be a
Daring Spirit to attempt [smuggling] notwithstanding all Preventions. "
Brit. Mus. Addl. Mss. , no. 33030 (L. C. Transcripts), f. 136. For ex-
ample, an official report, made evidently for the Customs Board, stated
that thirty vessels, entering at New York from Madeira and the Azores,
had not entered sufficient goods to load one vessel. Ibid. , no. 154^4, f. 6.
Golden said that few New York merchants were not engaged in con-
traband trade and that " Whole Cargoes from Holland and Ship Loads
of Wine" had been brought in without the payment of duties. Letter
Books, vol. ii, pp. 133-134.
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? COMMERCIAL REFORM 99
law, probably continued much as before; and there may
have been a slight increase in the volume of the illicit export
trade, due to the fact that after 1766 all American com-
modities, shipped for European ports north of Cape Finis-
terre, must first be entered at a British port.
The continuance of smuggling after 1767 should not be
made to argue the total failure of Townshend's endeavor
to reform the customs administration. The Board of Cus-
toms Commissioners at Boston performed a vastly creditable
service in reducing peculation and laziness on the part of
officials and in establishing a stricter system of coast con-
trol. The number of customs employees was greatly in-
creased--in the case of Philadelphia, trebled in the years
1767-1770. l Writs of assistance were more generally and
more effectively used than at any earlier period. Revenue
cutters were stationed at leading ports; and smaller vessels,
belonging to the navy and acting under deputation of the
commissioners, searched out suspected ships in the numer-
ous rivers and inlets. A representation of the Boston mer-
chants, made in 1770, declared that the Customs Board had
employed upwards of twenty vessels that year, and that
some of the captains had purchased small boats of their
own to search in shallow waters. 2 Undoubtedly the total
volume of illicit trade was smaller after 1767 than at any
period subsequent to the enactment of the Molasses Act in
1733;2 and this was due, in some degree, to the activities
of the Customs Board. 4
1 Channing, History of United States, vol. iii, pp. 88-89.
1 Observations of the Merchants at Boston, etc. , pp. 24-25.
2 On the other hand, Golden claimed, in November, 1767, and re-
peatedly in the following months, that at New York "a greater quan-
tity of Goods has been Run without paying Duties since the Repeal of
the Stamp Act than had been done in ten years before. " Letter Books,
vol. ii, pp. 133-134, 138, 148, 153, 163, 172.
* Note the table of penalties and seizures, quoted by Professor Chan-
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? 100 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
Two conditions militated against the success of the Cus-
toms Board in wiping out smuggling. One was the extent
of the coastline to be watched. The other was the active
sympathy which the populace extended to the smugglers.
The importance of this latter factor was shown by the
peremptory treatment of those who were reckless enough
to reveal to a customs officer the secret of their neighbors'
prosperity. Thus, an informer cowered before a gathering
of merchants and inhabitants of New Haven in September,
1769, and humbly acknowledged his iniquity in attempting
to inform against Mr. Timothy Jones, Jr. , for "running
of goods. "' During the following month an informer at
Boston was tarred and feathered and paraded through the
principal streets ; z and three others of his kind in New
York received similar treatment --" to the great Satisfac-
tion of all the good Inhabitants of this City, and to the
great Terror of evil doers," as one loyal New Yorker
averred. * ,^
1<;r> produced collisions with the cus-
toms officials. While in discharge of his duty, Jesse Saville,
a tide waiter of the custom house at Providence, was viol-
ning, op. cit. , vol. iii, p. 89 n. Eloquent evidence of the prevalence of
smuggling as late as 1770 is shown in a survey of the customs districts
and ports, made, it would appear, for the Customs Board. This report
is entitled, "Ports of North America. " It shows clearly that wide
stretches of coast were free from proper customs supervision and
makes detailed recommendations for stricter oversight. Considerable
smuggling is also alleged in the plantation provinces at this period
Brit. Mus. Addl. Mss. , no. 15484 (L. C. Transcripts).
1 New London Gas. , Sept. 20, 1769; also Mass. Gas. 6r News Letter,
Oct. 5.
1 1bid. , Nov. 2, 9, 1769; Hutchinson, Mass. Bay, vol. iii, pp. 259-260.
'Mass. Gas. & News Letter, Oct. 12, 1769. Golden wrote in January,
1768, to Grenville: "No man dare inform, so that whole cargoes have
been run without entry in the Custom House. " Letter Books, vol. H,
P- 153.
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? COMMERCIAL REFORM IOI
ently assaulted and then tarred and feathered, in 1769. A
reward of fifty pounds sterling for the perpetrators of this
act was vainly offered by the Customs Board. 1 In July
of the same year, a mob at Newport dismantled and burnt
the revenue sloop Liberty, which had just brought into the
harbor two vessels suspected of smuggling. 2 "Both vessels
that were seized have since proceeded on their respective
voyages," noted the Newport Mercury laconically on July
22. At Philadelphia, the revenue officials attempted in
April, 1769, to get possession of about fifty pipes of Ma-
deira wine that had been imported without payment of
duties. Their efforts stirred up a mob which stole away the
booty from under their very noses and maltreated some
of the officers. Later, the merchants offered to restore
the wine; and, after some delay, they returned "not near
the Quantity that was taken" and, instead of Madeira,
"no better than mean Fyall [Fayal]. " A revenue em-
ployee who had been active in this affair went to Boston
to recuperate from his injuries, because, as he earnestly
avowed, "I could not think of tarrying among a sett of
People under my present circumstances whose greatest
pleasure would be to have an oppofrtunity] of burying
me.
"8
Even from the plantation provinces came echoes of in-
dignation against the officiousness of customs officers and
the new powers of the vice-admiralty courts. Infringe-
ments of the acts of trade were comparatively rare in that
portion of British America; and it was the boast of the
1 Arnold, Rhode Island, vol. ii, p. 294.
* R. I. Col. Recs. , vol. vi, pp. 593-596; Gammel, W. , Samuel Ward (?
Libr. Am. Biog. , vol. ix), pp. 288-290. For instances of forcible im-
portation in Massachusetts and 'Rhode Island, vide Weeden, Ec. and
Soc. Hist, of New Engl. , vol. ii, p. 762.
1 4 M. H. S. Colls. , vol. x, pp. 611-617.
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? 102 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
wealthy Charleston merchant and factor, Henry Laurens.
that he had never intentionally violated them. Yet, in spite
of the efforts of the Customs Board to secure higher admin-
istrative efficiency, the customs officers at Charleston were
unprincipled and corrupt; and the merchants of that port
were subjected to petty tyrannies, from which the local
vice-admiralty court afforded no relief. Laurens himself
was put to great expense through the seizure on technical
charges in 1767 and 1768, of three of his vessels, two of
which were eventually released. A conservative from
temperamental as well as business reasons, his emotions
were, for the first time, deeply stirred to the defense of
so-called American liberties, and in 1769 he produced an
able controversial pamphlet setting forth his new views
under the title, Sow,? General Ofir"""ltintp nn American
custom house officers and Courts of Vice-Admiralty.
Thoroughly academic and unemotional as he hacT been in
his objections to the Stamp Act, he could write in 1769 to
a London friend tharX^ihe enormous created powers vested
in an American Court of Vice-Admiralty threatens future
generations in America with a curse tenfold worse than
the Stamp Act. 'JJ
The most important work performed by the Customs
Board was the breaking of the power of the smugglers at
Boston. This was accomplished only through a resort to
extreme measures. In the years immediately following
1766, there were a number of cases at Boston of forcible
landing of contraband goods, of rescue of lawful seizures,
and of mobbing of revenue officers. 2 John Robinson, one
of the Customs Board, in his testimony before the Privy
1 For this incident, vide Wallace, Henry Laurens, pp. 137-149. Vide
also Prov. Gas. , Oct. 3, 1767, July 23, 1768.
1 Acts of the Privy Council, Colonial, vol. v, no. 155. Vide also
Hutchinson, Mass. Bay, vol. iii, p. 188.
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? COMMERCIAL REFORM IC>3
Council in 1770, stated that he hesitated to say that "the
Disturbances may be properly called Riots, as the Rioters
appear to be under Discipline. "
Feeling unable to cope with the situation, the Customs
Board, in February, 1768, asked Commodore Hood at
Halifax for a public vessel to protect them in the discharge
of their functions. "We have every reason," they said,
"to expect that we shall find it impracticable to enforce
the execution of the revenue laws, until the hand of gov-
ernment is properly strengthened. At present, there is not
a ship-of-war in the province, nor a company of soldiers
nearer than New York. " 1 In answer to repeated requests,
the man-of-war Romney was stationed at Boston a few
months later. The board now pressed for additional ships
and for the presence of troops, but their requests failed of
effect.
Affairs came to a crisis a few months later, when John
Hancock's sloop Liberty arrived in port from Madeira with
a quantity of wine. A tidesman went on board and ob-
jected to the landing of any wine until entry was made at
the custom house; whereupon the fellow was heaved into
the cabin and kept there while the cargo was expeditiously
removed. On June 10, about a month later, the vessel was
seized by order of the Customs Board. A crowd assembled
and, in great uneasiness, watched the removal of the vessel
to within gun-range of the Romney. Soon they lost their
restraint; and, in the rioting that ensued, the custom-house
officers were assaulted and the houses of several of them
pelted, and other damage done. 2
1 Bancroft, G. , History of United States (Boston, 1876), vol. iv, p. 75.
1 The Liberty was condemned by the vice-adfniralty court. Bos.
Chron. , June 13, 1768; . Sears, L. , John Hancock (Boston, 1912), pp. 11o-
114; Brown, John Hancock His Book, p. 156; Hutchinson, Mass. Bay,
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? I04 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
Alleging helplessness, the Customs Board retired to Castle
William and again renewed their demand for troops. This
time they had made good their case; two regiments arrived
on the scene about four months after the riot, and the
customs commissioners resumed their headquarters at
Boston. From this time forward Boston lost its importance
as a smuggling port; and the great centers of contraband
trade became New York and Philadelphia, with Newport
as a center of minor importance. 1
However jusrfiable the action may have appeared from
an administrative point of view, the British government
made a bad tactical error in sending soldiers to Boston.
The statesmanlike policy of maintaining a standing army
to protect the empire from foreign enemies had degenerated
into an employment of the troops as a military police to
enforce hated laws on the people themselves. The worst
fears of the radicals were vindicated. Their efforts and
those of the merchants were used for the next two years
to procure the removal of the troops. Sporadic outbreaks
of resistance to customs officials continued to occur. 2
Of greater interest and significance in the controversy
vol. iii, pp. 189-194. For Hancock's letters ordering the wine, vide
Brown, op. cit. , pp. 149-150.
After referring to the Liberty affair, John Adams writes in his
diary: "Mr. Hancock was prosecuted upon a great number of libels,
for penalties upon acts of Parliament, amounting to ninety or an hun-
dred thousand pounds sterling. He thought fit to engage me as his
counsel and advocate, and a painful drudgery I had of his cause. There
were few days through the whole winter, when I was not summoned
to attend the Court of Admiralty. . . . this odious cause was sus-
pended at last only by the battle of Lexington, which put an end, for-
ever, to all such prosecutions. " Works, vol. ii, pp. 215-216.
1 Letters of Thomas Hutchinson; Hosmer, Hutchinson, p. 432; Mass.
Arch. , vol. xxvii, p. 317. Vide also infra, chap. vi.
1 E. g. , vide 4 Am. Arch. , vol. i, p. 26.
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? COMMERCIAL REFORM
with Parliament was the endeavor of the merchants to con-
trol the economic life of their communities and by use of
the boycott to starve Great Britain into a surrender of her
trade restrictions. This movement of a class-conscious
group within the leading provinces constituted the one tre-
mendous fact of the revolutionary movement prior to the
assembling of the First Continental Congress. Striving for
reform, not rebellion, the merchants, nevertheless, through
the effect of their agitation and organized activity upon
the non-mercantile population, found themselves, when
they wished to terminate their propaganda, confronted
with forces too powerful for them to control.
The efforts at combination from 1767 to 1770 suffered
from all the disadvantages which inhered in an attempt to
bind together thirteen disparate communities. The story
of these endeavors is a long and devious one, bringing to
light many instances of discord and harmony, of good
faith and broken pledges, which should go far toward
revealing the secret springs of human action.
The tracing- Communities of New England and New
York took the lead in the movement^ Philadelphia hanging
back at first; and it was not until 1769 that the co-operation
of the plantation provinces was secured. In the trading
centers of the commercial provinces several stages were
clearly apparent in the development of organized efforts
for boycott against Great Britain: the initial movement
promoted by town meetings in New England for the pur-
pose of effecting a non-consumption of certain imports
from Britain; second, the efforts, futile in their outcome,
for a non-importation league of the merchants of the great
northern seaports; third, the period in which the merchants
of the great towns entered into non-importation agree-
ments independently of each other; fourth, the renewal,
but without success, of efforts for a non-importation league
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? I06 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
of merchants along more comprehensive lines; fifth, the
accession of the minor northern provinces to non-importa-
tion.
The first phase of the movement originated in the fall
of 1767 in New England where evidences of hard times
had at once become apparent, anH f1aH for it. ^ primarv ob-
ject a rA^11<-Hflp n( tVl" rr><;T "f ^Y1'"^. 1 The efforts took
agreements not to purchase a stated list of
imported wares, and to lend all encouragement to domestic
manufactures. In contrast to Stamp Act times, these
agrgemenjsjvere not in first instance drawn up by import-
ing merchants, but w. ? ^_3? Jfip<'. "^ ^*y lQWn tT">>>tillE3_3. r"^
circulated among the peqplp foj general signing. It is
clear that the framers of the agreements were not greatly
concerned with the abstract question of the parliamentary
right of taxation, since no town meeting placed more than
one or two dutied articles on the blacklist. Indeed, the
great merchant, John Hancock, ordered a consignment of
dutied glass for his personal use as late as December 17,
1767, apparently without compunction. 2
The movement received its first impulse from the action
1 References to hard times were plentiful in New England after
the passage of the Townshend Acts. The Newport merchant, George
Rome, wrote to England in December, 1767, that creditors at home
would lose ? 50,000 in Rhode Island, owing to "deluges of bankrupt-
cies. " Bos. Eve. Post, June 28, 1773. "A Friend to the Colony," writ-
ing in the Prov. Gas. , Mch. 26, 1768, painted a doleful picture of the
trade situation of Rhode Island. The Mass. Post-Boy of Oct. 26, 1767
spoke of "the present alarming Scarcity of Money and consequent
Stagnation of Trade" and "the almost universally increasing Com-
plaints of Debt & Poverty. " It later adopted the popular slogan,
"Save your Money and Save your Country. " The AT. H. Gas. , in its
issue of Nov. 13, 1767, referred to "this time of great distress and
grievous complaining among tradesmen about the dullness of trade
and uncommon scarcity of money. "
* Brown, John Hancock His Book, p. 151.
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in which the second contest for commercial reform got
under way. Had the conflict been of shorter duration,
the desires of the leaders might have been realized. But the
length of the contest, with the increasing restlessness and
self-confidence of the radical elements, made the introduc-
tion of mob methods inevitable.
The course of opposition pursued by the merchants par-
1 Vide Bos. Post-Boy, Nov. 30, 1767, and. Frothingham, Rise of Re-
public, pp. 206-208, for these and other instances. Vide also Hutchin-
son, Mass. Bay, vol. iii, pp. 180-181.
1 The twelve articles appeared originally in issues of the Pa. Chronicle
from Dec. 2, 1767 to Feb. IS, 1768. For Dickinson's views on "hot,
rash, disorderly proceedings," vide in particular Letter III; Writings
(Ford), vol. i, pp. 322-328.
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? COMMERCIAL REFORM 97
took of a double character. Onjhe one hand, there were
the activities of the smuggling merchants, protected by
popular op1mon and bent upon the pursuit of gain in de-
fiance of parliamentary restrictions. On the other hand,
there stood the whole merchant class, confident oT their
power to coerce the nation of shopkeepers into concessions
through exercise of the boycott, and prepared to develop
this instrument beyond anything dreamed of during Stamp
Act times.
Smuggling proved to be the first channel through which
violence was injected into the struggle. There occurred
the usual vicious sequence: evasion of the law leading to
defiance of the law, and defiance of the law breeding vio-
lence. After the revision of the trade laws in 1 766 and the
passage of the new acts of 1767, the character of colonial
contraband trade changed greatly. The running of mo-
lasses, which had formerly formed the great bulk of illicit
traffic, had been rendered considerably less profitable by
the reduction of the duty. 1 The Townshend duties, with
a single exception, fell on articles manufactured in Great
Qi encouraging smuggl1ng' in these
g. >t-. r<<>^ oe Q gHfpnly^ tn their production in the
colonies.
The exception noted, the duty on tea, was so ingeniously
1 Since the duty has been reduced, "the whole, tho' grievous, has
been regularly paid. " Observations of tl1e Merchants at Boston upon
Several Acts of Parliament, etc. (1770), pp. 29-30. It should further
be noted that, beginning with the year 1768, a succession of temporary
acts removed the prohibition from the exportation of American meats
and butter to Great Britain, and sometimes from cereals and raw hides
as well. E. g. , vide 8 George III, c. 9; 9 George III, c. 39; 10 George
III, c. 1, c. 2; 11 George III, c. 8; 13 George III, c. 1, c. 2, c. 3, c. 4,
c. 5; 15 George III, c. 7. The passage of these acts made it less neces-
sary for colonial merchants to seek in foreign markets commodities
which might serve as remittances to England and thus reduce the
temptation to smuggling.
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? pg THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
contrived as to have the immediate effect of lowering the
price of customed tea in America below that of any that
could be smuggled from Holland or elsewhere. 1 This con-
dition lasted until 1769 when the East India Company,
hard pressed by creditors and seeking to recoup some of its
losses, advanced the upset price of tea at the public auctions
in Great Britain. This caused the exporting merchant, who
bid in the tea, to raise the price to the American merchant,
and the American merchant to raise the price to the colonial
retailer. So that the colonial consumer thereafter found
it advantageous to drink Dutch tea; and tea smuggling be-
gan to thrive. 2
Until that time, it would appear that the chief concern
of the smugglers was the running of wine from Madeira
and the Azores, a traffic vastly stimulated by the high duty
demanded for legal importation. * In view of the com-
motions that resulted, one might add in supplementation
of John Adams' remark concerning molasses that wine was
another essential ingredient of American independence.
The importation of Dutch, French and German manu-
factures without stoppage at Great Britain, as required by
1 Tea imported from Great Britain became nine-pence cheaper per
pound. Bos. Gas. , Aug. 15, 1768; Mass. Gas. & Post-Boy, Dec. 19, 1774.
1 Hutchinson to Hillsborough, Aug. 25, 1771, Bos. Gas. , Nov. 27, 1775.
Vide infra, p. 250.
1 This duty was no less than seven pounds per tun under the act of
1764. As Kelly, the New York merchant, told a committee of Parlia-
ment, "wherever there is a great difference of Price, there will be a
Daring Spirit to attempt [smuggling] notwithstanding all Preventions. "
Brit. Mus. Addl. Mss. , no. 33030 (L. C. Transcripts), f. 136. For ex-
ample, an official report, made evidently for the Customs Board, stated
that thirty vessels, entering at New York from Madeira and the Azores,
had not entered sufficient goods to load one vessel. Ibid. , no. 154^4, f. 6.
Golden said that few New York merchants were not engaged in con-
traband trade and that " Whole Cargoes from Holland and Ship Loads
of Wine" had been brought in without the payment of duties. Letter
Books, vol. ii, pp. 133-134.
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? COMMERCIAL REFORM 99
law, probably continued much as before; and there may
have been a slight increase in the volume of the illicit export
trade, due to the fact that after 1766 all American com-
modities, shipped for European ports north of Cape Finis-
terre, must first be entered at a British port.
The continuance of smuggling after 1767 should not be
made to argue the total failure of Townshend's endeavor
to reform the customs administration. The Board of Cus-
toms Commissioners at Boston performed a vastly creditable
service in reducing peculation and laziness on the part of
officials and in establishing a stricter system of coast con-
trol. The number of customs employees was greatly in-
creased--in the case of Philadelphia, trebled in the years
1767-1770. l Writs of assistance were more generally and
more effectively used than at any earlier period. Revenue
cutters were stationed at leading ports; and smaller vessels,
belonging to the navy and acting under deputation of the
commissioners, searched out suspected ships in the numer-
ous rivers and inlets. A representation of the Boston mer-
chants, made in 1770, declared that the Customs Board had
employed upwards of twenty vessels that year, and that
some of the captains had purchased small boats of their
own to search in shallow waters. 2 Undoubtedly the total
volume of illicit trade was smaller after 1767 than at any
period subsequent to the enactment of the Molasses Act in
1733;2 and this was due, in some degree, to the activities
of the Customs Board. 4
1 Channing, History of United States, vol. iii, pp. 88-89.
1 Observations of the Merchants at Boston, etc. , pp. 24-25.
2 On the other hand, Golden claimed, in November, 1767, and re-
peatedly in the following months, that at New York "a greater quan-
tity of Goods has been Run without paying Duties since the Repeal of
the Stamp Act than had been done in ten years before. " Letter Books,
vol. ii, pp. 133-134, 138, 148, 153, 163, 172.
* Note the table of penalties and seizures, quoted by Professor Chan-
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? 100 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
Two conditions militated against the success of the Cus-
toms Board in wiping out smuggling. One was the extent
of the coastline to be watched. The other was the active
sympathy which the populace extended to the smugglers.
The importance of this latter factor was shown by the
peremptory treatment of those who were reckless enough
to reveal to a customs officer the secret of their neighbors'
prosperity. Thus, an informer cowered before a gathering
of merchants and inhabitants of New Haven in September,
1769, and humbly acknowledged his iniquity in attempting
to inform against Mr. Timothy Jones, Jr. , for "running
of goods. "' During the following month an informer at
Boston was tarred and feathered and paraded through the
principal streets ; z and three others of his kind in New
York received similar treatment --" to the great Satisfac-
tion of all the good Inhabitants of this City, and to the
great Terror of evil doers," as one loyal New Yorker
averred. * ,^
1<;r> produced collisions with the cus-
toms officials. While in discharge of his duty, Jesse Saville,
a tide waiter of the custom house at Providence, was viol-
ning, op. cit. , vol. iii, p. 89 n. Eloquent evidence of the prevalence of
smuggling as late as 1770 is shown in a survey of the customs districts
and ports, made, it would appear, for the Customs Board. This report
is entitled, "Ports of North America. " It shows clearly that wide
stretches of coast were free from proper customs supervision and
makes detailed recommendations for stricter oversight. Considerable
smuggling is also alleged in the plantation provinces at this period
Brit. Mus. Addl. Mss. , no. 15484 (L. C. Transcripts).
1 New London Gas. , Sept. 20, 1769; also Mass. Gas. 6r News Letter,
Oct. 5.
1 1bid. , Nov. 2, 9, 1769; Hutchinson, Mass. Bay, vol. iii, pp. 259-260.
'Mass. Gas. & News Letter, Oct. 12, 1769. Golden wrote in January,
1768, to Grenville: "No man dare inform, so that whole cargoes have
been run without entry in the Custom House. " Letter Books, vol. H,
P- 153.
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? COMMERCIAL REFORM IOI
ently assaulted and then tarred and feathered, in 1769. A
reward of fifty pounds sterling for the perpetrators of this
act was vainly offered by the Customs Board. 1 In July
of the same year, a mob at Newport dismantled and burnt
the revenue sloop Liberty, which had just brought into the
harbor two vessels suspected of smuggling. 2 "Both vessels
that were seized have since proceeded on their respective
voyages," noted the Newport Mercury laconically on July
22. At Philadelphia, the revenue officials attempted in
April, 1769, to get possession of about fifty pipes of Ma-
deira wine that had been imported without payment of
duties. Their efforts stirred up a mob which stole away the
booty from under their very noses and maltreated some
of the officers. Later, the merchants offered to restore
the wine; and, after some delay, they returned "not near
the Quantity that was taken" and, instead of Madeira,
"no better than mean Fyall [Fayal]. " A revenue em-
ployee who had been active in this affair went to Boston
to recuperate from his injuries, because, as he earnestly
avowed, "I could not think of tarrying among a sett of
People under my present circumstances whose greatest
pleasure would be to have an oppofrtunity] of burying
me.
"8
Even from the plantation provinces came echoes of in-
dignation against the officiousness of customs officers and
the new powers of the vice-admiralty courts. Infringe-
ments of the acts of trade were comparatively rare in that
portion of British America; and it was the boast of the
1 Arnold, Rhode Island, vol. ii, p. 294.
* R. I. Col. Recs. , vol. vi, pp. 593-596; Gammel, W. , Samuel Ward (?
Libr. Am. Biog. , vol. ix), pp. 288-290. For instances of forcible im-
portation in Massachusetts and 'Rhode Island, vide Weeden, Ec. and
Soc. Hist, of New Engl. , vol. ii, p. 762.
1 4 M. H. S. Colls. , vol. x, pp. 611-617.
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? 102 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
wealthy Charleston merchant and factor, Henry Laurens.
that he had never intentionally violated them. Yet, in spite
of the efforts of the Customs Board to secure higher admin-
istrative efficiency, the customs officers at Charleston were
unprincipled and corrupt; and the merchants of that port
were subjected to petty tyrannies, from which the local
vice-admiralty court afforded no relief. Laurens himself
was put to great expense through the seizure on technical
charges in 1767 and 1768, of three of his vessels, two of
which were eventually released. A conservative from
temperamental as well as business reasons, his emotions
were, for the first time, deeply stirred to the defense of
so-called American liberties, and in 1769 he produced an
able controversial pamphlet setting forth his new views
under the title, Sow,? General Ofir"""ltintp nn American
custom house officers and Courts of Vice-Admiralty.
Thoroughly academic and unemotional as he hacT been in
his objections to the Stamp Act, he could write in 1769 to
a London friend tharX^ihe enormous created powers vested
in an American Court of Vice-Admiralty threatens future
generations in America with a curse tenfold worse than
the Stamp Act. 'JJ
The most important work performed by the Customs
Board was the breaking of the power of the smugglers at
Boston. This was accomplished only through a resort to
extreme measures. In the years immediately following
1766, there were a number of cases at Boston of forcible
landing of contraband goods, of rescue of lawful seizures,
and of mobbing of revenue officers. 2 John Robinson, one
of the Customs Board, in his testimony before the Privy
1 For this incident, vide Wallace, Henry Laurens, pp. 137-149. Vide
also Prov. Gas. , Oct. 3, 1767, July 23, 1768.
1 Acts of the Privy Council, Colonial, vol. v, no. 155. Vide also
Hutchinson, Mass. Bay, vol. iii, p. 188.
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? COMMERCIAL REFORM IC>3
Council in 1770, stated that he hesitated to say that "the
Disturbances may be properly called Riots, as the Rioters
appear to be under Discipline. "
Feeling unable to cope with the situation, the Customs
Board, in February, 1768, asked Commodore Hood at
Halifax for a public vessel to protect them in the discharge
of their functions. "We have every reason," they said,
"to expect that we shall find it impracticable to enforce
the execution of the revenue laws, until the hand of gov-
ernment is properly strengthened. At present, there is not
a ship-of-war in the province, nor a company of soldiers
nearer than New York. " 1 In answer to repeated requests,
the man-of-war Romney was stationed at Boston a few
months later. The board now pressed for additional ships
and for the presence of troops, but their requests failed of
effect.
Affairs came to a crisis a few months later, when John
Hancock's sloop Liberty arrived in port from Madeira with
a quantity of wine. A tidesman went on board and ob-
jected to the landing of any wine until entry was made at
the custom house; whereupon the fellow was heaved into
the cabin and kept there while the cargo was expeditiously
removed. On June 10, about a month later, the vessel was
seized by order of the Customs Board. A crowd assembled
and, in great uneasiness, watched the removal of the vessel
to within gun-range of the Romney. Soon they lost their
restraint; and, in the rioting that ensued, the custom-house
officers were assaulted and the houses of several of them
pelted, and other damage done. 2
1 Bancroft, G. , History of United States (Boston, 1876), vol. iv, p. 75.
1 The Liberty was condemned by the vice-adfniralty court. Bos.
Chron. , June 13, 1768; . Sears, L. , John Hancock (Boston, 1912), pp. 11o-
114; Brown, John Hancock His Book, p. 156; Hutchinson, Mass. Bay,
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? I04 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
Alleging helplessness, the Customs Board retired to Castle
William and again renewed their demand for troops. This
time they had made good their case; two regiments arrived
on the scene about four months after the riot, and the
customs commissioners resumed their headquarters at
Boston. From this time forward Boston lost its importance
as a smuggling port; and the great centers of contraband
trade became New York and Philadelphia, with Newport
as a center of minor importance. 1
However jusrfiable the action may have appeared from
an administrative point of view, the British government
made a bad tactical error in sending soldiers to Boston.
The statesmanlike policy of maintaining a standing army
to protect the empire from foreign enemies had degenerated
into an employment of the troops as a military police to
enforce hated laws on the people themselves. The worst
fears of the radicals were vindicated. Their efforts and
those of the merchants were used for the next two years
to procure the removal of the troops. Sporadic outbreaks
of resistance to customs officials continued to occur. 2
Of greater interest and significance in the controversy
vol. iii, pp. 189-194. For Hancock's letters ordering the wine, vide
Brown, op. cit. , pp. 149-150.
After referring to the Liberty affair, John Adams writes in his
diary: "Mr. Hancock was prosecuted upon a great number of libels,
for penalties upon acts of Parliament, amounting to ninety or an hun-
dred thousand pounds sterling. He thought fit to engage me as his
counsel and advocate, and a painful drudgery I had of his cause. There
were few days through the whole winter, when I was not summoned
to attend the Court of Admiralty. . . . this odious cause was sus-
pended at last only by the battle of Lexington, which put an end, for-
ever, to all such prosecutions. " Works, vol. ii, pp. 215-216.
1 Letters of Thomas Hutchinson; Hosmer, Hutchinson, p. 432; Mass.
Arch. , vol. xxvii, p. 317. Vide also infra, chap. vi.
1 E. g. , vide 4 Am. Arch. , vol. i, p. 26.
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? COMMERCIAL REFORM
with Parliament was the endeavor of the merchants to con-
trol the economic life of their communities and by use of
the boycott to starve Great Britain into a surrender of her
trade restrictions. This movement of a class-conscious
group within the leading provinces constituted the one tre-
mendous fact of the revolutionary movement prior to the
assembling of the First Continental Congress. Striving for
reform, not rebellion, the merchants, nevertheless, through
the effect of their agitation and organized activity upon
the non-mercantile population, found themselves, when
they wished to terminate their propaganda, confronted
with forces too powerful for them to control.
The efforts at combination from 1767 to 1770 suffered
from all the disadvantages which inhered in an attempt to
bind together thirteen disparate communities. The story
of these endeavors is a long and devious one, bringing to
light many instances of discord and harmony, of good
faith and broken pledges, which should go far toward
revealing the secret springs of human action.
The tracing- Communities of New England and New
York took the lead in the movement^ Philadelphia hanging
back at first; and it was not until 1769 that the co-operation
of the plantation provinces was secured. In the trading
centers of the commercial provinces several stages were
clearly apparent in the development of organized efforts
for boycott against Great Britain: the initial movement
promoted by town meetings in New England for the pur-
pose of effecting a non-consumption of certain imports
from Britain; second, the efforts, futile in their outcome,
for a non-importation league of the merchants of the great
northern seaports; third, the period in which the merchants
of the great towns entered into non-importation agree-
ments independently of each other; fourth, the renewal,
but without success, of efforts for a non-importation league
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? I06 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
of merchants along more comprehensive lines; fifth, the
accession of the minor northern provinces to non-importa-
tion.
The first phase of the movement originated in the fall
of 1767 in New England where evidences of hard times
had at once become apparent, anH f1aH for it. ^ primarv ob-
ject a rA^11<-Hflp n( tVl" rr><;T "f ^Y1'"^. 1 The efforts took
agreements not to purchase a stated list of
imported wares, and to lend all encouragement to domestic
manufactures. In contrast to Stamp Act times, these
agrgemenjsjvere not in first instance drawn up by import-
ing merchants, but w. ? ^_3? Jfip<'. "^ ^*y lQWn tT">>>tillE3_3. r"^
circulated among the peqplp foj general signing. It is
clear that the framers of the agreements were not greatly
concerned with the abstract question of the parliamentary
right of taxation, since no town meeting placed more than
one or two dutied articles on the blacklist. Indeed, the
great merchant, John Hancock, ordered a consignment of
dutied glass for his personal use as late as December 17,
1767, apparently without compunction. 2
The movement received its first impulse from the action
1 References to hard times were plentiful in New England after
the passage of the Townshend Acts. The Newport merchant, George
Rome, wrote to England in December, 1767, that creditors at home
would lose ? 50,000 in Rhode Island, owing to "deluges of bankrupt-
cies. " Bos. Eve. Post, June 28, 1773. "A Friend to the Colony," writ-
ing in the Prov. Gas. , Mch. 26, 1768, painted a doleful picture of the
trade situation of Rhode Island. The Mass. Post-Boy of Oct. 26, 1767
spoke of "the present alarming Scarcity of Money and consequent
Stagnation of Trade" and "the almost universally increasing Com-
plaints of Debt & Poverty. " It later adopted the popular slogan,
"Save your Money and Save your Country. " The AT. H. Gas. , in its
issue of Nov. 13, 1767, referred to "this time of great distress and
grievous complaining among tradesmen about the dullness of trade
and uncommon scarcity of money. "
* Brown, John Hancock His Book, p. 151.
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