Desperate Sons

by Les Standiford

  Having no paper money of their own affected the local economies as well. In South Carolina, historian Walsh points out the particular impact of the law on the planters. When the value of crops in a given year was not sufficient to pay for the goods bought from merchants or the services rendered by mechanics and artisans, any further purchases were simply impossible. Money could not be borrowed because there literally was no money.

  Nor were the mechanics or merchants spared. Without money coming in, goods necessary for manufacture or resale could not be purchased. And how could a shipfitter expand his business if there was no money to pay the help? Bartering allowed for some commerce to continue, but it was scarcely the way to break an economy out of the doldrums, Stamp Act or no.

  One trader interviewed in the South-Carolina Gazette complained that even in the rare instances where a hardworking master carpenter, bricklayer, or painter earned 30 to 40 shillings per day, he could not “possibly pay House-Rent, Cloath and feed his family, and pay Five Pounds out of his poor Pittance to purchase a Cord of Firewood.”

  Trade out of Charleston was down significantly as well. South Carolina tanneries had exported 20,000 hides to New England manufacturers in the first half of the decade; following the repeal of the Stamp Act, they shipped half of that. Barrel makers’ business was down by a quarter and shipwrights’ by half. At the same time, prices for food rose by as much as 60 percent.

  Another bit of legislation passed by Parliament in March 1765 went relatively unnoticed in the wave of resentment against the Stamp Act. The Quartering Act of 1765 required the colonies to house and feed British soldiers in barracks constructed at their expense. If the barracks were not provided or were not of sufficient size, communities were obliged to house the soldiers in local inns, stables, and public houses. And if there were still redcoats left in the streets, the communities were to make available any uninhabited houses, sheds, barns, or other buildings “as shall be necessary” for the purpose.

  In addition, the act declared, “That in case any innholder, or other person, on whom any noncommission officers or private men shall be quartered by virtue of this act . . . shall be desirous to furnish such noncommission officers or soldiers with candles, vinegar, and salt, and with small beer or cyder, not exceeding five pints, or half a pint of rum mixed with a quart of water, for each man per diem, gratis, and allow to such noncommission officers or soldiers the use of fire, and the necessary utensils for dressing and eating their meat.”

  Though the colonists had for the most part been willing to quarter British troops on the march during the French and Indian War, the notion of doing so in peacetime seemed an unnecessary burden, just one more hardship foisted upon them by Parliament. A proposal by General Gage to send six hundred troops to be quartered in Albany had already occasioned protests there, and in 1766, when Gage proposed that a contingent of nearly three times that many should be housed in New York, residents were inflamed. It amounted to the same thing as the Stamp Act: taxation without representation.

  In June, the troops arrived in New York and were housed, for the most part, in barracks situated on the north side of the common. From the moment of their arrival, there was hostility between troops and townspeople.

  The townspeople resented the fact that they were paying for what amounted to an occupying force, and the troops found the demonstrations regularly held on the south side of the common insulting. Particularly annoying to the troops was the sight of the “liberty pole” that the Sons erected on June 4, as part of the celebration of the birthday of King George. That event, described in detail in the Gazette, the Mercury, and elsewhere, featured considerable drinking and feasting, including the roasting of “two fat oxen.”

  The principal spectacle of the evening was the torching of a ship’s mast that had been planted in the common with a dozen tar barrels lashed to its top and two dozen cords of wood stacked at its base. Following a twenty-five-gun salute, the bonfire was lit and the whole went up in a blaze that prompted great cheering. The Sons of Liberty also erected a second pole on the same day with a sign affixed—“George, Pitt, and Liberty”—identifying it as the symbol of the successful rebellion of the citizenry against the Stamp Act. Boston had its liberty tree, Charleston its liberty oak, and now New York had its liberty pole.

  Theories abound as to the source of a tree or pole as an axis around which such passions came to revolve, though the pagan-oriented maypole and its associated celebration seem a sensible explanation. In some European communities the maypole was a permanent fixture on the town common dating from medieval times, though it was the center of celebration only once a year, usually marking the onset of spring or summer and often carrying the banners or symbols of the local craftsmen and artisans.

  Though the practice of an annual maypole celebration was discouraged in England because of the bacchanalian associations attached, those would have only helped endear the notion to the rebellious Sons who flooded New York Common in 1766 to celebrate. The men might still be British subjects, but they had been reborn as a decidedly independent species, and the liberty pole was a permanent, priapic statement of that fact.

  The British soldiers who marched daily past that pole were well aware of what it stood for, of course, and on the close and sultry afternoon of August 10, a group of men from the 28th Regiment decided that enough was enough. Armed redcoats stood watch while a pair of their fellows put their axes to work, and within a few minutes, the first liberty pole was felled.

  The following day, a scorching one according to observers, found a crowd of three thousand assembled on the common to hear Isaac Sears demanding an explanation from the officers of the regiment as to why the “Tree of Liberty” had been cut down. According to Montresor, and despite the hurling of significant insults and threats by the mob, no response was forthcoming from the assembled troops until some of the mob began to toss stones and bricks at the redcoats.

  At that point, the troops broke ranks and charged the mob with fixed bayonets. Though no serious injuries resulted, some have called the skirmish the site of the first blood spilled in the Revolution.

  Before the confrontation got completely out of hand, British officers rushed to intervene. One protester swung a club at a British captain, who drew his sword in response. At that, several in the mob produced pistols and a stalemate ensued. When the commanding officer of the 28th appeared, he listened to the complaints of Sears and promised an investigation. If any of his men were at fault in the incident, he said, they would be punished. Meantime, in the interest of the public safety, the common would be cleared.

  The following day found a series of handbills posted by the Sons about New York promising that they would have their revenge upon the troops and that any attempt to carry on their daily parades through the streets would result in disaster. Nonetheless, the troops paraded, though the guard was doubled. A number of townsmen were hauled to the city court, charged with making threats of death against troops and officers, and one British officer was charged for making a similar threat against a man who had called him a “rascal.”

  While all this was going on, the Sons marched upon the common with an even taller mast, this one emblazoned “George, Pitt, and Liberty” and bearing an ensign fluttering at its top. Though the pole was permitted to stand, the men of the 28th ringed the common with their bayonets fixed, denying anyone entrance to the grounds. Though crowds shouted and surged, no violence ensued.

  Handbills were posted calling for citizens to forgo any interaction with the troops, and a petition was circulated asking that all troops and fortifications be withdrawn from the city. On the wretchedly hot evening of August 15, a group of men armed with clubs and sticks stopped a coach bearing a British officer who resembled the hated Major James. They demanded that the officer step down so they could carry out their intention of burying him alive upon the spot. When the shaken officer emerged from the coach and identified himself as one Captain Heathcote, a disappointed murmur swept through the
crowd. Heathcote was free to leave, a spokesman explained, but he should carry a warning to his compatriot James.

  As the heat wave continued unabated, tensions rose. The Sons advised market vendors that they were not to sell goods to soldiers or officers and drew up complaints against the mayor when he proved unwilling to press charges against any of the officers or men. A proposal went to General Gage requesting that soldiers not on duty be prohibited to carry their sidearms. A broadside declared that if the Sons were not rendered justice for their tree being cut down, then “they will revenge themselves on the Soldiers as God and Nature has enabled them.”

  Major Brown, the commander of the 28th Regiment, was served with two writs seeking damages of £5,000, but they were ignored. One afternoon, as the military parade was making its rounds through the streets, a merchant ran from his shop to demand a sword from one of the guards. The soldier gave the man “his advice with the butt end of his musket, which settled him,” according to Montresor, “and so marched on.”

  An artillery detachment was deployed at the barracks, and light cannon were placed at the end entrance, along with an additional pair at the fort, which had been unarmed since Moore’s arrival. Thunderstorms swept across the city but did little to lessen the heat, with readings hovering in the 90s even at night. Eighty members of the 28th Artillery Detachment were ordered to the city on August 26, a day on which the temperature soared to 103 degrees.

  The writs that had been served on Major Brown were thrown out in court. In answer, persons unknown heaved rocks—along with a volley of insults and threats—through the major’s windows. Montresor was dispatched to make a proper survey of the islands in New York harbor and its approach, with an eye toward their eventual fortification.

  When Montresor returned from his fieldwork to begin work on the charts and plans, Governor Moore again summoned him to his offices. He was to complete his map work quickly, the governor explained, and then he was to go on to a matter of the utmost secrecy: the outline of a military plan for moving a “considerable body of troops” through an “inhabited country in North America.” Just what country that might be, Moore was not prepared to divulge, but, given the events of the past several months, Montresor could guess.

  The New York Post-Boy complained of the uneasiness among the population, given “that such a number arm’d men, without any visible occasion for them are station’d among us, and suffer’d so to patrol the Streets, as in a Military or conquer’d Town.” On September 23, a contingent of troops marched from the barracks across the common to the site of the liberty pole that had been standing since mid-August. Orders were barked, axes were unsheathed, and in moments the second pole had fallen. It might have been the spark that set off the powder keg, but miraculously the day and evening passed without incident.

  Early in the morning of September 25, a sentry rounding the barracks at the north side of the common stopped short. The sun was not yet risen and mist still drifted across the fields, but there was no mistaking what was silhouetted in the distance against the southern sky: somehow, during the night, a third liberty pole had materialized where the previous two had stood.

  ( 14 )

  Townshend Fans the Flames

  Most scholars theorize that it was Governor Moore who authorized the cutting down of the first two liberty poles on New York Common, and it is also probably Moore who advised against cutting down the third, for a time at least. After all, the city had managed to get through a period of torrid weather and inflamed passions without any serious outbreak of violence. If the Sons of Liberty could not rest without a ship’s mast planted in the middle of New York Common, perhaps it was best to let it stand.

  Certainly, the leadership of the Sons of Liberty in the various colonies seemed to feel that a certain stability was restored, even if some nonetheless warned of the need for vigilance. Reverend Mayhew wrote to his Boston counterpart, James Otis, that a valuable lesson had been learned in the sharing of information between the colonies. It was the understanding that groups in every province were united by a common cause that had led to the defeat of the Stamp Act, Mayhew said, and he urged that the Massachusetts Assembly take the lead in maintaining communication even in the wake of victory. It should seek to “perpetuate union among ourselves, by all laudable methods,” he told Otis.

  In December 1766, Samuel Adams wrote to Christopher Gadsden of Charleston in support of the notion that the Stamp Act had been successfully rebuffed chiefly through solidarity. Though Adams was confident that the common resolve expressed and the friendships formed would deter the “most virulent Enemy from making another open attempt upon their rights as Men & Subjects,” he seemed to have given up on the possibility of maintaining any serious correspondence among the chapters. Still, it was a pity, he told Gadsden in closing, that a union and correspondence of the merchants in all the colonies could not continue.

  In that same letter, Adams, who was clerk of the Massachusetts Assembly by that time, repeated his often cited opposition to the provisions of the Quartering Act. Not only did the requirement that colonists pay to keep His Majesty’s troops constitute “a tax” but it also established the unfortunate precedent of the maintenance of a standing army even in peacetime. In Adams’s opinion, standing armies were by their very nature a constant threat to liberty.

  Still, things were not looking so bad for liberty in Boston. Adams and the other liberal members maintained control of the Massachusetts Assembly and effectively warded off the efforts of Governor Bernard to pack his council with conservatives and cronies such as Hutchinson. On March 18, Adams, Otis, and other influential Sons of Liberty organized a celebration to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the repeal of the Stamp Act. Food and drink were served to a cheering public at the gaily decorated Faneuil Hall, which housed the Boston Town Assembly, and the liberty tree on nearby Boston Common was lit by candles and torches.

  Such celebrations were calculated moves by Adams and other leaders, of course, attempts to remind citizens of the value of their previous efforts and the need to remain vigilant. And if a contemporary Fourth of July celebration contains only a vague reminder of the events that brought it into being, such was not the case in Boston in 1767. As one participant wrote in his diary entry for the date, “I never saw more Joy than on this occasion.”

  Joy, unfortunately, would be relatively short-lived in the colonies. In the early summer, Charles Townshend, the British chancellor of the Exchequer, introduced into Parliament a series of measures designed to sidestep the opposition that had arisen to the Stamp Act and raise some badly needed revenue. Interest on the £137 million national debt had risen to nearly £5 million, and total revenues were projected at scarcely £8 million for the year. What Townshend cobbled together was a plan that would not only raise money but also create a system under which the colonies would ultimately pay for their own upkeep.

  The first of the five measures that are commonly referred to collectively as the Townshend Acts was the Revenue Act, which would, in Townshend’s view, reestablish the right of Parliament to raise revenue from the colonists, even if the word “tax” was studiously avoided in the wording. To opponents in Parliament, Townshend pointed to the ultimate clause of the Declaratory Act, which affirmed the right of that body to pass legislation binding upon the colonies “in all cases whatsoever.”

  Furthermore, he argued, stalwart supporters of the colonies, including Benjamin Franklin himself, insisted that the colonists had been opposed to the Stamp Act principally because it was a levy on the “internal” business of each province. Thus the brilliance of his Revenue Act, Townshend maintained. Because it would place new duties on items not manufactured in the colonies and imported solely from England—paper, glass, lead, paint, and tea—it was an “external” levy on trade, and therefore the colonists could make no protest.

  It might have sounded good in theory, but in practice, Townshend’s sophistry would be taken for just that in the colonies. In fact the distinction b
etween “internal” and “external” taxes floated by Franklin and others at the time of debate regarding the Stamp Act was a sophistic maneuver, one of the attempts to bring reason to bear on a volatile situation. When men were taking to the streets of Boston, Providence, Charleston, Albany, Philadelphia, and New York and pulling down the homes of customs officials, they were far beyond considerations of the niceties of “internal” versus “external”; they were simply taxed out.

  Along with the Revenue Act, a companion piece of legislation was passed: the Indemnity Act, which repealed duties on tea imported into England. The measure was intended to help prop up the British East India Company, which was losing a good deal of its domestic market share to less expensive Dutch tea routinely smuggled past British customs. While it meant a loss in revenue, on the one hand, Townshend pointed out that the Crown would make a portion of it up on the new duties paid on tea imported by the colonies (3 pence per pound). British tea merchants would prosper, the national treasury would be protected, and the colonists would have no grounds upon which to complain.

  Commentators have differed as to their estimation of Townshend’s motives. Some say that the legislation was vindictive and political rather than practical, given that there would be something of a net loss to the national treasury; others maintain that there was nothing cynical about the treasurer’s moves. The country needed money, Townshend believed that the colonists endorsed the principle of trade duties, and this was a way to proceed, establishing the precedent of the power of Parliament over the colonies into the bargain.

  The third prong of Townshend’s program was a piece of legislation that created a new agency to be called the American Board of Customs Commissioners, which would be charged with enforcement of all trade regulations pertaining to the colonies and headquartered in Boston, well known as a center of smuggling operations. Some commentators cite the establishment of this board as the true tipping point of the buildup to the American Revolution, given that it created a policing agency specifically designed to regulate the raising of revenue in the colonies.