to enslave any country plunged in the boundless chaos of fiscal demands that this practice introduces.
In consequence of the new system, a board of customs was instituted and commissioners appointed to set in Boston to collect the duties; which were besides other purposes to supply a [46] fund for the payment of the large salaries annexed to their office. A civil list was soon after established, and the governors of the Massachusetts, judges of the superior court, and such other officers as had heretofore depended on the free grants of the representative body, were to be paid out of the revenue chest.
Thus rendered wholly independent of the general assembly, there was no check left on the wanton exercise of power in the crown officers, however disposed they might be to abuse their trust. The distance from the throne, it was said, must delay, if not wholly prevent, all relief under any oppressions the people might suffer from the servants of government; and to crown the long list of grievances, specified by the patriots of the day, the extension of the courts of vice-admiralty was none of the least. They were vested with certain powers that dispensed with the mode of trial by jury, annihilated the privileges of Englishmen, and placed the liberty of every man in the hand of a petty officer of the customs. By warrant of a writ of assistance from the governor or lieutenant governor, any officer of the revenue was authorized to enter the dwelling of the most respectable inhabitant on the smallest suspicion of a concealment of contraband goods, and to insult, search, or seize, with impunity.
[47] An attorney* at law, of some professional abilities and ingenuity, but without either property or principle, was, by the instigation of Mr. Bernard, appointed sole judge of admiralty in the Massachusetts. The dangerous aspect of this court, particularly when aided by writs of assistance, was opposed with peculiar energy and strength of argument, by James Otis, Esq. of Boston, who, by the exertion of his talents and the sacrifice of interest, may justly claim the honor of laying the foundation of a revolution, which has been productive of the happiest effects to the civil and political interests of mankind.
He was the first champion of American freedom, who had the courage to put his signature to the contest between Great Britain and the colonies. He had in a clear, concise, and nervous manner, stated and vindicated the rights of the American colonies, and published his observations in Boston, while the stamp-act hung suspended. This tract was written with such a spirit of liberality, loyalty, and impartiality, that though at the time some were ready to pronounce it treasonable, yet, when opposition run higher, many of the most judicious partizans of the crown were willing to admit it as a [48] just criterion of political truth.† But the author was abused and vilified by the scribblers of the court, and threatened with an arrest from the crown, for the boldness of his opinions. Yet he continued to advocate the rights of the people, and in the course of his argument against the iniquitous consequences of writs of assistance, he observed, that
his engaging in this cause had raised the resentment of its abettors; but that he argued it from principle, and with peculiar pleasure, as it was in favor of British liberty, and in opposition to the exercise of a power, that in former periods of English history, had cost one king of England his head, and another his crown.
He added,
I can sincerely declare, that I submit myself to every opprobrious name for conscience sake, and despise all those, whom guilt, folly or malice have made my foes.
It was on this occasion, that Mr. Otis resigned the office of judge advocate, and renounced all employment under so corrupt an administration, boldly declaring in the face of the supreme court, at this dangerous crisis, that “the only principle of public conduct, worthy a gentleman or a man, was the sacrifice of health, ease, applause, estate, or even life, to the sacred [49] calls of his country; that these manly sentiments in private life made the good citizen, in public, the patriot and the hero.” —Thus was verified in his conduct the observation of a writer* of merit and celebrity, that “it was as difficult for Great Britain to frighten as to cheat Americans into servitude; that she ought to leave them in the peacable possession of that liberty which they received at their birth, and were resolved to retain to their death.”
When the new parliamentary regulations reached America, all the colonies in their several departments petitioned in the most strenuous manner against any American taxation, and all other recent innovations relative to the government of the British provinces. These petitions were, when received by the ministry, treated by them with the utmost contempt. But they were supported by a respectable party in the parliament of Britain, who did not neglect to warn the administration of the danger of precipitating measures, that might require before the termination of a contest thus hurried [50] on, “more virtue and abilities than the ministry possessed.”
By some steps taken by administration previous to the present period, there was reason to suppose that they were themselves apprehensive, that their system for governing the colonies in a more arbitrary manner would give great offence, and create disturbances of so alarming a nature, that perhaps the aid of military power might become necessary to enforce the completion of their designs. Doubtless it was with a view of facilitating the new projects, that an extraordinary bill had been passed in parliament, making it lawful for the officers of the British army to quarter their troops in private houses throughout the colonies. Thus while mixed in every family, it might become more easy to awe the people into submission, and compel them by military terrors to the basest compliances. But the colony agents residing in London, and the merchants concerned in the American trade, remonstrated so warmly against the injustice and cruelty of such a procedure, that a part of the bill was dropped. Yet it was too important a point wholly to relinquish; of consequence a clause was left, obliging the several legislative assemblies to provide quarters for the king’s marching regiments, and to furnish a number of specified articles at the expense of the province, wherever they might be stationed.
[51] This act continued in full force after the stamp-act was repealed, though it equally militated with that part of the British constitution which provides that no monies should be raised on the subject without his consent. Yet rather than enter on a new dispute, the colonists in general chose to evade it for the present, and without many observations thereon had occasionally made some voluntary provisions for the support of the king’s troops. It was hoped the act might be only a temporary expedient to hold up the authority of parliament, and that in a short time the claim might die of itself without any attempt to revive such an unreasonable demand. But New York, more explicit in her refusal to obey, was suspended from all powers of legislation until the quartering act should be complied with in the fullest extent. By this unprecedented treatment of one of the colonies, and the innumerable exactions and restrictions on all, a general apprehension prevailed, that nothing but a firm, vigorous and united resistance could shield from the attacks that threatened the total extinction of civil liberty through the continent.
CHAP. III[52] The British colonies at this period
