more than the planters
received
at pres-
ent.
ent.
Arthur Schlesinger - Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution
.
.
Lastly you are to consider, after all things
are candidly stated, whether the sums annually raised on
the one hand to protect ourselves, and the absolute gain in
1 Articles were also written to belittle the advantages of the period
before 1763; e. g. , "An American," ibid. , vol. v, pp. 225-227.
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? 596 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
trade (over and above what we used to make) on the other
hand, do or do not render it most for our interest to sep-
arate from Britain. "
In like manner this writer demanded that the opponents
of independence should make a ledger account of their side
of the question: "they must shew . . . what were the cus-
tomary expences of government in America, before the
present rupture; what are the exclusive privileges, we derive
from exporting goods to Great-Britain; whether there are
acts of Parliament in favour of the Colonies, to the preju-
dice of other nations, . . . and whether these are equivalent
to any loss we may sustain, by having our trade confined to
them; . . . you are to particularize the ports we may trade
to under the old regulations; and the different articles of
America, which we may carry directly to foreign ports; you
must also shew that the principal part of the goods we im-
port from England and Ireland could not be supplied us
upon as good terms, from any other country, and that those
nations, with whom we might incline to trade, would not
grant us bounties upon naval stores, and sundry other arti-
cles, in the same manner as England does, the amount of
which, annually paid to the Colonists, you should sum up.
You should also shew cause (if you can) why America
ought not to take credit to herself, for all the taxes paid by
the English manufacturers, before they send their goods to
the Colonies, it being generally granted that the consumer
ultimately pays all charges; you must also shew, whether
taxes on goods imported into America from Holland,
France or Spain (where imposts are very heavy) are or are
not added to the cost of the said goods, in the same manner
as we reckon them on English goods. Also whether the
long established credit, our American merchants have ob-
tained in England in the interior part of the kingdom, with
the original manufacturers, cannot be as well accomplished
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? TRANSFORMATION OF THE ASSOCIATION 597
in the new countries we may go to; or whether we must
take their goods from merchants at the out-ports, with all
the middle men's or intervening dealer's profits added to
them . . .
"Whether it is not a general established custom with all
trading nations, to trust foreigners with whom they have no
legal or political constitutional connexion as freely as their
own subjects in distant parts of the world; if this is not
generally the case, you should shew why America can't
make treaties with such powers, in order to obtain credit
. . . You should also shew . . . whether if France, Spain
and Holland should refuse to give credit to every young
merchant going out for a cargo, with a tolerable recommen-
dation, as the traders in England have been accustomed to
do, I say, if this should be the case, and the importations
should fall wholly into the hands of a few rich merchants,
why might not some mode of restriction be entered into, for
preventing the exorbitant exactions they might be guilty of,
to the great injury of the consumers? . . .
"You must also prove that England, on a reunion, would
grant us such protection as would secure our property in
any part of the world . . . ; or if a reunion should not take
place, you are to point out sufficient reasons to justify you
in the supposition that America has not, or may not, have
a naval power competent to the task, of doing herself jus-
tice. . . . And you must lastly shew, that by a reconcilia-
tion on constitutional principles, we shall return to the free
money-getting trade we formerly enjoyed, and that we
shall have it enlarged to us upon a grand national scale,
without any regard to the private emolument of this or that
party; but upon principles of the general interest of the
whole empire, without our paying any taxes for the support
of government more than what we have been used to (the
debt arising from the present dispute only excepted). That
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? THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
the administration of justice, and security of property, will
be as upright and safe as heretofore; and that the present
happiness and future liberty of America would be as well
maintained in a reunion as by a separation. I shall read
your controversy with great attention, and so will thou-
sands beside me; and if, upon an impartial hearing, it shall
appear to be the real interest of America to cut the Gordian
Knot and establish Independence--I declare with the utmost
sincerity and solemnity, that I will give it my hearty con-
currence. " l
While the controversial writers never achieved the par-
ticularity which this writer demanded, the radicals labored
hard to portray the economic advantages which a state of
independence promised for merchants and for men of means
generally. "Some think they say everything against a
state of independence by crying out that in a state of de-
pendance we enjoyed the protection of Great-Britain . . . ,"
wrote " Salus Populi. " "But do we not pay dearly for this
protection? The restriction of our trade alone is worth ten
times the protection, besides the sums we pay in customs
and other duties to the amount of more than a million an-
nually. The customs of the port of London alone are worth
? 2,000,000 sterling per annum. . . . Let us for once sup-
pose an independency, that we may observe the consequence.
We should then trade with every nation that would trade
with us, i. e. with every nation in Europe at least. Suppose
we were attacked by some foreign power in this state of in-
dependency, for this is the bugbear; what then? The nation
that would be fool enough to do it would raise a hornet's
nest about its ears . . . Every nation which enjoyed a
share of our trade would be guarantee for the peaceable be-
haviour and good conduct of its neighbours . . . To ask
1 "A Common Man " in the Pa. Ledger, Mch. 30, 1776.
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? TRANSFORMATION OF THE ASSOCIATION
what we should do for fleets to protect our trade, is as ab-
surd as to ask if timber grows in America. . . . But the
war once over, fleets to protect our trade will be nearly un-
necessary. Our trade will protect itself. It never will be
the interest of any nation to disturb our trade while we
trade freely with it, and it will ever be our interest to trade
freely with all nations. As long as the wide Atlantic ocean
rolls between us and Europe, so long will we be free from
foreign subjection were we once clear of Great-Britain:
And as long as we remain free from foreign subjection, so
long will our trade protect itself. "1
"What will be the probable benefits of independence? "
queried another writer. "A free and unlimited trade; a
great accession of wealth, and a proportionable rise in the
value of land; the establishment, gradual improvement, and
perfection of manufactures and science; a vast influx of
foreigners . . . ; an astonishing increase of our people
from the present stock. Where encouragement is given to
industry; where liberty and property are well secured;
where the poor may easily find subsistence, and the middling
rank comfortably support their farms by labour, there the
inhabitants must increase rapidly. " 2 In a similar strain,
"A. B. " argued the advantages of independence: "Let us
try what improvements we may be drawn into by a general
correspondence with the whole world, with people who will
require from us every different article our lands, our differ-
ent climates, can produce; and from whom may be had
directly, at first hand, every thing requisite for us. Let us
have access to the lowest and best markets for every com-
modity. Let this be the case, but for half the time the
1 Pa. Journ. , Feb. 14, 1776; also 4 Am. Arch. , vol. iv, pp. 1142-1143.
1 "Questions and Answers," Feb. 17, 1776; ibid. , vol. iv, pp. 1168-1171. -
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? 6oo THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763. 1776
Colonies have already existed, and the doubts and struggles
too, concerning independence, will be at an end. "1
On the other hand, in the plantation provinces, where
from the outset the factor class had consistently sacrificed
the interest of the community at large to that of themselves
and their British employers, no effort was made to win
mercantile support. Due to their British nativity and the
pecuniary indebtedness of the planters to them, the factors
had come to be regarded as a parasitic excrescence on the
community. Chief emphasis was placed by the radical
writers on the fact that political independence would also
mean emancipation from the power of factors and British
mercantile houses. "A Planter" cited Virginia as an ex-
ample of the conditions prevailing in the provinces from
Maryland to Georgia. "You are without merchants, ships,
seamen, or ship-builders . . . ," he declared to the Virgin-
ians in a newspaper article. ? " Your trade is confined to a
single spot on the globe, in the hands of the natives of a
distant Island, who fix the market of all commodities at
their pleasure, and we may be very sure will rate yours at
the lowest, and their own at the highest prices, they will in
any conscience bear. Every article of merchandise, that is
not the produce of Britain, must first pay its duties to the
Crown, perhaps must be increased in the price a very large
advance per cent there, and then be re-exported to Virginia,
and undergo an additional advance of seventy-five, and
sometimes near one hundred and fifty per cent here. " In
the northern colonies, he pointed out, linens and broad-
cloth were sold by the retail merchants at the same price
that the Virginia factors claimed they paid as prime cost in
Britain. "By this means you fairly lose seventy-five pounds
currency on every one hundred pounds sterling worth of
1"Plain Hints on the Condition of the Colonies," Feb. 28, 1776;
4 Am. Arch. , vol. iv, p. 1524.
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? TRANSFORMATION OF THE ASSOCIATION 601
merchandise you import from Great Britain that is not
native to that country;" a loss amounting annually to prob-
ably ? 200,000, which might be saved by the opening up of
a free and independent trade with the world.
Furthermore, he continued, there were probably fifty for-
eign houses or companies and two thousand factors, who
had charge of the trade of Virginia. "It is not unreason-
able to say, that every house or company makes fifteen
thousand pounds a year, net gain, by the trade of this
Colony; and, consequently, fifty houses will annually export
seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling to Scot-
land and England; which will be just so much saved to the
Colony, whenever its own natives shall become its mer-
chants. " Supposing the factors to lay aside ? 60 on the
average, here was to be found ? 120,000 more, which was
expended abroad. The total loss from these two sources
alone amounted to ? 870. 000 sterling, or ? 1,087,500 cur-
rency.
Another instance of exploitation was to be seen, he de-
clared, in the marketing of the Virginia staple, tobacco,
"upon which the Government of England and the mer-
chants of Scotland, have it in their power to put what price
they please. " The present rate of about 2os. per hundred-
weight was considered a very good average price. This
tobacco was exported to Britain, paid a duty almost four
times the price it bore in Virginia, and their merchants made
their fortunes out of it afterwards. 1 By exporting the
tobacco directly to the countries that consumed it, the Vir-
ginia planter would receive five pounds per hundredweight
instead of 20s. Making large allowance for losses, if the
colonies separated from Great Britain which now consumed
1 A reply by "A Virginian" pointed out that this duty was remitted
when tobacco was re-exported from Great Britain. Dixon & Hunter's
Va. Gaz. , Apr. 27, 1776.
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? 602 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
a large proportion of the tobacco, its common price would
still be ? 3, or 40s.
more than the planters received at pres-
ent. Figuring on an average exportation of 110,000 hogs-
heads per year, the gain to Virginia in a state of independ-
ence would be ? 2,200,000.
In summary, this writer estimated the commercial losses
due to dependence on Great Britain, so far as Virginia
was affected, substantially as follows:
1. On imports, as above ? 200,000 currency
2. Merchants' net profits 1,087,500
3. Tobacco planters' gross profits 2,200,000
4. On wheat, flour, hemp, flax, &c. , at least
half as much; but say 1,000,000
5. That part of the gross profits of the mer-
chants that would go to the artisans,
seamen, sail-makers, dealers in cordage,
anchors, etc 1,500,000
Sum total ? 5,987,500 currency
"That is, it [independence] will increase the real property
among us annually to near six millions. . . . Here is a
fund sufficient for defraying all the expenses . . . for the
preservation of our liberties against the avarice of a nation
much more powerful than the English, and not a farthing
of our present property touched. . . . If we aim only at
interest in the present contest, it appears plainly what part
we ought at once to resolve upon. " *
Turning again to the situation in the commercial prov-
inces, it should be recognized that, when the moment for the
crucial decision came, the choice which every merchant had
to make was not, and could not be, a mere mechanical one,
premised upon strict considerations of an informed class
interest. Like other human beings, his mind was affected
or controlled by the powerful influences of temperament,
1 Va. Gas. , Apr. 13, 1776; also 4 Am. Arch. , vol. v, pp. 914-917.
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? TRANSFORMATION OF THE ASSOCIATION 603
environment and tradition. Furthermore, the degree to
which his wealth was removable was an important factor in
his decision, for his business and the good will of his cus-
tomers were not commodities to be packed up and carried
bodily over into British lines. These facts caused many a
merchant to follow the line of least resistance when inde-
pendence was promulgated.
Henry Laurens of South Carolina has left on record that
he wept when he first heard the Declaration of Independ-
ence read; but he aligned himself with the revolutionists. 1
John Ross of Philadelphia, who " loved ease and Madeira
much better than liberty and strife," was one type of a
large group who claimed the right to be neutral. 8 The
Quakers, whose membership embraced the principal mer-
chants of Philadelphia, took an official stand against inde-
pendence at a meeting of representatives of Pennsylvania
and New Jersey Quakers on January 20, 1776. They re-
solved that: "The benefits, advantages and favours we
have experienced by our dependence on, and connection
with, the kings and government. . . appear to demand from
us the greatest circumspection, care and constant endeav-
ours, to guard against every attempt to alter, or subvert
that dependence and connection;" and they urged Friends
to unite firmly " in the abhorrence of all such writings and
1 Wallace, Laurens, pp. 224-225, 377.
s Graydon, Memoirs of His Own Times, p. 118. Another interesting
example is Peter Van Schaack, a New York lawyer, who had favored
the Continental Association. In May, 1775, he removed to Kinderhook
where he studied Vattel, Pufendorf, Grotius and other writers in the
hope of finding precedents to support colonial resistance. Having made
up his mind to remain neutral, he declined to sign the defense associa-
tion, and in 1777 refused to take the oath of allegiance to the state of
New York. The following year he was banished and went to England
where he remained until 1785. Then he returned to America and re-
sumed the practice of law. Van Schaack, H. C. , Life of Peter Van
Schaack (New York, 1842), passim.
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? 604 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
measures as evidence a desire and design to break off the
happy connection we have heretofore enjoyed with the
kingdom of Great-Britain, and our just and necessary sub-
ordination to the king and those who are lawfully placed in
authority under him . . . " * They attempted, during the
war for independence, to steer a middle course, although
many of the . younger members, in defiance of their elders,
joined heartily in the American cause. 2
Many merchants, on the other hand, actuated by a
broader understanding of class interest, frankly cast their
lot with the mother country. In Massachusetts, where the
conversion of the merchants to the loyalist side had occurred
earlier than in the other provinces, more than two hundred
1nembers of the trade accompanied the British troops upon
the evacuation of Boston in March, 1776. The elder
Thomas Wharton, a foremost member of the merchant-
aristocracy of Philadelphia and a "non-importer" of
earlier days, had forsaken extra-legal activities when the
results of the First Continental Congress showed that his
efforts to guide events in approved channels had proven
futile. A year or so later he was exiled to Virginia because
his presence in Philadelphia was deemed dangerous to the
patriot cause in view of the proximity of the British army
after the battle of Brandywine. In South Carolina Miles
Brewton, a wealthy merchant who had been a candidate of
the Charleston Chamber of Commerce for nomination to
the First Continental Congress, departed for England with
most of his movable property when independence was de-
clared, a destination he was not fated to reach. 4
1 Pa. Ledger, Jan. 27, 1776; also Sharpless, Quakers in the Revolution,
pp. 125-128.
1 Ibid. , pp. 130-137-
1 Sabine, L. , Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American
Revolution (Boston, 1864), vol. i, p. 25.
4 McCrady, 5. C. under Royal Gov"t, p. 406.
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? TRANSFORMATION OF THE ASSOCIATION 605
In New York the great leader of the mercantile reform-
ers, Isaac Low, had fought a noble battle against the en-
gulfing tide of radicalism, and did not begin seriously to
doubt his ability to control events until the bloody occur-
rences in mid-April, 1775. Dismayed for the moment, he
declined membership in the provincial convention of April
20-22 and thus deliberately rendered himself ineligible for
election to the Second Continental Congress. But on sober
second thought he accepted the chairmanship of the new
city committee of One Hundred, and sought to guide the
action of the provincial congress which began its sessions
in May. He would probably have accepted election to the
second provincial congress in November, but the radical
party would have none of him. He welcomed the British
troops when they occupied the city in August, 1776. When
at a later period Low petitioned the British government for
compensation, it is no wonder that his prominence in the
revolutionary movement was misunderstood and that his
application was not at first favorably received. Many other
New Yorkers had followed the same course as Low. There
had been nineteen men of this stripe on the committee of
Fifty-One, thirteen or fourteen on the committee of Sixty,
and perhaps eighteen on the committee of One Hundred. 1
Of the merchants who remained in America after the
Declaration of Independence, many retained the convictions
that had animated their class throughout the ten years'
struggle for commercial reform; and they made the most
of a difficult situation by becoming passive spectators or
secret abettors of the British in the struggle. They had the
mournful satisfaction, when the war closed, of finding their
worst fears confirmed in the inefficient government which
the radicals established and in the enfeebled state of Amer-
1 Becker, N. Y. Parties, 1760-1776, pp. 116 n. , 168 n. . 197-198. Some
of these men served on all three committees, of course.
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? 606 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS; 1763-1776
ican commerce and business at home and abroad. In the
troubled years that followed, the merchants of the country
regardless of their antecedents drew together in an effort
to found a government which would safeguard the interests
of their class. Thus, once more united, the mercantile inter-
ests became a potent factor in the conservative counter-
revolution that led to the establishment of the United States
Constitution. 1
1 Marshall, J. , Life of Washington (1850), vol. ii, p. 99; Beard, C. A. ,
An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States
(New York, 1913), pp. 4O-49, $6-57, 149-1S1, 175, and passim.
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? APPENDIX
THE CONTINENTAL ASSOCIATION l
[The footnotes refer to pages of the Journals of the Continental
Congress on which subsequent alterations of the Association may be
found. ]
WE, his majesty's most loyal subjects, the delegates of
the several colonies of New-Hampshire, Massachusetts-Bay,
Rhode-Island, Connecticut, New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsyl-
vania, the three lower counties of New-Castle, Kent, and
Sussex, on Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North-Carolina, and
South-Carolina, deputed to represent them in a continental
Congress, held in the city of Philadelphia, on the 5th day of
September, 1774, avowing our allegiance to his majesty, our
affection and regard for our fellow-subjects in Great-Britain
and elsewhere, affected with the deepest anxiety, and most
alarming apprehensions, at those grievances and distresses,
with which his Majesty's American subjects are oppressed;
and having taken under our most serious deliberation, the
state of the whole continent, find, that the present unhappy
situation of our affairs is occasioned by a ruinous system of
colony administration, adopted by the British ministry about
the year 1763, evidently calculated for inslaving these colonies,
and, with them, the British empire. In prosecution of which
system, various acts of parliament have been passed, for rais-
ing a revenue in America, for depriving the American subjects,
in many instances, of the constitutional trial by jury, exposing
their lives to danger, by directing a new and illegal trial beyond
1 The text is taken from the Journals of the Continental Congress
(Library of Congress Edition, Ford, W. C. , and Hunt, G. , eds. ), vol.
i, PP. 75-8I.
607
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? 608 APPENDIX
the seas, for crimes alleged to have been committed in
America: and in prosecution of the same system, several late,
cruel, and oppressive acts have been passed, respecting the town
of Boston and the Massachusetts-Bay, and also an act for
extending the province of Quebec, so as to border on the
western frontiers of these colonies, establishing an arbitrary
government therein, and discouraging the settlement of British
subjects in that wide extended country; thus, by the influence
of civil principles and ancient prejudices, to dispose the in-
habitants to act with hostility against the free Protestant
colonies, whenever a wicked ministry shall chuse so to direct
them.
To obtain redress of these grievances, which threaten de-
struction to the lives, liberty, and property of his majesty's
subjects, in North America, we are of opinion, that a non-
importation, non-consumption, and non-exportation agreement,
faithfully adhered to, will prove the most speedy, effectual,
and peaceable measures: and, therefore, we do, for ourselves,
and the inhabitants of the several colonies whom we represent,,
firmly agree and associate, under the sacred ties of virtue,
honour and love of our country, as follows:
1. That from and after the first day of December next, we
will not import, into British America, from Great-Britain or
Ireland, any goods, wares, or merchandise whatsoever, or
from any other place, any such goods, wares, or merchandise,
as shall have been exported from Great-Britain or Ireland;J
nor will we, after that day, import any East-India tea from
any part of the world; nor any molasses, syrups, paneles, coffee,
or pimento, from the British plantations or from Dominica;
nor wines from Madeira, or the Western Islands; nor foreign
indigo. 2
2. We will neither import nor purchase, any slave imported
after the first day of December next; after which time, we
1 Journals, vol. ii, pp. 238-239, 247.
* Ibid. , vol. iv, pp. 257-259.
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? APPENDIX 609
will wholly discontinue the slave trade, and will neither be con-
cerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our
commodities or manufactures to those who are concerned in it.
3. As a non-consumption agreement, strictly adhered to, will
be an effectual security for the observation of the non-importa-
tion, we, as above, solemnly agree and associate, that, from
this day, we will not purchase or use any tea, imported on
account of the East-India company, or any on which a duty
hath been or shall be paid; and from and after the first day
of March next, we will not purchase or use any East-India
tea whatever;J nor will we, nor shall any person for or under
us, purchase or use any of those goods, wares, or merchandise,
we have agreed not to import, which we shall know, or have
cause to suspect, were imported after the first day of Decem-
ber, except such as come under the rules and directions of
the tenth article hereafter mentioned.
4. The earnest desire we have, not to injure our fellow-
subjects in Great-Britain, Ireland, or the West-Indies, induces
us to suspend a non-exportation until the tenth day of Septem-
ber, 1775; at which time, if the said acts and parts of acts of
the British parliament herein after mentioned are not repealed,
we will not, directly or indirectly, export any merchandise or
commodity whatsoever to Great-Britain, Ireland, or the West-
Indies, except rice to Europe. 2
5. Such as are merchants, and use the British and Irish
trade, will give orders, as soon as possible, to their factors,
agents, and correspondents, in Great-Britain and Ireland, not
to ship any goods to them, on any pretence whatsoever, as they
cannot be received in America; and if any merchant residing
in Great-Britain or Ireland, shall directly or indirectly ship
any goods, wares, or merchandise, for America, in order to
break the said non-importation agreement, or in any manner
contravene the same, on such unworthy conduct being well
1 Journals, vol. iv, pp. 277-278.
'/Md. , vol. ii, pp. 184-185, 238-239; vol. iii, pp. 308, 314, 315, 336, 36*-
364, 380-390, 464-465; vol. iv, pp. 257-259.
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are candidly stated, whether the sums annually raised on
the one hand to protect ourselves, and the absolute gain in
1 Articles were also written to belittle the advantages of the period
before 1763; e. g. , "An American," ibid. , vol. v, pp. 225-227.
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? 596 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
trade (over and above what we used to make) on the other
hand, do or do not render it most for our interest to sep-
arate from Britain. "
In like manner this writer demanded that the opponents
of independence should make a ledger account of their side
of the question: "they must shew . . . what were the cus-
tomary expences of government in America, before the
present rupture; what are the exclusive privileges, we derive
from exporting goods to Great-Britain; whether there are
acts of Parliament in favour of the Colonies, to the preju-
dice of other nations, . . . and whether these are equivalent
to any loss we may sustain, by having our trade confined to
them; . . . you are to particularize the ports we may trade
to under the old regulations; and the different articles of
America, which we may carry directly to foreign ports; you
must also shew that the principal part of the goods we im-
port from England and Ireland could not be supplied us
upon as good terms, from any other country, and that those
nations, with whom we might incline to trade, would not
grant us bounties upon naval stores, and sundry other arti-
cles, in the same manner as England does, the amount of
which, annually paid to the Colonists, you should sum up.
You should also shew cause (if you can) why America
ought not to take credit to herself, for all the taxes paid by
the English manufacturers, before they send their goods to
the Colonies, it being generally granted that the consumer
ultimately pays all charges; you must also shew, whether
taxes on goods imported into America from Holland,
France or Spain (where imposts are very heavy) are or are
not added to the cost of the said goods, in the same manner
as we reckon them on English goods. Also whether the
long established credit, our American merchants have ob-
tained in England in the interior part of the kingdom, with
the original manufacturers, cannot be as well accomplished
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? TRANSFORMATION OF THE ASSOCIATION 597
in the new countries we may go to; or whether we must
take their goods from merchants at the out-ports, with all
the middle men's or intervening dealer's profits added to
them . . .
"Whether it is not a general established custom with all
trading nations, to trust foreigners with whom they have no
legal or political constitutional connexion as freely as their
own subjects in distant parts of the world; if this is not
generally the case, you should shew why America can't
make treaties with such powers, in order to obtain credit
. . . You should also shew . . . whether if France, Spain
and Holland should refuse to give credit to every young
merchant going out for a cargo, with a tolerable recommen-
dation, as the traders in England have been accustomed to
do, I say, if this should be the case, and the importations
should fall wholly into the hands of a few rich merchants,
why might not some mode of restriction be entered into, for
preventing the exorbitant exactions they might be guilty of,
to the great injury of the consumers? . . .
"You must also prove that England, on a reunion, would
grant us such protection as would secure our property in
any part of the world . . . ; or if a reunion should not take
place, you are to point out sufficient reasons to justify you
in the supposition that America has not, or may not, have
a naval power competent to the task, of doing herself jus-
tice. . . . And you must lastly shew, that by a reconcilia-
tion on constitutional principles, we shall return to the free
money-getting trade we formerly enjoyed, and that we
shall have it enlarged to us upon a grand national scale,
without any regard to the private emolument of this or that
party; but upon principles of the general interest of the
whole empire, without our paying any taxes for the support
of government more than what we have been used to (the
debt arising from the present dispute only excepted). That
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? THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
the administration of justice, and security of property, will
be as upright and safe as heretofore; and that the present
happiness and future liberty of America would be as well
maintained in a reunion as by a separation. I shall read
your controversy with great attention, and so will thou-
sands beside me; and if, upon an impartial hearing, it shall
appear to be the real interest of America to cut the Gordian
Knot and establish Independence--I declare with the utmost
sincerity and solemnity, that I will give it my hearty con-
currence. " l
While the controversial writers never achieved the par-
ticularity which this writer demanded, the radicals labored
hard to portray the economic advantages which a state of
independence promised for merchants and for men of means
generally. "Some think they say everything against a
state of independence by crying out that in a state of de-
pendance we enjoyed the protection of Great-Britain . . . ,"
wrote " Salus Populi. " "But do we not pay dearly for this
protection? The restriction of our trade alone is worth ten
times the protection, besides the sums we pay in customs
and other duties to the amount of more than a million an-
nually. The customs of the port of London alone are worth
? 2,000,000 sterling per annum. . . . Let us for once sup-
pose an independency, that we may observe the consequence.
We should then trade with every nation that would trade
with us, i. e. with every nation in Europe at least. Suppose
we were attacked by some foreign power in this state of in-
dependency, for this is the bugbear; what then? The nation
that would be fool enough to do it would raise a hornet's
nest about its ears . . . Every nation which enjoyed a
share of our trade would be guarantee for the peaceable be-
haviour and good conduct of its neighbours . . . To ask
1 "A Common Man " in the Pa. Ledger, Mch. 30, 1776.
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? TRANSFORMATION OF THE ASSOCIATION
what we should do for fleets to protect our trade, is as ab-
surd as to ask if timber grows in America. . . . But the
war once over, fleets to protect our trade will be nearly un-
necessary. Our trade will protect itself. It never will be
the interest of any nation to disturb our trade while we
trade freely with it, and it will ever be our interest to trade
freely with all nations. As long as the wide Atlantic ocean
rolls between us and Europe, so long will we be free from
foreign subjection were we once clear of Great-Britain:
And as long as we remain free from foreign subjection, so
long will our trade protect itself. "1
"What will be the probable benefits of independence? "
queried another writer. "A free and unlimited trade; a
great accession of wealth, and a proportionable rise in the
value of land; the establishment, gradual improvement, and
perfection of manufactures and science; a vast influx of
foreigners . . . ; an astonishing increase of our people
from the present stock. Where encouragement is given to
industry; where liberty and property are well secured;
where the poor may easily find subsistence, and the middling
rank comfortably support their farms by labour, there the
inhabitants must increase rapidly. " 2 In a similar strain,
"A. B. " argued the advantages of independence: "Let us
try what improvements we may be drawn into by a general
correspondence with the whole world, with people who will
require from us every different article our lands, our differ-
ent climates, can produce; and from whom may be had
directly, at first hand, every thing requisite for us. Let us
have access to the lowest and best markets for every com-
modity. Let this be the case, but for half the time the
1 Pa. Journ. , Feb. 14, 1776; also 4 Am. Arch. , vol. iv, pp. 1142-1143.
1 "Questions and Answers," Feb. 17, 1776; ibid. , vol. iv, pp. 1168-1171. -
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? 6oo THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763. 1776
Colonies have already existed, and the doubts and struggles
too, concerning independence, will be at an end. "1
On the other hand, in the plantation provinces, where
from the outset the factor class had consistently sacrificed
the interest of the community at large to that of themselves
and their British employers, no effort was made to win
mercantile support. Due to their British nativity and the
pecuniary indebtedness of the planters to them, the factors
had come to be regarded as a parasitic excrescence on the
community. Chief emphasis was placed by the radical
writers on the fact that political independence would also
mean emancipation from the power of factors and British
mercantile houses. "A Planter" cited Virginia as an ex-
ample of the conditions prevailing in the provinces from
Maryland to Georgia. "You are without merchants, ships,
seamen, or ship-builders . . . ," he declared to the Virgin-
ians in a newspaper article. ? " Your trade is confined to a
single spot on the globe, in the hands of the natives of a
distant Island, who fix the market of all commodities at
their pleasure, and we may be very sure will rate yours at
the lowest, and their own at the highest prices, they will in
any conscience bear. Every article of merchandise, that is
not the produce of Britain, must first pay its duties to the
Crown, perhaps must be increased in the price a very large
advance per cent there, and then be re-exported to Virginia,
and undergo an additional advance of seventy-five, and
sometimes near one hundred and fifty per cent here. " In
the northern colonies, he pointed out, linens and broad-
cloth were sold by the retail merchants at the same price
that the Virginia factors claimed they paid as prime cost in
Britain. "By this means you fairly lose seventy-five pounds
currency on every one hundred pounds sterling worth of
1"Plain Hints on the Condition of the Colonies," Feb. 28, 1776;
4 Am. Arch. , vol. iv, p. 1524.
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? TRANSFORMATION OF THE ASSOCIATION 601
merchandise you import from Great Britain that is not
native to that country;" a loss amounting annually to prob-
ably ? 200,000, which might be saved by the opening up of
a free and independent trade with the world.
Furthermore, he continued, there were probably fifty for-
eign houses or companies and two thousand factors, who
had charge of the trade of Virginia. "It is not unreason-
able to say, that every house or company makes fifteen
thousand pounds a year, net gain, by the trade of this
Colony; and, consequently, fifty houses will annually export
seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling to Scot-
land and England; which will be just so much saved to the
Colony, whenever its own natives shall become its mer-
chants. " Supposing the factors to lay aside ? 60 on the
average, here was to be found ? 120,000 more, which was
expended abroad. The total loss from these two sources
alone amounted to ? 870. 000 sterling, or ? 1,087,500 cur-
rency.
Another instance of exploitation was to be seen, he de-
clared, in the marketing of the Virginia staple, tobacco,
"upon which the Government of England and the mer-
chants of Scotland, have it in their power to put what price
they please. " The present rate of about 2os. per hundred-
weight was considered a very good average price. This
tobacco was exported to Britain, paid a duty almost four
times the price it bore in Virginia, and their merchants made
their fortunes out of it afterwards. 1 By exporting the
tobacco directly to the countries that consumed it, the Vir-
ginia planter would receive five pounds per hundredweight
instead of 20s. Making large allowance for losses, if the
colonies separated from Great Britain which now consumed
1 A reply by "A Virginian" pointed out that this duty was remitted
when tobacco was re-exported from Great Britain. Dixon & Hunter's
Va. Gaz. , Apr. 27, 1776.
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? 602 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
a large proportion of the tobacco, its common price would
still be ? 3, or 40s.
more than the planters received at pres-
ent. Figuring on an average exportation of 110,000 hogs-
heads per year, the gain to Virginia in a state of independ-
ence would be ? 2,200,000.
In summary, this writer estimated the commercial losses
due to dependence on Great Britain, so far as Virginia
was affected, substantially as follows:
1. On imports, as above ? 200,000 currency
2. Merchants' net profits 1,087,500
3. Tobacco planters' gross profits 2,200,000
4. On wheat, flour, hemp, flax, &c. , at least
half as much; but say 1,000,000
5. That part of the gross profits of the mer-
chants that would go to the artisans,
seamen, sail-makers, dealers in cordage,
anchors, etc 1,500,000
Sum total ? 5,987,500 currency
"That is, it [independence] will increase the real property
among us annually to near six millions. . . . Here is a
fund sufficient for defraying all the expenses . . . for the
preservation of our liberties against the avarice of a nation
much more powerful than the English, and not a farthing
of our present property touched. . . . If we aim only at
interest in the present contest, it appears plainly what part
we ought at once to resolve upon. " *
Turning again to the situation in the commercial prov-
inces, it should be recognized that, when the moment for the
crucial decision came, the choice which every merchant had
to make was not, and could not be, a mere mechanical one,
premised upon strict considerations of an informed class
interest. Like other human beings, his mind was affected
or controlled by the powerful influences of temperament,
1 Va. Gas. , Apr. 13, 1776; also 4 Am. Arch. , vol. v, pp. 914-917.
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? TRANSFORMATION OF THE ASSOCIATION 603
environment and tradition. Furthermore, the degree to
which his wealth was removable was an important factor in
his decision, for his business and the good will of his cus-
tomers were not commodities to be packed up and carried
bodily over into British lines. These facts caused many a
merchant to follow the line of least resistance when inde-
pendence was promulgated.
Henry Laurens of South Carolina has left on record that
he wept when he first heard the Declaration of Independ-
ence read; but he aligned himself with the revolutionists. 1
John Ross of Philadelphia, who " loved ease and Madeira
much better than liberty and strife," was one type of a
large group who claimed the right to be neutral. 8 The
Quakers, whose membership embraced the principal mer-
chants of Philadelphia, took an official stand against inde-
pendence at a meeting of representatives of Pennsylvania
and New Jersey Quakers on January 20, 1776. They re-
solved that: "The benefits, advantages and favours we
have experienced by our dependence on, and connection
with, the kings and government. . . appear to demand from
us the greatest circumspection, care and constant endeav-
ours, to guard against every attempt to alter, or subvert
that dependence and connection;" and they urged Friends
to unite firmly " in the abhorrence of all such writings and
1 Wallace, Laurens, pp. 224-225, 377.
s Graydon, Memoirs of His Own Times, p. 118. Another interesting
example is Peter Van Schaack, a New York lawyer, who had favored
the Continental Association. In May, 1775, he removed to Kinderhook
where he studied Vattel, Pufendorf, Grotius and other writers in the
hope of finding precedents to support colonial resistance. Having made
up his mind to remain neutral, he declined to sign the defense associa-
tion, and in 1777 refused to take the oath of allegiance to the state of
New York. The following year he was banished and went to England
where he remained until 1785. Then he returned to America and re-
sumed the practice of law. Van Schaack, H. C. , Life of Peter Van
Schaack (New York, 1842), passim.
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? 604 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
measures as evidence a desire and design to break off the
happy connection we have heretofore enjoyed with the
kingdom of Great-Britain, and our just and necessary sub-
ordination to the king and those who are lawfully placed in
authority under him . . . " * They attempted, during the
war for independence, to steer a middle course, although
many of the . younger members, in defiance of their elders,
joined heartily in the American cause. 2
Many merchants, on the other hand, actuated by a
broader understanding of class interest, frankly cast their
lot with the mother country. In Massachusetts, where the
conversion of the merchants to the loyalist side had occurred
earlier than in the other provinces, more than two hundred
1nembers of the trade accompanied the British troops upon
the evacuation of Boston in March, 1776. The elder
Thomas Wharton, a foremost member of the merchant-
aristocracy of Philadelphia and a "non-importer" of
earlier days, had forsaken extra-legal activities when the
results of the First Continental Congress showed that his
efforts to guide events in approved channels had proven
futile. A year or so later he was exiled to Virginia because
his presence in Philadelphia was deemed dangerous to the
patriot cause in view of the proximity of the British army
after the battle of Brandywine. In South Carolina Miles
Brewton, a wealthy merchant who had been a candidate of
the Charleston Chamber of Commerce for nomination to
the First Continental Congress, departed for England with
most of his movable property when independence was de-
clared, a destination he was not fated to reach. 4
1 Pa. Ledger, Jan. 27, 1776; also Sharpless, Quakers in the Revolution,
pp. 125-128.
1 Ibid. , pp. 130-137-
1 Sabine, L. , Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American
Revolution (Boston, 1864), vol. i, p. 25.
4 McCrady, 5. C. under Royal Gov"t, p. 406.
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? TRANSFORMATION OF THE ASSOCIATION 605
In New York the great leader of the mercantile reform-
ers, Isaac Low, had fought a noble battle against the en-
gulfing tide of radicalism, and did not begin seriously to
doubt his ability to control events until the bloody occur-
rences in mid-April, 1775. Dismayed for the moment, he
declined membership in the provincial convention of April
20-22 and thus deliberately rendered himself ineligible for
election to the Second Continental Congress. But on sober
second thought he accepted the chairmanship of the new
city committee of One Hundred, and sought to guide the
action of the provincial congress which began its sessions
in May. He would probably have accepted election to the
second provincial congress in November, but the radical
party would have none of him. He welcomed the British
troops when they occupied the city in August, 1776. When
at a later period Low petitioned the British government for
compensation, it is no wonder that his prominence in the
revolutionary movement was misunderstood and that his
application was not at first favorably received. Many other
New Yorkers had followed the same course as Low. There
had been nineteen men of this stripe on the committee of
Fifty-One, thirteen or fourteen on the committee of Sixty,
and perhaps eighteen on the committee of One Hundred. 1
Of the merchants who remained in America after the
Declaration of Independence, many retained the convictions
that had animated their class throughout the ten years'
struggle for commercial reform; and they made the most
of a difficult situation by becoming passive spectators or
secret abettors of the British in the struggle. They had the
mournful satisfaction, when the war closed, of finding their
worst fears confirmed in the inefficient government which
the radicals established and in the enfeebled state of Amer-
1 Becker, N. Y. Parties, 1760-1776, pp. 116 n. , 168 n. . 197-198. Some
of these men served on all three committees, of course.
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? 606 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS; 1763-1776
ican commerce and business at home and abroad. In the
troubled years that followed, the merchants of the country
regardless of their antecedents drew together in an effort
to found a government which would safeguard the interests
of their class. Thus, once more united, the mercantile inter-
ests became a potent factor in the conservative counter-
revolution that led to the establishment of the United States
Constitution. 1
1 Marshall, J. , Life of Washington (1850), vol. ii, p. 99; Beard, C. A. ,
An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States
(New York, 1913), pp. 4O-49, $6-57, 149-1S1, 175, and passim.
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? APPENDIX
THE CONTINENTAL ASSOCIATION l
[The footnotes refer to pages of the Journals of the Continental
Congress on which subsequent alterations of the Association may be
found. ]
WE, his majesty's most loyal subjects, the delegates of
the several colonies of New-Hampshire, Massachusetts-Bay,
Rhode-Island, Connecticut, New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsyl-
vania, the three lower counties of New-Castle, Kent, and
Sussex, on Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North-Carolina, and
South-Carolina, deputed to represent them in a continental
Congress, held in the city of Philadelphia, on the 5th day of
September, 1774, avowing our allegiance to his majesty, our
affection and regard for our fellow-subjects in Great-Britain
and elsewhere, affected with the deepest anxiety, and most
alarming apprehensions, at those grievances and distresses,
with which his Majesty's American subjects are oppressed;
and having taken under our most serious deliberation, the
state of the whole continent, find, that the present unhappy
situation of our affairs is occasioned by a ruinous system of
colony administration, adopted by the British ministry about
the year 1763, evidently calculated for inslaving these colonies,
and, with them, the British empire. In prosecution of which
system, various acts of parliament have been passed, for rais-
ing a revenue in America, for depriving the American subjects,
in many instances, of the constitutional trial by jury, exposing
their lives to danger, by directing a new and illegal trial beyond
1 The text is taken from the Journals of the Continental Congress
(Library of Congress Edition, Ford, W. C. , and Hunt, G. , eds. ), vol.
i, PP. 75-8I.
607
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? 608 APPENDIX
the seas, for crimes alleged to have been committed in
America: and in prosecution of the same system, several late,
cruel, and oppressive acts have been passed, respecting the town
of Boston and the Massachusetts-Bay, and also an act for
extending the province of Quebec, so as to border on the
western frontiers of these colonies, establishing an arbitrary
government therein, and discouraging the settlement of British
subjects in that wide extended country; thus, by the influence
of civil principles and ancient prejudices, to dispose the in-
habitants to act with hostility against the free Protestant
colonies, whenever a wicked ministry shall chuse so to direct
them.
To obtain redress of these grievances, which threaten de-
struction to the lives, liberty, and property of his majesty's
subjects, in North America, we are of opinion, that a non-
importation, non-consumption, and non-exportation agreement,
faithfully adhered to, will prove the most speedy, effectual,
and peaceable measures: and, therefore, we do, for ourselves,
and the inhabitants of the several colonies whom we represent,,
firmly agree and associate, under the sacred ties of virtue,
honour and love of our country, as follows:
1. That from and after the first day of December next, we
will not import, into British America, from Great-Britain or
Ireland, any goods, wares, or merchandise whatsoever, or
from any other place, any such goods, wares, or merchandise,
as shall have been exported from Great-Britain or Ireland;J
nor will we, after that day, import any East-India tea from
any part of the world; nor any molasses, syrups, paneles, coffee,
or pimento, from the British plantations or from Dominica;
nor wines from Madeira, or the Western Islands; nor foreign
indigo. 2
2. We will neither import nor purchase, any slave imported
after the first day of December next; after which time, we
1 Journals, vol. ii, pp. 238-239, 247.
* Ibid. , vol. iv, pp. 257-259.
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? APPENDIX 609
will wholly discontinue the slave trade, and will neither be con-
cerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our
commodities or manufactures to those who are concerned in it.
3. As a non-consumption agreement, strictly adhered to, will
be an effectual security for the observation of the non-importa-
tion, we, as above, solemnly agree and associate, that, from
this day, we will not purchase or use any tea, imported on
account of the East-India company, or any on which a duty
hath been or shall be paid; and from and after the first day
of March next, we will not purchase or use any East-India
tea whatever;J nor will we, nor shall any person for or under
us, purchase or use any of those goods, wares, or merchandise,
we have agreed not to import, which we shall know, or have
cause to suspect, were imported after the first day of Decem-
ber, except such as come under the rules and directions of
the tenth article hereafter mentioned.
4. The earnest desire we have, not to injure our fellow-
subjects in Great-Britain, Ireland, or the West-Indies, induces
us to suspend a non-exportation until the tenth day of Septem-
ber, 1775; at which time, if the said acts and parts of acts of
the British parliament herein after mentioned are not repealed,
we will not, directly or indirectly, export any merchandise or
commodity whatsoever to Great-Britain, Ireland, or the West-
Indies, except rice to Europe. 2
5. Such as are merchants, and use the British and Irish
trade, will give orders, as soon as possible, to their factors,
agents, and correspondents, in Great-Britain and Ireland, not
to ship any goods to them, on any pretence whatsoever, as they
cannot be received in America; and if any merchant residing
in Great-Britain or Ireland, shall directly or indirectly ship
any goods, wares, or merchandise, for America, in order to
break the said non-importation agreement, or in any manner
contravene the same, on such unworthy conduct being well
1 Journals, vol. iv, pp. 277-278.
'/Md. , vol. ii, pp. 184-185, 238-239; vol. iii, pp. 308, 314, 315, 336, 36*-
364, 380-390, 464-465; vol. iv, pp. 257-259.
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