Britain and the American Revolution

H. T. Dickinson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317882671
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

This is the first modern study to focus on the British dimension of the American Revolution through its whole span from its origins to the declaration of independence in 1776 and its aftermath. It is written by nine leading British and American scholars who explore many key issues including the problems governing the American colonies, Britain's diplomatic isolation in Europe over the war, the impact of the American crisis on Ireland and the consequences for Britain of the loss of America.

CHAPTER ONE
Britain and the Administration of the American Colonies

KEITH MASON

The closing years of the Seven Years War (1756-63) saw Britain's imperial star at its zenith. An impressive run of successes at home and abroad culminated in the Treaty of Paris of 1763, which ratified British possession of a vast new global empire. In North America alone, according to its terms, Britain formally acquired not only Canada, but all the French colonies east of the Mississippi river together with Spanish Florida. These acquisitions were greeted with joy both in the metropolis and in Britain's North American colonies. Benjamin Franklin, for instance, was convinced that the peace was 'the most advantageous for the British nation ... of any your annals have recorded'. With the acquisition of Canada, in particular, a glorious destiny seemed to await the inhabitants of the newly expanded British empire regardless of which side of the Adantic they resided. '[A]ll the Country from St. Laurence to Missis[s]ip[p]i', Franklin declared, 'will in another Century be fill'd with British People; Britain itself will become vastiy more populous by the immense Increase of its Commerce; the Atlantic Sea will be cover'd with your Trading Ships; and your naval Power thence continually increasing, will extend your Influence round the whole Globe, and awe the World!' These reflections even led him to claim that 'the Foundations of the future Grandeur and Stability of the British Empire' now lay in America.¹

1. Quoted in Esmond Wright, Franklin of Philadelphia (Cambridge, MA, 1986), p. 123.

Franklin's boast was soon to sound rather hollow, however, for British military success brought in its wake a host of thorny administrative problems that were as much a product of the recent conflict as his optimism. How, for example, should the imperial government handle the defence and government of its newly acquired possessions? What provisions should the authorities make for the settlement of western lands? How could they contain an unprecedented national debt of almost £140 million and still shoulder their new responsibilities? And the trickiest problem of all, as it happened: what contribution should the colonies make to all of this? Taken by themselves, these issues were potentially explosive. Their impact was significantly greater, however, because they fuelled festering resentments on both sides of the Atlantic over the imperial-colonial relationship. In fact, by gaining Canada, the government ironically set in motion a train of events that would end twenty years later with the loss of the rest of British North America. Through an examination of the earlier course of imperial-colonial relations as well as an analysis of the impact that the Seven Years War had upon their dynamics, this chapter explores the reasons why the high hopes expressed by Franklin and others evaporated so quickly.

Early political and commercial relationships

The relationship between Britain and its North American colonies had oscillated since the establishment of the first permanent English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607.² Laissez-faire initially characterized government policy and early outposts in the Chesapeake and New England regions had been granted considerable de facto autonomy. From 1675 to the early 1720s, however, the imperial authorities made sporadic and ultimately ineffective attempts to tighten the bonds that tied the colonies to the metropolis. A period of accommodation and relaxation, termed the era of 'salutary neglect', followed from the mid-l720s until 1748. Then, immediately prior to the Seven Years War, reform was once again high on the agenda under the direction of Lord Halifax, president of the Board of Trade. While the exigencies of the renewed conflict with France in the mid-l750s brought a temporary halt to his efforts, the drive was ultimately renewed and expanded in the early 1760s. A recurrent cycle of neglect and intervention therefore characterized metropolitan policy towards the American colonies, with, perhaps predictably, imperial-colonial relations at their best during the former periods and their most troubled during the latter.

2. The following account of the different phases of the imperial-colonial relationship is based on Jack P. Greene, 'Metropolis and colonies: changing patterns of constitutional conflict in the early modern British empire, 1607-1763' in his Negotiated, Authorities: Essays in Colonial Political and Constitutional History (Charlottesville, VA, 1994), pp. 43—77. Also, see William A. Speck, 'The international and imperial context' in Jack P. Greene and Jack R, Pole, eds, Colonial British America: Essays in the New History of the Early Modern Era (Baltimore, MD, 1984), pp. 384-407.

Colonial ventures had, initially, owed little to the mother country's direction or involvement. As Edmund Burke asserted in 1757: 'Nothing of an enlarged and legislative spirit appears in the planning of our colonies.'³ Instead, individuals, join t-stock companies or corporate and proprietary groups took the lead in establishing English outposts in locales as diverse as Virginia, Massachusetts and the Carolinas. In return, they secured a range of legal, political and economic privileges under their charters and other founding documents. Theoretically, of course, the crown remained the ultimate source of authority in America and charter rights and even land titles derived from royal grants. But Charles I's efforts to exercise supervision through his privy council tended to founder because domestic distractions made it hard to perfect either a consistent colonial policy or effective mechanisms of imperial control. In this context, the rare initiatives that were launched - such as the attempt in 1637 to rein in Puritan Massachusetts by forcing it to return its charter - were doomed to failure.⁴

3. Quoted in Greene, 'Metropolis and colonies', p. 43.

4. For developments under Charles I, see Robert M. Bliss, Revolution and Empire: English Politics and the American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century (Manchester, 1990), pp. 17-44.

By the mid-seventeenth century, however, official concern grew over the pernicious consequences of continuing, by default, with a laissez-faire policy. During the English Revolution metropolitan leaders became increasingly anxious that colonial freedom might ultimately degenerate into destructive economic competition among the American settlements or between them and the mother country. Some even feared that the American colonies might eventually take advantage of their charter privileges to establish their autonomy or possibly become allies of England's main commercial rivals, the Dutch. In response to these concerns, tighter regulation was advocated. This drive led to the passage of the Navigation Ordinance in 1651, the first substantive effort to define the economic relationship between England and the colonies. The ordinance excluded nearly all foreign shipping from the colonial trade. It required that all goods imported into England or the colonies must arrive on English ships manned predominantly by English sailors, with colonial vessels and crews qualifying as such. The aim was clearly to create a self-contained economic system that spanned the Allantic, whilst strengthening England's naval might and increasing customs revenues.⁵

5. The classic account of the making of the Navigation Acts is Charles M. Andrews, The Colonial Period of American History 4 vols (New Haven, CT, 1964), iv. For an essay that plays down the importance of mercantilist thought, see Speck, 'The international and imperial context'. Speck draws on the debate over the work of Stephen S. Webb, which emphasizes the importance of military rather than commercial considerations in the development of English colonial policy. See Webb's The Governors General: The English Army and the Definition of Empire, 1569-1681 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1979); and 'The data and theory of Restoration empire' WMQ 3rd series, 43 (1986), pp. 431—59. For a critique, see Richard R. Johnson, 'The imperial Webb: the thesis of garrison government in early America considered' in ibid., pp. 408-30.

The Stuart Restoration in 1660 saw continuity rather than change in commercial policy. Building on the earlier ordinance, further Navigation Acts were passed in 1660, 1663 and 1673. Together they supplied an enduring rationale for the colonial system: to serve the economic interests of the mother country. Enforcing these measures in distant settlements across the Atlantic proved difficult, however. Proprietors like Lord Baltimore of Maryland or charter colonies such as Rhode Island ignored and, in many cases, openly flouted the acts because of the privileges granted them earlier. The unsettled nature of the post-Restoration machinery of colonial administration did not help matters. Although in July 1660 responsibility for trade and plantations was entrusted to a single, small committee of the privy council, this merely marked the beginning of a succession of bodies that were active from 1660 to 1674. The most important of these was the Council of Plantations established in 1670 along lines suggested by Lord Ashley (later Earl of Shaftesbury) and John Locke. The council called for the systematic collection of information about the colonies and for oversight of their proceedings to ensure that they were adhering both to trade regulations and to their own charters. Like its predecessors, however, the council remained simply an advisory body and only survived until 1674.⁶

6. For developments after the Restoration, see Andrews, Colonial Period, iii and iv; Bliss, Revolution and Empire, esp. pp. 103-218; andJ.M. Sosin, English America and the Restoration Monarchy of Charles II: Transatlantic Politics, Commerce and Kinship (Lincoln, NE, 1981).

During this period it became increasingly apparent to the metropolitan authorities that attempts to impose stricter control and greater uniformity on the colonies would invariably fail unless a clearer lead came from England. In the half-century after 1675, this conclusion spawned a faltering effort to reform the political relationship between England and the colonies that fell into two phases. The first ran from the mid-1670s until the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and the second from the establishment of the Board of Trade in 1696 until the early 1720s. During both periods, however, the same underlying policy objective was pursued. Essentially, as Jack P. Greene has claimed, it involved 'substituting for the traditional contractual arrangement in which both colonists and crown had been bound by certain mutual obligations set down in the charters a new relationship in which the authority of the crown would be unlimited and pre-eminent, if also benign and just'.⁷

7. Greene, 'Metropolis and colonies', pp. 46-7.

The first phase began with the creation in 1675 of a new instrument of central direction, the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations, a standing committee of the privy council. Holding executive and policy-making powers, the Lords injected a more consistent and vigorous approach to the administration of the American settlements. Receiving encouragement from both Charles II and his brother, James, they also benefited from the growing continuity in personnel provided by the divergent personalities of James himself, the Earl of Shaftesbury, William Blathwayt and Edward Randolph.⁸ Commercial considerations - namely the enforcement of the Navigation Acts - occupied the authorities in the first instance. Earlier in 1673 the operation of the customs service was extended to America for the first time, and officials for Maryland, the Carolinas and Virginia were swiftly appointed. In 1678 a collector was even chosen for New England.⁹ Meanwhile, the Lords Commissioners worked to create the conditions under which the Navigation Acts would be obeyed. This invariably led to discussion of the political as well as the commercial relationship between the metropolis and the colonies. The Lords advocated strengthening executive authority in the existing royal colonies. To this end, they tried to subject the governors themselves to closer scrutiny. Not only were these colonial executives to submit regular reports to London, they also received more specific instructions in return. Even more important, however, the Lords Commissioners attempted to curtail the powers of the elected colonial legislative assemblies. Originating in the governors' financial dependence upon them, the assemblies' writ was beginning to extend over many aspects of colonial government. To reverse this trend, the Lords tried to persuade the colonial legislatures to grant a permanent revenue covering the salaries of the governor and other royal officials.

8. For assessments of these individuals, see K.H.D. Haley, Shaftesbury (Oxford, 1968); Stephen S. Webb, 'William Rlathwayt, imperial fixer: from Popish plot to Glorious Revolution' WMQ 3rd series, 25 (1968), pp. 3-21; and Michael G. Hall, Edward Randolph and the American Colonies (Chapel Hill, NC, 1960).

9. For the operation of the customs service, see Thomas C. Barrow, Trade and Empire: The British Customs Service in Colonial America, 1660-1775 (Cambridge, MA, 1967).

The Lords' progra...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• List of Abbreviations
• List of Contributors
• Introduction
• 1. Britain and the Administration of the American Colonies
• 2. Government Policy and the American Crisis 1760-1776
• 3. Britain's Imperial Sovereignty: The Ideological Case against the American Colonists
• 4. The Parliamentary Opposition to the Government's American Policy 1760-1782
• 5. The British Public and the American Revolution: Ideology, Interest and Opinion
• 6. British Governments and the Conduct of the American War
• 7. Britain as a European Great Power in the Age of the American Revolution
• 8. The Impact of the American Revolution on Ireland
• 9. The Loss of America
• Further Reading
• Maps
• Index