History
Grenville Acts
The Grenville Acts were a series of laws passed by the British Parliament in the 1760s, including the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, and the Townshend Acts. These acts were designed to raise revenue from the American colonies to help pay for the costs of the French and Indian War. They were met with strong resistance from the colonists and contributed to the growing tensions that led to the American Revolution.
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8 Key excerpts on "Grenville Acts"
- Hon. Sir John William Fortescue(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Normanby Press(Publisher)
CHAPTER II — AMERICA – 1763-1774
Political Changes in England; George Grenville succeeds Bute — He determines to enforce the Acts of Trade and impose Stamp Duties on the American Colonies for Support of the British Garrison — The Institution of this Garrison a reasonable Measure — Grenville consults the American Colonies as to a voluntary Contribution from them towards Imperial Defence — Negotiations fail; the Stamp Act passed — Organised Agitation and Riot in Massachusetts — Rockingham’s Ministry replaces that of Grenville — Pitt’s reckless Encouragement of the Agitation — Repeal of the Stamp Act — Fall of Rockingham’s Ministry; Pitt, created Earl of Chatham, forms an Administration — His Failure to form an Alliance of the Northern Powers of Europe — His Incapacity to deal with the American Difficulty — Agitation and Hostility of the Americans against British Troops — Inconsistency and Insincerity of this Agitation — Charles Townsend carries a Measure to levy Duties in the American Colonies — Renewal of the Agitation; two Regiments sent to Boston — Traditions of Rebellion in Boston — The Troops placed at the Mercy of the Mob of Boston — Patience of the Troops exhausted; the “Boston Massacre”. — Resignation of Chatham and Grafton; Lord North becomes Chief Minister — He repeals all the Duties except that on Tea — Weak State of the Army — The Pay of the Men insufficient — National Danger owing to the Difficulty of Recruiting The Carib War in St. Vincent — Improvement of the Situation in America — Trouble revived by the Acts of Trade and Navigation — Agitation renewed in Massachusetts; the Committees of Correspondence — The landing of Tea in American Ports prevented — Coercive Measures against Massachusetts — The Quebec Act — Meeting of the American Congress at Philadelphia — Failure of Coercion at Boston owing to the Insufficiency of the Force — Rapid Advance of the Revolution in New England.
eBook - ePubRoutledge Library of British Political History
Volume 1: Labour and Radical Politics 1762-1937
- S. Maccoby(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
“The advices received from America”, it writes, “are full of the bad effects of the late act of parliament for regulating the trade of the plantations, and for laying a duty on their exports and imports, in order to defray the expences of their own government. The prohibitions laid upon their trade by this act, are grievously complained of, and the rigour with which these prohibitions are enforced by the men of war stationed on their coasts for that purpose, are by no means relished by the Americans, who subsist in a manner by their clandestine commerce with the French and Spaniards, and which must be connived at, if any advantage is to be expected from them by their mother country. On the other hand, the West Indians complain of this indulgence, and are preparing memorials to be presented to parliament, to put a stop to the North American distilleries, from French materials.”In face of this discontent and the protests that came in later from Colonial Assemblies both against the Act of 1764 and the further Stamp legislation he had proposed, Grenville resolved to go on unmoved.2 In February he brought forward a Stamp Bill, and in March it was placed on the Statute Book without serious opposition.3 Just when one American pamphleteer, who contrived to reach British ears, was affecting to look forward hopefully to the withdrawal of British troops and the end of the justification that had been suggested for the port-duties of 1764,1 the unprecedented Stamp taxes of 1765 were being imposed, the first ever ordered by Westminster to be collected beyond the harbours and inside the Colonies.It must, of course, be assumed that Grenville completely misjudged the explosiveness of the American situation and was probably unaware that he was facing anything more serious than the inevitable grumbling of a favourably placed class of taxpayers, asked at length to assume the full weight of their proper burdens. Such grumbling was apparently being overcome in the case of the Cider Counties and, on any Whitehall estimate, American grumbling could hardly cause greater trouble. Grenville, moreover, could not have given the American situation more than a fraction of his attention, for in the opening months of 1765 much else of seemingly greater urgency pressed upon him. Minority pamphleteering against the Government’s boastful financial claims was not yet ended;2 the reassembly of Parliament permitted the planning of more troublesome Minority manceuvre on General Warrants and the Seizure of Papers;3 and, weightier possibly than all else, was the problem of the King’s physical and mental condition. Only two days after he had opened Parliament on January 10, 1765 the King was seized with an alarming illness that brought some mental trouble and was hardly fully surmounted before the beginning of April.1 No Regency provision had yet been made to meet the possibility of a Royal demise though the heir was an infant not three years old, while the constitutional problems opened up by the similar lack of provision for a Royal incapacity of any duration were even more intricate. If the Court, in fact, endeavoured to conceal from Grenville the full extent of the King’s mental troubles,2
eBook - ePubGeorge III
King and politicians 1760–1770
- Peter Thomas(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Manchester University Press(Publisher)
The ministry, however, came to regard the Stamp Act as of great significance, because of the American response to Grenville’s announcement. Far from taking up his offer to suggest alternative modes of Parliamentary taxation, the colonies protested against that whole concept. 61 The Grenville ministry perceived the challenge to Parliamentary sovereignty. After a Treasury Board meeting in December 1764 James Harris made this note: ‘colonies would reject all taxes of ours, both internal and external – would be represented’. 62 By early 1765 the assertion of Parliamentary sovereignty over America had become for the ministry more important than the prospective revenue. That, in the final draft of the Stamp Bill, would be derived from stamp duties on newspapers, most legal documents, cargo lists for ships, and numerous other less recurrent items like liquor licenses, calendars, cards and dice. The chief burden would fall on printers, lawyers, merchants, and publicans. It was expected to yield £100,000, and, even with £50,000 from the molasses duty, American taxes would bring in less than half the £350,000 now estimated as the cost of the American army. 63 Parliamentary discussion of the subject began on 6 February, when Grenville introduced the appropriate resolutions after a carefully constructed speech. The colonial claim to be taxed only by their own representative bodies would apply equally to all other legislation, he said. The colonies were subject to the mother country, and none had been given exemption, by charter or otherwise, from Parliamentary taxation. All taxes were unpopular, like the one on cider, and fairness demanded that everybody should contribute, including the colonists, who were defended by Britain’s army and navy. The stamp duties would be efficient and equitably spread, and the colonists had not responded to the invitation to make alternative suggestions
eBook - ePub- Theodore Clarke Smith(Author)
- 2007(Publication Date)
- Perlego(Publisher)
When Parliament met in January, 1766, the colonists received powerful allies, first in the British merchants, who petitioned against the Act as causing the practical stoppage of American purchases, and second in William Pitt, who, in a burning speech, embraced in full the colonists' position, and declared that a parliamentary tax upon the plantations was absolutely contrary to the rights of Englishmen. He "rejoiced that America has resisted." This radical position found few followers; but the Whig Ministry, after some hesitation, decided to grant the colonial demands while insisting {37} on the imperial rights of Parliament. This characteristically English action was highly distasteful to the majority in the House of Lords, who voted to execute the law, and to George III, who disliked to yield to mutinous subjects; but they were forced to give way. The Stamp Act was repealed, and the sugar duties were reduced to a low figure. At the same time a Declaratory Act was passed, asserting that Parliament had full power to bind the colonies "in all cases whatsoever." Thus the Americans had their way in part, while submitting to seeing their arguments rejected.The consequences of this unfortunate affair were to bring into sharp contrast the British and the American views of the status of the colonies. The former considered them as parts of the realm, subject like any other part to the legislative authority of King, Lords, and Commons. The contention of the colonists, arising naturally from the true situation in each colonial government, that the rights of Englishmen guaranteed their freedom from taxation without representation, was answered by the perfectly sound legal assertion that the colonists, like all the people of England, were "virtually" represented in the House of Commons. The words, in short, meant one thing in England, another thing in America. English speakers {38} and writers pointed to the scores of statutes affecting the colonies, calling attention especially to the export duties of the Navigation Act of 1672, and the import duties of the Act of 1733, not to mention its revision of 1764. Further, Parliament had regulated provincial coinage and money, had set up a postal service, and established rates. Although Parliament had not imposed any such tax as the Stamp Act, it had, so far as precedent showed, exercised financial powers on many occasions.To meet the British appeal to history, the colonists developed the theory that commercial regulation, including the imposition of customs duties, was "external" and hence lay naturally within the scope of imperial legislation, but that "internal" taxation was necessarily in the hands of the colonial assemblies. There was sufficient plausibility in this claim to commend it to Pitt, who adopted it in his speeches, and to Benjamin Franklin, the agent for Pennsylvania, already well known as a "philosopher," who expounded it confidently when he was examined as an expert on American affairs at the bar of the Commons. It was, however, without any clear legal justification, and, as English speakers kept pointing out, it was wholly incompatible with the existence of a genuine imperial government. That it was {39} a perfectly practical distinction, in keeping with English customs, was also true; but that was not to be realized until three-quarters of a century later.
eBook - ePubNarrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 6 (of 8)
The United States of North America, Part I
- (Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Perlego(Publisher)
The difficulty arose from a misconception of the relations of the colonies to the mother country. They were not a part of the realm, and could neither equally share its privileges nor justly bear its burdens. The attempt to bring them within imperial legislation failed, and could only fail. They were colonies; and the chief benefit the parent state could legitimately derive from them was the trade which would flow naturally to Great Britain by reason of the political connection, and would increase with the prosperity of the colonies.Early in 1763 the Bute ministry, of which George Grenville and Charles Townshend were members, entered upon the new policy. To enforce the navigation laws, armed cutters cruised about the British coast and along the American shores; their officers, for the first time, and much to their disgust, being required to act as revenue officers. To give unity to their efforts, an admiral was stationed on the coast. To adjudicate upon seizures of contraband goods, and other offences against the revenue, a vice-admiralty court, with enlarged jurisdiction, and sitting without juries, was set up.[45] Royal governors, hitherto chiefly occupied with domestic administration, were now obliged to watch the commerce of an empire. It was seen long before this time that the successful administration of the new system would require some modification of the provincial charters; but the difficulties were so serious that the matter was deferred.Such was the new order of things. The student who reflects upon the complete and radical change effected or threatened by these new measures, so much at variance with the habits and customary rights of the colonists, breaking up without notice not only illicit but legitimate trade, and sweeping away their commercial prosperity, is no longer at loss to account for the outburst of wrath which followed the Stamp Act, a year later.[46]
eBook - ePub- Jerome Reich(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
James Otis expressed similar sentiments and the New York assembly claimed that the colony had the right to be exempt from all Parliamentary taxes. Other colonies were more tentative in their protests against the Sugar Act; most of the language of the act (with the exception of the clause which earmarked the revenue for the army) was similar to that of earlier Parliamentary acts regulating trade, to which no objection had been voiced. Also, it should be recalled that the Currency Act which was so unpopular with most colonists was also passed in 1764. But colonial protests were soon transferred to a new and much more ominous act of Parliament: the Stamp Act.The Stamp Act
Stamp duties had been known in England since 1694; they raised substantial sums of money at a very low cost to the government. In 1764 Grenville announced that stamp duties were also to be collected in America unless the colonists would suggest some alternative method of raising revenue in America. When no such suggestions were forthcoming, Parliament passed the Stamp Act in March 1765, to go into effect the following November. The Stamp Act required that stamps be attached to all types of legal documents, business papers, licenses, pamphlets, newspapers, almanacs, printed sermons, playing cards, and dice. Stamps were to be paid for in hard money, and violators were to be tried in admiralty courts, where no jury trials were available. The £60,000 which it was hoped the act would raise was to be allocated to the support of the British army in America.The passage of the Stamp Act was a grave error on the part of the English government. Never before had Parliament attempted to tax the colonies directly. This function had always been reserved to the colonists’ own assemblies. In addition, the stamp duties hit colonial opinion leaders—merchants, lawyers, printers, ministers, and tavernkeepers—the hardest. The delay between the passage of the Stamp Act and the time it was to go into effect gave them ample opportunity to mobilize opposition to it.This opposition took place on several levels simultaneously. The “low road” was taken by the Sons of Liberty—groups of farmers, small shopkeepers, artisans, seamen, unskilled workers, and apprentices. Once these groups were referred to as the rabble or the mob. Now they were organized and led by merchants, planters, and lawyers and were acclaimed for using force—or the threat of force—to compel the stamp masters, all Americans, to resign their commissions and thus nullify the act. In Boston they ruined the homes of Andrew Oliver, the stamp master, and Thomas Hutchinson, the lieutenant governor. Stamp masters in other towns experienced similar difficulties. By November 1765 no stamp master remained at his post.
eBook - ePub- Carl L. (Carl Lotus) Becker, William Edward Dodd, (Authors)
- 2007(Publication Date)
- Perlego(Publisher)
Pitt was of the same opinion. Following closely the argument in Dulaney's pamphlet, which he held up as a masterly performance, the Great Commoner declared that "taxation is no part of the governing or legislating power." He was told that America had resisted. "I rejoice that America has resisted," he cried in words that sounded a trumpet call throughout the colonies. "Three millions of people, so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of all the rest.... America, if she fell, would fall like the strong man with his arms around the pillars of the constitution." More convincing than the eloquence of Pitt was the evidence offered by the merchants' petitions, and by the shrewd and weighty replies of Franklin in his famous examination in the House of Commons, to show that the policy of Grenville, legal or not, was an economic blunder. The Stamp Act was accordingly repealed, March 18, 1766; and a few weeks later, as a further concession, the Sugar Act was modified by reducing the duty on molasses from 3 d. to 1 d., and some new laws were passed intended to remove the obstacles which made it difficult for the Northern and Middle colonies to trade directly with England. Yet the ministers had no intention of yielding on the main point: the theoretical right of Parliament to bind the colonies in all matters whatever was formally asserted in the Declaratory Act; while the reënactment of the Mutiny Law indicated that the practical policy of establishing British troops in America for defense was to be continued. III The repeal of the Stamp Act was the occasion for general rejoicing in America. Loyal addresses were voted to the king, and statues erected to commemorate the virtues and achievements of Pitt. Imperfectly aware of the conditions in England that had contributed to the happy event, it was taken by the colonists to mean that their theory of the constitution had been accepted
eBook - ePub- John Bach McMaster(Author)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- Perlego(Publisher)
THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.—Because of the passage of these laws, a Congress suggested by Virginia and called by Massachusetts met in Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia in September, 1774, and issued a declaration of rights and grievances, a petition to the king, and addresses to the people of Great Britain, to the people of Canada, and to the people of the colonies. It also called a second Congress to meet on May 10, 1775, and take action on the result of the petition to the king.SUMMARY
1. After the French and Indian War Great Britain determined to enforce the laws of trade. 2. It also decided that the colonies should bear a part of the cost of their defense, and for this purpose a stamp tax was levied. 3. The right of Parliament to levy such a tax was denied by the colonists on the ground that they were not represented in Parliament. 4. The attempt to enforce the tax led to resistance, and a congress of the colonies (1765) issued a declaration of rights and grievances. 5. The tax was repealed in 1766, but Parliament at the same time asserted its right to tax.6. The Townshend Acts (1767) tried to raise a revenue by import duties on goods brought into the colonies. At the same time the arrival of the troops for defense of the colonies caused new trouble; in Boston the people and the troops came to blows (1770).
Passage contains an image 7. The refusal of the colonists to buy the taxed articles led to the
repeal of all the taxes except that on tea (1770).
8. The colonists still refused to buy taxed tea, whereupon Parliament
enabled the East India Company to send over tea for sale at a lower price
than before.
9. The tea was not allowed to be sold. In Boston it was destroyed.
10. As a punishment Parliament enacted the five Intolerable Acts.
11. The First Continental Congress (1774) thereupon petitioned for
redress, and called a second Congress to meet the next year.
FOOTNOTES
[1] That is, compel the colonists to furnish quarters—rooms or houses— for the troops to live in. Read Parkman's Montcalm and Wolfe, Vol. I, pp. 439-440.[2] In order to detect and seize smugglers the crown had resorted to "writs of assistance." The law required that every ship bringing goods to America should come to some established port and that her cargo should be reported at the customhouse. Instead, the smugglers would secretly land goods elsewhere. If a customs officer suspected this, he could go to court and ask for a search warrant, stating the goods for which he was to seek and the place to be searched. But this would give the smugglers warning and they could remove the goods. What the officers wanted was a general warrant good for any goods in any place. This writ of assistance, as it was called, was common in England, and was issued in the colonies about 1754. In 1760 King George II died, and all writs issued in his name expired. In 1761, therefore, application was made to the Superior Court of Massachusetts for a new writ of assistance to run in the name of King George III. Sixty merchants opposed the issue, and James Otis and Oxenbridge Thacher appeared for the merchants. The speech of Otis was a famous plea, sometimes called the beginning of colonial resistance; but the court granted the writ.
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