4. "That every medium of trade should have an intrinsic value, which paper money has not. Gold and silver are therefore the fittest for this medium, as they are an equivalent, which paper never can be. 5. "That debtors, in the Assemblies, make paper money with fraudulent views. 6. "That in the middle colonies, where the credit of the paper money has been best supported, the bills have never kept to their nominal value in circulation, but have constantly depreciated to a certain degree, whenever the quantity has been increased." D. Remonstrance of New York Assembly against The significance of the act of Parliament which prohibited the issue of legal tender paper money in the colonies as one of the important causes of the Revolution is now recognized. Its inclusion in a list of grievances by the New York Assembly shows the attitude of the colonists on this point. "The Representation and Remonstrance of the General Assembly of the Colony of New York. . . . "We cannot avoid mentioning among our grievances the Act for prohibiting the legislature of this colony from passing any law for the emission of a paper currency to be a legal tender in the colony: our commerce affords so small a return of specie, that without a paper currency, supported on the credit of the colony, our trade and the change of the property must necessarily decrease; without this expedient we never should have been able to comply with the requisitions of the crown during the last war, or to grant ready aids on any sudden emergencies. The credit of our bills has ever been secured from depreciation by the short periods limited for their duration, and sinking them by taxes raised on the people; and the want of this power may, in future, prevent his Majesty's faithful subjects here from testifying their loyalty and affection to our gracious sovereign, and from granting such aids as may be necessary for the general weal and safety of the British empire: nor can we avoid remonstrating against this Act, as an abridgement of the royal prerogative, and a violation. of our legislative rights. 'Assembly Chamber, City of New York, the 25th day of March 1775." 1 The Parliamentary History of England. By Hansard (London, 1813), XVIII, 653. E. The Enforcement of the Navigation Acts, 17641 The Seven Years' War in America had resulted in the expulsion of the French, which was an advantage to the colonies, but had left Great Britain with a largely increased debt. It was determined therefore to establish a standing army in the colonies, to the support of which the colonists must contribute by means of a new system of taxes. At the same time the navigation acts were to be vigorously enforced with the aid of British ships of war, paper money prohibited, and the reins of government drawn more tightly about the colonies. These different acts of the year 1764 were passed under the leadership of Charles Townshend, who was the first lord of trade and intrusted with the administration of the colonies. They are sympathetically described by an English author. The entire cession of the French possessions in North America, was a subject of trembling expectation in the minds of many who were, by no means, in the habit of employing their reason in idle speculations. While this vast extent of country remained in the possession of France, it certainly operated as a powerful restraint upon the colonies, and by keeping them in perpetual alarms, obliged them to have continual recourse to the parent state for aid and protection. The acquisition therefore of Canada, &c. by freeing the British North American colonies from all apprehensions on that dangerous quarter, afforded them a security which they had never known; and, of course, gave leisure for the progress of those ideas, which otherwise might indeed have occasionally risen into existence, but would never have attained to any degree of maturity. While France possessed this ceded territory, she must, in the most confidential moments of peace, have been considered, from her American position, exclusive of all other circumstances, as a natural enemy to British America; and while that idea remained, the connection between Great Britain and her Colonies must have subsisted. The one would have wanted protection, and the other would have required obedience; and these reciprocal obligations would have preserved. their union unbroken in every circumstance of it. Thus the conclusion of the war between Great Britain and France, placed the North American colonies in a situation of advantage which they had never before known, and gave them an unexperienced opportunity to exert all that natural vigour which they have since manifested. That they should now begin to feel their consequence, was a matter of natural expectation; and that the wish to realize it, in some degree, by enlarging their privileges, or pressing a little on what 1 An Historical and Chronological Deduction of the Origin of Commerce. By Adam Anderson (London, 1789), IV, 61-5. might be considered as the exuberance of parental authority, should be encouraged among them, was the result of their prosperous and powerful condition.. At this time, therefore, and when all these circumstances were evident to the most common observation, it was surely the true policy of Great Britain to have employed the most temperate measures in her government of the American colonies; and it was at this moment that she began to exercise her power, though not indeed without consideration; for the minister of that period was not in the habit of committing rash actions. . . . The methods which were now adopted to prevent smuggling, might not have been attended with any unpleasant consequences, if they had been confined to the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland; but by extending them to the shores of America, they interrupted a commerce, which though not strictly legal, was extremely advantageous to the colonies. They were therefore in a state of no common discontent on account of the acts of the British Parliament which added to their restraints, when the stamp act appeared to heighten their resentment, and raise a kind of private displeasure into public remonstrance and general opposition. A number of armed cutters were stationed around the coasts of Great Britain, and the most rigid orders were issued to the commanders of them to act in the capacity of revenue officers. They were enjoined to take the usual custom-house oaths, and to observe the regulations prescribed by them. Thus was the distinguished character of a British naval officer degraded by the employments of a tide-waiter, and that active, zealous courage which had been accustomed to the conquest of an enemy, was now to be exerted in opposing a contraband trade, and to find a reward in the seizure of prohibited commodities. The clamour against these measures was loud in England; but in America the discontent on the occasion was little short of outrage. As naval gentlemen, the commanders of these vessels were not conversant in the duties of revenue collection, they were therefore oftentimes guilty of oppression; remedies were indeed at hand in England; but as the Lords of the Admiralty or the Treasury could alone rectify any errors, check any violence, punish any injustice, or restore any violated property, it was always extremely difficult, and in many cases almost impracticable, for the Americans to obtain redress. But bad as this evil was, there arose one, from the same source, which was still worse. A trade had been carried on for more than - a century between the British and Spanish colonies in the new world, to the great advantage of both, but especially the former, as well as of the mother country; the chief materials of it being on the side of the British colonies, British manufactures, or such of their own produce as enabled them to purchase British manufactures for their own consumption; and, on the part of the Spaniards, gold and silver in bullion and coin, cochineal and medicinal drugs, beside live stock and mules; which, in the West India plantations, to which places alone these last articles were carried, from their great utility, justly deserved to be considered of equal importance with the most precious metals. This trade did not clash with the spirit of any act of Parliament made for the regulation of the British plantation trade; or, at least with that spirit of trade which universally prevails in our commercial acts: but it was found to vary sufficiently from the letter of the former, to give the new revenue officers a plea for doing that from principles of duty, which there were no small temptations to do from the more powerful motives of interest. Accordingly, they seized, indiscriminately, all the ships upon that trade, both of subjects and foreigners; which the custom-house officers stationed on shore, either through fear of the inhabitants, a more just way of thinking, or an happy ignorance, had always permitted to pass unnoticed. As the advantage of this commerce was very much in favour of Great Britain, the Spanish monarchy had always opposed it: guardacostas were commissioned to scour the coasts of her American dominions, and to seize every vessel which approached too near them; a duty which they had exercised with such general licence, as to provoke the war which broke out in 1739. The British cruizers seemed to act at this time with the same spirit in destroying this commerce, so that in a short space of time it was almost wholly annihilated. This circumstance was to the northern colonies a deprivation of the most serious nature. This traffic had long proved the mine from whence they drew those supplies of gold and silver that enabled them to make copious remittances to England, and to provide a sufficiency of current specie at home. A sudden stop being thus put to such a source of advantage, the Americans expressed the injury they sustained in the harshest terms that a sense of injury could inspire. But in spite of all complaints, the ministry continued to proceed in their unfortunate career, and measures equally offensive to the inhabitants of the North American colonies continued to be successively adopted. Besides this trade carried on between the British colonies in general, especially those in the West Indies, and the Spanish, there had for a long time subsisted one equally extensive between the British North American colonies in particular, and those of the French West Indies, to the great advantage of both, as it consisted chiefly in such goods as must otherwise have remained upon the hands of the possessors; so that it united, in the strictest sense, all those benefits which liberal minds include in the idea of a well regulated commerce, as tending, in the highest degree, to the mutual welfare of those who were concerned in it. In these benefits the respective mother countries had, without doubt, a very large share, though it may be impossible to, determine which, upon the whole, had the most. We had enough to engage those in power to think it worth connivance, for it certainly was not strictly to law, in consideration of the vast quantity of manufactures it enabled our American colonies to take from us; Through the suppression of that trade which we have just been relating, instead of barely interrupting these supplies of the necessaries and conveniences of life, which the North American colonies were before accustomed to receive in return for their superfluities and incumbrances, tended visibly, by obstructing their internal commerce, to deprive them, in a great degree, even of those blessings, the sources of which lay within themselves; yet a law was made in the beginning of the last year [1764], which, whilst it rendered legal, in some respects, their intercourse with the other European colonies in the new world, loaded the best part of it with duties so far above its strength to bear, as to render it contraband to all intents and purposes. Besides, it ordered the money arising from these duties to be paid, and in specie, into the British Exchequer, to the entire draining of the little ready money which might be still remaining in the colonies; and within a fortnight after, another law was passed to hinder the colonies from supplying the demand of money for their internal wants, by preventing such paper bills of credit as might be afterwards in them, from being made legal tender in payment; and the legal tender of such bills as were actually subsisting, from being prolonged beyond the periods already limited for calling in and sinking the same. These new regulations following each other so rapidly, produced an equal degree of surprise and discontent among the people of North America. Warm and spirited remonstrances were sent to England on the occasion. |