by Nathan Allen
But none of those considerations necessitated competence; when Mauduit should have been alerting the General Court of taxes being considered in Whitehall, he was instead wrangling about parliamentary reimbursements and debating theological topics; in fact, he seemed more preoccupied with communicating with New England religious dissenters than with New England politicians. Jemmy had orchestrated Mauduit’s selection and the rejection of the competent Richard Jackson because he was politically aligned with the Boston oligarchy. In April 1763, Mauduit had briefly remarked in a letter to House Speaker Timothy Ruggles that the issue of French molasses taxes had been “put off till another Year,” a paltry detail compared to the extensive information available from Bollan or Jackson. As early as August 1763, Hutchinson was engaged in a personal exchange of letters with Jackson regarding possible taxes on French molasses. John Adams would later claim that “I know not why we should blush to confess that molasses was an essential ingredient in American independence.” And while Jemmy claimed that “the fishery is the center of motion, upon which the wheel of all British commerce in America turns,” molasses was the lubricant of New England commerce; myriad distilleries in Rhode Island and Massachusetts produced the rum from imported molasses that funded the fishing industry of the Grand Banks and slave trading in Africa, and these in turn enabled the financing that purchased and imported England’s manufactures.
The Molasses Act of 1733 was a product of special interest lobbying that placed the exorbitant tax of six pence per gallon on non-English molasses with the objective of protecting British sugar planters. The Act’s sole purpose was to tax foreign molasses at such a high rate that importers would only buy British molasses. But the supply of all sugar and molasses produced by the British islands never met the demand, and since distilleries respected neither law nor nationality, the Act was doomed from the beginning as French molasses flowed freely into the British colonies. Now Grenville proposed to convert this act from a trade regulation designed to prevent the importation of foreign molasses into a source of revenue by greatly reducing the tax while rigorously enforcing the law. Grenville attempted to arrive at a reasonably low tax rate by surveying the opinions of a range of advisors, but opinions differed by each advisor’s position and connections.
By the late summer of 1763, Grenville clearly intended to raise revenue from the colonies by taxing molasses at a low rate and strictly enforcing the tax, and yet few in the colonies were as of yet troubled. Jasper Mauduit had not the temperament, knowledge, or connections to assist in Grenville’s survey of opinions, and Mauduit received negligible support from his employer, the Massachusetts General Court, regarding questions to ask and answer. So in August 1763, Hutchinson and Jackson were discussing an issue that would not provoke Jemmy Otis and hence the general public until eight months later. Perhaps more frustrating, Bostonians learned of the ominous Hovering Act not from their London lobbyist but from their local newspapers.
It was Thomas Hutchinson who initially sounded the alarm; he informed Jackson on August 3, 1763 that a duty of one pence per gallon might be “generally agreeable” but cautioned, “But do they [the ministry] see the consequence? Will not this be introductory to taxes, duties and excises upon other articles, and would they consist with the so much esteemed priviledge of English subjects – the being taxed by their own representatives?” Even Bernard was distressed by the idea of a sugar tax, writing to Richard Jackson on August 23 that “if the Northern Colonies are not allowed to import molasses on Practicable terms, they will become desperate, for they really won’t be able to live. … I dread the consequences of such a resolution.” Hutchinson, as a friend of government, would eventually publically support the tax, but he was initially opposed to any direct taxes on the colonies. Yet Hutchinson would make no public protestations against the tax in the summer of 1763. Oddly but perhaps predictably, Hutchinson’s position caused some in the Popular Party to approve the direct tax; in October, Thomas Cushing, a Popular Party representative from Boston, admonished Mauduit “as a private person” and claimed that “Mr Bollan’s Friends” suggested that Bollan would have forcefully objected to the Hovering Act. Cushing further claimed that “our trade must be distroy’d” if the Molasses Act were to be firmly enforced and advised that the new tax should be limited to one pence per gallon but reiterated that the official advice of the House was “to oppose any duty at all.” And yet Cushing followed that letter with another to Mauduit on November 11, which stated that “if Parliament should think fit to lower the Duty to an half penny or a penny per gallon … the Duty would be chearfully and universally paid.” For Cushing, opposition was a tactic to negotiate a lower rate; unlike Hutchinson, Cushing had no philosophical problems with the proposed tax in 1763.
Thus as 1764 opened, there was no consensus in either the Court or the Popular Party on how to respond to the impending new tax; instead, there was little discussion and few opinions. Because of this apparent lack of interest and lack of unity, the Massachusetts lobbyist in London had little but vague advice, and consequently the House had no source of detailed information from Whitehall; Mauduit was not paying attention and the politicians in Boston weren’t asking the right questions. On January 2, 1764 the Boston Gazette carried an announcement from the customs officers of Boston, Salem, Falmouth, and Piscatauqua that customs officers henceforth would board and inspect before docking all vessels carrying rum, sugar, or molasses. Despite anxiety over new customs inspections, Otis’s expanding philosophy of rights took hold in other areas. On January 7, he submitted a bill in the General Court for the abolition of the slave trade in Massachusetts; the bill did not abolish slavery, but a prohibition against the slave trade would gradually eliminate slavery. A movement to abolish the slave trade would not develop in England for another two decades, and then it was largely promoted by the very religious, such as William Wilberforce, and manifested as a duty to their faith. For Otis, the abolition of slavery was a purely secular conclusion founded on the concepts of natural rights and consent. The bill was mostly ignored, but Otis persisted and introduced another bill for the abolition of the slave trade two years later on June 20, 1766. It likewise was ignored.
A week after the January 2, 1764 announcement of vigorous new customs inspections, the Gazette advertised an anonymous pamphlet, Considerations Upon the Act of Parliament Whereby a Duty is laid of six Pence Sterling per Gallon Molasses, etc. Grenville’s new tax plan entailed lowering the duty at the exact same time as the customs taxes would be rigidly enforced; but the pamphlet suggested that rigid enforcement would begin first, while the customs taxes were still very high, and New England’s merchant businesses would be impaired. This aroused the merchants, and the pamphlet reflected their anxiety, which was heightened by the Commissioners of Customs’s February 27, 1764 announcement that henceforth customs “arrangements” as made notorious in Erving v. Cradock were strictly forbidden. Private deals or individual “understandings” with customs officials were no longer permitted. The law was to be applied without variation. By early 1764, the Massachusetts merchants began to panic; Whitehall’s new regime was going to destroy their businesses. The politicians began to take notice as the merchants demanded a response. And yet, there was still no unified opinion as to the most appropriate response.
And yet more immediate problems were afflicting the General Court. The New Year brought yet another outbreak of smallpox. At a Boston town meeting on February 20, 1764, various petitions regarding small pox infections and “Inoculating Hospitals” were read, and a committee including Jemmy, Harrison Gray, Foster Hutchinson and others was formed to draft a plan to respond to the epidemic. Another committee that included Auchmuty, Ben Kent, Foster Hutchins, Sam Adams and Richard Dana was created to “examine the several Laws of the Principal relative to Infectious” diseases, the primary purpose of which was to determine whether and how infected persons could be kept from entering the town. And ironically, at that same town meeting, Jemmy was appointed to lead a committe
e to thank Rev. Whitefield for raising “a considerable Sum of Money in Great Britain for the distressed Sufferers by the great Fire in Boston” of 1760.
The small pox epidemic forced the General Court to relocate to Cambridge. The General Court had just unpacked their papers and begun the new term when their meeting place, Harvard Hall, caught fire and burned until nothing remained of Harvard’s library and the Court records. Amongst the torched documents were official protests against the Molasses Act from the merchants of Boston, Marblehead, Plymouth, and Salem. The General Court had to move again, draw up documents anew, and request for the protests to be prepared and sent for a second time. Everything was running behind schedule, not least of which was the communication of various Molasses Act protestations to London. Massachusetts seemed to be in a losing battle with the twin threats of pox and fire. The Court relocate again even farther from the city to Concord.
It was obvious to all that Jasper Mauduit was not forcefully representing the Province, and thus an effort to appoint a special lobbyist commenced. The alleged objective of this effort was to have a special agent negotiate for Massachusetts in the upcoming discussions over the Massachusetts-Connecticut boundary. However, the special agent would certainly be asked to address the new sugar tax as well. The General Court was panicking a bit, and the Court Party must have felt pressure to address the problem since it controlled the Council and the House. A nearly full House passed the motion 46 to 40 and the Council quickly agreed. Thomas Hutchinson was then selected as the special agent; there were a mere eight dissenting votes in both the House and Council, three of which came from the Boston bench in the House: Jemmy, Royall Tyler, Cushing. It is difficult to ascertain the reason for the result, but it is likely that a majority believed that Hutchinson, as a member of the oligarchy, would be uniquely qualified to gain access and present the province’s position to Whitehall. But Hutchinson’s proposed trip to England never occurred; Hutchinson argued that he first needed permission from London, and the House, now dwindling in numbers and emboldened by Oxenbridge Thacher’s return from illness, killed the mission. Again, history doesn’t reveal whether the House actually agreed with Hutchinson or if the Popular Party persuaded a number of members to change their previous votes. But the General Court first voted to send a special agent to Whitehall and then declined to actually send one, which clearly indicates that no agreement existed on how to respond to the impending sugar tax; no single position had yet to consistently persuade a majority of the General Court.
Jasper Mauduit finally received assistance from his brother Israel, who prepared an appeal to present to the Treasury with the tepid support of Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and New York. But Grenville was constructing his master revenue plan with rapidity unusual for government bureaucracies, and the lack of any unified protests or lucid instructions rendered the colonial lobbyists impotent. At the merchants’ insistence, the Massachusetts General Court finally transmitted instructions to their lobbyist in mid-February. Thomas Cushing summarized these instructions: “I find the Committee in general are of the oppinion that this Act [Molasses Act of 1733] is at this time put in rigorous execution in order to obtain our Consent to some Dutys being laid, but this is look’d upon of dangerous consequence as it will be conceeding to the Parliaments having a Right to Tax our trade which we can’t by any means think of admitting, as it wou’d be contrary to a fundamentall Principall of our Constitution vizt. That all Taxes ought to originate with the people.” The instructions crossed the ocean quickly but reached Mauduit only after the House of Commons had agreed on the “American bill.”
Grenville “opened the Budget” in the House of Commons on March 9, 1764, and his able assistant Secretary of the Treasury Thomas Whately presented a series of resolutions addressing the issue of American revenue, including Molasses Act revisions and the key components of the Sugar Act. Whately also suggested that it might be “proper” to levy “Stamp Duties,” but such a bill could only be considered after the other revenue bills had been finalized and enacted. Whately’s proposals were printed without comment in the May 7 Boston Gazette. A week later “Nov. Anglicanus” authored a lengthy letter printed on the Gazette’s front page scolding the Court Party controlled General Court for being in “a sound sleep” and for never sending clear instructions to Jasper Mauduit and refusing to employ Israel Mauduit to augment his brother’s lobbying efforts. “Nov. Anglicanus” was mostly likely Sam Adams or Oxenbridge Thacher and likely reflected the views of many Massachusetts merchants.
The Boston town meeting convened the next day for annual elections. It was lightly attended largely due to the lingering small pox epidemic, but the Boston bench proved that its opposition to the Court Party was political successful as every incumbent was reelected. Of the 449 votes cast, Thacher received 430, Otis 423, Tyler 420 and Cushing 373. Thacher’s vote count reflected the Boston electorate’s taste for radicalism, as few were as rebellious as he. But Thacher had been ill in January and was inoculated with smallpox in February, yet he would never fully recover and had about a year to live.
The General Court seemed mired in bickering over the past year while Whitehall planned to extract revenue from the colonies; the people of Boston were demanding more from their representatives. While the town meeting of May 15, 1764 was preoccupied with its usual road paving, school master paying, and small pox inoculating issues, it also took the unusual step of appointing Sam Adams along with four others to a new and significant committee that gave Adams his first province-wide exposure. Adams had long been influential in the tavern clubs, and everyone knew him as a negligent tax collector since 1758 whose seeming disdain for his own job made him popular with all but the closest friends of government. But in a step that moved the town committee far beyond its typical preoccupations, Boston decided to transmit formal detailed instructions to its representatives in the House. Instructions were not new but usually encompassed only single issues; these new instructions were intended to be comprehensive, moving beyond reimbursement for municipal projects to more general, philosophical issues. This idea’s genesis probably occurred in the mind of Sam Adams, and he maintained control of the resulting committee. Adams’s father had been a Lank Bank director, and the young Sam Adams grew up in a house torn asunder by the Land Bank fiasco. Perhaps more than anyone else, Adams was raised in a house deeply affected by Parliamentary superiority and legislative absolutism. Though Jemmy was not an official member of the instructions committee, nor was any Boston representative, he had input into the finished product because of his status as a leading member of the Boston bench. The Boston bench likely had significant input into this committee’s work, but their official absence from the committee was designed to affect a document that was to convey the town’s objective opinion and could be employed as leverage in the General Court; Boston’s representatives in the House could now demonstrate that the province’s largest town and most significant revenue producer had taken a unified position. In a sign that indicated that Otis and Adams knew the instructions might be considered controversial, the town records of the May 15 meeting mention no specifics, only alluding to the “Instructions” in a few vague lines. Concurrently, Otis was working on a major pamphlet, and the Boston instructions reflected many of the concerns in the pamphlet, which would be published two months later.
The instructions were submitted to the adjourned meeting at 3pm, May 24, 1764 and reflect a noticeable break in town meetings records that had for years declined to produce grand statements. The instructions’s first and primary concern is preserving “the invaluable Rights and Privileges of the Province …; As well as those Rights which are derived to us by the Royal Charter, as those which being prior to it, and independent on it, we hold essentially as Freeborn Subjects of Gt. Britain.” The critical distinction between rights “derived to us by the Royal Charter” and innate rights of “Freeborn Subjects” was fundamental to Jemmy’s philosophy. The concept seems clumsily inserted into a basically Adams-produc
ed document, which raises the possibility that it was a statement Otis authored and requested be included; further, it reflects the arguments that Otis was developing at that time. Listed next in the instructions, the Boston representatives were to “preserve that independence in the House of Representatives, which characterizes a Free People” by enacting an equivalent to the English “Place Act” that prevents judges from holding seats in the General Court. This was a variation of the oft repeated Otis-Thacher issue of plural office-holding and was essentially a re-vote on a measure that Otis had introduced to the House in early 1762. Tellingly, the issue of “independence” is raised with reference to the legislature; fundamentally, this would be the issue that propelled the colonies to independence.
