Repeal of the Stamp Act

In acting to remove the principal American grievance, the Rockinghamites made no constitutional concessions to the colonists. They said the Americans ought to have respected parliamentary law, and they wished the power of Parliament to be solemnly asserted in a formal resolution, as did the many foes of repeal of the Stamp Act. The result was the Declaratory Act of March 1766, passed by overwhelming majorities despite the opposition of Pitt; in effect it proclaimed the authority of Parliament in America to be the same as it was in Britain. The ministry also coupled with repeal a demand that the colonial assemblies compensate the supporters of the Stamp Act in the colonies who had suffered property losses as the result of mob action. Still further, in the Revenue Act of 1766, the ministry secured reduction of the duty on molasses from threepence to one penny per gallon, extending it, however, to cover British as well as foreign molasses. While this step was financially pleasing to the Americans, it should be observed that the revised duty, collected upon both British and foreign molasses, looked very much like a tax for revenue. The Rockingham people thus agreed to set aside the stamp duties and to permit the Americans to trade with the foreign islands in the West Indies but to make no other substantial concessions in fact or theory.

Even so, repeal of the stamp tax was bitterly opposed in London. To mollify the enemies of repeal, the ministry defined the American constitutional position regarding taxation as narrowly as possible. At least some of the American protests against the Bute-Bedford-Grenville policy, notably one from the lower house of the New York assembly, had condemned parliamentary taxation of whatever sort for revenue as unconstitutional. The ministry preferred to believe that the colonists would be content with the removal of the stamp duties. Although the Rockingham people kept their concessions to a minimum and although they did everything possible to reduce the importance of those concessions, repeal would have been defeated had it been opposed by George III. The king told his personal followers who held offices connected with the ministry that they must in honour support it; he advised his other friends that they were free to do as they chose. The result was a narrow victory for the ministry, the Commons and the Lords giving reluctant consent.

The grievances of the Americans were by no means fully removed, and the concessions that were made were offered grudgingly. Nevertheless, the colonists very generally accepted them as a basic settlement of the crisis. They joyfully celebrated the repeal, and they enthusiastically reaffirmed their allegiance to Britain. They also eagerly resumed buying goods from the merchants of London, Bristol, and Liverpool. They were happy to escape from the crisis so easily and so creditably. For a time they had little to say about the grievances that continued. Of course, they would not be permanently satisfied with the situation as it was in the spring of 1766, their ideas of their rights within the empire would inevitably enlarge with the passage of time, and further concessions on the part of Britain would have been necessary to preserve a more or less permanent peace within the empire. Given time, the Rockingham people might have been able to establish a basic principle of conciliation in British policy. They were not granted the opportunity, being deprived of it by Pitt and George III, who drove them from power and established the ministry of “All the Talents” in July 1766.

It is difficult to say whether Britain and America would have found a modus vivendi had Pitt enjoyed both health and authority for a few years after 1766. The majesty of Britain meant much to him, and the warmly friendly language he had become accustomed to use regarding the colonists does not constitute proof that he would not have undertaken measures that were repugnant to them. Certainly, the constitutional position he had assumed did not preclude steps obnoxious to the Americans. Pitt inadvertently assisted in bringing into office men inclined toward the American philosophy of Bute, Bedford, and Grenville. Some historians have observed that they and their monarch were somewhat more moderate with respect to America than has been generally recognized. Nevertheless, this new group of officeholders, including Charles Townshend and the 3rd earl of Hillsborough, supplied impetus in the ministry of “All the Talents” toward a second attempt to tax the colonists for revenue and also toward the use of the army for repression in America. Although Pitt’s friend, Augustus Henry Fitzroy, 3rd duke of Grafton, continued as its head until 1770, Pitt’s people never actually controlled the ministry. Their leader was too sick to supply leadership and resigned from the cabinet in 1768. Except for the earl of Shelburne, they did not very vigorously protest against governmental measures that brought on a second Anglo-American crisis.

The Townshend duties

The Grafton ministry adopted an energetic American policy, thanks in part to Townshend, who pushed through Parliament in the spring of 1767 his famous duties on tea, glass, lead, and papers. These import taxes were forthrightly declared to be for the purpose of raising revenue. Thus, Townshend revived a great constitutional issue without hope of collecting more than a small fraction of the funds necessary to maintain the army in America. Moreover, the first proceeds from the duties were to be used to pay the salaries of British officials in America, toward buttressing British authority there, rather than to defray military expenses. Townshend was also responsible for an act setting up an American Board of Customs Commissioners, which zealously functioned at Boston after November 1767.

The Grafton ministry further antagonized the colonists by securing the passage, in May 1767, of the Suspending Act, which prohibited the New York legislature from conducting any further business until it complied with the provisions of the Quartering Act. In addition, three more admiralty courts were created in 1768, at Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston. In the spring of that year, the same ministry established a new western limit upon American expansion, a boundary described in part by the courses of the Ohio and Kanawha rivers; it permitted settlement well beyond the Proclamation Line of 1763.

Much more serious was a cabinet decision, announced simultaneously, to redistribute the army in America. Its commander in chief, Gen. Thomas Gage, had hitherto employed it against the colonists on only one occasion. In 1765 he had ordered a detachment at Fort Pitt to drive away pioneers who had settled beyond the Proclamation Line of 1763. He had carefully avoided using troops against the Stamp Act rioters, although he had brought 450 men into the settlements in order to make a show of strength in the event that American resistance became rebellion. By 1768 the stationing of large numbers of British troops in the settled parts of the colonies was risky. Nevertheless, toward securing economy and efficiency, the army in America was reduced to 15 regiments, and Gage was ordered to station “large bodies, in the provinces of Quebec, Nova Scotia, East Florida and in the middle colonies…to serve effectually upon any emergency whatever.” In consequence, Gage’s army was concentrated on the eastern coast of North America. The phrase “any emergency whatever” included one in which British soldiers would be used against the colonists.