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 The Boston merchants and the non-importa 
 
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 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030152437 
 
THE BOSTON MERCHANTS 
 
 AND THE 
 
 NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES M. ANDREWS 
 
THE BOSTON MERCHANTS 
 
 AND THE 
 
 NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES M. ANDREWS 
 
 REPRINTED FROM 
 
 THE PUBLICATIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 i^lje Colonial M>ocitt^ of ^&e&uc})u<sme 
 
 Vol. XIX 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON 
 
 EantoKBttB Press 
 
 1917 
 
THE BOSTON MERCHANTS 
 
 AND THE 
 
 NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 
 
 The mercantile activities of such prominent colonial towns as 
 Boston, Newport, New York, and Philadelphia are factors to be 
 reckoned with in colonial history, for the mercantile houses and or- 
 ganizations were the American agencies concerned with the promo- 
 tion of trade and commerce, and the trading interests of British 
 merchants had a decided influence upon the governmental policies 
 of the day and often directed the actions of council and parliament. 
 Trade, in itself considered, may be deemed a sordid human activity, 
 lacking the glamor of war and diplomacy, a selfish pursuit, drab and 
 unadorned, but it is one of the highly developed organic functions 
 of the social system, representative of a more advanced stage of 
 social evolution than is agriculture, and in its operations offering 
 many explanations of historical events, the causes of which have 
 frequently been sought elsewhere. The doctrines and enterprises 
 of the merchants of the eighteenth century, both in England and 
 America, are conspicuous to a noteworthy degree, and often play a 
 leading part in determining our external relations, but they do not 
 
160 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 become historically visible until the period immediately preceding 
 the Revolution, when they take on great political importance. They 
 are apt to be passed over, however, with only a brief mention in our 
 histories. Sons of Liberty and Committees of Correspondence find 
 ample recognition, but where will one discover any attempt to glorify 
 the origins of our Chambers of Commerce? Yet the latter deserve as 
 careful a study as do the former, for many of them arose out of an 
 organized effort to meet the difficulties which we 'were called upon 
 to face in our controversy with the mother country. 
 
 Boston from early times was the home of merchants, who as 
 business men, adventurous spirits, and writers on trade became 
 prominent in colonial history. Zachariah Gillam and his son Ben- 
 jamin, John Nelson, Samuel Waldo, Charles Lidgett, Thomas 
 Banister, Joshua Gee, Andrew Belcher, Sr., Charles Apthorp, and 
 others were leaders in activities that carried them beyond the con- 
 fines of the colony into the larger commercial world. But there is 
 no special reason to think that during this early period they and 
 their fellow merchants acted together in any organized fashion for 
 the protection or promotion of trade. Protests there were and 
 community of action in regard to custom-house affairs, and it is 
 possible that even before 1751 they had begun to meet in a more or 
 less regular way for the advancement of their common interests, 
 but of continued and concerted cooperation there is no sign. 
 
 About 1750, however, in the days when Sir Harry Frankland was 
 collector of the port on the British establishment, friction arose 
 owing to the latter's fondness for seizing ships concerned in illegal 
 trade, and we find a petition signed by fifty-three of the merchants 
 of Boston, protesting against a proposed appointment to the court 
 of vice-admiralty. The period was one of concern to the traders, 
 some of whom had suffered from royal impressments and all had 
 been outvoted in town meetings, where, as Shirley claimed, it was 
 irksome for them to attend, and they had fallen into the convenient 
 habit of petition in matters which directly concerned their interests. 
 It was at this time that they began to gather in the front room 
 toward the Long Wharf of the British Coffee House, the tavern kept 
 by Cordis and Mrs. Cordis ' on the north side of King Street, to 
 
 ' Cord Cordis married (for his second wife) Hannah Jones (widow of Fhiathan 
 Jones), October 2, 1740; and died at Concord, aged 63, July 29, 1772. His 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 161 
 
 consider questions of trade. How often these meetings were held 
 we cannot say. Probably then, as later, this Merchants' Club met 
 frequently, informally, and without call, the members dropping in 
 when they liked, and varying in number from half a dozen to twenty- 
 five or thirty according to the weather, other engagements, and the 
 exigencies of trading conditions. No records were kept and no 
 references are to be found to the meetings.^ 
 
 But in 1763, the need of more definite organization was felt. The 
 end of the long war had come, peace had been anticipated for many 
 months, the terms of the settlement had been in a measure already 
 made known, and fears had been aroused of a renewal of the Molasses 
 Act, which was due to expire in that year. Consequently on AprU 
 14, 1763, the members of the Club came together and resolved to 
 organize themselves into a Society.^ They appointed a committee 
 to draw up "some general rules and orders for their government" 
 and a few days later this committee reported the following articles : 
 
 That the Company form themselves into a Society, by the name 
 of The Society for encouraging Trade and Commerce within the Prov- 
 ince of Massachusetts Bay 
 
 That this Society shall consist of Merchants and others concerned in 
 Commerce and of any other Persons of Ability and Knowledge in Trade 
 who may be desirous to encourage the same, 
 
 That there shall be a General Meeting of the Society sometime in 
 the month of April or May annually, to consider the state of Trade and 
 
 widow died in London in 1779. (Boston Record Commissioners' Reports, 
 xxviii. 214; Wyman, Genealogies and Estate of Charlestown, i. 240; Boston 
 News Letter, August 6, 1772.) 
 
 ' It is more than likely that the Club was behind the movement of 1761 to 
 oppose the writs of assistance and to break down the whole vice-admiralty sys- 
 tem in Boston. Two of its members, Harrison Gray, treasurer of the province, 
 and John Erving, one of the council, were plaintiffs in suits before the common 
 law courts against vice-admiralty officials, which were designed, as Governor 
 Bernard said, "to destroy the court of admiralty and with it the custom house 
 which cannot subsist without it." (Colonial Office, 5:891, LI 67, 68; Beer, 
 British Colonial Policy, 1754r-1765, pp. 119-123.) 
 
 2 In the original document the year is not given, and there is no mention of 
 the founding of the Society in contemporary newspapers or diaries, but as John 
 Hammock, Jr., one of the signers, died January 7, 1764 (Boston Gazette, Jan- 
 uary 16, 1764), and John Simpson, another of the signers, died June 30, 1764, 
 while on his way from Fayalto Philadelphia (ibid. July 30, 1764), the year must 
 be 1763. Furthermore the object of the Society was to prevent the renewal 
 of the Molasses Act, and we have records of its activity in December, 1763. 
 
162 THE COLONUL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 to determine upon any matters relative thereto that shall be laid before 
 them, and that the particular Day of such meeting shall be appointed 
 by the Standing Committee for the time being. 
 
 That at the General Meeting a Chairman shall be chosen by written 
 vote (the greatest number of Votes to determine the choice) whose 
 Business shall be to moderate at the meeting and put the questions, to 
 be determined by vote. At such meeting a clerk also shall be chosen to 
 minute down the Proceedings and record the votes of the Society. 
 
 That business may be carried on with greater decency and order, any 
 Member who may have anything to propose, shall address himself to 
 the Chairman and care shall be taken to avoid, as much as possible, all 
 Party disputes and every thing that may tend in any measure to dissolve 
 the Union of the Society, or to interrupt the good harmony which ought 
 to subsist among the members of it. 
 
 That at the General Meeting annually, there shall be a Standing Com- 
 mittee chosen, consisting of [fifteen '] of whom [9 ^] shall be a quorum. 
 The Members of which Committee shall be chosen singly by written 
 vote, the majority of voters to determine the choice. 
 
 That the Committee shall meet together Monthly (or oftener, if 
 they see cause) to consult upon the affairs of Trade, to take notice of 
 anything which may be judged prejudicial to it, and to receive any 
 Proposals that may be made for its advantage; and shall make Report 
 of the same to the General Meeting, to be acted upon there as shall be 
 judged proper. 
 
 That the Standing Committee (if they think there is sufficient reason 
 therefor) may occasionally call a General Meeting of the Society at 
 which Meeting the Business shall be regulated and carried on, in the 
 same manner as at the stated annual meetings. 
 
 That upon Request in writing subscribed by Twenty or more of the 
 members (without assigning any special reason) the Committee shall 
 call a General Meeting. 
 
 That the Committee, either in the Public News Papers or some other 
 way, as they shall judge most proper, shall cause notice to be given of 
 the Time and Place of the General Meetings two days at least before 
 the Same. 
 
 That any Persons of other Towns in the Province who are friends to 
 Trade and desirous to advance the interest thereof, and who may be in - 
 Tewft 2 at any Time when the Standing Committee meets, may be in- 
 vited to be present with them. 
 
 ' In another hand. 
 
 ' Crossed out in the original. 
 
1917] BOSTON MEHCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 163 
 
 l^at-if-a jiy of the gtstnd ing Committee ahould booomc a Member or 
 MeHtbers-of-^e-GeBeral-Ge iirt, be or they shall thenceforth cease to be 
 of th e Committoo. ^ 
 
 That at every General Meeting each member present shall before he 
 departs leave with the Clerk [a pistareen ^] or whatever the Company 
 shall deem sufEcient in order to defray the Expences of the Meeting: and 
 the Clerk shall account with the Society for what he receives. 
 
 That the Tavern Expences of Committees shall be born by themselves, 
 but all other charges which may be incur'd for the Service of the Society, 
 shall be defreyed by the whole [an account of which shall be laid before 
 the Society at their annual meeting^]. 
 
 That every person who shall subscribe his name to the foregoing arti- 
 cles shall be deemed a member of the Society.' 
 
 These articles are signed by one hundred and forty-six merchants, 
 a number of whom must have been members of the Merchants' Club 
 for many years, while others were doubtless sons of those who in 
 1750 had signed the petition to the Treasury. Two at least were 
 from distant towns, one from Nantucket and one from Falmouth 
 (Portland). In the years that followed, many others joined the So- 
 ciety, while some of those whose names are recorded doubtless fell 
 away in the strenuous days of the non-importation controversy. 
 
 Thus the organization of the merchants took on three forms. 
 First, the Club, an informal body, which had been in existence since 
 1751, meeting regularly at the British Coffee House, the Bunch of 
 Grapes, or less frequently at the [Admiral] Vernon's Head,^ and 
 there indulging in much talk and considerable liquor, wine and 
 punch, for which each person paid his own charge,^ and there too 
 having debates and controversies over trade, sometimes acrimonious." 
 The members dropped in as they pleased, always in the evening, and 
 there were rarely present less than five, or more than twelve. There 
 
 1 Crossed out in the original, with a marginal note "not passed." 
 
 ' In another hand. 
 
 3 Massachusetts Historical Society, 02517, a collection of papers originating 
 with the Society for the Promotion of Trade and Commerce and gathered by 
 Edward Payne, secretary of its Standing Committee. 
 
 < Drake, Old Boston Taverns, pp. 33-38, 38-39, 55, and Appendix. 
 
 5 Rowe, Diary, March 25, 1767. 
 
 « William MoKneux was one of the chief offenders: see Rowe, February 11, 
 1768, and Drake, pp. 41-43, for a Molineux-Otis anecdote. MoUneux was known 
 and disliked as an agitator. , 
 
164 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 was no formal procedure or taking of minutes, though sometimes an 
 understanding was reached to request the Committee to meet and 
 consider some important business. Among those recorded as at- 
 tending most frequently, during the period from 1764 to 1770, are 
 Josiah Winslow, Harrison Gray, Thomas Gray, John Boylston, 
 Nicholas Boylston, Edward Payne, Captain Davis, John Erving, Jr., 
 William Molineux, Melatiah Bourne, Samuel Hughes, Thomas 
 Brattle, James Otis, James Perkins, Isaac Smith, Jeremiah Gridley, 
 Ezekiel Goldthwait, James Warden, and Benjamin Hallowell. Some 
 of those attending stayed only an hour, while others remained for 
 the greater part of the evening. Secondly, the Standing Committee 
 of fifteen members, of whona nine constituted a quorum, which met 
 at one of the taverns, monthly or oftener, if necessary, considered the 
 general conditions of trade and prepared business for the larger 
 body. The hour was usually, but not always, in the morning. John 
 Rowe was the first chairman and Josiah Winslow his successor, and 
 Edward Payne was secretary. The membership included Thomas 
 Cushing, John Hancock, Thomas Gray, John Erving,. Jr., William 
 Phillips, Deacon John Barrett, and others whose names have not 
 been preserved. At these meetings states of the trade were drawn 
 up, grievances presented, and remedies contrived, and decisions were 
 reached to call a general meeting at a certain time and date. No 
 minutes were kept, as far as the evidence goes to show, but the secre- 
 tary took down the main conclusions, making rough drafts which he 
 afterwards copied out in fair hand. The members of the Committee, 
 as of the Club, bore their own tavern expenses, but charges arising 
 from business undertaken in the interest of the Society as a whole 
 was met from the common purse.^ Thirdly, the General Meeting, 
 or as it was also called, the Whole Body, the Body, or the Trade, 
 which met annually under the rules, probably in May ,2 and had a 
 
 ^ Thomas Gray and Edward Payne had been instructed to draft a state of 
 the trade in 1763, and to make every effort possible to prevent a renewal of the 
 Molasses Act. In doing so, they incurred considerable expense, for which under 
 the rules of the Society they should have been reimbursed. That this was not 
 done appears from their statement to the Committee in January, 1766, that even 
 "if the Society that remains should pay them half a dollar each for the purpose 
 aforesaid there would even then be a deficit" (Massachusetts Historical Society, 
 02517). 
 
 2 Boston Evening Post, May 14, 1764: "The annual meeting of the Society 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 165 
 
 dinner; but in the years from 1766 to 1771 it met much more fre- 
 quently, though we cannot always tell whether a meeting was 
 composed of the members of the Society, the subscribers to the agree- 
 ments, or the merchants and traders at large, that is, the merchants 
 and traders and others concerned in trade, as the phrase went. That 
 the Society suffered diminution of numbers after the Stamp Act 
 controversy is evident, but how far this affected its procedure and 
 activities is not clear. For a subscribers' meeting, notices were sent 
 out on little printed slips, varying in size at different times, evidently 
 according to the printer's convenience, signed by the chairman of 
 the Committee and addressed to the subscriber.^ For an open meet- 
 ing, the call was sometimes published in the newspapers and some- 
 times announced on printed slips without signature or address. As 
 far as recorded the numbers present at these meetings varied greatly. 
 From thirty to one hundred were present at the subscribers' meet- 
 ings, and we are told that as many as a thousand attended an open 
 meeting at Faneuil Hall. At the meetings special committees were 
 appointed ^ . and resolutions adopted. John Rowe, from whose 
 diary ^ we obtain considerable information about these various meet- 
 ings, was a zealous attendant until the excesses of the non-importa- 
 tion party, in 1769 and 1770, dampened his enthusiasm and curtailed 
 his attendance, and for a time he ceased to go altogether. On the 
 occasion of an iaiportant meeting, April 25, 1770, he had gone 
 fishing. 
 
 The society thus organized for the promoting of trade and com- 
 merce was the first board of trade for the city of Boston, and was the 
 forerunner of the Chamber of Commerce founded in 1785. Its 
 
 for encouraging Trade and Commerce will be held this evening at the British 
 Coffee House. The members are desired to give their attendance." 
 
 1 Massachusetts Historical Society, Broadsides. 
 
 " Such as that of March 1, 1768, to correspond with merchants in other trad- 
 ing towns and provinces and consisting of John Hancock, John Rowe, Edward 
 Payne, William PhiUips, Thomas Boylston, Arnold Welles, Melatiah Bourne, Hen- 
 derson Inches, and John Erving, Jr. A committee was also appointed to pre- 
 pare a list of those articles which it might be thought necessary to import, and 
 there were doubtless many others. 
 
 ' This diary was first published, with some omissions, in 2 Proceedings Massa- 
 chusetts Historical Society, x. 60-108; later in a separate volume (caUed Letters 
 and Diary) edited by Mrs. Cunningham, in more complete form. I have been 
 carefully over the original manuscript and obtained therefrom much additional 
 information regarding the meetings and those who were present at them. 
 
166 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 origin was probably due to the reports, sent to the colony by the 
 agent, Jasper Mauduit, of new proposals regarding trade under con- 
 sideration in England, and probably also to warnings given to the 
 merchants in Boston by their correspondents in England, who were 
 always prompt to discover whatever was mooted in Board of Trade, 
 Privy Council, or parliament likely to affect the American trade. 
 Charles Townshend was appointed first lord of trade on February 
 23, 1763, but it is unlikely that letters announcing his policy could 
 have been received in Boston before April 14 and so have influenced 
 the founding of the Society on that date. As the immediate purpose 
 of the Society was to prevent the renewal of the Molasses Act, its 
 first task was to draft a "State of the Trade," in which the bur- 
 dens of that act, as far as they concerned New England, should be 
 adequately presented. The business was placed in the hands of 
 Thomas Gray and Edward Payne, as a sub-committee of the Stand- 
 ing Committee, who entered into correspondence with the merch- 
 ants of Marblehead, Salem, and Plymouth, requesting them to fur- 
 nish information about the fishery and to send committees to consult 
 with the sub-committee in Boston.^ In consequence of the infor- 
 mation thus received, the Society in December, 1763, drew up a 
 memorial, containing a statement of reasons, and presented it to 
 the General Coiul. Marblehead, Salem, and Plymouth each did 
 the same.^ The General Court referred the four memorials to a 
 
 ' The New York merchants were equally active at this time. In February, 
 1764, they assembled in the Long Room of Bum's tavern, which as a mer- 
 chants' meeting place corresponded to the British Coffee House in Boston, and 
 appointed a conunittee to prepare a memorial to the assem'oly of the province, 
 representing the decline of trade and the distresses of the merchants and traders 
 of the city. This committee, which may be the same as that noted below, p. 174 
 note 2, wrote to Philadelphia advising the merchants there of their intention of 
 "heartily joining the eastern governments in sohciting a discontinuance of the 
 most unjust of aU laws, the Sugar Act," and of requesting the assembly to in- 
 struct the agent in England "to go hand in hand with the other governments." 
 Apparently the merchants of Rhode Island did the same, for the assembly there 
 in February, 1764, ordered a memorial regarding the duties on sugar, molasses, 
 etc., "to be sent to Mr. Agent Sherwood" (Boston Gazette, February 13, 1764; 
 Boston Evening Post, March 26, 1764). It would be interesting to know more 
 about this early instance of cooperation among the merchants. I owe these 
 references to Miss Viola F. Barnes, who made the search for me. 
 
 ^ Massachxisetts Historical Society, 02517, no. 17. Memorial of Merchants 
 and Traders of Boston, "That a certain Act of Parliament in the sixth year of 
 his late Majesty's reign, generally known by the name of the Sugar Act IMo- 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 167 
 
 committee of both houses, with instructions to prepare a letter to 
 Mauduit, which was done. On February 10th, the merchants for- 
 warded their statement, with a letter, to the regular agent, Wil- 
 liam BoUan, and at the same time transmitted copies to all the 
 neighboring colonies and placed two hundred and fifty in the 
 hands of the merchants of London for distribution. Bollan re- 
 ceived the letter on April 10th, five days after the Sugar Act became 
 a law. The "State of the Trade" he never received at all, so that 
 the first effort of the Society to meet the new British policy ended in 
 failure.^ 
 
 lasses Act], being near Expiring, they have the greatest reason to expect that the 
 W. Indian planters will use their utmost endeavours to procvu-e the renewal of it" 
 (Massachusetts Archives, Court Records, xxv. 100. Memorial of Merchants 
 and Traders of Plymouth, xxv. 100; of Marblehead, xxv. 109; of Salem, xxv. 
 114). Unfortunately the General Court proceedings, from December 21, 1763, 
 to January 24, 1764, with all supplemental papers, were bxu'nt in the &e which 
 destroyed Harvard HaU on the night of January 24, 1764, where the assembly 
 was sitting on account of the epidemic of smaU-pox in Boston. These letters 
 and memorials were among the papers lost. But the committee was instructed 
 to recover what it could, to prepare a letter to Mauduit during the recess of the 
 assembly, and to place it in the hands of the Secretary for despatch (xxv. 143, 
 152-153, 194). 
 
 1 The text of the "State" probably contairied the following sections: 
 
 One principal branch of the trade of this province is the fishing carried on to 
 the Banks; in this branch there is upwards of 300 vessels employed, besides a 
 great number of small boats in the Bay, and in the Maokrel Fishing about 90, 
 the Fish these vessels cure, with the pickled Fish and Liver Oyl amounts to up- 
 wards of £160,000 stg. per annum; — about % of this Bank Fish tiu^s out 
 merchantable and is sent to Spain, Portugal, and Italy, the net proceeds of which 
 with the freight is remitted to Great Britain; the other % being such as is over- 
 salted, sunburnt, and broken, and thereby rendered unfit for any market in 
 Europe is sent to the Islands in the West Indies, first to the English Islands, 
 which cant consume more than %, the remaining % is sent to the French foreign 
 islands, in return for which we receive Molasses and a small proportion of ordi- 
 nary sugars. This valuable branch of trade and nursery of seamen almost if not 
 wholly depends on our trade to the foreign islands in the West Indies (as we can- 
 not cure fish for the European market separate from the other sort sent to the 
 West Indies) and as we have no other Market for what is made by the Bankers, 
 it will be lost if not sent to the foreign islands in the West] Indies and this loss 
 must infallibly destroy the whole bank fishing. 
 
 Another considerable branch of our trade is lumber of all kinds which is sent 
 to the West Indies, also provisions, horses, onions, and many other articles 
 suitable for the West Indies, in which trade there is upwards of 300 vessels em- 
 ployed in this province. Most of these vessels caU first at the EngUsh islands (who 
 
168 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [EeB. 
 
 I 
 
 II 
 
 From 1764 to 1768, except for a brief period following the date 
 for the enforcement of the Stamp Act, the members of the Mer- 
 chants' Society devoted themselves very largely to the one great 
 task of convincing the authorities in England that the new acts of 
 revenue and trade were not only a burden to the colonies but a menace 
 to Great Britain herself. They endeavored to show, in all sincerity, 
 that the acts of 1764, 1765, and 1766 were certain to obstruct trade 
 and in the end to ruin it, and that whatever threatened the pros- 
 perity of America threatened that of Great Britain also, affecting 
 the well-being of the British merchant and the revenue accruing to 
 the British Exchequer. 
 
 They began by saying that the colonies were able to pay for British 
 manufactures in only three ways: either by what they produced 
 
 consume but a small proportion of what we export). When they are supplied, 
 the remainder is carried to the foreign islands. 
 
 Some oak timber and staves are sent to Ireland, some to Madeira and the West- 
 em Islands to purchase wines, and some few cargoes are sent to Spain, Portugal, 
 and England, but none to any foreign port to the N° of Cape Finisterre; as the 
 first cost of these cargoes of lumber is very small, the whole profits are no more 
 than a freight for the vessel, but this freight is a great encouragement to ship- 
 building, a very considerable branch of trade in this province, where there has 
 
 been upwards of built in a year, before the late embarrassments were laid 
 
 on our trade since w* this number has been reduced %. 
 
 Some of these ships with fish, oyl, potash and naval stores are sent direct to 
 Europe, but chiefly to the West Indies with liunber, fish, and other articles of 
 our produce, the proceeds of which with the freight to England, together with the 
 vessel, are remitted to Great Britain to pay for the goods we receive from thence, 
 and by having timber plenty and building so many vessels we become carriers for 
 all other parts of America besides the trade to the West Indies. Many of our 
 ships go to Virginia, N° and S° Carolina, where they carry large quantities of 
 rum and other northern produce to purchase rice, tobacco, and naval stores, 
 and take in freight for Great Britain where the Proceeds of the whole and 
 indeed of all our trade centers (Massachusetts Historical Society, 02517). 
 
 I have not had access to a copy of the "State" of 1763, if such exists. Probably 
 that sent to the General Assembly was lost in the fire. The figures given above 
 correspond to those furnished by Marblehead and Salem, and the statement above, 
 though containing a reference to the Sugar Act of 1764, and so actually written 
 after that date, is likely to be nothing more than the earlier one adapted to a new 
 need. Many such "States" were drafted between 1763 and 1769 and the same 
 wording appears throughout. New "States" are simply old "States" added to. 
 See below, p. 172 note 1. 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 169 
 
 among themselves, by what they caught out of the sea, or by the 
 money or commodities obtained in "a circuity of commerce abroad," 
 and they argued that whatever diminished this purchasing power, 
 by lessening the trade of the colonies or otherwise, was bound to be 
 prejudicial to Great Britain.^ This lessening of the trade was seen 
 in the restrictions imposed on the export of foreign sugar (from the 
 foreign West India islands) and on the liberty to export, after being 
 warehoused in a colonial port, directly to a foreign market, such 
 as Holland, Hamburg, or Petersburg. Were such restrictions re- 
 moved, they said, it would encourage colonial trade in foreign sugars, 
 which might in time become considerable and increase the remit- 
 tances to Great Britain, "whereas under the present regulations 
 none will ever be brought here [Boston] in order to be reported to a 
 foreign market in Europe." They objected to the restraints placed 
 upon the molasses trade, which "is a great spring to every branch of 
 business among us, such as the fishing, the lumber trade, and ship- 
 building, because molasses is distilled into rum, as well as our trade 
 to Africa." ^ They likewise objected to the restraints placed upon 
 
 ^ In studying the grievances of the New England merchants we must iiemember 
 that New England had four particular forms of economic activity — agriculture, 
 fishing, commerce, and manufactures, in the last three of which she was the rival 
 of Great Britaia. The southern colonies and the West Indies had neither manu- 
 factures, commerce, nor fisheries. See American Husbandry, i. 434^435, ii. 236- 
 245. 
 
 James Bowdoin wrote to Alexander Mackay, November 29, 1770: "What is 
 remitted to England is by a circuitous trade, and principally from Spain & 
 Portugal, aU which added to the numerous articles of their own and foreign prod- 
 uce sent by them to Britain is scarcely sufficient to pay for what they import 
 from thence. Whatever, therefore, is taken from them as revenue not only so far 
 prevents the paying the debt due to Britain, but operates to the discouragement 
 and lessening of their general trade, upon which their ability to pay that debt 
 and continue that importation depends" (6 Massachusetts Historical Collections, 
 ix. 242). 
 
 Franklin wrote to Peter Collinson, April 30, 1764; "We are in yeur hands as 
 Clay in the Hands of the Potter and so in more particulars than is generally con- 
 sidered, for as the Potter cannot waste or spoil his Clay without injuring himself 
 BO I think there is scarce anything you can do that may be hurtful to us, but what 
 will be as much or more so to you. Does anybody see that if you confine us in Amer- 
 ica to your own Sugar Islands for that commodity, it must raise the price of it in 
 England. Just so much as the price advances, so much is every Englishman 
 tax'd to the West Indies" (British Museum, Add. MSS. 37021, f. 21). 
 
 » WUliam Barrell proposed to ship sugar from St. Croix to Boston, consigned 
 to his brother Joseph Barrell. The latter warned him that the duties must be 
 
170 THE COLONIAX SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 the export of foreign logwood, which was obtained "by small car- 
 goes of provisions produced among us, together with some British 
 manufactures, which has employed many vessels, but now being 
 obliged to carry it first to England, it will incur heavy expences by 
 reason of its bulk, and so there will be an end to this business." 
 They asked for direct importation of oranges, lemons, and all kinds 
 of fruit, as also oil consumed in the fisheries, partly to save the great 
 expense, port charges, and delay involved in stopping at an English 
 port, and partly to avoid the danger to perishable articles of a long 
 voyage. The expense, they said, exceeded the amount of the duty, 
 and delays destroyed a commodity which had "become almost a 
 necessity for the health and comfort of the inhabitants of North 
 America." They hoped that parliament would permit the direct 
 importation of the wines of Spain and Portugal also, because the 
 supply of wine from Madeira and the Azores had become insuflS- 
 cient and the price very high, and they could always send their 
 pipe-staves in exchange. They asked to be relieved of the prohibi- 
 tion to send flaxseed,^ lumber, and potash to Ireland. 
 
 Above all, the merchants objected to the multiplicity of bonds 
 required by these acts, in addition to those required by the acts of 
 1660 and 1672, particularly the bond that lumber should not be landed 
 in any part of Europe north of Cape Finisterre, except Great Britain, 
 and that which prevented rum from being taken to the Isle of Man.* 
 
 paid ("if you ship anything it must undoubtedly pay the duty"), and said that 
 he would have to get the permission of the governor of the Danish island "which 
 he had never refused to give" (April 12, 1709, Barrell Papers, Library of Congress). 
 
 In a letter written to Jasper Mauduit, Nov. 24, 1764, and later sent to Richard 
 Jackson, an unknown correspondent (the Society?) emphasizes the fact that the 
 duties levied by the act of 1764 were a heavy drain on the colony, particularly 
 in the matter of molasses, because the French would suffer none to trade without 
 permits and these permits were very costly; the business had to be transacted by 
 Buch a person as they appointed, "who was allowed ten per cent for doing it, and 
 he charged the molasses as he-pleased and no questions must be asked" (Massa- 
 chusetts Historical Society, Massachusetts Papers, no. 1: not in the printed 
 collection). Barrell had great trouble with the Danish governor and finally failed 
 to get permission. The Society laid a great deal of stress on these points in its 
 statements. Compare my Anglo-French Commercial Bivahy (American His- 
 torical Review, July, 1915, xx. 763 note 6). 
 
 ' The sending of flaxseed to Ireland was a very important aspect of New York 
 and New England commerce at this time. The merchants said that the trade was 
 worth £40,000 a year. See Commerce of Rhode Island, i. passim. 
 
 ' The object of this bond was to prevent smuggling. Until 1765, the Isle of 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 171 
 
 They quoted instances of coasters giving upwards of twenty bonds in 
 a year, all or most of which were in force at the same time; and they 
 believed that parliament could hardly have foreseen the effect of the 
 acts upon the coasting trade of the colonies, or it would have realized 
 that the cost of the bonds and of the certificates needed to cancel 
 them would amount to more than the first cost of all the lumber 
 sent to Europe. They objected strongly to the unlimited powers 
 given to officers of the customs by the act of 1764, wherein the de- 
 fendant who lost the suit was entitled to no costs whatever, and to 
 only two pence damages in case he won a suit against an officer for 
 wrongful seizure, whereas if the officer won he recovered triple costs. 
 They objected to the extension of the powers of the vice-admiralty 
 courts, which were — 
 
 Empowered to seize any or all the ships or goods of the American 
 merchant at their leisure, and though they act ever so arbitrarily or un- 
 justly the merchant has no remedy, the officer not being subject to any 
 damage or even costs of suit; while the claimer, if he should be non 
 suited or discontinue his action must pay treble costs, if the judge of the 
 vice-admiralty-court shall say there was a probable cause of seizure, 
 which no doubt will always be the case, as not only the officers of the 
 customs but likewise the governor of the province, being interested in 
 those seizures, will always encourage and promote the same, and many 
 instances may be produced where both vessel and goods have been con- 
 demned as forfeited only for a mistake or neglect of the master when the 
 revenue has not been affected or any fraud intended, which severities are 
 not imposed on our Fellow subjects in Great Britain, where the Com- 
 missioners of the Customs settle all such mistakes where no fraud was 
 designed. 
 
 For this reason, the merchants declared, the whole trade of America 
 lay at the mercy of the officers of the customs and the judge of the 
 admiralty court. 
 
 Man had been controlled by private lords and in consequence smuggling had gone 
 on to such an extent as to call for governmental interference. The custom-house 
 books of western Scottish ports, notably those of Ayr, show the extent of this 
 clandestine running of rum to Great Britain. In 1765 parliament bought out 
 the governmental rights of the proprietaries, the Duke of AthoU and others, for 
 £70,000, and immediately passed acts regulating the trade of the island. Under 
 these acts the colonists were forbidden to carry rum to the Isle of Man and were 
 required to give a bond not to do so. (5 George III, cc. 26, 39 sections 5, 6, C. 43.) 
 
172 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 Besides the bonds, said the merchants, every master of a vessel, 
 even coasters, had to take out a sufferance and a cocquet for every 
 article he took on board, and in case he took any goods for which 
 bond was required he had to have a certificate from the collector of 
 his having given bond, and in case he neglected to take out such 
 certificate, not only the goods but even the vessel and the rest of 
 the cargo were forfeited. Before a cocquet could be taken out for 
 any goods (even of British manufacture), an oath must be taken by 
 whom and in what vessel the article intended to be exported was 
 imported, a thing often impossible. They protested against the 
 "great expence and needless trouble accruing to the Trade by means 
 of a naval officer," who had been appointed originally "for the in- 
 spection of trade and the prevention of irregularities and abuses 
 therein," when there were no officers of custom in America, and they 
 begged that this ofiicial be dispensed with.^ 
 
 These were the essential features of the grievances of the merchants, 
 which as we can well believe were debated nightly in the rooms at 
 Mrs. Cordis's or Colonel Joseph IngersoU's or Mr. Thomas Hub- 
 bard's, and given more orderly form at the meetings of the Standing 
 Committee. They constituted the chief objections thus far agreed 
 upon for inclusion in the " Proposals to the Parliament for the Regu- 
 lation of the American Trade," which Thomas Cushing told Dennys 
 De Berdt, the special agent for Massachusetts appointed in 1765, 
 were being prepared by a committee of Boston merchants.^ But, as 
 it happened, the proposals were not sent in that year. Two new sub- 
 jects for consideration came up that constituted serious grievances in 
 the eyes of the merchants of New England. In the act of 1766, the 
 duty on molasses was reduced to a penny a gallon, but even this 
 reduction 'was not satisfactory, as the merchants wished the duty 
 removed entirely, and there can be no doubt that the concessions in 
 
 1 It is difficult to disentangle and classify these various drafts framed by the 
 Standing Committee. No. 26 seems to be of date 1764, with additions of 1767^ 
 no. 27 must be of date later than 1766; no. 54 is the first draft of no. 39, which 
 was probably that sent to De Berdt; while nos. 52, 53, 58-60, 65-67, 74, were 
 probably notes used in making up no. 39, the last part of which is contained in 
 nos. 55 and 56. No. 31 is apparently the latest of aU, and was completed toward 
 the end of the year 1768, as it embodies all the claims made since 1763. Nos. 
 68-70 may be the original draft of no. 31. 
 
 2 Thomas^Cushing to Dennys De Berdt, June 28, 1766 (Massachusetts Papers, 
 Seventy-Six Society Publications, no. 3, p. 15). 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-BIPORTATION MOVEMENT 173 
 
 this act and in that of 1765, upon which their friends and corre- 
 spondents in England sent them congratulations, were in their eyes 
 largely discounted by the many restrictions which embarrassed the 
 trade and caused great disappointment.^ 
 
 The second grievance of the year 1766 concerned the cod and whale 
 fishery, a capital article and of conspicuous national importance, 
 though deemed by many in England an "improper employment for 
 colonies and detrimental to the interests of the mother country." ^ 
 For years the New England fishermen had been charged with break- 
 ing the act to encourage the trade to Newfoundland,' with debauching 
 the British sailors with rum, rinding the standing timber of New- 
 foundland, running an ilhcit trade with the French there, carrying 
 off British seamen by offers of higher wages, and generally abusing 
 the freedom of the fishery, until it could be said that. there was "not 
 one old England ship [in the Labrador fishery] or seaman employed 
 therein nor a seaman raised thereby for the service of the fleet." * 
 With the appointment of Palliser as commodore-governor in 1764, the 
 Commissioners of Customs recommended an addition to his instruc- 
 tions calling for an enforcement of the law. Consequently Palliser 
 in 1765 began his attempt to check the activities of the New Eng- 
 land fishermen. For two years ^ these attempts continued until the 
 merchants could say that — 
 
 By the cruisers under this gentleman's command some [of the New 
 England vessels] have been plundered of what fish they had caught, 
 others have had their best hands pressed, the loss of whom was the oc- 
 casion of and ended in the entire loss of their vessels; on some they 
 have inflicted corporal punishment, but all that were in their way were 
 
 1 Massachusetts Papers, Seventy-Six Society Publications, no. 3, p. 29. 
 
 ' American Husbandry, ii. 245. 
 
 3 11 William III, c. 25. 
 
 * Acts of the Privy Coimcil, Colonial, vi. § 704. Cf . Calendar of State Papers, 
 Colonial, 1704-1705, § 116; representation of the Board of Trade, April 29, 1765, 
 Colonial Office, 195: 9, pp. 397-424; and the additional instructions to Palliser 
 of May 6, 1765, ibid. pp. 434r-436. Some of these orders are in the Book of Orders 
 and Proclamations by Governors of Newfoundland, Public Record Office, Admir- 
 alty, Greenwich Hospital, Miscellanea, Various, 121. 
 
 5 Palliser arrived, for the second time, on April 3, 1766, and began to issue rules, 
 orders, and regulations to be observed on the coast of Labrador. Under these 
 rules no New Englander was to take cod in the straits of BeUe Isle or off the coast 
 of Labrador. 
 
174 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [PeB. 
 
 drove off, by means of which their voyages were broken up and every 
 one was threatened with confiscation of vessel and effects, if they pre- 
 sumed to fish there another year.^ 
 
 When De Berdt wrote to Gushing in September, 1766, he said 
 that he had heard nothing from the merchants, so it is probable 
 that no letters passed between them until January, 1767. Then the 
 committee wrote, forwarding the petition that had been in prepa- 
 ration for several years. They characterized this petition as a 
 "representation of the difficulties which Trade s.till labors under by 
 means of some late Acts of Parliament." De Berdt had already 
 received a statement of grievances from the General Court of Massa- 
 chusetts and had laid them before Secretary Halifax, some time in 
 the early summer of 1765, but as Halifax was dismissed in July, he 
 repeated them in a larger memorandmn and sent them to Lord 
 Dartmouth, who was appointed &st lord of trade in the same month. 
 But it was not until January 17, 1767, that the Society sent over its 
 first petition. To this act it had been prompted by a letter from a 
 committee of the merchants of New York, dated November 24, 
 1766, saying that "the universal and concurrent opinions of the 
 principal merchants through the Continent, all uniting in material 
 points, must carry conviction," and that they hoped the Boston 
 merchants would not be "behindhand with [them] in their common 
 cause, but like Brethren and fellow-citizens [would] join with [them] 
 in promoting it, uninfluenced by sinister views or private interest." ^ 
 
 ' Massachusetts Historical Society, 02517, nos. 55, 56. See also Massachusetts 
 Papers, p. 40, where additional grievances regarding the fishery may be found. 
 In Massachusetts Historical Society, 02517, no. 65, is the following: "Mr. 
 Palliser posted an order in the Town House and sent for the masters of aU the 
 vessels belonging to the plantations, forbidding [them] to taxry at St, John's or 
 any of the other harbours after the last day of October [1766], and if any pre- 
 sum'd to tarry after that time they were to have their rudders talien off and 
 their sails carried into the Fort, and likewise sail masters to give bonds with 
 sioreties not to bring away any passengers. By which we are entirely excluded 
 from the Cod fishery." Cf. no. 74. 
 
 ^ The letter was addressed to James Otis, Benjamin Faneuil, Henry Lloyd 
 John Rowe, Samuel Hughes, and Stephen Greenleaf, and was signed by John 
 Cruger, John Alsop, James Jauncy, Walter PrankJin, Henry White, Richard 
 Yates, Isaac Sears, Robert Murray, G«rard Beekman, David Van Home, and 
 Elias Desbrosses (Massachusetts Historical Society, 02517, no. 30). For the 
 general situation in New York and for comments on the petition, see Becker 
 History of Political Parties in the Province of New York, 1760-1776, pp. 28-39. 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPOETATION MOVEMENT 175 
 
 Actuated by a desire to cooperate and feeling perhaps the need of 
 stating some of their particular grievances, for the New Yorkers said 
 nothing about the fishery, the Society sent its own petition to 
 De Berdt, signed by sixty names, headed by that of Josiah Winslow, 
 and embracing all the points that we have touched upon up to this 
 time. De Berdt, having remarked in his letter of March 9th that 
 "the New York petition had some warm expressions which gave 
 offence to the House," ^ and was ordered to lie on the table, could say 
 in that of March 14th that the Society's grievances were very well 
 stated and decently expressed.^ Some results were obtained, the 
 restrictions upon the Irish trade had already been removed, and 
 promises were given by Secretary Shelburne and by Commodore 
 Palliser, about to start on his summer cruise to Newfoundland, to 
 look into the grievances regarding the fishery. 
 
 But the subjects for debate at the Merchants' Club were not yet 
 complete. In June, 1767, parliament passed three acts, commonly 
 knowTi as the Townshend Acts: one creating a board of American 
 Customs Commissioners, with its seat in Boston, which was to exer- 
 cise in America the powers formerly possessed by the Commissioners 
 of Customs in England; a second, designated in this paper the Town- 
 shend Act, imposing duties on glass, lead, painters' colors, tea, and 
 paper; and a third making certain concessions to- the East India Com- 
 pany, which controlled the tea trade. The board, provided for in the 
 first act, was commissioned September 8, 1767, its members reached 
 Boston on November 5th, and held their first session on the 18th, 
 and it was not long before the merchants were ready with a crop of 
 new grievances. They complained of the great increase of restrictions 
 and embarrassments due to the frequent attendance demanded at 
 the collector's office, and the inevitable delays that accompanied it. 
 They objected strongly to the requirement imposed by the board 
 that each shipper make out an exact report of his cargo, without the 
 privilege of post-entries from day to day, as was allowed in Great 
 Britain, and they protested vehemently against the fees, particu- 
 larly from coasters, due to their being obliged to clear in the same 
 manner as vessels bound on foreign voyages, and to give bond for 
 
 1 Massachusetts Historical Society, 02517, no. 74. 
 
 « Ibid. nos. 34, 35. Printed in Letters of Dennys De Berdt, 1757-1770 (Pub- 
 licationfl of this Society, xiii. 451-452). 
 
176 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 every trifling article they carried for private families, such as a few 
 pounds of tea or sugar or a few gallons of rum or molasses purchased 
 of retailers. Formerly, they said, coasters had not been required to 
 take out cocquets for such articles, and the fees which used to be but 
 a shilling for entering or clearing, were now ten shillings or a guinea, 
 which was "more ready money than they sometimes received for 
 their whole freight." ^ 
 
 They complained further of the great number of tide-waiters and 
 inferior ofBcials that were appointed, and of the requirement that 
 masters admit and lodge them imder deck, without any authority 
 to do so. Some of these men, they said, were not trustworthy, and 
 the masters and merchants did not think their interests safe imder 
 their care. These officers took upon themselves the liberty of search- 
 ing vessels before they were discharged, and sometimes before the 
 masters had reported at the custom house, an insolent action which 
 was illegal and contrary to the practice in Great Britain. They 
 construed as an "intolerable grievance" the appointment of officers 
 of customs on board the men of war, cutters, and other armed 
 vessels, and the "arbitrary and unlawful manner" in which they 
 exercised this authority in the province, which they deemed "un- 
 precedented in any other part of the British dominion." Some of 
 the officers, by force of arms, had entered vessels on the high seas and 
 in the harbors, demanding of the masters their papers, breaking 
 open the hatches and searching the holds with lighted candles. 
 Even ships from London, with hemp and powder on board, were 
 not exempt, and the lives and properties of the king's subjects had 
 been greatly endangered. Some vessels, they said, coming into the 
 harbor, even before the master could reach the custom house to 
 
 ' The fees exacted at the custom houses everjrwhere at this period were a dis- 
 tinct grievance to the merchants. There were two forms of protest, one against 
 excessive fees, and the other against fees that were illegal or were not authorized 
 at aU. On Jiily 31, 1769, fifty-one of the leading merchants of Newport entered 
 into an agreement not to pay higher custom-house fees than the law allowed 
 and to guard strangers against the exactions of the custom-house officials (New 
 Hampshire Gazette, October 13, 1769). The same question came up in Connec- 
 ticut, when in October, 1769, memorials were presented to the assembly, which dis- 
 close the antagonism existing between the merchants and the customs officials 
 (Connecticut Archives, Maritime and Trading Affairs, ii. nos. 90, 91). The pro- 
 test had been made in the colonies as early as 1764 and waa continued tiU 1770. 
 It was emphatic in PhiladelpLia and Charles Town. 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 177 
 
 make report, had been boarded by armed boats from the Romney, 
 and one vessel from the West Indies had had her hatches opened 
 and twenty hogsheads of molasses hoisted upon deck, that the hold 
 might be searched. Another vessel with lumber was carried along- 
 side the Romney, had her hatches opened, and the boards taken on 
 board the king's ship, before the master was permitted to go to the 
 custom house to report. Several other vessels had been seized in 
 the bay, at the Vineyard, and other ports, where they had been 
 obliged by contrary winds to make a harbor, and sent into ports 
 they were not bound for and there detained at great expense on pre- 
 tence that some trifling articles, belonging to the mariners, and not 
 specified in the cocquet, were to be found on board. 
 
 They further complained that upwards of twenty sail of men of 
 war, cutters, and other armed vessels, purchased by the Board of 
 Customs Commissioners, had been employed "to cruize on the 
 Trade of this province," without discovering one vessel engaged in 
 smuggling, "though their expectations were so raised in hopes of 
 plunder that some of the commanders of the king's ships purchas'd 
 small vessels on their own acc't, sent them into the little harbors 
 and coves where the men of war could not cruize," disguising some 
 of them as coasters and employing every device possible to detect 
 illicit and contraband trade. One master — 
 
 of a little cutter purchased a fishing boat on his own acc't for the same 
 purpose, but being disappointed of the advantages they expected to 
 reap from the condemnation of the prizes or illicit traders, they have 
 been induced to take advantage of the mistakes and omissions of the 
 masters of coasting vessels, several of whom have been seized by those 
 guarda castas and two actually condemned for some trifle found on board 
 without being claimed. Since the arrival of the Commissioners between 
 20 and 30 vessels have been seized and several masters fined £100 stg. 
 for landing some goods before they had reported at the custom house, 
 four of these were seized by the officers of custom in port and condemned 
 for landing a few casks of wine and molasses more than they had re- 
 ported; the others seized by the cruisers were dismissed after waiting 
 some time at a great expense, except two coasters, which were condemned 
 for having some trifles on board for which they could produce no cocquet 
 and one open lighter for a small cask of brandy and three boxes of lemons 
 found on board. 
 
178 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Peb. 
 
 Referring to the preambles of the acts, which state that the design 
 was to raise a revenue, the merchants called attention to the fact that 
 even if the amounts expected should be raised, they would not com- 
 pensate "for the Damages that will arise to the Trade, Navigation, 
 and Fishery of the Colonies and the Manufactures of Great Britain." 
 They continued: 
 
 Furthermore to collect this revenue the government has been at a 
 great expence, equal, at least, if not superior to aU the revenue that could 
 have been collected had the trade been as extensive as it was before these 
 acts were made, which is not the case now nor never will be while these 
 acts are in force. Besides the vast charge for troops, men of war, and 
 cutters stationed here to prevent any clandestine trade and to support 
 any officers of the customs in putting these acts (which have regularly 
 been submitted to) in execution. Then courts of vice-admiralty are 
 constituted, with a salary of £600 a year to each of the judges, a board of 
 commissioners with a salary of £2500 per annum, also an additional 
 number of Custom House officers appointed by that board, amounting 
 in the whole to near 200, some of whom have salaries from £30 to £50 
 per annum. ^ 
 
 In conclusion, the merchants said- in recapitulating their griev- 
 ances, — 
 
 These indulgencies would have a happy tendency to unite Great 
 Britain and her colonies on a lasting foundation; all clandestine trade 
 would then cease, the great expence of men of war, cutters, and custom 
 house officers to secure this revenue be saved; trade, navigation and 
 
 ^ The colonial grievances against the courts of vice-admiralty at this period 
 reached their cUmax in the case of Henry Laurens in Charles Town, who had three 
 vessels seized and condemned. Laurens's comments on this event can be found 
 in his pamphlets, for the titles of which see Wallace, Life of Laurens. Some of 
 his views, as given in his Letter Books, are even more expressive. He speaks of 
 "the tyranny of custom house oflScers . . . the losses from their unjust exactions 
 and from the rigorous, artful, and Ulegal decisions in the American courts of vice- 
 admiralty . . . the vast extent of jurisdiction and powers given to a single man 
 who may be a fool or a knave or both . . . those rapacious, haughty, insolent 
 and overbearing men, such as our collector was during his short six months resi- 
 dence here, are great troublers of quiet minds . . . such men are the greatest 
 enemies to Britain of any men in America and as one vile priest does more injury 
 to the cause of religion than two rakes, so does one such officer or man in power 
 more prejudice to the interest of Britain in America than twenty mouthing Liberty 
 Boys" (Laurens, Letter Book, iv. 31, 168, 192, 329, 353, 365, 370, 374, South 
 Carolina Historical Society). 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 179 
 
 fishery would greatly revive, and the demand for British manufactures 
 be very much increased. 
 
 There is nothing to show that the merchants sent over a second 
 petition or brought the later grievances to the attention of parlia- 
 ment. By 1768, the movement had begun to take on a new form, 
 a change due largely to the Townshend Act, which as the Boston 
 merchants said in eniunerating their grievances did not "affect the 
 Trade in the same manner as the other duties and restrictions." 
 But it did affect the people at large, and for this reason. The 
 revenue and trade acts of 1764, 1765, and 1766, though couched in 
 more elaborate form and laying greater emphasis on the revenue 
 features, were in large part expressive of the old right of parliament 
 to regulate the trade and commerce of the colonies, a right first ex- 
 ercised in the navigation acts of 1660, 1663, 1672, and 1696, and 
 thus were nothing more than extensions of British policy as it had 
 existed for a century. It was natural that these acts should have 
 been objects of resentment to the merchants of Boston, for they 
 were expressly designed to bring within bounds the somewhat un- 
 tamed trade of the northern colonies. To prevent the passage of 
 these acts was the main purpose for which the Society had been 
 founded. Had the colonists found no other causes for complaint 
 than the grievances which we have presented, then the Revolution 
 would not have occurred, for it is practically certain that on this 
 point a compromise would have been reached that would have 
 satisfied both sides to the controversy. In the year 1767, there was 
 a widespread desire in America for a reconciliation with England 
 and a hope that reconciliation would come.^ At the same time the 
 
 1 Adams, Gushing, Otis, and Gray wrote to Dennys De Berdt, December 20, 
 1765: "We find that attempts have been made to raise a jealousy in the nation 
 that the colonists are struggling for iadependence, than which nothing can be 
 more injurious. It is neither their interest, nor have they ever shown the least dis- 
 position to be independent of Great Britain. They have always prided themselves 
 on being British subjects" (Adams, Writings, i. 70-71). 
 
 Laurens wrote m 1767: "As to our European- American affairs I am under no 
 dread about them, there may possibly be some disagreeable work, but even such 
 work must be soon at an end and produce an establishment of union to endxire for 
 ages. There are mistaken men on both sides, the eyes of the nation wiU be opened 
 and men on either part who do not want wisdom and who can see the compati- 
 bility of freedom and subordination will arise with healing under their wings and 
 
180 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 statesmen in England were anxious to end the dispute and the 
 British merchants, with but few exceptions, were working in behalf 
 of peace. The latter knew that the trade restrictions were injuring 
 American and Briton alike and felt sure that when once this fact 
 was driven home to the official mind, such modifications would be 
 effected as to calm colonial fears and restore harmony and peace. 
 The Boston merchants themselves said that all they wanted was to 
 return to the situation as it had been before 1764, and had this been 
 all that the controversy involved colonial wishes might have been met. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The Sugar Act of 1764 was, as is well known, something more than 
 an act regulating trade and commerce; it was designed also to raise 
 a revenue in America to meet the cost of colonial expansion. This 
 part of the act was due not to the demands of the commercial policy, 
 that is, mercantilism, but to the demands of the new imperialism. 
 Great Britain had emerged from the Seven Years' War an empire, 
 with new territory and with new obligations, and the disposition of 
 this territory and the fulfilment of these obligations became the 
 paramount issues. How to raise a revenue in America was an im- 
 portant though subordinate part of the imperial policy, and was the 
 object in part of the Sugar Act and entirely of the Stamp Act and 
 the Townshend Act. The duties imposed by the first and last of 
 these acts were customs duties, levied on imports from the foreign 
 West Indies in the case of the Sugar Act and from England in the 
 case of the Townshend Act. The taxes imposed by the Stamp Act 
 were of the nature of internal revenue taxes to be paid by every in- 
 dividual who engaged in certain legal transactions or certain forms 
 of business or who bought a newspaper, a pair of dice, or a pack of 
 cards. That the stamp tax promised to be exceedingly onerous, we 
 have ample evidence to show.^ Had it been enforced it would have 
 
 build an everlasting bridge from Britain to British America. God grant it may 
 be so" (Letter Book, iv. 52). 
 
 1 William Allason wrote to his brother, September 6, 1765: "We may expect 
 a good collection next spring unless the Stamp Duty should have the same bad 
 consequences that is generally apprehended from it. By all accounts it will dram 
 the country in a few years of all the money in circulation and entirely put it out 
 of the power of people in trade to recover then- small debts by the charge of the 
 stamps that will be necessary in the prosecution of a suit for a trifling sum, of 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 181 
 
 affected in one way or another nearly every individual in the colonies, 
 except slaves, indented servants, and children under age. Such a 
 tax was burdensome in itself, quite apart from the constitutional 
 question involved, but it was made far more burdensome to the 
 colonists by the requirement that it be paid in the sterling money 
 of England. This meant not in kind, as was the four and a half per 
 cent of Barbadoes and the Leeward Islands, nor in paper currency, 
 as might be the local colony rates, but in hard money, gold or silver 
 or copper. Now payments in hard money had always been a colonial 
 difficulty, especially in small amounts, because of the scarcity of small 
 coins, and many suggestions had been made in the preceding three 
 quarters of a century looking to the increase of such coins, copper 
 and silver, for colonial use. As early as 1715, Attorney General 
 Northey had expressed the opinion that the plantation duty should 
 be paid in silver,^ and many efforts had been made to have the 
 quitrents paid in like manner, but without any great success. In 
 all these cases the amounts were trifling as compared with the sum, 
 that would have to be paid under the regulations of the Stamp Act 
 and the Townshend Act. 
 
 The years from 1761 to 1769 were a time of severe financial de- 
 pression in the colonies, trade was dull, money scarce, credit poor, 
 and debt the common burden of farmers, country storekeepers, 
 merchants in the cities, and people generally. There was hardly a 
 
 which most of our debts consist." He further adds that in case of a suit "the 
 plaintiff cannot recover the Stamp Duty as he can the other costs, since it is not 
 so provided by Parliament" (AUason Papers, Virginia State Library). 
 
 1 Calendar of Treasury Papers, 1714r-1719, p. 157. In 1765 Van Cortlandt 
 wrote, "I would order tobacco could part of the duty be saved, but a penny sterl« 
 Duty wiU not answer" (Letter Book, New York PubMc Library). It was reported 
 from Charles Town in 1770 that the "Kings duties" were paid in silver, and this 
 term probably included the plantation duty (South Carolina Gazette, May 31, 
 1770). For the quitrents, see Bond, The Quit Rent System in the American 
 Colonies (American Historical Review, April, 1912, xvii. 508-510). 
 
 There was probably no hard money to speak of in the interior towns of any of 
 the colonies, certainly not in New England, where scarcity in the cities, due to 
 trade and the fisheries, would involve the country districts, which were entirely 
 dependent on the mercantile centres for cash. For example, Enfield even at this 
 period was making all authorized grants for schools, ministers, and town expenses 
 "to be paid in the produce of the earth'-' (Allen, History of Enfield, i. 432-443, 
 and passim). A similar condition prevailed in all the agricultural communities 
 of New England. 
 
182 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 section of the country from Portsmouth to the tide-water regions of 
 Virginia and North CaroHna that did not feel the pinch of this money 
 stringency and where the complaint of bad times was not heard.^ 
 Prices were low, debts very hard to collect, bonds given had to be 
 sued for in county courts, many persons were sold up by the sheriff 
 and others thrown into jail. We read of men locking themselves in 
 their houses to escape arrest ^ and making the best terms they could 
 with their creditors. Though business had always been done on a 
 credit basis, in a country where money was "hard to come at," as 
 the phrase went, there had never been a time when indebtedness 
 among all classes of the population had run so long or reached such 
 high figures. The country storekeepers, unable to collect from the 
 farmers, could not pay the city merchant who furnished them sugar 
 
 1 "Distress and poverty stalks among us equal to anything among our neigh- 
 bours" (Letter from New Bern, N. C, June 10, 1768, New Hampshire Gazette, 
 July 22, 1768). The Boston Gazette of November 2, 1767, speaks of "the present 
 alarming scarcity of money and consequent stagnation of trade, and the almost 
 universally increasing complaints of debt and poverty." A Providence town meet- 
 ing, after listening to the report of its committee on December 4, 1767, stated 
 as a reason for its vote that the colony was heavily in debt, its inhabitants sub- 
 ject to burdensome taxation, trade, which for some years had been on the de- 
 cline, was suffering imder great embarrassments, medium very scarce, and the 
 balance of trade very unfavorable (Providence Gazette, December 12, 1767). 
 Newport made the same statement, December 4 (Boston Gazette, December 14). 
 In 1764, times in New Jersey and Pennsylvania were considered bad by all 
 writers, and failures were not uncommon. On April 5, 1769, Washington wrote 
 to George Mason, "That many families [in Virginia] are reduced almost, if not 
 quite, to penury and want by the low ebb of their fortunes, and that estates are 
 daily selling for the discharge of debts, the pubhc papers furnish too many melan- 
 choly proofs" (Life and Correspondence of George Mason, i. 140) ; and in October, 
 1769, an address was sent to Gov. Franklin of New Jersey on the "Deplorable 
 State of the Province, arising partly from the excessive scarcity of money and 
 decay of trade, but chiefly from the multipHoity of lawsuits, mostly for debt" 
 (New Jersey Archives, xxvi. 529). This petition led to the passage of the New 
 Jersey Act "For the ReKef of Insolvent Debtors." John Watts of New York 
 wrote to Gov. Monckton in 1765, "The iUboding aspect of things, cramping of 
 trade, suppression of paper money, duties, courts of admiralty, appeals, internal 
 taxes, etc., have rendered people so poor, cross, and desperate that they don't 
 seem to care who are their masters or indeed for any master" (4 Massachusetts 
 Historical CoUeotions, x. 587, December 30, 1765). See also a letter from J. W. 
 Watts to the same, February 4, 1769, on the situation (Chalmers Papers, iii., New 
 York Public Library). 
 
 2 WiUiam Dunterfield of Imlay's Town, Pa., did this in 1767, and Nathaniel 
 Barrell, whose financial troubles split the Sandemanian Church in New Hamp- 
 shire, locked hiroself in his house for six weeks in 1766. 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 183 
 
 and rum from the West Indies and manufactured goods from Eng- 
 land, while he in turn could not meet the current accounts rendered 
 yearly by the British merchant, and had to shorten his orders or 
 suffer the chagrin of having them refused, because the commission 
 merchants or manufacturers in London, Liverpool, Bristol, or Hull 
 were unwilling to extend further credit.^ 
 
 ^ As the point here made is an important one, I should like to substantiate it 
 by quoting a part of the evidence upon which it is based, drawn not from the 
 newspapers but from the merchants' letter-books of the period. 
 
 Thomas Browning of Georgetown, Maryland, wrote to Stephen Collins in 
 1762: "CoUectiona in the Cuntry is I can say with truth the worst I ever knew 
 them (March 15)." "The Farmers are not making more than half crops of 
 wheat and not more in proportion of Indian com. I can only say that two thirds of 
 our farmers when I call on them for their account say that if we pay you off our 
 children must suffer for bread" (June 15: Collins Papers). 
 
 The Allason letters of 1763 are full of references to suits to recover money 
 from debtors in Annapolis, Philadelphia, North Carolina, and the, up country. 
 "I believe there never were so many suits depending in this country [Virginia] as 
 there is at this time. Scarcely a prison is allowed to stand empty in some coun- 
 ties" (W. AUason to his brother, June 24, 1764, AHason Papers). 
 
 John Schaw, writing to AUason on February 9, 1763, said: "I have left above 
 £1500 debts behind me [in Annapolis] and I shall go over about the last of 
 March to make a collection," with the result that "I made a very unsuccessful 
 journey of it myself, I mean in collecting my debts', which gives me great uneasi- 
 ness. The people there had nothing in short to pay me" (Letter of April 1, 1763). 
 His journey included the Eastern Shore also. 
 
 Ezra CoUins to Stephen Collins, March, 1763: "Thy old friends Dan' King, 
 W. Vane, J"^" Nuttiag of Salem failed thousands worse than nothing." 
 
 Scott & GiU wrote to CoUins from Boston, AprU 18, 1763: "There is scarce 
 any other money than gold passing here and a rare thing to see a doUar." 
 
 CoUins threatened one Thomas Barber of PUes Grove, New Jersey, with an 
 execution untU he paid or gave security, and couched his letter "in an angry 
 style." Barber replied that going to prison would not pay the debt. 
 
 John Kirkpatrick wrote from Alexandria, November 26, 1764: "I have been 
 abroad these three weeks in quest of money but never met so great disappoint- 
 ment in coUection. I had a great dependence on Col. PhiUp Lee, but in vain. 
 There is £2S due from Col. W™ Fitzhughin Stafford which I sued for." Parrish 
 wrote from Accomac in 1764: "Times is hard and money hard to coUect, at least 
 I find it so" (May 29, 1764), and he calls 1765 "that fatal year," not because of 
 the Stamp Act but because of his business troubles. 
 
 The letters from Joseph BarreU to his brother WiUiam emphasize constantly 
 his diflSculties in raising money, AprU 15, June 15, 1763. That of AprU 22 men- 
 tions the matter three times. 
 
 On May 4, 1765, Peter Schmuck of Hardwick, New Jersey, wrote CoUins: 
 "I received thy letter yesterday by which I understand thy uneasiness which I 
 am sorry for and should have come to Town before now if I could got my money 
 in which I have been trying ever since Last FaU but aU in vain and now I began to 
 
184 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 The current of indebtedness was . always toward Great Britain. 
 The farmers were in debt to the country merchants and local store- 
 sue and it seems to be all one. Of twenty fife person which I suit at one time I 
 got my money only of four and the rest I must get it by execution, which it seems 
 to go very hard. For such times never was known among people for there is 
 never a week but there are some vendues of the sheriffs and constables." In 
 1767 Collins sold up Schmuck, who wrote him a scornful letter, September 23. 
 Collins in commenting on the situation said, May 21, 1768: "Sheriff, coroner, and 
 I think Schmuck %re all dependent on each others Lenity, either having execu- 
 tions against each other or debts due." 
 
 Jacob Isaac to CoUins: "I am sohmd to come without the money becust it has 
 been so long standen" (February 23, 1766). John MOhause to CoUios, April 26, 
 1766, says much the same, and l^ter, November 18, adds that he has enough owing 
 him to pay many bonds but that it is impossible to get it quickly by suing, as the 
 law allows three months in small debts and three com-ts in large ones. John 
 Sheppard to CoUius, June 19, 1765: "I have as much more money owing to me as 
 I owe, but I cannot command it at this time by iJlason of the great Scarcity 
 of money." Michael Hessler appealed to him in two letters from "Reading 
 Gaol," August 25, September 2, 1765. Jonathan Bowen of Cohansey, September 
 5 : "I am getting in the money for you as fast as possible." John Long to ColUns, 
 Burlington, New Jersey, November 25, 1766: "I reo"* your letter leding me no the 
 Scarcity of money and indeed I put no Dout in it for I can get none at all." 
 
 In 1767, William Barrell of Portsmouth was down to bed-rock in the matter 
 of cash. "I havent 5 dollars in the world," he wrote, AprU 15, 1767. 
 
 John Rodermel to CoUins, "Riohmont townsib, Barks County," Pa., May 2, 
 1768: "I bake of you dow dwade me six monds lonker Deng wiH bay you ac 
 whidoud fale den id unbasble for me to bay id sowner. Den I hobe you vont 
 but me in ane chust [jail] dou it is ware hards time to gad money." 
 
 In February, 1769, WUham Allason had twenty-six cases in Fredericksburg 
 County court against Shenandoah debtors, among whom were Daniel Morgan, 
 the Ashbys, and others. His suits, 1762-1764, against persons owing him either 
 on bond or on account nimibered 126, as follows: Frederick county 38, Stafford 
 30, Fauquier 24, Culpeper 16, etc. In 1768-1770, the total number was 94, cover- 
 ing fourteen counties and the general court. Allason kept a list of his lawyers (Al- 
 lason Day Book and Suit Book). 
 
 The financial difficulties do not appear to have been as serious in New York 
 aa ia Pennsylvania, though PhiUp Van Cortlandt said in 1764 that trade was 
 "almost intirely stopt by the severity of the customs officers and men of war," 
 and his letter-books show that he had considerable sums owing him in Virginia, 
 which he could not get except at serious loss. "I could wish the gentlemen of 
 Virginia had been as punctual in payments as I have been in answering their 
 requests," he writes, and his correspondence is as spicy as is that of Collins. He 
 had to go to law in some cases and to threaten to do so in others. As to his own 
 business, he says, "I do but little more than pay the expence of my works at 
 present," and in December, 1765, speaks of "these dull times, the distressed situa- 
 tion, httle business done, no law in force, a terable time." " Most of the sugar houses 
 are stopt since last Fall," he writes in March, 1765, a situation due of course to 
 the Sugar Act, the scarcity of raw sugar, and the watchfulness of the custom 
 
1917] BOSTON MEECHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 185 
 
 keepers, the latter to the city merchants and wholesale importers, 
 and they in their turn to the commission merchants and manufac- 
 turers in England. While it is true that a great deal of business was 
 by barter and exchanges in kind, yet book balances had to be settled 
 in money, either paper or cash in America and cash or bills of ex- 
 change in England, that is, in sterling. Book debts ^ were not avail- 
 able as assets and notes as a rule were not accepted. In the colonies 
 credit ran generally from four to six months, while between England 
 and the colonies the period was from nine to twelve months, after 
 which interest was charged. In making payment in England, coin — 
 generally dollars, sometimes gold — was shipped in bulk, or bills of ex- 
 change were sent, and these had to be bought with cash, for unless a 
 merchant had a balance of his own in England he had to purchase 
 a bill of other merchants who acted as brokers, and such bills were 
 always difficult to obtain in small amounts and sometimes could not 
 be obtained at all or only at high rates of exchange. 
 
 The period we are considering furnishes ample evidence of the 
 difficulties which the merchants in America had to meet their debts 
 in England. One concrete illustration, in no way exceptional or 
 peculiar, is of more value, however, than many generalizations. I 
 take the following quotations from the Collins Papers, to which 
 reference has already been made. 
 
 house officers and men of war. In 1768, he reported sugar again as low and other 
 sugar houses as "stopt in the city." From John Van Cortlandt's ledgers may be 
 obtained figures regarding the suits against Roscoe Sweny and Col. Tucker of 
 Virginia, and Abraham Maers of North Carolina, as well as ample additional 
 evidence of debts due all the way from New Haven to Hampton, Virginia. 
 
 1 Book debts play a very important part in colonial business and were the 
 subject of legislation in a majority of the colonies. They occupy much space in 
 ledgers after 1758, but comparative estimates are difficult to reach, on account of 
 the scarcity of evidence. John Glassford, a well-known Scottish merchant, with 
 a string of stores along the Potomac and near-by waters, enters in one of his 
 ledgers a list of 250 customers with debit and credit items (October 1, 1760). 
 The customers owed him £125 stg, 1613 lbs tobacco, and £975 Virgmia currency; 
 he owed them £15 stg, 3426 lbs tobacco, and £54 Virginia currency (Firm Ac- 
 counts, Maryland and Vu-ginia, v. Library of Congress). The entering of debts 
 in a merchant's ledger is no sign of specially bad times, but the following in ledgers 
 of the period under consideration may be noted: "Debts deemed Desperate," 
 "Insolvent Debts," "Dead and no Effects," "Denies the Debt," "Sued," "Run 
 to Virginia" (many), "Lunatick and no Effects," "No such man can be found," 
 "Lost by Judgment." It should be noticed that "Desperate Debts" was the 
 customary term for bad debts (Mair, Bookkeeping Modernized, p. 516). 
 
186 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 On July 13, 1762, Neate and Pigon wrote: "We have lately been so 
 extremely badly remitted from Pliil° that it puts it out of our power 
 to give such extensive credits. ... It greatly hurts us not to be 
 paid in time . . . consider what must become of us to be detained 
 out of One hundred thousand pounds perhaps for many months 
 after the Invoice is due. Our Capital is not large enough and indeed 
 times have been so bad that no fortune in England can support such 
 credits." 
 
 On February 13, 1763, they complained of "the backwardness of 
 our friends in your city in their payment," and on February 18, 
 
 1765, pointed out that Collins owed them £1024, "now all consider- 
 ably overdue" (March 14, 1765), some of it of three years' and some 
 of it of two years' standing. " It is an unreasonable credit and such 
 which requires the Bank of England to support," and on January 1, 
 
 1766, they wrote for £699, "being in much distress for money." 
 Mildred and Roberts, to whom Collins owed £3037, wrote, a few 
 months later, "Though the money may be safe in thy Hands,. yet 
 it will not pay our debts here and Interest is no Equivalent to the 
 Disappointment in our Trade." ^ 
 
 Collins was a conscientious man of business and as early as 1763 
 reduced his orders, hoping to strike a balance.^ He was "fearful of 
 not being able to remit in due time," though he was encouraged to 
 think that trade would "a little revive." But he was disappointed. 
 In 1765 he wrote, "The situation of trade with us is at present very 
 dull," and he could not remit owing to the "sudden stagnation of 
 business amongst us." He speaks of the many debts due him, some 
 of which were "unsafe." In 1768, David and John Barclay refused 
 to open business with him, because they had too many connections 
 with Philadelphia and had been disappointed in their remittances. 
 "That determines us at present not to open any new accounts at 
 
 ' Freeman & Osland wrote April 28, 1763, saying that "the failure of remit- 
 tances from America rendered it impossible for them to fill his orders.'' CoUina 
 wrote to Neate, Pigon & Booth, "I shall be very cautious of ordering any more 
 Goods than I can pay for to your satisfaction" (April 30, 1767). 
 
 ^ He made a strenuous effort to collect money. Patrick Riley, Bound Brook, 
 September 21, 1763, wrote, "I reed thine of the 8™° 4, 1763, which Required in 
 the most strickest manner thy money." John Goldy, New MiUs, March 6, 1764, 
 "As an Acknowledgement for thy Ejrtromery favor and patience in Waiting so 
 long for thy Money," etc. 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 187 
 
 least with such only whose Capitals will enable them to preserve 
 that punctuality we used formerly to experience from our old Friends 
 in your City and is absolutely necessary to render a connection ac- 
 ceptable; so confident we are that we will venture to assert under 
 the late and indeed present state of your Trade, it is not in the power 
 of any man with a slender Capital to give that satisfaction to his 
 correspondents either he could wish or they expect." Even in 1769, 
 Collins could write, "The great difficulty we labour under either in 
 selling goods for cash at any profit or in collecting it where it has 
 been long overdue." He had succeeded in reducing his debt to 
 Hyde and Hamilton to £167 in 1767, but he did not clear himself 
 of his indebtedness to Neate till 1771, when the account current 
 rendered in December showed a balance in Collins's favor of £514, 
 and in consequence Neate sent him a hamper of porter and a North 
 Wiltshire cheese.^ 
 
 While in individual cases and in certain sections such as Charles 
 Town 2 and parts of the West Indies, the balance of trade was against 
 
 1 The account between William Allason of Falmouth, Virginia, and his brother 
 in Glasgow ran as follows: 
 
 December 1760 Debit £2129 Balance 1342 
 
 1762 ' 
 
 1342 
 
 1392 
 
 1763 ' 
 
 1657'' 
 
 1258 
 
 1764 ' 
 
 1595'' ' 
 
 ' 904 
 
 " 1765 ' 
 
 1021'' 
 
 603 
 
 1766 " 
 
 1048'' ' 
 
 697 
 
 1767 ' 
 
 717'' ' 
 
 362 
 
 " 1768 ' 
 
 388° 
 
 182 
 
 * Including £50 interest with no credit allowance. 
 
 *" Principal and interest. 
 
 " Principal and interest and postage. 
 
 The letters from Henry Cniger to Aaron Lopez of Newport, Rhode Island, 
 show a similar situation. In March, 1768, the indebtedness of Lopez to Cruger 
 was £11,000 stg, with a prospect of a reduction to £9000. In 1767 it was £10,514 
 (Commerce of Rhode Island, i. 189, 229). 
 
 2 The Charles Town merchants generally had balances to their credit in Eng- 
 land, so that the drain of specie in that direction was trifling as compared with the 
 North. But there was a drain of specie northward, because of the large amounts 
 of potatoes, onions, flour, and other staples imported from the northern colonies, 
 for which there was only a little rice to give in return. Few provisions were raised 
 on the plantations of South Carolina, and no Irish potatoes for export till 1768 
 (South Carolina Gazette, June 27, 1768) . It was estimated in 1770, that specie was 
 drawn from the colony in three ways: (1) by the payment of the king's duties 
 in silver; (2) by the trade with the northern colonies, "who take a very incon- 
 
188 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 England, in the region from North Carolina northward it was in 
 England's favor during the eighteenth century with the single ex- 
 ception of the period from 1774 to 1777. Imports and exports ap- 
 proached most nearly an equilibrium during the non-importation 
 period, the year 1769 especially, when the balance was only slightly 
 in England's favor. At all other times the imports largely exceeded 
 the exports, though the volmne of excess varied during our period 
 from £200,000 in 1769 to £4,000,000 in 1771, with a mean of about 
 £800,000.^ This meant that a debt existed to the English merchants 
 which American merchants and planters were trying to pay off as 
 rapidly as they could. But when trade was dull, times hard, markets 
 bad, prices low and falling, stocks glutted, and money scarce, the 
 merchants in England and Scotland suffered no less than did those 
 in America. The merchants' letters to their American correspond- 
 ents, already quoted, show their apprehensions. Others are to the 
 same efFect. "Never was such times here before," wrote Jeremiah 
 Osborn of London to Aaron Lopez in 1767; Henry Cruger, writing 
 in the same year from Bristol, spoke of the "close Dunning from 
 necessitous Manufacturers and Tradesmen" to which he was sub- 
 jected, and said that nothing but " a great share of Natural Fortitude 
 of Mind" kept him "from sinking under [his] present Calamities." 
 The situation in Scotland was worse even than in England. "People 
 of the best credit cannot borrow a shilling. The Glasgow and Edin- 
 burgh banks lending none and calling in all their credits, offering 
 by public advertisements 5 pet for any smns at any time," wrote 
 Robert Allason, in 1763, when he was in great distress for money. 
 "Public credits are bad, stocks lower than ever known before. Lon- 
 don exchange 3 pet against us, and a general stagnation of payments 
 here, so that I never remember things in a worse situation." If bills 
 of exchange, he writes again, are not sent "they wont find a man 
 
 siderable quantity of our produce in payment for their goods; " (3) by sea voyages 
 to the same colonies for health, pleasure, change of air, or education. Thirty-two 
 people are mentioned as going in that year to Rhode Island, Philadelphia, New 
 York, or Boston, and taking with them 3500 guineas, chiefly in half joes and 
 dollars. See an interesting letter in the Georgia Gazette on this subject, October 
 18, 1764. 
 
 1 "Oil without Vinegar and Dignity without Pride, or British, American, and 
 West India Interests Considered, Together with a Chart showing the Rise and 
 Fall of the Trade between the Two Countries. By Macall Medford," 2d edition, 
 London, 1807. 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 189 
 
 in Britain that will lend them £500 cash on their joint credit. I 
 never knew such times. Trade is still very bad, credit quite at a 
 stand. In short this country was never in such a situation and if 
 things dont mend soon there must be a general bankruptcy" (1764). 
 
 Thus it is evident that during the first half of the decade trade 
 conditions in England, Scotland, and America were unsatisfactory 
 and growing worse. The grievances of the Boston merchants out- 
 lined with unusual fulness the opinions generally held by merchants 
 and expressed more or less fully in their letters. But while specific 
 grievances affected each section and seaport differently, the one 
 great grievance that seemed to affect all alike was the scarcity of 
 hard money. While local debts could be paid in kind or in paper 
 currency, British balances had to be met in Johannes, moiodores, 
 pistoles, dollars, and pistareens, according to their value as sterling. 
 The royal revenues had to be met in the same manner. It did not 
 make any difference to the man who paid these duties that they 
 might not in all cases be sent to England to be receipted for at the 
 Exchequer. He had to pay them in any case, and if the amounts 
 received were spent or might be spent in America, the whole even- 
 tually found its way across the water to meet trade balances. What- 
 ever may be the actual facts in the case, the colonists believed that 
 their hard money was being drawn off to England.^ Even as early 
 as 1763, Van Ccrtlandt could write from New York, "Nothing is 
 at present in so grate demand as cash, the London ships have 
 carried off the gratest part of our silver and gold." 
 
 If this was the case before 1764, it was much more true after that 
 date, when the collections, as entered in the Receiver General's 
 accounts,^ show large increases, when the West Indian trade, which 
 
 1 This subject will bear further investigation. The author of American Hus- 
 bandry deems it a "hackneyed argument" to say that the money of the northern 
 colonies was "laid out in merchandize with Britain" (ii. 242). But the colonists 
 beUeved profoundly that it was so. Samuel Adams said, "The Dutys upon the 
 goods imported from [England] and consumed here, together with those which 
 are laid upon ahnost every Branch of our Trade all of which center in dry Cash in 
 her Coffers amounts to a very great sum" (Writings, i. 42-43, 62, 114). 
 
 2 The following is taken from the Annual Abstracts of the Receiver General, 
 1746-1780 (Public Record Office, Treasury 38:357): 
 
 1762 Plantation duty ^'^21 
 
 1763 " " 1326 
 
 1764 " " 1031 
 
190 
 
 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHITSETTS 
 
 [Feb. 
 
 brought in much hard money, was rigidly controlled, and when 
 smuggling was reduced almost to a standstill.^ The Stamp Act 
 congress sounded a note of warning when it declared that the scarcity 
 of specie rendered the payment of "the duties imposed by several 
 late acts of parliament absolutely impracticable." The warning 
 was hardly needed, for the danger was in every one's mind. The 
 town of Roicbury said in 1769, that instead of being reconciled to 
 the revenue acts, "thro' length of time which hath a tendency to 
 wear off the gloom of difficulties, we daUy find them more and more 
 burdensome; and when we view the trade and commerce of the prov- 
 ince imder a very sensible decay and loaded with embarrassments, 
 and the little circulating cash which we have left daily draining from 
 us and the revenue officers like the horse leech cry, Give, Give, our 
 groans and complaints are increased." ^ Salem reported that 7000 
 ounces of silver had been collected from the Townshend duties on 
 goods "brought to town for exportation or consumption," thus im- 
 poverishing provinces " to maintain swarms of useless officers in luxury 
 and extravagance;" ^ and one enterprising writer estimated in 1768 
 1765 Plantation duty £2959 
 
 1766 
 
 7378 
 
 Plantation duty 3910 
 
 By 4 George III 29,685 
 
 1767 \ " 6 George II 10 
 
 " 6 George III 272 
 
 , Fines and Forfeitures 684 
 
 Plantation duty 517 
 
 By 4 George III 14,802 
 
 1768 \ " 6 George III 8765 
 
 " 7 George III 86 
 
 Fines and Forfeitures 119 
 
 Plantation duty 1075 
 
 By 6 George II 75 
 
 " 4 George III 6047 
 
 1769 \ " 6 George III 2655 
 
 " 7 George III 708 
 
 Fines and Forfeitures 1217 
 
 Seizures by Ships of War (per 4 George III, c. 15) . 597 
 
 ' See the grievances of the Boston merchants, p. 169 and note 1, above. 
 Even in 1763, Van Cortlandt could say, "Here [New York] the men of warr and 
 customs officials search every vessel and have seized several," " Several vessels 
 have been seized this week past,, therefore be careful of contraband goods." 
 
 2 Boston Gazette, May 22, 1769. 
 
 ' Pennsylvania Chronicle, July 18, 1769. 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHAIJTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 191 
 
 that the silver already drawn from the province "if beat into plates 
 would entirely cover the road to the Borders of York government," 
 but that the sum, large as it was, "-frould not in any ways equal the 
 amount lost to the province by the destruction of its trade." ^ 
 
 IV 
 
 Such a situation as this called for drastic remedies. The popular 
 solution of the difficult problem was frugality and thrift in daily 
 life, the refusal to purchase certain articles that could be obtained 
 only by importation from abroad, the manufacture of such necessi- 
 ties as might be made in America, and the finding of substitutes in 
 cases where articles or commodities could not be duplicated. The 
 movement against extravagance in dress and lavishness and display 
 at fimerals had begun early in the decade, but the first certain hint 
 of a non-consimiption policy, as a reply to the British revenue 
 measures, was given early in November, 1764, in a letter to Jasper 
 Mauduit in England, in which the writer or writers asserted that as 
 their trade would be greatly cramped by the scarcity of money, neces- 
 sity would oblige them to do without such luxuries as cambric, lawn, 
 calico, and other foreign imports, and Spanish and Portuguese wines.' 
 
 But no definite step appears to have been taken until after 
 the passage of the Townshend Act was known in America, when 
 on October 28, 1767, a large number of the people of Boston came 
 together in town meeting and having presented in vigorous language 
 
 > Boston Gazette, July 11, 1768. 
 
 ' This letter is not signed and there is no clue to its authorship. Its content is 
 similar to the first part of that sent by Otis, Gushing, Gray, Adams, and Sheafe to 
 Dennys De Berdt in December, 1765 (MassachuBetts Papers, pp. 6-7), but it 
 differs from the latter in containing the non-conaimiption clause and omitting 
 the constitutional arguments that occupy so large a space in the latter document. 
 As it was also sent to Richard Jackson in the spring of 1766, after the Otis letter 
 had been sent to De Berdt and as the merchants at this time paid little attention 
 to the constitutional claim, it is possible that the Society had something to do 
 with it, particularly as Otis, Gushing, and Gray were all members of the Mer- 
 chants' Club (Rowe's Diary, manuscript, December 14, 20, 24, 31, January 9, 
 10, 11, 1764-1765). This letter is not included in the printed Massachusetts 
 Papers, but will be foimd in the manuscript collection. 
 
 Drake mentions a non-importation and non-consumption agreement of August, 
 1764 (History and Antiquities of Boston, p. 679), but I have been entirely unable 
 to find contemporary evidence for it. It is certain that no non-importation agree- 
 ment was made at that time, and had a non-consumption agreement been entered 
 into in any formal way, it would surely be recorded in the newspapers. 
 
192 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS pi^. 
 
 a statement of existing evils — heavy indebtedness, burdensome 
 taxation, a declining trade suffering under great embarrassments 
 and heavy impositions, scarcity of money, and an unfavorable 
 balance of trade — entered into a formal self-denying agreement 
 not to purchase, after December 31st, some forty articles of luxury 
 or superfluity — silks, diamonds, furs, and millinery — and simdry 
 commodities — glue, starch, cheese, etc. — that were probably 
 deemed capable of production in America. At the same time the 
 meeting put itself on record against importation and in favor of 
 manufacturing, particularly of glass and paper, and warmly advo- 
 cated the cultivation of a spirit of frugality, hoping thereby to find 
 "a more promising prospect of emerging from the present alarming 
 situation." * On the 30th a committee which had been named at 
 the meeting met and began to arrange for subscriptions to the agree- 
 ment, the form of which had already been prepared. In the meantime 
 the selectmen despatched a letter to other towns in Massachu- 
 setts and the near-by provinces, with a copy of the Boston agree- 
 ment. Providence, following the lead of Boston in all details, adopted 
 the resolves in town meeting on December 2d,^ and Newport did the 
 same on November 26th. Roxbury ^ passed a similar resolution on 
 December 7th. 
 
 The frugality cry was taken up by other towns, was carried 
 northward to Maine and southward to Plymouth and the Cape, was 
 heard in Connecticut, where Windham and Norwich were the first 
 towns to respond, and, as the news spread by the gazettes travelled 
 further south, found welcome in New York, New Jersey, and Penn- 
 sylvania, and approval in the remoter bounds of Charles Town and 
 Savannah.* "Save your money and you can save your country" 
 
 • Boston Record Commissioners' Reports, xvi. 221-224; Boston Gazette 
 November 2, 1767. This meeting did not adopt a non-importation resolution as is 
 frequently stated. 
 
 2 The towB meeting met on November 25, and appointed a committee, which 
 reported on December 2, at which time the resolution was adopted (Providence 
 Town Records, November 25, December 2, 1767; Providence Gazette, Decem- 
 ber 12, 1767; Massachusetts Historical Society, Broadsides, December 9, 1767). 
 
 ' Memorial History of Boston, ii. 338. 
 
 ' The following towns may be Usted, but the number could be greatly in- 
 creased. Fahnouth, Scarborough, Pepperellborough, Biddeford, Wells, Kittery, 
 Old York, Arundel, Newburyport, Billerica, Medfield, Abington, Wellsboro' 
 Ashbumham, Salem, Lexington, Grafton, Dartmouth, Plymouth, Sandwich 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 193 
 
 expressed in simple form this self-denying purpose, a purpose that 
 found a place in the daily life of every individual and acted somewhat 
 after the fashion of a body of sumptuary laws. To practise absten- 
 tion and so to decrease the demand for European goods was within 
 the range even of the humblest, and to lay off ribbons, laces, velvets, 
 silks, and other forms of expensive dress became the first object of 
 the new movement. To wear colonial-made clothing, native home- 
 spun, was the inevitable corollary, and everywhere gave added zest 
 to household spinning and weaving. The ladies, young and old, 
 became the sponsors of the new fashion, they donned clothing of 
 then- own manufacture, held spinning and weaving parties, and vied 
 with each other, as town competed with town, to make a record of 
 skeins spun and yards produced. From sunrise to sunset, out-of- 
 doors in fair weather and indoors in stormy, spinning bees ^became 
 the centres of social activity, and in Massachusetts premiums were 
 offered for the best pieces of cloth, serge, sagathy, and shalloon 
 woven in the colony .* The men responded less enthusiastically to 
 the new demand and took less kindly to this curtailment of their 
 habfts of dress and their social and sporting pleasm-es. Homespun 
 was neither becoming nor fashionable, and the pleasm-es of the table, 
 the tavern, and the race-course were not easily resigned, especially 
 in the South.' In some quarters the ladies endeavored to make the 
 
 Truro. For Connecticut towns, see Lamed, History of Windham County, ii. 
 118. The proceedings in Boston and the northern colonies were printed with ap- 
 proval in both the South Carolina and Georgia Gazettes, but I cannot find that 
 any formal action was taken. New Jersey sent Massachusetts her congratula- 
 tions on the economy resolutions, and Virginia, AprO 5, 1768, said she was anxiously 
 expecting that some resolves of frugahty and industry would be entered into by 
 the merchants of Philadelphia, as the influence of so large a place would be exten- 
 sive and the lesser towns would be ambitious to foUow her example (Boston 
 Gazette, May 9, 1768). All of the non-importation agreements contain non- 
 consumption clauses. 
 
 ' On September 21, 1769, there was held at Taunton "a Spinning Match: (or 
 what is call'd in the Country a Bee)" (Boston Gazette, October 16, 1769). 
 
 ' Boston Gazette, November 2, 1767, October 16, 1769; New London Gazette, 
 April 25, 1766. 
 
 ' One newspaper querist desired to know whether it would not be more prob- 
 able that "we should soon have more profitable times among us, if the gentlemen's 
 oeconomy or prudence were half equal to that of the ladies" (Boston Gazette, 
 June 6, 1768) ; and a lady wrote to the South Carolina Gazette upbraiding the men 
 for lack of self-denial, going to club or tavern, gaming, horse-racing, and cock- 
 fighting (October 5, 1769). The South Carolina maidens were not satisfied with 
 
194 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 spinning parties as agreeable as possible to the men, by adding 
 dancing and other festivities to the closing routine of the day, but 
 elsewhere such frivolity was frowned upon and prayer and singing 
 terminated the performance.^ The pleasure of these and other occa- 
 sions must have been somewhat tempered by the substitution of 
 Hyperion tea for the customary Hyson and Bohea, and by the use 
 of bm-nt barley, or small field peas, burnt carefully with butter and 
 ground, which were extolled as equal to the best West India coffee.^ 
 The many manifestations of the new temper of the colonists met 
 with high popular approval and were widely commented on in the 
 press. At a wedding in Windham the ladies dressed chiefly in clothes 
 of their own making and drank Labrador tea.^ A citizen of Newport 
 declared that he would not vote for any of the candidates at a com- 
 ing election who did not appear principally clothed in cloth made 
 either in Rhode Island or in some part of America, and one of the 
 clauses of the Newport agreement of October 30, 1769, was to the 
 same effect.* The tailors of the same town had a meeting and offered 
 to work fourpence cheaper on the manufactures of America than on 
 those of other countries and to exact twenty-five per cent more in 
 
 a change of clothes, they wanted a change of habits also. New London recom- 
 mended abstention from the use of spirituous liquors (Boston Gazette, February 
 1, 1768). 
 
 ' At Gloucester the spinning was followed by the singing of an anthem (Essex 
 Gazette, December 27, 1768). 
 
 * Hyperion or Labrador tea was a decoction of the leaves of the common 
 "red root" and is described as "something Like wild rosemary," with a "very 
 physical taste, of a deep brown color, and generally disliked by those who taste 
 it." It was afterwards advertised as "very wholesome and good for the rheuma- 
 tism, spleen, and many other disorders and pains." A writer of New Bern, 
 North Carolina, June 10, 1768, noting that Hyperion tea was used in the North 
 "as a succedaneum to that most pernicious and destructive plant Bohea, which 
 annually drains America of thousands," recommended to the people of North 
 Carolina, "with due deference to the refined taste of the ladies, the use of Yeopann 
 Tea." "This plant," the writer adds, "is much used among the lower sort, is of 
 great efficacy, when taken physically, being a powerful sudorific; is no exotic but 
 a domestic of almost every sandy plantation in this province. We hope, therefore, 
 soon to have the pleasure of informing the public that at a meeting of the ladies 
 on such and such a day at such a place, such a number of threads were spun, 
 after which they regaled with Yeopann Tea" (New Hampshire Gazette, July 22, 
 1768). I suspect the writer of being ironical. 
 
 » Lamed, Windham County, ii. 117; Caulkins, History of Norwich, p. 367. 
 
 « Newport Mercury, February 13, 1769; South Carolina Gazette, November 
 23, 1769. 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 195 
 
 making up velvet, silk, and broadcloth, costing over ten shillings a 
 yard.i In Massachusetts, members of the Council and the House of 
 Representatives, and the clergy generally, promised to wear cloth 
 and shoes 2 of their own manufacture,^ and the senior classes at 
 Harvard, Yale, and the College of Rhode Island, now Brown Uni- 
 versity, appeared in homespun on the occasion of their graduation.* 
 Harvard students, on October 24, 1768, resolved not to use tea, and 
 the people of the towns around entered into the same resolution, 
 while here and there, by formal vote, a town would declare a sim- 
 ilar intention .^ The reaction against excessive extravagance at 
 1 Newport Mercxiry, January 30, 1768. 
 
 ' The making of shoes at Lynn had been a New England industry for some years 
 and was now considerably increased to relieve the people of buying the poorer 
 varieties of shoes from England. The better varieties, such as callamanco shoes, 
 the uppers of which were covered with a flowered or striped cloth imported from 
 Flanders, were not made in America at this time. Cheap shoes in the South were 
 made for sale by negro shoemakers on the plantations, and the business brought 
 in considerable t-evenue to the slave owners. Lyim shoes were imported to Phila- 
 delphia and elsewhere. 
 
 ' Boston Gazette, January 4, 1768. 
 
 ' At Brown, the president also wore homespun (John Carter Brown Library, 
 Broadside) . The senior class at Yale announced their decision early " that their par- 
 ents and friends [might] have sufficient time to be providing homespim cloaths for 
 them that none of them [might] be obliged to the hard necessity of unfashionable 
 singularity by wearing imported cloth" (New Hampshire Gazette, January 20, 
 1767). Madison wrote to his father from Nassau HaU (Princeton) that all the 
 115 students in the college and the 22 in the grammar school were wearing 
 American cloth, July 23, 1770 (Writings, 1900, i. 7). For extracts from the Har- 
 vard "College Books," referring to the wearing of homespun, see our Publica- 
 tions, xviii. 351-352. 
 
 ^ Boston Gazette, March 27, 1767. How widespread the actual abstention 
 from the use of British goods and tea-drinking was at this time it is difficult to 
 say. The writer of the Journal of Occurrences, reprinted in the New London 
 Gazette, January 6, 1769, said that the disuse of tea was universal and that re- 
 tailers reported a faUing off in its sale of four fifths; that many towns had entered 
 into formal agreements to stop consumption; and that apphcations had been 
 made from Georgia and another province for some articles of American manufac- 
 ture. There was none, he added, available for export, but he knew that the manu- 
 facture of finen, cotton, and woollen had greatly increased since the Stamp Act, 
 that almost every house was a manufactory, and that some towns had more looms 
 than houses. So zealoiis was the spirit, he continued, and so helpful the new arti- 
 sans brought over that already the country people everywhere wore clothing 
 themselves, and in time New England would have a surplus. Probably one must 
 read such statements cautiously. The newspaper writers were very sanguine and 
 often overstated their case, when it came to the expression of a hope or an expecta- 
 tion. As to this particular correspondent, we may well heed Thomas Hutchin- 
 
196 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 funerals,^ In dress, carriages, and rings and gloves to the mourners, had 
 long been under way in the North, and now spread to the South, and 
 the people of Charles Town began to clothe themselves in their own 
 manufactiu-es, reducing the "enormous expense of funerals," therein 
 following "the patriotic example lately set by Charles Gadsden, Esq., 
 when he btrried the best of wives," until it seemed according to a 
 local opinion that black at funerals would be "only worn by the 
 fashionable gentry of the Ethiopian race." ^ In order not to diminish 
 
 son's criticism in his letter to Israel Williams, "Nine tenths of what you read of 
 the Journal of Occurrences in Boston is either absolutely false or grossly mis- 
 represented" (WiUiams Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, January 26, 
 1769). There was plenty of tea-drinking in Salem in 1769-1770; see the Holyoke 
 Diaries, 1709-1856. 
 
 Patriotic zeal and a proneness to exaggeration must be reckoned with in all 
 these accounts. Lancaster in 1770 was reported to have manufactured 30,000 
 yards of linen and woollen homespun, and to have in town 50 looms and 700 spin- 
 ning wheels. EUzabeth went a step further and reported 100,000 yards spun 
 and woven. Yet Gov. Franklin said in 1768 that there was no great increase in 
 the raising of sheep in New Jersey and that there was not wool enough to provide 
 each family with stockings (Pennsylvania Gazette, July 5, 1770; New Jersey 
 Archives, x. 30-31). 
 
 There was a noteworthy effort at this time to bring skilled workmen from 
 abroad, and efforts in that direction were successfully made. Wages were higher 
 in the colonies than in England and complaints of artisans leaving England for 
 America were not infrequent. Providence advertised in 1768 for "tradesmen in 
 the mechanick arts," and Boston in 1769 mentioned several persons "lately ar- 
 rived from abroad " (Providence Gazette, February 13, 1768; Staples, Annals of 
 Providence, pp. 217-218; Boston Pv.eoord Commissioners' Reports, xvi. 275. Cf. 
 Boston Chronicle, February 13, 1769, for EngKsh complaints). 
 
 ' Boston continued to have elaborate funerals, as in the case of Jeremiah Grid- ' 
 ley, 1767, when the parade and show were not at all to Rowe's liking. The 
 most costly funeral that Boston ever had was probably that of Andrew Faneuil 
 in 1738, though that of Gov. Leverett in 1680 was certainly the most unique. 
 (Memoir biographical and genealogical of Sir John Leverett, Knt., Governor of 
 Massachusetts, Boston, 1856.) 
 
 ' South Carolina Gazette, March 2, 1769: "Our greatest friend to homespun 
 cloth, Charles Gadsden, Esq., buried his wife yesterday morning. The town was 
 searched throughout for some of that manufactory to follow as a mourner, but 
 none could be bought and he was obMged to foUow in blue cloth. The whole ex- 
 pence of the funeral of the manufacture of England did not amount to more than 
 £3.10 our currency" (equal to 10 sh. sterUng). The funeral of Lord Botetourt at 
 Williamsburg in Virginia, 1770, though not as grand as that of Lovelace in 
 New York a century before, showed little restraint in matters of expense. The 
 coffin had eight silver handles and sixteen escutcheons; thirty-two escutcheons 
 ornamented the hearse and the church, where the reading desk, pulpit, and com- 
 munion table were hung with superfine cloth. There were twenty-eight streamers 
 
Opposite Page 
 
 Missing in Printing 
 
 and Binding 
 
 
Opposite Page 
 
 Missing in Printing 
 
 and Binding 
 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHAKTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 201 
 
 both sides of the water confined their statements of grievances to 
 matters of trade and finance. 
 
 But an opportunity for a second and more noteworthy experiment 
 soon came. On June 29, 1767, the Townshend Act, which levied a 
 duty on glass, lead, painters' colors, tea, and paper, became a law, 
 to go into effect the 20th of November following. The non-con- 
 smnption campaign was in full vigor and the merchants, deeming 
 the new imposts less injurious to trade than the other burdens and 
 restrictions, at first confined their non-importing activities to articles 
 of luxury, imder the agreement of October 28, 1767.^ But the events 
 of the winter of 1767-1768 and the manner in which the American 
 Board of Customs Commissioners put the act into execution must 
 have influenced the merchants to revive the expedient of 1765 and 
 to adopt again the plan of stopping, under certain limitations, the 
 importing of goods from Great Britain. On March 1, 1768, a meet- 
 ing of the Body, made up of ninety-eight merchants, was held at 
 the British Coffee House, and with William Phillips as moderator 
 voted to try again the non-importation plan. The Body chose a 
 committee, of which John Rowe was chairman and Edward Payne 
 secretary. This committee met on the 3d and again in an all-day 
 session on the 4th and framed the articles of the agreement. The 
 report was unanimously approved at the meeting of the Body on 
 the evening of the 4th, and, among others, the following articles 
 were adopted: 
 
 Voted, That we will not for one year send for any European Com- 
 modities Excepting Salt, Coals, Fish hooks and lines, Hemp and Duck, 
 Barr-Iead and Shott, Wool-cards and Card-wire. 
 
 Voted, That in the purchase of such articles as we shall stand in need 
 of we will give a constant preference to such Persons as shall subscribe 
 to these Resolutions. 
 
 Voted, That we will in our separate capacities inform our several Cor- 
 respondents of the Reasons and point out to them the Necessity of with- 
 holding our usual order for their Manufactures, to the end that the said 
 Impediments may be removed and Trade and Commerce may again 
 flourish. 
 
 Voted, That these Votes and Resolutions be obligatory or binding 
 
 1 James Bowdoin as a subscriber to the agreement refused to import a set of 
 Boydell's engravinga (6 Massachusetts Historical Collections, ix. 84-85). 
 
202 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [FbB. 
 
 on US from and after the time that these or other similar or tending to 
 the same salutary purpose be adopted by most of the principal trading 
 Towns in this and the neighboring colonies.^ 
 
 In obtaining subscriptions to this agreement, certain questions 
 arose which were dealt with at an adjourned meeting on the 9th, 
 when it was voted that subscribers were "bound not to forward 
 their orders for any goods till the first Tuesday in May" (1768), in 
 order that the "determination of the merchants and traders in the 
 neighbouring Towns and Colonies" might be known, and a committee 
 was appointed, John Hancock, chairman, John Rowe, Edward 
 Payne, William Phillips, Melatiah Bourne, Henderson Inches, and 
 John Erving, Jr., "to correspond with the Merchants in the other 
 Trading Towns and Provinces." Letters were sent out on the 16th 
 by this committee to points as far south as Charles Town, urging 
 the merchants to cooperate in the non-importation movement, on 
 the ground that a refusal to import goods would procure relief and 
 be of more service than any remonstrance.^ In response to this 
 letter, the Providence merchants met on the 17th and adopted the 
 agreement. Two weeks later the merchants of New York began a 
 series of meetings, at one of which, held at Bolton and Sigel's tavern 
 on April 8th, was established the New York Chamber of Commerce,^ 
 composed of twenty-four merchants, organized for the purpose of 
 "encouraging Commerce, supporting industry, adjusting disputes 
 relative to trade and navigation, and procuring such laws and regu- 
 lations as [might] be found necessary for the benefit of trade in 
 general." A week later, acting on the report of a committee appointed 
 to obtain the general sentiment of the merchants, importers, and re- 
 tailers, a non-importation agreement was entered upon, constitut- 
 ing a voluntary engagement to each other that they would not " sell 
 on their own accounts or on commission, nor buy or sell for any per- 
 
 ' As illustrating the interest taken in the non-importation situation, attention 
 may be called to the appearance of the following subject among the Quaestiones, 
 announced for debate at the coming Commencement of Harvard CoUege, in 
 July, 1768: 
 
 IX. An contractus mercatoru, ad pemiciem publicam tendentes, obligant. 
 
 2 Massachusetts Papers (MS.), no. 87. This document is printed, not quite 
 accurately, in Massachusetts Papers, p. 58. Also see Eowe's Diary, under dates 
 given. 
 
 ' Memorial History of New York, iv. 516. 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 203 
 
 son whomsoever any goods [save a very few enumerated articles] 
 which shall be shipped from Great Britain after October 1, 1768, 
 until the acts are repealed," providing Boston and Philadelphia 
 adopted similar measures by June 1st, following.^ 
 
 Letters were immediately sent to the merchants of Philadelphia 
 and Boston, and on the 25th the former, with the letters of both 
 Boston and New York before them, met at "The Lodge," and after 
 listening to an address on the grievances of the colony ^ took into 
 consideration the question of non-importation. No decision was 
 reached at this meeting, and during July the merchants continued 
 'to meet and to consider a number of objections, chief among which 
 was the fear lest non-importation according to the New York plan 
 should "serve to create a monopoly by enabling the merchants 
 with capital to lay in a large stock of the proscribed commodities 
 before the agreement became effective." ' Boston on the other hand 
 
 » New York Gazette and the Weekly Mercury, AprU 18, 1768. 
 
 ' "Gentlemen: You are caUed together to consider what answer shaU be re- 
 turned to the Brethren of Boston and New York, who desire to know whether we 
 win unite with them in stopping the importation of goods from Great Britain 
 until certain acts are repealed." 
 
 The speaker then recoimted the special grievances of Pennsylvania: 
 
 1. The law against steel and steel furnaces. 
 
 2. The law against plating and sUtting mills. 
 
 3. The law against carrying wool freely from one colony to another. 
 
 4. The prohibition against sending logwood to foreign markets. 
 
 5. The obhgation to carry Portuguese and Spanish wines to England. 
 ,6. The duty on Madeira wines. 
 
 7. The emptying of British jails upon the province. 
 
 8. The restrictions upon the fisheries and the duties on foreign molasses and 
 sugars. 
 
 9. The necessity of supplying themselves with goods through England at 
 20 per cent and even 40 per cent increase. 
 
 10. The Stamp Act, Declaratory Act, and Townshend Act (Massachusetts 
 Historical Society, Broadsides). 
 
 ' Becker, op. cit., p. 62. The Pennsylvania Chronicle, July 23, 1768, contams 
 a list of fourteen queries proposed to the committee of the Philadelphia merchants, 
 "now sitting," for consideration, each raising the question as to the wisdom of the 
 New York agreement. The writer asks "Whether precipitate combination, at 
 the time of great distress in England, to import no British manufactures would 
 not be a means of irritating and making enemies of the inhabitants of Great Brit- 
 ain at the same time distressing ourselves." The writer urges patience and rea- 
 sonableness, manufacturing and getting on without the taxed goods, and says 
 that what may be prudent in the eastern governments (New York and New Eng- 
 
204 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OP MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 acted at once. On May 2, 1768, the whole Body mei; in the Repre- 
 sentatives Room in the Town House, and there accepted the reso- 
 lutions of New York, binding themselves not to write for any goods 
 after June 1st nor to import any after October 1st, until the Town- 
 shend duties were removed. On the same day Gloucester, probably 
 acting on the Boston letter of March 16th, promised to stop impor- 
 tation for a year from the date of the meeting.^ 
 
 Hillsborough's circular letter of April 21, 1768, to the governors of 
 all the colonies in America, roused a great deal of resentment among 
 the colonists. It was called out by the general letter issued on 
 February 11th by the speaker of the Massachusetts House of Repre- 
 sentatives, and was addressed to the speaker of the assembly of each 
 colony upon the continent of North America, and characterized that 
 letter as "of a most dangerous and factious tendency calculated to 
 inflame the minds of the king's subjects in America." Such an in- 
 terpretation was rightly deemed imjust and absurd. Hillsborough's 
 further demand that the governors persuade their assemblies to 
 ignore the letter and to treat it "with the contempt it deserved" 
 created in the colonists a deeper sense of their common interest and 
 so furthered the cause of non-importation. This ill-advised measure, 
 taken in conjunction with the attempts made m the summer of 1768 
 to enforce the acts of trade, not only added to the grievances of the 
 importers and merchants generally but strengthened their determina- 
 tion to persist in their work. On July 18th, the Standing Committee, 
 consisting of John Rowe, John Hancock, Edward Payne, Henderson 
 Inches, Melatiah Bourne, and Thomas Boylston, met at the British 
 Coffee House, and on the 25th issued a call for a general meeting at 
 
 land) may be imprudent in the middle and southern, ''seeing we widely differ 
 in many circumstances." 
 
 1 The following is the Gloucester agreement: 
 
 "We whose names are imderwritten are of opinion that every legal measure for 
 freeing the country from the present embarrassments should be adopted, and 
 among others the stopping the importation of goods from Great Britain. ' We 
 promise that we wiU not for one year from the above date [May 2, 1768]' write 
 for any goods, except such as are absolutely necessary for the carrying on the 
 Fishery and that we wiU not take any EngUsh goods to sell on commission and 
 we further promise that we wiU write to our correspondents and desh-e their in- 
 terest and influence to put a stop to growing evils of offices that are multiplying 
 among us." Epes Sargent, Nathaniel Allen, Daniel Sargent, Winthrop Sargent 
 William Ellery, Jr. (Maasachusetts Historical Society, 02517 no 38) ' 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 205 
 
 Fan^il Hall, "to consult measures for the better regulation of the 
 trade." The general meeting was postponed until August 1st, but 
 on the 28th the committee drew up the following resolutions: 
 
 The Merchants and Traders in the Town of Boston, having taken , 
 into consideration the deplorable situation of the Trade and the many 
 difBculties it at present labours under on account of the scarcity of 
 money, which is daily decreasing for want of other remittances to dis- 
 charge our debts in Great Britain and the large sums collected by the 
 officers of the Customs for duties on goods imported — the heavy taxes 
 levied to discharge the debts contracted by the governments in the 
 late warr — the embarrassments and restrictions laid on the Trade by 
 the several late acts of parUament, together with the bad success of our 
 Cod Fishery this season and the discouraging prospect of the Whale 
 Fishery by which our principal sources of Remittances are like to be 
 greatly diminished, and we thereby rendered unable to pay the debts 
 we owe the Merchants in Great Britain and to continue the importation 
 of goods from thence. 
 
 We, the subscribers, in order to relieve the Trade under those dis- 
 couragements, to promote industry, frugality and oeconomy and to 
 discourage luxury and every kind of extravegance, do promise and en- 
 gage to and with each other as follows. 
 
 That we will not send for or import from Great Britain this Fall, either 
 on our own account or on commission, any other goods than what are al- 
 ready ordered for the Fall supply. 
 
 That we will not send for or import any kind of goods or merchandize 
 from Great Britain, either fon our lown account or on commission or any 
 otherwise, from January 1, 1769, to January 1, 1770, except salt, coals, fish- 
 hooks and lines, hemp, duck, bar-lead and shot, wool-cards and card-wire. 
 
 That we will not purchase of any factors or others any kind of goods 
 imported from Great Britain, from January 1, 1769, to January 1, 1770. 
 
 That we will not import on our own account or on commission or pur- 
 chase from any who shall import from any other colony in America 
 from January 1, 1769, to January 1, 1770, any tea, glass, paper, or other 
 goods commonly imported from Great Britain. 
 
 That we will not from and after January 1, 1769, import into the prov- 
 ince any tea, paper, glass, or painters' colours until the acts imposing 
 duties on these articles have been repealed.^ 
 
 These resolutions were presented to the Whole Body when it 
 finally met at Faneuil Hall on August 1, 1768, and were there formally 
 
 1 Massachusetts Historical Society, 02517, no. 71. 
 
206 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 adopted, "with greater unanimity than was shown in the time of 
 the Stamp Act." ' There were present at the meeting, however, 
 but sixty-two merchants, of whom sixty entered their names as sub- 
 scribers,^ thus constituting a new body, the Subscribers, within the 
 older group of those who had become members of the Society in 
 1763, and a very much smaller number than were those who signed 
 the agreement in 1765. Already the old organization was breaking 
 up. Though between August 1st and 8th the number of subscribers 
 was increased, the increase does not appear to have been marked, 
 and it is likely that the meeting of August 8th, at which one hundred 
 were present, was a gathering of those only who had promised to 
 support the movement.* The lead of Boston was followed by ad- 
 joining towns. Salem, after many meetings held between August 
 23d and September 6th, finally adopted on the latter date the Boston 
 resolutions without alteration.* Other towns did the same, and where 
 formal agreements were wanting resolutions of approval were passed 
 in town meeting.^ 
 
 The New York merchants, acting under the influence of the 
 Boston agreement and hoping to meet the objections of the 
 Philadelphia merchants, now reconsidered the situation, and en- 
 tered into a new arrangement of a much more detailed and 
 definite character. On August 27, 1768, they subscribed the 
 following resolves: 
 
 ' Boston Gazette, August 15, 1768. 
 
 ' Rowe, Diaxy, August 1, 1768. The proceedings and agreement are given in 
 full in the Boston Chronicle, May 1, 1769, and the agreement is printed in John 
 Mein's pamphlet to be mentioned later. 
 
 ' Rowe, Diary, August 2 and 8, 1768. 
 
 * The situation in Salem was aggravated by the division in the town between 
 Resoinders and Non Rescinders. Four of the Salem merchants were among the 
 seventeen members of the Massachusetts House of Representatives who voted 
 to rescind the resolutions upon which the letter of February 11th was based, and 
 they had to defend themselves against the attack of their fellow townsmen 
 (Boston Gazette, July 25, Augvist 1, 1768). 
 
 5 As at Norwich: "We give this public testimony of our hearty and unanimous 
 approbation of the resolutions the merchants have entered into to stop the im- 
 portation of British goods; we will frown upon all who endeavour to frustrate 
 these good designs, and avoid aU correspondence with those merchants who shall 
 dare to violate these obligations" (January 29, 1770, Caulkins, History of Nor- 
 wich, p. 369). 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 207 
 
 That we will not send for from Great Britain, either upon our own 
 account or on commission, this Fall, any other goods than what we 
 have already ordered. 
 
 That we will not import any kind of merchandize from Great Britain, 
 either on our own account or on commission or any otherwise, nor pur- 
 chase from any factor or others, any kind of goods imported from Great 
 Britain directly or by way of any of the other colonies or by way of the 
 West Indies that shall be shipped from Great Britain after November 
 1, until the fore-mentioned acts of parUament imposing duties on paper, 
 glass, tea, or painters' colours be repealed, except only coals, salt, sail- 
 cloth, wool-cards and card-wire, grindstones, chalk, lead, tin, sheet- 
 copper, and German steel. 
 
 We further agree not to import any kind of merchandize from Ham- 
 burgh and Holland directly from thence, nor by any other way whatever, 
 more than what we have abeady ordered (except tiles and bricks). 
 
 We also promise to countermand all orders given for Great Britain, 
 on or since the 16th inst., by the first conveyance, ordering those goods 
 not to be sent unless the fore-mentioned duties are taken off. 
 
 And we further agree that if any person or persons, subscribers thereto, 
 shall take any advantage by importing any kind of goods that are herein 
 restricted, directly or indirectly, contrary to the true intent and mean- 
 ing of this agreement such person or persons shall by us be deemed 
 enemies to this country. 
 
 Lastly, we agree that if any goods shall be consigned or sent over to 
 us, contrary to our agreement in this subscription, such goods so im- 
 ported shall be lodged in some public warehouse, there to be kept under 
 confinement until the fore-mentioned acts are repealed. 
 
 This agreement was signed "by nearly all the merchants in town," 
 and several days later, on September 5th, the retailers .and tradesmen 
 made a formal promise to support the merchants and to refrain 
 from dealing with such of them as did not adhere to or subscribe the 
 articles adopted on August 27th.^ 
 
 This revised and enlarged agreement of the New York merchants, 
 though showing traces of Boston influence, is a distinct advance in 
 the direction of greater fulness and rigidity. For the first time viola- 
 tors were construed as "enemies of the country," for the first time 
 the requirement was made that goods sent contrary to the agree- 
 ment should be stored in warehouses until the acts were repealed, 
 
 1 New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, September 12, 1768. Printed also 
 in a supplement to the Boston Gazette, September 19, 1768. 
 
208 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 and for the first time since 1765 the retail merchants entered formally 
 into the movement. The promise to countermand all orders sent 
 since August 16th and to import no goods from Holland or Hamburg 
 seem designed on the one hand to prevent an accumulation of goods 
 and so to meet the Philadelphia charge of monopoly, on the other to 
 put a stop to smuggling from the European Continent contrary to 
 the Act of 1663.1 When the news of New York's action reached 
 Boston, it was greeted with manifest approval. At a town meeting 
 held on September 13th, a vote was passed expressing "high satis- 
 faction," ^ and at Providence an agreement was entered into in town 
 meeting on October 24th, similar to that of New York. 
 
 Philadelphia had thus far taken no part in the movement, and 
 expressions of contempt because of the "tame disposition" of the 
 Philadelphians began to appear. One New York writer, probably 
 angry at the objections raised by the Philadelphia merchants, 
 wrote: 
 
 It is said that it is owing only to a few dry goods merchants that 
 the agreement is not made. It is a most melancholy consideration that 
 only a few inhabitants of one City, contemptible to the last degree for 
 their mercenary principles and abject pusUanimity should be able to 
 obstruct and even disconcert measures so universally applauded. That 
 Merchants of Dry Goods, a business, which though at some times neces- 
 
 1 Professor Becker says in commenting on these resolutions: "If the provision 
 making the agreement eiJeotive in part from August 16 was designed to meet 
 the charge of monopoly, the provision regarding the Dutch trade was probably 
 designed to prevent, in part at least, the smuggling from Holland. Thus early the 
 two-fold weakness of the non-importation poKcy was manifest: if sufficiently com- 
 prehensive it gave a monopoly to those who inaugurated it; if limited to England, 
 it enriched the smuggler" (op. cit., p. 63). The distinction here made seems to 
 me too precise. There is ample evidence to show that the richer merchants, cer- 
 tainly in Boston and Philadelphia, suffered heavily for their self-denial. Take 
 the case of John Barrett & Sons of Boston, who countermanded their English 
 orders two months before the agreement was signed, and that of the merchants of 
 Philadelphia mentioned in Drinker's letter (Pennsylvania Magazine, xiv. 43) who 
 felt the "present stagnation the most severely." WhOe it may be that the retailers 
 depended on smuggling for their profits, I have seen no sufficient evidence to 
 prove the point, nor does Professor Becker furnish such. 
 
 ^ "The Hon''''= Thomas Gushing, Esq. communicated to the Town a Letter 
 lately received from a Committee of Merchants in the City of New York, ac- 
 quainting him with their Agreement relative to a Non-Importation of British 
 Goods. Whereupon the Town by a Vote expressed their high satisfaction therein ' ' 
 (Boston Record Commissioners' Reports, xvi. 264). 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHA2SrrS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 209 
 
 sary, certainly drains the colonies of their specie, more than all other 
 professions put together (even that of the lawyers not excepted) — that 
 this least useful part of the community should be able to do this is 
 humiliating and contemptible and all people and tradesmen should treat 
 them as they deserve.' 
 
 But Philadelphia was reaching the end of her vacillation. On Sep- 
 tember 28, 1768, Stephen Collins wrote: 
 
 There is some combination at present in agitation respecting non-im- 
 porting goods on account of the duties, etc, as there is a meeting adver- 
 tised for that pin-pose to-morrow, but I rather think they will not suc- 
 ceed in so injudicious a step.^ 
 
 In November, 1768, and again in February, 1769, the Philadelphia 
 merchants drafted and sent memorials to the merchants of England, 
 recounting their grievances and urging intervention in their behalf. 
 In the first memorial, which was based on an earlier draft of No- 
 vember 1, 1765, they confined themselves to trade restrictions, but 
 in the second, which was printed and sent to individual correspondents 
 in all the English cities, they declared the acts of parliament to be 
 unconstitutional and destructive of their rights as British subjects, 
 and they said that unless their trade was speedily relieved from 
 "those unnatural and useless fetters" commerce between Great 
 Britain and the colonies must of necessity greatly diminish and the 
 general importation of goods suddenly cease.' 
 
 In this memorial of February 6, 1769, the Philadelphia merchants 
 raised for the first time, as far as the merchants were concerned, the 
 constitutional claim, which, though frequently and strongly pre- 
 sented hitherto by individuals, town meetings, and general assem- 
 blies, had not as yet been taken up by the traders and importers in 
 their complaints. In so doing the Philadelphians were changing 
 their status as merchants into that of patriots and radicals. It was 
 
 1 One is reminded of Pitt's famous characterization of traders and merchants, 
 as "Little, paltry, peddling fellows, venders of two penny wares and falsehoods, 
 who under the idea of trade, sell everything in their power — honour, truth, con- 
 science," etc. In Charles Town, South Carolina, a wholesale dealer was respect- 
 able but a retail dealer was not, and even a wholesale or commission merchant must 
 deal in indigo and rice and not in other things. 
 
 ' Collins Papers. 
 
 » Pennsylvania Journal, February 9, 1769. Printed in full in the Boston 
 Chronicle, February 13, 1769, where it occupies three and a half columns. 
 
210 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 a significant change, for just as the resolutions of the New York and 
 Massachusetts assembhes aroused resentment in England, because 
 of the stress laid upon rights and privileges and the so-called illegal 
 and unconstitutional encroachments of crown and parliament, claims 
 which Englishmen could not understand and would not tolerate, so 
 now the appearance of the same argument in the merchants' memorial 
 offended many of their English friends, and chilled the enthusiasm 
 of many of those who had been chiefly responsible for the repeal of 
 the Stamp Act and were in the main sympathetic to the American 
 side of the case, as long as it concerned trade grievances only. The 
 memorial ^ reached England at about the same time as did the peti- 
 tion of the New York assembly ^ of December 17th to the House of 
 Lords and the resolutions of the same body adopted December 31st, 
 the latter of which, we are told, so exasperated the House of Com- 
 mons that the merchants' plea had no chance of consideration. 
 Many of the British merchants wrote to America that the time was 
 not opportune for energetic action on their part, but that as parlia- 
 ment was probably favorable to a repeal of the Townshend Act, it 
 would be better to wait. They urged upon their friends in America 
 to abstain from violence, apply themselves steadily to the encourage- 
 ment of frugality and manufactures, adhere to non-importation, 
 and say less about the constitutional issue. The Philadelphia mer- 
 chants were highly esteemed in England and their relations with 
 their English correspondents are exceedingly instructive, but un- 
 fortunately for the hope of a peaceful settlement of the dispute, the 
 advice from England was disregarded, and from this tune forward 
 both acts of violence and renewals of the constitutional claims 
 served but to widen the breach.^ 
 
 1 There were foui memorials from the merchants of Philadelphia: those of 
 November, 1765; November, 1768; February 6, 1769; and March 10, 1769. 
 The last was sent only to the merchants of London. 
 
 2 The petition of the New York assembly to the House of Lords is printed in 
 the New York Gazette, April 17, 1768, and in the Pennsylvania Journal April 
 20, 1768. 
 
 2 "Had a petition come over from your merchants on the principle of inexpe- 
 diency instead of from your assembly denying the right, the law would ere now 
 have been repealed" (Letter from London, Pennsylvania Chronicle, April 3, 
 1769). The advice to stick to the non-consumption and non-importation agreed 
 ments and avoid riots, mobs, and such illegal measures, and lay less stress upon 
 constitutional rights, came from men who were certain to lose by the process and 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 211 
 
 At the meetings of February 6th and March 10th the Philadelphia 
 merchants finally committed themselves to the cause of non-importa- 
 tion.'^ Though I can give no copy of the final compact, its terms are 
 probably much the same as those of Newcastle County, Delaware, 
 which were adopted on August 28, 1769,^ and reproduce those of 
 Philadelphia, as did the New Haven terms reproduce those of New 
 York, and the Salem and Gloucester terms those of Boston. The 
 compact, which is deserving of careful study, runs as follows : 
 
 W& the subscribers, freeholders, and freemen, of the County of New- 
 Castle, upon Deleware, taking into consideration, that our trade is re- 
 stricted, our rights invaded, arbitrary courts, wholy dependent upon 
 ministers, erected over us, our present security destroyed, by some late 
 acts of the British parliament; and that a plan is laid, and measures 
 adopted in our mother country, which, if carried into execution, must 
 soon deprive us of even the shadow of liberty, and of everything that 
 is dear and valuable to English-men; And, being of the opinion,. that it 
 
 so were based on honest conviction. That there was less sjrmpathy for the 
 American cause among the British merchants in 1769 than there had been in 
 1765 is unmistakable, and there is nothing to account for it except the advance 
 in the American claims. Thomas Hutchinson, who represented conservative 
 opinion, wrote to Israel Williams of Hatfield, May 9, 1769: "If we could be pru- 
 dent, I think I may say only silent, we might save the country and retain the rights 
 we contend for or which is the same thing might rest assured that parhament 
 would not exercise the right of taxing which they claim, and we may be assured 
 will not give up, but if we will go on denying the right and asserting our inde- 
 pendence the nation will by force compeU us to acknowledge it. I wish this force 
 may be kept off as long as you and I Uve" (WiUiams Papers). 
 
 '■ I have not been able to find a copy of the Philadelphia resolutions. That 
 such were drawn up at, the meetings mentioned above is clear from later allu- 
 sions. For example, certain shipments were declared contrary "to the agree- 
 ments entered into by the merchants and traders of this city on Febniary 6 and 
 March 10" (Pennsylvania Chronicle, July 24, 1769). On August 2, the merchants 
 of Philadelphia met at the Coffee House and resolved "that the committee shall 
 not be at liberty to receive and store any goods consigned after the agreement of 
 the merchants here not to import was known in Great Britain nor such as were 
 ordered after the 6th of February last " (ibid. August 7, 1769). On June 5, 1770, a 
 meeting was held in Philadelphia at which it was voted to adhere to the agree- 
 ment entered into March 10, 1769, "almost unanimously" (Pennsylvania Ga- 
 zette, June 14, 1770). Drinker speaks definitely of the "agreement formed on 
 the 10 of March" (Pennsylvania Magazme, xiv. 42). Stephen CoUins gives 
 the date of the first agreement as "2™° 1 1769." This may be an error for Feb- 
 ruary 6, or it may be that the first agreement was drafted on the Ist and rati- 
 fied on the 6th. 
 
 ' South Carolina Gazette, October 12, 1769. 
 
212 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS p^B. 
 
 is not only lawful, but our indispensible duty, to use our utmost in- 
 fluence to avert the calamity, misery and slavery, impending over us, 
 and all our bretheren in North- America; and apprehending that the 
 agreements of the merchants, and traders of these colonies, not to im- 
 port certain enumerated articles from any part of Great-Britain, until 
 the said acts of parhamejit are repealed, are wise, just and salutary, 
 and will have a great tendency to this end; DO hereby testify and 
 declare our approbation of them to prefer the future welfare of their 
 country to their present private emolument. 
 
 In order to contribute our mite to this public and patriotic work, and 
 willing to co-operate, as far as in us lies, with those advocates and friends 
 to hberty and their country, do hereby mutually promise, declare and 
 agree, upon our word, honour, and the faith of Christians; 
 
 I. That from and after this date we will not import, or bring into any 
 part of America, any goods, wares or merchandizes what soever, from 
 Great-Britain, contrary to the spirit and intentions of the agreement of the 
 merchants of the City of Philadelphia in the province of Pennsylvania 
 
 II. That we never will have any dealings, commerce or intercourse 
 whatsoever, with any man, residing in any part of the British Dominions, 
 who shall for lucre, or any other purpose, import, or bring, into any part 
 of America, any article or thing contrary to the said agreement. 
 
 III. That any one of us, who shall wilfully break this compact, 
 shall have his name published in the public news-papers as a betrayer 
 of the civil and rehgious rights of Americans, and be for ever after 
 deemed infamous and an enemy to this country.^ 
 
 Thus step by step the northern colonies were closing their ports 
 to British goods. Albany came in during the summer of 1769.^ 
 
 ' The following additional information Is given by the newspaper: 
 
 We hear that a number of the principal freeholders of the said County, as- 
 sembled at Christiana-Bridge, on Saturday last, in pursuance of notice given for 
 that purpose, when the occasion of their meeting, the grievances complained of 
 by North-Americans, and the most probable methods of obtaining redress, were 
 opened, and fully explained, and the above compact was read, approved, and 
 signed by aU present. It is said that it wiU soon be signed by every freeholder 
 and freeman in the country, and that the other counties in that government 
 will immediately follow the example. 
 
 Some resolutions were made, nemine contradicente, in favour of persons not 
 inhabitants of the county, who should be so weak as to import any goods there 
 contrary to the agreement; particularly, that they should be stored, effectually 
 secured, and taken care of, until the obnoxious acts of parliament were repealed 
 except the same should be prevented by the imprudence of the owners. 
 
 * Albany acted very much under the influence of New York, but the merchants 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPOHTATION MOVEMENT 213 
 
 Salem, Marblehead, and Gloucester had already adopted the Boston 
 terms, and New Haven, which had received an urgent letter from 
 New York in April, now on July 10th entered the ranks.^ Though 
 Nantucket refused to bind herself formally by any engagement, her 
 merchants were in spirit and practice sympathetic to the cause. 
 The Connecticut assembly on October 9, 1769, passed resolutions 
 expressing warm approval of the agreements,^ and on the 18th the 
 New Jersey assembly formally extended its thanks to New York and 
 Philadelphia for "their disinterested and public spirited conduct." ' 
 Providence gave in her accession on October 10th,* Newport on 
 October 30th,^ Wethersfield on December 25th,^ Middletown ' on 
 February 20, 1770, Watertown « in March, and Falmouth (Port- 
 land) on June 26th of that year.' Many inland towns, such as Lan- 
 caster, Pennsylvania, which received their goods from the seaboard 
 importers, agreed not to deal with those who broke the compact.^" 
 In the country districts where non-importation was a matter of less 
 serious consequence than it was in the seaports, the plan was seized 
 upon with avidity, and the town meetings passed resolutions, often 
 
 there wished to include among the exempted commodities such Indian goods as 
 blankets, strouds, penistones, gimps, linens, vermilions, and brass kettles. 
 The New York merchants would not agree to this and compelled them to adopt 
 the New York plan. There is some uncertainty as to the date, but it was before 
 July, 1769. Some of the Albany merchants were restless under this agreement, 
 as the increasing scarcity of Indian goods not only interfered with trade, but also 
 rendered less cordial the relations with the Indians, who suspected a conspiracy 
 against themselves and could not understand why the traffic in furs stopped and 
 presents were no longer given. See p. 240, below. Albany undoubtedly broke the 
 agreement early, by importing what she wanted through Quebec and Montreal. 
 
 1 Pennsylvania Chronicle, July 31, 1769; Boston Gazette, Augiist 6, 1770. 
 The New Haven agreement was signed by all at the meeting and was distributed 
 to aU in the town and the adjoining neighborhood. 
 
 2 Coimecticut Colonial Records, xiii. 236 note. 
 ' New Jersey Archives, xxvi. 546. 
 
 * Providence Gazette, October 14, 21, 1769. Staples gives the date October 
 24. The meeting of the 10th was probably that of the merchants. 
 
 5 Newport Mercury, November 6, 1769; Newport Historical Magazine, iii. 
 253-257. 
 
 ' Wethersfield Town Records, under date, printed in Stiles, Ancient Wethers- 
 field, i. 419-420. 
 
 ' Middletown Town Records, under date. 
 
 8 Boston Record Commissioners' Reports, xviii. 8. 
 
 9 Boston Gazette, Jtme 9, 1770. Text in full. 
 
 •» Massachusetts Gazette and Boston News Letter, July 5, 1770. 
 
214 THE COLONL^L SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 extravagant and denunciatory, against the importation of English 
 and Scottish goods. ^ Portsmouth alone of all the seaports of the 
 North remained open to British trade. Though many attempts 
 were made t6 bring the merchants there into line, beginning with 
 the town meeting of July 8, 1768, and the first call of a merchants' 
 meeting on September 12th, no decision was reached and Portsmouth 
 remained permanently outside the movement.^ 
 
 The South, though acting more slowly, was already keenly alive 
 to the significance of what was taking place. Conditions there were 
 in some ways essentially difl^erent from those in the North, for the 
 grievances of the tobacco and rice colonies were boimd to vary from 
 those of the bread and provision colonies. The South suffered much 
 less than the Middle Colonies and New England from the trade re- 
 strictions and could present no such series of grievances as had been 
 drawn up by the Boston merchants. But the South did suffer from 
 the scarcity of money, and was as deeply impressed as were the 
 colonists anywhere with the so-called illegal and oppressive features 
 of British policy. The southerners were equally ready to encourage 
 frugality, promote manufactures, oppose importation, denounce im- 
 constitutionality, uphold liberty and self-government, and persecute 
 those who differed from them as enemies of the country, as were 
 those of the North, but they omitted many features of the agree- 
 ments that the North had included, included at least one, regarding 
 negroes, that the North had' omitted, and in the case of the tobacco 
 colonies defined non-importation in terms that were much less re- 
 
 1 New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, July 20, 1769; Boston Gazette, 
 July 31, 1769. One of the most remarkable series of resolutions is that of Abing- 
 ton, Mass. Section 9 reads: "Voted as the opinion of this town that the agree- 
 ment of the merchants and traders of the Town of Boston relative to non-importa- 
 tion has a natural and righteous tendency to frustrate the scheme of the enemies 
 of the constitution, and to render ineffectual the said unconstitutional and un- 
 righteous acts, and is a superlative instance of self-denial and pubhc virtue, which 
 we hope will be handed down to posterity, even to the latest generation, to their 
 immortal honour" (Essex Gazette, April 3, 1770). These resolves gave the New 
 York brethren " in fi ni te pleasure." "How many ages hence," they said, "in un- 
 born states and with accents yet unkn own, shall these manly and noble resolves 
 be recited" (ibid. May 5, 1770). 
 
 2 The Portsmouth merchants] were summoned to meet at the house of John 
 Stavers, September 12, 1768, but want of accord led to the postponement of the 
 meeting to the 16th, then to the 23d, and then indefinitely (New Hampshire 
 Gazette, September 9, 1768). See pp. 233 note 1, 239, below. 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPOETATION MOVEMENT 215 
 
 strictive. The resolutions of Maryland, Virginia, and North Caro- 
 lina were essentially the same in principle. Instead of promising to 
 import no British goods, with a few exemptions, they allowed the 
 "associators" to import all British goods except such as were care- 
 fully specified and such as were taxed by parliament, and they limited 
 the operation of the agreement to the time when the repeal of the 
 acts should take place. Thus the three "associations" were less 
 rigid in their terms than were the agreements of the North, and left 
 the merchants free to import many goods that the northerners 
 bound themselves to exclude. 
 
 The first non-importation agreement entered into south of Penn- 
 sylvania and Delaware was that of Virginia. Early in April, 1769, 
 Dr. Ross of Bladensburg forwarded to Washington at Moimt Ver- 
 non the resolves of the Philadelphia merchants, and he in turn sent 
 them to his neighbor, George Mason at Gunston Hall, recommend- 
 ing them for consideration. The latter agreeing with Ross and Wash- 
 ington that something ought to be done, drafted a body of resolutions, 
 suitable for the colony. These resolutions were adopted on May 18, 
 1769, by the members of the House of Burgesses, which had just been 
 dissolved by the governor, Lord Botetourt, for protesting against 
 parliamentary taxation, and by certain merchants and traders who 
 happened to be in Williamsburg at the time, eighty-eight altogether, 
 meeting in the house of Anthony Hay. After a long preamble and 
 an opening frugality clause, the resolutions proceed as follows: 
 
 Secondly, That they will not at any time hereafter, directly or indi- 
 rectly, import or cause to be imported any manner of goods, merchandise, 
 or manufactures, which are or shall hereafter be taxed by act of parlia- 
 ment for the purpose of raising a revenue in America (except paper not 
 exceeding eight shillings sterling per ream and except such articles only 
 as orders have been aheady sent for) nor purchase any such after the 
 first day of September next, of any persons whatsoever. . . . 
 
 Thirdly, That the subscribers will not hereafter, directly or indirectly, 
 import or cause to be imported, from Great Britain or any part of Eu- 
 rope . . . any of the goods hereinafter enumerated, viz, spirits, wine, 
 cider, perry, beer, ale, malt, barley, pease, beef, pork, fish, butter, cheese, 
 tallow, candles, oil, fruit, sugar, pickles, confectionary, pewter, hoes, 
 axes, watches, clocks, tables, chairs, looking glasses, carriages, joiners 
 and cabinet work of all sorts, upholstery of all sorts, trinkets and jew- 
 
216 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 ellery, plate and gold, arid silversmiths' work of all sorts, ribband and 
 millinery of all sorts, lace of all sorts, India goods of aU sorts (except 
 spices), silks of all sorts (except sewing silk), cambric, lawn, muslin, gauze 
 (except bolting cloths), calico or cotton stuffs of more than two shillings 
 per yard, linen of more than two shillings per yard, woolens, worsted 
 stuffs of all sorts of more than one shilling and sixpence per yard, broad 
 cloths of all kinds at more than eight shillings per yard, narrow cloths of 
 all kinds at more than three shillings per yard, hats, stockings (plaid 
 and Irish hose excepted), shoes and boots, saddles, and all manufac- 
 tures of leather and skins of all kinds, until the late acts of parUament 
 imposing on tea, paper, glass, etc, for the purpose of raising a revenue 
 in America are repealed. . . . 
 
 Fourthly, That in all orders which any of the subscribers may here- 
 after send to Great Britain, they shall and will expressly direct their 
 correspondents not to ship them any of the before enumerated goods 
 imtil the before mentioned acts of parliament are repealed; and if any 
 goods are shipped to them, contrary to the tenour of this agreement, they 
 will refuse to take the same, or make themselves chargeable therewith. 
 
 Fifthly, That they will not import any slaves, or purchase any im- 
 ported, after the first day of November next, until the said acts are 
 repealed. 
 
 Sixthly, That they will not import wines of any kind whatever. . . . 
 
 Seventhly, For the better preservation of the breed of sheep, that they 
 will not kill or suffer to be killed, any lambs that shall be weaned before 
 the first day of May, in any year. . . . 
 
 Eighthly and lastly. That these resolves shall be binding on all and 
 each of the subscribers. . . .^ 
 
 Maryland came in about a month later. On the day after the 
 meeting at Williamsburg, the merchants of Ann Arundel county 
 issued a call for a convention to be held at Annapolis on May 23d. 
 There the "associators" bound themselves not to send any orders 
 to Great Britain until June 30th and not to import any goods what- 
 ever "contrary to the spirit and design of the association." Similar 
 associations were organized in the other counties. Finally on June 
 22, 1769, representatives from all the counties came together at 
 Annapolis and entered into a general agreement similar to that of 
 Virginia. It was more elaborate, emphasized more conspicuously 
 
 ' Printed in the Boston Chronicle, June 8, 1769, and in Burk, Historv of 
 Virginia, iii. 345-349. ^ 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPOETATION MOVEMENT 217 
 
 the constitutional claim, had a much more detailed list of commodi- 
 ties not to be imported, with more exemptions, and a more rigorous 
 local boycotting clause. It also left out the fifth clause of the Vir- 
 ginia resolutions and added another binding the "tradesmen and 
 manufactures" not to raise prices, but to sell everything at the 
 accustomed rates. The agreement Vas signed by forty-three 
 persons.^ 
 
 South Carolina was reported to be ready to enter into a non- 
 importation agreement as early as March, 1769, and the merchants 
 and planters of Charles Town were looking seriously into the ques- 
 tion of superfluities, the drain of money, and the amount spent for 
 slaves, but it was not until June 27th that a body of the inhabitants, 
 including twenty-five members of the general assembly, adopted a 
 set of non-importation resolutions, and about ten days later that 
 the merchants adopted another version. After considerable manoeu- 
 vring, the two plans were consolidated and agreed upon at a general 
 meeting on July 22d. This consolidated plan had been framed the 
 week before by a joint committee and was designed to comprise 
 all the essential parts of the two forms already adopted and cir- 
 culated for subscribers. The new resolutions were signed by one 
 hundred and forty-two planters, merchants, and mechanics, and a 
 committee of about forty was selected to give force to the associa- 
 tion.^ The preamble and resolutions are as follows: 
 
 We, His Majesty's dutiful and loving Subjects, the Inhabitants of 
 South-CaroKna, being sensibly affected with the great Prejudice done to 
 Great Britain, and the abject and wretched condition to which the Brit- 
 ish Colonies are reduced by several Acts of Parliament lately passed; 
 by some of which the Monies that the Colonists usually and chearfully 
 
 1 "The Proceedings of the Committee appointed to exa mi ne into the Importa- 
 tion of Goods by the Brigandine Good Intent Capt. Errington, from London in 
 February, 1770," AnnapoUs, 1770. Reprinted in the Maryland Magazine, iii. 
 nos. 2, 3, 4. See also the Eden-Hillsborough correspondence (ibid. ii. 228-229, 
 234, 239, 244). The resolutions are printed in this pamphlet (Maryland Maga^ 
 zine, iii. 144-147); Maryland Gazette, June 29, 1769; Boston Chronicle, July 
 10, 1769; and Soharf, History of Maryland, i. 111-114. 
 
 2 South Carolina Gazette, June 29, July 6, 27, 1769. The early history of the 
 South Carohna draft is confusing. John Gordon wrote that the resolutions of 
 July 22 were the seventh form of agreement and the fifth to be subscribed, and 
 though he was one of the first to cooperate, he was tired of being bandied 
 about from resolution to resolution (South Carolina Gazette, September 14, 1769). 
 
218 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Peb. 
 
 spent in the Purchase of all Sorts of Goods imported from Great Britain, 
 are now, to their great Grievance, wrung from them, without their Con- 
 sent, or even their being representated, and applied by the Ministry, in 
 Prejudice of, and without Regard to, the real Interest of Great-Britain, 
 or the Manufactures thereof, almost totally, to the Support of new- 
 created Commissioners of Customs, Placemen, parasitical and novel 
 ministerial Officers; and hy others of which Acts, we are not only deprived 
 of those invaluable Rights, Trial by our Peers and the Common Law, 
 but are also made subject to the arbitrary and oppressive Proceedings of 
 the Civil Law, justly abhorred and rejected by our Ancestors, the Free- 
 Men of England; and finding, that the most dutiful and loyal Petitions 
 from the Colonies Alone, for Redress of those Grievances, have been re- 
 jected with Contempt, so that no Relief can be expected from that 
 Method of Proceedings; and, being fully convinced of the absolute Neces- 
 sity, of stimulating our Fellow-Subjects and Sufferers in Great-Britain 
 to aid us, in this our Distress, and of joining the Rest of the Colonies, in 
 some other loyal and vigorous Methods, that may most probably procure 
 such Relief, which we beHeve may be most effectually promoted by strict 
 Oeconomy, and by encouraging the Manufactures of America in general, 
 and of this Province in particular: We therefore, whose names are under- 
 written, do solemnly promise, and agree to and with each other. That, 
 until the Colonies be restored to their former Freedom, by the Repeal of 
 the said Acts, we will most strictly abide by the following 
 
 RESOLUTIONS 
 
 I. That we will encourage and promote the Use of North-American 
 Manufactures in general, and those of this Province in particular. And 
 any of us, who are Venders thereof, do engage to sell and dispose of 
 them, at the same Rates as heretofore. 
 
 II. That we will upon no Pretence whatsoever, either upon our own 
 Account or on Commission, import into this Province any of the Manu- 
 factures of Great-Britain, or any other European or East-India Goods, 
 either from Great Britain, Holland, or any other Place, other than such 
 as may have been Shipped in Consequence of former Orders; except- 
 ing only Negro Cloth, commonly called white and coloured Plains, not 
 exceedmg one Shilling and Six Pence Sterling per Yard, Canvas, Bolting 
 Cloths, Drugs and Family Medicines, Plantation and Workmens Tools, 
 Nails, Fire Arms, Bar Steel, Gun Powder, Shot, Lead, Flints, Wire Cards 
 and Card wire. Mill and Grind Stones, Fish hooks, printed Books and 
 Pamphlets, Salt, Coals, and Salt-Petre. And exclusive of these articles, 
 we do solemnly promise and declare, that we will immediately counter- 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 219 
 
 mand all Orders to our Correspondents in Great-Britain, for shipping 
 any Such Goods, Wares and Merchandize: And we will sell and dispose 
 of the Goods we have on Hand, or that may arrive in Consequence of 
 former Orders at the same rates as heretofore. 
 
 III. That we will use the utmost Oeconomy, in our Persons, Houses 
 and Furniture; particularly, that we will give no mourning, or Gloves, 
 or Scarves at Funerals, 
 
 IV. That, from and after the 1st. Day of January, 1770, we will not 
 import, buy, or sell, any Negroes that shaU be brought into this Prov- 
 ince from Africa; nor, after the 1st. Day of October next, any Negroes 
 that shall be imported from the West-Indies, or any other Place excepting 
 from Africa as aforesaid: And that, if any Goods or Negroes shall be sent 
 to us, contrary to our Agreement in this Subscription such Goods shall 
 be re-shipped or stored, and such Negroes re-shipped from this Province, 
 and not by any Means offered for Sale therein. 
 
 V. That we will not purchase from, or sell for, any Masters of Vessels, 
 transient Persons, or Non-Subscribers, any Kind of European or East- 
 India Goods whatever, excepting Coals and Salt, after the 1st Day of 
 November next: 
 
 VI. That as Wines are subject to a heavy Duty, we agree, not to im- 
 port any on our Account or Commission, or purchase from any Master 
 of Vessel, transient Person, or Non-Subscriber, after the 1st. Day of 
 January next. 
 
 VII. Lastly, That we will not purchase any Negroes imported, or 
 any Goods or Merchandize whatever, from any Resident in this Province, 
 that refuses or neglects to sign this Agreement, within one Month from 
 the Date hereof; excepting it shall appear he has been unavoidably 
 prevented from doing the same. And every Subscriber who shall 
 not, strictly and literally adhere to this Agreement, according to the 
 true Intent and Meaning hereof, ought to be treated (with the utmost 
 Contempt. 
 
 Georgia and North Carolina entered the list last of all In the order 
 named, and while the agreement of the latter followed in the main 
 those of Virginia arid Maryland, the agreement of the former was in 
 principle similar to those of South Carolina and the northern cities. 
 Such alignment was the natural outcome of the economic relations 
 of the colonies to each other, for North Carolina, except in the Cape 
 Fear section, had generally identified herself with the tobacco colo- 
 nies to the northward, while South Carolina and Georgia had many 
 interlocking interests. The news of the non-importation movement 
 
220 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 reached Savannah as early as October, 1767/ but it was not until 
 September 12, 1769, that a body of merchants, planters, and trades- 
 men, possibly aroused by protests from Charles To-wn, met at the 
 house of Mr. Peat and chose a committee to draft resolutions. This 
 committee reported on the 19th a form of agreement sunilar to the 
 one later ratified, in which they promised not to import any English, 
 European, or East Indian goods, except a certain number carefully 
 enumerated, including goods for the Indian trade.^ On the 16th the 
 merchants had met separately at the house of Alexander Creighton, 
 and had drawn up a statement of grievances, followed by a resolve 
 that any person importing articles subject to parliamentary taxa- 
 tion should be deemed an enemy to his country.' Shortly afterwards, 
 at a public meeting held in Savannah, with Jonathan Bryan in the 
 chair, a final agreement was entered into, which was modelled after 
 that of South Carolina, but was diiferently worded in the preamble 
 
 • Georgia Gazette, October 26, 1769. 
 
 2 Georgia Gazette, September 13, 20, 1769. 
 
 ' "It was agreed, That the late acts so fully and unanimously remonstrated 
 against by the Northern Colonies were in themselves unconstitutional and the 
 mode of taxation was entirely inconsistent with the abilities of the people. 
 
 "At a time when we beheve that healing measures and a redress of grievances 
 will be effectually pursued at the next meeting of Parliament, we thiok it un- 
 necessary to enumerate the whole, further than that, in general, and as far as 
 we know, we approve of and agree in sentiment with the other provinces. 
 
 "It was agreed respecting this province in particular that the mode of pay- 
 ment of such duties is a great additional grievance. The sterling cmrent money 
 of this province, which was by Act of Assembly assented to by his Majesty and 
 declared equal in value to the sterling money of Great Britain and a lawful tender 
 in aU payments, being refused ia payment of such duties, tends greatly to de- 
 preciate its value; a circumstance greatly affecting every person anywise inter- 
 ested in this province; after having wisely excluded us [from] the Spanish trade, 
 the only channel through which specie could possibly be procured, and then, by 
 subsequent acts imposing duties on us payable in gold and silver, shews that they 
 are entirely ignorant of our internal pohce, and know little of what is beneficial 
 to the colonies, and thereby prevents our having it even in our power to give a 
 regular and constitutional aid to the mother country, if such was demanded. 
 
 "We thbkefore kesolve. That any person or persons whatever, importing 
 any of the articles subject to such duties, after having it in their power to prevent 
 it, ought not only to be treated with the utmost contempt, but deemed enemies 
 to their country, it being a circumstance that would need only to be mentioned 
 to any person, inspired with the least sense of liberty that it may be detested and 
 abhorred" (Georgia Gazette, September 20, 1769; Tobler, South Carolina and 
 Georgia Almanack, for 1770). 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT ,221 
 
 and in general much more concisely expressed.^ The Georgia agree- 
 ment, like that of South Carolina, represented the combined action 
 of the merchants, planters, and people at large. 
 
 In North Carolina the situation was very much like that of Vir- 
 ginia. The assembly was dissolved by Governor Tryon on Novem- 
 ber 6, 1769. Inunediately sixty-fom- of the seventy-seven members 
 met in the court-house at New Bern, organized themselves as a 
 convention, and appointed a committee to draw up a set of reso- 
 lutions. The committee's report was presented on the 7th and for- 
 mally adopted. The agreement followed that of Virginia, laying less 
 stress on the constitutional claim than did that of Maryland, binding 
 the subscribers not to import slaves, leaving the door open for the 
 importation of Indian goods, as did all the southern colonies, and 
 copying in all but a few particulars the very language of its ex- 
 emplar.^ With the accession of North Carolina to the ranks of the 
 non-importers, the chain of the colonies was complete. By Novem- 
 ber, 1769, every one of the original thirteen colonies except New 
 Hampshire, and all of the more important cities except Portsmouth, 
 had either joined the movement or expressed its sympathy with it. 
 Quebec, Montreal, Nova Scotia, and the Floridas did not raise the 
 issue at all. 
 
 VI 
 
 When the agreement had once been signed, the procedure fol- 
 lowed was everywhere pretty much the same. The first object was 
 to obtain subscribers, for which purpose blanks were distributed 
 widely and considerable pressure of a legitimate character was 
 brought to bear on those who hesitated or refused. AVhile many 
 signed the papers with enthusiasm, others yielded from a sense of 
 duty or for fear of the consequences. Merchants, tradesmen, re- 
 tailers, wharfingers, and the like, who held out against all per- 
 suasion, were deemed enemies to their country, and were avoided 
 
 ' Revolutionary Records of Georgia, i. 8-11. The Kst of exemptions was some- 
 what different, including in addition osnaburgs, certain varieties of flannels, 
 linen, hose, cottons, checks, felt hats, shoes, hardware of all sorts (probably the 
 same as "plantation and workman's tools, nails, and fishhooks" which are in 
 the South Carolina list and omitted from that of Georgia), paper, and Indian 
 goods. The list omits also salt and bar-steel. 
 
 2 South CaroUna Gazette, December 8, 1769; Connor, North Carolina Book- 
 let, viii. 21-26; Connor, Cornelius Harnett, pp. 53-57. 
 
222 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 socially, excommunicated politically, and boycotted in business. In 
 the same class with non-subscribers were "informers," "violators" 
 of the agreements, and "revolters" who had broken through, as in 
 New York. If they refused to yield or became aggressive in their 
 resistance, they were liable to coercion and maltreatment, their 
 shops and wharves to damage, and themselves to indignity and 
 suffering. Some were tarred and feathered, carted through the 
 streets, or driven out of town, as in Boston, Salem, and New Haven; 
 some were hung in efSgy, as in Boston, New York, and Charles 
 Town; some were stood under the gallows, and others were ducked 
 in the nearest pond.^ Those who dealt with non-subscribers or 
 "violators" were always under suspicion and sometimes had to 
 clear themselves by advertisement, lest their business be ruined.^ 
 The number of those treated in this manner is not large, many who 
 were threatened made voluntary submission, others acquitted them- 
 selves before the committees of charges presented by over-zealous 
 persons without sufBcient knowledge, while in at least one case 
 where the mob burned goods in storage, the indignant sufferer 
 brought suit against the committee and was awarded damages.^ 
 In the South, where the associations were the work of the planters 
 
 • For the case of Adonijah Thomas of West Haven, see the New London 
 Gazette, September 20, 1769; for cases in Boston, Rowe, Diary, October 28, 1769, 
 May 18, 1770, March 9, 1775. Tar and feathers were kept on hand in New Jersey 
 (New Jersey Archives, xxvii. 217; see also the Holyoke Diaries, p. 69). Two New 
 York "revolters," who went to New Brunswick, N. J., were stopped and "gen- 
 teely ducked" at Woodbridge (New York Journal, August 9, 1770; New Jersey 
 Archives, xxvii. 218, 220). 
 
 2 "Resolved, That every subscriber who shall presume directly or indirectly 
 to purchase from or sell for any violator of the general resolutions, shaU be looked 
 upon in the same odious light as a violator himself, shunned as a pestUence and 
 held in the utmost abhorrence and contempt" (South Carolina Gazette, Jime 
 28, 1770). For illustration, see Letters of James Murray, Loyalist, p. 179. 
 
 The following is a good specimen of the language used in denouncing vio- 
 lators: "Gibetted (in Fame) to rot and stink under the noses of their country- 
 men, as a mark of pubhc infamy and warning to those who shall endeavour to 
 counteract the designs of society in favour of Liberty. If oppression, according 
 to Solomon, maketh a wise man mad, what a pity 'tis that it cannot teach fools 
 wisdom." 
 
 ' The case of David HiU of Massachusetts, whose barrels of goods were seized 
 by a mob in New York and burnt. This action called out a protest and denun- 
 ciation from the committee of inspection (New York Gazette or Weekly Post 
 Boy, July 9, 1770). Hill brought suit against the committee of merchants, Isaac 
 Low and others, and was awarded £280 damages in March, 1772. 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 223 
 
 and radicals as well as of the merchants, there were large numbers 
 who refused to conform. Probably a majority of the merchants of 
 Norfolk was in opposition to the Virginia association, and in Wil- 
 mington and Charles Town, where the movement was dominated 
 by the Sons of Liberty from the beginning, the merchants though 
 acquiescing showed no great enthusiasm.^ There was less hounding 
 of non-subscribers in the South than in the North, but the same 
 efforts were made in both sections to break down opposition. 
 
 In order to prevent the importation of British and other goods 
 contrary to the agreements, subscribers in the North and associators 
 in the South appointed committees of inspection, whose business it 
 was to watch for violations, to examine manifests and cargoes, and 
 to bring doubtful cases before the general body for consideration 
 and settlement. In nearly every city and colony, goods were seized 
 and stored under the direction of such committees, generally in 
 private warehouses, the keys of which were given up, or else such 
 goods were sent back to England or to the colony from whence they 
 came. It was the early practice, particularly in the North, to store 
 the goods, but later, in Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, 
 and to a considerable extent in Boston and Philadelphia, they were 
 returned. In some cases ships were not allowed to come to dock, if 
 they were suspected of having forbidden goods on board, and it was 
 deemed important and necessary that the owners of wharves and 
 their wharfingers should be favorable to the cause. In some cases 
 vessels went on from port to port vainly seeking an entry. The 
 Sharpe went to New York, then to Philadelphia, then to Norfolk, 
 but was sent away from each place; the Tristram, sent away from 
 Providence, went to Wethersfield, where the importer was compelled 
 to store the goods." In several cases, the importers broke into the 
 warehouses and carried off their own goods,* and in one instance at 
 
 ' This is the impression one gets from a study of the Laurens Papers and 
 from the report of the Wilmington meeting of the Sons of Liberty, July 5, 1770, 
 when many of the merchants refused to sign the agreement (Cape Fear Mer- 
 cury, July 11, 1770). A Charles Town merchant writing to his correspondent in 
 England said that those who got up the agreement there were men without credit 
 in England. 
 
 2 Stiles, Wethersfield, i. 418-419. 
 
 ' The cases of Gov. Hutchinson's sons in Boston (Massachusetts Papers, pp. 
 131-132) and Peter Frye and others in Salem (Essex Gazette, October 2, 1770). 
 
224 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 least a mob defied the committee, broke open the warehouse, and 
 burnt the goods.^ There was much running of forbidden commodi- 
 ties by night, and the charge was freely made that the warehouses 
 had two doors, one in front and one behind, and where one case 
 of the kind is recorded, there must have been many of which the 
 committees had no knowledge.^ 
 
 We are now ready to return to the situation in Boston. On August 
 1, 1768, the agreement had been signed, committing the merchants 
 to the policy of non-importation, which marked the first line of 
 cleavage in the old Society, between subscribers and non-subscribers. 
 The rift thus made widened when in November rumors got abroad 
 that the merchants in Salem, Marblehead, and Cape Ann were 
 breaking their agreements, and the Standing Committee on January 
 19, 1769, wrote to Peter Frye, chairman of the merchants' committee 
 in Salem, asking for information.* Though the rumor was denied, 
 
 1 Above, p. 222 note 3. 
 
 ' A writer to- the New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, August 27, 1770, 
 said that in Newport and Boston every store had two doors, which made it easy 
 to keep the agreement. He said also that the stores were often open and that 
 many thousands of doUars were taken from Connecticut and adjacent coimties in 
 the night time. Newport denied vehemently that there were "back doors to the 
 public stores." 
 
 Illustrations could be given of goods stored or returned in every colony. The 
 most active towns were Charles Town, Annapolis, Philadelphia, New York, and 
 Boston. In Charles Town there was a committee of inspection that covered the 
 coast from Georgetown (Winyah) to Beaufort, and in Maryland and Virginia 
 there were committees of inspection for each coimty. Some of the best known 
 cases are: Boston, Capt. Scott, Capt Bryant (the Wolf); Providence, Capt. Stand 
 (the Tristram) ; New York, Capt. Speir (the Sharpe) , Capt. Munds (the Brittania) ; 
 Middletown, Conn., Capt. Butler; Philadelphia, Capt. Strickland (the Speed- 
 well); Baltimore, Capt. Johnson (the Lord Cambden); Annapohs, Capt. Bryson 
 (the Betsey), Capt. Carter (the Flora), Capt. Errington (the Good Intent). 
 From Georgetown various colonial vessels were sent back, and from Charles 
 Town, vessels from Boston, New York, and Jamaica, and those importing 
 goods for Saxby, Gillon, Benjamin and Ann Matthews, Stukes, and Tidyman. 
 There is much in the Collins Papers about the ship Commerce from Hull to New 
 York and Philadelphia. Many cases are recorded in which the names are not 
 piven, as when Maryland compelled an owner to reship twenty pipes of wine, and 
 Philadelphia prevented a cargo from being landed, which was to have been got 
 ashore in small parcels and in different parts. Ample evidence exists for a study 
 of these and other cases, but they cannot be considered further here. 
 
 ' To Peter Frye and other Gentlemen of the Committee of Merchants, Salem, 
 Jan. 19, 1769: "Being informed by letters from Salem that some persoks there 
 who signed the agreement for the non-importation of goods have, contrary to 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHAJSITS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 225 
 
 the committee continued its inquiries, and on April 21st was able to 
 report to the Body that only nine out of two hundred and eleven 
 had imported. The Body then appointed a special inspection com- 
 mittee of seven to examine the manifests of the cargoes and to make 
 further report. This the committee did at an adjourned meeting 
 on the 27th, stating that but seven subscribers had imported, with 
 eight non-subscribers and five sea captains,* and that the number, 
 though larger than could be wished, was inconsiderable and the quan- 
 tity and value of the goods were very small. It warned the public 
 that "the purchasing of any kind of English goods brought from 
 other colonies since January, 1769," was contrary to the agreement. 
 In consequence of this warning a number of the subscribers turned 
 over for storage goods that had evidently been imported under a 
 misunderstanding.* 
 
 But the non-subscribers refused to yield, and a determined cam- 
 paign was begun against them. In May, with the design of casting 
 public odium upon them, a printed paper was handed about, con- 
 taining the names of eleven merchants who refused to conform, and 
 recommending that all citizens should avoid them. Alarmed at 
 reports of the influence which Hillsborough's letter of May 13th, 
 promising the repeal of the acts in part, was having on the moderates 
 in the town, the Standing Committee met at the Coffee House on 
 June 24th and prepared a new agreement according to which the 
 
 said agreement, sent their Spring orders and others are preparing to do the same, 
 alledging that Marblehead and Cape Ann havent come into the agreement, and 
 that in case other towns did not and any in Salem should not conform to it others 
 were not held," the committee said that this conduct had caused great uneasi- 
 ness, and they wished to inform Salem that Marblehead and Cape Ann had 
 come in, New York was holding fast, Boston was more determined than ever, and 
 their best friends in England approved (Massachusetts Historical Society, 
 02517, no. 63). 
 
 "^ The sea captains and masters made considerable trouble. In South Carolina 
 it was found that "the Resolutions had been in some measure defeated by masters 
 of vessels and other transient persons being at hberty to dispose of goods they 
 imported if they could find purchasers, several persons having availed themselves 
 of this opening and clandestinely disposed of and purchased, and others refused 
 to store or reship goods thus imported." On this account the Body of Merchants 
 entered into a new agreement designed to put a stop to this evU. This agreement 
 was repeated in March, 1770 (South Carolina Gazette, February 1, March 8, 
 1770). 
 
 2 Massachusetts Historical Society, 02517, nos. 40, 43, 63. 
 
226 THE COLONIAL SOCIKTT OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 arrangement of August 1st was to remain in force unless all the 
 revenue acts, those of 1764 and 1766 as well as the Townshend 
 Act, should be repealed. Two days later, the Body met and, re- 
 newing the agreement of August 1st, voted unanimously that the 
 removal of the duties on glass, paper, and painters' colors was not 
 enough, but that all the acts must be repealed. The Body appointed 
 three committees, one to increase subscriptions, one to inspect car- 
 goes, and one to prepare a state of trade grievances.^ This action 
 of the merchants was merely a renewal of the old agreement, but it 
 probably had the effect of creating further dissensions among them- 
 selves. Evidently these differences found expression, particularly 
 on the part of non-subscribers, for on August 11th the Body met and 
 voted that the scheme was hkely to be efficacious only if adhered to. 
 They denounced as "enemies to trade, their neighbors, and their 
 country" all who continued to import, and declared that if such 
 persons would not submit, their names would be published in the 
 newspapers. 
 
 In consequence of this threat, six of the fourteen non-subscribing 
 firms yielded, but eight refused, and their names were printed in 
 four Boston papers and the Essex Gazette. They were Richard 
 Clark & Son, John Bernard, Nathaniel Rogers, Theophilus Lillie, 
 James McMasters & Co., John Mein, Thomas Hutchinson, Jr., and 
 Ehsha Hutchinson.^ Of the eight thus publicly denounced, all but 
 three came in later, leaving John Bernard, James McMasters & Co., 
 and John Mein defiant and refusing even to attend the merchants' 
 meeting. Two more names were added at a meeting of the mer- 
 chants in November, Henry Barnes of Marlborough,' and Ame and 
 Elizabeth Cuming of Boston, and in December four merchants of 
 Marblehead, who refused to enter the agreement there and con- 
 tinued to import and offer for sale, were published in the Boston 
 papers.* ^^ 
 
 ' Rowe, Diary, July 24, 1769; Boston Chronicle, July 27, 1769; Boston Ga- 
 zette, July 31, 1769. 
 
 = Boston Gazette, August 14, 1769. The Boston town meeting aided the mer- 
 chants by entering these names on the records of its session of October 4 (Boston 
 Record Commissioners' Reports, xvi. 298). 
 
 ' For the sufferings of Henry Barnes, see the letter from Mrs. Barnes, June, 
 1770, printed in Letters of James Miorray, Loyalist, pp. 175-177. 
 
 * Boston Gazette, November 20, December 25, 1769. Colbum Barrell, who 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPOKTATION MOVEMENT 227 
 
 This publishing of names in the pubhc press gave rise to perhaps 
 the most interesting and instructive incident of the whole non- 
 importation movement, when one man, employing the press as his 
 weapon and fortifying himself with facts and figures, defied the en- 
 tire body of subscribers in Boston. John Mein, a Scotsman, had 
 come to New England in October, 1764, and in 1765 opened a book 
 store and circulating library in King Street, just above the British 
 Coffee House on the north side.^ In 1767, he started the Boston 
 Chronicle, one of the best planned and best written of the Boston 
 newspapers, and a year later was chosen stationer to the American 
 Board of Customs Commissioners.^ He had refused to join in the 
 
 had subscribed, said afterwards that he was bullied into the agreement "by the 
 threatening and cajoling conduct of some of their committee men." He did not 
 wish to have trouble with the merchants, desiring to Uve quietly and at peace with 
 his fellow townsmen. He was willing to reship, if the merchants would meet all 
 charges for insurance and freight and would recompense him for damage incurred 
 in returning the goods (compare the same proposition made by James Dick in 
 the Good Intent case, Maryland Magazine, iii. 356). The committee rephed, 
 but BarreU said that the reply was insufficient and he proceeded to make remarks 
 at some length, calling his submission unlawful and the meeting that asked for it 
 unlawful. In consequence, he considered himself freed from his engagement. At 
 a meeting of the merchants, held on December 7, this letter was commented upon 
 severely. BarreU rephed that there were many non-subscribing merchants in 
 Boston and those who yielded to threats were cowards. Barrell showed a good 
 deal of courage. He had been a merchant of Newmarket, N. H., and a member of 
 the Sandemanian church of Portsmouth (Sandeman-Barrell Papers), and was a 
 brother of William, Joseph, and Walter BarreU. He had a shop just north of the 
 MUl-bridge (Boston Chronicle, October 9, December 7, 1769). 
 
 The New Yorkers about this time advertised one Simeon Cooley, a jeweUer, 
 who having joined the merchants later defied them, and broke the agreement. 
 The subscribers caUed on the people to boycott him as "the most insolent, im- 
 pertinent, and daring of any former aggressor." Cooley eventuaUy submitted 
 (New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, July 24, 1769). Similarly Thomas 
 Richardson, jeweUer, was compeUed to retract (New York Jomnal, September 
 21,1769). JeweUers seem to have been particularly obstinate. Philip Tidyman 
 of Charles Town was a jeweUer (South Carolina Gazette, November 1, 1770). 
 
 1 See Mr. Bolton's article in PubUcations of this Society, xi. 196-200, and notes 
 on p. 200, also p. 6 note 4. The facts of Mein's career are weU known and need 
 not be rehearsed here, but extracts wUl be given from his memorial to the Treas- 
 ury, which has never been used. 
 
 2 Mein said that before 1769 he "carried on in his various occupations of book- 
 BeUer, stationer, and printer, the most extensive trade of any person on the 
 American Continent" and "possessed the confidence of the Principal People." 
 His paper had a subscription list of fourteen hundred and his bookstore netted 
 
228 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 non-importation movement at the time of the Stamp Act, and again 
 refused in 1768, though urgently requested to do so.^ In conse- 
 quence of this refusal, he was persecuted by the merchants, who 
 exerted all their influence to ruin him. "They applied to his cus- 
 tomers to desert him, they sent to the selectmen of every town in 
 the province to promote subscriptions not to deal with him, and 
 they held him up in anonymous handbills and in anonymous ad- 
 vertisements in the newspapers as an enemy to America." In re- 
 taliation he "adopted the plan of exposing them, to accomphsh 
 which he printed in his newspaper the manifests of all the cargoes 
 of the vessels that had arrived in the port of Boston from Great 
 Britain since the commencement of the non-importation agreement," 
 and these, to the mmiber of 4000 sheets of the principal importations, 
 he circulated over all America, from Florida to Nova Scotia. In 
 addition he printed 500 copies of the whole in a quarto pamphlet, 
 one half of which he succeeded in distributing.^ The result was that 
 
 him £40, £60, and £80 a week, while his stock in trade amoimted to six or seven 
 thousand pounds sterUng (Pubho Record Office, Treasury 1: 478, f. 478). 
 
 ' "The speaker of the House of Representatives, and many others, the Heads 
 of the Faction, harrassed him daily for months, first with entreaties, urging as 
 strong motive the great encouragement he had received among them, and af- 
 terwards employed threats, in order to induce him to accede to their combination. 
 He was even told that the Crisis was now arrived, in which NeutraUty was crim- 
 inal, but he remained uniform in his refusal, a Sense of Duty being more preva- 
 lent with him than either the continuance or the increased favour of the public, 
 which he was led to expect, or their highest displeasure, with which he was 
 threatened" (ibid.)- 
 
 ^ Mein was aroused by the report of the committee stating that but few im- 
 portations had taken place, and by the decision of the Body to print the names of 
 delinquents. In his own paper (August 17, 1769) he left blank the space where 
 the names should have been. He began to print the manifests of importations, 
 since January 1, 1769, on August 21 and continued them on the 24, 28, 31, Sep- 
 tember 4, 7, 11, 14, 18, etc., to October 19, with a running commentary. On 
 December 11, 14, 18, he added the manifest of the ship John, owned by John Han- 
 cock, and manifests of other vessels owned by Boston merchants, and he contin- 
 ued publishing the manifests in January and February, 1770, issuing forty-one 
 in all. Furthermore he gave a Ust of forty non-signers, who made heavy importa/- 
 tions during the year. As stated above, he issued these manifests in a pamphlet 
 entitled "A State of the Importations from Great Britain into the Port of Boston 
 from the Beginning of January, 1769, to August 17, 1769," with an Appendix of 
 importations to January 1, 1770. The other side of the controversy can be fol- 
 lowed in the Boston Gazette and in Massachusetts Historical Society, 02517, 
 no. 65. On September 10, the merchants took his case into consideration and 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVKMENT 229 
 
 a mass of incriminating evidence against the Boston merchants was 
 spread broadcast throughout the country, raising, as Mein himself 
 said, "distrust and dissenssion not only in the very heart of the 
 Boston Faction, but between that Faction and the other combining 
 colonies." Natm-ally Mein became obnoxious to the Bostonians, 
 his subscribers fell off more than half, his bookselling business was 
 ruined, the signs at his bookstore and printing office were besmeared 
 with dirt, and he himself was treated as an informer and his effigy 
 taken out with that of the Devil on November 5th or Pope 
 
 voted that he had endeavored to frustrate the good intentions of the signers of 
 the agreement, by maliciously insinuating to the public that the agreement had 
 not been generally comphed with and that the committee's report was false and 
 intended to deceive the pubhc, and further that he had treated "the inspectors, 
 the committee, and the whole body of merchants and traders in the most haughty, 
 imperious, and insulting manner." 
 
 The influence of the facts Mein presented can hardly be overestimated, while 
 in temper and good manners he distinctly had the best of his opponents. There 
 is certainly nothing "scurrilous," "scandalous," "impudent," or "contemptible" 
 in what Mein wrote in his paper, and the language used by the patriotic party 
 and their laudation of themselves and their motives and characters arouse the 
 suspicion that Mein's disclosures struck a tender spot. The weakness of the de- 
 fence lies in its scurrility, its anonymity, its refusal to give names, and its conceal- 
 ment of the places where the goods were stored. It is ciirious how unwilling the 
 upholders of non-importation were to sign their names to their articles. Conced- 
 ing that anonjmaity was a fashion of the time, we must feel that the refusal to 
 acknowledge authorship was a confession of weakness or worse. Hutchinson 
 once said that such articles were the production of people "who if they would 
 sign their names need do nothing more to blast the credit of everything they 
 say" (Hutchinson to WiUiams, September 18, 1769, Williams Papers). 
 
 If Mein's facts are correct, then the merchants of Boston and Salem, and nota- 
 bly John Hancock, were doing a fairly prosperous freighting business in goods 
 made contraband by the merchants. The explanations given by the latter are 
 not convincing, and that they were not convincing to the merchants of New York 
 and Philadelphia, the sequel was to prove. The latter frequently quoted Mein's 
 sheets and pamphlet. In the face of the facts given, it is hardly a sufficient de- 
 fence of Hancock to say that his "name wiU shine in the records of fame when 
 infamous Jacobites and Tories will sink in oblivion," however true that statement, 
 may be as a prophecy (Boston Gazette, October 9, 1769). Mein was the first 
 active opponent of the non-importation movement in America, and the informa- 
 tion that he furnished did much to bring about its failure, for, as he says himself, 
 "The Rupture between the Boston Faction and the combining colonies of N. 
 York and Philadelphia wiU be evinced from their own advertisements; for 
 the accusations brought by the latter against the former could be drawn from no 
 other source than the publications of your Memorialist" (Public Record Office, 
 Treasury 1: 478, f. 480). 
 
230 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 Day.^ Attacked by the mob, Mein in defence wounded a grenadier, 
 and as warrants were issued against him he escaped to England, 
 With his later career we are not concerned. Though deeply involved 
 in financial diiEculties, he returned to Boston, engaged again in 
 business, and was twice posted for persisting in his refusal to join 
 the movement. He left New England permanently some time after 
 1771.2 
 
 In the meantime information was received by the merchants that 
 Philadelphia and New York were sending orders to England for 
 goods to be shipped ia case the acts should be repealed. As the 
 
 J The acrostic contain in g the hne 
 
 M ean is the man, M-N is his name 
 
 is printed in our Publications, xi. 198; and the "Description of the Pope, 1769," 
 of which the acrostic forms a part, was printed in full in the Boston Chronicle, 
 November 9, 1769, and also in a broadside. The following additional lines may 
 be quoted: 
 
 Here stands the DevU for a Show, 
 
 With the I-p-rs in a row, 
 
 AU bound to Hell, and that we know. 
 
 Go M-n lade deep with curses on thy head. 
 
 To some dark Corner of the World repair. 
 
 Where the bright Sun no pleasant Beams can shed, 
 
 And spend thy Life in Horror and Despair. 
 
 At the head of the broadside is a rough woodcut, in which Mein'e eflSgy, 
 substituted for that of the Pope, appears standing under a gallows on a four- 
 wheeled wagon, with the Devil behind, and before and after various smaller devils 
 and tomcods. These are defined as "M-n, his Servant, &c. A Bunch of Tom- 
 Cods." The following also is printed on the sheet: 
 
 "See the Informer, how he stands. If any one now takes his Part, An Enemy 
 to all the Land, He'U go to HeU without a cart." 
 
 ' 2 Rowe, Diary, October 28, 1769; our PubUoations, xi. 198-200, where Mr. 
 Bolton gives information regarding Mein's financial troubles, drawn from letters 
 in private hands. His account should be studied in connection with Mein's 
 remarks in his Memorial about justice in Massachusetts. There is a paper in the 
 Dartmouth collection at PatshuU House, containing information which Mein fur- 
 nished John Pownall, imder secretary of state for the colonies, but I have been 
 imable to get a copy of it, because Patshull House is at present a military hospital. 
 For the attack on Mein, see Hutchinson to Secretary ffiUsborough,' November 11, 
 1769, Colonial Office, 5:758, p. 445; Andrew Oliver to Sir Francis Bernard, same 
 date, British Museum, Egerton, 2670, f. 28; and the London Chronicle, Decera- 
 ber 19, 1769. In the Letters of James Murray, Loyahst, pp. 168-174, are many 
 references to Mein, whom Murray assisted. John Rowe notes the presence of 
 "Mr. Murray of Cape Fear " at the Merchants' Club, May 27, 1765, and we 
 may not doubt that he was in attendance at other times also. 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPOETATION MOVEMENT 231 
 
 Boston agreement was to expire at the end of the year, it was neces- 
 sary to take action for the future, so on October 17th the merchants 
 and traders met and considered what should be done. Feeling that 
 the attitude of Philadelphia and New York did not sufficiently meet 
 their own trade grievances, they voted that orders sent to Great 
 Britain should be conditional, depending not on the repeal of the 
 Townshend Act only but on the repeal of all the acts imposing 
 duties for raising a revenue in America, and they hoped that the 
 merchants elsewhere would come into a similar arrangement. When, 
 however, it was found that the merchants of New York and Phila- 
 delphia had already ordered their goods to be shipped, in case the 
 Townshend Act was repealed, and for this and other reasons re- 
 fused to concur in the agreement of October 17th, proposing only 
 to join in a plan for obtaining the repeal of the Acts of 1764 and 1766, 
 the merchants of Boston, wishing to act in unison with the others, 
 agreed to adopt the Philadelphia and New York plan.^ 
 
 On November 7th, the Body voted that merchants might write 
 to their correspondents instructing them to ship in case the Town- 
 shend Act was repealed.^ As this vote was certain to antagonize 
 those who had already laid plans for resuming importation after 
 January 1, 1770, and would resent the extension of time which closed 
 the door indefinitely, the meeting voted to publish the names of any 
 shipping goods contrary to the agreement and to hold them up as 
 persons "counteracting the salutary measures the merchants are 
 pursuing to obtain a redress of grievances." Notwithstanding this 
 vote, which was repeated on December 6th, the number of importers 
 
 ' Massachusetts Papers, pp. 128-130; Boston Gazette, November 20, 1769; 
 Letters of Dennys De Berdt, our Publications, xiii. 398-399. De Berdt wrote to 
 Thomas McKean, February 15, 1770: "The condisinal orders (if these acts are 
 repel'd) arose from the Quakers in Phil% who grew impatient of the restraints 
 on tread, and came into this new agreement which they communicated to Boston 
 & Boston has done the same." 
 
 2 Boston Gazette, November 20, 1769; Massachusetts Historical Society, 
 Broadsides, December 6, 1769. A considerable enlargement was made in the hst 
 of exempted articles. The additional articles in the new Ust are here itaUcized: 
 
 Coals, salt, fishhooks and lines, hemp and duck, bar-lead, shot, wool-cards and 
 card wire, clothier's shears, tin plates, drugs and medicines, dyestuffs, alum and 
 copperas, gunpowder, grindstones, chalk, sheet-copper, German steel, schoolhooks, 
 as also "the article of Bayze for the supply of the fishing." The influence of the 
 lists adopted by other colonies is clearly seen. 
 
232 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 increased and became bolder. Rumors were prevalent that goods 
 were illegally brought in and not stored as the agreement demanded. 
 Complaints came from various quarters, and Newport and Provi- 
 dence, influenced by Mein's disclosures, charged Boston with violating 
 the "agreements.^ The subscribers declared that all these accusa- 
 tions were but part of a "Tory scheme" to interrupt and destroy 
 that "imion and harmony" which alone could deliver America from 
 her burdens. 
 
 Continued infractions ^ so alarmed the Trade that on January 16, 
 1770, a call was issued for a meeting of the Whole Body on the 17th, — 
 
 to receive the report of the committee of inspection relative to the most 
 unaccountable and extraordinary conduct of three or four persons, 
 some of whom have sold, others removed, and others threaten to sell 
 their goods that have been stored, in direct violation of their solemn 
 engagements to the contrary; and to consider and determine on some 
 legal and spirited measiu-es to prevent the non-importation agreement 
 being rendered abortive by the machinations of those few persons, who 
 by behaving in this perfidious manner will most audaciously counteract 
 the whole Continent in the measures now pmsuing for the preservation 
 of their liberties.' 
 
 In consequence of this call, the merchants met at Faneuil Hall on 
 January 17th, 18th, and 23d, and decided to break down all oppo- 
 sition by force, if necessary. On the 17th the Whole Body visited 
 the house and store of Wilham Jackson, on the 18th those of the 
 Hutchinsons, Theophilus Lillie, John Taylor, Nathaniel Rogers, 
 and Jackson again. On the 23d, the Hutchinsons having agreed to 
 hand over their goods, they declared the remaining four, together 
 with John Bernard, James and Patrick McMasters, Ame and Eliza- 
 beth Cuming, "obstinate and inveterate enemies to their country 
 and subverters of the Rights and Liberties of this Continent," and 
 
 ' Joseph Rotch & Son to Aaron Lopez, November 29, 1769: "We are now 
 well assured that all the Agreements in the world will not prevent the Boston 
 purchasers from exceeding the hmits agreed on," and they want to know whether 
 the "manufacturers of Newport intend altering their agreement or not" (Com- 
 merce of Rhode Island, i. 288. See also Boston Gazette, December 11, 1769). 
 
 2 The Hutchinson and Sheafe affairs especially, for which see Massachusetts 
 Papers, pp. 131-132, and Drake, History and Antiquities of Boston, p. 775. 
 
 » Massachusetts Historical Society, 02517; Broadsides, January 16, 177,0. 
 
1917] BOSTON MEECHANTS AJSTD NON-IMPOETATION MOVEMENT 233 
 
 they voted to boycott them and outlaw them from the country.^ 
 This action of the merchants, or, as we are justified in saying, of the ^ 
 radicals among them, seemed so akin to disorderly conduct and a 
 disturbance of the peace that Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson sent 
 the sheriff to bid them disperse, but without effect.^ The period was 
 one of tremendous excitement in Boston,' the Boston Massacre 
 
 • Rowe, Diary under dates; Broadside, January 23, 1770. The broadside 
 further says: "The friends of liberty and their country's cause are desired to 
 paste this up over the Chimney Piece of every PubMc House and on every other 
 proper place, in every Town in this and every other Colony, there to remairi as 
 a Monument of the Remembrance of the Detestable Names above mentioned." 
 Another vote at the meeting was to this effect, "That the committee of inspec- 
 tion be directed to use their endeavours to discover the owner or owners of such 
 goods upon their arrival, and being thus discovered, we wUl not sell or buy of, or 
 have any dealings or social intercourse whatever with such persons for the space 
 of two years, from the time of the arrival of such goods, and that the committee of 
 inspection are desired to publish this vote, together with the names of the owners 
 of such goods for the space of two years from the time of their arrival." 
 
 An example of such pubHcation, relating to WiUiam Jackson, was given in 
 our Publications, viii. 99 note. 
 
 Nathaniel Rogers in May, 1770, left Boston and went to New York, where the 
 Sons of Liberty carried his effigy through the streets. Leaving New York, he 
 went to Shelter Island, and there, word from New York having been received in 
 advance, his effigy was placed on a pole, with the label "Nat. Rogers one of the 
 infamous importers," and after being paraded through the town was hung by 
 the neck before the door of the house where he was staying. The next day he 
 embarked for Rhode Island, eventually returning to Boston, where he was again 
 posted, and finally in June applied for readmission. He died suddenly in August 
 of the same year. 
 
 James and Patrick McMasters were particularly offensive to the merchants. 
 In 1770 Patrick was carted through the streets of Boston for persisting in his re- 
 fusal to join the merchants, and this punishment was so roughly administered that, 
 we are told, a woman viewing it died of fright (Essex Gazette, February 6, 1771). 
 " I received a letter from Miss Cummings," wrote Mrs. Barnes, " which was far 
 from being a cordial to my drooping spirits. She writes me word that one of the 
 McMasters had been carted out of town at noonday in a most ignominious man- 
 ner, and that the other two brothers had fled for their lives " (Letters of James 
 Murray, LoyaKst, pp. 177-178). The McMasters and others, finding public 
 opinion against them in Boston, fled to Portsmouth, an event which roused a 
 good deal of excitement there, and may have had something to do with Ports- 
 mouth's continued unwilfingness to adopt non-importation. 
 
 " Committee to De Berdt, January 30, 1770, giving their version of the matter 
 (Massachiisetts Papers, pp. 132-135). 
 
 ' "The True Sons of Liberty and supporters of non-importation are determined 
 to resent any the least insult or menace offer'd to any one or more of the several 
 committees appointed by the Body at Faneuil Hall, and chastise any one or more 
 of them as they truly deserve; and wiU also support the printers in anything the 
 
234 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 took place on March 5th, and the town was in an uproar and con- 
 fusion. The Trade had to pubHsh its determination to protect its 
 own members and its printers from insult, and despite the colony- 
 act "establishing a watch for the safety and better securing the good 
 order of the town of Boston," the police conditions were so lax that 
 the populace did about as it pleased, defying court orders, destroy- 
 ing the houses of unpopular citizens and magistrates, tarring and 
 feathering with impunity, gathering in crowds, pelting, jeering, and 
 maltreating without interference. The situation reflects no credit 
 upon the authorities of the town, whose citizens were zealous to do 
 their duty only when fires were to be extinguished and patriotic 
 enterprises executed.^ 
 
 The non-importation movement was beginning to pass out of the 
 hands of the merchants and into the control of those to whom trade 
 was a secondary consideration. The Boston town meeting took up 
 the question of how to strengthen the movement and appointed a 
 committee for that purpose.^ Again it entered on its records the 
 names of those who continued to import, that posterity might 
 know " who those persons were that preferred their little private ad- 
 vantage to the common interest of all the colonies," and again it 
 offered, in burning and eloquent phrases, the thanks of the town to 
 
 committees shall desire them to print. I^^ As a warning to any one that shall 
 affront as aforesaid, upon some iaformation given, one of these Advertisements 
 will be posted up at the Door or Dwelling House of the offender" (January, 
 1770, Massachusetts Historical Society, Broadsides). , 
 
 1 Remarks by Mr. Pierce ia his introduction to John Rowe's Diary (2 Pro- 
 ceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, x. 57-58). The act mentioned em- 
 powered the selectmen of Boston to appoint thirty watchmen from among the 
 inhabitants of the town, one of whom in each division was to be head or con- 
 stable, and to keep an account of what was going on and to report to the select- 
 men once a week. The watchmen were to walk the rounds to prevent danger 
 from fires and see that good order was kept. Any one resisting a watchman waa 
 to be fined not more than £5 or less than 40 shillings. The watchmen were au- 
 thorized to call on any citizen for assistance, who in case of refusal was Hable to 
 a 40 shilling fine. The act was to be in force until 1770. 
 
 2 Boston Record Commissioners' Reports, xviii. 12-13, 16, 20. The meet- 
 ing expressed the hope "that the Patriotiok Spirit so widely diffused, and so nobly 
 ardent, uniting all parts of the Province and disposing them with Alacrity to 
 aid one another upon all Occasions in the conunon cause, a Spirit not confined to 
 [this colony] but extending to all the Colonies, will ensure by the blessing of Heaven 
 the Prosperity of the whole, and soon produce a thorough, effectual, and per- 
 manent reHef from our great and common Grievances" (March 16, 1770). 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 235 
 
 all who stood by the cause. John Rowe frankly expressed his dis- 
 like of the proceedings of the Body, thinking them "too severe," ^ 
 and others were doubtless thinking the same. The partial repeal of 
 the Townshend Act in April raised a new issue and the question" 
 arose as to whether the agreement should not be modified so as to 
 admit all British goods except tea. The news of the repeal was 
 known in Boston on April 24th and on the 30th a meeting of the 
 Body was held, at which the merchants resolved to stand by the 
 agreement and not to "send for any goods from Great Britain until 
 the act imposing the duty on tea" should be repealed or until "the 
 Trade in order to harmonize with the other colonies" should agree 
 to alter such agreement. It still further enlarged the list of exemp- 
 tions, adding certain articles that "we cannot at present manufac- 
 ture in the province in so great quantities as we have occasion for 
 at present." ^ On May 1st, the Salem town meeting, promising to 
 support the agreement of the merchants, took up the question of the 
 importers, who were making trouble there as well as in Boston. The 
 next day, it forced John Appleton, Peter Frye, Abigail Epes, and 
 Elizabeth Higginson to sign an agreement, in accordance with which 
 their imported goods were to be stored imder the direction of the 
 
 ' He says this of the proceedings at the meetings of April 20 and 26. I have 
 not been able to find the votes in question, but the caU for the meeting on April 
 20 is as follows: 
 
 "To receive the report of the committee of inspection relative to the most un- 
 accountable and ejrtraordinary conduct of several persons who have imported 
 goods contrary to agreement, particularly a Quantity of Tea; and to con- 
 sider and determine upon some legal and spirited measures to prevent the non- 
 importation agreement being rendered abortive," etc. (Massachusetts Historical 
 Society, Broadsides, April 20, 1770). 
 
 It will be noticed that the wording is the same as that of January 16th, except 
 that the offence stated is different. Probably the meeting voted to deal more 
 severely than ever with the offenders, who may be the same as those entered on 
 the records of the town meeting of March 16th, and afterwards published by 
 the merchants in the newspapers. See p. 244 note 1, below. 
 
 * Massachusetts Historical Society, 02517, no. 73. The following articles 
 were exempted: paper, glass, painters' colors, tacks, brads, nails of all sorts under 
 10 pennies, all kinds of utensils for carrying on any manufactures, lead, copper, 
 "allum," grindstones, salt, coals, tinplates, hooks, Unes, and other necessaries for 
 the fishery, baize, duffils, hemp, duck, "ozenbrigs," fruit, oil, and aU other kind 
 of goods of the product and manufacture of any foreign ports in Europe usually 
 imported from Great Britain, except any articles of luxury. This is a very differ- 
 ent list from that of August 1, 1768. 
 
236 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 committee of inspection.^ Marblehead, Taunton, and other towns 
 joined La this attempt to bolster up a failing cause. 
 
 VII 
 
 On May 26th, Newport broke the agreement into which she had 
 entered on October 30, 1769. There had been from the beginning a 
 great deal of intense feeling in the town on the subject of non- 
 importation, and the disputes among the merchants had been long 
 and heated.^ So prolonged was the controversy that in October, 
 1769, the Boston merchants had said if Rhode Island did not come 
 in they would treat her as the merchants of New York and Phila- 
 delphia had done and instruct their English correspondents to ship 
 her no goods on penalty of losing the Boston trade.' Though both 
 Providence and Newport agreed to non-importation in October of 
 that year, the opinion prevailed generally that in the case of New- 
 port the merchants were mainly Jews ^ and Tories with little enthu- 
 siasm for the cause. Rumors had come as early as May 9, 1770, 
 that many of them were brealdng the agreement and refusing to 
 allow their goods to be stored, and very likely these rumors were 
 true, for less than three weeks afterwards the break came. On the 
 26th the merchants voted to resume importation, and immediately 
 sent letters notifying the others of the fact. Boston on the first 
 rimior, having little confidence in Newport's sincerity, voted non- 
 intercourse, and as the people of that town had not expressed a proper 
 resentment at the action of the merchants, voted to break connec- 
 tion with them also.^ 
 
 Philadelphia and New York followed suit. On May 23d the 
 tradesmen and mechanics of the former city declared for non-inter- 
 course, expressing "abhorrence" because of Newport's rumored 
 
 ' Essex Gazette, May 8, 1770. The agreement is given in full in the Boston 
 Gazette, October 8, 1770. 
 
 " New London Gazette, Jiine 1, 1770. 
 
 » Boston Gazette, October 9, 1769. 
 
 • On the Jews in Newport, see Kohler, "The Jews in Newport" (Publications 
 American Jewish Historical Society, 1897, no. 6, p. 69; no. 10, p. 11), where 
 the number is given. See also Stiles, Literary Diary, i. 11; Itineraries and Cor- 
 respondence, pp. 52-53. There was a Jewish Social Club in Newport in 1761 
 (Pubhcations American Jewish Historical Society, iv. 58-60). 
 
 ' Boston Gazette, May 28, 1770. 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 237 
 
 defeetion.i On May 30th, after the news had actually reached New 
 York, a general meeting was held, not of the merchants, but of the 
 Sons of Liberty, which denoimced the Newporters as enemies of 
 their country, voted to have nothing to do with them unless within 
 a month they returned to theu- duty, and ordered all vessels from 
 Rhode Island, lying in New York harbor, to depart within twenty- 
 four hours. This action was, however, repudiated by the merchants, 
 as the meeting had been called without the knowledge of the com- 
 mittee of inspection, which immediately resigned but was after- 
 wards reelected.^ Connecticut, on June 1st, adopted resolutions 
 similar to those of Boston.^ Soon after, Hartford, New Haven, 
 Marblehead, Elizabeth, New Brunswick, Baltimore, Annapolis, 
 Wilmington, and Charles Town all declared in favor of non-inter- 
 course with Newport and spoke with the utmost bitterness of that 
 "dirty little colony of Rhode Island."^ Newcastle, Wilmington 
 
 ' NewYorkGrazetteandWeekly Mercirry, May28, 1770; Peansylvania Chron- 
 icle, May 28, 1770; Pennsylvania Gazette, May 24, 1770; Boston Gazette, June 
 4, 1770. A Newport ship, Capt. Whitman, master, arrived in PhUadelpbia with 
 a cargo, but was sent back. 
 
 * New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, May 28, Jime 4, 1770. 
 
 ' New London Gazette, June 15, 1770. The same paper contains an elaborate 
 account of four Connecticut traders, two from Hartford and two from Windham, 
 who started immediately for Newport to take advantage of the leak. 
 
 * New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, Jiine 11, August 13, 1770; Boston 
 Gazette, June 25, 1770; Cape Fear Mercury, July 11, 1770; South Carolina 
 Gazette, June 28, July 5, 1770. Ships were sent back from aU these places. 
 
 The resolutions adopted at a meeting of the inhabitants of Charles Town 
 "at Liberty Tree," June 22, 1770, though too long to be printed here, are worthy 
 of reproduction in part. They describe the Rhode Islanders as "dead to every 
 feeling but a criminal attachment to their private interest,'' "betrayers of Amer- 
 ican Liberty," and guilty of "heinous duphcity of conduct." They class together 
 the people of Georgia and Rhode Island as "deluded people" deserving "to be 
 amputated from the rest of their Bretheren, as a rotten Part that might spread a 
 dangerous Infection" (South Carolina Gazette, June 28, 1770). 
 
 Stephen CoUins wrote to N. & R. Denison, June 8, 1770: "The people of Rhode 
 Island have broaken through their agreement which I think they must resume 
 again very soon, as the whole Continent are rais'd in just indignation against them, 
 their produce being but little, their merchants depend on foreign trade chiefly 
 and their vessels are almost every day drove out of one port or another on the 
 Continent and not suffered to trade but carry their cargo back, so that I think 
 where they gain a penny in the trade of dry goods, they wiU stand a chance of 
 loosing a pound for want of their trade with the other colonies" (CoUins 
 Papers). 
 
238 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHXTSETTS [Pbb. 
 
 (Delaware), Chester, and other towns down the Delaware river 
 took alarm and voted to have no dealings with the colony.^ 
 
 This widespread vote of non-intercourse with Rhode Island 
 showed either that to most colonial minds Newport was Rhode 
 Island or else that the impression had got abroad that Providence 
 also had departed from her agreement. This impression was partly 
 true, for after the news of the partial repeal of the Townshend Act was 
 known in America, some of the merchants of the city in May held a 
 meeting and agreed to import all British goods except tea. Because 
 of this, or because of a confounding of the two cities, several towns 
 refused the vessels of Providence port entry and Windham pub- 
 lished a spirited protest against her. This act angered the people of 
 Providence, who considered themselves sufferers for the conduct of 
 another town, and on May 31st they declared the decision of the 
 merchants "too precipitate," renewed the old agreement, and passed 
 a vote of censure against both Newport and Boston, resolving to 
 purchase no goods from any one who imported into these towns 
 contrary to the agreement. Newport replied, quoting the fable of 
 the ass who kicked the lion, and citing instances where Providence 
 herself had proved faithless. A writer in the Providence Gazette 
 said: 
 
 The merchants of Newport broke through the agreement and were 
 highly censured by the northern part of the colony. The town of Provi- 
 dence, 'tis well known, passed a vote of censiu-e against them, which they 
 affected to ridicule in a very awkward manner. 'Tis with pleasure, I 
 observe, that none of the colonies have passed any censure upon this 
 town in particular. This was reserved for the little, dirty, insignificant 
 town of Windham, the inhabitants of which, without the least show of 
 reason, have dared pubhcly to stigmatize a people, than whom none have 
 been more zealous in supporting the cause of American Uberty. 
 
 At an adjourned town meeting on June 6th, the merchants 
 acquiesced in a majority vote for the old agreement and the old list 
 of exemptions, and peace was once more restored.^ 
 
 ' News from Philadelphia, June 14 (South Carolina Gazette, July 12, 1770). 
 
 » Providence Gazette, May 26, June 30, 1770; Newport Mercury, June 4, 1770; 
 New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, June 18, 1770; Staples, Annals of Provi- 
 dence, pp. 225-227. On September 5, 1770, Boston voted "That it appears to 
 this Body that the town of Providence hath faithfully adhered to the non-im- 
 portation agreement, and that all reports to the contrary are without foundation." 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHAJraS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 239 
 
 This exchange of amenities in the North found their counterpart 
 in the South also, where the merchants of Georgia were apparently 
 paying very little attention to their compact, and were continuing 
 to import without regard to the obligation imposed upon them by 
 their resolutions of September, 1769. They too were influenced by the 
 partial repeal of the Townshend Act and considered their duty done 
 when they excluded from their list of imports the single article, tea, 
 the duty on which had not been removed. Probably this article 
 was smuggled there as elsewhere from Amsterdam or St. Eustatius, 
 so that to all intents and purposes the ports of Georgia throughout 
 the period had been open to British goods. We know that her im- 
 ports increased from £56,000 to £58,000 during the year 1769. To 
 the Sons of Liberty of Charles Town this breach of faith was a sign 
 of depravity. At the Liberty Tree meeting of September 27th, in 
 denouncing the people of Rhode Island, they denounced those of 
 Georgia also as having "acted a most singularly infamous part from 
 the beginning of the present glorious struggle for the preservation of 
 American liberties to this very instant," and because of their hav- 
 ing basely taken "every possible advantage of the virtuous colonies" 
 they voted to have nothing more to do with them.^ 
 
 While thus Charles Town was expressing its opinion of Georgia, 
 Newport of Providence, and Providence of Newport and Windham, 
 and nearly all the colonies were breaking off intercourse with Rhode 
 Island, Portsmouth was having its fling at Boston, and Albany at 
 New York. The Portsmouth merchants had never adopted a non- 
 intercourse agreement, and at this juncture were making extensive 
 importations, which were not only exposed for sale, but were bought 
 freely by the inhabitants of the town. At its meeting on May 25th, 
 the Trade of Boston had resolved to have no intercourse with either 
 the merchants or the inhabitants of Portsmouth, and had sent a 
 letter to the former, urging them to change their attitude. But 
 nothing was done, perhaps for the reason, as one of the Portsmouth 
 people wrote to Boston, that they had no leader to direct public 
 opinion.^ A leader was to come, but not one favorable to the Boston 
 proposal. On June 19, Patrick McMasters was "carted out" of Bos- 
 
 1 South Carolina Gazette, June 28, 1770. 
 
 2 South Carolina Gazette, July 12, 1770. Letter from Portsmouth to Boston, 
 May 28, 1770, quoted in the South Carolina Gazette: "The merchants here have 
 
240 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 ton and with his brothers fled to Portsmouth. The presence of the 
 LIcMasters must have served to stiffen the town's determination to 
 resist, for shortly afterwards the following notification was posted: 
 
 A number of people in the town of Boston have arrogantly published 
 certain resolutions not to trade with this province. The total stopping 
 of the coasting trade with Boston will directly advance the commercial 
 and landed interest of the province. Every friend of the province will 
 joyfully embrace the profer'd opportunity to assert his freedom and scorn 
 all chains, even those forg'd in Boston.^ 
 
 The position of Albany is somewhat obscure. Having entered the 
 agreement in the summer of 1769, the merchants had remained out- 
 wardly faithful, although there is every reason to believe that Indian 
 and other goods were imported by way of Quebec and Montreal, in 
 disregard of the promises made to New York. Finally on May 18th, 
 hearing that other colonies were "altering" their agreements, Albany 
 decided to "alter" hers also, throwing open the trade to all goods, 
 except tea. New York wrote on May 26th, expostulating so vigorously 
 with the Albany merchants that they rescinded their action and went 
 back to their former position. Naturally they were indignant when 
 news came later of New York's decision to withdraw, and that too 
 without consulting her sister colonies, and on August 7th the Albany 
 merchants wrote a letter, expressing their opinion of New York in no 
 uncertain terms.^ 
 
 While the tide of success was thus ebbing in the outlying sections 
 of the colonial area and discord was raising its ugly head among 
 some of the individual towns, serious weaknesses were manifesting 
 themselves in the very heart of the system itself. In New York and 
 Philadelphia, as well as in Boston, the control of the movement was 
 passing into the hands of the radicals, who under the designa- 
 tion of Sons of Liberty were demanding the continuation of the 
 
 received a letter from merchants in Boston on the affair of non-importation, but 
 have not yet come to a final resolution. Happy should we be had we a generous 
 Hancock to lead the way. . . . The inhabitants are friends to liberty but need 
 powerful leaders." 
 
 » Rowe, Diary, June 19, 1770; Massachusetts Gazette, July 5, 1770; Adams, 
 Annals of Portsmouth, pp. 226-227. 
 
 » New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, August 20, November 8, 1770; 
 New York Journal, August 23, 1770. 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 241 
 
 agreements in all their vigor. This radical party was composed of 
 those who were poor and suffering, heavily in debt and in fear of the 
 sheriff, of the typical frontier unrestrained element, spoiling for a 
 mix-up and easily subject to crowd influences, of honest believers in the 
 constitutional rights and liberties of the colonies and the "unalter- 
 able laws of nature," but with no interest in law or tradition or sym- 
 pathy with the British colonial argument, and, lastly, of those who 
 profited by smuggling and saw in the perpetuation of the movement 
 a gain rather than a loss to themselves. In Boston and Philadelphia 
 the conservative and radical forces acted more or less in combina- 
 tion, members of the merchant class being among the most active 
 supporters of liberty and constitutional rights; in the smaller towns, 
 where mercantile activities were ancillary to the dominant agricul- 
 tural life, the radical or patriotic party was generally in control, while 
 in the upper South — Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina — 
 the planters and lesser farmers were radical in sympathy, upholding 
 the movement in the interest of American liberty and gradually forc- 
 ing the moderates either to conform or to withdraw. In Charles 
 Town the merchants and Sons of Liberty worked together in a fair 
 degree of harmony, while in Georgia the conservatives seem to have 
 been in control, for Jonathan Bryan and the few individuals excepted 
 in the Charles Town vote of denunciation were unable to swing the 
 movement in favor of prohibition. The test was now to come in the 
 leading seaports. Would the radicals be able to maintain the agree- 
 ments unaltered or would the conservatives win the day? In New 
 York, where the decision was first reached, the two parties were well 
 matched, the conservative merchants wishing to open the trade, the 
 mechanics, tradesmen, retailers, and political radicals, aided by some 
 of the merchants who had great influence with the populace, rejecting 
 all compromise. 
 
 In both Philadelphia and New York, the repeal of the Townshend 
 Act had been anticipated as early as November, 1769, and orders 
 had been sent to England for the shipment of goods on condition that 
 that event took place. During the winter the British merchants had 
 gone ahead preparing goods for despatch to America, and the news 
 of only a partial repeal came as a serious blow to them. They wrote 
 letters to their correspondents in America saying that the failure of 
 the total repeal was mortifying and exposed them to serious losses. 
 
242 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Peb. 
 
 They hoped that the merchants, particularly those of Philadelphia, 
 would enlarge their list of exemptions, and so keep the channel of 
 trade open, or else would fall on some other method of saving them 
 from "a melancholy situation." They informed their correspondents 
 that goods were daily being shipped to Virginia, Maryland, Boston, 
 Rhode Island, and Montreal, and would hence circulate through all 
 the colonies, as the greater part were ordered by strangers unaccus- 
 tomed to trade, and that unless the old merchants should order 
 goods, the business would certainly find its way through a new 
 channel.^ 
 
 For these and other reasons, dissatisfaction found expression in 
 Philadelphia early in 1770, and in April and May meetings of sub- 
 scribers and importers were held in order to consider whether some 
 alteration might not be made in the agreement. Many felt that the 
 stagnation in business was unbearable and that the burden of suffer- 
 ing, not only within the city and province but also among the colo- 
 nists at large, was unevenly distributed.^ At a general meeting on 
 May 14th, it was decided to send a letter to Boston, asking the mer- 
 chants there how they felt about importation, and though in the 
 meantime riunors spread that Rhode Island had defected and the 
 New England merchants were secretly importing, the sentiment in 
 Philadelphia was favorable to a strict adherence.' Final action was 
 postponed until June 5th, when it was expected that replies would 
 have been received from the other colonies, upon which a general and 
 harmonious agreement might be based. 
 
 ' Letters to Stephen CoUins from Benj. & John Bowers, Manchester, Feb- 
 ruary 1, 1770; William Neate, London, February 7, March 6, 26, 1770; Har- 
 ford & PoweU, February 28, 1770; Williams, Bellamy & WiUiams, London, 
 March 1, 1770; Nath. & Robert Denison, Nottingham, March 8, 1770; and the 
 many letters from Samuel Elam of Hull. Benj. & John Bowers wrote that they 
 would be "very great sufferers," as "the greatest part of their fortune was ex- 
 pended ia manufactures designed for the American market " (CoUins Papers). 
 
 2 Henry Drinker to Abel James, 1769-1770 (Pennsylvania Magazine, xiv. 43). 
 See the letter of "Plebarius," in the Pennsylvania Gazette, May 24, 1770, sug- 
 gesting a general subscription for the sufferers. 
 
 = Drinker wrote, May 26, 1770, that "notwithstanding the little dirty colony 
 of Rhode Island had shamefully broken faith," yet this "flagrant violation and 
 breach of their plighted honour" had not "staggered the merchants of New 
 York or this place." In May "A Tradesman" wrote to the Pennsylvania Chron- 
 icle urging his brethren to enter into Resolutions denying their custom to any 
 "who should dare an infraction of the mercantile resolutions." 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 243 
 
 On June 2d, the New York committee of inspection sent by express 
 riders to New Brunswick, Elizabeth, and Perth Amboy, and to Phila- 
 delphia, Boston, and towns in Connecticut, letters signed by eighteen 
 principal merchants, asking the recipients to collect as soon as pos- 
 sible the sentiments of their communities, whether to abide by the 
 present agreement or to import at once everything except articles 
 taxed. The committee also requested them to appoint six deputies 
 each to meet at Norwalk on June 18th, for the purpose of exchanging 
 opinions and of adopting "one solid system for the benefit of the 
 whole, that no one colony may be Hable to the censure or reproaches 
 of another, but all share the same fate." ^ The request carried with it 
 the undoubted hint that this " General Conference of the Merchants on 
 the Continent" should vote to alter the agreement, and because of this 
 fact it met with a cold reception. Though Connecticut at its meet- 
 ing in Hartford ^ voted to send delegates, its committee of merchants 
 reported against altering the agreement on the ground that a refusal 
 to import tea, because affecting only the East India Company, which 
 did not represent the EngUsh nation, would not influence in any way 
 English manufacturers and would only serve to discourage friends, 
 encourage the administration, and render futile any further associa- 
 tions in America. They were not impressed by the argument that 
 as England had yielded in part so they were bound in honor to yield 
 also, which was presented by their New York and Philadelphia 
 brethren. 
 
 Boston's answer, drawn up at the meeting of the merchants on 
 June 7, 1770i at which John Rowe and probably other merchants of 
 conservative tendencies were not present, was a definite refusal of 
 New York's request. It declared that the least alteration in the 
 agreement would show "a levity of disposition probably injurious to 
 the common cause," and that as Boston was only one of six maritime 
 
 1 New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, July 2, 1770; New London Gazette, 
 June 15, 1770. 
 
 * The Hartford meeting was held on June 1, so that there must have been an 
 earlier letter, but I have not been able to trace it. It appears to have been writ- 
 ten as early as May 16. There was a New York merchants' meeting on the 18th, 
 but that was called to discuss non-importation, and deferred action, hoping 
 the duty would be repealed (New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, May 21, 
 1770). An earlier letter from Connecticut was sent on May 19, replying to that 
 from New York, and signed by Matthew Talcott, Richaxd Alsop, and Silas Deane 
 (ibid. July 23, 1770). 
 
244 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 towns in the province, she could not act without their advice and 
 consent. At the same meeting the merchants voted non-intercourse 
 with Portsmouth and, at this time or soon after, disclosed the spirit 
 that was in them by posting the names of ten firms which were import- 
 ing contrary to the agreement, and threatening all who traded with 
 them.^ Philadelphia also at its meeting on June 5th rejected New 
 York's request and voted to adhere to the former agreements, and 
 all the leading towns of New Jersey followed Philadelphia's example. 
 Thus rebuffed, the New York merchants proceeded with their 
 plans. On Monday, June 11th, a number of merchants and mechanics 
 waited on the committee of inspection, desiring that the sense of the 
 city should be taken by subscription, whether to alter the agreement 
 or not. A meeting was called the same evening, at which a form of 
 ballot was drawn up and persons were appointed to circulate it. The 
 question asked was, "Do you approve of a general importation of 
 goods from Great Britain, except tea and other articles which are or 
 may be subject to a duty on importation, or do you approve of our 
 non-importation agreement continuing in the manner it now is?" 
 The result of the canvass was believed to show a majority of votes 
 favorable to alteration, and at once an advertisement was inserted in 
 the papers and letters were despatched to Philadelphia and Boston, 
 requesting their concurrence and saying that in case they did not 
 agi-ee, the sense of the town would again be taken.^ This action of 
 New York roused a storm of protest, not only from other colonies but 
 also within the city itself. A meeting of the Sons of Liberty, led by 
 Isaac Sears and Peter Vanderwort, registered a lively dissent, and 
 both Boston and Philadelphia rejected the proposal absolutely. 
 
 1 Boston Gazette, June 11, 1770; New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, 
 June 25, 1770. The names are printed in a supplement to the Boston Gazette, 
 June 18, 1770. They are John Gillespie, John Bernard, James McMasters, 
 Patrick McMasters, Nathaniel Rogers, William Jackson, Theophilus Lillie, John 
 Taylor, Ame and EUzabeth Cuming, Israel Williams & Son of Hatfield, and 
 Henry Barnes of Marlborough. These firms had already been publicly entered 
 in the town records on March 19, and may have been acted upon at the mer- 
 chants' meeting of April 20, but I find no earlier pubUcation in the newspapers. 
 
 "^ New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, June 18, 1770. The members of the 
 merchants' committee were Isaac Low, chairman, Henry Remsen, Jr., Jacob 
 Walton, and J. H. Cruger. Isaac Low advertised in the Post Boy, November 
 26, 1770, that he had imported and that he had a right to do so and that he had 
 certain goods for sale and hoped people would buy of him. A curious advertise- 
 ment. 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 245 
 
 Returns from Connecticut and New York showed that the sentiment 
 in those colonies was hotly in favor of the agreements.^ Consequently, 
 on July 9th, the New York merchants, acting on the terms of their 
 letter, took a second vote, ward by ward, and when the result showed 
 a Adctory for importation, they despatched their orders by the packet 
 the Earl of Halifax, which by special arrangement with the postmas- 
 ter was held to await the result of the voting, and these orders were 
 for goods of every kind, except tea.^ 
 
 New York's defection was a mortal blow to the cause and stirred the 
 non-importing colonies to indignation and anger. It was the first per- 
 manent break in the system, for Newport, whose withdrawal in May 
 had resulted in her commercial isolation, later reconsidered her ac- 
 tion and returned to the fold. In New York city, the Sons of Liberty 
 held meetings denouncing the merchants and declaring that not a 
 pound's worth of goods, imported contrary to the agreement, should 
 be allowed to land. They called the importers the "court party" 
 and charged the chairman of the committee, Isaac Low, with being in 
 the pay of England and truckling for office. They denied that the 
 vote represented a majority of the citizens, in that only about a 
 fourth took part, 1100 out of 4000, the remainder refraining from 
 voting, thinking the proceedings irregular.' But the radicals, be- 
 cause of their violent methods, were rapidly losing their influence, and 
 when in October the elections were held for city magistrates, they 
 were defeated by a large majority.* 
 
 Outside of New York the verdict against the merchants' action was 
 almost unanimous. The Philadelphians had a meeting at the State 
 
 1 A letter to the Boston Gazette, June 25, 1770, gives the anti-merchants' 
 point of view. 
 
 2 New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, July 9, 16, 1770. See a very in- 
 forming letter sent by Alexander Golden, postmaster, to Anthony Todd, secretary 
 to the postmasters general in London, July 11, 1770 (New York Colonial Docu- 
 ments, viii. 218-221). 
 
 s New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, July 23, 1770. In a supplement to 
 the paper appears a complete list of "alterers," returned by the ward committees 
 to the coromittee of inspection. It distinguishes between "Importers," "Those 
 zealous for Importing," and "Shop-keepers," and was printed to show that only 
 about 800 were for importing, whereas there were probably 3000 whose votes 
 ought to have been taken. In the list is the name of John Glover, Samuel Elam's 
 agent in New York, whose letters throw light on the situation in the city jit this 
 time. 
 
 * Becker, op. cit., p. 93. 
 
246 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 House on July 14th and passed reproachful resolutions, calling New 
 York's decision a "sordid and wanton defection from the common 
 cause," and voted to break off all commercial intercourse with her.' 
 The inhabitants of Elizabeth, Woodbridge, and New Brunswick 
 rapidly followed Philadelphia's example, hoping to cut loose from the 
 commercial bondage to New York, as Portsmouth had hoped to do 
 from Boston, and to set up an independent port at Perth Amboy.^ 
 The students at Nassau Hall, on July 13, on the tolling of the college 
 bell, went in a procession to a place fronting the college and burnt the 
 letter from New York at the hands of a hangman hired for the 
 purpose.^ On the arrival of the letter at Boston, the Body met, cer- 
 tain of the ntmiber marching to the hall in procession, with flags fly- 
 ing, upon one of which was inscribed "Liberty and no-importation," 
 and there they "voted unanimously that the said letter, in just in- 
 dignation, abhorrence, and detestation be forthwith torn into pieces 
 and thrown to the winds as unworthy the least notice, which sentence 
 was immediately executed." The breach in the body of the Boston 
 merchants was now complete. Some of thfem attempted to prevent 
 the procession, and John Rowe, blaming the bearer of the flag, de- 
 clared that the meeting would prove "very prejudicial to the mer- 
 chants and trade of the town of Boston." The Society had fallen 
 under the control of the extremists, who wanted no compromise with 
 Great Britain. This became evident when, a week later, the Body 
 met and appointed a committee composed of John Hancock, Samuel 
 Adams, Thomas Gushing, William Molineux, and others, to go to the 
 northern towns, Salem, Marblehead, Haverhill, etc., whence riunors 
 of importations had come, and see if these rumors were true. The 
 committee was then to go southward to Providence and Newport. 
 
 ' The protest is printed in the New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, 
 August 6, 1770. 
 
 2 New Jersey Archives, xxvii. 202, 204, 206-207, 215, 218-219. 
 
 3 Madison to his father, July 23, 1770 (Writings, 1900, i. 7; New York Ga- 
 zette or Weekly Post Boy, July 16, 1770). At the Princeton Commencement 
 Exercises, September 26, 1770, "Mr. Ogdm defended this Proposition. The Non- 
 importation Agreement reflects a Glory on the American Merchants, and was a noble 
 Exertion of Self denial and pvblic Spirit. He was opposed by Mr. Horton to 
 whom Mr. John Smith replied." At the same exercises, "Mr. Frelinghuysen 
 pronounced an Oration on the Utility of American Manufactures," and "In the 
 Afternoon Mr. Wilson began an Oration on Commerce" (New Jersey Archives 
 xxvii. 268, 269). ' 
 
1917] BOSTON MEECHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 247 
 
 The merchants of Salem and Newport were so angry at the news 
 that they threatened to tar and feather the committee, on the ground 
 that MoUneux was an agitator and a nuisance, raising disturbances 
 wherever he went. Nothing happened, however, and the committee, 
 or certain members of it, made the visits northward and reported all 
 satisfactory; and though on their southward journey they accom- 
 plished little at Providence, they persuaded Newport to renew her 
 agreement, at a meeting on August 20th, Thomas Cranston, chair- 
 man, on the promise that Boston would intercede with the southern 
 colonies to resume commercial intercourse with her. This Boston 
 did, at the meeting held September 7th to hear the report of the com- 
 mittee, and as th'e first result of the letter despatched for the purpose, 
 Philadelphia renewed soon after the old relations with Newport.^ 
 
 Town after town followed in the wake of Philadelphia and Bos- 
 ton, denouncing the attitude of New York and severing commercial 
 relations with her — Rye, Huntington, Hartford,^ Norwich, New 
 Haven,^ Chesterfield, Mansfield, Hanover, Springfield, and Notting- 
 ham,^ Burlington, Monmouth, and Sussex counties in New Jersey, 
 Annapolis, Talbot county (Maryland),^ and others. Already on June 
 
 ' Rowe, Diary, July 24, 1770; Massachusetts Gazette, July 26, 1770; Boston 
 Gazette, July 30, August 20, 27, September 4, 1770; New York Gazette and 
 Weekly Mercury, August 17, 1770; New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, 
 August 27, September 10, 24, 1770; Essex Gazette, August 28, 1770; Pemisyl- 
 vania Gazette, September 20, 1770; Newport Historical Magazine, iii. 256. 
 
 2 Boston Gazette, August 13, 20, 1770. "The gentleman-merchants of the 
 committee in Connecticut, met at Hartford, Aug. 4, declared their abhorrence of 
 New York, issued a card calling for a closing of all accounts with the merchants 
 there, and on the 7th authorized the publishing of five names, WiUiam Bowes, 
 Rufus Greene, Edward Church, Nathaniel Gary, and William Coffin, Jr." Their 
 resolution declared that New York's act was "in downright violation of the solemn 
 agreement of this colony and of the neighbouring provinces ... an infamous 
 breach of their pubHc faith plighted to her sister colonies not to import, and is a 
 practice so destructive to the natural and civil rights and Hberties of the people 
 of America, that we must hold New York ... in the utmost detestation and 
 abhorrence." This quotation illustrates the almost universal tendency to iden- 
 tify non-importation, at this time, with the constitutional claims. 
 
 3 "The Plea of New Haven for Non-Importation," July 26, 1770, is printed 
 from the Emmet Papers in the Bulletin of the New York Public Library, i. 184. 
 It speaks of "our backsUding Brethren of New York, who have meanly prosti- 
 tuted the Common Cause to the present sordid prospect of a little Pelf." The 
 meeting was presided over by Roger Sherman. 
 
 « Representatives from these five towns met at Mansfield and took action. 
 5 Scharf, History of Maryland, i. 118-119, where the resolutions are given. 
 
248 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 22d members of the House of Burgesses in Virginia had met with a 
 body of merchants at Williamsburg and renewed the association; ^ 
 on July 5th, the Sons of Liberty of North Carolina met at Wilming- 
 ton, renewed their agreement, promised to sacrifice all intercourse 
 with the West Indies, and to watch importations with care.^ On 
 August 22d, " a most respectable General Meeting of the Inhabitants " 
 of South Carolina was held at the Liberty Tree, and denouncing 
 New York's defection as "a scandalous revolt from the common 
 cause of freedom and a bait to destroy every constitutional right," 
 voted to break off all commercial intercourse with her.^ 
 
 Among all the protests against the action of New York, none is 
 more interesting and instructive than that of Connecticut, for it 
 shows the attitude of a colony where mercantile interests played little 
 part and where the predominant agricultural life was favorable to the 
 cultivation of individualistic notions of human rights and liberties. 
 The merchant-farmers of Hartford, Middletown, New Haven, Nor- 
 wich, and Norwalk were ardent supporters of non-importation, a vir- 
 tue that cost them little as they imported no goods directly from Great 
 Britain. Connecticut had traded with Boston to 1750, when owing 
 to certain currency acts of Massachusetts, deemed injurious and un- 
 just, her merchants turned their trade to New York. But trade was 
 always a subordinate issue in Connecticut, for whenever anything 
 favorable to it was proposed in the general assembly, the farmers 
 
 ^ The Association of June 22, 1770, is differently worded in its preamble from 
 that of May 18, 1769. It is less rhetorical and more businesslike in tone. The 
 articles run about the same, except that the list of goods not to be imported is 
 considerably altered. The Association is signed by Peyton Randolph for the 
 burgesses and Andrew Sprowle of Gosport for the merchants (Virginia Gazette, 
 June 28, 1770; New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, July 23, 1770; Boston 
 Gazette, July 23, 1770). 
 
 2 Cape Fear Mercury, July 11, 1770; South Carolina Gazette, July 5, 26, 
 August 9, 1770; New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, August 13, 1770. In 
 reply to a letter from Charles Town, addressed to the Sons of Liberty of North 
 Carolina, a committee, composed of members from Wilmington, New Hanover 
 county, Bladen county, Duplin county, Onslow county, and Cumberland 
 county, met at Wilmington. It took the members a long time to get together, 
 as "the gentlemen Hved long distances apart." Many of the merchants refused 
 to sign the renewal. 
 
 5 To the Sons of Liberty of Charles Town the New Yorkers were "traitors to 
 their country, themselves, and ages yet unborn, who, no doubt, when groaning 
 under a British yoke wiU forever curse the traitors " (South Caroliaa Gazette, 
 August 16, 23, 1770; New Jersey Archives, xxvii. 293). 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 249 
 
 opposed such propositions as a scheme of the merchants, and in- 
 compatible with their interests. Many of the merchants themselves 
 were farmers and landowners and to them non-importation was an 
 advantage, as tending to raise the value of lands, increase the price 
 of agricultural produce, and turn the balance of trade in their favor. 
 Those who protested in Connecticut acted rather as landholders than 
 merchants, and while keenly alive to their rights, they were also 
 keenly alive to their profits. Importation, which was favorable to 
 the merchants in the cities, was unfavorable to those who were 
 farmers and landowners first and traders afterwards. Hence we have 
 the most rhetorical and denunciatory resolutions from the country 
 districts in Massachusetts, from the colonies of Connecticut and New 
 Jersey, and from the planters of the South. 
 
 When news of what New York had done came to Connecticut, 
 letters were sent to the principal trading towns of the colony, calling 
 for a meeting of the merchants at New Haven, on September 13, 
 1770. The meeting was duly held,, with Gurdon Saltonstall in the 
 chair, and Silas Deane acting as clerk, and a series of elaborate reso- 
 lutions was drafted, upholding non-importation, accepting again the 
 long list of exemptions adopted the February before, and characteriz- 
 ing the defection of New York as a "precipitate desertion of the 
 common cause of American liberty," and a violation of "reiterated 
 solemn engagements with the other colonies, not only without their 
 consent but in direct contradiction to their advice and entreaties." 
 Then they voted to break off all intercourse with her.^ 
 
 ^ Coimecticut Courant, September 17, 1770. Just where Connecticut intended 
 to purchase English goods is not clear. The merchants had broken with Boston, 
 and now they broke with New York. New Haven, in its earher non-importation 
 agreement, voted to trade with Philadelphia and Boston, and probably in this 
 case a return to the Boston connection was designed. "A Connecticut Farmer," 
 writing to the New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, August 27, 1770, urges 
 the cutting loose from aU connections and the opening up of direct trade with 
 England. He wanted Connecticut to have her own trade just as the New Jersey 
 towns were hoping to do. This cutting of new channels of trade was in the minds 
 of the freeholders and» inhabitants of Sussex county, New Jersey, a region of 
 wheat, and iron and steel furnaces, who, in voting non-intercourse with New York, 
 declared that they would send their wheat and iron by the "more natural and 
 easy water carriage down the River Delaware to our friends at Trenton and 
 Philadelphia." As early as 1738, Gov. Morris of New Jersey wrote to the 
 Board of Trade: "They [the people] have warm desires and are big with hopes 
 of carrying on a trade directly with Great Britain, instead of receiving Euro- 
 
250 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 The New York merchants resented bitterly the attitude of the 
 other colonies, but with no one were they so angry as with those of 
 Boston, who had treated their letter with such scorn and indig- 
 nity. They beUeved themselves to have been very strict in adhering 
 to their agreement, and had greeted the information furnished by John 
 Mein's pamphlet and sheets with something akin to consternation. 
 In November and December, 1769, they became very uneasy lest 
 Boston should not stand by her agreement and said that what John 
 Mein was printing and what the merchants abroad were saying 
 seemed to show that the merchants there were not acting with as much 
 spirit and honesty as they themselves were. When Boston refused to 
 cooperate with them in June, 1770, the New York committee replied 
 that the refusal made a bad impression, for had the congress at Nor- 
 walk been held it might have had happy results, but rejected " gave 
 so much discontent that numbers said it was only a scheme in you 
 to continue importing under pompous resolves against it." ^ Though 
 
 pean commodities from their neighbors of Boston, New York, and Pennsyl- 
 vania" (Colonial Office, 6: 973, F 31). 
 
 ' New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, October 15, 1770. New York 
 said: "Can Carolina, Philadelphia, Albany, New Brmiswick, Woodbridge, or 
 New Haven, etc, stiU retain a desire to hold a union with these gentlemen [of 
 Boston], though they promise ever so great a Union in Deceit? 'Can you stiU 
 resolve and protest against the merchants in New York, who maintained their 
 agreement inviolate, untill they were convinced of the propriety of an Alteration, 
 and then acted bold and upright, pubUckly declaring their Intentions to the world 
 
 — like Honest Men" (Massachusetts Gazette, October 4, 1770, supplement). 
 For a Boston statement, see ibid. September 6, 1770, and note the following as a 
 specimen of language used in Boston: "At this jvmcture, when the merchants of 
 New York have shamefully violated the agreement and forsaken the cause of this 
 country, — when those who wish to have the chains fastened upon us are assid- 
 uous in their endeavours to scatter the seeds of discord among the other colonies, 
 
 — when they are casting the most malicious aspersions on the merchants of this 
 town and province, and are artfully endeavouring to render them particularly 
 odious in the eyes of the world, — when we feel the hand of oppression and 
 tyranny daily growing more and more heavy upon us, — when the enemies of 
 America, destitute of shame or remorse, insolently begin to laugh at her struggles 
 for Freedom, and already flatter themselves that in a little time despotic power 
 shall gain a complete triumph in a land of Liberty, — at such a time and under 
 such circumstances everyone wiU judge it is the duty of each Individual in the 
 community who loves his country to attend the public meetings — There to 
 dehberate and consult with candor, to determine with wisdom, and to execute 
 with that undaimted fortitude which becomes those only who are eesolved to 
 be FREE." This statement was made at a meeting held in Faneuil Hall, and 
 we are not surprised that it had to be adjourned because so few were present. 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 251 
 
 local conditions had their influence, and though the partial repeal of 
 the Townshend Act played its part, yet the feeling that other sea- 
 ports were breaking through their agreements rankled in the heart 
 of the New York merchant. That goods were coming in by way of 
 Boston, PhUadelphia, and Annapolis, while the port of New York 
 was tightly closed, was unbearable, and though the figures given and 
 statements made in Meln's papers and the letters from England may 
 not all have been true, the fact that the New York merchants believed 
 them to be true is the main thing. They charged these cities with 
 hypocrisy, and when the committee of inspection at Aimapolis called 
 the New Yorkers "rotten and treacherous," the latter retaliated by 
 accusing the Annapolitans of clandestine trading and raising the 
 prices of goods, and with having waited a year before taking action 
 and then restricted their non-importation to but a few articles, an 
 effort "untimely and feeble." 
 
 The Philadelphia merchants also became uneasy, as rumor after 
 rumor came that Boston and other colonies were importing. They 
 were told by a London correspondent that between Christmas, 1769, 
 and June, 1770, £150,000 worth of goods had been sent to Boston, 
 which seemed to show, as a writer to the Pennsylvania Gazette put 
 it, that "the conduct of the Boston people was not as consistent as 
 could be wished."^ They were warned by another writer that the 
 situation was one deserving to be carefully weighed by judicious 
 merchants, especially by themselves, who had thus far "been duped 
 by all the other provinces." ^ Stephen Collins, one of the most active 
 of them at this time in urging alteration of the trade, believed the 
 charges against Boston when he said, "The opening of the trade 
 except in duty goods seems to be gaining ground fast and I think this 
 province in perticular has been Deep'** [duped] long enough already, 
 [and ought not] to suffer their Intrest to be sacreficed any longer;" 
 and a little later he added, "I having on my part taken no small pains 
 to bring it about, being highly suspicious that we were become the 
 Dupe of some other colonies in the cause; which was fully evinced to 
 
 When the next meeting was held on September 5, a letter was voted to be sent 
 to say that all the New York charges against Boston were "without fotjnda- 
 tion" (Massachusetts Gazette, September 20, 1770). 
 
 1 Pennsylvania Gazette, Jmie 14, 1770. 
 
 » New York Gazette and Weekly Merciuy, August 27, 1770. 
 
252 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Ebb. 
 
 me on my arival at Boston, where I was amas'd to see the Quantity 
 of goods amongst them." To John Glover of New York he wrote, 
 November 20th, "It seems as though I could not put up without 
 seeing thee before thou goes to that Rebbel Town Boston, amongst 
 them Deceitful, Canting Presbyterian Deacons." ^ 
 
 Under these circumstances, alteration in Philadelphia could not 
 be long postponed. The manner in which it was effected can best 
 be told in the "candid and true account" given in the letter of the 
 committee of merchants, September 25th. After stating that the 
 original agreement had been subscribed by only about 300, though 
 " the rest of the inhabitants concurred in the measure so as to discoun- 
 tenance and discourage any attempts to violate it," and that for 
 some time "the greatest harmony subsisted," the account proceeds: 
 
 The plan of non-importation not producing an immediate and total 
 repeal of the act, some whose living and others whose prospects of gain 
 depended on importing goods began to be uneasy under these restric- 
 tions. With them the members [seven in number] who had broken o£F 
 from the committee associated. Sundry meetings were held, and in May 
 last [1770], measures being previously concerted, a vigorous push was 
 made to break the agreement entered into. The voice of the public 
 which was against them, and some concurring circumstances prevented 
 them from carrying their design at the time, but the defection of New 
 York, which followed soon after, giving them fresh spirits, they rallied 
 again, and having secretly concerted a plan, they got a paper drawn up, 
 signed by themselves and seven others, which they presented to the 
 chairman of the committee on the eve of the 12th inst. [September], and 
 because the committee would not comply with their proposal which was 
 contrary to the non-importation agreement, the gentlemen themselves, 
 without consulting the committee, ordered notices to be sent around 
 to call a general meeting of the subscribers at D[avenport]'s tavern, in 
 order that none but subscribers might be present. A number of subscrib- 
 ers refused to come, but the committee was present.* 
 
 The meeting was held on September 24th, with Thomas Willing in 
 the chair. Voting down three substitute motions, to consult the other 
 colonies, to adopt the Maryland and Virginia forms of non-importa;- 
 
 ' Letters to Samuel Elam and William Neate, November 24, 1770, and to 
 John Glover, November 20, 1770 (Collins Papeb). 
 » Pennsylvania Gazette, October 4, 1770. 
 
1917] BOSTON MEKCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 253 
 
 tion, or to adopt the same provided New York and Boston would 
 agree, and refusing to submit the question to the inhabitants of the 
 city, the subscribers carried through a resolution to alter the agree- 
 ment and to open the trade in all but tea and other dutiable articles.^ 
 This action of the subscribers called out indignant protests from the 
 people of Philadelphia and the neighborhood, and a meeting -was 
 called at the State House on the 27th, with Joseph Fox as chairman, 
 which deprecated the hasty action of the "importers of dry goods" 
 and recommended the acceptance of an agreement like that of Mary- 
 land. Though the merchants immediately despatched orders to Eng- 
 land, the feeling against them was so strong in the city, that even in 
 November there was some doubt as to whether consignments could 
 be safely received.^ But with goods coming in by way of New York 
 and Maryland, the Philadelphians could not hold out, and before 
 November was over the port was open for all but the dutiable 
 articles.' 
 
 '■ Pennsylvania Gazette, October 4, 1770; New York Gazette or Weekly Post 
 Boy, October 1, 1770. Capt. Bosley wrote to Collins: "Last Thursday was a 
 meeting of the subscribers to the non-importation agreement at Davenport's. 
 J. Gibson spoke much and I am told very well against the trade being opened; 
 W. West spoke strainously on the other side and gained the point. They are now 
 making out their orders to go by the London packet, Capt. Cook" (CoUins 
 Papers). 
 
 2 Many London merchants had sent goods to Philadelphia in August and Sep- 
 tember, hoping the trade would be opened. Samuel Elam of Hull loaded the 
 ship Commerce in August with bales for both New York and Philadelphia, and 
 consigned them to John Glover, New York. Glover had a great deal of trouble 
 with this consignment, for it was not imtil November that Philadelphia merchants 
 dared receive their bales. Some of the Philadelphia consignees were Geo. Emlin, 
 Abraham Usher, Joseph Swift, Benj . Wynkoop, Isaac & Joseph Paschall, Jacob 
 Winey, James & Drinker, Wilham Wisher, Richard Parker, Thomas Clifford & 
 Son, John & Clem Biddle, Matthias Aspden, John Steinmetz, Caleb & Amos 
 Foulke, and Stephen Collins. AU wrote Glover in November to forward by the 
 Bordentown stage, to be deposited at the Crooked Billet tavern. "I behave 
 none wiU hinder their coming," wrote Parker. "Do not apprehend there will be 
 any difficulty in receiving of them," wrote the Cliffords. As it happened, the 
 Commerce was wrecked off the Maryland coast, November 11, and though 400 
 bales were saved they were so much damaged that they had to be sold at public 
 vendue in New York (CoUins Papers; New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, 
 December 3, 1770). 
 
 ' "Goods are dayley arriving here from New York," wrote C. & A. Foulke, 
 November 15; "I find great quantities of goods are coming here from Maryland," 
 B. Wynkoop, November 10; "I have an assortment of broadcloths coming b- 
 
254 THE COLONXA.L SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 Just as the news from New York aroused the subscribers of Phila- 
 delphia, so the news from New York and Philadelphia aroused the 
 merchants of Boston. The meetings of the Club at Mrs. Cordis's 
 were very frequent in September and John Rowe was present at 
 nearly all of them. He was also present at the General Meeting on 
 September 15th, when the decision was reached to send a letter to 
 Philadelphia proposing a "meeting of committees from the neigh- 
 boring colonies," the very thing that the Boston merchants had 
 rejected so vehemently when New York suggested it in June. Mani- 
 festly the moderates, who had not approved of the proceedings of the 
 Body in the summer of 1770, were once more in control, and the agi- 
 tators were losing credit in Boston as they were doing in New York at 
 the same time.^ But the decision of September 15th came too late. 
 The Philadelphia merchants had already made up their minds to alter 
 the agreement and hope of united action was no longer possible. Al- 
 though Salem made a last effort to uphold non-importation,^ the end 
 had come. When the circular letter arrived from Philadelphia, there 
 could be no longer doubt as to what Boston would do. On October 
 11th the Body met at the Coffee House and unanimously voted to 
 accept the inevitable, by altering the agreement and opening the 
 ports to all goods from Great Britain, except tea. On the 18th all 
 stored articles were returned to their owners. 
 
 Providence, Marblehead, and Salem followed, and advertisements 
 began to appear in the papers of prohibited goods exhibited for sale, 
 
 way of Maryland, which will be sufficient for my spring sale," Abraham Usher, 
 November 29 (Letters to John Glover). 
 
 1 This is inferred from the names of the members present (Rowe, Letters and 
 Diary, pp. 206-207.) 
 
 ^ A meeting was held in Salem in September to denounce the "infamous con- 
 duct" of the four importers (p. 235, above) who had signed the agreement of May 
 2, 1770, and on September 22 had broken it by taking their goods out of storage, 
 "breaking open the stores with force and violence, armed with a process of law, 
 and assisted by the under-sheriff." The meeting voted to boycott the stores and 
 shops of the four, and even the truckman who handled the goods. A narrative 
 of the circumstances, a terrible piece of thunder, is given in the Essex Gazette, 
 October 2, 1770. Peter Frye, one of the offenders, wrote a letter defending himself, 
 and saying that there were so many leaks everywhere, at Marblehead, Ports- 
 mouth, and Boston, that he was justified in seizing his property and offering it for 
 sale. In the Essex Gazette of the 9th are pubhshed the names of three persons 
 who had purchased goods of the four (Boston Gazette, October 8, 1770; Essex 
 Gazette, October 2, 9, 1770). 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPOKTATION MOVEMENT 255 
 
 "by leave of the committee of inspection. "^ Salem was selling articles 
 "imported in the last ships from London" in December; glass, paper, 
 and painters' colors were freely offered, and by the opening of the 
 new year trade was in full swing, somewhat to the embarrassment of 
 the English merchants, one of whom wrote, "The Boston trade coming 
 at the heel of the Philadelphia trade has been of some inconven- 
 ience to us." ^ That Boston's action caused surprise and some conster- 
 nation in New England, we can well believe. Said one writer : " From 
 the borders of Connecticut all the way to Boston, you will find people 
 in every town exclauning against Boston, for imposing upon the 
 country, by false representations and drawing them into measures 
 which they say will ruin the province ; " and John Temple could speak 
 of that "unfortunate & (I could wish) ever to be forgotten year 1770 
 when with everything at stake, they threw up the important game 
 when they had all the trumps in their own hands & Hke a Spaniel 
 meanly cringed & kiss'd the rod that whip'd them." ' 
 
 With the northern ports open from Portsmouth to the Delaware, 
 the southern colonies could not long hold out. The merchants of 
 Baltimore recommended alteration at a meeting in that town on 
 October 5th, but at a general convention at Annapolis, three weeks 
 later, the Baltimore suggestion was thrown out and a vote to adhere 
 was adopted. No fiulher action appears to have been taken, but 
 after the news from Boston arrived, all attempts to uphold the agree- 
 ment seem to have been given up. Of formal alteration in Virginia,* 
 North Carolina,^ and Georgia we have no sign, but at Charles Town, 
 
 '■ Essex Gazette, November 20, 1770. 
 
 ' Denison Bros, to Collins, January 10, 1771. 
 
 » Boston Gazette, December 24, 1770; 6 Massaclmsetts Historical Collections, 
 ix. 284. 
 
 * Virginia was one of the last, if not the very last, to give in. Perking, 
 Buchanan'& Brown wrote to Thomas Adams, April 9, 1770: "The duty on Tea 
 is yet retained, the repealing the other three articles certainly does not redress 
 the grievance North America complained of. This being the case surely your 
 resolution of May 18 should be strictly observed " (Virginia Historical Society, 
 File 5). Just when action was taken I have not discovered, but it was not imtil 
 after June 1, 1771, for on that date Jefferson wrote from Monticello to Adams, 
 " The day appointed for the meeting of the associates is not yet arrived, but it 
 seems certain that the restrictions will be taken off everything but the dutied 
 artic'.es" (Jefferson, Writings, i. 387). 
 
 ^ Regarding the situation in North Carolina, James Iredell wrote in October, 
 
256 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OP MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 after intelligence had been received of the departure of most of the 
 northern colonies from their resolutions, a general meeting of the in- 
 habitants was held at the Liberty Tree on December 13th, with Henry- 
 Laurens in the chair. After much silence and hesitation a "breaking 
 through" motion was carried. Tea was barred, luxuries discouraged, 
 and local manufactures upheld, but otherwise business returned to its 
 former freedom. On the 27th, all British goods held in confinement 
 were released and given back to their owners. So ill-content were 
 the South Carolinians with the conduct of the northern colonies^ that . 
 it was with difficulty a vote was defeated declaring for commercial 
 non-intercourse with them, and the printer of the Gazette probably 
 expressed a general feeling when he wrote: 
 
 They are restrained by only one Consideration, that the Defection not 
 having been among the Landholders, Farmers, and Mechanicks, who are 
 perhaps, in general, as well affected to the just Rights and Liberties of 
 America, as ourselves, it would be unjust to retaliate upon tkem, for the 
 Injuries received iioixi'some of the Merchants of those Colonies. It must, 
 however, be acknowledged, that the Trade with those Colonies is far 
 from being beneficial to this; that except for Bar Iron, Sheep, and Oil, we 
 might supply ourselves with almost every other article imported thence 
 at Home, by proper attention and encouragement; and that they drain 
 from us our Specie and mostly for mere Trash. ^ 
 
 With this somewhat ungenerous fling at the northern colonies, the 
 second movement for the non-importation of British goods came to an 
 end, and, as another southern writer said about the same time, "The 
 so much boasted patriotism of non-importation throughout the colo- 
 nies seems likely to terminate in nothing worse than to deprive the 
 ladies of a dish of tea." 
 
 Thus the non-importation movement which had succeeded so well 
 in 1765 and had been renewed with such enthusiasm in 1768-1769, 
 came to a somewhat untimely end. It had not been a failure, for it 
 was to no inconsiderable extent responsible for the removal of the 
 duties on glass, paper, lead, and painters' colors, but it failed to effect 
 the repeal of the acts of 1764, 1765, and 1766 and the removal of the 
 
 1771, " All mobbing is at an end here and we are once more at peace" (McRee, 
 Life of Iredell, i. 93). 
 
 1 South Carolina Gazette, December 13, 27, 1770. 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 257 
 
 duty on tea, and it accomplished nothing whatever in the effort to 
 obtain British recognition of the constitutional claims of the colonies. 
 Primarily it came to an end because the merchants in New York and 
 elsewhere were satisfied with the partial repeal of the duties, and were 
 unwiUing to undergo further losses for the sake of tea and a constitu- 
 tional claim which had nothing to do with trade. And there were 
 other reasons which may be briefly summarized. 
 
 Before the movement was fairly under way, it began to show serious 
 structural weaknesses. The merchants and importers were divided 
 among themselves, not only on the original question but even more 
 on the place of the movement in the struggle for liberty and self-gov- 
 ernment. The retailers and tradesmen, possessed of small capitals, 
 found themselves imable to do business, and were threatened with 
 the loss of their trade and consequent ruin. The people at large, to 
 whom non-importation was a matter not of the pocket-book but only 
 of self-denial, due to scarcity and high prices, were antagonistic to the 
 merchant and charged them with preferring gain to patriotism and 
 love of country. The radicals and agitators, irresponsible in thought 
 and action, often added fuel to the flame of discord, and with little to 
 lose engaged in acts of persecution against those who dared to oppose 
 them. 
 
 In the system itself there were many defects. The colonies were 
 not united on a common plan. Some were importing without restraint. 
 Others were admitting everything except a few articles. Others 
 again were putting an entire stop to their trade. There could be no 
 firm union where men differed so widely and complained so bitterly. 
 The agreements of the tobacco colonies allowed entrance to articles 
 that were barred in the North. All the southern colonies admitted 
 Indian goods that were so essential to Albany's prosperity, yet Al- 
 bany, blocked by New York, could legally get none at all. There was 
 a constant tendency to adjust the lists of exemptions, which even in 
 the North were drafted according to local needs and preferences. The 
 importers of dry goods, whose business was standing still, complained 
 of the importers of wines and molasses, who had greater opportunities 
 for profit. Maryland admitted slaves which were excluded elsewhere 
 in the South. Where the agreements were the work of others than 
 the merchants, the latter took umbrage at the voting away of their 
 property by those who were not concerned with trade, and refused to 
 
258 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 submit, a fact seemingly true of Georgia and in a measure true of 
 North and South Carolina also. Many merchants yielded to pressure 
 from England, where shipowners and exporters became restless as 
 their ships lay idle and bent their efforts, often unconsciously, in 
 favor of resimiption. 
 
 As the movement progressed, the seaports and larger towns were 
 divided into antagonistic and often hostile groups. Laurens speaks 
 of the "squabbles" in Charles Town, about "resolutions, subscrip- 
 tions, and non-subscribers," etc. "Much too much has been said on 
 both sides," he wrote, "for the parties have left the subject upon 
 which they began to contend and are harrowing each others private 
 characters." The inland towns, to which imports were in themselves 
 but a trifling consideration, found ample opportunity to reprimand 
 the mercantile centres for their lukewarmness to the cause of liberty. 
 The larger towns accused each other of unfaithfulness and hypoc- 
 risy, and newspaper writers, in language far too full of calumny and 
 innuendo, engaged in controversy, circulating suspicions without 
 proofs, and making assertions that were sometimes designed to con- 
 vey false impressions. James Bowdoin expressed surprise that the 
 agreements had "continued so long, for besides the operation of in- 
 terest there were the imderworking and lies of emissaries to make 
 [the colonies] jealous and diffident of each other." 
 
 Apart from the psychological aspects of the situation, consideration 
 must be given to the impracticability of non-importation itself. 
 Commerce, like water seeking a lower level, finds its way despite 
 obstacles, and if one channel is closed makes another. Though the 
 imports of New England, New York, and Pennsylvania fell off heav- 
 ily in the year 1769, so much so that the British merchants complained 
 of their losses and the total balance of trade approached an equilib- 
 rium, those of Canada and the Carolinas increased by a third and 
 those of Maryland, Virginia, and Georgia by a small but perceptible 
 fraction. Enlarged demands from Russia and other parts of the Euro- 
 pean continent lightened somewhat the burden of the British mer- 
 chants, but there were many who, alarmed for the security of their 
 property and fearing a colonial repudiation of debts, sought entrance 
 for their goods into America. Though many cargoes were turned 
 back, others broke through, either by old or by new channels. Quebec 
 and Montreal became loopholes for Albany and New York; Ports- 
 
1917] BOSTON MERCHANTS AND NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT 259 
 
 mouth, Casco Bay, and Falmouth admitted goods for New England; 
 Cape May was a landing place for Philadelphia; and importations 
 for New York and Philadelphia came in through Maryland and Vir- 
 ginia. No coast line can be completely sealed against the admission 
 of necessary though prohibited goods. 
 
 The non-importation movement began as a merchant's device 
 wherewith to obtain a redress of trade grievances; it ended as an 
 instrument in the hands of political agitators and radicals for the 
 enforcement of their claims of constitutional liberty and freedom. 
 Had it been directed by the merchants and conservatives alone, it 
 would undoubtedly have accomplished its purpose, as it did at the 
 time of the Stamp Act; but when wielded by the extremists, it broke 
 tmder the strain, because those who obtained control of it lost sight 
 of its original object and in admitting no compromise, attempted 
 the impossible.