Empire Or Independence, 1760 - 1776: A British American Dialogue On The Coming Of The American Revolution

346 Pages·1976·12.975 MB·English

by  Ian R. Christie, Benjamin Woods Labaree

EMPIRE OR
INDEPENDENCE
17601776
Books by Ian R. Christie
THE END OF NORTH’S MINISTRY, 1780-1782 (1958)
WILKES, WYVILL AND REFORM (1962)
CRISIS OF EMPIRE! GREAT BRITAIN AND THE AMERICAN COLONIES,
1754-1783 (1966)
MYTH AND REALITY IN LATE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITISH POUTICS (1970)
Edited by Ian R. Christie
ESSAYS IN MODERN HISTORY, SELECTED FROM THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE
ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY (1968)
THE CORRESPONDENCE OF JEREMY BENTHAM, VOLUME 3: JANUARY 1781
TO OCTOBER 1788 ( 1971 )
Books by Benjamin W. Labaree
PATRIOTS AND PARTISANS: THE MERCHANTS OF NEWBURYPORT,
1764-1815 (1962)
THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE, 1763-1776 (1963)
THE BOSTON TEA PARTY (1964)
AMERICA PAST AND PRESENT (1968)
(with Vincent de Santis £s? J. Joseph Huthmacher)
AMERICA’S NATION-TIME, 1607-1789 (1972)
NEW ENGLAND AND THE SEA (1972)
(with Robert G. Albion & William A. Baker)
Edited by Benjamin W. Labaree
THE ATLANTIC WORLD OF ROBERT G. ALBION (1975)
EMPIRE OR
INDEPENDENCE
1760-1776
A Britisl1 -American Dialogue on
the Coming of the American Revolution
Ian R. Christie
Benjamin W. Labaree
W • W • NORTON & COMPANY • INC • New York
Copyright © 1976 by Phaidon Press Limited. All rights reserved. Printed in
the United States of America.
T he text of this book was set in Baskerville on the Variable Input Photoset­
ter. Composition, printing, and binding are by Vail-Ballou Press, Inc.
BOOK DESIGN BY DODI BEARDSHAW ERVIN
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Christie, Ian R
Empire or independence, 1760-1776.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. United States—History—Revolution, 1775-1783
—Causes. I. Labaree, Benjamin Woods, joint author.
II. Title.
E210.C54 973.3' 11 75-4434*
ISBN O 393 05556 6
1234567890
CONTENTS
Illustrations vii
Foreword ix
I. The Empire at the Accessiono f George III 1
l. The British Isles. 2. The Overseas Dependencies. 3. A Theory
of Empire.
II. George Grenville and the Problems of Empire 25
i. The Issues. 2. The Measures of 1763-1764. 3. The reaction
in America.
III. The First Crisis over Taxation 46
1. Grenville Completes His Programme. 2. America Resists.
IV. The Rockingham Ministry and the Colonies, 1765-1766 62
1. The Evolution of Policy. 2. The Parliamentary Campaign.
3. The Legacy of Colonial Discontent.
V. Charles Townshend and the Colonies 95
1. Townshend Forces the Pace. 2. The Townshend Crisis in
America.
VI. The Grafton Ministry Marks Time 119
1. Hillsborough's Heavy Hand. 2. The Boston Massacre.
VII. Aftermath of the Boston Massacre 144
1. Whitehall: Period of Frustration. 2. America: The Growth of
Suspicion.
VIII. Crisis over Tea 163
1. Whitehall Hears the Low Rumble of Distant Thunder. 2. The
Boston Tea Party.
IX. The Coercive Acts 183
X. The Continent Unites 197
vi CONTENTS
XI. The Point of No Return 214
1. Whitehall: ‘The Dye Is Cast’. 2. Outbreak of War.
XII. ‘Tis Time to Part’ 247
1. Lexington Blues. 2. Independence—The Last Resort.
XIII. Conclusion 274
Notes 283
A List of Material and Works Consulted 315
Index 325
ILLUSTRATIONS
Following page 64
King George III
George Montagu Dunk, second Earl of Halifax
George Grenville
The Marquis of Rockingham
The Old Custom House, London
Cantonment of His Majesty's Forces in North America
The Great Financier, or British Economy for the Years 1763, 1764, 1763
The Repeal, or the Funeral of Miss Ame-Stamp
William Pitt, first Earl of Chatham
Following page 132
Interior view of the House of Commons
John Dickinson
Augustus Henry, third Duke of Grafton
Charles Townshend
General Thomas Gage
Wills Hill, first Earl of Hillsborough
Thomas Hutchinson
‘The Bloody Massacre Perpetrated in King Street, Boston’
Lord North
Britannia in Distress
Following page 216
Destruction of Tea in Boston Harbour
The Able Doctor, or America Swallowing the Bitter Draught
A New Method of Macarony Making, as Practised at Boston in North
America
Meeting of a Society of Patriotic Ladies at Edenton in North Carolina
George Washington on his way to the first Continental Congress
Samuel Adams
Vlll ILLUSTRATIONS
John Adams
John Hancock
Thomas Jefferson
The Battle of Lexington
‘A Plan of the Town and Harbour of Boston’
‘Bloody Butchery by the British Troops’
The State Blacksmiths Forging Fetters for the Americans
The Congress Voting Independence
FOREWORD
W hen th e project of a joint book on the American Revolution by
an American and a British scholar was first suggested to us by Mr.
John Calmann of Phaidon Press, it appeared to offer certain distinc­
tive attractions. This lay not only in a welcome division of labour in
the survey of a vast subject, the secondary literature on which snow­
balls from year to year. In particular, by allowing the authors to con­
centrate on their respective national sides of the great controversy
that rent asunder the first British Empire, it presented an opportu­
nity for a balanced juxtaposition of analyses of the attitudes of the
British governments which made policy on the one hand, and on the
other of the attitudes of the colonists who found the activities of
these governments unacceptable. In this antiphonal account we hope
that we may have succeeded in bringing into sharper relief the con­
flicting points of view and intractable circumstances which underlay
the Anglo-American quarrel leading up to the Declaration of In­
dependence, while at the same time providing an outline of the story
which both casts some light on the influence of individuals and gives
equal weight to the considerations operating on the minds of men
on both sides of the Atlantic. We have been able to present at least
some new suggestions regarding the motivation which lay behind
policy and action. We are conscious that this interlocking survey of
action and reaction leaves the loyalists with only a small role to play
in these pages. This in itself reflects the fact that the numerous suc­
cessive crucial decisions which led to Independence were made not
by them but by British ministers on the one hand and American pa­
triots on the other.
The two authors did not meet until after the completion of the
text, but we did have the advantage of modern communications.
Letters and drafts of chapters crossed the Atlantic and were deliv­
ered in less than a week. A single telephone call settled several ques­
tions within minutes. And when the text was finished, a brief tran-
X FOREWORD
soceanic flight enabled one of the authors to join the other for final
polishing. During an afternoon stroll through the Hertfordshire
countryside we wondered how differently the crisis two hundred
years ago might have ended had the British government enjoyed
similar advantages of communications. In the eighteenth century it
took eight weeks or more for most dispatches to be delivered in
America (although one letter reached its destination in four). Colo­
nial governors requesting advice or clarification of instructions
rarely received replies in less than four months. Such exchanges
sometimes took nearly half a year, by which time fast-moving events
in America had often changed the circumstances altogether. How
much more responsive to American conditions might Whitehall have
been with the instantaneous communications of today? The whole
question of colonial representation in Parliament might also have
been viewed differently on both sides of the Atlantic under modern
conditions of travel and communications. Such musings serve to
emphasize the extraordinary handicaps under which the British gov­
ernment laboured in its efforts to administer a farflung empire.
During the correspondence and conversations which attended the
composition of this work the two authors came to realize the exis­
tence of several interesting contrasts between the staging of our re­
spective parts of the story. At the beginning the British position
required a fuller exposition than the American, whereas later on this
situation was reversed. Another feature we noted was that on the
British side of the story the principal decision-makers were a rela­
tively small number of ministers and officials working against the
background of political opinion in the two Houses of Parliament.
Among the Americans, on the other hand, major decisions were
made at almost every point by large bodies of colonists assembled in
local or provincial meetings and responsive to a far broader base of
public opinion. We have also noted how little the leaders of each side
could understand the thoughts and circumstances across the Atlan­
tic. It has made both of us more appreciadve of the opportunities we
have had to understand the eighteenth-century experience in each
other’s country. The extent to which an American and a British his­
torian have been able to produce a composite history of this subject
with so little disagreement is a remarkable tribute to the quality of
the previous scholarship on the subject to which we owe so much.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We acknow ledge the gracious permission of Her Majesty Queen
Elizabeth II to verify information in the papers of King George III