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THE GLORIOUS CAUSE the American Revolution 1763-1789

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THE GLORIOUS CAUSE the American Revolution 1763-1789 THE GLORIOUS CAUSE The American Revolution 1763-1789 ROBERT MIDDLEKAUFF New York Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Oxford University Press Oxford London New York Toronto Delhi Bombav Calcutta Madras Karachi Kuala Lumpur' Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo Nairobi Dares Salaam Cape Town Melbourne Auckland and associated companies in Beirut Berlin Ibadan Mexico City Nicosia Copyright© 1982 by Oxford University Press, In First published in 1982 by Oxford University Press, Inc. 200 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 1985 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Middlekauff, Robert. The glorious cause. (The Oxford history of the United States; v. 2) Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. United States-History-Revolution, 1775-1783. 2. United States-Confederation, 1783-1789. I. Title. II. Series: Oxford history of the United States; v. 2. E 173.094 vol. 2 [Ezo8] 973s [973· 3] 81-966o ISBN o-19-502921-6 AACRz ISBN o-19-503575-5 (pbk.) Printing (last digit): 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 Printed in the United States of America 11 Resolution The reception accorded the Tea Act in 1773-74 is replete with paradox. For the previous two years the Americans had drunk tea, much of it legally imported, and they had paid the duty of three pence per pound. Smuggling was still acceptable and a good deal of tea was imported illegally from Holland, but equally acceptable was the legal but quiet importation of tea from England through Customs. And yet within a year of the passage of the Tea Act, the opposition had· revived and given a celebrated tea party in Boston harbor even though the duty remained the same. And anyone who brought in tea was branded an enemy to his country though many had done so without reproach during the preceding two years. Why we may ask did this convulsive reaction occur, destroying private property, provoking a fresh defiance of Parlia­ ment, and once more pulling the American colonies together? The answer has much to do with how the colonists understood the Tea Act. They believed that the Act left them no choice; it forced the issue; it expressed still another claim by Parliament of the right to tax them. This claim meant, as far as they were concerned, that the English plot to enslave them had been revived. If they went on paying the duty now that the government's intentions were laid bare, they would be cooperating with the enslavers. Arriving at this understanding consumed the summer following passage of the Act. Exactly what Parliament had done, let alone intended, was not known fully in America until September when a copy of the statute was printed in the newspapers. Even then confusion abounded because interpretations of the Act published in the newspapers implied and some- 221 222 THE GLORIOUS CAUSE times stated that the East India Company's tea would be imported duty free. The supporters of the Tea Act, most notably the company's consignees, understandably felt no urgency in explaining its terms, and as late as November several in New York insisted that the company's tea would not have to pay the old Townshend duty. 1 As before, the Sons of Liberty resorted to the newspapers to expose the ministry's purposes. But this time the Sons in Philadelphia and New York-not in Boston-assumed leadership. The Philadelphians set 'the tone of the opposition and gave it direction in ways made familiar in the crises over the Stamp Act and Townshend acts. There were differ­ ences, however, in 1773: the artisans made themselves known rather earlier than before and threats of violence were issued almost at once. To be sure the constitutional argument was made in conventional terms­ Parliament had no right to tax the colonists because the colonists were not represented in it-but no one suggested that the colonies should delay other action until Parliament reconsidered its position. Rather a mass meeting held in Philadelphia on October 16 pronounced anyone importing tea sent out by the East India Company "an enemy to his country" and appointed a committee to call upon the consignees to obtain their resignations. With John Dickinson lending his opposition to the East India Company, most of the consignees-wealthy Quaker merchants-agreed in November to give up their commissions. One firm, James and Drinker, attempted to avoid resigning outright, but by December it too had given in. 2 No doubt these merchants were affected by the threats of rough treat­ ment made against anyone who imported tea. The committees of the people, chosen in mass meetings or self-appointed in several cases, in­ cluded one styling itself "The Committee for Tarring and Feathering" which promised to practice its art on any Delaware River pilot who brought tea ships up the river to the city. When it learned the name of the captain of the Polly, which carried company tea, it informed him that his "diabolical service" would bring him into "hot water." As if this were not enough, the captain, one Ayres, was asked how he would like a halter around his neck and "ten gallons of liquid tar decanted on your pate-with the feathers of a dozen wild geese laid over that to enliven your appearance?" The committee's advice to Captain Ayres was "to fly to the place whence you came-fly without hesitation- 1. Benjamin Woods Labaree, The Boston Tea Party (New York, 1964), 88-89. 2. EHD, 774; Labaree, Boston Tea Party, 97-102. RESOLUTION 223 without the formality of a protest-and above all, Captain Ayres, let us advise you to fly without the wild geese feathers." The committee tendered this advice in a broadside before Ayres reached the North American coast. When he finally reached the Delaware River in late December, the Boston Tea Party had been given, the governor, John Penn, and the Customs officials were cowed, and the consignees con­ verted to patriotism. Ayres did the only thing left to him-hauled anchor and set sail for England, his cargo of tea undisturbed. 3 A similar set of events was enacted in New York: the Sons of Liberty revived and mass meetings were held in the autumn under their tutelage as Isaac Sears, Alexander McDougall, and John Lamb once more assumed leadership. Although consignees followed the example of those in Phila­ delphia and resigned their commissions, the governor, William Tryon, insisted in December that when the tea arrived it should be unloaded and stored at the Battery. Tryon had good cards in his hand: a stout­ hearted Council and, better yet, a man-of-war standing off Sandy Hook awaiting the tea. Even so, he lost, for the Nancy, the ship carrying the tea, was blown off course by a severe storm and put into port badly damaged in Antigua in February. By the time she was repaired and made her way to New York, the game was up. After taking on fresh provisions, the Nancy, cargo intact, sailed for home:' The only port where tea was landed was Charleston, South Carolina. There, disagreements among artisans, merchants, and planters produced indecision which Governor William Bull took advantage of. Many Charleston merchants had been importing English tea and paying the duty; others had been smuggling Dutch tea. The legal importers insisted on a ban against the importation of all tea, whatever its origin, pointing out that only the smugglers would profit from barring the product of the East India Company. The consignees proved quite willing to give up their commissions, but no agreement was reached about what to do with the company's tea that arrived on December 2, 1773. The governor solved the problem twenty days later by seizing the tea for nonpayment of duty. The tea was stored and never sold. 5 The opposition in Charleston acted largely in ignorance of events in Philadelphia and New York. Boston was located closer to these two cities and initially took its cue from them. But even with the example 3· EHD, 775· 4- Labaree, Boston Tea Party, 154-56. 5· Ibid., 248-49; Jensen, Founding, 443-44. 224 THE GLORIOUS CAUSE of Philadelphia before it~ Boston was slow to move against tea. The reason is clear-obsessive feuding through most of 1773 with Governor Thomas Hutchinson over his letters to England. Adams and his followers also bore down hard on royal payment of salaries to superior court judges. The Tea Act did not escape all local notice~ for the Boston Evening Post summarized it in late August. Still, well into October, Adams single­ mindedly pursued Thomas Hutchinson in the newspapers, as though anything that happened within Boston must be more important than anything that took place outside it. Adams was out of touch and so was the committee of correspondence, which in late September cited the denial of the East India Company's "sacred charter rights" as the most recent example of Parliamentary tyranny. 6 Three weeks later Edes and Gill awakened to what was troubling New Yorkers and Philadelphians and began filling the columns of the Gazette with attacks on the Tea Act and the local consignees. Those worthies-Thomas and Elisha Hutchinson, sons of the governor, Richard Clarke, Edward Winslow, and Benjamin Faneuil--did not suffer in si­ lence but hit back through the Boston Evening Post. Richard Clarke writing as "Z" in late October pointed at the inconsistency in protesting the tax on tea after paying it for two years and while still paying duties on sugar, molasses, and wine "from which more than three-fourths of the American revenue has and always will arise."7 Unsuccessful in cowing the consignees through the press, Adams re­ solved to do it through the crowd.
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