detect if possible the smuggled goods, the Customhouse officers in 1761 applied to the Superior Court in Massachusetts to grant them writs of assistance.' These writs, which were frequently employed in England, and occasionally in the colonies, bore a great resemblance to the general warrants which soon after became so obnoxious in England. They were general writs authorising Custom-house officers to search any house they pleased for smuggled goods, and they were said to have been sometimes used for purposes of private annoyance. They appear, however, to have been perfectly legal, and if their employment was ever justifiable, it was in an attempt to put down a smuggling trade with the enemy in time of war. The issue of the warrants was resisted, though unsuccessfully, by the Boston merchants, and a young lawyer of some talent named James Otis, whose father had just been disappointed in his hopes of obtaining a seat upon the bench, signalised himself by an impassioned attack on the whole commercial code and on the alleged oppression of Parliament. His speech excited great enthusiasm in the colonies, and was afterwards regarded by John Adams and some others as the first step towards the Revolution.'

There were indeed already on all sides symptoms by which a careful observer might have foreseen that dangers were approaching. The country was full of restless military adventurers called into prominence by the

war.

The rapid rise of an ambitious legal profession and the great development of the Press made it certain

Otis tells a story of a man who possessed one of these writs, being sum noned by a judge for Sabbath-beaking and swearing, and avenging himself by searchIng the house of the judge from top to bottom.-Tudor's Life of

Otis, p. 67. A very full abstract of the great speech of Otis against the writs of assistance will be found in this work- a remarkable book from which I have derived much assistance. See, too, Adams Works, i. 57, 58, ii. 524, 525.

XI

GROWING DISSENSIONS.

49

that there would be abundant mouthpieces of discontent, and there was so much in the legal relations of England to her colonies that was anomalous, unsettled, or undefined, that causes of quarrel were sure to arise. The revenue laws were habitually violated. There was, in the Northern colonies at least, an extreme impatience of every form of control, and the Executive was almost powerless. The Government would gladly have secured for the judges in Massachusetts a permanent provision, which would place them in some degree beyond the control of the Assembly, but it found it impossible to carry it. The Assemblies of North Carolina and New York would gladly have secured for their judges a tenure of office during good behaviour, as in England, instead of at the King's pleasure, but the Home Government, fearing that this would still further weaken the Executive, gave orders that no such measure should receive the assent of the governors, and in New York the Assembly having refused on any other condition to vote the salaries of the judges, they were paid out of the royal quit rents.'

There were frequent quarrels between the governors and the Assemblies, and much violent language was employed. In 1762, on the arrival of some French ships off Newfoundland, the inhabitants of Massachusetts, who were largely employed in the fishery, petitioned the governor that a ship and sloop belonging to the province should be fitted out to protect their fishing boats. The governor and council complied with their request, and in order that the sloop should obtain rapidly its full complement of men he offered a bounty for enlistment. The whole expense of the bounty did not exceed 400%. The proceeding might be justified by many precedents, and it certainly wore no appearance of tyranny; but

'Bancroft, i. 502, 503. Grahame, iv. 87, 88.

!

Otis, who had been made one of the representatives of Boston as a reward for his incendiary speech about the writs of assistance, saw an opportunity of gaining fresk laurels. He induced the House to vote a remonstrance to the governor, declaring that he had invaded 'their most darling privilege, the right of originating taxes,' and that it would be of little consequence to the people whether they were subject to George the King of Great Britain or Lewis the French king if both were arbitrary, as both would be if both could levy taxes without Parliament.' It was with some difficulty that the governor prevailed on the House to expunge the passage in which the King's name was so disloyally intro

duced.1

The immense advantages which the colonists obtained by the Peace of Paris had no doubt produced even in the New England colonies an outburst of loyal gratitude, but the prospect was again speedily overclouded. The direction of colonial affairs passed into the hands of George Grenville, and that unhappy course of policy was begun which in a few years deprived England of the noblest fruits of the administration of Pitt.

Up to this time the North American colonies had in time of peace been in general almost outside the cognisance of the Government. As their affairs had no influence on party politics Parliament took no interest in them, and Newcastle, during his long administration, had left them in almost every respect absolutely to themselves. It was afterwards said by a Treasury official, who was intimately acquainted with the management of affairs, that 'Grenville lost America because he read the American despatches, which none of his predecessors had done.' The ignorance and neglect of all colonial matters can indeed hardly be exaggerated, and it is

1 Hutchinson, pp. 97, 98. Tudor's Life of Otis, pp. 118-122.

1

51

stated by a very considerable American authority, that letters had repeatedly arrived from the Secretary of State who was officially entrusted with the administration of the colonies, addressed to the Governor of the Island of New England.' America owed much to this ignorance and to this neglect; and England was so rich, and the colonies were long looked upon as so poor, that there was no disposition to seek anything more from America than was derived from a partial monopoly of her trade. But the position of England, as well as of America, was now wholly changed. Her empire had been raised by Pitt to an unprecedented height of greatness, but she was reeling under a national debt of nearly 140 millions. Taxation was greatly increased. Poverty and distress were very general, and it had become necessary to introduce a spirit of economy into all parts of the administration, to foster every form of revenue, and if possible, to diffuse over the gigantic empire a military burden which was too great for one small island. There is reason to believe that in the ministry of Bute, Charles Townshend and his colleagues had already contemplated a change in the colonial system, that they desired to reduce the colonial governments to a more uniform system, to plant an army in America, and to support it by colonial taxes levied by the British Parliament, and that it was only the briefness of their tenure of office that prevented their scheme from coming to maturity." When Grenville succeeded to power on the fall of Bute, he took up the design, and his thorough knowledge of all the details of office, his impatience of any kind of neglect,

Otis, Rights of the British Colonies asserted (3rd ed. 1766), p. 37.

• See Knox's Extra-official Papers, ii. 29. Almon's Biographical Anecdotes, ii. 81-83.

Bedford Correspondence, iii. 210 Walpole's George III. iii. 32. Mr. Bancroft has collected with great industry all the extant evidence of this plan.

abuse, and illegality, as well as his complete want of that political tact which teaches statesmen how far they may safely press their views, foreshadowed a great change in colonial affairs. He resolved to enforce strictly the trade laws, to establish permanently in America a portion of the British army, and to raise by parliamentary taxation of America at least a part of the money which was necessary for its support.

These three measures produced the American Revolution, and they are well worthy of a careful and dispassionate examination. The enormous extent of American smuggling had been brought into clear relief during the war, when it had assumed a very considerable military importance, and as early as 1762 there were loud complaints in Parliament of the administration of the Custom-house patronage. Grenville found on examination that the whole revenue derived by England from the custom-houses in America amounted to between 1,000l. and 2,000l. a year; that for the purpose of collecting this revenue the English Exchequer paid annually between 7,000l. and 8,000l., and that the chief Custom-house officers appointed by the Crown had treated their offices as sinecures, and by leave of the Treasury resided habitually in England. Great portions of the trade laws had been systematically violated. Thus, for example, the colonists were allowed by law to import no tea except from the mother country, and it was computed that of a million and a half pounds of tea which they annually consumed, not more than a tenth part came from England. This neglect Grenville resolved to terminate. The Commissioners of Customs were ordered at once to

1 Grenville Papers, ii. 114.

Bancroft, ii. 178. See, too, Massachusettensis, Letter iii. According to Sabine, 'Nine-tenths probably of all the tea, wine and

fruit, sugar and molasses, consumed in the colonies, were smuggled.'-Sabine's American Loyalists, i. 12.