supposed to be concealed with the view of escaping the customs duties. The writ gave general authority to the customs officer to search everything and violate the ancient maxim that a man's house is his castle. Writs of this kind were freely issued in Massachusetts and in some of the other colonies, but they awakened the deep resentment of the people. In Massachusetts James Otis came forward in 1761 and protested against the writs in a speech charged with such eloquence and power that it came to be known as the "opening gun of the Revolution." "Then and there," said John Adams, "the child of Independence was born." Sugar The friction between the colonies and the home government was increased in 1764 when Parliament passed the Sugar Act, The a law which modified and made more stringent the Molasses Act Act of 1733. The earlier act had for its purpose the prohibition of a lucrative trade which New England merchants were carrying on with the French, Dutch, and Spanish West Indies. It imposed heavy duties on molasses, sugar, and rum imported into the American colonies from other than English possessions. The duties, however, were not collected; through smuggling, the Molasses Act became a dead letter. The Sugar Act lowered the duties on sugar and molasses to half the existing rate and prescribed regulations for enforcement so drastic that had they been carried out colonial trade would have been put into a strait-jacket. The firm action of the English Government in respect to the revenue laws was in keeping with a new British policy that was adopted after the close of the French and Indian War. This policy was to tighten the bonds that united the colonies to the mother-country and to administer colonial affairs in accordance with a more efficient imperial system. In the minds of British statesmen a centralized control of the colonies was perfectly legitimate. That there should be a reform in the administration. of the colonial revenues was thought to be both just and necessary. With the expansion of the empire that came with victory in the Seven Years' War there came a heavy burden of debt and taxation. England's debt in 1763 was £140,000,000 A Change in British Policy Why the -four times as great as when Braddock began his ill-fated march toward Fort Duquesne. Much of the money that had been spent in driving the French out of America had been taken out of the pockets of English taxpayers, and the heavy debt incurred during the war had been placed upon the shoulders of the English people. This, said the British statesmen, was not right: the colonies must no longer remain a burden upon the English treasury; they must meet the expenses of colonial defense, and they must pay the salaries of governors, judges, and other colonial officials. It was not the intention of the English Government, however, to take money from the colonies and spend it in England. Every penny that was to be raised in America was to be spent for the benefit of America. This was made clear in the title of the Sugar Act, which read: "An act for granting certain duties in the British colonies and plantations in America, for applying the produce of such duties toward defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the said colonies and plantations, and for more effectually preventing in the clandestine conveyance of goods to and from said colonies and plantations." The new policy seemed reasonable enough to Englishmen, but it was bound to meet with opposition in the colonies. At the time it was announced America was drifting away from the mother-country rather than toward her. The immediate effect of the treaty of 1763 upon the colonies was to weaken the ties that bound them to Great Britain. So long as the French were in Canada and in the Mississippi valley the English settlements on the seaboard looked to the British Government to protect them from a power that might one day be able to crush them. But after 1763 the fears of the colonists were no longer excited by the presence of the French. With them out of the way, one of the strongest reasons the colonists had for cherishing the English connection was gone. So the colonies had no desire to be brought into closer relations with England. Nor did they want an imperial administration of colonial affairs imposed upon them by acts of Parliament. Indeed, they were beginning to ask themselves whether Parlia ment really had the power to impose its wishes upon them. A colony had governed itself so long through its own legislature (p. 79) that it had come to regard itself as being virtually outside the authority of Parliament. Few colonists, it is true, would go so far as to deny outright the supremacy of Parliament, but there was no expectation or desire that it would exercise its power in a supreme way. In the mind of the average colonist the practical administration of public affairs belonged to the colonial legislature, and to it alone. Here was an obstacle that threatened to wreck the new policy: the affection of the colonists for their legislatures was stronger than their affection for any other law-making body. When it was announced in 1763 that Parliament was about to inaugurate a new system of colonial government and that royal officials with new and greater powers were to be sent out to the colonies, American sentiment was deeply offended, for it seemed that under the new order the colonial legislature would be robbed of its independence and its power. "The bottom of all the disorder," wrote Hutchinson of Massachusetts, "is the opinion that every colony has a legislature within itself, the acts and doings of which are not to be controlled by Parliament, and that no legislative power ought to be exercised over the colonies except by their legislatures." EXERCISES AND REFERENCES 1. How the frontier was settled: Hart, II, 387-393. 2. The beginning of the West: Howard, 222-241; Van Tyne, 269-288. 3. Show that the isolation of the backwoodsman was much more complete than that of the settlers along the seaboard. In what ways did this isolation affect the character of the backwoodsmen? 4. Imperial problems and policies: Greene, 388-413. 5. The regulation of colonial commerce: Bogart, 94-103. 6. Transylvania: McElroy, 33-61. 7. The importance of the Mississippi valley: Ogg, The Opening of the Mississippi, 1-7. 8. Education at the end of the colonial period: Dexter, 73-89. 9. Money: Forman, The American Democracy, 299-306. 10. Colonial agriculture: Coman, 56-63. II. Prepare a summary showing the conditions which existed in the colonies at the end of the colonial period. 12. Hints for special reading: Theodore Roosevelt, The Winning of the West; J. L. Bishop, History of American Manufactures, Vol. I; Justin Winsor, The Westward Movement. |