Episode 022: The Stamp Act and Quartering Act of 1765

As 1764 closed, the colonies were still fighting over the Sugar Act and Currency Act.  But while there was considerable grumbling and some evasion, neither of the acts had led to rioting in the streets.  As 1765 began, Prime Minister Grenville moved forward with more plans to increase revenue from the colonies.

The Stamp Act

He started with the Stamp Act.  A Stamp Tax was not a new idea.  England had imposed a stamp tax on its own subjects since 1694, when Parliament borrowed the idea from the Dutch.  Essentially the law required all legal documents, such as contracts, court filings, etc. to have a stamp on them indicating that a tax had been paid.

One Penny Stamp
(from Wikimedia)

In 1712, Parliament increased the scope of the tax to cover newspapers and other periodicals.  The tax not only raised a fair amount of revenue, it helped the government keep control of publications since all publishers would be required to print not only the proof of payment of the stamp tax, but the name and address of the publisher making payments.  Authorities could much more easily arrest publishers who printed seditious, obscene, or other criminal publications.

The tax in Britain had detractors, who considered it a tax on a free press and on the dissemination of ideas.  But the law had been in place for decades, worked well, and raised a fair amount of revenue.

Part of the incentive for extending the stamp tax to the colonies may have been an attempt to control problem publications.  However, the main appeal for Grenville seemed to be its ease of enforcement.  Many of the most expensive stamp taxes were on legal documents.  If a document did not have the stamp, it was not legally enforceable in court.  Untaxed newspapers could also be tracked back relatively easily to the publisher to exact a fine.

Stamp Act Plans

Grenville developed a thorough and well thought out plan for drafting, implementing, and enforcing a stamp tax on the colonies.  He relied heavily on two men with considerable colonial experience: London merchant Henry McCulloh, who had lived for many years in North Carolina, and John Tabor Kempe, New York’s Attorney General (although Kempe’s role was a secret until many years later).

Consideration of a Stamp Act was no surprise either.  Grenville had submitted a circular letter to colonial governors about it the year before, directing them to send a list of the different types of papers used in colonial legal proceedings to help him develop the taxes that would apply to them.  Grenville also discussed the idea in detail with colonial agents.   The agents, of course reported these discussions to their colonial legislatures and to others through private correspondence.

George Grenville
(from Wikimedia)

Several of the 1764 petitions against the Sugar Act specifically reference the possibility of a proposed Stamp Act as a further dangerous step.  At the end of 1764, Grenville met with colonial agents to discuss the need for such taxes.  He pointed out that the war had left Britain more than £140 million in debt and that government and military costs in the colonies was costing about £350,000 per year.  Colonies had to pay at least some of that cost.

The agents made clear to Grenville that the colonies would not accept an internal tax.  Everyone seemed to appreciate the need for revenue to cover British expenses in America, but could not agree on a way to do it.  Grenville asked the agents if there was a way Parliament could come up with an amount each colony had to contribute and leave it to the local legislature to raise the money.  He also floated the idea of having the legislatures approve the Stamp Act ahead of time, thus creating a precedent that tax plans must receive prior approval from the local legislatures.

I think that Grenville knew that both ideas were not going to work.  First, England had never come up with a way to divide the costs among the colonies.  Population might not be fair since population did not always correlate with colonial wealth.  Besides, that raised the question about counting slaves or Indians in the population.  Just coming up with an amount due for each colony would be an endless battle, with legislatures inevitably balking at the bills.

The notion of pre-approval also would never fly.  The power of approval, necessarily contains the power not to approve.  If the local legislatures could reject the bills, they most certainly would in most cases.  Then what?  Was Parliament going to beg and plead with the colonies to pay their bills?  That was not going to happen.

Grenville became more convinced that a single unified system of taxation, applied evenly to all colonies, was the best way to proceed.  Only a single body, Parliament, could create such a law.  Colonial governments would have to be subordinate to Parliament and accept its laws.  There was no other way to make this work.

The final version of the Act placed a tax on 54 different types of documents, including newspapers, playing cards, legal documents, calendars, almanacs, certificates, diplomas, contracts, wills, Bills of Sale and Licenses.  Some taxes were as low as a half-penny per document.  The most expensive, a license to practice law required a £10 tax payment.  The levels of taxation were not out of line with the taxes charged in England.  Many were actually considerably lower.

Colonial Newspapers

Before we get into the Parliamentary debate, I thought it worth giving a little background on colonial era newspapers.

The Act assessed a duty of ½ penny on a half sheet of paper (or smaller), and 1 penny for a full sheet.  That is a little misleading though since a single sheet was very large and normally be folded into several pages of a newspaper.  Larger documents paid more, with a duty of 1s (12 pence) per sheet.  Almanacs, also regularly printed by newspaper publishers, paid 4p for a two sided sheet.

Pennsylvania Gazette
(from beforehistory.com)

In addition the new law levied a fee of 2s per advertisement.  The duty on ads was for the entire run, not for each copy of the newspaper, like the per sheet charges.  But for smaller ads in smaller papers, that might be more than the printer charged for the ad itself. Other periodicals incurred the taxes as well, but books were exempt.

Newspapers in the colonial era were already more expensive than the 19th Century “penny press” that resulted from automated printing presses and cheap acid paper.  Colonial papers required printing by hand, meaning that at most, a publisher might print only a few hundred copies.  They were often printed on both sides of a single sheet of paper, folded in half, making a total of four pages. I have not found a good source for the cost of a paper in the colonies.  The London Gazette from this era cost 2 1/2 pence per issue. There were no newsstands.  Virtually all newspapers were sold by subscription.  Costs generally limited sales to wealthier merchants or other upper income professions.  Public taverns sometimes subscribed, so patrons could read the paper there, or listen to it read aloud.  I have seen some notices encouraging customers to buy Almanacs early that year because the Stamp Act would double the cost.

Newspapers were also rare.  The Colonies probably had a total of two dozen newspaper publishers at the time, with some colonies not having one at all.  Newspapers tended to be printed only in the larger cities.  Reporting often consisted of reprinting articles from other newspapers sent from London, with a few articles on major local events.

Much like today, newspapers were often critical of government officials and their policies.  So many leaders did not much like them.  In 1671, Governor William Berkeley of Virginia wrote

I thank God, there are no free schools nor printing and I hope we shall not have, these hundred years, for learning has brought disobedience, and heresy, and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best government. God keep us from both.

This was probably a view shared by many in London who felt it best to keep laborers ignorant and uninformed.  Taxes and regulations on newspapers helped to keep them limited in number and under government control.

That said, colonists seemed to have a powerful appreciation for a free press.  The trial of Peter Zenger a few decades earlier is celebrated because a jury refused to convict a newspaper editor of publishing true information about the government, even though doing so met the legal definition of libel at the time.  A newspaper tax would be seen not only as an illegal tax, but as an assault on a free press as well.  Let’s not forget the fact that two professions you really don’t want to rile up are lawyers and newspaper editors.  Most political leaders tend to be lawyers and newspaper editors, who tend to set the opinions for the population.  A tax that goes after these groups particularly hard is going to lead to trouble.

The only other leading profession was that of Minister.  The stamp Act did not go after ministers directly, but it did allude to ecclesiastical courts.  There were no ecclesiastical courts in the colonies at the time.  In England, they judged moral issues and were run by the Bishops.  This was another hint that London planned to foist Anglican Bishops on the colonies.  Ministers from the other religions had strong incentive to fight that as well.

Additional Costs 

The Stamp Act included taxes not limited to paper.  There was a tax on dice as well as a tax on hiring apprentices, essentially a crude form of income tax.  The law also increased costs in other ways.  Tax stamps were pre-printed on paper in London.  This meant if you ran a paper mill in the colonies, your product was of limited use.  The cost of shipping paper from London would be another increased cost on colonists.

Shipping costs also began to run higher.  Remember all that paperwork that the Sugar Act added for merchant vessels last year?  Well now all that paperwork has to be done on paper with a stamp tax paid on it.

Parliament Debates the Stamp Act

Unlike the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act actually got some pushback in Parliament.  During the February 1765 debate on the bill, radical Whigs like William Pitt and Isaac Barré (who we last met in Episode 13 when he was shot in the face at the Battle of Quebec) objected to the attempt to impose internal taxes on the colonies.  Unlike the Sugar Act, which was sold as an external tax, the Stamp Act was clearly internal.

If you already understand this internal/external dispute, I feel compelled to suggest that you probably spend way too much time in a dark room reading really old documents.  I would advise you to try to get out more and go on a date.  And if you get such a date, do NOT try to engage your companion in a lively conversation about 250 year old tax policies.  Trust me - it will not go well.

For the rest of you, here is the issue:  Taxation authority was at the heart of the dispute between Parliament and the colonies.  Even colonists and radical Whigs believed that Parliament had the right to make general laws that applied throughout the Empire.

Revenue bills, however, had to be the authority of legislatures in which the taxpayers were represented.  The power of taxation is an extreme one.  People are essentially authorizing government to take as much of their property as it wants.  The one restraining feature on such power (short of rebellion) is that the people being taxed are represented in the body doing the taxing.  This was the argument that Parliament had made for centuries to prevent the king from trying to raise revenue without Parliament.  It was also the reason that all revenue bills had to come from the House of Commons, not the House of Lords.  Since the colonies had no representation in Parliament, it could not impose taxes on them for the same reason.  Any funds needed would have to be authorized by colonial legislatures.

Tariffs, like those in the Sugar Act, were different. They could be permitted as trade regulations. which was clearly within Parliament’s authority when trade was commencing between different  colonies.  Only a few extremists like James Otis objected to trade tariffs enacted by Parliament.  Tariff funds were not primarily purposed for raising revenue.  They were implemented to control trade, with the revenue being a bonus.  Direct taxes had no such excuse.  William Pitt summed it up as follows:

If the gentleman does not understand the difference between external and internal taxes, I cannot help it; but there is a plain distinction between taxes levied for the purpose of raising a revenue, and duties imposed for the regulation of trade, for the accommodation of the subject; although, in the consequences, some revenue might incidentally arise from the latter.

Grenville and the majority of Parliament thought this was nonsense.  First, Parliament raised money from the colonists either way.  Did most people really care is the tax got paid at the customs house or the stamp office?

Second, the representation argument made no sense.  Representation in Parliament was hardly proportional even within England.  Even if it were, only about 200,000 people qualified to vote out of population of over 11 million in Britain.  Those millions of unqualified voters were not exempt from taxation.  Members had the interests of everyone in the Empire under consideration when they passed any law.  Therefore, colonists benefited from what they called “virtual representation” in Parliament.  All members of Parliament were always looking out for the interests of everyone.  Think they’ll buy that?

Revenues from the Stamp tax were explicitly set aside for use in the defense of the colonies.  It seemed perfectly reasonable that colonists should contribute to the costs of their own defense.  It was also clear that the local legislatures were incapable of raising revenues for this purpose.  Even if they had the incentive to raise the revenue, colonies often had more disputes between one another than they did with Indians or outside forces.  Locally controlled military might eventually lead to inter-colonial fighting.  Maintaining a single unified, centrally financed military made far more sense for stability and keeping the peace.

Many members of Parliament thought the colonies had unfairly taken on too little burden of the cost of government for too long.  During debate, Charles Townsend asked “And now, will these American Children, planted by our care, nourished up by our indulgence, until they are grown to a degree of strength and opulence and protected by our arms, will they grudge to contribute their mite to relieve us from the heavy burdens we lie under.”

Isaac Barré
(from Wikimedia)

This provoked Barré’s famous response, which famously used the term “sons of liberty.” The response is rather lengthy, though you can read it in full in this article.  He essentially argues that the colonists fled England because of oppression at home, that England essentially neglected them as they grew, that they had been invaluable in the defense of British interests, and that the colonists love of freedom meant that this law was not going to sit well.

Despite the debate, the Stamp Act passed overwhelmingly with the support of over 80% of the House of Commons and by a unanimous voice vote in the House of Lords.  Colonial agents in London, including Benjamin Franklin, had opposed the bill throughout, warning of the opposition in the colonies to such a bill.  However, once the bill passed many of them rushed to get lucrative positions as tax agents for themselves, or for friends and family.  Agents would be paid 7.5% of all gross sales, making it a quite valuable position.  The King approved the Stamp Act in March 1765, allowing it to go into effect on November 1.

The Quartering Act

Within days of Parliament’s Stamp Act passage, it also approved the Quartering Act.  In part, this was based on the experience of the recent war, when colonies were unwilling to provide quarters for the soldiers defending them.  Enforcement of the Stamp Act was likely going to require an increased military presence to enforce the unpopular law.  Therefore, we need to get settled the issue of where the soldiers were going to live.

Gen. Gage, still military commander in North America, continued to battle with colonial legislatures who were supposed to provide housing for his soldiers.  If legislatures were loathe to help with housing during time of war, they certainly did not want to pay for unwanted standing armies mostly there to enforce unpopular laws.

The Quartering Act of 1765 was actually part of a larger law known as the Mutiny Act.  Parliament passed this Act annually to reauthorize the existence of the British Army, and typically used the opportunity to make changes to pay, disciplinary rules, or other military matters.  The 1765 Act addressed the issue of quartering in America.  Gage had requested the law authorize the Army to house soldiers in private homes. The Army had no such right in England since a 1628 law forbade housing soldiers in private homes.  Grenville saw Gage’s request as a political landmine.

After consulting with Benjamin Franklin and other colonial agents, as well as former Massachusetts Gov. Thomas Pownall, now back in England, he crafted a bill that required colonies to pay for adequate quarters.  If such quarters were insufficient, then "persons may be appointed and authorized, in pursuance of this act, to take up and hire, if it shall be necessary, uninhabited houses, outhouses, barns, or other buildings, for the reception of such soldiers as the barracks and publick houses shall not be sufficient to contain or receive.”  The Act did NOT authorize the military to quarter soldiers in otherwise occupied private residences, much to Gage’s disappointment.

The Act obligated colonies to provide the necessary quarters, without charge, regardless of whether or not colonial legislatures approved.  Colonies would be stuck with the costs, the same as if they were being taxed.  Colonial legislatures had approved authorizations like this before, which is why colonial agents thought this bill would be acceptable.  Perhaps it would have been acceptable in isolation.  But combined with the Stamp Act, colonists saw the Quartering Act as an attempt to dump costs on them without their consent.

Next Week, we will look at how the colonies react to these two new laws.  Spoiler alert: they do not like them.

Next Episode 23: The Stamp Act Congress

Previous Episode 21: Colonies React to Taxes

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Further Reading

Websites

Full text of the Stamp Act of 1765: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/stamp_act_1765.asp

Good easy to read summary of Stamp Act details: https://www.landofthebrave.info/stamp-act.htm

The Stamp Act, A Brief History, by Mary Nesnay (2014) (JAR):
https://allthingsliberty.com/2014/07/the-stamp-act-a-brief-history

Parliament Debates the Stamp Act, February 1765:
http://americainclass.org/sources/makingrevolution/crisis/text3/parliamentarydebate1765.pdf

Isaac Barré: Advocate for Americans in the House of Commons, Bob Ruppert (2015) (JAR):
https://allthingsliberty.com/2015/08/isaac-barre-advocate-for-americans-in-the-house-of-commons

William Pitt’s speech against the Stamp Act:
http://www.history.org/almanack/life/politics/pitt.cfm

Short biography of Henry McCulloh, one of the main authors of the Stamp Tax of 1765:
http://ncpedia.org/biography/mcculloh-henry

Short biography of John Tabor Kempe, another Stamp Act author:
http://www.nycourts.gov/history/legal-history-new-york/legal-history-eras-01/history-era-01-kempe-john.html

History of American Newspapers: http://www.wikiwand.com/en/History_of_American_newspapers

Quartering Act of 1765 (aka Mutiny Act) Full text:
http://ahp.gatech.edu/quartering_act_1765.html

Member of Parliament Soame Jenyns The Objections to the taxation consider'd (1765) justifying “virtual representation” of the colonies in Parliament: http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1751-1775/soame-jenyns-the-objections-to-the-taxation-considerd-1765.php

Free Books
(from archive.org unless noted)

The History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, from 1749 to 1774, by Thomas Hutchinson, John Hutchinson (ed) (1828) (This book was edited and published in London using Gov. Thomas Hutchinson’s personal papers.  The editor was his grandson).

The Diary and Letters of His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, by Thomas Hutchinson, Peter Hutchinson (ed) (1884) (Editor was Thomas Hutchinson’s great-grandson).

Great Debates in American History, Vol. 1, Marion Mills Miller (ed) (1913).

The Grenville Papers, Vol. 2 & Vol 3, by William Smith (ed) (1852).

William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, by Albert von Ruville (1907).

Books Worth Buying
(links to Amazon.com unless otherwise noted)*

Anderson, Fred Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766, Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.

Andrlik, Todd Reporting the American Revolution, Source Books, 2012.

Dickerson, Oliver M. The Navigation Acts and the American Revolution, New York A.S. Barnes & Company, 1951.

Hawke, David The Colonial Experience, Prentice-Hall, 1966.

Jennings, Francis Empire Of Fortune: Crowns, Colonies & Tribes in the Seven Years War in America, W.W. Norton & Co. 1988.

Knollenberg, Bernard Growth of the American Revolution 1766-1775, Liberty Fund, 1975.

Miller, John Origins of the American Revolution, Little Brown & Co. 1943.

Morgan, Edmund & Hellen The Stamp Act Crisis, Univ. of NC Press, 1953.

Smith, Page A New Age Now Begins, Vol. I, McGraw-Hill, 1976.

Weslager, C.A. The Stamp Act Congress, Associated Univ. Press, 1976 (Includes a complete copy of Stamp Act Congress Journal).

Ubbelohde, Carle The Vice - Admiralty Courts and the American Revolution, Omohundro Institute, 1960.

* As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Episode 021: Colonies React to Taxes

Last week, I discussed Britain’s desire to reduce debt and costs of maintaining their colonies.  Parliament decided it was time to get the American colonies involved in paying these costs.  As a result, Parliament passed the Sugar Act and the Currency Act in 1764.  No one likes paying more taxes of course, but conditions in the colonies made the new laws particularly difficult on the colonists.

It’s the Economy, Stupid

The end of the war led to an economic depression in the colonies.  All that money that had been flowing into the colonies during the war was drying up.  Military contractors and militiamen with payroll money to spend had been a boon to colonial business.  Now, virtually all of that was gone.  With the war in Europe now over, many merchants began to invest in new ships and inventory to take advantage of expected trade.  Yet, debt in Britain and Europe meant that demand for colonial goods also fell.  In 1763-64, many merchant firms went bankrupt, thus contributing to the economic problems.  Veterans returned home, looking for work and finding none.  Unemployment reached dangerous levels.

Wealthy Virginia planters found themselves in particular trouble as tobacco prices plummeted.  Credit in London dred up and demands for payment of old debt increased.  The end of the Seven Years War in Europe led to a collapse grain prices, which in turn caused commodity traders in Amsterdam to take huge losses and banking crisis.  Amsterdam bankers who held much of Britain’s debt, began calling in loans, in turn making made London creditors desperate for cash.  London creditors therefore made concerted efforts to collect from their debtors in the colonies.

Boston Harbor (from historyofmassachusetts.org)

So, as the British cut back on military spending in America, private creditors demanded repayment of loans.  The Currency Act prevented colonial governments from creating paper money and trade restrictions of the Sugar Act prevented merchants from bringing in hard money from other parts of the world.

One normal outlet for such tough times, land speculation, was largely curbed by the prohibition on settlement west of the Allegheny Mountains.  The only colonists settling west of the Alleghenies were illegal squatters, who were not going to pay eastern land speculators. Even worse, Pontiac’s War was still in its late stages, meaning many western settlers were still seeking refuge, and needed economic support further east.

Ever decreasing available land east of the mountains was revitalizing old rivalries that had been put aside during the war.  Border disputes between New Hampshire and New York, as well as Connecticut and Pennsylvania flared up again.  Pennsylvania and Maryland returned to internal power struggles between the governor and legislature.  Even tiny Rhode Island was hopelessly divided by political faction.

Wheelwright Scandal

It did not help matters in New England that a financial crisis exploded in January 1765.  There were no banks in North America at this time. As a result, private men of substance, trustworthy members of the community, would often take deposits and offer interest bearing notes to the depositor.

Nathaniel Wheelwright ran the largest such enterprise in New England.  From a prominent New England family, Wheelwright was a well respected merchant and trader.  He greatly increased his already substantial wealth as a contractor during the war.

Like many merchants, though, Wheelwright over extended himself and regularly took financial risks in order to increase his profits.  In the postwar recession of 1764, Wheelwright found himself undercapitalized and unable to pay his debts.  Faced with imminent scandal and debtors prison, Wheelwright skipped town in January 1765 for the island of Guadeloupe, where he died a few months later.

The Wheelwright bankruptcy hit New England harder than any of the recent Acts of Parliament.  He had outstanding notes totalling over £170,000 due to be paid to almost all the merchants in Boston, on down to hundreds of poorer working class depositors.  The possibility of repayment of those debts disappeared into the night along with Wheelwright, leaving everyone without their money.

The sudden disappearance of £170,000 in the already cash strapped colonies sent shockwaves through the economy.  Depositors suddenly found themselves unable to pay off other debts.  Debtor prisons began to fill and bankruptcy court filing swelled.

Thomas Hutchinson
(from Colonial Society of Mass.)

Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson held a number of different offices, including Chief Justice of the Superior Court.  He issued dozens of warrants for the arrest of debtors and the seizure of property, collecting a sizable percentage for each case.  Hutchinson’s vigorous enforcement of these cases only increased the already sizable percentage of the colony that actively hated him.  His name virtually became a curse among the merchant community.

More generally, the scandal depressed the local economy for several years as lawyers and merchants attempted to dig out of the financial mess.  Although the recent currency act did not apply to Massachusetts, as an earlier law already restricted paper money, the Wheelwright scandal provided a prime example of why more local control over economic crises was critical, and why the local population thought this year especially was not the time for London to extract more money from the region through tariffs.

Sugar Act Protests

Amidst these economic problems came news of the Sugar Act and the Currency Act during 1764.  These acts, making much of New England’s trade far less profitable, only put more colonists on the street without jobs.  Denying colonial legislatures the ability to float more paper money as they tried to retire war debt created local tax pressures as well.  The resulting currency deflation only made it even harder for debtors to make repayment.

The Colonial response to the new laws was in part practical: you cannot drain more money out of the economy at just the time we are sinking into a post-war depression and in part ideological Parliament has no right to place such restrictions on the colonies.  Almost no one thought Parliament’s 1764 Acts were good policy.

Massachusetts Leads the Way

The Massachusetts Bay Colony had the most to lose from the Sugar Act.  Boston merchants controlled virtually all of New England’s trade.  Despite the current economic downturn,

One of the first men to make a principled argument against the new laws was James Otis. The Massachusetts lawyer, who we last saw in Episode 17, had opposed British attempts to use general warrants to look for smugglers in 1761.

In 1764, Otis published The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved in response to the Sugar Act.  The work itself is rather vague, not even referencing the Sugar Act, the British Parliament, or the power of taxation.  Rather, it focuses generally on the right of the people in a society to have a government that meets their needs.  It borrows on the social contract theory expressed by British philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke and expresses in general terms that tyranny is bad.  In the context of the debate though, it was taken as advocacy for the idea that colonial legislatures, which are the true representatives of the people, were the ones empowered to make such decisions.  Any attempt to raise revenue by any other body, including Parliament, was tyranny and a violation of fundamental rights.

James Otis Jr.

In a series of subsequent articles where Otis attempted to debate with opponents, he ended up muddling his arguments even more.  As a result, little came of it.  We mostly remember the essay because many of its basic principles eventually found their way into the Declaration of Independence.  These writings did help cement Otis’ reputation as an early leader opposed to Parliament’s colonial policies.

Boston’s Society for Encouraging Trade and Commerce raised a more direct objection.  The Society was a group of merchants, much like the Chamber of Commerce today.  The Society sent instructions to the Massachusetts General Court to express concerns to Parliament about the harm the Sugar Act would cause the colony. Among the more practical concerns was a larger point about where all this was leading:

But what still heightens our apprehensions is, that these unexpected Proceedings may be preparatory to new Taxations upon us: For if our Trade may be taxed why not our Lands? Why not the Produce of our Lands & every thing we possess or make use of? This we apprehend annihilates our Charter Right to govern & tax ourselves--It strikes at our Brittish Privileges, which as we have never forfeited them, we hold in common with our Fellow Subjects who are Natives of Brittain: If Taxes are laid upon us in any shape without our having a legal Representation where they are laid, are we not reduced from the Character of free Subjects to the miserable State of tributary Slaves?

This was the soon to be familiar argument against taxation without representation. If Parliament could levy any revenues on the colonies, and the colonies had no voice in Parliament to object, Parliament’s taxes could only grow in form and size without check.  Therefore, Parliament had no such authority.

Samuel Adams and Boston Politics

One author on the committee that wrote those words was a middle aged bureaucrat named Samuel Adams.  Adams had been interested in radical politics.  His 1743 master’s thesis at Harvard argued that it was "lawful to resist the Supreme Magistrate, if the Commonwealth cannot otherwise be preserved."  His father, Samuel Adams Sr. had been a wealthy Boston Merchant.  Samuel Jr., like his Father and Grandfather, joined the Boston Caucus, a local political organization that debated issues and worked on local projects for public improvement.  Adams spent his formative years learning how Boston politics worked.

Samuel Adams
(from Wikimedia)

By the 1760’s he had already failed at a number of jobs, including work as a malter for making beer.  He was a local tax collector, but was doing a pretty terrible job at it.  Mostly, it seems, he was building his reputation as a political leader in opposition to Parliamentary authority generally and Lt. Gov. Hutchinson in particular.  Adams had become a popular leader of the Caucus in the 1750’s when a major focus was subverting the onerous tariffs and customs duties of the Molasses Act. Adams realized that his path to power was not so much writing lofty protests like James Otis, or seeking appointments from those at top of the government.  Rather it was harnessing the combined power of wealthy merchants and that of the working class people who dominated Boston and its harbor.

At the time, there were two informal groups for the working class in Boston.  One in North Boston led by Henry Swift, a local shipwright.  Another in South Boston, was led by a shoemaker named Ebenezer Mackintosh.  Mostly the groups fought one another in an annual “Pope’s Day” event on Nov. 5, commemorating the day in 1605 when a Catholic named Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament.  In strongly anti-Catholic Boston, the day had been celebrated as a day to attack Catholics generally and the Pope specifically, often burning him in effigy at a city-wide event.  The event had become an excuse for a drunken party.  Over the years, the rivalry between the north-side and south-side gangs had resulted in massive brawls, that usually left many injured and occasionally a few dead.  Needless to say, the groups did not mix together much.  When they did, it usually led to blows.  Adams, however, had friends among both groups and was well respected in both north and south Boston.  It was a testament to his political influence among the working classes.

Adams not only worked with merchants and the elite to issue protests over the Sugar Act, he was slowly building a political base of power among the poorer working class of Boston, hoping to harness that to use against government elites like Bernard and Hutchinson, as well as Parliament’s anti-colonial policies.

All sides of the Colony’s political spectrum opposed the Sugar Act.  Lt. Gov. Hutchinson was less outspoken but made clear his objections to Parliament’s actions as well.  In addition to his multiple political offices, Hutchinson was also a merchant trader and had much to lose from the new law.  However, when he wrote London about the colony’s concerns, he focused on the hardships the new law caused.  He ignored the arguments about colonial rights against Parliamentary taxation, thinking it would only force Parliament to dig in its heels.  He was probably right about that.  But the rather mild point that taxes were tough on the colony did not sway anyone for repeal either.

Other Colonies

New York submitted a clear objection to the new law.  The colonial legislature submitted a petition to Parliament protesting such taxation:

But an Exemption from the Burthen of ungranted, involuntary Taxes, must be the grand Principle of every free State.-Without such a Right vested in themselves, exclusive of all others, there can be no Liberty, no Happiness, no Security; it is inseparable from the very Idea of Property, for who can call that his own, which may be taken away at the Pleasure of another?

Other colonies issued less strident protests.  Rhode Island’s legislature submitted a petition to the king which argued that “colonists may not be taxed but by the consent of their own representatives, as your Majesty’s other free subjects are.”  Connecticut issued a pamphlet opposed to internal taxation, but expressing no objection to tariffs.

Pennsylvania was in the middle of a fight to oust the Penn family and convert the government to a Royal colony with a governor appointed by the King.  The legislature directed its London agent to protest the law and to lobby against a possible Stamp tax.  It did not send a formal petition directly.  The legislature sent a second agent to London, Benjamin Franklin, who mostly went to lobby to make Pennsylvania a Royal Colony, and hopefully be appointed the colony’s first royal governor.

Virginia sent a petition to the King, as well as protests to both the House of Lords and the House of Commons.  In each, they focused on the concerns that they had a fundamental right to be taxed only by their local legislature, in whom they had representation.  To accept taxation from an outside body was akin to slavery, which as we all know is not a proper condition for British people at least.  Virginia’s petitions also focused more on the Currency Act, which was simply killing the colonial economy.

Not all reactions were in the form of political protest.  Some merchants, taking the pessimistic view that this was the beginning of an era of more oppressive trade restrictions, began looking for other ways to supply the colonies.  Some merchants began making plans to distill more alcohol from locally grown corn, rather than continue to rely on imported molasses.  Many began to increase their stock of sheep with an eye toward developing a domestic woolens and linens industry in the colonies in order to cut down on the necessity of British imports.  Even if London won the political fight, colonists were already beginning focus economic reactions that would deny Parliament the revenues they hoped to obtain.

The Polly

If the legislative protests were not forceful enough, it quickly became clear to many that despite better enforcement mechanisms, resistance would continue.  There are many examples of resistance, but one of the most celebrated involves a sloop named the Polly.  John Robinson arrived in Newport Rhode Island as the new customs agent.  He was tasked with enforcing the new tariffs and by all accounts seemed motivated to do so.  When the Polly entered the harbor in April 1765, the owner reported and paid the tariff on 63 barrels.

After the ship left harbor, Robinson decided that the shipment seemed rather small for a ship of that size.  He boarded the Maidstone, a British Man-of-War, which caught up with the Polly at Dighton in Massachusetts.  While not part of the legislation itself, Grenville also had twelve navy vessels, freed up by the end of the war, assigned to the east coast of America looking for merchant ships trying to evade tariffs. The navy had authority to board vessels, demand inspections of cargo, and impound ships in violation of trade laws.  Because the ship’s officers and men received a share of any seized vessels and cargo, they had every incentive to act aggressively and capture whatever they could.  Customs officials could make use of these ships to enforce the Sugar Act and other trade laws.

After the Maidstone caught up with the Polly, Robinson conducted a full search and determined that the ship had declared only about half its cargo.  Pursuant to law, the vessel would be seized and sold.  The ship’s crew refused to assist, nor could Robinson find anyone else in the area to return the ship to Newport.  He left an assistant in charge while he returned to Newport to collect a crew.

Before he could return, about 40 men with blackened faces boarded the ship, and removed the cargo, along with just about anything else of value.  They also damaged the vessel to prevent it from being sailed back to Newport.  When Robinson returned, with sailors and marines, he asked the local justice for writs of assistance so he could find the thieves.  The Justice refused and told him it could not issue the writs.  The Justice further informed him that he and the 40 marines and 30 sailors with him were in danger of being attacked by unknown armed men.

Robinson wisely gave up his pursuit of the attackers, and returned to the Polly to attempt to put it in condition to sail back to Newport.  Before he could effect repairs, the sheriff arrived with a warrant for his arrest.  The ship’s owner had filed a complaint against him for damages.  He spent three days in jail before the Surveyor of Customs could arrive with bail.

Under the protection of a British Man of War, Robinson was able to make the ship seaworthy and removed it from Dighton.  He hoped to sail it to Halifax for condemnation so it could be sold. However, Massachusetts Gov. Bernard intervened to protest its removal from local courts.  The legal wrangling continued for over a year before the Polly was finally condemned and sold.

The story is emblematic of the problems customs officials had enforcing this highly unpopular law.  They could be subjected to mob justice, and face harassment by local authorities who also opposed their actions.  The merchants were respected members of the community who provided most of the jobs.  Customs officials were seen almost as thieves pulling money out of the colony unjustly.  Without the backing of the British Navy on just about any significant action, there was no way they could do their job properly.

Resistance was rarely violent, but it clearly existed at all levels, from the Governor, to the merchants, to the courts and sheriffs, to the common people in the streets.  Everyone clearly opposed the tariffs and would do whatever they could to make them unenforceable.

Next week, Parliament passes the Stamp Act and Quartering Act in 1765.

Next Episode 22: Stamp Act and Quartering Act of 1765

Previous Episode 20: Sugar Act and Currency Act of 1764

Visit the American Revolution Podcast (https://amrev.podbean.com).

Click here to donate

American Revolution Podcast is distributed 100% free of charge. If you can chip in to help defray my costs, I'd appreciate whatever you can give.  Make a one time donation through my PayPal account.

You may also donate via Venmo, Zelle, or popmoney (send to mtroy1@yahoo.com)

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Further Reading

Websites

Amsterdam Banking Crisis of 1763:  http://community.worldheritage.org/articles/Amsterdam_Banking_Crisis_of_1763

James Otis: The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved:
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/the-rights-of-the-british-colonies-asserted-and-proved

New York Petition to the House of Commons:  http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/new-york-petition-to-the-house-of-commons

Vice-Admiralty Courts and Writs of Assistance:
https://allthingsliberty.com/2015/01/vice-admiralty-courts-and-writs-of-assistance

Free Books
(from archive.org unless noted)

The Writings of Samuel Adams, Vol. 1, by Harry Cushing (ed) (1904).

Samuel Adams, by James Hosmer (1913).

The History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, from 1749 to 1774, by Thomas Hutchinson, John Hutchinson (ed) (1828) (This book was edited and published in London using Gov. Thomas Hutchinson’s personal papers.  The editor was his grandson).

The Diary and Letters of His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, by Thomas Hutchinson, Peter Orlando Hutchinson (ed) (1884) (Editor is Thomas Hutchinson’s great-grandson).

James Otis, the Pre-revolutionist, by John Clark Ridpath (1898)

The Life of James Otis, of Massachusetts, by William Tudor (1823)

Books Worth Buying
(links to Amazon.com unless otherwise noted)*

Anderson, Fred Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766, Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.

Hawke, David The Colonial Experience, Prentice-Hall, 1966.

Jennings, Francis Empire Of Fortune: Crowns, Colonies & Tribes in the Seven Years War in America, W.W. Norton & Co. 1988.

Knollenberg, Bernard Growth of the American Revolution 1766-1775, Liberty Fund, 1975.

Miller, John Origins of the American Revolution, Little Brown & Co. 1943.

Ubbelohde, Carle The Vice - Admiralty Courts and the American Revolution, Omohundro Institute, 1960.

* As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Episode 020: Sugar & Currency Acts of 1764

The end of the Seven Years War, known in America as the French and Indian War, left Britain undisputed control of North America east of the Mississippi.  Today we are going to step away from military battles to take a look at the exciting world of 18th century British tax policy!

Military victory had left Britain awash in debt and with the expenses of controlling and governing many new territories.  Raising the necessary funds to pay off debt and manage the empire led to a series of policies that probably made great sense to the politicians in London.  In hindsight though, it eventually led to even more conflict and another costly world war.

Britain Needs Revenue

In London, Prime Minister Grenville wanted to increase revenue.  The recent war had about doubled Britain’s national debt, which was sitting at about 150% of GDP.  Interest on the debt alone was a substantial and growing portion of the budget.  International lenders already considered Britain a high risk.  Even at high interest rates the government found it increasingly difficult acquire new loans.  Since the British pound was based on gold and silver, the government could not simply print more money as it might today.

George Grenville
(from Wikimedia)

With the end of the war, military costs would go down of course, payments to the German States for military defense would go down, as would subsidies to the colonies to pay for militia. The government could also shrink its army and navy.

But even after cuts, there was more work to be done, not only to end the deficits but to begin reducing the debt itself.  British possession of Canada would require a large and expensive standing army in North America to ensure the French population there would not attempt to return the territory to France.  This would be a major added expense when compared to pre-war expenses.  Grenville estimated the cost of maintaining 10,000 soldiers would be about £220,000/yr. This was down from the £350,000/yr that parliament was spending on the colonies during the war, but was still unsustainable unless the colonies could contribute a substantial amount to help cover the costs.

Understanding Money in 18th Century Britain

Since we are going to spend some time talking about money and taxes, this might be a good time to go over how money worked in the British Empire at this time.  Then, as now, British currency was based on the British pound sterling (£).  The pound at the time was literally the value of one pound of sterling silver. It is a little tricky to convert the value of £1 in 1764 to modern US dollars.  Today, in 2017, a pound of silver would cost a little over $250.

I’ve looked at a bunch of attempts to calculate inflation from the 1760s to today.  Any such calculation is tricky because you are comparing a wide variety of goods and services that changed prices at differing levels.  A comparison of wages alone makes no sense since the standard of living for a typical worker has changed greatly.  So with the caveat that others will come up with quite different conversion rates, my best calculations show that £1 in 1764 would be worth around $220 in US dollars in 2017, not too far off from simply using the value of silver then and today.

In 1971, Britain converted to a decimal system.  Before that, pennies and shillings were valued differently against the pound.

British Shilling showing George III
(from allcoinvalues.com)

A pound was worth 20 shillings (s), meaning a shilling would be worth about $11 in modern US currency.  There were also 12 pence (d) in a shilling, meaning a penny (pence is the plural of penny) back then would be worth about $1 today.  Pence could be divided further divided into farthings (4 farthings = 1 penny).  So a farthing was worth about the equivalent of a quarter is for the modern American.  You may also have heard of a Guinea.  This was a gold coin, originally the equivalent of  British pound.  But because gold and silver prices fluctuated, a guinea was often worth more than a pound.  In the this time period, a guinea was worth 21 shillings, just over one pound.

The symbols for each British denomination are based on latin monetary terms.  The pound symbol (£) is basically a fancy L that comes from the latin word librae. The s for shillings comes from the latin solidi.  The d used for pence comes from the latin denarii.

It might also be helpful to know how much a the typical worker earned compared to today.  Wage data is a little spotty from this era.  But the studies I’ve seen indicate that unskilled laborers earned about 12 pence per day for farm labor in England.  A craftsman in the building trade made about 22 pence per day.  Work weeks were typically six days long, meaning an unskilled laborer could take home a little over £1 per month.  In other words, in inflation adjusted dollars, a common laborer had to work and support a family on less than $3500/yr.  Say what you will about the problems caused by the industrial revolution.  It definitely increased our expectations about reasonable pay and standards of living!

Pay in the colonies, where there was less supply and greater demand for labor, was usually higher than in England.  Making direct comparisons can be difficult because some colonial pay was made using colonial pounds, which tended to be worth less than British pounds.  It is not always clear which currency is listed in wage records.  However, records show that a common laborer in the colonies could make around 2 shillings (24 pence) per day.   A more skilled worker, like a brick layer might make three times that amount.  Therefore, common laborers in the colonies made about double their counterparts in England.  Colonial workers with some skills made an even greater premium over their English counterparts.  Even so, making £1 required a week or two worth of work for most low level working class jobs.

Don’t worry.  None of this will be on the test.  I just thought it helpful so that when we talk about a 3 shilling tax on something, you have some frame of reference as to what that really cost people.

Taxes in England

Alright, back to Grenville’s revenue problems: Since many of the costs were coming from the need to maintain larger militaries to protect newly acquired colonies, it seemed only reasonable that the colonies could assist in shouldering some of that financial burden.  British subjects in England, Scotland, and Ireland were already taxed to the hilt.  One historian estimated that the average English subject paid about 23 shillings per year in taxes.  By contrast, Massachusetts, which is thought to be the highest taxed colony at the time, paid about 1 shilling per year in taxes.  The British colonies, in fact, were probably one of the least taxed areas in the world.

British subjects were already hit with a wide variety of taxes.  Import tariffs also contributed greatly to British coffers.  Unlike tariffs in the colonies, British customs agents diligently collected tariffs in Britain and enforced trade laws.

During the war, Parliament raised revenue by levying a new tax on cider.  The opposition to the cider tax was in part because people already felt overtaxed, but also because most cider was made locally on farms in England and Wales.  Enforcement, therefore, required government officials to search farms for cider production and make sure proper taxes were paid.  This intrusion on people’s homes did not sit well with the farmers.  This issue was a big part of what brought down Lord Bute’s ministry in 1763.  It remained unpopular during Grenville’s term as well.

With the war over, members are Parliament were feeling constituent pressure to lower taxes, not raise them.  Increasing taxes on workers was impossible since they were barely getting by on subsistence pay.  Increasing taxes on the wealthy in Britain was not a popular option either.  The aristocracy controlled Parliament.  Raising taxes on your friends and family was not going to go over well at home.   Everyone already felt overtaxed in England.  Members were in no mood to hit up voters for any more money.

Grenville, therefore, did not see any way to get Parliament to go along with new taxes at home. Since much of the increased costs were the result of the colonies, the colonies had to cover at least some of those costs themselves.  Still, with the well known sensitivity that colonists had about taxes, Grenville knew he had to tread lightly.  The best place to start was with trade tariffs.  Tariffs could be collected at ports, meaning one did not have send tax collectors all over the colonies.  Further, tariffs on certain imports had existed for decades, even if poorly enforced.  Therefore, there was no valid principle that should prohibit its collection.

The Sugar Act of 1764

An easy place to start would be a tariff on sugar.  Almost all the colonists’ sugar came from the French controlled islands in the West Indies, what we call the Caribbean today, - you know, the islands Britain just gave back to France in the Treaty of Paris.  A tariff would actually end up putting most of the cost on the French planters, since merchants were generally unable to increase prices on luxury goods.  They would be forced to pressure the French planters into lower prices in order to maintain sales.

The Sugar Act
(from pbworks)

Sometimes called the American Duties Act or simply the Revenues Act of 1764, the law commonly known as the Sugar Act placed a tax on the importation of sugar, molasses, coffee, Madeira (which is a type of wine) as well as a range of other luxury goods such as silks and other textiles.  Grenville thought the law would be relatively palatable for several reasons.  The main one being that the law actually cut tariff rates. The Navigation Acts of 1733 (also called the Molasses Act) had implemented a tax of sixpence on a gallon of imported rum.  The new law cut that in half to threepence.  Who doesn’t like a tax cut?

Well, no one really saw it that way because no one actually paid the tax from the Molasses Act. Tariffs under that act only brought in about £1800/yr in all colonies combined. The rate was prohibitively high and intended to cut off trade with the French colonies.  Even at half the rate, the tax was high.  It cost about 14.5 pence to make a gallon of rum, which sold at wholesale for around 18 pence.  A threepence tax would mean the rum maker would essentially break even, unless rum prices increased or molasses costs decreased.  The existing sixpence tax meant a law abiding rum manufacturer would lose money.  That was why traders evaded the tax, paying off customs collectors at a lower rate to let the product into the colony.  The corruption had become routine, with customs collectors taking a twopence payment for each gallon.  Therefore, a threepence tax would be an effective 50% increase in the taxes.

To make sure colonists actually paid the tax, the new law also overhauled how it would be collected.  First, all disputes would be heard in British vice admiralty courts.  In other words, naval officers would judge smuggling or tax evasion accusations, not local juries. The admiralty courts had had jurisdiction over such cases since the last century.  However, it was easy and commonplace to remove the hearing to a local colonial court.  Therefore, merchants always did this, and with the help of popular and persuasive lawyers like James Otis, almost always won their cases in front of sympathetic juries.  This new law would force trials to go to admiralty courts in Halifax Canada, meaning difficulty of travel and almost certain prospects of the government winning the case.

The law also helped customs officials by limiting the damages they might have to pay if they seized a vessel in error. Under the old law, a ship owner could sue customs officials for any mistaken seizure and count on a friendly jury to find against the tax collector. Under the new law such cases would go to admiralty courts where the customs official would stand a much better chance of winning. The new law required merchant ships to post bonds, which could be forfeited if their cargo did not match their manifests, as well as a host of other costly and confusing paperwork.

Like the Molasses Act before it, the Sugar Act only applied to trade with non-British colonies.  Colonists in America were free to go to the West Indies and trade with other British colonies there.  The problem with that was that most of the sugar came from the French colonies.  It was better quality and cheaper.  The French colonies were also more eager to buy the products the North American colonists wanted to sell them, things like fish, lumber, and flour.  Therefore, trade only with the British West Indies was not a viable option.  Some in Parliament, however, thought that the competitive advantage for the British West Indies might eventually encourage some of the French islands to be more amenable to joining the British Empire in the future.

So for the politicians in London, the Sugar Act seemed like it would solve several problems. The new law would raise some revenue, end the institutional corruption that had developed in the colonies, and also encourage French colonies to be more disposed to join the British Empire.  They had gotten used to selling rum to British colonies in North America.  They no longer had French colonial markets in Canada.  France did not import much rum.  Therefore, the colonies would get stuck making less because of the tariff.  They would have greater desire to become British colonies again to enjoy free trade with North America.  It’s a win-win, what could go wrong?

Parliament passed the Sugar Act in April 1764 with relatively little debate or dissent.  If anything, the members thought Grenville should be more aggressive in increasing tariffs on the colonies. Politically though, Grenville wanted to ease into the issue of colonial taxation slowly, lest he set off colonial revolts which would only cost the government more money to put down.

The Currency Act of 1764

Later that same year, Parliament took up another issue.  Some colonies had been printing their own paper money in order to make up for a lack of sufficient gold and silver available in North American markets.  Virginia in particular had financed much of its wartime expenses by issuing paper money, which could be returned to the colonial government for payment of taxes.  This provided an easy way to remove it from circulation once the need for currency fell.  In effect, the paper money acted as a loan to the government.  The government pays its bills now with paper, then gets it back and retires the notes instead of getting cash in later tax years.

Virginia 2 Pound Note, 1762
(from Williamsburg Foundation)

The problem for London merchants was that the colony ordered that the paper be legal tender for payment of all private debts as well.  The exchange rate was set at 125 Virginia pounds for 100 British pounds.  Although Virginia was fairly conservative in the way it issued the money, the Virginia pounds began to lose value, trading at around 160 Virginia pounds for 100 British pounds.  Virginia plantation owners had a great deal of debt with London merchants, who were facing their own credit crisis in 1764.  If Virginians could repay debt at the 1.25 to 1 ratio, London merchants would end up taking a serious loss on the repayment of colonial debts.

Grenville had been contemplating a currency plan of his own to unify all colonial currencies, but did not want to tackle that problem in 1764.  However, a member of Parliament, who also happened to be a London merchant trying to collect on a fair amount of colonial debt, proposed the Currency Act in order to protect his own interests as well as those of many of his colleagues.  The Currency Act restricted the use of colonial paper money.  It prohibited colonial legislatures from mandating that the paper be accepted for payment of private debts.  In other words, the London merchants could demand payment in British pounds.

Like the Sugar Act, the Currency Act raised little controversy in Parliament.  New England was already under similar restrictions, having to use notes that could be exchanged for gold or silver in order to maintain value.  The new law targeted Virginia’s currency law, which was seen as ripping off British merchants.  Getting paid back in money worth the same as what was lent seemed perfectly reasonable to everyone in London.

Conclusion

Clearly Grenville was proceeding cautiously and with great thought to his plans.  He deliberately withheld plans for a colonial Stamp Tax in 1764 because he wanted to start slowly with the less controversial tariff policies.  This would begin to pay money back to government coffers and would acclimate the colonists to the idea that they needed to contribute more to the Empire’s costs.  He also tried to avoid side controversies by shutting down attempts to establish Anglican Bishops in New England, at least for now.

If anything, Parliament seemed to be pushing Grenville to act more quickly and forcefully.  During the debate on the Sugar Act, Grenville commented that the colonies had to contribute toward paying for their costs.  The main response by some members was that the colonies should be paying all of their costs.  They needed to become self sufficient, not a drain on the budget.  The Currency Act was pushed on Grenville before he had been ready to act as well.  Parliament overall seemed more eager than the Prime Minister to shift into a peacetime economy and get colonial revenues headed in the right direction.

Yet as carefully and as slowly as they moved, it did not seem to occur to anyone in Parliament to involve the colonies in any of the plans.  Many of the colonies had agents in London who essentially acted as lobbyists.  Colonial Governors also could have performed an ambassadorial role, providing feedback from the colonial legislatures and popular opinion to help shape policy.  Governors certainly provided intelligence on reactions to policies already in place, but did not work on shaping future policy.  Parliament considered tax and trade policy to be well within its authority for the entire empire.  There seemed to be little dispute on that in London.  The colonies, however, had an extremely different view, which would soon become evident.

Next week: the colonists express their opinions on the new acts of Parliament.

Next Episode 21: Colonies React to Taxes

Previous Episode 19: Suppressing the Indians

Visit the American Revolution Podcast (https://amrev.podbean.com).

Click here to donate

American Revolution Podcast is distributed 100% free of charge. If you can chip in to help defray my costs, I'd appreciate whatever you can give.  Make a one time donation through my PayPal account.

You may also donate via Venmo, Zelle, or popmoney (send to mtroy1@yahoo.com)

Click here to see my Patreon Page

You can support the American Revolution Podcast as a Patreon subscriber.  This is an option for people who want to make monthly pledges.  Patreon support will give you access to Podcast extras and help make the podcast a sustainable project.

An alternative to Patreon is SubscribeStar.  For anyone who has problems with Patreon, you can get the same benefits by subscribing at SubscribeStar.

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Further Reading

Websites

George Grenville: https://history.blog.gov.uk/2015/02/11/george-grenville-whig-1763-1765

A study on historical wages in the UK for the last millennium:
https://www.measuringworth.com/datasets/ukearncpi/earnstudynew.pdf

18th Century Taxes in the UK, by Sarah Murden (2015):
https://georgianera.wordpress.com/2015/03/10/18th-century-taxes

American Duties Act of 1764 (aka The Sugar Act):
http://www.stamp-act-history.com/category/sugar-act

The Currency Acts of 1751 and 1764:
http://www.stamp-act-history.com/category/currency-act

The Currency Act, a Problem and a Solution:
https://allthingsliberty.com/2014/09/the-currency-act-a-problem-and-a-solution

James Otis The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved:
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/the-rights-of-the-british-colonies-asserted-and-proved

Free Books
(from archive.org unless noted)

Anecdotes of the Life of the Right Honourable William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, Vol 2, by John Almon (1810).

British colonial policy, 1754-1765, by George Louis Beer (1907).

History of Wages in the United States from Colonial Times to 1928, by Estelle May Stewart & Jesse Chester Bowen (1934) (Google Books).

The Grenville Papers, Vol. II, William J. Smith (ed) (1852).

Correspondence of William Pitt, Vol. 2, by William Taylor & John Pringle (eds) (1838).

Books Worth Buying
(links to Amazon.com unless otherwise noted)*

Anderson, Fred Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766, Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.

Brumwell, Stephen Redcoats: The British Soldier and War in the Americas 1755-1763, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002.

Dickerson, Oliver M. The Navigation Acts and the American Revolution, New York A.S. Barnes & Company, 1951.

Fowler, William M. Empires at War, Walker Books, 2005.

Hawke, David The Colonial Experience, Prentice-Hall, 1966.

Jennings, Francis Empire Of Fortune: Crowns, Colonies & Tribes in the Seven Years War in America, W.W. Norton & Co. 1988.

Knollenberg, Bernard Growth of the American Revolution 1766-1775, Liberty Fund, 1975.

Miller, John Origins of the American Revolution, Little Brown & Co. 1943.

Nye, John War, Wine, and Taxes: The Political Economy of Anglo-French Trade, 1689-1900,  Princeton Univ. Press, 2007. (If you are burning to learn more about the exciting world of British tax policies in the 18th century, this is the book for you!)

* As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.