Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/769

1763-1775.] he should denounce “this country, where every man studies law.” Exasperating and exasperated, the troops lived on in Boston until (March 1770) a street brawl between soldiers and citizens resulted in the death of five of the latter and the injury of six more. Still the town kept its temper. The captain who had given the order to fire was seized by the civil authorities, subjected to the ordinary trial for murder, defended by John Adams and Quincy, two Massachusetts leaders, at the hazard of their own popularity, and acquitted for lack of evidence. But, while according a fair trial to the soldiers, the colonial leaders at last represented so plainly to the crown officials the imminence of an outbreak that the troops were removed from the town to a fort in the harbour.

53. The most significant point in the history of the four years 1770-73 is the manner in which the ordinary colonial governments continued to go to pieces. When the assemblies met they would do nothing but denounce the Acts of the ministry; when they were prorogued the colony was left without any government for which there was popular respect. This was about the state of affairs which the crown officials had desired; but, now that it had come, they were not at all prompt in their use of it. Divorced from regular government, the people put out still stronger efforts to enforce the non-importation agreements which had kept down the revenues from the tax laws of 1767. About 1773 a further development appeared. As soon as the assemblies met for their annual sessions, and before the governors could find excuse for proroguing them, they appointed “committees of correspondence,” to maintain unity of action with the other colonies. Thus, even after prorogation, there was still in existence for the rest of the year a semi-official representation of the colony. This was nearly the last step on the way to colonial union.

54. The whites had already crossed the Alleghanies. In 1768 parties from North Carolina entered Tennessee; and in 1769 Boone (p. 788) and a party of Virginians entered Kentucky. The settlement of Tennessee was hastened by difficulties with Tryon, the governor of North Carolina. Tryon was one of the worst of the crown officials; and his government had been a scandal, even for those times. The people, denied justice and defrauded of legislative power, rose in hasty insurrection and were defeated. Tryon used his victory so savagely as to drive an increasing stream of settlers over the mountains into Tennessee. The centres of western settlement, however, were but few. There was one at Pittsburgh, another at Detroit, another near the Illinois-Indiana boundary, another in Kentucky, another near the present city of Nashville, Tennessee; but none of these, except, perhaps, Detroit, was more than a hunting or trading camp. Some efforts had been made to erect crown colonies, or to settle grants to companies, in the western territory, but they came to nothing. The settlements still clung to the coast.

55. In April 1770, encouraged by some symptoms of a failure of the non-importation agreements, the ministry had taken off all the taxes of 1767, retaining only that upon tea—threepence per pound. The general popular agreement was still strong enough to prevent the importation of this single luxury; and it was found in 1772 that the tax produced but about £80 a year, at an expense of two or three hundred thousand for collection. Besides, the East India Company had been accumulating a stock of teas, in anticipation of an American market, of which the tea-tax had deprived it. In May 1773 the ministry took a fresh step: the tax was to be retained, but the Company was to be allowed a drawback of the entire duty, so that the colonists, while really paying the tax and yielding the underlying principle, would get their tea cheaper than any other people. The first cargoes of tea

under the new regulations were ordered home again by popular meetings in the American ports, and their captains generally obeyed. At Boston the governor refused to clear the vessels for Europe; and, after prolonged discussion, some fifty persons, disguised as Indians, went on board the vessels and threw the tea into the harbour in the presence of a great crowd of lookers-on (December 16, 1773).

56. It was not possible that the term American should suddenly supplant that of Englishman; but the successive steps by which the change was accomplished are easily perceptible. Using one of the old English political phrases, the supporters of colonial privileges had begun about 1768 to adopt the name of “American Whigs.” Its increasing substitution for that of Englishmen was significant. Within a few years the terms “continental,” or “the continent,” began to take on a new meaning, referring to a union of the colonies at which men hardly ventured to hint clearly. It meant a good deal, then, when men said very truly that “the whole continent” applauded the “Boston tea-party.” It was the first spoken word of the new national spirit. Nothing was less understood in England; the outbreak left America in general, and Boston in particular, hardly a friend there. The burning of the revenue schooner “Gaspee” in Narragansett Bay (June 1772) had seemed to the ministry almost an act of overt rebellion; this was rebellion itself.

57. In March and April 1774, on receipt of full intelligence of the proceedings at Boston, the ministry passed a series of Acts which made open struggle only a question of time. The Boston Port Act shut up the town of Boston against all commerce until the destroyed tea was paid for and the town returned to loyalty. The Massachusetts Act changed the charter of that colony: the crown was now to appoint governor, council, and sheriffs; the sheriffs were to select juries; and town meetings, unless by permission of the governor, were forbidden. Gage, the British commander-in-chief in the colonies, was made governor under the Act, and four regiments were given him as a support. Any magistrates, officers, or soldiers indicted under colonial laws were to be sent for trial to Nova Scotia or Great Britain. The billeting of soldiers in the town of Boston was legalized. The Quebec Act extended the boundaries of the province of Canada over the whole territory lying north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi. Here the ministry rested.

58. The news of these Acts of Parliament crystallized every element of union in the colonies. The attack on the charter of Massachusetts Bay was undoubtedly the most effective. The charters of Connecticut and Rhode Island were the freest of the colonies; but that of Massachusetts was certainly next to them. If Massachusetts was not safe against such an attack, no colony was safe. The ministry had forced an issue on the very point on which the colonial and imperial theories were irreconcilable. The Boston Port Act furnished a grievance so concrete as to obviate the necessity of much argument on other points. The Quebec Act, with its attempt to cut off the northern colonies from the western expansion to which they all looked hopefully, was bad enough in itself, but it brought up with it the element of religious suspicion. For years the distinctively Puritan element had dreaded an attempt to establish the Church of England in the colonies; and the inclination of American Episcopalians to look to the home Government for relief against unjust local restrictions had not helped to decrease the feeling. The Puritan element could see little real difference between Episcopacy and Catholicism; and, when it was found that the Quebec Act practically established the Roman Catholic system in the new territory, the old dread revived to give the agitation a hidden but strong motive.