CHAPTER V.

THE REVOLUTION UP TO THE TIME OF

Causes of Union

and of Discontent.

INDEPENDENCE.

As we have seen, the French and Indian War had partially united the colonies for purposes of defense, and had paved the way for that closer union which led at last to their independence. There were many causes which acted to make the colonies dissatisfied with England, and to bring them closer together. We have already mentioned the Navigation Act,* and in Maryland another of these causes was the poll tax that everyone, regardless of creed, had to pay for the support of the Church of England. Still another—in the other colonies as well as in Maryland— was the Stamp Act. This was an Act passed by the British Parliament in 1765, requiring that stamped paper be used for certain specified purposes. For example, the tax on a license to sell wine was twenty shillings; the tax on a deed was one shilling six pence; that on a newspaper one penny. These taxes were of the same kind as those laid by our own government in 1898 requiring a two-cent stamp on every bank cheque, a onecent stamp on every telegram, and so on. But with this difference: we recognize the present stamp taxes to be laid on us by our own representatives for the expenses of our own government; while the colonists in 1765 looked upon their stamp taxes as laid by others than themselves

The Stamp Act.

* See ante, p. 28.

for the benefit of the British government, and not for their own good. It was "taxation without representation."

Zachariah Hood, a Marylander, brought a lot of the stamped paper from England and was appointed the officer to sell it in the colony. When he arrived, however, the people would not permit any of the paper to be

sold, but shipped it back in another vessel. In Baltimore, Annapolis, and other towns, effigies of Hood were hauled

No Stamped

Paper Allowed

to be Sold.

in carts, a halter around the neck, were tarred and feathered, whipped and hanged. His house in Annapolis was torn down, and he had to make his escape to New York to put himself under the protection of General Gage. Even there he

was compelled to resign his office and promise never again to try to sell the stamps.

Sons of
Liberty.

All classes of the people joined in the opposition. Daniel Dulany, of Annapolis, who was then one of the foremost lawyers of America, published a book arguing that the Stamp Act was entirely illegal. Societies called Sons of Liberty were formed in the various colonies to oppose the Act, and in Maryland they compelled the courts to transact all business without stamped paper. The Maryland Gazette on October 10 was put into mourning, with a skull and crossbones in the place where the stamp should have gone. The Assembly also acted, and appointed three delegates, Edward Tilghman, William Murdock and Thomas Ringgold, to the Congress held in New York, through which the colonies petitioned the King and Parliament to remove the stamp taxes.

Non-Importation

So much opposition at length compelled Parliament to repeal the Stamp Act, but almost immediately it laid a new tax on tea and many other articles of import. All the colonies opposed these new taxes as strongly as they did the Stamp Act; and Maryland Societies Formed. joined the others in the agreement not to use any tea, or any other articles on which taxes were laid, until the tax was removed. Gentlemen even wore home-spun clothes instead of the silks and fine stuffs they had been accustomed to. This agreement Maryland kept until the war began, although the other colonies had by that time abandoned it.

Nevertheless, some merchants in the colony attempted to evade the non-importation agreement. On October

The Peggy Stewart

and her Cargo of Tea, October 19, 1774.

15, 1774, the brig Peggy Stewart, with a cargo of tea for Williams & Co., entered the harbor of Annapolis, and the owner of the vessel, Mr. Anthony Stewart, a member of the non-importation society, paid the duty. This so incensed the people of Anne Arundel County that some of the more violent among them proposed to tar and feather Mr. Stewart, although he had already publicly apologized and confessed that he had done wrong. He and Joseph and James Williams, the owners of the tea, signed a paper acknowledging that they had insulted the people of the colony by their conduct and promising not only never to repeat the offense but also to burn all the seventeen packages of tea. This, however, was not enough to satisfy the people. Accordingly, on October 19, four days after her arrival, the Peggy Stewart was run aground on Windmill Point where Stewart himself set fire to her, and she with her cargo was burned to the water's edge.

Almost a year before this in Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston, cargoes of tea had been either destroyed or returned to England. King George III. and his ministers were enraged at these doings of the colonies, and looking upon Boston as a "hot-bed of rebellion," determined to make an example of that city. They thought the other colonies would not come to the aid of Massachusetts, and that she would be afraid alone to offer resistance. Early in the year 1774, therefore, Parliament passed an Act annulling the charter of Massachusetts and closing the port of Boston. The port of Boston was closed on June 1, and on June 22 a convention of delegates from every county of Maryland was held at Annapolis.