The Colonization Of North America Part 35

Lawrence Valley. The trade was open to any duly licensed subject, superintendents were established at the posts, local courts were erected in the interior, and settlement limited to the immediate neighborhood of the posts in order not to drive away the fur bearing animals.

The French traders ruined.--The conquest had destroyed the French fur trading organization. Under the mercantile system then in vogue, supplies and markets had now to be sought in England. The French merchants were ruined, and the entire trade of the Great Lake region was thrown into the hands of the British traders. The French _coureurs de bois_, however, remained in the country, and, in the employ of the British, continued to be the backbone of the fur gathering business in the interior.

The rush to the interior.--As early as 1761 British traders of Montreal began to enter the field left vacant by the French. Pontiac's War caused a suspension of their activities, and during it British traders were plundered and murdered. By 1765, however, there was a new rush to the interior, though it was 1771 before they could safely trade in the most remote posts on the Saskatchewan. In the meantime the Indians had learned to take their furs to the posts on Hudson Bay or down the Mississippi.

Extent of operations.--The American Revolution destroyed the western fur trade of the seaboard colonies and threw the commerce of the entire Northwest into the hands of the Quebec and Montreal traders. By the close of the war they were conducting operations on both sides of the Great Lakes, in the Illinois country, beyond the upper Mississippi, on the Winnipeg, Saskatchewan, Churchill, and Athabasca Rivers, to the neighborhood of Great Slave Lake. They traded on the a.s.siniboine, and may have reached the Missouri by that route.

Management of the trade.--During and after the Revolution the value of the furs annually sent from Montreal and Quebec to London was probably $1,000,000. The trade centered mainly in Montreal. In London great mercantile establishments throve by the commerce. At Montreal other great houses were founded. Detroit and Michillimackinac were interior supply posts, where branch houses or lesser merchants conducted business. Wintering partners and clerks went with the fleets of batteaux into the far interior, but most of the common hands or _engages_ were French and half-breed _coureurs de bois_, just as in the case of the Spanish fur trade in Louisiana. The entire business was conducted on the credit system.

The fur magnates.--Many of the fur magnates were Scotchmen. Among the Montreal merchants of importance in this period were Alexander Henry, Benjamin and Joseph Frobisher, James Finlay, and Peter Pond. Henry was one of the earliest in the West. Finlay is said to have been among the first on the Saskatchewan River. The Frobishers were leading traders on the Saskatchewan and Churchill. Pond was probably the pioneer on the Athabasca, having wintered there in 1778-1789.

The Northwest Company formed.--The free access of all licensed traders to the interior resulted in reckless compet.i.tion in regions remote from the military posts. Acts of violence were committed and Indians were involved in the contest. Besides the grave disadvantages of compet.i.tion, there were obvious advantages of combination. In 1779, therefore, nine enterprises were consolidated for one year. The success caused the arrangement to be repeated, and finally in 1783-1784 the Northwest Company was organized and became permanent. This company soon monopolized the larger part of the Montreal trade, and became the great rival of the Hudson's Bay Company.

Advance of Hudson's Bay Company.--After the Peace of Utrecht the Hudson's Bay Company had returned to an era of prosperity. Urged on by French compet.i.tion, by 1700 expeditions inland had been made by Kelsey (1691) and Sanford, and Henley House had been built a hundred and fifty miles inland from Fort Albany; and by 1720 other minor inland expeditions had been made by Macklish and Stewart, but in the main the Company had held to the sh.o.r.es of the Bay. Instead of sending employees inland, as did the French, reliance was placed on furs brought by the Indians to the posts, all of which were close to the Bay. The monopoly enjoyed was a cause of jealousy among British merchants, and critics arose, notably Arthur Dobbs, who charged that the Company had failed in its obligation to seek the northwest pa.s.sage and explore the interior.

Coerced by criticism, between 1719 and 1737 the Company made some explorations, but little was accomplished.

Hearne's explorations.--After 1763 criticism of the Company was reinforced by the rise of the Montreal trade, and new explorations northwestward were undertaken. After two unsuccessful attempts in 1769 and 1770 to reach the Coppermine River overland, in December, 1770, Samuel Hearne set out from Fort Prince of Wales to seek "a North-West Pa.s.sage, copper-mines, or any other thing that may be serviceable to the British nation in general, or the Hudson's Bay Company in particular."

Going west, then north, on July 18, 1771, Hearne reached the mouth of the Coppermine River near lat.i.tude 68, where he took formal possession of the Arctic Ocean for the Company. Returning by way of Lake Athabasca, which he discovered and crossed, he reached his fort on June 30, 1772.

Rival posts in the interior.--Hearne's explorations were indicative of a new policy. Coerced by the aggressive Montreal traders, the Company now pushed into the interior in a struggle for the mastery. Side by side the two, companies placed rival forts on all the important streams from the Hudson Bay to the Rockies and from the Red River of the North to Great Slave Lake.

READINGS

Alden, G.H., _New Governments west of the Alleghanies before 1780_; Alvord, C.W., "Virginia and the West: An Interpretation," in _The Mississippi Valley Historical Review_, III, 19-38; _The Critical Period, 1763-1765_; _The Mississippi Valley in British Politics_; Alvord, C.W., and Carter, C.E., editors, _The New Regime, 1765-1767_; Ba.s.sett, J.S., "The Regulators of North Carolina," in American Hist. a.s.soc., _Annual Report, 1894_, pp. 141-212; Bourinot, J.G., _Canada under British Rule, 1760-1905_ (G.W. Wrong revision), chs. 2-3; Bryce, George, _The Remarkable History of the Hudson's Bay Company_, chs. 8-13; Carter, C.E., _Great Britain and the Illinois Country, 1763-1774_; "The Beginnings of British West Florida," in _The Mississippi Valley Historical Review_, IV, 314-341; Coffin, Victor, _The Quebec Act_; Hamilton, P.J., Colonial Mobile, chs. 23-31; The Colonisation of the South, chs. 20-21; Henderson, A., "Richard Henderson and the Occupation of Kentucky, 1775," in _The Mississippi Valley Historical Review_, I, 341-363; Hinsdale, B.A., _The Old Northwest_, ch. 8; Howard, G.E., _Preliminaries of the Revolution, 1763-1775_, ch. 13; Roosevelt, Theodore, _The Winning of the West_, I-II; Siebert, W.H., "The Loyalists in West Florida and the Natchez District," in _The Mississippi Vauey Historical Review_, II, 465-483; Stevens, W.E., "The Organization of the British Fur Trade, 1760-1800," in _The Mississippi Valley Historical Review_, III, 172-202; Thwaites, R.G., _Daniel Boone_; Thwaites, R.G., and Kellogg, L.P., editors, _Doc.u.mentary History of Dunmore's War_, 1774, Introduction; Turner, F.J., "Western State-Making in the Revolutionary Era," in _American Historical Review_, I, 70-87, 251-269; Wallace, S., _The United Empire Loyalists_; Winsor, Justin, _The Westward Movement_, 38-100; Wood, W., _The Father of British Canada_; Davidson, G.C., _The North West Company_.

THE REVOLT OF THE ENGLISH COLONIES

CHAPTER XXIII

THE CONTROVERSY OF THE ENGLISH COLONIES WITH THE HOME GOVERNMENT (1763-1775)

THE BACKGROUND OF THE CONTEST

Nature of the causes.--While British statesmen were working out a system of government for the newly acquired domains, in the empire forces of disintegration were at work which brought on the American Revolution.

The causes of that convulsion cannot be traced to a group of events or laws. Through a long period social, political, and economic forces were at work which gradually brought thirteen of the mainland colonies into open rebellion. Because this opposition is more evident after the French and Indian War, and because the economic is the most obvious phase of the struggle, historians have sometimes concluded that the laws pa.s.sed by parliament between 1763 and 1776 were the cause of the Revolution.

The policy pursued by the British government no doubt hastened it, but alone does not account for it.

A mixed population.--For more than a century the colonies had been receiving new elements which were producing a society in many respects different from that of England. America had been the recipient of many of the radicals, the down-trodden, and the discontented from the mother country. The acquisition of New Netherlands had brought under British control a considerable number of Dutch, Swedes, and Finns. The Huguenot migration which followed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes had added another element. The German and Scotch-Irish influxes had brought in thousands. Welsh, Scotch, Irish, and Jews were also to be found in the colonies. America, then as now, was a melting pot of the nations.

Lack of American nationality.--Influenced largely by climatic and physiographic conditions, distinct industrial systems had developed. In the northern colonies the small farm prevailed, in the South the plantation system. The North produced the seamen, fishermen, and merchants, while few of the southerners were seafarers. The frontier with its foreign elements, its scattered settlements, and freedom from restraint had produced a society which differed from the tide-water region. The fur-trader, the cattleman, the lumberman, and the small farmer were distinctly different in speech, dress, habits, and point of view from the Boston merchant, the Philadelphia Quaker, or the Virginia planter. Separatist tendencies were stronger than those of coalescence.

A Virginian was a Virginian and not an American. There was little in common between the New Englander and the southern planter, or between the people of the Hudson Valley and the Quakers.

Cla.s.s distinctions.--In individual colonies society was continually growing in complexity. Though the great ma.s.s of the population continued to be rural, town life was becoming an important factor. Members of an aristocracy, of which the governor was usually the central social figure, were inclined to rear their heads above their fellows. The merchants and lawyers, ever increasing in numbers, found themselves outside the social pale of the official aristocracy, a source of silent mortification which was a real force in producing radicals.

Evolution of English society.--English as well as American society had also undergone a rapid evolution. Puritan England had pa.s.sed away; the Stuarts, the Hanoverians, and foreign conquests had transformed the viewpoint of the Englishman. Little was there in common between John Milton and Horace Walpole, or between a Cromwell and a Newcastle. The sudden greatness that had come through the Seven Years' War well-nigh turned the heads of Englishmen. To acquire wealth, to wield power, and to live gaily seemed to be the ideals of the upper cla.s.s Englishman of the reign of George III. The colonial who still considered the mother country as the traditional England of Magna Carta, the Puritan Revolution, and the Bill of Rights, had as little understanding of a Townshend as had a Townshend a comprehension of the colonial.

The a.s.semblies control the purse.--The governmental inst.i.tutions of the colonies had gradually evolved toward a common type, whose const.i.tuent parts were the governor, council, and a.s.sembly, the governor and council, except in Connecticut and Rhode Island, representing imperial or proprietary authority, and the a.s.sembly the will of the colonial inhabitants. The power of the a.s.semblies to control the purse had been steadily growing, until the colonies considered the principle established both by precedent and by inherent rights guaranteed by the English const.i.tution. By controlling the budgets and the salaries of the governors, the a.s.semblies held the whip hand over the executives.

English and colonial ideas of representation.--The meaning of the term representation differed in England and the colonies. To the Englishman parliament represented the British Empire and legislated for the whole of it, allowing the colonies to handle local matters within their chartered rights. Parliament was regarded as representing the three estates or cla.s.ses of society, rather than individuals. The idea that every Englishman was represented by a man in whose selection he had had a voice had not become a part of the English political system. Members of parliament were frequently chosen in rotten boroughs. A few thousand men at most chose the entire parliamentary body. The king's ministers, selected from the party which could command a majority in the House of Commons, directed public policy and enforced their will upon a subservient commons. In America the suffrage was usually restricted by a property or church qualification, but every member of an a.s.sembly actually represented a colonial community and a known const.i.tuency. When the colonial orator declared for no taxation without representation, he was talking in the terms of a system that had grown up in America, but which England did not begin to adopt until the Reform Bill of 1832.

The causes of the development of nationalism.--French political philosophers and observant travelers had predicted that the removal of French power from America would cause the colonies to seek independence.

Franklin ridiculed the idea, for he believed that colonial jealousies were too strong to allow united action, a view which was also held by Pitt. After the French and Indian War the English government, by enforcing and extending the colonial system, quickened public opinion, overthrew separatist tendencies, and brought many of the colonists to think and act together in opposition to English policy. When this was attained, a national consciousness had come into existence which gradually developed into open rebellion.

Illicit traffic during the French and Indian War.--Since the reign of Anne England had not enforced the trade laws strictly. The Mola.s.ses Act of 1733 had been practically a dead letter from the date of its pa.s.sage and the other navigation acts had been frequently violated. Smuggling was winked at by governors and customs officials, who in many cases profited from the traffic. During the French and Indian War the colonies traded extensively with the French West Indies. This was especially galling to England, whose chief weapon against France was control of the seas. Though the colonies in 1756 were forbidden to trade with the French, the colonial skippers evaded the command by s.h.i.+pping goods to the Dutch ports of Curacoa and St. Eustatius, or to the French West Indies. In 1757 parliament forbade the exportation of food stuffs from the colonies to foreign ports, but the colonials continued to make s.h.i.+pments to the French or Dutch colonies and to bring back cargoes of mola.s.ses, sugar, and rum. To stop Dutch trade with the French colonies, Dutch merchant vessels were seized. As the English navy gradually isolated or captured the French West Indies, the colonials found a new method of circ.u.mventing the regulations by s.h.i.+pping to Monte Cristi, a Spanish port in Espanola near the French boundary. A commerce of less importance but of similar nature was also maintained with Florida and Louisiana. In 1760, when the English navy had gained the upper hand, the illicit commerce diminished but did not entirely cease. When Spain entered the war a considerable increase occurred. The naval and military authorities did all in their power to end the traffic with the enemy, for they considered that its continuance meant a prolongation of the war.

Writs of a.s.sistance.--To prevent smuggling English officials resorted to the issuance of writs of a.s.sistance. These were general search warrants which enabled the holder to search any house, s.h.i.+p, or other property where smuggled goods might be stored. The writs naturally aroused great opposition among the merchants, who claimed that they were illegal. In 1761 when the Boston customs officers applied for the writs, the merchants objected to them. When the merchants' cause was presented before the Ma.s.sachusetts Supreme Court, James Otis argued that the writs, being general, were illegal and struck at the liberty of the individual. "No acts of parliament can establish such a writ.... An act against the const.i.tution is void." The courts upheld the legality of the writs but Otis's speech did much to arouse and formulate public opinion.

The Parson's Cause.--In Virginia Patrick Henry performed a similar function in formulating public opinion. The speech which made him the leader of the Virginia radicals was delivered in connection with a suit brought by one of the Virginia clergy. Tobacco was the medium of exchange in the Old Dominion and ministers were paid annually 17,000 pounds of tobacco. In 1755 and 1758, the burgesses pa.s.sed acts which allowed debts to be redeemed at two pence for each pound of tobacco.

This worked a hards.h.i.+p upon the ministers, who naturally desired the benefit of the high price of tobacco to compensate them for the hard years when prices were low. The acts were disallowed by the crown in 1759, and the ministers attempted to recover their losses. In a suit brought in 1763 by Reverend James Maury, Patrick Henry appeared for the vestry. Realizing the weakness of his legal position, Henry resolved to carry the jury by an emotional attack upon the king's prerogative. He argued that the act of 1758 was a law of general utility consistent with the original compact between ruler and ruled, upon which government was based, and that the king, by disallowing this salutary act, became a tyrant and forfeited his right to the obedience of his subjects.

REFORMS OF THE GRENVILLE MINISTRY

Economy and reform.--At the end of the French and Indian War, England was burdened with a staggering debt. To build up the resources of the empire, increase the revenues, and protect the dominions were the objects of the ministers of George III. In this program the colonies were expected to play their part. The Bute Ministry planned to enforce the navigation acts, to tax the colonies directly, and to use the colonial revenue to support an army in America. The powers of the admiralty courts were immediately enlarged and commanders of war vessels were authorized to act as customs officials. Soon after Grenville came into office (April, 1763), he ordered customs collectors who were lingering in England to proceed at once to their colonial stations and he instructed the governors to enforce the trade laws rigidly.

Trade encouragement during 1764-1765.--To encourage commerce several important provisions were made during 1764 and 1765. To stimulate the fur business the old duties were abolished and an import duty of only one pence a skin and an export duty of seven pence were levied. To stimulate hemp and flax production bounties were paid on those products s.h.i.+pped from the colonies to England. The bounty on indigo was somewhat reduced but was still sufficient to protect the planters. The duties on whale fins were repealed to the great benefit of Ma.s.sachusetts. The rice business was stimulated by allowing Georgia and the Carolinas to s.h.i.+p without restrictions to the southward.

The Sugar Act.--Grenville's beneficial measures were more than offset by the Sugar, Colonial Currency, Stamp, and Quartering Acts. The Sugar Act "was a comprehensive measure, whose openly expressed aim was, in the first place to raise a colonial revenue, and in the second to reform the old colonial system both in its administrative and in its economic features." The act confirmed and modified the Mola.s.ses Act of 1733. The duty on sugar s.h.i.+pped to the British colonies was raised but that on mola.s.ses was lowered. To injure the French island trade, the importation of foreign rum or spirits and commerce with Miquelon and St. Pierre were forbidden. Oriental and French textiles, Portuguese and Spanish wines, and coffee, if brought directly to the British colonies, were taxed heavily, but if s.h.i.+pped from England the duty was low. To protect South Carolina a duty was imposed upon foreign indigo s.h.i.+pped to the colonies.

With a few exceptions no drawbacks were henceforth to be allowed, and revenues derived from the Sugar Act were to be paid into the royal exchequer. They were to be kept separate from other moneys and were to be used only for the protection of the British colonies in America.

Stringent regulations were provided for the enforcement of the Sugar Act and other navigation laws. At the option of the informer or prosecutor, penalties for breach of the trade laws might be recovered in any court of record in the district where the offence was committed or in any admiralty court in America. The accused was required to give security for costs if he lost his suit, but if he won his case, he was not ent.i.tled to costs if the judge certified that the grounds of action seemed probable. Furthermore in the Mola.s.ses Act which was now confirmed, the burden of proof was placed upon the owner or claimant.

Every s.h.i.+pmaster was required to give a bond to land only enumerated goods at European ports north of Cape Finisterre and to possess a certificate from the customs collector at the point of loading. West Indian goods not properly certified were to be treated as foreign goods.

Vessels cleared from British ports must contain only goods loaded in Great Britain. This, however, did not apply to salt and Irish linen.

Breaches of these regulations subjected the law breaker to severe penalties.

Regulation of Colonial Currency.--Another important measure was the Colonial Currency Act. Lack of specie had compelled the issuance of colonial paper money, and though Ma.s.sachusetts had retired such issues in 1749, most of the colonies were still suffering from depreciated and unstable currency. To protect the English merchant, parliament pa.s.sed the Colonial Currency Act which prevented colonists from paying their debts to the home country in depreciated currency and stopped the issues of unsound money. The act caused a shortage of the medium of exchange at the time that the colonists were deprived of the West Indian commerce which had supplied them with specie to settle balances in London. The act produced embittered feeling which paved the way for greater opposition.

Colonial protests.--When it became known in the colonies that the Ministry intended to enforce a more rigid policy which included the levying of internal taxes by parliamentary enactment, vigorous protests were made. Memorials, resolutions, and addresses poured in upon the king, lords, commons, and Board of Trade, and numerous pamphlets appeared which presented the economic and const.i.tutional viewpoint of the colonists.

The Ma.s.sachusetts protest.--The Boston town meeting urged the a.s.sembly to use its influence to protect the rights of the colonies and in its instructions to the Boston representatives the principles were stated that there should be no taxation without representation and that colonials were ent.i.tled to full rights of Englishmen. It was also suggested that other injured colonies should be asked to cooperate in seeking redress. A committee of the a.s.sembly presented a memorial drafted by Otis which contained the additional principle that parliament had no right to alter the const.i.tution. The memorial was sent to the Ma.s.sachusetts agent in England with instructions to urge the repeal of the Sugar Act and to protest against the proposed Stamp Act. A committee of correspondence headed by Otis was authorized to inform the other colonies of the action of Ma.s.sachusetts and to seek their cooperation.

As the action had been taken by the a.s.sembly without the consent of the council, the governor was soon pet.i.tioned to call the general court. He complied and a pet.i.tion was drawn which temperately protested.

The Rhode Island protest.--Before the Sugar Act was pa.s.sed a remonstrance was prepared in Rhode Island, which was to be presented to the Board of Trade if three other colonial agents would cooperate.

Committees of correspondence were also formed in various towns. After the pa.s.sage of the act the committee of correspondence of which Governor Hopkins was a member sent out a circular letter protesting against the Sugar Act and the proposed Stamp Act, In November, 1764, the a.s.sembly sent a pet.i.tion to the king in which the principle was stated that an essential privilege of Englishmen was that they should be governed by laws made by their own consent.

Connecticut protest.--In Connecticut Governor Fitch, at the suggestion of the a.s.sembly, prepared an address to parliament which protested against the proposed Stamp Act or any other bill for internal taxes.

This and the governor's book of _Reasons Why the British Colonies in America should not be Charged with Internal Taxes by Authority of Parliament_ were sent.

New York protest--In March, 1764, the New York merchants presented to the council a memorial against the renewal of the Mola.s.ses Act. In October the a.s.sembly appointed a committee of correspondence and sent statements of grievances to the king and the lords, and a pet.i.tion to the commons. In the pet.i.tion the significant statement was made that the loss of colonial rights was likely to shake the power of Great Britain.