by Edward Cline
“I wish to dwell for a moment on the unacknowledged, unspoken but common premise among all the speakers here, pro-repeal and anti-repeal alike, past and present, that the colonies are already ‘another kingdom,’ and that the alternatives open to them are mutually grim. Be warned: When that realization has occurred to our colonial brethren, the logic of their binding and confining circumstance must lead them inexorably to a choice, which is to decide whether to fight for their liberties as Englishmen, or as Americans for an independence that will better secure them those liberties, and not leave them to the invidious mercies of legislators across an ocean, as we propose to do here.
“I say again: For the Americans, the alternatives to repeal of the navigation laws, as well, beginning with repeal of the Stamp Act, ultimately will be war and independence, or war and conquest. Then the Americans must decide to fight, or to submit. If to fight, and possibly to win, this nation should feel no shame in having lost, for it will be credited with having birthed a giant. If to fight and be conquered by us, then they will simply rise up in another decade. And if to submit, then they will do so ignobly, bitterly, and shamefully, after all the stirring, memorable, and defiant words they had spoken. Then we will have won by default, we will have the colonies in thrall, and we will have a dubious revenue from them, but we should feel no pride whatsoever in that triumph.
“Fiat lux.”
CHRONOLOGY OF ACTS OF PARLIAMENT
AND ROYAL DECREES CONCERNING
THE AMERICAN COLONIES, 1650-1775
Compiled by Edward Cline
Navigation Acts, October 1650, October 1651
Forbade foreign ships from trading directly with English colonies, and required all ships to be English and crewed largely by English or American colonials.
Navigation Act, 1 October 1660 (confirmed in July 1661 on Restoration of Stuarts)
Required all trade between Britain and colonies be conducted on
English-built ships, with largely English crew.
Act of Frauds, 1662
Only English-built ships could enjoy colonial trade.
Navigation Act, 1663
Most European goods and commodities to be transshipped from England on English-built ships. Navy given responsibility for enforcing the Act.
Navigation Act, 1673
Imposed tax or duty on colonial ships sailing between colonial ports, and established customs commissioners to collect the duties.
Navigation Act, 1696
Confined all colonial trade to English-built ships, gave colonial customs officers same powers as English customs officers, required bonds on enumerated (regulated but not taxed) goods, expanded enforcement power of Navy, and voided all colonial laws contrary to all Navigation Acts.
Wool Act, 1699
Restricted Irish woolen manufactures, and forbade export of American woolen products to England and between colonies.
Various Enumerated and Naval Stores Acts, 1705-1709
Broadened number of enumerated commodities, and paid bounties (or “bonuses”) on various products used in shipbuilding, especially for Navy ships.
Beaver Skins, Furs, and Copper Ore, 1721
Lowered duty on beaver skins, enumerated also furs and copper ore destined for Europe.
Hat Act, 1732
Prohibited the export of colonial-made hats between colonies, regulated apprenticeships in hat-making, barred Negroes from apprenticeships.
Molasses Act, 1733
Imposed prohibitive duties on rum, spirits, and molasses of foreign origin, except on British West Indies-produced molasses, rum, and spirits.
Iron Acts, 1750, 1757
Forbade development of iron and steel industries in colonies, but (in 1757) allowed pig and iron bar imports to England duty-free.
Order in Council, 4 October 1763
To combat colonial smuggling, to reform and strengthen the customs service in the colonies. Required Crown executives and officers to more aggressively enforce trade laws and customs regulations.
Proclamation, 7 October 1763
Prohibited colonial settlement west of the Appalachians (or “transmontane”), to regulate Indian trade, and to encircle the colonies to better regulate and tax them.
Revenue Act (or the Sugar Act, American Duties Act, or Duties Act), 5 April 1764
To raise money to support the British army in the colonies. Reduced import tax on rum, molasses, and sugar from 6d to 3d per gallon. As an extention of the Molasses Act of 1733, intended to discourage smuggling of West Indies and Continental products. Established vice-admiralty court in Halifax to try offenders, indemnified customs officers from civil lawsuits in case of Crown loss of case. Created elaborate system of cockets, bonds, and permits to account for every item of merchandise on inland water transport and seaworthy vessels.
Currency Act, 19 April 1764
Abolished and prohibited payment in colonial paper of debts to British creditors and merchants. Aimed at southern colonies, especially Virginia, the largest debtor. This act only served to increase the indebtedness of the colonials, for most “specie” or hard money (coin) remained in Britain in consequence of the Navigation Act and other Crown mercantilist regulations.
Stamp Act, 22 March 1765
Placed a stamp tax on virtually all legal and trade instruments at varying rates, payable in British specie only; added admiralty courts to enforce the Act in Philadelphia, Boston, and Charleston; and abolished the Halifax court. Stamps also to be carried on pamphlets, newspapers, dice, and playing cards.
Quartering Act (or American Mutiny Act), 15 May 1765
Required colonial legislatures to victual and supply necessities to British troops housed in colonial barracks.
American Trade Act, 25 May 1765
Strengthened Revenue Act of 1764.
Repeal of Stamp Act, 18 March 1766
As a result of colonial protests, and consequent unenforceability of stamp tax collection. Georgia only colony to collect stamp tax.
Declaratory Act, 18 March 1766
Reaffirmed Parliamentary legislative authority over colonies “in all cases whatsoever.”
Revenue Act, 6 June 1766
Created free ports in Jamaica and Dominica, reduced molasses duty to discourage smuggling, required bonds on all non-enumerated (or taxed) goods to the colonies or between colonies, and was intended to replace revenue lost by repeal of Stamp Act.
Revenue Act (or the Townshend Duties), 26 June 1767
Imposed tax on British-made paint, lead, paper, tea, and other items imported to colonies; legalized writs of assistance for customs searches; indemnified customs officers from lawsuits. Intended to subsidize colonial governments and British army.
Act for Creating American Board of Customs Commissioners, 29 June 1767
Intended to streamline customs administration and collection of various revenues.
Act for Suspending New York Assembly, 2 July 1767
For the Assembly refusing to obey the Quartering Act of 1765.
Order in Council, 6 July 1768
Reestablished Halifax admiralty court, and continuance of such courts in Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston.
Parliamentary Resolves and address to king, 9 February 1769
Reasserted right of Parliamentary authority over colonies; deemed resistance to said authority as treason, to be tried in England; deemed town meetings in Massachusetts as contrary to and apart from Crown authority.
Repeal of Revenue or Townshend Act, 12 April 1770
Repealed all Townshend Act duties except the one on tea.
Act for Regulating India Tea, 27 April 1773
Granted the British East India Company a monopoly on tea trade to the colonies.
Tea Act, 10 May 1773
As sister act of the previous act, retained the duty on British East India Company tea shipped to the colonies. Intended to raise revenue and combat smuggling of Dutch tea.
Boston Port Act (the first “Intolerable” or “Coercive” A
ct), 31 March 1774
To punish Boston by closing its port until the £10,000 of tea destroyed during Boston Tea Party paid. Food and fuel exempted, and also military stores.
Massachusetts Government Act (an Intolerable Act), 20 May 1774
Gave Crown-appointed governor broader powers of appointment over legislative approval; governor’s council to be Crown-appointed, not elected; town meetings to have governor’s prior approval; and Crown to regulate juries.
Administration of Justice Ace (an Intolerable Act), 20 May 1774
Permitted the removal of the trials of British officials charged with capital crimes to “friendlier” venues, i.e., outside of a colony’s jurisdiction.
Quartering Act (an Intolerable Act), 2 June 1774
British troops to be housed in vacant buildings if barracks not available.
Order in Council, October 1774
Forbade arms imports to the colonies.
Quebec Act (an Intolerable Act), 22 June 1774
Reaffirmed Crown authority over North America; redrew Quebec’s boundaries, annexing all territory to Quebec province from St. Lawrence River to eastern banks of the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico; and made Catholicism official religion of Quebec.
Order in Council, January 1775
Empowered colonial governors to arbitrarily prorogue assemblies to prevent elections to Continental Congress.
Parliamentary Address to the king, 9 February 1775
Claimed that a “state of war” existed between the Crown and the American colonies.
New England Restraining Act, 30 March 1775
Stricter trade regulation enforcement of New England colonies, intended to harm trade.
Restraining Acts, 15 April 1775
Stricter trade regulation enforcement of trade in Virginia, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina.
Proclamation, 23 August 1775
George III decreed a “state of rebellion and sedition” in the colonies, orders army to suppress rebellion and bring “traitors” to justice.
Proclamation, 26 October 1775
George III conceded that American colonies are fighting for independence from the Crown, that a “state of war” exists, and charged peace commissioners to grant pardons and receive acknowledgment of Crown authority.
American Prohibitory Act, 22 December 1775
Declared Americans “outlaws” and authorized seizure of American goods and ships. Pro-independence leaders in America and sympathetic members of Houses of Commons and Lords regard the Act as “independence by Act of Parliament.” All American ports closed to British and foreign trade by 1 March 1776.
EIGHTEENTH–CENTURY BRITISH CURRENCY
by Edward Cline
In this period, all money, currency, or specie consisted of hard metal, in gold, silver, or copper denominations. Paper money, bank notes, or government-issued notes (from the Bank of England) were not much used because they were too easily susceptible to forgery and counterfeiting. The forerunner of today’s paper money was a bill of exchange (q.v.) or a negotiable security, such as a console (a form of annuity), employed for convenience and efficiency of transaction and trade.
The American colonies were rarely granted the right to mint their own currency or specie; when they were, such colonial coin was not permitted to be used to pay debts to British creditors. As a consequence, to facilitate trade and to collect “internal” taxes within the colonies, colonial legislatures often resorted to issuing baseless paper money, which naturally depreciated over time and was subject to forgery and counterfeiting by colonial “false cambists.”
Colonial trade with countries other than Britain brought in those countries’ hard money, such as Spanish dollars and pistoles or German thalers, thus supplying a circulating medium of exchange within the colonies in lieu of scare British specie. It was the nature of the mercantilist system imposed on the colonies that British specie rarely came ashore in North America. Because the colonies were constantly in debt to the mother country, most “sterling” remained in the possession of British creditors and the taxing and regulatory authorities. Nevertheless, foreign money in the colonies had to be reckoned in terms of British specie.
* * *
GOLD COINS: 5-guinea; 2-guinea; guinea; and half guinea
SILVER COINS: 1 crown; half-crown; shilling; sixpence; 4-pence; 3-pence; 2-pence (“tuppence”); and the penny
COPPER COINS: half-pence (also the “ha’penny”); the farthing
* * *
TABLE OF BRITISH SPECIE
4 Farthings = Penny or pence (“d”)
12d = Shilling (“s”)
2s, 6d = Half-crown
5s = Crown
20s = Pound (“£”)
13s, 4d = Mark
21s = Guinea
A SPARROWHAWK GLOSSARY
Compiled by Edward Cline
Many fans of the Sparrowhawk series remark that while they enjoyed the story, they needed to keep a dictionary handy to find the meanings of many of the eighteenth–century terms encountered in the narrative and dialogue. With that “complaint” in mind, the Companion features a glossary of such terms. Most of the definitions below are the author’s own, although some are taken from Samuel Johnson’s 1755 Dictionary, while others are adapted from the Oxford English Dictionary. Other sources were Haydn’s Dictionary of Dates (1881) and Richard Lederer Jr.’s Colonial American English (1985). The author kept employment of eighteenth–century terms to a minimum, but endeavored to balance their usage, especially in dialogue, with economy and clarity to evoke the period’s spoken and written styles.
The glossary here is selective and does not claim to be exhaustive. In fact, a handful of terms, such as embracery and barratry, do not occur in the series at all. They are included because their meanings, bribery, and corruption respectively, are dramatized. Also, many classical Greek and Roman historical and mythological references that occur in the story have been omitted here, chiefly because I believe that sufficient contexts are established in the narrative and dialogue.
A
address In British politics, a document addressed to a monarch or legal body that supports or protests a specific government policy or instance of legislation. See MEMORIAL, PETITION, REMONSTRANCE.
advocate One who pleads for another, as in law; one who pleads for a cause or idea.
ague A fever marked by paroxysms of chills and sweating that recur at regular intervals; a fit of shivering.
Albion In the English version of the Greek legend, a son of Poseidon who taught men how to build ships; an ancient name for the British Isles.
arrack An alcoholic beverage made from coco sap or rice.
assize Periodical session of civil and criminal courts. See QUARTER SESSION.
attainder In eighteenth–century British law, the extinction of all civil and political rights after a sentence of treason, especially after a bill of attainder, which permitted the arrest and imprisonment of a person without the right of trial, was passed in legislation. The practice of attainders was much abused by political enemies, employed to neutralize or dispose of opponents. See GENERAL WARRANT, WRIT OF ASSISTANCE.
Attic salt Quickness and delicacy of wit; justness in taste; facility of conversation.
attorney One appointed or hired to act for another in business or legal matters; a qualified lawyer who represents clients in civil or criminal proceedings. See BAR, BARRISTER, SOLICITOR.
auto-da-fé Act of faith; the burning of a heretic, especially during the Inquisition.
B
bagnio 1. A public bath; 2. a brothel.
bailiff An officer of the court, under a sheriff, who executed writs and other legal documents; a warrant officer, pursuivant, or “catchpole.” See CATCHPOLE, CONSTABLE, SHERIFF.
bar The profession of barristers, the “bar” a railing that segregated a judge and presiding officers from the rest of a chamber or courtroom. See ATTORNEY, BARRISTER, SOLICITOR.
baron A me
mber of the lowest order of nobility, in the eighteenth century nominally holding lands by leave or grant of the monarch. It was an alliance of barons that in 1215 forced King John of England to sign the Magna Carta. See DUKE, EARL, MARQUIS, VISCOUNT.
baronet A petite baron, below a baron and above a knight. See BARON, DUKE, EARL, MARQUIS, VISCOUNT.
barratry The trade in church or government appointments, or the selling of positions in the army, navy, and civil service. A regular source of political corruption in eighteenth–century England. See EMBRACERY.
barrister A lawyer called to the “bar” having the right to practice as an advocate in the superior courts. See ATTORNEY, BAR, SOLICITOR.
bashaw A “big” or important, powerful man (a corruption of the Hindu pasha).