Admiralty Courts

1. It can be stated that the first British Empire truly reached its pinnacle of size and strength following the British victory in the French and Indian/Seven Years War with France and the ensuing Treaty of Paris (1763).

2. Changes initiated by the British as of 1763 under new Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Grenville: • Upon becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer (1763), Grenville discovered from the treasury books that the American Customs Service was costing more to operate than it was bringing in and he was determined to tighten up the service to prevent smuggling. • Meant enforcing the Molasses Act (purpose to collect $; a novel idea). • Americans at once pointed out that the Duty (tax) on foreign molasses was prohibitive and would ruin those industries. • Though Grenville, didn’t intend to destroy those industries, he did intend to make it furnish a revenue; so he kept the duty but cut it in half. • Customs system was overhauled (attempt to begin to collect taxes) • Elaborate series of papers were to be filled out by shippers for every cargo. • Violations were to be tried in Admiralty Courts • (colonial juries notoriously easy on smugglers) • Admiralty Courts were independent and had jurisdiction over offenses • committed at sea and in regard to maritime laws (Navigation Acts) • (no trial by jury; colonists felt Parliament could not curtail the right of trial by • jury; it was a check on executive power).

3. Admiralty Courts • Amiralty Court at Halifax Nova Scotia used to try navigation violations (extension/enforcement of its jurisdiction to new laws of Parliament in addition to all laws of trade and navigation as well as over ordinary maritime matters). • Admiralty courts were prerogative courts composed not of juries but of single judges whose posts were “political offices in the hands of the royal governors, to be bestowed upon deserving friends and supporters”. • Colonists tried in Admiralty courts were stripped of the invaluable privilege of trial by jury; a crucial protection under the British Constitution. • The British navy was instructed to enforce the Navigation Acts.

4. Britain’s North American land gains following the Treaty of Paris (1763)

5. Proclamation Line 1763 • Marked an attempt by the British government to limit westward expansion until natives in newly acquired territory could be pacified and defense/control could be maintained/strengthened by 10,000 British troops stationed/assigned to defend it. • Appalachian Mts. line of demarcation • Colonists already living beyond Appalachians encouraged to come back (perceived threat—e.g. Pontiac’s Rebellion)

6. Quartering/Billeting Act • Required all colonial assembles to furnish food, supplies and salaries to British Regulars (soldiers) stationed within their respective provincial boundarieswho were attempting to pacify the Amerindian groups in Indian territory (i.e. the new frontier). • Not a direct tax; rather an order for colonial assemblies to, in effect, tax themselves; thus, this was regarded by colonists as a form of taxation w/o representation unless colonial assemblies had the right to refuse the order or to comply in so far as they pleased (e.g. New York Assembly was careful not to fully comply in an effort to make this point clear). • The British Government responded to this obstinate behavior by instructing the NY Governor to veto the New York Assembly’s every act until it fully complied with the act.

7. Stamp Act (1764) • Bill proposed by new Chancellor of the Exchequer (English version of the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury), George Grenville and approved by Parliament (March, 1765); • Law went into effect November, 1765 • Law designed to defray cost of maintaining troops • Almost anything formally written on or printed (lawsuits, diplomas, deeds and wills, almanacs, advertisements, bills and bonds, customs papers, newspapers, marriage certificates) would have to be on special “stamped” paper shipped from British Central Stamp Office in London to agents in colonies who would dispense it only after tax was paid as proof it was paid. • Stamp Act aroused 2 particular groups: lawyers and printers

8. Stamp Act • Even though official aim of the act to raise $, the sums it brought in were quite small • To colonists, herein was the danger: • Because the sums involved were quite small, “some persons…may be inclined to acquiesce under it.” (i.e. the smaller the taxes, the more dangerous they were b/c they would the more easily be found acceptable by the incautious) • This would establish a precedent by the tacit submission of the colonies that Parliament actually had the authority to tax them and/or that they were willing to pay such taxes; thus, if this attempt was successful (more likely if the tax was small), Parliament would use this precedent/past practice to pass other laws that would impose further taxes.

9. Requested with all due humility that Parliament repeal the tax Boycott (non-importation agreements)—attempt to get British merchants/manufacturers, a powerful voting bloc in a country of shopkeepers and traders, to feel the pinch from the lack of business with the colonies in the hope they would bear pressure on their representatives to rescind the tax. Intimidate stamp distributors by vandalizing their property or threatening them with mob violence (e.g. “tarring and feathering”), thus they would do nothing to execute the act (next slide). Civil disobedience (principle of nullification and non-compliance); do nothing that required the stamps Proceed without using required stamps Based on the principle that the law was unjust b/c it taxed the colonists w/o their consent—remember, the law and ethics are not always in agreement. Radical response: Some saw it as an attempt to suppress knowledge of what was happening by replacing duties and restraints on the press Some imagined that Grenville designed by this act to force the colonies into rebellion so he can use it as a pretext to crack down on them with severity and reduce them to servitude and dependency Sons of Liberty: “fight/resist” Colonial response(s) to Stamp Act

10. “The Bostonians paying the exciseman, or tarring and feathering”(1774 British political cartoon) • Note: It wasn’t the humiliating/degrading/undignified manner with which the colonists tarred and feathered tax collectors; rather, imagine the possibility of suffocation if/when hot tar is poured over you—or better yet, imagine trying to remove the tar from your skin once it cooled (hardened), especially, given that it bonds to the skin.

11. Stamp Act Congress • Stamp Act Congress represented another type of colonial response to the Stamp Act. • Originated in VA House of Burgesses, sparked by Patrick Henry, who adopted a set of resolutions (formal statements of opinion or official positions taken on an issue) denouncing Parliamentary taxation (other colonial assemblies followed) • At invitation of Massachusetts, 9 colonies sent delegates to a Congress in New York (October, 1765) • Delegates joined together in a set of resolutions and petitions denying the Authority of Parliament to tax them. • Though beyond Parliament’s power to tax; resolutions acknowledged colonists were not beyond Parliament’s power to legislate (colonists made the distinction) • Even though theoretically, the colonists’ arguments implied they were wholly beyond Parliamentary control (i.e. the only thing binding Englishmen and colonists together was the fact they were subjects of the same king., few colonists were willing to raise this issue yet.

12. Patrick Henry opposes Stamp Act before VA House of Burgesses (May 29, 1765)

13. British response to colonial reaction(s) to Stamp Act • anti-stamp act faction within Parliament: Merchants/manufacturers (under pressure by boycott) pressured their representatives to rescind the act; these individuals petitioned Parliament for relief from the negative affects of the act. Other members in Parliament favored repeal because they believed the act was based on erroneous principle to begin with (that Parliament had the authority to tax the colonists: agreed with colonial view that taxation was not part of the Governing/legislative power) Anti-Stamp Act factions led by William Pitt and the Marquis of Rockingham In an attempt to win votes, Rockingham subjected members of Parliament to a speech delivered by Ben Franklin (02-13-1766)

14. Franklin’s speech • Franklin, as a matter of political expediency (to win votes/repeal the act) • Succeeded in conveying the false impression that Americans were objecting merely to direct-internal taxes, (he made American demands seem moderate) • Direct—internal tax: imports coming into colonies are taxed and the tax isn’t added to the price of the good; it’s added after the purchase, specifically as a tax (i.e. to raise $) • Indirect—external tax: imports coming into colonies are taxed, but tax is part of purchase price (it’s added to the price of the good and is paid outside the colonies (purpose: to regulate commerce)—Franklin conveyed the false impression that the colonists did not object to these types of taxes. • In reality, the cololnists were opposed to all impositions/taxes equally b/c all taxes equally diminish the estates upon which they are charged (they didn’t differentiate between or among taxes) • He also conveyed to the members the impression that Americans were oppressed by the Stamp Act. • Most members of Parliament, having never bothered to have read colonial declarations/petitions, believed him.

15. To some colonists, passage of the Stamp Act reinforced idea that there was a conspiracy; what the highest officials professed was not what they in fact intended and their words masked a malevolent design. Passage of the Stamp Act was not merely an impolitic and unjust law that threatened the priceless right of the individual to retain possession of his property until he or his chosen representative voluntarily gave it up to another; it was to many also a danger signal indicating that a more general threat existed. Though it could be argued, given the swift repeal of the act, that nothing more was involved than ignorance or confusion on the part of the people in power who really knew better and who, once warned by the reactions of the colonists, would not repeat the mistake—there nevertheless appeared to be good reason tosuspect that more was involved. From whom had the false information and evil advice come that had so misled the English government?Some (Adams, OxenbridgeThacher, James Otis, Stephen Hopkins) thought from officials bent on overthrowing the constituted forms government in order to satisfy their own lust for power, and not likely to relent in their passion. To some (John Adams, Josiah Quincy) the key figures were easily identifiable: Mass. Governor, Thomas Hutchinson.

16. Joseph Warren (1766): “If the real and only motive of the minister was to raise money from the colonies, that method should undoubtedly have been adopted which was least grievous to the people…”The choice of so blatantly obnoxious a measure as the Stamp Act, consequently, “has induced some to imagine that the minister designed by this act to force the colonies into a rebellion, and from thence to take occasion to treat them with severity, and, by military power, to reduce them to servitude…such a supposition was perhaps excessive: ‘charity forbids us to conclude [the ministry] guilty of so black a villainy. But…it is known that tyrannical ministers have, at some time, embraced even this hellish measure to accomplish their cursed designs,’ and speculation based on “admitting this to have been his aim” seemed well worth pursuing (an extreme view).John Adams:it seemed “very manifest” that the ultimate design behind the Stamp Act was an effort to forge the fatal link between ecclesiastical and civil despotism, the first by stripping the colonists “in a great measure of the means of knowledge, by loading the press, the colleges, and even an almanac and a news paper with restraints and duties’ the second by recreating the inequalities and dependencies of feudalism ‘ by taking from the poorer sort of people all their little subsistence and conferring it on a set stamp officers, distributors, and their deputies”Arthur Lee: “[A]s the influence of money and places generally procures to the minister a majority in Parliament, so an income from unchecked taxation would lead to a total corruption of free government in America….” (result: slavery)

19. Rockingham could not bring about repeal of the Stamp Act until at first he arranged for a Declaratory Act:The Declaratory Act reasserted Parliament’s power to make laws/statutes binding the colonies in all cases whatever (it didn’t specify taxation even though it was implied).

20. The Townshend Duties • After becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer, on May 13, 1767 Charles Townshend revealed his painless way of getting $ out of America; saddle America with a full measure of external taxes (Townshend duties)—remember, Townshend and others were under the impression that external taxes were o.k. thanks to Franklin’s speech (actually, most astute/educated officials knew better). • Americans would pay duties on the items they imported from England (under the Navigation Acts they could import these items only from England; glass, lead, paper, paints, tea). • Townshend also reorganized the customs service; duties would be collected in America under the supervision of a separate Board of Customs Commissioners located in Boston • To colonists, the duties provided more explicit evidence of a wide-ranging plot/conspiracy; because they had been passed despite all the violence of the colonists’ reaction to the Stamp Act

21. Colonial Response to Townshend Duties • Colonial sentiment embodied in John Dickinson’s (Philadelphia) Letters from a Farmer • Non importation of British goods until duties were repealed • Refuted Townshend’s justification for imposing duties; quoted the resolves of the Stamp Act Congress (the problem was that a majority of the members in Parliament along with other important officials never bothered to read these petitions/resolutions): “Here is no distinction made between internal and external taxes” **Colonists saw all the Townshend Acts as measures designed to tax them. • Denied Parliament’s right (authority) to levy duties for the purpose of revenue.

22. Townshend duties contd. • The act creating the new Board of Customs Commissioners was, to the colonists, proof positive that Parliament was prepared to destroy colonial legislatures to make the point they had the power to tax. • The measure enhanced the influence of the customs administration, which had already come under suspicion, by reinforcing their significance/influence. • There had been, it was realized by the late 1760’s, a sudden expansion in the number of posts in the colonial government… • Franklin explained: “generally strangers to the provinces they are sent to govern, have no estate, natural connection, or relation there to give them an affection for the country…they come only to make money as fast as they can; are sometimes men of vicious characters and broken fortunes, sent by a minister merely to get them out of the way”.

23. This increase in customs agents had begun as far back as the Seven Years War: Wartime Orders in Council demanded stricter enforcement of the Navigation Laws Sugar Act (1764) multiplied the customs personnel American Board of CustomsCommissioners (created in 1767) with power to constitute as many under officers as they please.All of these developments could be seen to have provided for an “almost incredible number of inferior officers,” most of whom the colonists believed to be “wretches…of such infamous characters that the merchants cannot possible think their interest safe under their care”.

24. Colonists’ attitude toward customs agents • Colonists viewed the new Board of Customs Commissioners as leeches (their salaries would be paid from the duties they were sent to collect). • They were viewed as “a set of idle drones,” such “lazy, proud, worthless pensioners and placemen”.

25. How royal patronage enabled the crown/ministry to usurp the supposed independent powers of the Parliament

26. Colonists’ attitudes toward customs agents contd. • “The Birth of the Republic: 1763-1789” (p.37): “It was not that the colonists objected to a more efficient enforcement of the Navigation Acts. In 1768, as we have seen, they were still ready to admit Parliament’s right to regulate their trade for the benefit of the mother country; and while they would scarcely welcome anyone who interfered with smuggling, they would not deny that England had a right to interfere. But the New Commission was not there simply to enforce the old Navigation Acts. It was there to collect the revenue which Townshend had promised Parliament from America. If the men chosen for this purpose had been saints, they would still have been unpopular in New England. Unfortunately the commissioners who descended on Boston in November 1767 bore no resemblance to saints. They were a rapacious band of bureaucrats who brought to their task an irrepressible greed and a vindictive malice that could not fail to aggravate the antagonism not only against themselves but also against the Parliament that sent them”

27. It was in the best interest of those who had those pensions or who held those offices only at will of the crown to concur in all the crown’s measures • These customs agents and officeholders were viewed as instruments of power, manipulated by the crown to serve its will • Colonists believed they were parasitic officeholders, thoroughly corrupted by their obligations to those who had appointed them; officeholders who would strive to “distinguish themselves by their zeal in defending and promoting measures which they knew beyond all question to be destructive to the just rights and true interests of their country.” Officeholders who sought to “serve the ambitious purposes of great men at home [i.e. the crown and the ministry].” • A wise and prudent customs official would realize how crucial it was to please the powerful and how dangerous to provoke them—that compliance/submissive behavior would obtain a favorable attention.

28. The Usual method for tax collection • These collectors were susceptible to a more lucrative kind of graft: Violations of the Sugar Act were punishable by seizure of the offending vessel and cargo Both would be sold and the proceeds divided into thirds: 1/3 to English treasury 1/3 to colonial governor 1/3 to customs officer responsible for seizure To an enterprising officer bent on amassing a fortune, the prospect of making as many seizures as possible was inviting Perceived as a racket to colonists

29. Usual method used by tax collectors contd. • (3.) seize all vessels that were • following hitherto the policy allowed. (1.) Follow lax procedure for a period. (2.) shift suddenly to a strict procedure.

30. Usual method used by tax collectors contd. This practice involved little risk for the collection officers for example, the Sugar Act (a Navigation Act) provided that they were to be free from any damage suits for mistaken seizure as long as they could show “probable cause” Since these cases would be tried in Admiralty courts w/o juries, civil suits brought by colonial merchants were usually thrown out; besides, such suits were often very costly to the one bringing them Furthermore, these officials were afforded protection by British troops stationed in America These racketeers were hated by the colonists, merchants, traders

31. Writs of assistance • Similar to John Doe search warrants: • Writs of assistance: “our houses, and even our bedchambers, are exposed to be ransacked, our boxes, trunks, and chests broke open, ravaged and plundered by wretches whom no prudent man would venture to employ even as menial servants”.

32. These racketeers were hated by the colonists, merchants, traders. These customs officers also posed a political/constitutional danger. James Wilson: “the crown will take advantage of every opportunity of extending its prerogative in opposition to the privileges of the people, [and] that it is the interest of those who have pensions or offices at will from the crown to concur in all its measures”. These “baneful harpies” were instruments of power/prerogative who would/could upset the balance of the constitution by extending “ministerial influence as much beyond its former bounds as the late war did the British dominions”. In the end, this extension of executive patronage, based on a limitless support of government through colonial taxation, was viewed as very dangerous. Resentment and fear of the extension of patronage offices (i.e. plural office holding) in the colonies.

33. Changes to the judiciary (1760’s) • By the mid 1760’s, the independence of the judiciary (crucial to the balance of the Constitution) was being threatened • December 1761: Orders were sent out from the King in Council to all colonies permanently forbidding the issuance of judges’ commissions anywhere on any tenure but that of the pleasure of the crown • Whereas life tenure was an effective check on executive power b/c it helped to ensure the independence of the judiciary, judicial tenure “at the will of the crown” would mean the bench would be occupied by men who depended upon the smiles of the crown for their daily bread and the possibility of having an independent judiciary as an effective check upon executive power would be lost • Furthermore, this condition was also perceived as a threat to liberty since the court existed in large part to define and protect the rights of Englishmen (including colonists)

34. Why did the Parliamentary statute of 1701 which guaranteed judges in England life tenure in their posts had been deny that same guarantee to the colonies? Properly trained lawyers were scarce in the colonies Life appointments would prevent the replacement of ill-qualified judges by their betters when they appeared. If/when Judicial salaries were provided for by temporary legislative appropriations, the courts would be subordinated to popular influences. December, 1761: orders were sent out from the King in Council to all the colonies, permanently forbidding the issuance of judges’ commissions anywhere on any tenure but that of the pleasure of the crown . Everywhere there was bitterness at the decree and fear of its implications, for everywhere it was known that judicial tenure “at the will of the crown” was “dangerous to the liberty and property of the subject,” and that if the bench were occupied by “men who depended upon the smiles of the crown for their daily bread,” the possibility of having and independent judiciary as an effective check upon executive power would be wholly lost

35. Lords North (left) and Hillsborough • September 1767: Townshend succeeded by Lord North as new Chancellor of the Exchequer. • January 1768: Crown created new office: Secretariat of State (for the colonies only); First Secretariat of State was Lord Hillsborough (ex offico president of Board of Trade). • Both North and Hillsborough were committed to preserving the supremacy of Parliament and they were convinced that colonists were aimed at total independence. • This conviction motivated them in coming years and by acting on it they eventually made it come true.

36. The situation in Boston (Massachusetts colonial seat of government) (3.) Massachusetts governor instructed to dissolve assembly; assembly, defiant, contd. as a de facto assembly Hillsborough determined to make an example in Boston; he shipped 2 regiments of British regulars to Boston (Sept. 1768); with 2 more regiments soon to follow. (2.) Hillsborough’s ordered Massachusetts Assembly to rescind letter & other colonial assemblies to treat it “with the contempt It deserves” Rather, Massachusetts Assembly voted 92-17 to refuse to rescind it & other colonial assemblies formally approved it.

37. Troops in Boston (1768) • The two regiments of regular infantry with artillery disembarked in Boston on October 1, 1768 • For many months the harassed Governor Bernard had sought some legal means or excuse for summoning military help in his vain efforts to maintain if not an effective administration then at least order in the face of Stamp Act riots, circular letters, tumultuous town meetings, and assaults on customs officials • Colonists were perplexed; they felt threatened by the presence of British troops Necessity? They hadn’t been necessary up until now (before, the colonists fended for themselves) The greatest threat (French in Canada) had been defeated Some Americans thought England was sending the army to keep them quiet while extracting their liberties (to dampen the enthusiasm of would-be rebels) . Such armies, to the colonists, were merely gangs of restless mercenaries, responsible only to the whims of rulers who paid them, capable of destroying all right, law, and liberty.

38. Josiah Quincy wrote: Since power “in proportion to its extent is ever prone to wantonness and since in the last analysis ‘the supreme power is ever possessed by those who have arms in their hands, and are discipline to use them,’ the absolute danger to liberty lay in the absolute supremacy of ‘a veteran army’ [a permanent professional force maintained by the administration and supplied out of the public exchequer]—inmaking ‘the civil subordinate to the military’” Jefferson (1774): “instead of subjecting the military to the civil powers, the colonists fears were not simply of armies, but of standing armies” Trenchard’s“An Argument, Shewing that a Standing Army Is Inconsistent with a Free Government (1697): “unhappy nations have lost that ‘unhappy nations have lost that precious jewel l iberty…[because] their necessities or indiscretion have permitted a standing army to be kept amongst them”

39. The Presence of troops in Boston The arrival of troops in Boston (October 1, 1768) increased rather than decreased the governor’s troubles: To Bostonians, the presence of troops in a “peaceful” town had such portentous meaning that resistance instantly stiffened. It wasn’t so much the physical threat of troops that affected the attitudes of the Bostonians; it was the bearing their arrival had on the likely tendency of events. True, British regulars had been introduced into the colonies on a permanent basis at the end of the Seven Years’ War, but it had then been argued that troops were needed to police the newly acquired territories, and that they were not, in any case, to be regularly garrisoned in peaceful populous towns; no such defense could be made of the troops sent to Boston in 1768.

40. One contemporary figure, Andrew Eliot, wrote from Boston to one of his correspondents, Thomas Hollis (September 1768): • “To have a standing army! Good God! What can be worse to a people who have tasted the sweets of liberty! Things are come to an unhappy crisis; there will never be that harmony between Great Britain and her colonies that there hath been; all confidence is at an end; and the moment there is any blood shed all affection will cease”. • Eliot was convinced that if the English government “had not had their hands full at home they would have crushed the colonies”. As it was, England’s most recent actions tended only “to hasten that independency which at present the warmest among us deprecate….I fear for the nation,….” • Eliot observed a year after the troops had first appeared: “they coolly woo away the soldiers and drag offending officers before the courts….things cannot long remain in the state they are now in; they are hastening to a crisis. What will be the event, God knows.”

41. Bostonians declared their opposition to the presence of troops at a town meeting(September 13, 1768) • “The raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace, unless it be with the consent of Parliament, is against the law,” [It is] the indefeasible right of [British] subjects to be consulted and to give their free consent in person or by representatives of their own free election to the raising and keeping a standing army among them; and the inhabitants of this town, being free subjects, have the same right derived from nature and confirmed by the British constitution as well as the said royal charter; and therefore the raising or keeping a standing army without their consent in person or by representatives of their own free election would be an infringement of their natural, constitutional, and charter rights; and the employing such army for the enforcing of laws made without the consent of the people, in person or by their representatives would be a grievance.” • September 22, 1768: To effect a united position throughout the entire Massachusetts Bay Colony, Bostonians called a convention; the delegates at the convention merely commended the actions already taken by the colonial assembly and restated their opposition to the presence of a standing army. • Upon learning of the unauthorized Massachusetts convention, members of Parliament suggested/directed the king to make an inquisition at Boston for treason and suggested the trials be held before a special commission (violation of right to trial by jury); Parliament discovered a legal justification for violating this right in an act passed during the reign of Henry VIII (16th century)

42. English reaction • Colonial reaction to Stamp Act sufficient proof troops were needed; ostensibly, the troops were needed to protect royal officials and to maintain law and order . • Native American uprisings evidence troops were needed.

43. Colonial reaction to presence of British troops • Fear and hatred became edged with contempt and Bostonians found many ways to harass the troops: • Troops were prosecuted by city magistrates for every trifling offense • Troops met by people on the streets with contempt • Children pelted them with snowballs and other objects • Epithets (negative adjectives) • Still, by restraining their anger insofar as offering no open affront demonstrations to the troops, Bostonians were able to win universal support/sympathy throughout the colonies while presenting English officials with a dilemma; the embarrassing calm and lack of lawlessness made it seemingly apparent the troops were not needed. • Result: Summer 1769 the British home government ordered two of the four regiments in Boston back to Halifax; this decision led many Bostonians/colonists to conclude the remaining regiments weren’t in Boston to preserve law and order but to cow Bostonians into submission and to quell any potential resistance directed toward unpopular British actions/policies (such as the Townshend Acts).