Arsonist: The Most Dangerous Man in America

by Nathan Allen

  And the Committee are further of opinion that a Meeting of such Committees should be held at New-York on the first Tuesday of October next, and that a Committee of three Persons be chosen by this House on the Part of this Province to attend the fame.

  And that Letters be forthwith prepared and transmitted to the respective Speakers of the several Houses of Representatives or Burgesses in the Colonies aforesaid, advising them of the Resolution of this House thereon, and inviting such Houses of Representatives or Burgesses to join this with their Committees, in the Meeting, and for the Purposes aforesaid.

  And that a proper Letter be prepared and forwarded to the Agent of the Province on these Matters in the mean time.

  Read and accepted, and Ordered, That Mr. Speaker, Mr. Otis. and Mr. Lee, be a Committee to prepare a draft of Letters to be sent to the respective Speakers of the several Houses of Representatives in the Colonies, and make Report.

  The Committee appointed for that purpose, reported the following draft.

  Province of Massachusetts-Bay. Boston, June 8. 1765.

  SIR;

  THE House of Representatives of this Province in the present Session of the General Court, have unanimously agreed to propose a Meeting, as soon as may be, of Committees from the Houses of Representatives or Burgesses, of the several British Colonies on this Continent, to consult together on the present Circumstances of the Colonies and the Difficulties to which they are and must be reduced by the Operation of the Acts of Parliament for levying Duties and Taxes on the Colonies ; and to consider of a general and united, dutifull, loyal and humble Representation of their Condition to his Majesty, and the Parliament, to implore Relief. The House of Representatives of this Province have also voted to propose that such Meeting be at the City of New-York, on the first Tuesday of October next, and have appointed a Committee of three of their Members to attend that Service, with such as the other Houses of Representatives or Burgesses in the several Colonies may think fit to appoint to meet them: And the Committee of the House of Representatives of this Province are directed to repair to said New-York on said first Tuesday of October next accordingly. If therefore your honorable House should agree to this Proposal, it would be acceptable, that as early Notice of it as possible might be transmitted to the Speaker of the House of Representatives of this Province.

  SAMUEL WHITE, Speak’r,

  Read

  Read and accepted, and Ordered, That the Speaker sign the same, and transmit it to the respective Speakers of the several Houses.

  It being, agreeable to the Order of the Day, Resolved, That the House proceed to the Choice of a Committee of three Persons to meet the Committees from the several Houses of Representatives at the proposed Convention at New-York, the first Tuesday in October next.

  Ordered, That Judge Ruggles, Mr. Foster of Plymouth and Col. Bourn, be a Committee to fort and count the Votes, who reported that James Otis, Esq; Col. Worthington and Col. Partridge were chosen by a majority of Votes. Col. Worthington having excused himself from that Service, the House came to the choice of a Person in his room, and the Committee reported that Brigadier Ruggles was chosen.

  In the House of Representatives, June 20. 1765.

  Whereas the House at their present Session made Choice of James Otis, Oliver Partridge and Timothy Ruggles, Esqrs, their Committee, to meet the Committees from the Houses of Representatives or Burgesses in the several Colonies on this Continent, that may be convened on the first Tuesday of October next at New-York.

  Resolved, That there be paid to the said Committee out of the public Treasury, the Sum of four Hundred and fifty Pounds, to enable them to discharge the important Trust to which they are appointed; they upon their return to be accountable for the same.

  In the House of Representatives, June 24 1765.

  On a Motion made and seconded, Ordered, That Mr. Cushing of Boston, Capt. Sbeaffe. Mr. Dexter of Dedham, Mr. Woodridge and Mr. Foster of Plymouth, be a Committee to prepare Instructions for the Committee of Congress, and make Report.

  Read and accepted, and Ordered, That the Speaker sign the same.

  On a Motion made and seconded, Ordered. That Mr. Cushing of Boston, Capt. Sbeaffe and Mr. Gray, be a Committee to prepare the Draft of a Letter to the Agent, and make Report.

  The Committee for that purpose appointed, reported the draft of a Letter to the Agent.

  Read and accepted, and Ordered, That a fair draft thereof be signed by the Speaker, and forwarded to the Agent as soon as may be.

  Thus on June 6, the House agreed to create a nine member committee to assess the province’s “difficulties.” The key to making the plan a success was convincing the moderate members to participate, and why not participate in a plan championed by the newly moderate Jemmy Otis? Though Jemmy and Cushing represented Boston and Popular Party ally Edward Shaeffe represented Charleston, the committee was dominated by moderate and Court Party figures including John Worthington, Oliver Partridge, Samuel White and the much reviled Court Party stalwart Timothy Ruggles. And again with rapidity so unusual for government that one can only suspect that the work had been previously completed, the committee issued a statement the same day as it was created. The statement concluded that “it is highly expedient there should be a Meeting as soon as may be, of Committees from the Houses of Representatives or Burgesses in the several Colonies on this Continent to consult together on the present circumstances.” The committee’s statement included all the details; the “Meeting” should be held on the first Tuesday of October in New York, and Massachusetts should send three representatives. Speaker White, Otis and Lee were assigned to draft letters to the other colonies, and again with suspicious rapidity the draft was produced and adopted just two days later. The meeting’s stated purpose was guarded and deferential, suggesting only to assemble “to consider of a general and united, dutiful, loyal and humble Representation” to the King and Parliament. The Court Party dominated the election of delegates to the proposed meeting; the vote tally revealed that staunch loyalists John Worthington and Colonel Oliver Partridge and that apparent new friend of government James Otis were selected. Worthington “having excused himself from that Service,” and was replaced by the even more ardent loyalist Brigadier Timothy Ruggles.

  June 25, the day the report of the House committee meetings was published, was the last meeting day of the session; the General Court was suspended until mid-August – though that date would be severely missed. Governor Bernard had been alerted to the committee meetings, but with the Court Party firmly in control, confessed to the Lords of Trade on July 8, 1765 that “It was impossible to oppose this Measure to any good purpose and therefore the friends of government took the lead in it; & have kept it in their hands.” And yet he assured the Lords of Trade that “of the Committee appointed . . . Two of the three are fast friends to government of Great Britain. It is the general Opinion that nothing will be done in consequence of this intended Congress; but I hope I may promise myself that this province will act no indecent part therein.” This was precisely the situation required in order for Bernard to view the “meeting” in New York as reasonably innocuous.

  Jemmy’s recent moderate pamphlets resulted in Otis appearing pacified, and Bernard had concluded that the Court Party had kept the explosive issue “in their hands.” So while the Court Party felt in control, the Boston rebels renewed their activities. Their plans were fueled in part by the publication of the “Virginia Resolves” in the July 1, 1765 Evening-Post, which included those passed by the Virginia House of Burgesses and two additional resolves that had been proposed by Patrick Henry but discarded from the final draft by the Burgesses. The rejected resolves were confrontational and controversial, denying the colonies were “bound to yield Obedience” to Parliament and declaring “an Enemy” anyone who rejected the idea that the sole right to levy taxes on Virginians rested with the Virginian Assembly. The loyalist oligarchy was not nearly as strong in Virginia as it was in Massachusetts.

  Predictably, Govern
or Bernard labeled the resolves originally debated in Virginia as “an alarmbell to the disaffected.” John Adams later evoked a dying Oxenbridge Thacher proclaiming “Oh yes – they are men! they are noble spirits! It kills me to think of the lethargy and stupidity that prevails here. I long to be out. I will go out. I will go out. I will go into court make a speech, which shall be read after my death, as my dying testimony against this infernal tyranny.” Thacher never made his great speech; he died a few days later on July 9, 1765. Jemmy had realized, probably with the assistance of his father, that the Popular Party’s agenda could never be advanced by employing the Thacher or Virginia approach. Despite the differences in oligarch power, it is not surprising that the fiery Virginia approach did not work in Virginia and several other colonies. The governors of Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, New Jersey and Delaware refused to convene their assemblies and thus obstructed official attendance to the “Meeting” by delegates from those colonies. The New Jersey and Delaware assemblies were undaunted and sent unofficial delegates.

  In light of the Virginia Resolves, the Gazette lambasted the Massachusetts petition as a “tame, pusillanimous, daubed, insipid thing.” But predictably, Hutchinson reported that Otis, unlike many of the rebels, had labeled the Virginia Resolves treasonous. Otis had worked his way into the confidences of the most important Court Party members. After his election to the House in May 1765 and to the New York Congress delegation, Otis once more took up his pen. The Objections to the Taxation of our American Colonies by the Legislature of Great Britain briefly Considered, an English pamphlet by member of the Board of Trade and amateur wit Soame Jenyns, was a chic little publication expounding the validity and superiority of virtual representation. In a series of articles in the Gazette, which were published later that year in London as Considerations on Behalf of the Colonists in a Letter to a Noble Lord, Otis responded to Objections first by characterizing the noble Lord’s opinions as the “half-born sentiments of a courtier” and “the crudities of a ministerial mercenary pamphleteer.” Letter to a Noble Lord took exception to Jenyns’s flippant attitude toward the colonies’s political problems. Jemmy stated plainly that the “king, lords and commons conjointly, as the supreme legislature, in fact as well as in law, represent and act for the realm, and all the dominions, if they please,” but this obvious observation did not render the arrangement equitable, and he continued to distinguish between representation in Parliament and representation in the House of Commons. The colonies enjoyed the former in a virtual or transcendent sense; they clearly did not have the latter. Jemmy scorned Englishmen who offered as proof of representation the “everlasting changes to the colonists on the cases of Manchester, Birmingham and Sheffield, who return no members.” Otis’s argument was simple: if Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield and Boston were not represented in fact, then “they ought to be” because it “is a pity” that Britain’s actual body of voters was so limited. Jemmy observed that:

  The Great love pillows of down for their [the oligarchy’s] own heads, and chains for those below them. Hence ‘tis pretty easy to see how it has been brought about, that in all ages despotism has been the general tho’ not quite universal government of the world. No good reason however can be given in any country why every man of a sound mind should not have his vote in the election of a representative. If a man has but little property to protect and defend, yet his life and liberty are things of some importance.

  The philosophical arguments remained: only representation in fact was representation, and the basis of government was life and liberty, not Lockean property. Property ownership was foundational to the feudal system, so its importance must be diminished in order to free the general population. And by pounding the point of actual representation in the House of Commons, Jemmy was continuing to employ the undeniable leverage of colonial demographics to force the inevitable conclusion.

  Otis directly references the demographic argument and essentially declares that England economically needs the colonies more than the colonies need England.

  The [colonial] consumer ultimately pays the tax, and ‘tis confessed on all hands, and is the truth, that America, in fact or eventually, consumes one half the manufactures of Britain. The time is hastening when this fair daughter will be able, if well treated, to purchase and pay for all the manufactures her mother will be able to supply. She wants no gifts, she will buy them, and that at her mother’s own price, if let lone.

  Then he expands on the demographics argument:

  That I may not appear too paradoxical, I affirm, and that on the best information, the Sun rises and sets every day in the sight of five millions of his majesty’s American subjects, white, brown and black. …The period is not very remote when these may be increased to an hundred millions. Five millions of as true and loyal subjects as ever existed, with their good affections to the best civil constitution in the world, descending to unborn miriads, is no small object.

  The population of the colonies is exploding, and “if let lone,” not only will England reap the financial benefits, but:

  Revolutions have been; they may be again; nay, in the course of time they must be. Provinces have not been ever kept in subjection. …Why it is of little importance to my master, whether a thousand years hence, the colonies remain dependant on Britain or not; my business is to fall on the only means to keep them ours for the longest term possible. How can that be done? Why in one word, it must be by nourishing and cherishing them as the apple of your eye. All history will prove that provinces have never been disposed to independency while well treated.

  Jemmy also spills substantial ink in Considerations criticizing what he viewed as the likely cause of the oligarchy’s “lust of power and unreasonable domination.” The Empire’s massive debt, continued spending, and perpetuation of power through “bribes and pensions” was fueling its irrational pursuit of revenue:

  The national debt is confessed on all hands, to be a terrible evil, and may, in time, ruin the state. But it should be remembered, that the colonists never occasioned its increase, nor ever reaped any of the sweet fruits of involving the finest kingdom in the world, in the sad calamity of an enormous overgrown mortgage to state and stock jobbers. No places nor pensions, of thousands and tens of thousands sterling, have been laid out to purchase the votes and influence of the colonists. They have gone on with their settlements in spite of the most horrid difficulties and dangers; they have ever supported, to the utmost of their ability, his majesty’s provincial government over them, and, I believe are, to a man, and ever will be, ready to make grants for so valuable a purpose. But we cannot see the equity of our being obliged to pay off a score that has been much enhanced by bribes and pensions, to keep those to their duty who ought to have been bound by honour and conscience.

  Of course, jobs and pensions costing “thousands and tens of thousands sterling” have been spent “to purchase the votes” of Englishmen, but Otis perceives no reason why the colonists should pay for such “bribes and pensions.” The solution for those oligarchs who’ve plundered the treasury or invested heavily in government bonds?

  A few jobbers had better be left to hang and drown themselves, as was the case after the South Sea bubble, and a few small politicians had better be sent after them, than the nation be undone. This would, in the end, turn out infinitely more beneficial to the whole, than imposing taxes on such as have not the means of paying them.

  In the midst of the Wheelwright bankruptcy that fueled a credit and liquidity crisis, Whitehall wishes to tax and spend more; Jemmy found this not only untenable but also dangerous:

  In the way revenue has been sometimes managed, the universe, would not long set bounds to the rapid increase of the national debt. If places, pensions, and dependencies shall be ever increased in proportion to new resources, instead of carefully applying such resources to the clearing off former incumbrances, the game may be truly infinite.

  If Whitehall were permitted to tax according to what it wishes to spend, an
d neither the rights of tax payers nor the magnitude of the debt limited its spending, then the government’s ability to tax and spend “may be truly infinite.” Otis observed that the people’s ability to limit taxation is directly connected to their ability to limit government and the ability to tax without direct consent and without regard for its debt conferred unlimited power to the government. Consent continued to be the lodestar; little else was important. “No Englishman, nor indeed any other freeman,” Otis argued, “is or can be rightfully taxed, except by own actual consent.” No colonial writer appeared as well-read or closely acquainted with language as did Otis, who was just as capable of meticulous literary analysis as he was bombast:

  … when a man in Europe or America votes a tax on his constituents, if he has any estate, he is at the same time taxing himself, and that by his own consent; and of all this he must be conscious unless we suppose him to be void of common sense.