WEBVTT NOTE 36. King George's War 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.280 Volume 2, Chapter 36, King George's War 2 00:00:05.280 --> 00:00:10.880 The emergence of French colonial trade in the first quarter of the 18th century, spurred 3 00:00:10.880 --> 00:00:17.480 by liberal economic policies instituted by the French Premier, Cardinal Fleury, provoked 4 00:00:17.480 --> 00:00:24.780 desires by its less efficient competitors to crush the trade by force. 5 00:00:24.780 --> 00:00:31.740 This was true not only of French West Indian sugar, but also of the New France fur trade, 6 00:00:31.740 --> 00:00:39.360 which by the late 1720s was outcompeting the English colonies in the supply of beaver. 7 00:00:39.360 --> 00:00:44.460 It was true also of French fishing in the north, which was more efficient than English 8 00:00:44.460 --> 00:00:51.540 fishing, even after France had lost Newfoundland and Nova Scotia to England at the Peace of 9 00:00:51.540 --> 00:00:52.540 Utrecht. 10 00:00:52.540 --> 00:01:00.420 A typical reaction was that of Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts, who repeatedly proposed 11 00:01:00.420 --> 00:01:06.580 to end the competition by seizing French Canada by force. 12 00:01:06.580 --> 00:01:12.020 But standing athwart all rising pressures for renewed aggression against France was 13 00:01:12.020 --> 00:01:19.660 the great Walpole, who brought to his long rule an overriding love of peace and opposition 14 00:01:19.660 --> 00:01:29.980 Robert Walpole, indeed, brought to the Whig Party a policy of consistent liberalism, of 15 00:01:29.980 --> 00:01:37.380 quiet, minimal government, of low budgets and taxes, of little intervention at home 16 00:01:37.380 --> 00:01:42.700 coupled with peace, quiet and minimal government meddling abroad. 17 00:01:42.700 --> 00:01:48.220 He thus not only kept Britain at peace for a generation, but also brought to the Whig 18 00:01:48.220 --> 00:01:56.260 The Wig Party, an internally consistent liberal program. From that time on, the Wig tradition 19 00:01:56.260 --> 00:02:03.940 remained one of liberalism and included such leaders of peace and neutrality as Walpole, 20 00:02:03.940 --> 00:02:11.700 the Pelhams, the Rockingham Whigs and Charles James Fox. It was fortunate for Walpole that 21 00:02:11.700 --> 00:02:17.740 in the same way that he was able to resist opposition charges of dishonor, appeasement 22 00:02:17.740 --> 00:02:24.740 and Sellout to France, so his French ally and counterpart, Cardinal Fleury, was able 23 00:02:24.740 --> 00:02:32.200 to pursue a steadfast policy of peace despite opposition charges of appeasement and sellout 24 00:02:32.200 --> 00:02:33.940 to Great Britain. 25 00:02:33.940 --> 00:02:40.620 England had attacked France in two costly wars, in King William's War and Queen Anne's 26 00:02:40.620 --> 00:02:45.960 War, which had ended with the Peace of Utrecht in 1713. 27 00:02:45.960 --> 00:02:52.240 Now Walpole resolved that the peace would remain unbroken. The French, despite their losses 28 00:02:52.240 --> 00:02:59.020 in Canada at the Peace of Utrecht, were able to construct a mighty defensive fort at Louisbourg 29 00:02:59.020 --> 00:03:06.120 on Cape Breton Island to guard against further English aggression against Quebec. In a far 30 00:03:06.120 --> 00:03:13.240 greater feat, they explored and began to develop the Mississippi and the Ohio valleys. New 31 00:03:13.240 --> 00:03:20.680 New Orleans was founded by the French in 1718, and the fur trade developed in the Ohio Valley 32 00:03:20.680 --> 00:03:23.440 and defensive forts built there. 33 00:03:23.440 --> 00:03:28.880 France not only had survived the English attempt to throw her out of the New World, but was 34 00:03:28.880 --> 00:03:34.600 able to expand its settlements and outcompete its rivals. 35 00:03:34.600 --> 00:03:42.040 The professional patriots, the warmongers and francophobes were looking for any excuse 36 00:03:42.040 --> 00:03:47.360 for Aggression, and they thought they had found their opportunity in the War of the 37 00:03:47.360 --> 00:03:55.400 Polish Succession which broke out in Europe in the 1730s. Walpole, seeing no English interest 38 00:03:55.400 --> 00:04:02.380 involved, stood out alone for peace, even against King George II, John Carteret, and 39 00:04:02.380 --> 00:04:09.320 other opposition leaders in the House of Commons. Resisting the war pressure successfully, Walpole 40 00:04:09.320 --> 00:04:37.320 The war party was unable to prevail in the war of the Polish succession, though it did drag Britain into war with Spain, amidst whipped-up hysteria over Captain Jenkins' ear. 41 00:04:37.320 --> 00:04:43.300 For the war party, such an opportunity to grab Spanish territory was even as welcome 42 00:04:43.300 --> 00:04:49.640 as a war with France. Effective in leading the war hawks in the commons was the fiery 43 00:04:49.640 --> 00:04:57.800 and maniacal orator William Pitt. The War of Jenkins Ear was a classic example of the 44 00:04:57.800 --> 00:05:07.280 use of patriotic myth to whip up popular hysteria, formatted for other goals. In 1731, Captain 45 00:05:07.280 --> 00:05:14.280 Robert Jenkins returned from the Caribbean with a harrowing tale that Spanish officers 46 00:05:14.280 --> 00:05:21.480 in searching his ship had cut off his ear. This tale was taken up by the war crowd seven 47 00:05:21.480 --> 00:05:28.840 years later, even though Jenkins' ear was apparently intact, and used by the pro-war 48 00:05:28.840 --> 00:05:36.280 press to format aggression against Spain. The actual mainspring of the aggressive war 49 00:05:36.280 --> 00:05:44.360 against Spain had nothing to do with national honor or Captain Jenkins. It stemmed instead 50 00:05:44.360 --> 00:05:52.560 from long-standing maneuvers by leading London merchants to acquire a monopoly of the West 51 00:05:52.560 --> 00:06:01.520 Indian slave trade. In 1663, Charles II had granted the Royal African Company the exclusive 52 00:06:01.520 --> 00:06:26.040 The Royal African Company, after 1680, specialized in slave exports to New Spain. 53 00:06:26.040 --> 00:06:32.640 The Spanish government sold to private firms the coveted privilege of the Asiento, the 54 00:06:32.640 --> 00:06:39.960 exclusive monopoly of supplying Spanish colonies with slaves. And the Royal African Company 55 00:06:39.960 --> 00:06:47.380 was able to become a favorite subcontractor of the Spanish Ascientists. Its main trade 56 00:06:47.380 --> 00:06:54.160 was with the new Spanish ports, Cartagena on the mainland, Havana and Portobello on 57 00:06:54.160 --> 00:07:01.520 and the Isthmus of Panama. In 1698, the complaints of the English planters over a shortage of 58 00:07:01.520 --> 00:07:08.320 slaves led the British government to cancel royal Africans' monopoly and to throw open 59 00:07:08.320 --> 00:07:15.200 the English slave trade to other groups. The Asiento was one of the main reasons for England's 60 00:07:15.200 --> 00:07:22.520 precipitation of the War of the Spanish Succession, known in America as Queen Anne's War, against 61 00:07:22.520 --> 00:07:52.520 France and Spain in 1701. For Philip V, the new King of Spain in 1700, was a grandson of the French King Louis XIV, and he promptly awarded the coveted Asiento to the French Guinea Company, an act that led powerful English merchants interested in the slave trade to support an English war upon the two countries. At the Peace of Utrecht, 62 00:07:52.520 --> 00:07:59.960 The British financiers achieved what they wanted, for Spain was forced to grant Britain a 30-year 63 00:07:59.960 --> 00:08:06.200 asiento for the slave trade to the Spanish colonies. The British government granted the 64 00:08:06.200 --> 00:08:12.400 asiento monopoly to the newly formed South Sea Company, which promptly used its privilege 65 00:08:12.400 --> 00:08:18.800 as a base for general trade with the Spanish West Indies, indeed as a base for a vast amount 66 00:08:18.800 --> 00:08:25.040 and of Illegal Trade as well. The South Sea Company was an organization dominated by the 67 00:08:25.040 --> 00:08:31.440 leading West Indian merchants and planters. They were led by alderman William Beckford, 68 00:08:31.440 --> 00:08:37.360 the wealthiest planter and an absentee landlord in London, and they supported the imperialist 69 00:08:37.360 --> 00:08:44.960 opposition to the Pacific Walpole. How the Spanish government no more welcomed evasion 70 00:08:44.960 --> 00:08:50.960 of its mercantilist regulations than did any other government. It was the attempt of the 71 00:08:50.960 --> 00:08:58.840 Spanish Colonial Coast Guard to stop and search British ships in Spanish territorial waters 72 00:08:58.840 --> 00:09:04.960 that precipitated England's going to war, despite England's previous recognition of 73 00:09:04.960 --> 00:09:10.040 Spain's exclusive right of trade with its own colony. 74 00:09:10.040 --> 00:09:15.800 The Jenkins Ear hoax was fostered by British merchants to gull the country into going to 75 00:09:15.800 --> 00:09:23.240 war in order to swell their profits in the illegal trade with the Spanish colonies. 76 00:09:23.240 --> 00:09:30.480 The interested merchants, allied to the Jingoist, were led in commons by William Pitt, the main 77 00:09:30.480 --> 00:09:35.460 political protege of Beckford, and his boy patriots. 78 00:09:35.460 --> 00:09:41.700 These war hawks could not this time be denied, even though Walpole was able to negotiate 79 00:09:41.700 --> 00:09:49.300 a compromise agreement with Spain in the Convention of El Pardo in 1739. 80 00:09:49.300 --> 00:09:54.940 Walpole's lone resistance to the war drive was eloquent, noting the Spanish treaty right 81 00:09:54.940 --> 00:09:59.200 of search in its own waters against illegal trade. 82 00:09:59.200 --> 00:10:04.700 He warned that the warmongers insist that our ships ought never to be searched wherever 83 00:10:04.700 --> 00:10:11.940 and let them be ever so near to the Spanish coast. Pray, sir, what is the plain English 84 00:10:11.940 --> 00:10:18.620 of this but that the trade to the Spanish West Indies ought to be open to every interloper 85 00:10:18.620 --> 00:10:27.220 of ours. Yet the facts of the case, the Convention of El Pardo and Walpole's stubborn eloquence 86 00:10:27.220 --> 00:10:37.060 could not this time prevail, and George II declared war against Spain in October 1739. 87 00:10:37.060 --> 00:10:44.500 A new wave of deadly European wars had thus begun. Wall-pole hearing the bells ring in 88 00:10:44.500 --> 00:10:51.700 celebration, prophetically warned, they are ringing their bells. They will be ringing 89 00:10:51.700 --> 00:10:55.140 their hands soon. 90 00:10:55.140 --> 00:11:01.140 As we have seen, Georgia quickly used the war as an excuse for an attack on St. Augustine, 91 00:11:01.140 --> 00:11:07.580 but the most fateful result was the widening of the conflict to France as well. Even though 92 00:11:07.580 --> 00:11:14.100 forced to go to war, Walpole tried to keep the fighting as limited as possible. In this 93 00:11:14.100 --> 00:11:20.040 effort, he was joined by the powerful British West Indian sugar planters. The planters only 94 00:11:20.040 --> 00:11:27.040 wanted to cripple Spanish trade. They emphatically did not want to conquest a French or Spanish 95 00:11:27.040 --> 00:11:34.040 colonial territory that would open up the latter's products to English colonial markets. 96 00:11:34.520 --> 00:11:41.040 Prospects for limiting the war, however, were ruined in 1740 by the outbreak of the entirely 97 00:11:41.040 --> 00:11:48.040 separate War of the Austrian Succession. The Pacific Wall Pole was finally ousted in 1742. 98 00:11:50.040 --> 00:12:11.040 and the King forced the Duke of Newcastle to bring into the cabinet the war hawk Lord Carteret who rushed in to try to mount an all-out war against France which erupted in 1744 and which became known in America as King George's War. 99 00:12:11.040 --> 00:12:34.040 The war dragged on in costly and inconclusive fashion until peace was made at the Treaty of Ay La Chapelle in 1748, restoring the state of affairs of the status quo antebellum, including reconfirmation of the Spanish asiento to the South Sea Company. 100 00:12:34.040 --> 00:12:49.040 The most important event of King George's war in the colonies, and the most fateful of future consequences, was the expedition that conquered the fortress of Lewisburg from the French. 101 00:12:49.040 --> 00:13:01.040 From his appointment to the governorship of Massachusetts in 1741, William Shirley had been zealous in preparation and expeditions for a war. 102 00:13:01.040 --> 00:13:07.880 On assuming his post, Shirley quickly and happily built up a patronage machine, and 103 00:13:07.880 --> 00:13:13.980 the build-up was created out of increasing war and military expenditures. 104 00:13:13.980 --> 00:13:21.600 Provision contracts for favored merchants, recruiting fees and naval expenditures lined 105 00:13:21.600 --> 00:13:28.920 the coffers of Shirley and his friends, and, as governments have eternally found before 106 00:13:28.920 --> 00:13:37.640 and Since, the cry of defense proved to be a superb patriotic cloak for these nest-feathering 107 00:13:37.640 --> 00:13:45.520 operations. Previous conflicts were forgotten as contractors and subcontractors scrambled 108 00:13:45.520 --> 00:13:54.240 to win places on the war-gravy train. As Professor Schutz, a most favorable biographer of Shirley 109 00:13:54.240 --> 00:14:01.860 He writes, Defense activities raised a political tide in Shirley's favor. Speculators, contractors 110 00:14:01.860 --> 00:14:07.860 and merchants prospered, and their profits attached them to the new administration. The 111 00:14:07.860 --> 00:14:15.100 new defense policy won the support of many of Belcher's allies. Lesser man in turn looked 112 00:14:15.100 --> 00:14:23.060 to the contractors. A chain of favors spread war business to a large number of people. 113 00:14:23.060 --> 00:14:28.740 The powerful merchant Thomas Hancock, a former opponent of Shirley's, had been bought out 114 00:14:28.740 --> 00:14:36.480 by being tied into a firm receiving virtually half of the war contract business in Massachusetts. 115 00:14:36.480 --> 00:14:42.020 The old alliance with the merchant Samuel Waldo was further cemented by Governor Shirley 116 00:14:42.020 --> 00:14:49.420 himself being made a junior partner in Waldo's enterprises. After France and England went 117 00:14:49.420 --> 00:14:57.460 to War in Europe in earnest, in 1744, Shirley determined to escalate the war to the colonies 118 00:14:57.460 --> 00:15:04.180 and to capture the great fortress of Lewisburg. In this plan, Shirley was backed enthusiastically 119 00:15:04.180 --> 00:15:10.260 by the Duke of Bedford, the new First Lord of the Admiralty and a leading imperialist 120 00:15:10.260 --> 00:15:18.300 and expansionist, driven by patriotism, the desire to crush efficient French fur and fishing 121 00:15:18.300 --> 00:15:26.120 and Competition, and the Lure of Greater War Contracts, surely pressed his plan. But the 122 00:15:26.120 --> 00:15:32.200 General Court balked at the difficulty in the great expense. Soon, however, in early 123 00:15:32.200 --> 00:15:38.860 1745, the legislature, steered by William Pepperell, the great timber merchant, lent 124 00:15:38.860 --> 00:15:45.420 its approval. Pepperell was promptly appointed Commander-in-Chief of the expedition, and 125 00:15:45.420 --> 00:15:52.260 The choice colonelcies and contracts were handed out to Shirley's key friends. 126 00:15:52.260 --> 00:15:58.880 Shirley's sons-in-law, Eliakim Hutchinson and William Bolan, were put in charge of recruiting 127 00:15:58.880 --> 00:16:05.560 and provisioning. Waldo was made a brigadier general and his son a commissary, and Pepperill's 128 00:16:05.560 --> 00:16:12.560 son-in-law was appointed a contractor. A large issue of paper currency was voted to provide 129 00:16:12.560 --> 00:16:19.280 with the necessary funds. If Shirley and his friends had never had it so good, the same 130 00:16:19.280 --> 00:16:25.600 was scarcely true for the people of Massachusetts. Shirley hoped to raise three thousand men 131 00:16:25.600 --> 00:16:32.700 for the expedition, but when enough seamen did not volunteer, the kidnapping policy of 132 00:16:32.700 --> 00:16:40.440 impressment was used to fill the quotas. The impressments caused riots in several towns 133 00:16:40.440 --> 00:16:47.080 and protests at town meetings. Here, indeed, was a harbinger of ominous things to come 134 00:16:47.080 --> 00:16:52.080 for the Crown and its relations with the people of Massachusetts. 135 00:16:52.080 --> 00:16:58.920 The expedition finally got underway at the end of March 1745. Impressments continued 136 00:16:58.920 --> 00:17:05.600 as one thousand more men were sought and bitterness increased among the public. All qualms were 137 00:17:05.600 --> 00:17:13.600 were stilled, however, by the burst of popular enthusiasm for the capture of Louisbourg in mid-June. 138 00:17:13.600 --> 00:17:24.600 Dreaming of and asking for more favors and a barren sea, as well as his grandiose projects for the conquest of Canada, 139 00:17:24.600 --> 00:17:33.600 Shirley ladled out huge contracts to Hancock and his other friends for the maintenance and reconstruction of Louisbourg. 140 00:17:33.600 --> 00:17:40.720 Victory, however, soon proved to have troubles of its own in store for the conquerors. New 141 00:17:40.720 --> 00:17:47.800 Castle and the Prime Minister, his brother, Henry Pelham, were instinctive liberals and 142 00:17:47.800 --> 00:17:55.040 had always been reluctant to pursue the war with France. They were now increasingly appalled 143 00:17:55.040 --> 00:18:01.600 at the high cost and length of the war. Their major aim was to conclude peace as quickly 144 00:18:01.600 --> 00:18:08.720 and as gracefully as possible. Their main task was subtly to scuttle their own war effort, 145 00:18:08.720 --> 00:18:16.900 and in particular to stem the rise of patriotering hysteria in England over the unexpected capture 146 00:18:16.900 --> 00:18:23.660 of Lewisburg, the kind of hysteria that called for all-out conquest of Canada, and that led 147 00:18:23.660 --> 00:18:29.440 the First Lord of the Admiralty to swear that he would hang the man who dared to surrender 148 00:18:59.440 --> 00:19:13.080 The Post of Colonel, however, with its correlative patronage, was lucrative enough, and Shirley 149 00:19:13.080 --> 00:19:20.160 and Peperell spent a happy time in Lewisburg, parceling out all the new patronage and war 150 00:19:20.160 --> 00:19:27.520 contracts, including captaincies to two of Shirley's sons. Such friends, relatives and 151 00:19:27.520 --> 00:19:36.120 and fellow booty-sharers as Robert Hale, Boland, Hutchinson, Robert Ocmutti, Benjamin Coleman, 152 00:19:36.120 --> 00:19:44.640 Hancock and Paul Dudley were cut in for their share. As always, Samuel Waldo profited handsomely. 153 00:19:44.640 --> 00:19:49.720 His son becoming captain and in charge of supply for his regiment, and his step-brother 154 00:19:49.720 --> 00:19:56.820 and Pepperell's son-in-law, Nathaniel Sparhawk, placed in charge of selling French warloot 155 00:19:56.820 --> 00:20:05.860 in Boston. But in the meanwhile, the loot of the lower-ranking heroes was not as abundant. 156 00:20:05.860 --> 00:20:13.300 At Lewisburg, supplies were low, sickness high, and the troops restive. And through 157 00:20:13.300 --> 00:20:20.420 the stormy winter, Shirley found it difficult to supply the unfortunate Garrison. Furthermore, 158 00:20:20.420 --> 00:20:26.240 the American volunteers found themselves after the victory, under the command of British 159 00:20:26.240 --> 00:20:49.240 The British naval officers, who had played a decidedly minor role in the triumph, the colonial soldiers had enlisted only for the length of a summer campaign, but now found to their outrage that British officers forced them to remain in Lewisburg for the entire miserable winter. 160 00:20:49.240 --> 00:20:54.280 The troops threatened to mutiny, and only the personal visit of Shirley in the fall, 161 00:20:54.280 --> 00:21:01.640 promising speedier payment and discharges in the spring, quieted the incipient rebellion. 162 00:21:01.640 --> 00:21:08.640 By the sobering spring of 1746, the people of Massachusetts began to learn some of the 163 00:21:08.640 --> 00:21:17.640 cost of their famous victory. By the end of the winter, fully 900 men, one-third of the 164 00:21:17.640 --> 00:21:23.440 The victorious New England soldiery had died at Lewisburg. 165 00:21:23.440 --> 00:21:29.080 This bitter pill was aggravated by the conduct of the returning British fleet. 166 00:21:29.080 --> 00:21:35.640 Many maltreated British seamen took the opportunity of being in Boston to jump ship, and the British 167 00:21:35.640 --> 00:21:41.840 officers aroused hostility by rounding up and killing two of their sailors, as well 168 00:21:41.840 --> 00:21:47.480 as press-ganging American seamen to replace the deserters. 169 00:21:47.480 --> 00:21:54.860 Many men from Boston and other seaport towns reflected popular wrath against Eliakim Hutchinson, 170 00:21:54.860 --> 00:22:00.160 one of Shirley's favorites who had been a leading contractor of supplies to Lewisburg, 171 00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:07.220 and was in charge of procuring semen in the colony. In the 1747 election, the Massachusetts 172 00:22:07.220 --> 00:22:13.480 Assembly removed Hutchinson from the council and tried its best to have him dismissed from 173 00:22:13.480 --> 00:22:20.480 and his Judicial and Military Post. Shirley, however, remained undaunted and pressed on 174 00:22:20.480 --> 00:22:27.980 the plan for a massive attack on Quebec, the key to Canada. Pelham at first used a French 175 00:22:27.980 --> 00:22:35.300 offer of peace to veto such aggression, but Newcastle and Pelham were soon forced to agree 176 00:22:35.300 --> 00:22:42.320 in order to appease the war-minded at home. However, resistance to the heavy taxes needed 177 00:22:42.320 --> 00:22:50.760 for the Campaign grew rapidly in the Massachusetts Legislature. Again, a heavily inflationary 178 00:22:50.760 --> 00:22:58.200 issue of paper money was put through. Voluntary enlistment dried up from the dread example 179 00:22:58.200 --> 00:23:05.320 of Louisbourg, but Shirley quickly drafted a frontier Garrison and other colonies supplied 180 00:23:05.320 --> 00:23:25.320 New York furnished $1,600 and Connecticut $1,000. The promised British troops never arrived, thus ending the prospective expedition, and unhappy soldiers and sailors began to desert en masse in the summer of 1746. 181 00:23:25.320 --> 00:23:30.760 When constables tried to arrest the deserters, they were assaulted by the local populace, 182 00:23:31.480 --> 00:23:38.600 and frontier posts, stripped by Shirley for the epic expedition, were overrun by the French and 183 00:23:38.600 --> 00:23:45.320 their Indian allies. Shirley was still fanatically eager to press the attack in December, even 184 00:23:45.320 --> 00:23:51.400 without British aid, but was overruled by the good prudence of his associates and other New 185 00:23:51.400 --> 00:24:00.040 New England Governors. Finally, Shirley's dream of a great 1747 expedition was destroyed 186 00:24:00.040 --> 00:24:10.160 by Newcastle's firm cancelling of all British plans for the attack. Shirley would have pressed 187 00:24:10.160 --> 00:24:17.000 on regardless, but neither the other colonies nor Massachusetts would go along. There was 188 00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:24.880 This method in the madness of Shirley's persistent and almost frenzied zeal for more and bigger 189 00:24:24.880 --> 00:24:31.760 wars, his ties of friendship and political alliance were held together only by the tenuous 190 00:24:31.760 --> 00:24:39.160 band of continuing mutual profit. The end or even the slackening of war meant lower 191 00:24:39.160 --> 00:24:47.420 poor government spending, diminished war contracts, lower patronage, slackened inflation, and 192 00:24:47.420 --> 00:24:55.600 tighter credit. And almost immediately, Shirley's plundering friends, the Waldo's, Hancock's, 193 00:24:55.600 --> 00:25:00.480 and Kilby's grew sullen and restive. 194 00:25:00.480 --> 00:25:08.080 By November 17, 1747, the British fleet was ready to sail out of Boston for Jamaica. It 195 00:25:08.080 --> 00:25:14.180 It still faced the problem of replacing its numerous deserters. A massive British press 196 00:25:14.180 --> 00:25:21.180 gang swooped down upon the British docks, seized almost fifty laborers and dragged them 197 00:25:21.300 --> 00:25:27.900 to the ships. An angry Boston crowd of several hundred quickly gathered and began looking 198 00:25:27.900 --> 00:25:34.900 for British officers. The sheriff and his deputies were severely beaten. The mob captured 199 00:25:34.900 --> 00:25:41.100 The mob captured several British officers as hostages for the impressed Americans and 200 00:25:41.100 --> 00:25:47.840 then marched on Governor Shirley himself, who was harboring several other officers. 201 00:25:47.840 --> 00:25:53.920 The mob denounced Shirley for supporting the impressment. For a while Shirley was able 202 00:25:53.920 --> 00:26:00.420 to cowl the crowd into releasing a few officers, but then the mob regained its courage and 203 00:26:00.420 --> 00:26:06.260 and began to attack the governor's house. A deputy sheriff was beaten and put into the 204 00:26:06.260 --> 00:26:12.260 stocks. The mob shifted their attack to the council room and Shirley was particularly 205 00:26:12.260 --> 00:26:19.260 disturbed to find that the local militia refused to obey orders to assemble and put down the 206 00:26:19.260 --> 00:26:26.740 riot. The mob's courage finally faltered, however, in attacking the council and governor 207 00:26:26.740 --> 00:26:33.740 The British naval commander, Charles Knowles, reacted as a true military man, threatening to shell Boston until his men were released. But the wiser Shirley finally prevailed upon him to agree to the mob's demands and return to his country. 208 00:26:56.740 --> 00:27:04.060 Release the impressed colonist. The rioting was over, and the rebellious citizens of Boston 209 00:27:04.060 --> 00:27:13.280 had won their vital point. Governor Shirley, considerably shaken, termed the riots an insurrection. 210 00:27:13.280 --> 00:27:18.340 The assembly had given him no trouble, but he railed against various democratic town 211 00:27:18.340 --> 00:27:25.380 meetings and especially against the mobish, factious spirit of Boston. Shirley complained 212 00:27:25.380 --> 00:27:30.980 and that Boston was being run by the lower orders, poverty and a low status in life being 213 00:27:30.980 --> 00:27:36.740 common charges to hurl against one's political enemies. 214 00:27:36.740 --> 00:27:43.140 The successful riot had brought home their power to the people of Boston and brought 215 00:27:43.140 --> 00:27:49.500 to a head the mounting opposition to the Shirley regime. After the riot, the opposition became 216 00:27:49.500 --> 00:28:19.500 The Boston Independent Advertiser led a determined attack on Knowles and on Shirley's war policies, including the inflation. Dr. William Douglas, the great hard-money economic theorist, denounced Knowles as a tyrant and a monster of wickedness. Shirley, smarting under the criticism of the Independent Advertiser, asked the General Court to censure the paper. 217 00:28:19.500 --> 00:28:26.500 The subservient council agreed, but the assembly rejected the proposal overwhelmingly. 218 00:28:27.500 --> 00:28:43.500 Governor Shirley, longing for the good old days of all-out war, again rejected a great inter-colonial expedition for 1748, this time against the French fort of Crown Point at Lake Champlain. 219 00:28:43.500 --> 00:28:50.500 But Massachusetts had issued an enormous amount of paper money in the three years of war, 220 00:28:51.000 --> 00:28:57.340 and the money was already depreciating rapidly. Tax monies were pledged far in advance for 221 00:28:57.340 --> 00:29:02.100 redemption of the paper. Shirley realized that the neighboring colonies would have to 222 00:29:02.100 --> 00:29:08.940 join the expedition, and he proposed quotas of aid from each colony. But the other governors, 223 00:29:08.940 --> 00:29:17.820 even in New York, which bordered on Crown Point, summoned no enthusiasm for the scheme. Furthermore, 224 00:29:17.820 --> 00:29:23.560 peace was nearing at last in Europe under the clever guidance of the Pelims, and once 225 00:29:23.560 --> 00:29:30.940 more Shirley's grandiose vision of aggression in conquest had to be abandoned. 226 00:29:30.940 --> 00:29:36.960 In the meanwhile, sensing the approaching end of their joint bonanza, the faithful Waldo 227 00:29:36.960 --> 00:29:44.320 Waldo began to loot with might and main, deducting forquisites from the soldiers' meager pay, 228 00:29:44.320 --> 00:29:52.040 fordaining to supply them with arms and clothing. Waldo also pocketed the assets of dead soldiers 229 00:29:52.040 --> 00:29:59.280 and sold their muskets. At Shirley's request for an accounting, Waldo flatly and indignantly 230 00:29:59.280 --> 00:30:07.120 were refused. Shirley, fearful of breaking with the machine of Waldo's friends and relatives 231 00:30:07.120 --> 00:30:13.820 that had been his political support, did nothing. But Waldo broke with Shirley for his slackening 232 00:30:13.820 --> 00:30:21.520 of enthusiasm for the former's speculations. At the same time, another disappointed contractor, 233 00:30:21.520 --> 00:30:28.600 James Allen, made himself a leading spokesman in the lower house on the impressment issue. 234 00:30:28.600 --> 00:30:34.520 in Boston and the Seaport towns was continuing high. To all of this a special bitterness 235 00:30:34.520 --> 00:30:41.320 was added in Massachusetts when England handed Lewisburg back to France in the Treaty of 236 00:30:41.320 --> 00:30:47.880 Aille Chapelle. To the colonists this seemed the final betrayal of American blood and tears 237 00:30:47.880 --> 00:30:54.280 by the mother country. The people of Boston and Massachusetts had still more important 238 00:30:54.280 --> 00:31:01.640 The Threat of Impressment especially affected New England seamen because their terms at 239 00:31:01.640 --> 00:31:09.320 sea were far shorter than those of the English sailors, who were used to very long voyages. 240 00:31:09.320 --> 00:31:16.600 The Threat of Impressment induced a considerable emigration of sailors from Boston to Newport. 241 00:31:16.600 --> 00:31:22.040 Even more damaging were the extremely heavy losses suffered by the cream of Massachusetts 242 00:31:22.040 --> 00:31:29.680 Labor Force in King George's War, Boston's and Massachusetts manpower suffered very heavy 243 00:31:29.680 --> 00:31:38.620 losses during the war. At sea, in Lewisburg, on numerous expeditions in the West Indies, 244 00:31:38.620 --> 00:31:45.820 one estimate holds that 20% of Boston's manpower was killed in three years of King George's 245 00:31:45.820 --> 00:32:08.820 This monstrous decimation coupled with high taxes levied for public relief to widows, emigration and the after effects of inflation greatly depressed the economy of Boston, the only American city failing to expand in the years following until 1760. 246 00:32:08.820 --> 00:32:22.820 During the wars of the 1740s, a half-hearted attempt was made by the Crown to enforce the trade regulations on the Americans, particularly prohibitions on trading with the enemy. 247 00:32:22.820 --> 00:32:36.820 After the war, Admiral Knowles complained to the newly energetic Board of Trade that Newcastle had ignored his complaints of colonial trading with the enemy, and that he had to proceed on his own to enforce the law. 248 00:32:36.820 --> 00:32:44.580 Law. The military mind could not appreciate the mutual benefits of free exchange, even 249 00:32:44.580 --> 00:32:51.660 with a so-called enemy. But the colonial merchants did appreciate these benefits and happily 250 00:32:51.660 --> 00:32:58.500 continued the trade. Boston, New York, and Philadelphia were important centers of this 251 00:32:58.500 --> 00:33:05.260 commerce. But the great emporium of trading with the enemy was Newport, where the Deputy 252 00:33:05.260 --> 00:33:12.260 Governor William Ellery allowed ships to clear the port without troublesome inspection. One 253 00:33:12.940 --> 00:33:19.420 method of evasion was through neutral Dutch middlemen in such West Indian territories as 254 00:33:19.420 --> 00:33:26.420 Suriname and St. Eustachius. Another was direct trade under cover of fake prisoner exchanges. 255 00:33:28.860 --> 00:33:35.240 Ships would be legally authorized under official flags of truce to exchange prisoners at the 256 00:33:35.240 --> 00:33:41.200 and the French West Indies. But apart from the few token prisoners, trade was happily 257 00:33:41.200 --> 00:33:46.920 carried on by these ships. Flags of truce were purchased from colonial governors and 258 00:33:46.920 --> 00:33:53.920 a market in these flags flourished in the colonies. By 1748, then, the American colonies, 259 00:33:55.200 --> 00:34:02.200 prospering under the liberal wall-pole New Castle policy of salutary neglect, stood as 260 00:34:02.200 --> 00:34:08.820 is almost self-governing colonies, in fact, though scarcely in name. 261 00:34:08.820 --> 00:34:14.560 In each colony, the lower house or assembly took the lead in this self-government with 262 00:34:14.560 --> 00:34:22.480 increasing effect. Although Robert Walpole had been ousted as Prime Minister in 1742, 263 00:34:22.480 --> 00:34:29.200 his policy of salutary neglect was substantially continued by Newcastle and his brother, Henry 264 00:34:29.200 --> 00:34:35.600 Henry Pelham, who succeeded as Prime Minister the following year. But in the absence of 265 00:34:35.600 --> 00:34:41.400 the political might of Walpole, the shades of night were beginning to close on the relations 266 00:34:41.400 --> 00:34:48.400 between Britain and the American colonies. Newcastle, while still powerful in the government, 267 00:34:48.400 --> 00:34:55.040 was succeeded in the post of Secretary of State for the South by the aggressive imperialist 268 00:34:55.040 --> 00:35:01.200 John Russell, the Duke of Bedford But Bedford could do little harm in the colonies 269 00:35:01.200 --> 00:35:07.800 so long as the liberal Lord Monson continued as president of the Board of Trade. The death 270 00:35:07.800 --> 00:35:14.800 of Monson in 1748, coinciding with the end of the war in Europe, gave Bedford his chance 271 00:35:15.160 --> 00:35:21.120 to try to move toward an end of salutary neglect and to end the flourishing smuggling in the 272 00:35:21.120 --> 00:35:27.480 and the American Trade. Newcastle attempted to replace Monson by the latter's brother-in-law, 273 00:35:27.480 --> 00:35:34.160 the Duke of Leeds, who, in Newcastle's words, needed some office which required little attendance 274 00:35:34.160 --> 00:35:41.600 and less application. Bedford, however, managed to overrule Newcastle and to install at the 275 00:35:41.600 --> 00:35:49.560 Board of Trade his follower, George Dunk, the Earl of Halifax. Halifax now set about 276 00:35:49.560 --> 00:35:56.160 in a determined attempt to bring the American colonies to heel. For several years the Board 277 00:35:56.160 --> 00:36:01.440 of Trade pressured the higher authorities with a series of reports deploring the lack 278 00:36:01.440 --> 00:36:07.320 of enforcement of the mercantilist regulations in the colonies, and calling for the replacement 279 00:36:07.320 --> 00:36:14.320 of salutary neglect by enforcement of the laws. Failing to convince Pelham and Newcastle 280 00:36:14.320 --> 00:36:16.320 to Change Their Ways, 281 00:36:16.320 --> 00:36:23.020 Alifax tried a power play to have himself appointed to a new post that he proposed, 282 00:36:23.020 --> 00:36:26.840 a separate Secretary of State for the Colonies. 283 00:36:26.840 --> 00:36:34.340 He failed to achieve this goal, but did manage to obtain, as Sopp, slightly enlarged powers 284 00:36:34.340 --> 00:36:39.340 over the Colonies for the Board of Trade in 1752. 285 00:36:39.340 --> 00:36:46.840 Promptly, the board began a persistent campaign to require the colonial governors to obey 286 00:36:46.840 --> 00:36:52.820 its instructions and to try to rest from the assemblies of permanent revenue for the royal 287 00:36:52.820 --> 00:36:56.660 governors and their administration. 288 00:36:56.660 --> 00:37:01.220 The Board of Trade could do little on its own, however, particularly in the face of 289 00:37:01.220 --> 00:37:05.340 determined opposition by the colonial assemblies. 290 00:37:05.340 --> 00:37:13.380 In 1756, the outbreak of a new war with France forced Halifax to suspend his imperial activities 291 00:37:13.380 --> 00:37:15.840 for the duration. 292 00:37:15.840 --> 00:37:21.860 At that point, imperial control over the colonies was scarcely greater than eight years before 293 00:37:21.860 --> 00:37:25.180 when Halifax had begun his efforts. 294 00:37:25.180 --> 00:37:30.900 But this very failure set the stage for a new and far greater push for restoration of 295 00:37:30.900 --> 00:37:34.580 control over the colonies when the war was over. 296 00:37:34.580 --> 00:37:41.300 A push inspired by increasing fears by the non-liberal forces in Britain that colonial 297 00:37:41.300 --> 00:37:45.160 independence had nearly gotten out of hand. 298 00:37:45.160 --> 00:37:50.740 One example of the failure of Halifax to crack down on smuggling in the colonies was the 299 00:37:50.740 --> 00:37:57.100 case of the Philadelphia firm of William Allen and Company, which had become prominent in 300 00:37:57.100 --> 00:38:02.900 the smuggling trade from the French West Indies and was thus able to undersell the legitimate 301 00:38:02.900 --> 00:38:09.520 Importers. By a happy arrangement, the royal collector of customs, whose task it was to 302 00:38:09.520 --> 00:38:16.520 enforce the laws, was Abraham Taylor, who happened to be a member of the Allen firm. 303 00:38:16.520 --> 00:38:22.320 Taylor's pursuit of the policy of salutary neglect is hardly surprising.