HISTORICAL SKETCH

AN understanding of the causes which led to the estrangement of the colonies from the mother country and to the civil strife which Burke in his memorable speech strove so earnestly to avert, can be found only in the study of the political and commercial conditions of the empire in the first years of the reign of George III. When George II died in 1760, and his grandson, George III, came to the throne, England was in the midst of a mighty struggle with her ancient rival, France. Through the genius of Pitt, she had already triumphed in India and America, and in Europe had aided Frederick the Great of Prussia to resist the coalition of his enemies. The baneful influence of the young king fell like a blight upon the empire. He character of was badly educated, narrow-minded, and ob- George III stinate, and was altogether unable to take large views of public affairs and of the interests of the empire. He came to the throne at the age of twenty-two, fully determined to destroy the influence of the great Whig families whose power had overshadowed the Crown during the two previous reigns. He planned to restore the influence of the Crown and to overthrow the Whigs by the use of their own weapons. He made no effort to follow the example of Charles I by attempting to govern without a Parliament, but proposed to rule the kingdom by controlling Parliament. This he would do by using the same methods which had so long kept the Whigs in office.

At no period has English public life been so corrupt as in the middle of the eighteenth century. Walpole and Newcastle had in succession developed a system of bribery and corrupt influences which, with the rotten borough system, gave them almost complete control of Parliament. George was personally honest, and in private life was conspicuous

ties

for his morality and simple tastes, but in public life he had Political par- no scruples against corrupting others. The condition of political parties at the time of his accession favored his designs. The old Tory Party of the time of Queen Anne had been so discredited by the attempt of Bolingbroke to bring in the Old Pretender at the death of the queen in 1714 that the Whigs came into power and continued in control until the death of George II. During the long period of their ascendancy, the Whigs had divided into groups under the leadership of powerful families. The Duke of Newcastle, the head of the Pelham family, had controlled the political machine since the fall of Walpole in 1742. The Duke of Bedford, the Duke of Rockingham, the Duke of Grafton, and the Earl of Temple had each a following of his own in Parliament. Besides these, there were a few Tories and a small group called the “ 'King's Friends," who were always ready to support or to oppose any motion or any minister upon a hint of the wishes of the king. It was the plan of George to play off one faction against another in order to secure a ministry and a House of Commons which he could control. Unfortunately, in the course of his effort to restore the influence of the Crown, the interests of the colonies became involved, and so badly were matters managed that the empire, so recently victorious, was plunged into a needless and disastrous war.

Prior to the time of George III, England's colonial policy had been markedly successful. For the most part the colonies had been left to themselves in the manageColonial system ment of their political affairs. Some friction, indeed, arose from time to time over such questions as the royal veto of laws passed by colonial assemblies, and the tenure of office of the colonial judges. In most of the colonies, the governors and judges were appointed and removed by the king, but the colonies were able to maintain considerable control over those officials through the practice of voting their salaries in the colonial assemblies. In spite of friction, however, the Americans were loyal to the mother country and were devoted to their connection with

her. The English Government had sought no revenue from the colonists and had been satisfied with the commercial advantages arising from their trade.

Before George III came to the throne, the one purpose of England's colonial policy had been to create a self-sufficing commercial empire for the mutual benefit of the mother country and the colonies. It was the aim of Parliament to make this empire economically independent of the England's corest of the world. In this system the colonies lonial policy were regarded as valuable, not as homes for the surplus population of England, nor as sources of revenue for the royal treasury; but either as sources of supply of commodities not produced by England, or as markets for English manufactures. The protection of this colonial trade made necessary the maintenance of a large navy, and the training of thousands of sailors to man the vessels of the royal fleets. As this training could best be secured in the merchant marine, or in the vessels engaged in the fisheries of the North Atlantic, the encouragement of both enterprises became an essential part of England's colonial policy.

Acts

In the first year of the reign of Charles II, this policy began with the passage of the Navigation Act of 1660, which provided that no goods should be im- Navigation ported into or exported out of the colonies except in English or colonial vessels whereof the master and three fourths of the crew were English subjects. In order to secure the full advantage arising from the colonies as sources of supply of commodities needed by England, the same law further provided that certain colonial goods could be shipped only to England or to some port under the English flag. The list of such commodities was increased from time to time, until in 1763 it included sugar, tobacco, cotton wool, indigo, ginger, dyeing woods, rice, molasses, naval stores, copper, and furs. Of these goods, tobacco, rice, and naval stores were the only ones produced largely in the continental colonies. Tobacco, however, constituted more than one half of their total exports. As a compensation to the American tobacco-planters for the restriction upon their

trade, their product was given a monopoly of the English market, for the growth of tobacco was forbidden in England and Ireland, and no foreign tobacco could be imported. Although the import duty was repaid if the tobacco was re-exported within eighteen months, the cost of warehousing and other expenses in England added about twentyfive per cent to the price at which it could otherwise have been sold in Europe.

Upon the request of the rice-growers of South Carolina, England in 1730 modified the restriction on the trade so far as to allow rice to be shipped directly to European ports south of Cape Finisterre, upon the payment of an export tax collected in the place of shipment—a curious instance of the imposition of a tax by Parliament with the full consent of a colony. In 1763 this export duty amounted to £2400.

Besides rice and tobacco, the only other enumerated commodity produced largely in the continental colonies was naval stores. The burden imposed by the restriction on this trade was lightened by the bounties granted by Parliament to encourage the importation of American masts into England. The policy of granting bounties arose from the desire to develop the resources of the colonies and enable them to act the better as sources of supply for the mother country. Bounties were paid at different times on colonial masts, hemp, tar, pitch, indigo, and flax. During the sixty years which preceded the outbreak of the American Revolution, the English paid bounties amounting to no less than £1,609,345 on colonial products imported into Great Britain.

The importance of the colonies as markets for English. goods increased steadily with their growth. The value of the exports to America in 1763 was ten times that in the reign of William and Mary. This great increase was due largely to the measures taken by Parliament to secure to the English merchants the monopoly of the American trade. In 1663, an act was passed which required the colonies to purchase nearly all European commodities in England. At the same time it was provided in most cases that one half

of the import duty should be remitted on such goods when re-exported to the colonies, so that European goods imported by way of England could often be bought more cheaply by Americans than by the English themselves. Nevertheless, the same goods could have been purchased for less if imported directly from the continent of Europe. This was particularly true in the case of iron and steel, cordage, sail-cloth, and paper, because no drawback was allowed on those commodities.

The acts were difficult to enforce along the extensive American coast, with its numerous harbors, and smuggling became common. In the attempt to put a stop to this practice a comprehensive measure was passed in 1696. The colonial governors were required to take an oath to enforce the acts, and prosecutions for their violation Admiralty might be brought in Courts of Admiralty. Courts

Such courts, in which trial by jury was not allowed, were soon set up in the colonies, where they were a source of perpetual grievance. The colonists felt it a hardship that their property should be at the mercy of a judge responsible only to the king, while in England all violations of customs laws were tried before a jury in the ordinary courts.

The sugar-planters of Jamaica suffered in competition with the French in the colonial markets from the necessity of shipping their product by way of England. Accord ingly they persuaded Parliament to pass the Molasses Act famous Molasses Act to protect the English

sugar-growers of the West Indies against the competition of the French and Spanish islands. By the Act of 1733, a duty of sixpence was laid on every gallon of molasses, ninepence on every gallon of rum, and five shillings on every hundredweight of sugar imported from foreign islands into the colonies. Had this act been enforced, it would have been a serious blow to the northern colonies, for they were accustomed to export large quantities of lumber and foodstuffs to the French and Spanish West Indies, and to receive sugar and molasses in return. The molasses was made into rum and exchanged on the coast of Africa for slaves