In the third of five sections Richard Price
devoted in Part II of his Observations
to examining the conduct of the burgeoning conflict between Great Britain and
the Thirteen Colonies – with the aim, as aforesaid, of calling said conduct
into question – he proceeded to turn his attention to what he described as,
“The Policy of the War with America.”
His specific aim therein was essentially to establish that the stated objective
of the sitting government of Lord North – i.e. to restore the previously
existing relationship between Britain and its American dependencies – was
exceedingly unlikely to occur in consequence of the tactics being deployed by
that selfsame administration.
The analysis Price deployed to this end
encompassed an admirably wide scope of contemporary foreign and domestic policy
– from trade, to taxation, to banking – though the cogency of his reasoning was
not always as consistent as he might have hoped. On the subject of the
mercantile intercourse which had previously existed between Great Britain and
its American dependencies, for example, the author of Observations keenly and effectively noted that claims made by the
North Ministry to want nothing more than the resumption of harmonious trade
were almost wholly at odds with the effects of the various measures that same
government had endeavored to enact in the 1760s and 1770s. Similarly astute was
Price’s observation that, prior to the onset of the Anglo-American crisis,
Britain already enjoyed a tremendous degree of influence over almost every
aspect of life and government in colonial America, and that subsequent attempts
to extend this influence could not but represent a species of uncommon greed on
the part of the ministry of Lord North. His accounting of Britain’s precarious
monetary position was markedly less shrewd, however. Capable though Price no
doubt was of comprehending and articulating the complexities of 18th
century lending practices, interest rates, and currency values, his personal,
ideological, and moral disdain for the luxury and corruption he believed was
inevitably generated by easy access to large sums of money appeared to weigh to
a greater extent upon his conclusions in this matter than did a rigorous
accounting of the facts at hand. Bearing this in mind, one is rightly bound to
consider to what degree the whole of Price’s defense of the ongoing America
resistance to the North Ministry and its policies was spurred by a kind of
spontaneous sympathy on his part to the injustices the colonists had been
forced to endure, and to what extent the man was already inclined to question
the virtue of any authority whose stated aim was something other than wholesale
reform of Britain’s public institutions and political culture.
But
let us return, for the moment, to the purpose of the North Ministry’s campaign
in America. It would seem to warrant examination the degree to which Price
first endeavored to make it clear at the outset of Part II, Section III that
said government’s stated goal of reestablishing the accustomed supremacy of
Great Britain over the colonies was an acceptable rationale only if it could be
demonstrated that some form of advantage was to be thereby derived.
Specifically, he explained that,
The desire
of maintaining authority is warrantable, only so far as it is the means of
promoting some end, and doing some good; and that, before we resolve to spread
famine and fire through a country in order to make it acknowledge our
authority, we ought to be assured that great advantages will arise not only to
ourselves but to the country we wish to conquer.
A fairly durable
rationale being thus established – that one country could justifiably assert
its control over another only if it could be demonstrated that both parties
stood to derive an advantage from the resulting connection – it thereby stood
to reason that an inability to meet the appropriate criteria would render the relevant
association – or actions taken to support it – wholly indefensible. The reason
for this, Price explained, once more echoing John Locke, was that any species
of authority, in order to be considered legitimate in the eyes of those who
experience its power, must serve some kind of purpose outside of its own
perpetuation. Governments that accordingly fail to, “Preserve the peace and to
secure the safety of the state [,]” can thereby be considered, by their very
nature, “Tyrannical, as far as [they constitute] a needless and wanton exercise
of power [.]”
Every authority in
every nation on earth was bound to measure itself by this basic standard of
purpose, Britain no more or no less than any other. That Britain was the particular
focus of Price’s concern and suspicion therefore owed itself – alongside that
fact that Price was of course a resident of the same and a noted and
longstanding critic of its institutions – to certain specific events that had
recently occurred within the context of the Anglo-American crisis. First, in
light of his stated conviction that, “A love of power for its own sake [is]
inherent in human nature [,]” Price questioned the degree to which the British
reaction against the resistance offered by the Thirteen Colonies was motivated
by a regard for the law and a desire to restore some semblance of peace and
security. On the contrary, he offered, “Is it not the opposition they make to
our pride and not any injury they have done to us, that is the secret spring of
our present animosity against them?” Had not the British people grown
accustomed to looking upon the inhabitants of America as a nation, “Whom we
have a right to order as we please, who hold their property at our disposal,
and who have no other law than our will [?]” Price certainly believed it
possible that this was the case, and wondered if certain of his countrymen
might not agree if they examined their feelings on the matter more closely.
“Perhaps,” he thus entreated,
They would
become sensible, that it was a spirit of domination, more than a regard to the
true interests of this country, that lately led so many of them, which such
savage folly, to address the throne for the slaughter of their brethren in America, if they will not submit to them;
and to make offers of their lives and fortunes for that purpose.
While it wouldn’t
be fair to say that Price was wrong to thus question the motivations of the
ministers and supporters of the government of Lord North, it nonetheless bears
consideration the degree to which he could possibly have known for certain
whether or not the relevant individuals were indeed acting wholly out of a
sense of wounded vanity.
The statements
issued by the Crown – under the auspices of the North Ministry – in the weeks and
months following the commencement of hostilities in April, 1775, while not
necessarily all that kind to the leaders of the American resistance, could
hardly be described as calling “for the slaughter of their brethren in America
[.]” The Proclamation of Rebellion, for example, issued principally in response
to the British defeat at the Battle of Bunker Hill (June 17th,
1775), went little further than referring to the instigators of the incipient
colonial rebellion as, “Dangerous and ill designing men,” who had forgotten,
“The allegiance which they owe to the power that has protected and supported
them [.]” They were “traitorous,” to be sure, as were their “conspiracies” and
their “correspondence,” and their actions most definitely constituted
rebellion. But neither the king nor his government seemed yet intent on
condemning anyone to slaughter. The Speech from the Throne offered in October
of that same year was similarly restrained in its use of invective. The
instigators of the relevant disturbance in the colonies were guilty of, “Gross
misrepresentations,” it affirmed, had deployed a, “Torrent of violence” to
ensure the cooperation of their fellow subjects in America, and were now engaged
in a, “rebellious war […] manifestly carried on for the purpose of establishing
an independent empire.” Doubtless the body of delegates then seated in the
Continental Congress would have loudly and explicitly asserted that these were
all of them false claims, and that describing the actions being undertaken in
defense of American liberties as, “Revolt, hostility and rebellion [,]”
represented nothing short of slander. But promises of a massacre, they most
certainly were not.
By couching their
official reaction in the language of contemporary diplomacy, law, and war, George
III and his ministers had thus effectively made it that much harder to
determine whether they were acting out of a sense of duty or betrayal,
pragmatism or pride. To his credit – and in spite of his evident affirmation to
the contrary – Price seemed to be aware of this fact, and endeavored to
approach his examination of Britain’s conduct vis-à-vis the American colonies
with an appropriate focus on action as well as motivation. If the policies
advanced by the North Ministry – or by its recent predecessors – indeed
appeared conducive to the salvation and strengthening of the Anglo-American
relationship, then there would accordingly seem to be no reason at all to call
the intentions of the relevant government into question. Having attempted in
good faith to mend an increasingly frayed connection, whatever errors they had
committed as a result could consequently have been excused and forgiven as the
honest mistakes of an ultimately well-meaning administration. If, however, it might
plainly be demonstrated that the actions variously pursued by successive
British governments could never have resulted in the restoration and/or
reinforcement of the Anglo-American relationship – or even seemed destined to
do injury to the best interests of the parties involved – it would appear far
from unreasonable to conclude that the purpose of said governments were
something less than virtuous and pure. Having determined to wound America at
the cost of wounding themselves in turn, the authorities responsible could not
but be characterized as having adopted a vicious and contradictory response to
having doubt cast upon the extent of their power.
Proceeding to
apply this investigative framework to specific aspects of the North Ministry’s
administration in America, Price first hit upon the ostensibly reckless manner
in which said government had endeavored to pursue certain policies wholly and
demonstrably inimical to the preservation of the already much-strained
relationship between Great Britain and its American dependencies. To that end,
he first set himself to enumerating the many and various pieces of legislation
that had been laid by successive British governments upon either the trade of
the American colonies or the revenues thereof. The Molasses Act (1733), he
affirmed, was the first of these, passed in the sixth year of the reign of
George II (1683-1760) with the intention – by taxing competing products – of
increasing the sale in America of sugar, molasses, and the spirits derived from
either that had been produced in the British West Indies. “As the act had the
appearance of being only a regulation of trade,” Price was keen to note, “The
colonies submitted to it [.]” Likewise did they submit to an amended version of
the same legislation in 1765 – the so-called Sugar Act – though it was pursued
with the express intention of, “Raising a revenue in America.” This fact, Price
avowed, was cause for some alarm, “And produced discontents and remonstrances,
which might have convinced our rulers that this was tender ground, on which it
became them to tread very gently.” Nothing like a sustained uproar was then
observed, however, for it seemed that the inhabitants of British America
thought it yet still permissible for Parliament to claim the right to tax them
externally. Peace was thus preserved, for the time being, though the limits of
American indulgence had been nearly approached.
These limits were subsequently
breached with the passage of the Stamp Act (1765). “This being,” Price
affirmed,
An attempt
to tax [the colonists] INTERNALLY; and a direct attack on their property, by a
power which would not suffer itself to be questioned; which eased itself by loading them and to which it as impossible to fix any bounds; they were
thrown at once, from one end of the continent to the other, into resistance and
rage.
Vehement though the
resulting public reaction most certainly was, however – ranging from hostile
newspaper editorials, public demonstrations, and organized boycotts to riots
that resulted in the harassment of tax officials and the destruction of public
and private property – even these fervent expressions of popular discontent represented
only a temporary breach of the colonists seemingly concerted intention to
exercise the greatest degree possible of moderation and forbearance. Once the
government of the Marquess of Rockingham (1730-1782) secured the repeal of the
Stamp Act in March, 1766, the colonists showed themselves perfectly willing to
ignore the implications of the accompanying Declaratory Act – the text of which
stated that Parliament would continue to possess, “Full power and authority to
make laws and statutes […] to bind the colonies and people of
America [...] in all cases whatsoever” – and return to a state of peaceful
intercourse with their fellow subjects in Britain. The colonists were perhaps
not particularly encouraged by this parting shot on the part of Rockingham –
this stubborn claim to hold a power which the inhabitants of British America
had never consented to bestow – but as Price asserted, “They would undoubtedly
have suffered us (as the people of Ireland
have done) to enjoy our declaratory law.” Thus, yet again, peace was preserved.
This was not to be the case
indefinitely, of course. For whatever reason, in accordance with whatever
impulse, successive British governments in the 1760s and 1770s evidently made
it a common objective to continually test the limits of the Anglo-American
relationship. Case in point, Price explained, “Little more than a year after
the repeal of the Stamp-Act, when all
was peace, a third act was passed, imposing duties payable in America on tea, paper, glass, painters
colours, &c.” As one might well have expected, the result of this attempt
to once more tax the colonies for the purpose of generating revenue – in the
form of the so-called Townshend Duties (passed between June, 1767 and July,
1768) – was the resumption of civil demonstrations, editorial condemnation, and
organized boycotts. Customs officials were once more harassed, an ultimately
failed attempt was made by Massachusetts Governor Francis Bernard (1712-1779)
to have certain of the instigators sent to Britain to stand trial for treason,
and four British regiments were dispatched to Boston in order aid in
reasserting the authority of the Crown’s various agents. Once more made
conscious of the fact that efforts to tax the colonies would never be wholly
frictionless, the British government – now led by the aforementioned Lord North
– engineered the repeal of all but one of the odious duties, the exception
being that placed on tea. While this last measure was retained, Price avowed,
“In order to maintain a shew of dignity” – hardly a cause to which the
beleaguered colonies would have been likely to lend their assistance – the
effort nonetheless, “Answered its intended purposes.” The colonists were forced
only to avoid purchasing one imported commodity instead of several, Anglo-American
trade was permitted once more to recover, and customs agents were no longer to
fear being chased out of their homes in the middle of the night by
torch-bearing mobs. Price affirmed that this state of affairs would have
remained undisturbed, “And even tea would perhaps in time have been gradually
admitted, had not the evil genius of Britain
stepped forth once more to embroil the Empire.”
Granting that Price’s choice of
words – i.e. “evil genius” – represented something of an overstatement, he was not
necessarily wrong to suggest that the North Ministry’s actions following the
repeal of the Townshend Duties were difficult to fathom if they could not be attributed
to malicious intent. The desire of that government to prop up the flagging
fortunes of the East India Company was understandable enough, at least. Having
suffered for the loss of the American market for its tea, it was determined
that the best method for encouraging a reversal of this state of affairs was
for Company product to be sold in the colonies free of all taxes save for a
pittance of three pence on every pound purchased. Being thus presented with the
choice of going without tea altogether, purchasing illegally smuggled tea – the
transportation and sale of which was the subject of continued condemnation and
punishment – or purchasing the now cheap and plentiful Company tea, it was
hoped that the colonists would take what was obviously the simplest path
forward and begin buying what was on offer. In so doing, it was hoped that the withering
fortunes of an essential institution of the British Empire might be bolstered
at the same time that the inhabitants of America could be made to break their
self-imposed boycott and tacitly acknowledge the right of Parliament to lay
taxes on their internal commerce. While Price affirmed that this, “Snare was
too gross to escape the notice of the Colonies [,]” the residents thereof
nevertheless went little farther than refusing to unload the product in their
ports. The exception to this otherwise peaceful refusal to cooperate in a
scheme intended to trick them into surrendering an essential liberty occurred
in Boston, Price allowed, wherein, “Some persons in disguise buried [the offending
goods] in the sea.” And though he offered no judgment in the text of his Observations as to the righteousness or
folly of this action – that being the much-mythologized Boston Tea Party of
December 16th, 1773 – he did allow that the people of Massachusetts,
in his opinion, would likely have been willing to make adequate compensation
for the British property thereby destroyed provided that such compensation
represented the whole of the punishment they were required to suffer.
That this was not to be the case
should very likely go without saying. For, in addition to the Boston Port Act –
to which, Price once more asserted, “The province might possibly have
submitted, and a sufficient saving would have been gained for the honor of the
nation” – the North Ministry secured the passage of the aforementioned
Massachusetts Government Act, the Administration of Justice Act, and the Quebec
Act, all by the end of June, 1774. Combined with the four British regiments
stationed in Boston following the tumults occasioned by the Townshend Duties,
the people of Massachusetts were effectively left under military occupation,
with no government other than that which Parliament granted them, devoid of
trade with the outside world, incapable of trying certain offenders in their
own courts of law, and robbed of the ability to migrate westward as their needs
and their desires inclined them. All else that had been laid upon the colonies
– as early as 1733 and as late as 1773 – while perhaps not likely to have
enamored the inhabitants thereof to the British governments responsible, had
not proven themselves beyond the ability of the American temper to endure. They
had accepted the taxation of their external trade as being for the benefit of
the empire at large. They had consented to a Parliamentary claim of an absolute
right to tax their internal commerce so long as it was not unduly exercised.
They had even managed to make their peace with the existence of a standing army
in their midst over whom they could exercise not the slightest control. Now and
then, in response to a policy they felt was unjust, they had certainly been
willing to make their displeasure known, sometimes to the point of physical
violence. But always, once the policy in question had been rescinded, they
returned to their accustomed state of peaceful forbearance. Clearly, in spite
of everything they had been made to suffer, these were a people willing to go
to significant lengths to preserve the status quo.
Such
a saintly expression of patience was not without its limits, however. Tolerant
though the colonists plainly were, they had at every occasion maintained that
they were under no circumstances willing to surrender the liberties to which
they felt they were entitled by birth. They might have suffered to see them
bent to some degree, in the name of preserving harmonious relations between
themselves and their fellow subjects in Britain. But such gestures of
accommodation were under no circumstances meant to give permission for further
encroachments upon their basic civil rights. The popular clamor aroused by the
passage of the Stamp Act in 1765 and the Townshend Duties in 1767-68 should
have served as ample evidence of this essential truth. The inhabitants of
British American were willing to suffer the taxation of their external trade, limited
taxation of their internal trade – so long as it was relatively easy to avoid
making payment – and even the deployment of armed soldiers to their streets.
But they never bore any of it quietly, and, in such instances as came
particularly close to forcing them to acknowledge their supposed subservience
to the British government, made the nature and intensity of their discontent
impossible to ignore. Such was Price’s analysis, at least. Looking back upon
the aforementioned mixture of patience and conviction with which the colonists
comported themselves during the 1760s and 1770s, and in light of the events of
the Boston Tea Party, he affirmed in text of his Observations that,
All who
knew any thing of the temper of the Colonies saw that the effect of all sudden
accumulation of vengeance, would probably be not intimidating but exasperating
them, and driving them into a general revolt.
The North Ministry,
unfortunately, appeared truly not to know anything of the temper of the
colonies. All evidence to the contrary, “They believed that the malcontents in
the Colony of Massachusetts were a
small party, headed by a few fractious men […] and that, the issue would prove,
in a few months, order, tranquility, and submission.” Events would very quickly
show otherwise.
At this stage in his retelling of
the events of 1765-1775, Price once again saw fit to call explicitly into
question the sincerity of the government of Lord North in its dealings with the
Thirteen Colonies. The members and supporters of that government, he affirmed,
did not believe that opposition to its policies was a conviction widely held in
America, or that the colonies otherwise unaffected by the events transpiring in
Massachusetts would seek to make common cause with the same. Difficult as it
might have been to credit an otherwise talented group of statesmen with being
so exceedingly shortsighted, the fact of it was at the very least possible.
That being said, once the colonies had offered their collective reaction to the
passage of the aforementioned punitive acts – in the form of the Continental
Congress and its America-wide non-importation agreement – these same ministers
would have had no reason to any longer doubt the conviction of the offended
colonists or the degree to which they were willing to actively affirm their
rights. But while an honest desire to reassert the customary relationship
between the colonies and the British government would seem to have required at
this stage a basic reassessment of certain policies and a rededication to
finding some form of accommodation, the North Ministry instead plunged
stubbornly ahead.
Having been surprised and even frightened, as
Price described it, by the vehemence of the colonial reaction to the passage of
the aforementioned punitive legislation, Lord North and his cabinet
nevertheless refused to abandon their goal of securing the submission of
British America to the absolute authority of Parliament. To that end, he
affirmed,
A proposal
was sent to the Colonies, called Conciliatory; and the substance of which was,
that if any of them would raise such sums as should be demanded of them by
taxing themselves, the Parliament would forbear to tax them.
Conciliatory though
this offer was evidently intended to be, even a moment’s reflection reveals it
to be anything but. The substance of it, Price declared, was something to the
effect of, “If you will tax yourselves BY OUR ORDER, we will save ourselves the
trouble of taxing you.” The best that such a scheme could possibly have done is
save face on the part of the affected colonies by giving to them some degree of
discretion as to how and from where the relevant revenue was raised. It would
not have addressed the question of whether Parliament was legally entitled to
make such a demand of the colonial legislatures – answered, by the colonies,
emphatically in the negative – and thus could never have served to settle the
disagreement at hand. The colonies, now collectively represented in the
Continental Congress, accordingly rejected the proposal, and set themselves to
the task of establishing the aforementioned boycott on British goods and
fortifying their respective defenses in the event that armed resistance became
necessary.
Though it may seem scarcely possible
to believe, Price asserted that at this point in the evolution of the
Anglo-American crisis the government of Lord North made what would appear to be
yet another very serious mistake. In spite of their numbers, the resources at
their disposal, and their clear and demonstrated ability to engage in highly
successful efforts of collective organization, the members of the North
Ministry continued at this crucial moment to think of the people of
Massachusetts,
As nothing but a mob, who would be soon routed and forced into
obedience. It was even believed, that a few thousands of our army might march
through all America, and make all quiet wherever they went. Under
this conviction our ministers did not dread urging the Province of Massachusetts-Bay into
rebellion, by ordering their army to seize their stores, and to take up some of
their leading men.
As with every other measure that had been taken by successive British
governments since 1765, aimed at securing the complete submission of the
American colonies to the authority of Parliament, this attempt also resulted in
failure. The people, Price avowed, took up the arms which long practice and
recent preparation had readied them to use, British attempts to seize American
munitions were repelled, and a British attack on a colonial position outside
occupied Boston, while successful, was accomplished at an alarming cost of
blood and talent. “Some of our best Generals,” Price accordingly lamented, “And
the bravest of our troops, are now disgracefully and miserably imprisoned in Boston.—A horrid civil war is
commenced:—And the empire is distracted and convulsed.” There would seem to have been, by Price’s reckoning, only one
explanation as to how this turn of events could possibly have come to pass.
It could not have
been commerce, for the colonies had long-since shown themselves perfectly
willing to render up any number of commercial advantages upon request by
Parliament and the Crown. “They gave up the power of making sumptuary laws,”
Price thus affirmed, “And exposed themselves to all the evils of an increasing
and wasteful luxury, because we were benefited by vending among them the
materials of it.” In light of the degree to which the original Puritan founders
of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Plymouth Colony strove to create
societies purged of sin by enacting legal restrictions upon what a person could
wear, what kinds of games they could play, and whether they could smoke tobacco
or drink alcohol, this would indeed seem to represent a significance concession
on their part to the mercantile interests of Great Britain and its traders.
Just so, Price continued, “The iron with which providence had blessed their
country, they were required by laws, in which they acquiesced, to transport
hither, that our people might be maintained by working it for them into nails,
ploughs, axes, &c.” As it happened, the terms of the Iron Act (1750) had
indeed placed fairly unequivocal restrictions on the ability of interested
colonial entrepreneurs to erect any more iron works than already existed, thus
conveying a definite advantage upon such British manufacturers as were now able
to purchase duty-free pig-iron from the colonies, use the resulting savings to
expand their operations, and flood the America market with cheap wrought iron
and refined steel.
Granted, there was more to both of
these scenarios that Price seemed willing to admit. While it was certainly to
the benefit of British industry – particularly in the realms of luxury
textiles, distilling, and artisan metalwork – for the New England Puritan to
abandon their various socio-legal prohibitions against personal indulgence, the
relevant movement away from strict sumptuary proscriptions did not come solely
at the behest of contemporary British governments. Eager though British
merchants most definitely were to obtain greater access to American consumers,
and strict though the Puritan-dominated governments in New England generally remained
in their respective interpretations of what was permissible and what was
forbidden, the truth of the matter is that within a few decades of the start of
the colonial project, enough residents of the relevant colonies had taken to
defying the sumptuary laws that they ceased to be actively enforced. It may be
said, therefore, that while British traders naturally wasted no time in seizing
upon the opportunity to sell their wares in this previously much-restricted
market – thus accomplishing the further integration of New England into the
larger imperial economy – neither they nor their sponsors in government created
the opportunity itself. By the same token, while the Iron Act did seek to
create a set of circumstances by which it was almost certainly cheaper to
purchase finished iron and steel products from British manufacturers than from the
few American refineries that were permitted to exist, the fact of the
legislation itself tells only half the tale. As with the earlier Molasses Act
(1733) and the subsequent duties upon tea, colonial Americans were perfectly
willing and able to accept the passage of a restrictive commercial law like the
Iron Act in public while taking such measures as were necessary to evade its
terms in private. As Parliament yet still lacked sufficient means to police the
enforcement of most any of its colonial policies, iron refineries and forges
remained quite common in contemporary British America, particularly in such
cases as their owners and operators were members of the socio-political elite
in colonies like Maryland and Virginia.
Despite his somewhat one-sided
representation of the character of the Anglo-American relationship – i.e. the
colonies bending over backwards to be accommodating to the vast majority of
Britain’s desires and priorities – Price was nevertheless correct to assert
that, prior to the middle 1760s, the American colonies had shown themselves
quite willing to accept their place as an appendage of the larger British
Empire. Privately, certain residents thereof might have questioned the wisdom
or the necessity of certain policies or statutes, even to the point of taking
steps to actively evade them. But they evidently did not feel inclined to call
into question the legality of such measures as the Molasses Act or the Iron
Act. Parliament, they evidently concluded, was within its rights to attempt to
regulate the economy of the British Empire as a whole, and to take such action
to that end, vis-à-vis the American colonies, as appeared to be necessary. That
the colonists themselves freely purchased British products – from the metalwork
prejudiced by the terms of the Iron Act to the luxury goods at one time prohibited
by law in the Puritan jurisdictions of Massachusetts and Plymouth – arguably
served to ratify their acceptance of this basic arrangement. Indeed, Price
affirmed,
By
purchasing our goods they paid our taxes; and, by allowing us to regulate their
trade in any manner we thought most for our advantage, they enriched our
merchants, and helped up to bear our growing burdens. They fought our battles
with us. They gloried in their relation to us. All their gains centered among
us; and they always spoke of this country and looked to it as their home.
Though, again, the
author of Observations seemed
inclined to portray the inhabitants of British America as inherently – some
might say excessively – inclined to embrace their status as the distant
province of a large and magnificent empire, his core observation remained a
valid one.
The colonists had
rarely question Britain’s authority, and never effectively threatened it. The
British economy, in consequence, had reaped tremendous advantages by its
connection with America, and successive governments had been able to oversee
periods of growth, prosperity, and even military success as a result. The North
Ministry’s campaign, between 1765 and 1775, to further bind the various
colonial governments to the will and authority of Parliament could not,
therefore, had had anything to do with an unwillingness on the part of the
colonists to continue playing their accustomed role as loyal and active
subjects of the British Crown. Rather, Price affirmed, it could only have been
the result of a senseless, needless, and ultimately destructive need for a
greater and greater degree of control. Thus did he write that the British
government and people,
Not
contended with a degree of power, sufficient to satisfy any reasonable ambition
[…] have attempted to extend it.—Not contended with drawing from [the colonies]
a large revenue indirectly, we have
endeavoured to procure one directly
by an authoritative seizure; and, in order to gain a pepper-corn in this way,
have chosen to hazard millions, acquired by the peaceable intercourse of trade.
The result of such
a “Vile policy [,]” Price vehemently asserted, could not be anything but
disastrous.
Having come to
depend, increasingly, upon the produce and purchasing power of the American
colonies, the North Ministry had nevertheless taken such actions as effectively
placed precisely these resources beyond the reach of the British state. If the
cabal in question had only been contended – had they recognized that what they
stood to gain by attempting to bind the colonial governments more closely to
the will of Parliament was by no means worth the acrimony that was bound to
result – this might not have been the case. They were not contended, of course,
and the result was the effective destruction of the goodwill and amity that had
substantially persisted between the people and government of Great Britain and
their respective counterparts in British America. Indeed, as Price took to
characterizing the matter, “Their love is turned into hatred; and their respect
for our government into resentment and abhorrence.” And yet, while it would
seem exceedingly difficult to somehow reverse this turn of events, it might not
have been impossible to do so. Driven by greed and arrogance though the North
Ministry arguably had been in its pursuit of greater and greater control over
the economies and governments of the various American colonies, it would not
have been impossible for them to cease their ill-conceived campaign of
domination in the name of restoring that which they had previously endeavored
to destroy. All that would have been necessary – injurious to the pride of Lord
North and his cabinet though it may well have been – was for the sitting
government to request a halt to armed hostilities, petition the Continental
Congress for a formal redress of grievances, and approach the resulting
negotiations in the spirit of reason, liberality, and good faith. Only then
might the actions of the British government have finally matched its rhetoric.
Price was not so
naïve as to imagine that this was a particularly likely outcome, of course. If
the North Ministry really did desire nothing more than to pursue a program of
reform to the Anglo-American relationship without necessarily threatening its
integrity – or even if its members had originally sought something more than
that but were willing to admit that they had been mistaken – Lord North himself
could have (and perhaps should have) called for a ceasefire at any number of
opportunities. When news of the first shots having been fired in anger at the
Battles of Lexington and Concord arrived in London, for example, he would
doubtless have been forgiven by many of his supporters for deciding that it
represented the better part of prudence to pull back from the brink. The costly
Battle of Bunker Hill would seem to have represented much the same kind of
occasion, or the beginning of the Siege of Boston, or the American invasion of
British Quebec. That the North Ministry chose not to avail itself of these chances,
however, and that it instead determined with even greater vehemence to achieve
the armed pacification of America, seemed to affirm Price’s steadfast belief
that it was a lust for power rather than any need for closer commercial ties
that had motivated and continued to motivate the sitting government of Great
Britain.
Far from emerging
from their defeat at the hands of British arms wielded by British hands eager
and able to offer the victorious government even greater access to their
resources and markets, Price in fact asserted that,
The
provinces of America, when desolated, will afford no revenue; or if it should,
the expence of subduing them and keeping them in subjection will much exceed
that revenue.—Not any of the advantages of trade: For it is folly, next to
insanity, to think trade can be promoted by impoverishing our customers, and
fixing in their minds an everlasting abhorrence of us.
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