Episode 12: The Conspiracy

Episode Transcript
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Jim Ambuske (00:00):
This episode of Worlds Turned Upside Down is
supported by an anonymous friendof R2 Studios and George Mason
University. Learn how you canmake a gift to support the
series at R2studios.org.
A storm raged all through thenight and into the next morning
as the sun rose in Boston onOctober 28, 1767. With winds

(00:20):
swirling out of the Northeastand the skies unforgiving, the
town's property owners and manyof its other residents, men as
well as women, assembled atFaneuil Hall for the Boston town
meeting. That most who watchedthe debates that morning could
not vote mattered for verylittle. They had all come to

(00:42):
discuss what had once beenunthinkable, but now was
becoming all too familiar.Parliament's presumed right to
rule British Americans and totax them. In Boston, New York,
Quebec, Charleston, St Augustineand beyond, British Americans
had only just learned of a newround of import duties on paper,

(01:04):
paint, lead, glass and tea and anew imperial administration to
govern it and them. The brickwalls of Faneuil Hall were old,
but the interior was mostly newas Bostonians gathered on that
Wednesday morning, few buildingsbetter symbolized Boston's
connection to the umpire andwhat some Britons derided as its

(01:26):
almostrepublican form of localgovernment. The original Faneuil
Hall had been erected in 1742,it had been a gift to the town
by the wealthy merchant PeterFaneuil, a descendant of French
Huguenot refugees. A portrait ofFaneuil painted near the end of
his life reveals a prosperousman with a long nose and a

(01:49):
punch, an 18th century sign of arich and well fed man. He is
dressed in a suit of fine goldenfabric, and as he gestures with
his left hand to the scenebehind him, viewers behold an
ocean vista plied by merchantships. It reminded them of the
fortune Faneuil had made tradingin fish, sugar, molasses, rum

(02:11):
and enslaved people. The profitsfrom those ventures funded the
construction of Faneuil Hall,which included a marketplace on
the ground floor whereBostonians could buy local goods
or imports from the Empire, anda second story to house Boston's
town government. The originalbuilding burned in 1761 leaving

(02:34):
only its brick shell behind. Thetown rebuilt it and reopened
Faneuil Hall in 1763 just as theSeven Years' War came to an end,
when Bostonians gathered inOctober 1767 to debate the new
taxes the paint on Faneuil Hallwas still somewhat new. The new
duties on paper, paint, lead,glass and tea were the work of

(02:56):
Charles Townsend, a name thatfew in British America would
recognize, but whose scheme theBoston town meeting was certain
would only increase the town'smisfortune by means of the late
additional burdens andimpositions on the trade of the
province, which threaten thecountry with poverty and ruin.

(03:18):
But how to resist them? How toonce again, make Parliament see
the error of its ways andconvince it to abandon a path
that to some British Americanswas beginning to look like a
pattern for the Boston townmeeting, threatening the
Empire's trade and encouragingtheir own manufactures seemed

(03:40):
like a sensible solution. Beforethe noon hour, the town meeting
voted to take all "prudence andlegal measures" to discourage
the city's residents from buyinga range of British made goods,
from hats, shoes, silks andsugar to fine china, glue,
gloves and nails. The town'sgovernment asked Bostonians to

(04:02):
wear clothes of their ownmanufacture and to lessen the
use of "superfluities" in theinterest of their town and the
common Imperial good. Thatafternoon, at three o'clock, the
storm raged on as the committeeappointed to draw up a non
consumption agreement presentedits work to the town meeting,

(04:24):
those willing to sign it pledgedthat they would no longer
purchase the offending goodsbeginning on January the first
1768. It didn't preventmerchants from importing them,
sparing the men and women whomade their living from the
trade, but it did imply that itwould be a wise choice, and that

(04:45):
the public would do well toavoid foreign manufactures
signing their names signaled apublic commitment, a willingness
to abide by the pledge andaccept the risk of the
community's scorn if they choseto violate it. For more than two
centuries, historians havewondered just who signed their

(05:06):
names, who left their marks.Diaries and letters gave us some
clues, but most names alluded usuntil only recently, when a
chance find in a library atHarvard revealed the names of
more than 650 people, some weknew familiar names like Joseph
Warren, John Rowe and PaulRevere, but most we did not, and

(05:28):
many we did not expect, such as

Bostonian (05:34):
Francis, Elizabeth Greenleaf, Bridget, Ridgway,
Ruth Thompson,

53 Boston women added their names to the
agreement, including some whowere merchants in their own
right, like Elizabeth Greenleaf,who sold mustard, cabbage,
asparagus and other seedsimported from London in her shop
at the end of Union Street.Along with the men, they pledged
to deny themselves much of whatthe Empire had to offer if it

(06:03):
meant bringing Parliament toheel, but whether any of the
Bostonians who signed that daywould avoid succumbing to the
temptations of tea or theseductions of silk, only time
and public pressure would tell.For as British Americans began
rallying once again to resistParliament's claim to power and

(06:25):
restore their rights as subjectsof the king, Britons on both
sides of the Atlantic could onlywonder If they were witnessing
the beginnings of a conspiracy.

(06:45):
I'm Jim Ambuske and this isWorlds Turned Upside Down, a
podcast about the history of theAmerican Revolution. Episode 12,
The Conspiracy. We most oftenremember the Townsend duties as
the taxes that Parliamentimposed on imported paper,
paint, lead, glass and tea. Theywere a testament to Parliament's

(07:07):
claim that it could legislatefor the colonies "in all cases
whatsoever," and they reflectedthe very real needs of an empire
struggling to find its footingin the aftermath of the Seven
Years' War. Beginningin November1767, British Americans would be
required to pay duties on theseitems, not unlike the duties
they had paid on goods in agespast, but their present had

(07:31):
become very different. Thosetaxes were just the first act of
a new, more considered plan tobind the colonies closer to the
Mother Country, one very long inthe making, and if George
Grenville had stumbled with theStamp Act, Charles Townsend, the
author of this new plan, wasprepared to make the most of his

(07:51):
moment. So how did Parliamentchart a new course for British
America in the wake of the StampAct crisis? How did lingering
questions over Parliament'ssupremacy pit British Americans
against each other, and why didBritish Americans resist new
taxes on seemingly harmlessgoods like paper, paint, lead,
glass and tea? To beginanswering these questions, we'll

(08:16):
head first to London, where yetanother change in the British
Ministry brought one of thearchitects of this new empire to
power. We'll then head back toBritish America, where
Townsend's acts provokedarguments about rights that gave
way to politics and action,before putting into the port at
New York to an imperial citydividing against itself. In July

(08:42):
1766, four months afterParliament repealed the hated
Stamp Act, King George the Thirdfound himself in want of a new
prime minister. The Marquess ofRockingham had failed to unify
growing political factions inthe British government after he
had replaced George Grenville,the author of The detested stamp
duties. The previous year, theking had supported Rockingham's

(09:05):
efforts to repeal the Stamp Act,much to the delight of British
Americans, but the centerRockingham could not hold.
George the Third aspired to be apatriot King, as a monarch who
ruled above faction and unitedall peoples of the Empire, but
that he could not do alone. Torestore harmony in the

(09:26):
government and throughout theempire. Following the Stamp Act
crisis, the king turned to aferocious, ambitious man who was
slowly becoming a shadow of hisformer self. William Pitt had
been Prime Minister in all butname in the final years of the
Seven Years War as Secretary ofState for the Southern
Department, Pitt had endearedhimself to British Americans by

(09:49):
treating them as the king'sequal subjects. He reimbursed
the colonies for militaryexpenses made provincial
officers equal to Britishofficers of the same rank. And
forbade British commanders inchief from wielding power over
their assemblies. Yet the costof the victory had been great,
besides the staggering sums ofmoney that pit had borrowed on

(10:11):
the government's behalf to winthe war, his desire to expand
the conflict made him animpediment to peace. In 1761 the
king and the Earl of Buttemaneuvered to force Pitt from
office. Nevertheless, five yearslater, George the Third needed a
politician who could form astable government and command

(10:31):
respect on both sides of theAtlantic. British Americans
lionized Pitt for championingtheStamp Act's repeal in
Parliament, and to many Britons,he was the great commoner, a
reflection of the powerful rolehe played in building the
British Empire. As a member ofthe House of Commons, Pitt
promised the king a governmentof measures and not men, with a

(10:55):
cabinet composed of politicianswhose merits outweighed their
political inclinations. But by1766, Pitt was aging and
increasingly infirm. He wasnearly 60 years old when George
the Third appointed him PrimeMinister that July. His brief
two year tenure was marked bytroubles with gout. It what may

(11:16):
have been manic depression. Pittdiminished his own light among
the British public when hefinally accepted what he had
long refused, a noble title.William Pitt, the Great
Commoner, member of the House ofCommons, became William first
Earl of Chatham, member of theHouse of Lords. With Lord

(11:36):
Chatham's physical and politicalpowers waning. Charles Townsend,
the new Chancellor of theExchequer stepped into the
breach. Here's PatrickGriffin,Madden-Hennebry
Professor of History at theUniversity of Notre Dame.

Patrick Griffin (11:50):
He's brilliant. Charles Townsend is absolutely
brilliant. I don't agree withhis policies, and certainly
Americans didn't agree with hispolicies, but his ability to see
and think structurally andsystematically, it's really
impressive. So it's anintelligence that not everybody
has.

Unknown (12:07):
Few could see the empire in all its flaws and in
all of its potential as Townsendcould in 1749, a then 24 year
old, Townsend joined the boardof trade, the agency that
managed the colonies on thegovernment's behalf over the
next several years, Townsendread official reports and
correspondence from the coloniesin all their minute detail,

(12:31):
reports detailing sugarproduction in the Caribbean,
petitions from mainlandmerchants about trade
restrictions and Letters fromprovincial governors complaining
about their uncooperativecolonial assemblies. And from
his vantage point in London, theBritish Empire was an empire of
fragments.

His years on the Board of Trade, this is
where he hones some of thoseskills and some of those
sensibilities to begin seeingthe Empire as potentially a
coherent whole and an empirethat has to be managed and
thought about as a coherentwhole. And in many ways, that is
his genius. And I think thatsome people at the time saw too.

(13:11):
We just see him from theAmerican side. Well, this is the
buffoon who passed these duties.That was kind of the next step
in the road to inevitablerevolution. But in Britain at
the time, this guy, no, no, thisguy's sharp. He is really,
really sharp, and peoplerecognized it at the time how
brilliant he was, because he hadgifts that not everybody had to
think systematically, and beingon the Board of Trade was a

(13:32):
perfect place for him to honethose skills.

Unknown (13:35):
By August 1766, when Townsend became chancellor of
the ex checker, he had spentyears thinking deeply about the
Empire and how to perform it.When he accepted Lord Chatham's
invitation to join his cabinet,Townsend expressed his hope

Charles Townshend (13:51):
"I shall be happy…if I shall be acknowledged
that:
by posterity to have in anydegree contributed, under your
protection, to facilitate there-establishment of general
confidence, real government, anda permanent system of measures."

Like most members of the government, Townsend
believed firmly in Parliament'ssupreme authority over the
colonies that it could legislatefor British America in all cases
whatsoever, that Britain must bethe star around which the
colonies orbited, and that inthe wake of the Stamp Act, it
had become necessary to:

Charles Townshend (14:28):
“to take some steps which by showing the
Americans that this countrywould not tamely suffer her
sovereignty to be wrested out ofher hands.”

He's a bit more like a Grenville would be, but
he's a bit more nuanced when itcomes to it, but he still
believes the center has todictate the terms. Doesn't
believe in like a Commonwealthvision of Empire or anything
like that. For empire to work inthis world of extraordinary
geopolitical rivalry, you haveto have a sovereignty that's.

(14:59):
Certain insecure that mustreside in Parliament, because
parliament will look after therights of the whole including
even the colonists.

In his mind, the Stamp Act had been good imperial
policy. It provided a way tofund an army for the defense of
British America against theFrench in a war that few doubted
was on the horizon, and it madea clear statement of
Parliament's constitutionalpower over the colonies. But
former Prime Minister GeorgeGrenville had just bungled its

(15:29):
implementation.

Charles had no problem at all with what the
Stamp Act did. He just thoughtit was a bit foolish to pass it
without actually setting up theinfrastructure that was going to
allow it to be done effectively.That's the cart before the
horse. What we need isinfrastructure. After we have
infrastructure, then we canactually get revenue from the

(15:50):
Americans to make the Empirerun. Now, he didn't mean to do
this in a cruel way, try toimpoverish Americans or anything
like that, but he would agreewith Grenville, with others
saying, like, look, we havethese colonies, they clearly are
flourishing. We paid a lot atthe time of the Seven Years' War
to ensure that they could remainthat way. So now what we have to
do is a set up a bunch ofarrangements that are going to

(16:11):
ensure that we can deriverevenue from them, since we want
to have an empire that's goingto be fundamentally more
integrated than what it is. Sowhereas others had these kinds
of plans before, and they werenever able to really make good
on them. It's Charles Townsendfinds himself in a position
where he actually can, for alittle bit of time, begin to
make good on him. And so this isstep one of what's going to

(16:31):
happen.

For Townsend, building the kind of efficient
and centralized empire that hehad long imagined in his mind,
one that would not repeat theStamp Act debacle, yet made
Parliament's authority clear andstrengthened London's influence
over colonial officials.Required a fresh approach.Based
on years of studying the Empire,the duties he proposed on paper,

(16:57):
paint, lead, glass and tea in1767 weren't so much a strategy
to raise revenue as they were,but one element of an entire
political philosophy.

The mistake that we largely make is we see
these as revenue duties, thatthe idea is that, oh, well, this
is a way for the British toraise money. But when you really
dig into them, it's not, they'renot revenue duties, per se, they
will raise revenue. But what isthe revenue going for? The
revenue is not going to pay downthe debt or even service the
debt back in Britain. That's notwhat they're designed for. No,

(17:27):
what is designed for is allowfor more efficacious rule and
allow for more centralized rule,and that is, if you will, the
evil genius of these kinds ofacts.

In Britain's older North American colonies, like
Virginia, Connecticut, SouthCarolina and New York, the
salaries for governors and othercolonial officials were paid out
of the taxes levied by theirprovincial assemblies, even if
they were appointed by the king.That power of the purse gave
assemblies some measure ofcontrol over their governors,

(17:58):
making them less beholden to theCrown than the king's ministers
might otherwise prefer. That wasnot the case in newer colonies
like Nova Scotia, Quebec or eastor west Florida, colonies that
were funded by Parliament, withCrown appointed officials and no
provincial assemblies. Townshendneed only point to Governor

(18:19):
Henry Moore's seemingwillingness to humor the New
York assembly's refusal tocomply with the Quartering Act,
a directive to provide money forthe support of British soldiers
stationed in the colonies, asevidence of how local politics
corrupted the common Imperialgood to modernize the older
colonies, and encounter theinfluence of self interested

(18:39):
colonists who put themselvesabove the Empire. Townsend
designed a new system ofImperial administration.

You collect duties on these kinds of things
instead of sending the moneyback to Britain, why don't we
pay for Colonial governors andcustoms officials and others to
be paid from the duties, asopposed to being paid by
legislatures in the colonies.What would this do? It would
free up these people then towork on the behalf of the

(19:08):
Center, as opposed to bebeholden to the colonists. They
could never be held ransom thenby the colonists, and they'd be
freed up, actually, to startdoing governing. And so what
this is, is this was somethingthat would be put in place to
allow for more efficaciousgovernment and a more
centralized vision of empire. Itwas after this that the taxing

(19:32):
could begin.

To ensure the success of his new program, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer setout to correct George
Grenville's mistakes with theStamp Act using a far more
pragmatic and less bluntapproach.

This gets back to the famous distinction
between internal and externaltaxation.

British Americans had objected to the Stamp Act in
part because they viewed it asan unconstitutional internal
Direct. Tax, although they mayhave grumbled about certain
aspects of the Navigation Actsthe 17th century, laws that
governored the Empire's trade,colonists largely accepted
Parliament's right to regulatethat trade. Custom duties on

(20:14):
imported goods could be seen asan acceptable form of external
taxation. In London, BenjaminFranklin tried to make that
case.

Benjamin Franklin is going to have this
kind of famous moment himselfwhen he's going to say, look,
look, look, when it comes to theStamp Act, it's not so much the
act itself. It's the problembetween internal and external.
This is kind of hitting uswithin stuff, internal stuff
that we work with, or weproduce, etc, etc, external
stuff we're not going to have aproblem with. So if goods that

(20:45):
are made in Britain and comingfrom Britain, if these are going
to be taxed, that kind of stuff,Americans are not going to have
a problem with that per se.

To secure the Empire's future, and his vision
of it, Townsend was willing toentertain this pleasant fiction.

Charles is all involved with all this
questioning at the time, and hesays, basically, this
distinction is rubbish. Itdoesn't matter, because, of
course, we know the parliamentis supreme, so I don't know
where he gets off saying thiskind of stuff, but if this is
what he's going to say, then wecan actually use this
justification for our own end.So let's install these duties
that are external duties. And sohe more or less takes Franklin

(21:21):
at his word, even though hedoesn't agree at all with the
distinction, and he's like,look, these duties are not going
to really be that onerous atall. They're external. Let's
take Dr Franklin at his word,and Americans are probably not
going to have a problem withthat, and then we create a more
centralized vision of empire.But he wasn't really concerned
as much with Americans beingable to find their voice.

To collect those taxes and implement Townsends
plan for a new imperialadministration meant the
creation of a new Board ofCustoms Commissioners to be
based in Boston, with officesestablished in the other British
American ports charged withenforcing British trade
regulations and ensuring thecollection of all legal customs
duties, the establishment of newadmiralty courts in Boston,

(22:06):
Philadelphia and Charleston toprosecute smugglers with judges
appointed by the king and whosesalaries would be paid out of
the fines levied against theconvicted, and tax relief for
the British East India Company,allowing it to better compete
against the smuggled tea toooften favored by British
Americans. Parliament passedfour laws in late June and July,

(22:29):
1767, to implement this newregime. Today, we collectively
call them the Townsend acts. IfParliament had never passed the
Stamp Act Two years earlier, hadnever argued so forcefully for
its own supremacy, had never sodirectly declared its right to
legislate for the colonies inall cases whatsoever, then

(22:52):
perhaps British Americans wouldhave accepted Townsend's new
scheme and the taxes that camewith it as just another round of
external duties meant toregulate theEmpire's trade. But
the Stamp Act had openedPandora's box, and out of it
flooded questions aboutParliament's sovereignty and its
power over the empire thatneither the king's ministers nor

(23:13):
British Americans could affordto ignore. And for all of the
years that Townsend had spentcarefully studying the Empire
and crafting a plan to harmonizecolonies and peoples as
different and distinct asJamaicans, South Carolinians,
New Yorkers and Nova Scotians,and for all of Benjamin
Franklin's confidence that hisfellow colonists would accept

(23:35):
Townsend's duties as harmlessexternal taxes, both men badly
misread recent events in BritishAmerica. Word of Town since acts
arrived in North America in thelate summer and fall of 1767,
unlike the Stamp Act, BritishAmericans did not immediately

(23:56):
greet them with panickedprotests, hurriedly arranged
meetings with Prime Ministers orbonfires and effigies. Instead,
they drew on the lessdestructive lessons of the
recent past to deliberate,publish and organize.

So whereas a guy like Charles Townsend were
able to realize the moment andseize it and kind of create a
vision of empire and then comeup with a series of policies
where Empire could be madecoherent. Americans are doing
the same kind of thing as well,only they start to kind of knit
together a different kind ofpattern, and we see that

(24:32):
particularly with JohnDickinson, with his famous
letters.

The Philadelphian John Dickinson had been a member
of the Stamp Act Congress in1765, where he helped draft
petitions to Parliament and theking urging the stamp Act's
repeal. Two years later, hebegan building on those and
other arguments to publish aseries of anonymous essays,
which he called Letters from afarmer in Pennsylvania.

(24:57):
Dickinson was a lawyer, not afarmer, but he adopted that
persona and wrote in plain,clear language to reach British
Americans who may have been lessinclined to hear lectures on
constitutional law from an elitelearned man. In a series of 12
letters published from December1767 to April 1768 Dickinson

(25:19):
wrote about the empire in waysthat at first glance, many
readers would have foundunremarkable.

You read through the letters, there was
nothing that was path breakingabout it, nothing that was
extraordinary about it in anykinds of ways. Many of the ideas
he's dealing with are justboiler plate British ideas about
rights and everything like that.He even concedes the point that
Parliament is supreme. He'slike, we don't have a problem
with that, with parliamentarysupremacy, or anything like
that.

As Dickinson wrote in his sixth letter.

John Dickinson (25:48):
“[T]here is no privilege the colonies claim,
which they ought, in duty andprudence, more earnestly to
maintain and defend, than theauthority of the British
parliament to regulate the tradeof all her dominions. Without
this authority, the benefits sheenjoys from our commerce, must

be lost to her (26:05):
The blessings we enjoy from our dependance on
her, must be lost to us; herstrength must decay; her glory
vanish; and she cannot suffer,without our partaking in her
misfortune.”

But what Dickinson did do was clarify for many
British Americans the danger ofTownsend's duties. Ironically,
he agreed with the Chancellor ofthe Exchequer. There was no
distinction between internal andexternal taxes, and in
Townsend's attempt to cast thenew duties under the guise of
trade regulation, the fictionalfarmer so a wolf in sheep's

(26:42):
clothing.

“Nothing is wanted at home but a PRECEDENT,
the force of which shall beestablished by the tacit
submission of the colonies [...]If the parliament succeeds in
this attempt, other statuteswill impose other duties [...]
and thus the Parliament willlevy upon us such sums of money
as they choose to take, withoutany other LIMITATION than their

(27:07):
PLEASURE.”

For Dickinson, Townsend's duties were nothing
more than the Stamp Act packagedin a more seductive form, a
precedent to confirmParliament's right to tax
British Americans without theirconsent, a violation of their
rights as British subjects. Itmade little difference that the
money would stay in NorthAmerica to fund the
administration of the coloniesby paying the salaries of the

(27:30):
governors and other colonialofficials. Parliaments and prime
ministers would control them.

“[A]ny minister who shall abuse the power by the
late act given to the crown…maydivide the spoils torn from us
in what manner he pleases, andwe shall have no way of making
him responsible. If he shouldorder, that every governor shall
have a yearly salary of £5,000sterling; every chief justice of

(27:57):
£3,000; every inferior officerin proportion; and should then
reward the most profligate,ignorant, or needy dependents on
himself or his friends…it willbe in their power to settle upon
us any civil, ecclesiastical, ormilitary establishment, which
they choose.”

As they read or heard Dickinson's letters in
their homes, in taverns or inthe streets of North America,
British Americans ponderedabstract arguments about the
empire that left little room forcompromise. Either Parliament
had supreme authority or it didnot. Either the provincial
assemblies had the sole andexclusive right to tax their

(28:36):
colonists or they did not.

When these things came out, it was almost
like a touched off of firepapers up and down the East
Coast of America arerepublishing these letters.
People are talking about theseletters. He caught a particular
kind of moment and was enabledto make a certain kind of
argument about America'sparticipation of empire that may
have been made before, but thatliterally caught the moment, and

(29:02):
that's indeed what it was. Andso he becomes this catalyzing
individual. He becomes arallying point. He becomes a
catalyst. As Americans now tryto understand who and what they
are during a very fluid periodof time.

We cannot know what Townsend made of these Letters
from a Farmer in Pennsylvania,nor of the events that followed
in this fluid moment. Acold anda fever had plagued him for most
of 1767, an illness he laboredthrough as he completed his
great work in the late summer.It robbed him of his strength,

(29:43):
and then his life. He died onSeptember 6, at the age of 42 he
never knew what his acts hathwrought.
In the months followingTownshend's death, British
Americans weighed just how toachieve the repeal of his

(30:06):
reforms. While some colonistsbegan to call for more than just
non consumption and push for nonimportation of British goods to
once again, use the threat of atrade boycott to force
Parliament's retreat, othersbegan calling for the colonies
to present a more united front.Like John Dickinson, the

(30:26):
Massachusetts House ofRepresentatives believed that it
had a clear sense of who BritishAmericans were in this fragile
moment. In many ways, Townsendhad made Boston the epicenter of
his Imperial project. The newAmerican customs board would be
headquartered in the town, andfrom it, the commissioners would
enforce the collection of dutieson imported goods in all major

(30:47):
colonial ports, crack down onillegal smuggling and work with
the new vice admiralty courts topunish Britain's guilty of
illegal trading. The customsboard would make Parliament's
presence felt in very real ways.It was a clear symbol of the new
imperial administration, andthat was not lost on the men
appointed to run it. In November1767, Henry Hulton arrived from

(31:12):
London to chair the customsboard. Hulton was born in
England and had served theempire from a young age, first
in Antigua and then Germany,before landing a job in the
London customs office in theearly 1760s his experience made
him a good choice, but he wasunder no illusions about the
difficulties that lay ahead ashe arrived in Boston to take up

(31:34):
his post, few would haveforgotten what Andrew Oliver had
endured when the king hadappointed him As the colony
stamp distributor just a fewyears earlier, Anne Hulton,
Henry's sister planned to joinhim in Boston in a few months
time. As she made ready to crossthe Atlantic, she wrote to a
friend in February 1768,reporting how her brother and

(31:56):
his fellow commissioners triedto endear themselves to the town
elite.

Anne Hulton (32:00):
“The Commissioners began an Assembly at Boston in
order to wear off the prejudiceof the people & to cultivate
their Acquaintance. There wereabout 100 at the first Opening
of it, & my Brother had thehonor of dancing, the first
Minnuet.”

Just as Hulton was writing her letter in London,
Samuel Adams and James Otis Jr,were writing one of their own in
Boston in February 1768, Adams,the delinquent tax collector and
Otis the attorney, were membersof the Massachusetts House of
Representatives. They were alsomembers of Boston Sons of
Liberty and correspondence withJohn Dickinson. Otis, in fact,

(32:40):
arranged to have Dickinson'sletters published in Boston
newspapers. Now on behalf of theHouse of Representatives, they
composed the Massachusettscircular letter. It was sent to
the assemblies of the othermainland colonies, offering
their fellow British Americanlegislators a brief hitory of
the ways that Massachusetts Bayhad protested the hardships

(33:00):
imposed by Townshend's acts. TheHouse did not deny:

Massachusetts House of Representatives (33:05):
“that his Majesty's high court of
Parliament is the supremelegislative power over the whole
empire”

But:

“the acts made there, imposing duties
on the people of this province,with the sole and express
purpose of raising a revenue,are infringements of their
natural and constitutionalrights; because, as they are not
represented in the BritishParliament, his Majesty's
Commons in Britain, by thoseacts, grant their property
without their consent.”

And if the crown paid the salaries of the
governors and other officials,as Parliament intended, then
colonial assemblies would losethe power of the purse to check
malicious politicians. That wascause for alarm, even more so
because some of the members ofthe House had begun to believe
that

“that the enemies of the colonies have
represented them to hisMajesty's ministers, and to the
Parliament, as factious,disloyal, and having a
disposition to make themselvesindependent of the mother
country.”

In other words, the representatives imagined that
men like Governor Bernard or thewidely loathed Lieutenant
Governor Thomas Hutchinson wereconspiring to portray colonists
as disloyal subjects in order tojustify greater imperial rule to
defeat the Townsend acts andrestore the Empire to what

(34:21):
British Americans thought it wasrequired a common effort

“This House cannot conclude, without
expressing their firm confidencein the King, our common head and
father; that the united anddutiful supplications of his
distressed American subjects,will meet with his royal and
favorable acceptance.”

As the Massachusetts circular letter
made its way to the otherprovincial assemblies on the
mainland with its encouragementto petition the king directly,
it made its way to London, intothe hands of the Earl of
Hillsborough the new Secretaryof State for the colonies, the
cabinet official charged withthe oversight to British
America. On April 21 1768,Hillsborough condemned the

(35:05):
circular letter in one of hisown to the provincial governors.
The king, he wrote:

Earl of Hillsborough (35:10):
“considers this measure to be of a most
dangerous and factious tendency,calculated to inflame the minds
of his good subjects in thecolonies, to promote an
unwarrantable combination, andto excite and encourage an open
opposition to and denial of theauthority of Parliament, and to
subvert the true principles ofthe constitution.”

For Hillsborough, it seemed as if self interested
men concerned with their ownpower and authority, men like
the Sons of Liberty werefomenting a conspiracy to
corrupt theminds of the commonpeople, to turn them against
Parliament and the king, heordered the governors to do
everything in their power toconvince their respective
assemblies to ignoreMassachusetts seditious plea.

(35:56):
But if they could not, it

Earl of Hillsborough (35:58):
“it will be your duty to prevent any
proceeding upon it by animmediate prorogation or
dissolution.”

In the other colonial assemblies, the
Massachusetts letter met with afavorable reception. It reached
Virginia's House of Burgesses inearly April, where almost
immediately, its members begandrafting a petition to the king
and instructing the colony'sagents in London to lobby
Parliament and the crown onVirginia's behalf that they

(36:28):
could even do so was the resultof an auspicious confluence of
events. Sir Jeffrey Amherst, theformer commander in chief of
British forces in North America,was the governor of Virginia at
this moment. Had he been inWilliamsburg, there is little
doubt he would have acted toprevent discussion of the
circular letter. But like manyVirginia governors before him,

(36:49):
Amherst remained in England,leaving the task of ruling to
the colony's lieutenantgovernors. And yet, Virginia had
none. Francis Fauquier had diedin March 1768, leaving the
Virginian John Blair as thecolony's Acting Lieutenant
Governor, and Blair saw noreason to interfere with the
burgesses debates. Circumstancesin other colonies were not as

(37:11):
favorable. In North Carolina,Governor William Tryon had
already prorogued the ProvincialAssembly in late April, long
before he and the othergovernors received hillsboros
instructions. Tryon, however,faced a growing crisis of his
own, a smoldering rebellion inthe back country by colonists
calling themselves regulatorswho believed the provincial

(37:33):
government was corrupt. Tryonhad little choice but to call
the assembly back into sessionin November 1768, to deal with
the unrest, after approvingfunds to support the militia,
the assembly turned to thecircular letter and drafted a
humble petition to the king thatfinally compelled Tryon to again

(37:54):
prorogue the assembly, sendingits members home until the
colony had need of them. Bythen, it had already been months
since Governor Bernard had beenforced to dissolve the assembly
in Massachusetts Bay. Hereceived Hillsborough's orders
on June 15, 1768, Bernard wasnot unsympathetic to the
colonists complaints about thetowns and acts, but Hillsborough

(38:17):
had been direct, and thegovernor's duty was clear when
he asked the Massachusetts Houseof Representatives to rescind
its infamous circular letter,its members refused to do so by
a vote of 92 to 17. Hoping todefuse the situation, Bernard
dissolved the assembly entirely,gambling that a future election

(38:38):
would return more reasonable andmoderate men to the House of
Representatives. Bernard actedwith Boston already on edge just
days before customs officialshad seized the liberty on
suspicions of smuggling. It wasowned by the merchant John
Hancock as the customscollectors towed the Liberty

(39:00):
toward the HMS Romney anchoredin Boston Harbor, Bostonians
revolted. A riot of some 3000people searched the streets for
port collector Joseph Harrison,and when they could not find
him, they burned his personalboat and manured the city's
Liberty Tree with its ashes. Theriot made for a frightening

(39:21):
Welcome to Boston for AnneHulton, the sister of Customs
Commissioner Henry Hulton. Sixdays after her arrival in
British America, Anne Henry hisfamily and other members of the
Customs Service fled, first tothe Romney and then to Castle
William in Boston Harbor.Although no one was killed in
the riot, as she would laterimply, Hulton's description of

(39:43):
events reveals how confusion,misinformation and violence took
hold in Boston.

Unknown (39:49):
“These Sons of Violence after attacking Houses, breaking
Window, beating, Stoning, &bruizing several Gentlemen
belonging to the Customs, theCollector mortally, & burning
his boat, They consulted whatwas to be done next, & it was
agreed to retire for the night.”

The efforts of gentlemen in Boston to quiet the
mob did little to comfortHolton, nor did she trust their
intent. In her view, they werebehind everything.

Anne Fertig (40:18):
“The Credulity of the Common people here is
imposed on by a number of Liesraised to irritate & inflame
them. They believe that theCommissioners have an unlimited
power to tax even theirLands…every Officer of the Crown
that does his duty is becomeobnoxious, & they must either
fly or be sacrificed.”

The English woman feared that society itself was
unraveling, having only recentlyarrived from a country where
aristocracy infused everyelement of British society,
Boston's elite seemed unable,even unwilling, to control their
social inferiors, nor did therebel seem to give a damn about
deference.

Anne Hulton (41:00):
“From the inherent Republican, & levelling
principles, heres nosubordination in the Society.
Government is extirpated, & itis quite a State of
Anarchy…..The Sedition has beenfalsely represented at home as a
dying Faction – but thedefection is too general, most
of the other Provinces are onlywaiting to see the event of this

(41:21):
effort in Boston.”

In the months that followed the riot, Bostonians
learned that Lord Hillsboroughhad issued secret orders to
General Thomas Gage in New York,directing the commander in chief
to order two regiments fromHalifax, Nova Scotia to Boston.
From the confines of CastleWilliam, Henry Hulton and the
other customs commissionerspleaded to London “that nothing

(41:44):
but the immediate Exertion ofmilitary Power will prevent an
open Revolt of this Town.” Thesoldiers arrived in October 1768
to keep the peace and supportthe colony's Royal Government.
For Anne Hulton, they were, nodoubt, a welcome sight, where,
if she needed any furtherevidence of disorder in British

(42:05):
America or of the unnaturalcollusion between ordinary
colonists and their socialbetters, she need only look to
the non importation movementsgrowing in many colonies.

Rosemary Zagarri (42:15):
The colonists began to realize that one of
their most effective tools forapplying pressure against the
British was economic pressure,and so they began to call for
boycotts against British goods.I'm Rosemary Zagarri,
Distinguished UniversityProfessor and Professor of

(42:35):
history at George MasonUniversity. Firstly, they had to
get merchants on board, becauseif merchants were still
importing this stuff, it wasgoing to be kind of hard.

In New York, Massachusetts, Bay, South
Carolina and many of the oldermainland colonies, British
Americans began drawing onlessons learned from the Stamp
Act crisis to counter Townsendsreforms. If they could not make
a constitutional case for theirrepeal, they would make an
economic one. Leading men andwomen began calling on their
fellow subjects to go beyond nonconsumption and embrace non

(43:09):
importation. That was easiersaid than done. Merchants had
few incentives to voluntarilygive up their trade, nor were
they keen to act unless theircounterparts in other colonies
did so as well. It would not dowell for a Boston merchant to
swear off importing Britishgoods, only for an enterprising
Rhode Islander to sail in andsteal their customers.

(43:32):
Nevertheless, Boston merchantsbegan discussing such agreements
in March 1768, a month later,many merchants in New York City,
led by the powerful Delanceyfamily, publicly agreed to stop
importing British goods. AfterNovember, 1 60 Boston merchants
followed suit with a publicdeclaration in August, pledging

(43:52):
to cease importing British waresat the beginning of the new
year. Virginians and SouthCarolinians adopted similar
agreements in 1769. Theseweren't entirely noble or
virtuous decisions. Besidesbuying time to communicate the
threat of an economic boycott toParliament and British
merchants, the months longdelays would afford merchants

(44:13):
and consumers alike the chanceto fill orders with their
British suppliers and stockpiledgoods in anticipation of along,
drawn out dispute with themother country.

But as merchants began to agree and
sign on, for whatever reasons tothese boycotts, political
leaders began to realize thatthey also needed to enlist the
consumers so ordinary white men,but also ordinary white women,
and get them to support theboycotts, to not buy British

(44:45):
goods, to not buy them, even ifsome sneaky merchant in their
town offered tea at a cut rateprice, or some desirable piece
of fabric that they had beencoveting, or a beautiful tea
set.

that meant foregoing the purchase of many
goods made inBritain, objectsboth practical and refined,
everything from simple farmtools to luxurious fabrics made
of silk.

Zara Anishanslin (45:10):
Silk takes on some loaded political meaning,
mostly because silk is importedfrom Britain. For the most part,
American colonists also haveaccess to Chinese silk, and
they're definitely smugglingFrench silk when they can get
it, because French silk isalways seen as the best in terms
of patterned silk, althoughChinese silk damage is highly

(45:32):
coveted too. But Americancolonists are supposed to buy
their silk from England. They'resupposed to be buying London
Spitalfields manufactured silk,and they do. North American
colonies are the second largestmarket for that silk, besides
London itself. I'm ZaraAnishanslin and I'm a Professor
of History at the University ofDelaware. It becomes politically

(45:54):
loaded when a lot of importantAmericans who would wear silk
decide that they are not goingto buy British imported goods,
luxury goods, until certainlegislation is overturned by
Parliament, the Stamp Act,followed then by the towns and
duties. So it becomes a matterof if you disagree with what is
increasingly seen as thetyrannical overreach of British

(46:16):
Parliament, then you're notgoing to wear British silk, at
least not openly.

Denying oneself the pleasures of British made silk
in favor of more locally madefabrics meant disrupting global
trade, if only in a small way.

Zara Anishanslin (46:31):
Take for example, something that
eventually becomes a silk dressworn by the descendant of
English colonists in colonialPennsylvania. That piece of silk
would have been manufactured inLondon in England, but it would
have been made from silk fibersthat were taken from silkworms
that could have been raised asfar flung as places like China

(46:52):
and North America and Turkey orItaly and France. These are all
places where people raisedsilkworms to produce raw silk
that made its way to England inthe 18th century to then be
fashioned into thread, and thenbecome thread that was woven
into fabric, and then fabricthat was put on boats and
transported across the sea, andthen sewn together by someone

(47:13):
else's hands into the dress thatfits the shape of this woman's
body.

This portrait of a woman in silk shimmers next to
the fabrics that Virginians,South Carolinians and Georgians
imported to clothe theirenslaved people. They purchased
akind of course, plain linencalled osnaburg made in Scottish
textile mills to supply theircaptive populations with their
annual clothing needs. Even asenslaved people like Sukey of

(47:39):
Campbell County Virginia madeosnaburg their own by adorning
it with a bit of ribbon,enslavers on the mainland and in
the Caribbean relied on steadycargos of osnaburg for their
growing enslaved communities.The desire for silk and the
necessity of osnaburg helps toexplain why many British
American merchants and consumerswere reluctant to join non

(48:00):
importation movements and whythey were so hard to enforce.
South Carolinians had nointerest in damaging their
plantation enterprise, andPennsylvanians wanted the latest
fabrics and fashions fromLondon. But as one Bostonian put

Bostonian (48:14):
“You who can be comfortably and decently clothed
it bluntly:
with your own manufacturescannot think it an intolerable
hardship to abstain from theunmeaning superfluities of
foreign countries, when youdiscover that your fondness for
them is the engine intended tobe used to destroy the free

(48:36):
constitution of your country.”

The Bostonian meant to shame colonists who signed an
agreement only to import or wearBritish made clothing when they
thought no one was looking. Nonimportation agreements had no
legal force, and colonists didnot sign them lightly. By doing
so, they signaled theirassociation with a political
ideal that became a matter ofpublic record, leaving the men

(49:01):
and women who tried to enforcethem with only persuasion,
public ridicule and coercion attheir disposal. These were
powerful allies to the Sons ofLiberty. In July 1768, they
accused John Williams, a BritishAmerican and the inspector
general of customs in Boston ofbecoming an "actor in the

(49:23):
conspiracy formed against hisnative country." The smuggler
John Hancock was among themerchants whose names appeared
on the front page of The BostonChronicle for violating the
agreement. Others receivedvisits from local committees
inquiring about their loyalties.New Yorkers condemned
haberdasher and jeweler SimonCooley in a broadside that may

(49:44):
have been nailed to the door ofhis shop. And if the boycott
stood any chance of success,white men recognized that they
had to enlist the support ofwhite women as well. Here's
Rosemary Zagarri.

Male political leaders began to reach out to
women through newspapers,especially through broadsides,
through poetry, and to enlistthe support of women in these
boycotts against British goodsand appealing to the women as
fellow British subjects not tobuy British goods. And that was

(50:19):
an important move male politicalleaders realized that they
needed the support of women tomake these boycotts truly
effective.

In the 18th century, white women, regardless

In doing so, they were also recognizing that
of class, played crucial rolesin managing household economies.
The seeds, fabrics, books,portraits and tools they
women were political agents,that women had a political
purchased in shops or orderedfrom Britain shaped local
markets and the Atlantic trade.One South Carolinian remarked
that women “will be much theproperest persons to manage

(50:48):
[non-importation,] an affair ofso much consequence to the
American world.”
capacity, and this hadn't beenthought about before. This
hadn't been recognized becausewomen didn't have formal legal

(51:08):
rights and privileges the wayeven ordinary white males did,
but this was an important move,and what we see happening is
that ordinary, middling andupper class women in the
colonies responded to the callfor support for these boycott
movements, and the boycotts wereprobably the single most

(51:31):
important way that malepolitical leaders brought women
into the political sphere.

Hannah Griffiths was one of them. Griffiths was
born into a Pennsylvania Quakerfamily in the late 1720s she was
a prolific poet from an earlyage, and in 1768 she rhymed
about the female patriots in thepages of the Pennsylvania

Hannah Griffiths (51:54):
"Since the Men, for a Party or Fear of a
Gazette:
Frown, Are kept by aSuper-plumb quietly down
Supinely asleep–and depriv’d oftheir Sight, Are
stripp’d of their Freedom, androbb’d of their Right
If the Sons, so degenerate! TheBlessings despise,
Let the Daughters of Libertynobly arise”

As these Daughters of Liberty rose, some women had
no misgivings about remindingmen that restoring harmony in
the empire required selfsacrifices on everyone's part.
As one Rhode Islander wrote:

Rhode Islander (52:29):
"We are willing to give up our dear & beloved
Tea, for the Good of the Publicprovided the Gentlemen will give
up their dearer & more belovedPunch, renounce going so often
to Taverns, and become more kindand loving Sweethearts and
Husbands.”

It opened up a wide range of new possibilities,
partly because it allowed bothmen and women to imagine women
as political actors. We do havecases then of women forming
analogous groups to the Sons ofLiberty and calling themselves
the Daughters of Liberty andmaking homespun goods themselves

(53:06):
rather than purchase foreign orBritish textiles, we see women
defiantly drinking herbal teainstead of imported British tea,
or what was more likely, thoughwas to Drink some smuggled Dutch
tea that was still allowed womenstarted then to write to these

(53:26):
publications, and began to writepoems and plays that had a
political cast, that had apolitical message. It was
definitely not the intention ofthese resistors to British
oppression, that women shouldbecome political actors in their
own right, but it was anunintended consequence that had

(53:50):
some long term repercussions.

The Massachusetts Circular Letter and calls for
non importation arrived in NewYork in April 1768 to a city
struggling to find its way outof its own Imperial crisis. For
New Yorkers, commerce wasfundamental to who they were as
British subjects.

Christopher Minty (54:11):
It was central to how people thought
about themselves within theempire. My name is Christopher
Minty. I'm a Project editor atThe Center for Digital Editing
at the University of Virginia.People who are dealing in trade
at the port is central to whothey are, and the people who
work at the port is central towho they are too, because they
are in a living that way. Youwant New York City to do well.

(54:32):
You want the economy to bethriving during the French and
Indian War, when you have all ofthese British ships coming in,
you quite like that, becauseyou're busy. The people in the
port are doing well. The peoplethe people working in the city
proper are doing well.

When the war ended, however, and the money stopped
flowing from Britain across theAtlantic, the colonial economy
entered a downturn.

But they still remember what it was like
and what it could be like, andthat's central to who they are.
New York City has a commercial.National City. That's how it
should move forward. That's whowe are. Let's get back to what
it was like during the Frenchand Indian War, when there was a
lot of money going around NewYork.

The Delancey family believed that commerce was the
way forward for New York City aswell. By the late 1760s the
delanceys were ascendant in NewYork politics. The merchant
family's fortunes had long beentied to the city's connections
to the Empire and the commercethat flowed through its ports.
In their view, commerce and athriving economy were keys to

(55:30):
New York's prosperity, but formuch of the decade, they had
been bested by their politicalrivals, the Livingston family,
who controlled the assembly. Thelivingstons owned vast tracts of
land on Manhattan Island to thenorth of the city, and like any
great landed proprietors of the18th century, the elite
Livingstons expected theirtenants and the lower sort of

(55:51):
people to show deference totheir power and authority to
challenge the Livingston's holdon the Provincial Assembly. The
delanceys embraced a morepopular form of politics in
print, they appealed to men andwomen who shared their vision of
a commercial future by promotingthe idea that the livingstons
and their allies, many of whomwere lawyers, would use their

(56:13):
knowledge of the law to filltheir own coffers and deny them
their rights and liberties.During the election of 1768, one
Delancey supporter urged votersto reject lawyer John Morin Scot
through the majesty of song.

Delancey Supporter (56:28):
“Unite in Time, against this common Foe,
Convince the Wretch that all hisArts are vain, That his vile
Purpose he shall ne’er obtain,This once prevent him, in his
enterprise, He’ll fall likeLUCIFER, no more to rise”

The delanceys also built coalitions of like minded
New Yorkers and local taverns.They paid for lavish dinners and
seemingly endless pints of beerin pubs like Benjamin Stout's
Tavern on Bowery Lane, helpingelite merchants and common
people alike to forge socialbonds, they could then mobilize
into political action. The NewYork Sons of Liberty had arisen

(57:08):
out of this community to resistthe Stamp Act in 1765 and the
Delanceys had ridden popularopposition to Townsend's taxes
to electoral victories in 1768and 1769 taking control of the
assembly and putting them inpower to realize their vision of
New York's commercial empire.That vision included new

(57:29):
institutions to protect andpromote the city's trade and the
public good.

The Delanceys established the Chamber of
Commerce is the first one in thecolonies to help regularize New
York City's trading economy.Almost all of the members and
its Board of Trustees areDelanceys, and that's one way
for them to promote and protectthe city's economy. Another
thing that they do is they setup the Marine Society, which is

(57:56):
for widows and orphans. New YorkCity got more firemen. They were
able to make sure there weremore firemen on the streets to
protect New Yorkers. They'reprotecting the public good
because there are more firemen.They built a viewing gallery in
the assembly so New Yorkerscould, quite literally, go and
watch their assemblyman. So thatyou come in, you could sit down

(58:16):
and watch them debate, watchthem talk about bills, pass
bills talk about theparliament's attempts to
reorient the British Empire, andthat's how they say, Look, we
are advancing the public goodhere, and you can hold us to
account because you can comewatch us.

But the New York restraining Act, the rest of
Townsend's duties and theDelanceys' own political
missteps threatened all of it.

Since 1763 the city's economy has been
stagnating. Parliament andLondon was attempting to
reorient the British Empire toexert control. The Currency Act
in 1764 made paper currency hardto come by, and it made
borrowing very, very difficult.Paper Money wasn't flowing.
There wasn't as much there. Thedelanceys wanted a way to kind

(59:04):
of inject more money into thecity's economy.

New Yorkers navigated this weakening economy
with soldiers living in theirmidst.

It's important to remember,
especially for the Delanceys,that New York City is the center
for the British Army in NorthAmerica. There are lots of
British soldiers, there always.

The relationship between the soldiers sent to
defend British America and thecity's civilian inhabitants who
did not want a standing armyamong them, remained tense. The
Liberty pole that now stood onthe city's commons, within sight
of the Upper Barracks, attestedto a growing divide between the
king's subjects. Blacksmiths hadencased part of the 70 foot tall

(59:45):
pine mast and iron to preventsoldiers from the 28th regiment
from tearing down their monumentto liberty, a monument the
soldiers saw as a rallying cryfor mob rule. Nevertheless, in
the British Army, the Delanceysaw an economic opportunity.

Christopher Minty (01:00:01):
They saw British soldiers as potential
consumers, so that thesesoldiers, who were living in New
York anyway, like they did inthe 1750s and early 1760s they
could go and purchase things,spend their money on whatever
New York City has to offer. TheBritish Army not only could
offer short term solution, butthis was a long term solution

(01:00:23):
for them, and the de Lancie viewon how to move forward the city
was on its development throughcolonial consumers. They wanted
people to spend their money inthe city's taverns and coffee
houses and stores and whatever.If New Yorkers had more money
literally in their hands, theywould be able to spend more.
They spend more all across thecity. They would open other

(01:00:45):
marketplaces where New Yorkerscould spend more money. And in
the long run, New Yorkers wouldrealize economic liberty.

Jim Ambuske (01:00:53):
The Delanceys could do little to revive the
economy,however, if the colonyremained under sanction by the
New York restraining act.Historians sometimes treat the
Restraining Act, one of thefirst of Townsend's reforms, as
a law separate from the otheracts that created the new taxes
in the customs board, but inreality, they were one in the

(01:01:14):
same. Townsend could not hope tobuild a coherent empire with
more centralized rule without aclear demonstration of the
colony's subordination toParliament. The New York
Restraining Act was designed todo just that. It prevented the
New York General Assembly frompassing any new laws until it
complied with the Quartering Actof 1765 which directed all

(01:01:37):
colonies to raise money tosupport British soldiers
stationed in North America.Governor Henry Moore had little
choice but to dissolve thelegislature and call for new
elections until its membersagreed to supply British troops
according to parliament'smandate. The Massachusetts
Circular Letter only compoundedan already complicated
situation. The New York assemblywas not in session when the

(01:02:00):
letter arrived, and when itreconvened later that fall, the
representatives continuedplaying the kind of political
games that had given rise to therestraining act in the first
place. Instead of discussing theletter from Massachusetts, the
members just debated one fromVirginia instead. In the
meantime, the Delanceys andtheir allies took to the streets

(01:02:21):
to mobilize against the Townsendacts. With Delancey support,
many of the city's merchantsbegan signing a non importation
agreement to take effect onNovember 1 1768 pledging not to
import British goods untilParliament repealed the Townsend
reforms. The Delanceys alsocanvassed the city's free white

(01:02:41):
residents, asking them to sign apetition calling on the assembly
to take the bold, risky step ofdebating the circular letter
from Massachusetts. The petitionwas a stratagem. James Delancey,
the leader of his family'sfaction, knew that if the
assembly began debating theletter, Governor Moore would be
obliged to dissolve it, and thatwas the point. By introducing a

(01:03:05):
motion to begin the debate, onethat would pass with his
faction's support, Delancey andhis allies could claim the moral
high ground, that they wereacting in response to the
people's demands. And when Moorefollowed his orders from London
and sent the representativeshome, the Delanceys could argue
that imperial officials, inleague with their Livingston

(01:03:26):
rivals, had conspired to harmNew York's interest and its
economic liberty. It would makefor good political fodder in the
next election campaign, when theDelanceys hoped to bolster their
numbers in the assembly andfinally deal with what they saw
as an even greater threat theNew York restraining act. But in
December 1768 when the assemblywas once again in session, the

(01:03:49):
Livingstons sprung a politicaltrap. They sent a newly elected
representative named PhilipSchuyler to the floor to call
for a debate on the circularletter. Having lost the
political high ground, and theirplan to dissolve the assembly on
their terms, the Delancey saw nochoice but to vote against
Schuyler's motion and keep thelegislature open. It wasn't

(01:04:11):
until the waning hours of theyear, long after the assembly
had attended to other business,when it no longer mattered if
they stayed in session, that therepresentatives finally took up
the plea from Massachusetts,they began debating the circular
letter on December the 31st.Governor Moore dissolved the
assembly two days later. Thelivingstons may have robbed the

(01:04:37):
Delanceys of their politicaltriumph in 1768, but they
believed that they were playinga game of chess while everyone
else amused themselves withrounds of whist. In the election
of 1769, the Delanceys mobilizedtheir networks, campaigning in
print and pouring pints in thepubs to increase their gains in
the assembly. By the fall of1769 reports began arriving from

(01:05:01):
London that Parliament wasconsidering the repeal of
Townsend's taxes, and a signthat the boycotts were having
some effect, imports had droppedin New York by 85% from the
previous year, dramaticallygreater than the 54% decline in
Pennsylvania and a similarnumber in New England. With
their gains at the polls, TheDelanceys believed that they had

(01:05:23):
a popular mandate to pursuetheir vision of New York's
commercial future. In theireyes, that meant lifting the
weight of the New YorkRestraining Act and
reinvigorating local trade byissuing paper money. That would
not be easy. The prospect of newpaper currency was widely
popular, but casting off theshadow of the restraining act

(01:05:45):
meant complying fully with thewidely reviled Quartering Act.
Even if the Delanceys sawsoldiers as potential consumers,
most of the city's residentsdidn't want a standing army in
the city, and they had even lessdesire to pay for it. As the
assembly began debating twobills, one to issue paper money,
the other to comply with theQuartering Act, the Delanceys

(01:06:07):
sought advice from their oldallies, the Sons of Liberty.
Here's Christopher Minty

The Delanceys. they consult with a
member of the Sons of Libertycalled Isaac Sears. He's a very
prominent supporter of theDelanceys. He helped the
Delanceys get elected in 68 healso helped him get elected in
69 so they consult with him,kind of viewing him as someone
who has a good sense of thecity. It's like we have to talk

(01:06:33):
about this, because as part ofthe Townsend acts, Parliament
had passed the New YorkEestraining Act, which would
essentially close and shut downthe New York assembly. So it's
okay. We have to talk aboutthis, and we have to do
something, because if we don't,Parliament's going to
essentially shut us down. Andthat's bad. That's worse than
the Quartering Act. Is it not?Sears is like, Well, yeah, I

(01:06:55):
guess you're right, but NewYorkers hate it. If you can kind
of tag the paper currency billonto the coronary hat bill and
push them through at the sametime. Maybe we can get it
through that way, but it's asensitive topic. So might go
well, might not.

It did not go well at all. When the Delanceys
introduced bills in December1769, to issue 120,000 pounds of
paper currency, out of whichsome would be used to provide
for the soldiers, New Yorkerswho wanted to watch the debates
from the gallery gathered at theassembly doors. And as they did

(01:07:34):
so, the Delanceys made anincalculable mistake.

They're in the assembly. They get ready to
talk about it, and as they getready to kind of vote and
discuss everything, they closethe assembly doors and lock them
so nobody can access the viewingchamber. Now, up until this
point, they've been smartpolitical actors. They've done
very well in mobilizing supportand making sure that they're

(01:08:01):
engaging with New Yorkers onanother level, shutting the
doors. Big mistake, because NewYorkers are waiting to get in
and they realize, oh, I can'tget in. They put change around
the door and the paper currencyand the quartering up bill, they
both pass. So that's just like,oh, look what's happened.

Governor Moore's death just a few months earlier,
only made matters worse for thedelanceys.

Henry Moore, he dies, and because of the way
that sort of New York'sgovernment is set up, until a
new governor can be appointedand travel to New York, the most
senior politician sort of stepsinto the role, and that's
Cadwalader Colden who had servedas temporary governor during the
Stamp Act riots. Didn't go wellfrom him then. He's probably the
most hated person in New York,and at this time he he's he's

(01:08:50):
really old. He is very old. Hehas served in one office or
another since the 1720s so he isold. He's tired. He remembers
what happened in 1765, hedoesn't want a difficult,
temporary governorship. He wantsit to be, quote, easy. So he
just kind of goes along withwhat's happening. But because

(01:09:11):
he's there when people don'tlike him, the Delanceys are
guilty by association with him,and this leads to the emergence
of a coherent politicalassociation organized by
Alexander McDougall, and that'swhen he really comes onto the
scene.

Locking the doors on the assembly all but
destroyed the popular supportthe Delanceys had spent so much
political capital building, andit enraged Alexander McDougall,
an immigrant from Scotland.

McDougall is from the Hebrides, and he moved
to New York in the late 1730s heserves as a privateer during the
French and Indian War, and he'skind of a middling merchant in
the 1760s. MacDougall emerges inDecember 1769 by authoring an
anonymous broadside, "To theBetrayed Inhabitants of New

(01:10:01):
York." Is very dramatic "To TheBetrayed Inhabitants of New
York," and it's published byJames Parker, one of the
printers in New York,

MacDougall, gave the Delanceys and Cadwallader
Coldenquarter in his anonymousbroadside,

Alexander McDougall (01:10:15):
"In a day when the minions of tyranny and
despotism in the mother countryand the colonies, are
indefatigable in laying everysnare that their malevolent and
corrupt hearts can suggest, toenslave a free people, when this
unfortunate country has beenstriving under many
disadvantages for three yearspast, to preserve their freedom;

(01:10:37):
which to an Englishman is asdear as his life, – when the
merchants of this city and thecapital towns on the continent,
have nobly and cheerfullysacrificed their private
interest to the public good,rather than to promote the
designs of the enemies of ourhappy constitution: It might
justly be expected, that in thisday of constitutional light, the

(01:10:59):
representatives of this colonywould not be so hardy, nor be so
lost to all sense of duty totheir constituents, as to betray
the trust committed to them.This they have done in passing
the vote to give the troops athousand pounds out of any
monies that may be in thetreasury."

This broadside spreads. The Delanceys
are immediately aware of it,because this is very public
attack on them. He criticizesthe Delanceys and Cadwallader
Colden. He alleges that theDelanceys have formed an
alliance with Colden and theironly goal is to advance
themselves, to get richer forthemselves, to take money from

(01:11:43):
ordinary New Yorkers. They'reself serving. They don't care
about ordinary New Yorkers.Colden, he's basically the worst
person in the world, and theDelanceys are next, because
they're associated with him.

In the wake of the broadside the Delanceys and
Colden began searching for itsanonymous author.

They start off this huge manhunt to find
who's written, and eventuallythey land on macdoug, partly
because of the printer and JamesParker's apprentice, they're
able to put a draft of theBroadside and link it to Parker,
and then Parker's apprentice andthen link it to McDougall. So
eventually they arrestMcDougall, and they're going to

(01:12:26):
try him for a seditious libel,because they're attacking
everybody in government. So theyput McDougal in jail, and
McDougall said, Okay, you canput me in jail if you want.

Jailing McDougall only enhanced his reputation
throughout British America. Manycolonists began to liken him to
John Wilkes, the radical Englishprinter and politician. In the
early 1760s the BritishGovernment tried Wilkes for
seditious libel after hecriticized the king and his
ministers in the 45th issue ofhis magazine the North Britain,

(01:12:57):
many British Americanscelebrated Wilkes as the
defender of liberty inMcDougall, they began to see the
same.

people could come up and see him through the
bars. They delivered 45 bottlesof wine, 45 pounds of venison,
45 almost anything you can thinkof, because they view him as
similar to John Wilkes. Theyappropriate the number 45 and
mcdougald becomes the Wilkes ofAmerica. He keeps writing as

(01:13:28):
well. So he's writing pieces inthe newspapers to mobilize
support to him away from theDelanceys. And it works

Despite the seriousness of the charges.
McDougall never stood trial.

He tries to get James Otis in Massachusetts
to represent him. He says no.Tries to get John Dickinson to
represent him. He says, No.Eventually it has this cadre of
New York lawyers. Doesn't go totrial because Parker, the
printer dies. So McDougall kindof gets off, forgive the pun,
Scot free. He gets off. And thennow he's out on the streets,
he's back out, able to mobilizesupport. His way that he

(01:14:04):
mobilizes people is that hethinks and his supporters think
that you should be monitoringgovernment at all times, and as
soon as they turn against youand they look to compromise your
liberties, you should removethem from power. And through the
Quartering Act and the CurrencyAct debacle, closing the doors,
that's what he thought theDelanceys had done, and their

(01:14:27):
subsequent behavior, throwinghim in jail, trying to try him,
was just further evidencethey're not all they're made up
to be. And that's when peoplereally diverge.

For New Yorkers, for many British Americans, and
for Britons an ocean away, theglass they had peered through,
but darkly at the end of theSeven Years' War had grown
darker still, and they could nomore grasp the triumphant future
they had once imagined togetherthan they could Townshend's
ghost. Here's Patrick Griffin.

Patrick Griffin (01:14:56):
Americans begin connecting dots. Some people are
saying, Whoa, wait a minute. Wehad the Stamp Act, but then we
were euphoric when it was doneaway with now we have the
Townshend duties. Wait a minute.There's a bit of a pattern here.
People take these events thatdon't necessarily have to be
tied together, but in theirminds, they tether them. And

(01:15:17):
people were on both sides of theocean were engaged in the same
kind of pattern making, but todifferent ends. To me, the
interesting thing is, how youknit together, the
contingencies, how you create apattern in your mind, in that,
on one hand, for the town'sends, could lead to a vision of
Empire, but for Americans, couldalso lead to a vision of

(01:15:38):
revolution.

in January 1770, King George the Third appointed
yet another new prime minister,his sixth in seven years,
Frederick north, second Earl ofGuilford, more commonly known as
Lord North had succeeded CharlesTownsend as Chancellor of the
Exchequer when Townsendsuccumbed to his illness in

(01:16:07):
1767. Now as prime minister,Lord North began to undo some of
Townsend's work. The duties onpaper, paint, lead, glass and
tea never raised a substantialrevenue, yet the non importation
agreements had cost Britishmerchants much, by some
estimates, 700,000 pounds in oneyear alone. And as many

(01:16:30):
colonists had hoped, longsuffering, British merchants who
depended on North Americanmarkets began pressuring
parliament to resolve theImperial crisis by repealing at
least some of town, since actsLord North and his government
agreed, the customs board, thevice admiralty courts and the
East India Company's tax reliefwould stay, but the duties on

(01:16:52):
paper, paint, lead and glasswould go. Only the duty on tea
would remain, a token tax on aluxury good, a modest symbol of
Parliament's supremacy and itsauthority over British America
with most of the duties gone,then perhaps the trade boycotts
would collapse and life wouldreturn to normal. Lord North

(01:17:15):
introduced a motion to repealmost of Townshend's duties on
March the 5th, 1770. The primeminister had no way of knowing
that hours later, on a bitterlycold night on King Street in
Boston, the king's soldierswould fire on the king's
subjects.

(01:17:47):
Thanks for listening to WorldsTurned Upside Down. Worlds is a
production of R2 Studios, partof the Roy RosenzweigCenter for
History and New Media at GeorgeMason University. I'm your host.
Jim Ambuske, this episode ofWorlds Turned Upside Down by an
anonymous friend of R2 Studiosin George Mason University.
Learn how you can support theseries at art two studios.org

(01:18:11):
where you'll also find acomplete transcript of today's
episode and suggestions forfurther reading. Worlds is
researched and written by mewith additional research writing
and script editing by JeanettePatrick. Special, thanks to J L
Bell, Jocelyn Gould and SaraGeorgini for additional research
support. Jeanette Patrick and Iare the executive producers.

(01:18:34):
Grace Mallon is our Britishcorrespondent. Our lead audio
editor for this episode isJeanette Patrick. Special thanks
to Curt Dahl of CD Squared HaleyMadl is our graduate assistant.
Our thanks to Patrick Griffin,Zara Anishanslin Rosemary
Zagarri and Christopher Mintyfor sharing their expertise with
us in this episode. Special,thanks to our voice actors, Adam

(01:18:57):
Smith, Melissa Gismondi, GraceMallon Jeanette Patrick Ann
Fertig Haley Madl, AlexanderMiller, Beau Robbins, Kathryn
Gehred, and Evan McCormick.Subscribe to Worlds on your
favorite podcast app. Thanks,and we'll see you next time you.

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