Independence (10 page)

No one recorded Lord North’s first response to the news of the Boston Tea Party, but, like Adams, he must have realized straightaway that the incident marked a new level of rebellion. The tea protest had become his American crisis. The prime minister was doubtless angry and shocked, as were some Americans who had thought the Tea Act should be resisted, though by peaceful means. Franklin’s initial reaction was that all “considerate Men” must oppose the destruction of private property. Besides, he said, America’s dispute was not with the East India Company. On learning what had occurred in Boston Harbor, Franklin appealed to the Massachusetts assembly to indemnify the company.
⁷⁶
Washington, likewise, found the destruction of private property indefensible and proposed that Virginia help Massachusetts make reparations to the East India Company.
⁷⁷

Some 90,000 pounds of East India Company tea was destroyed in the Boston Tea Party, on December 16, 1773. This was America’s most violent response to the Tea Act, and led the British government to respond with coercive measures that the colonists labeled the Intolerable Acts.
The Destruction of Tea at Boston Harbor
lithograph by Sarony and Major, 1846. (National Archives)

The outrage expressed by Franklin and Washington paled next to the anger that swept England. More than six months after the passage of the Tea Act, only 3 percent of the tea the East India Company had shipped to America—just that salvaged from the shipwrecked
William
—was in the hands of the Customs Service and ready for sale. Unbridled fury toward the colonists filled the British newspapers, but the lion’s share of indignation was directed at Boston, the lone site of violence. Bostonians were branded “bigots of the most dangerous kind” and singled out as the “most turbulent” of all Americans. It was a city, according to a London newspaper, in which “honest Men and Virgins [were] scarce.” One English penman claimed that the American troubles had originated with “crafty” Boston “smugglers,” after which things were “blown into rebellion by the preachers.” Several essayists instantly attributed the Boston Tea Party to the work of the “crafty pettifogger” and “arch rebel” Samuel Adams, who, it was said, “leads a banditti of hypocrites,” and the merchant John Hancock, who was widely portrayed in England as the prince of smugglers and the “
Milch-Cow
” of Boston’s extremists.
⁷⁸
Numerous scribblers demanded that Adams and Hancock be arrested and transported to England to stand trial for sedition. One writer suggested that royal authorities in Boston send across the Atlantic “a Cargo of American Scalps, as some Recompense for their Tea,” while another proposed that British officials “Hang, draw, and quarter fifty” of Boston’s radicals.

One essayist cast a broader net. Britain, he said, confronted a “many headed Monster” in America that threatened the “Peace and Tranquility of the Nation.” Others charged that the lingering American problem could be traced to the “Timidity of … Tax-repealing” ministries that had capitulated in the face of the Stamp Act protests and largely surrendered again when most of the Townshend Duties were repealed. “Forbearance has long been ineffectual” was the mantra of many who demanded toughness. The time had come, they said, for “an enlarged Fortitude” and “an Exertion of Power.” British “supremacy must be maintained and supported.… This is no period for … temporizing.” There were times—and this was one of them, according to one pamphleteer—when “violent remedies must be … applied to obstinate diseases.” Even the
National Register
, a journal that had opposed American taxation, labeled the Boston Tea Party an “outrage.”
⁷⁹
Franklin, who kept an eye on the British press, notified America of the “great Resentment here” toward the colonists, and he added: “I suppose we never had since we were a People, so few Friends in Britain.”
⁸⁰

The savage mood in Britain was reflected in the cabinet. The ministers were incensed by the American reaction to the Tea Act, but they were particularly irate at what had occurred in Boston. This was due in part to the Yankees’ repeated defiance, but even more so it was because the Bostonians had destroyed the tea. Given the near-sacred status of property in Great Britain—where courts were known to hang paupers who stole a loaf of bread—the ministers looked on the Boston Tea Party as worse than a riot.

From its first meeting, the cabinet resolved to take “effectual steps … to secure the dependence of the colonies.” But to its credit, North’s government did not hastily settle on its response. North was a mild-mannered man. He had come to power free of enmity toward the Americans, and from first to last he hoped that war might be avoided.
⁸¹
He presided over calm, unhurried, and thoughtful deliberations concerning the proper response. Over the course of six weeks the ministers met often, sometimes even late into the night, to discuss their options and the likely American response. Each minister understood that if the government stood its ground, refusing any longer to appease the colonists, there was a risk of war. Consequently, at numerous meetings North and his ministers contemplated hostilities. Could Britain win a war? How would it be fought? What was the likelihood of French and Spanish intervention?

From the outset, a majority of ministers believed the colonists would back down if faced with the use of force, a view nourished by General Thomas Gage, the commander of the British army in America, who advised that the Americans would “be lyons whilst we are lambs but if we take the resolute part they will be very meek.” It seemed inconceivable to most in the cabinet that colonists who had neither a national army nor a navy of any sort would dare risk war with a nation that could field a professional army and possessed the greatest navy in the world. Virtually every member of North’s ministry believed that Britain would prevail, and easily, should the Americans be foolish enough to resort to arms. Some were convinced that only one or two engagements would be sufficient to bring the colonists to heel. Some even thought that the colonists’ will to resist could be broken by a naval blockade and that no pitched battles would be necessary. But if fighting did occur, the prospect was not terribly troubling. Given the performance of callow colonial soldiers in the recent war, many were persuaded that the Americans were a “poor species of fighting men.” Some questioned that premise, though it was incontrovertible that there was a dearth of officers in the colonies with experience in leading large armies. Most also thought it improbable that colonial militiamen would dare stand up to regular soldiers. Furthermore, the colonists were disunited. During the French and Indian War, Franklin had proposed what came to be known as the Albany Plan of Union, a plea for the colonies to unite in a confederation to more effectively wage the war. Not a single province had endorsed his idea. Given these realities, some in Britain were cocksure, such as the general whom Franklin overheard boasting that “with a Thousand British grenadiers he would undertake to go from one end of America to the other, and geld all the Males, partly by force and partly by a little Coaxing.”
⁸²

Confronted by the colonists’ effrontery, not to mention their willful lawlessness, virtually every member of North’s ministry believed that retribution of some sort was called for. Differences existed, however. The Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, and the Earl of Suffolk, secretary of state for the Northern Department (Northern Europe), led those who favored the most punitive measures. Sandwich, a veteran minister who over the years had instituted many useful naval reforms, was the most influential minister, next to North, of course. Walpole thought no other cabinet member was Sandwich’s rival when it came to making quick and sound judgments. Suffolk, who was young and good-natured, had been a follower of Grenville and for ten years an outspoken advocate of American taxation. A second faction also wanted the government to be tough, but less so than demanded by the hard-liners, and these ministers were not entirely certain what steps should be taken. This contingent was led by the Earl of Gower, president of the Privy Council; the Earl of Rochford, secretary of state for the Southern Department and an expert on Spain; and Viscount Weymouth, groom of the stole, who was related to North by marriage. Dartmouth, standing nearly alone, was the most vocal against taking especially vindictive measures. He saw himself as manning the bulwarks “to cover America from the present storm.” But Dartmouth was not sanguine. Over the years he had found that Lord North usually gave in to those who were more forceful and acrimonious.
⁸³

Lord Dartmouth by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Lord North’s stepbrother and the American secretary during the final years of peace, he advocated negotiation to resolve the crisis. However, Dartmouth signed the order to use force against the American rebels. (© Coram in the care of the Foundling Museum, London / The Bridgeman Art Library International)

When the cabinet began its deliberations, North set the tone: “Whatever may be the consequences, we must risk something; if we do not, all is over.” The king also leaned on his ministers to be resolute. “I do not wish to come to severer measures,” he said, “but we must not retreat.”
⁸⁴
The ministry did not have many options. Sandwich and Suffolk strenuously advocated the immediate use of force against Massachusetts. For several days the cabinet also contemplated prosecuting those who were thought to be leaders in Boston’s insurgency. The names of Hancock and Samuel Adams, as well as two other readily identifiable activists—Dr. Joseph Warren, a Boston physician and firebrand, and Thomas Cushing, the speaker of the Massachusetts assembly—were frequently mentioned as targets for arrest. The ministry abandoned that avenue only after the solicitor general advised that solid evidence was lacking of their complicity in the Tea Party. For that matter, no corroborative evidence existed for prosecuting a single person for having participated in the destruction of the tea. The cabinet briefly considered merely warning Massachusetts that it would be punished should there be a future incident of property destruction, but the ministers ultimately decided that such a course would “avail nothing,” as North subsequently said. The one alternative that was not considered was the repeal of the Tea Act. According to Dartmouth’s recollection, anyone who had suggested its repeal would have been thought “mad.”
⁸⁵

A month after learning of the Tea Party, North’s ministry somberly coalesced behind what would be called the Coercive Acts. The government introduced four separate bills in Parliament. The Boston Port Bill would fine Massachusetts for the destroyed tea and close Boston Harbor until the colony paid. The Massachusetts Government Bill would change the charter under which the colony had lived for the past three quarters of a century, blatantly reducing the power of the people while strengthening the hand of royal officials. The bill stipulated that the upper house of the assembly, whose members had always been elected by the lower house, would henceforth be appointed by the royal governor. Town meetings—a New England tradition—were to be prohibited without the chief executive’s authorization. Juries, which had always been elected or summoned by local elected officials, were to be placed under the jurisdiction of the governor’s appointees. The Administration of Justice Bill would empower the governor to transfer to other colonies, or to England, the trials of indicted government officials. The Quartering Act would authorize the commander of the British army in America to lodge his soldiers wherever necessary, even in private residences.
⁸⁶