WEBVTT NOTE 40. The American Colonies and the War 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.320 Volume 2, Chapter 40, The American Colonies and the War 2 00:00:06.320 --> 00:00:12.400 During the French and Indian War, Americans continued the great tradition of trading with 3 00:00:12.400 --> 00:00:19.120 the enemy, and even more readily than before. As in King George's War, Newport took the 4 00:00:19.120 --> 00:00:26.360 lead. Other vital centers were New York and Philadelphia. The individualistic Rhode Islanders 5 00:00:26.360 --> 00:00:32.440 angrily turned Governor Stephen Hopkins out of office for embroiling Rhode Island in a 6 00:00:32.440 --> 00:00:39.160 foreign war between England and France. Rhode Island blithely disregarded the embargo against 7 00:00:39.160 --> 00:00:45.940 trade with the enemy and redoubled its commerce with France. Rhode Island's ships also functioned 8 00:00:45.940 --> 00:00:52.040 as one of the major sources of supply for French Canada during the war. In the fall 9 00:00:52.040 --> 00:00:58.040 In the fall of 1757, William Pitt was told that the Rhode Islanders are a lawless set 10 00:00:58.040 --> 00:01:04.000 of smugglers who continually supply the enemy with what provisions they want. 11 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:09.920 The Crown ordered royal governors to embargo exports of food and to break up the extensive 12 00:01:09.920 --> 00:01:16.200 traffic with the West Indies, but shippers again resorted to flags of truce and trade 13 00:01:16.200 --> 00:01:22.600 through neutral ports in the West Indies. Monte Christi, in Spanish Hispaniola, proved 14 00:01:22.600 --> 00:01:28.680 to be a particularly popular intermediary port. The flags of truth devise particularly 15 00:01:28.680 --> 00:01:34.440 irritated the British, and the lucrative sale of this privilege, with the prisoners' names 16 00:01:34.440 --> 00:01:41.380 left blank, was indulged in by Governors William Denny of Pennsylvania and Francis Bernard 17 00:01:41.380 --> 00:01:48.760 of New Jersey. French prisoners for token exchanges under the flags were rare and therefore 18 00:01:48.760 --> 00:01:54.560 at a premium, and merchants in Philadelphia and New York paid high prices for these prisoners 19 00:01:54.560 --> 00:02:02.100 to Newport privateers. The peak of this trade came in 1759, for in the following year, with 20 00:02:02.100 --> 00:02:07.860 the end of the war with New France, the Royal Navy was able to turn its attention to this 21 00:02:07.860 --> 00:02:14.860 is trade, and virtually suppress it. However, in the words of Professor Breidenball, privateering 22 00:02:15.340 --> 00:02:21.180 and trade with the enemy might have their ups and downs, but then, as now, government 23 00:02:21.180 --> 00:02:28.180 contracts seem to entail little risk and to pay off handsomely. Particularly feeding at 24 00:02:28.300 --> 00:02:33.980 the trough of government war contracts were specifically privileged merchants of New York 25 00:02:33.980 --> 00:02:40.220 American Pennsylvania. Two firms of London merchants were especially influential in handing 26 00:02:40.220 --> 00:02:46.300 out British war contracts to their favorite American correspondents. Thus, the highly 27 00:02:46.300 --> 00:02:52.300 influential London firm of John Tomlinson and John Hanbury, who was deeply involved 28 00:02:52.300 --> 00:03:00.300 in the Ohio Company, received a huge war contract. The firm designated Charles Apthorpe and 29 00:03:00.300 --> 00:03:05.860 and Company, its Boston representative, and Colonel William Bayard, its representative 30 00:03:05.860 --> 00:03:12.620 in New York. In addition, the powerful London merchant Moses Franks arranged for his relatives 31 00:03:12.620 --> 00:03:18.900 and friends David Franks of Philadelphia and Jacob Franks, John Watts and the powerful 32 00:03:18.900 --> 00:03:25.900 Oliver Delancey of New York to be made government agents. New York, furthermore, was made the 33 00:03:25.900 --> 00:03:32.380 concentration point for the British forces and the general storehouse of arms and ammunition, 34 00:03:32.380 --> 00:03:39.660 thus permitting many merchants to amass fortunes as subcontractors if they enjoyed the proper family 35 00:03:39.660 --> 00:03:47.100 connections. By 1761, however, all the great ports in America were suffering badly from the 36 00:03:47.100 --> 00:03:53.660 severe dislocation of trade wrought by the war. Smuggling and trading with the enemy were not the 37 00:03:53.660 --> 00:04:00.460 The only forms of American resistance to British dictation during the French and Indian War. 38 00:04:00.460 --> 00:04:05.940 During the French Wars of the 1740s, Boston had been the center of violent resistance 39 00:04:05.940 --> 00:04:13.020 to conscription for the war effort, an effort that decimated the Massachusetts male population. 40 00:04:13.020 --> 00:04:18.940 During the French and Indian War, Massachusetts continued as the most active center of resistance 41 00:04:18.940 --> 00:04:25.940 to Conscription, and of widespread desertion, often en masse, from the militia. 42 00:04:25.940 --> 00:04:33.780 Thomas Pownell took over as governor of Massachusetts in early 1757 and cracked down bitterly on 43 00:04:33.780 --> 00:04:41.300 Massachusetts liberties. He sent troops outside Massachusetts without assembly permission, 44 00:04:41.300 --> 00:04:47.780 threatened to punish justices of the peace who did not enforce the laws against desertion, 45 00:04:47.780 --> 00:04:55.180 hitherto interpreted with salutary neglect, and threatened Boston with military occupation 46 00:04:55.180 --> 00:05:02.560 if the assembly did not agree to the arrival and quartering of British troops. 47 00:05:02.560 --> 00:05:07.980 In November, English recruiting officers appeared in Boston, and the assembly and the Boston 48 00:05:07.980 --> 00:05:14.500 magistrates forbade any recruiting or any quartering of troops in the town. 49 00:05:14.500 --> 00:05:23.260 Pownell vetoed these actions as violations of the royal prerogative, especially in emergencies. 50 00:05:23.260 --> 00:05:28.700 The magistrates then countered by detaining recruiting officers in order to investigate 51 00:05:28.700 --> 00:05:32.160 them as potential carriers of disease. 52 00:05:32.160 --> 00:05:38.320 When Pownell tried to frighten the Massachusetts assembly with the French threat, it cogently 53 00:05:38.320 --> 00:05:45.320 The legislature insisted on the natural rights of the people of Massachusetts to defend which they would resist to the last breath, a cruel invading army. 54 00:05:45.320 --> 00:05:50.480 As their commander-in-chief, Lord Loudon, was threatening, Massachusetts would resist 55 00:05:50.480 --> 00:05:57.480 the troops by force. The legislature insisted on the natural rights of the people of Massachusetts 56 00:05:57.480 --> 00:06:06.480 to defend which they would resist to the last breath, a cruel invading army. Lord Loudon 57 00:06:06.480 --> 00:06:12.220 was threatening to send his army from Long Island, Connecticut and Pennsylvania to compel 58 00:06:12.220 --> 00:06:15.220 and all the quartering of troops in Boston. 59 00:06:15.220 --> 00:06:22.220 In exasperation, Lord Loudon wrote to Governor Pownall in December 1757, 60 00:06:22.220 --> 00:06:28.220 they, the Massachusetts Assembly, attempt to take away the King's undoubted prerogative. 61 00:06:28.220 --> 00:06:32.220 They attempt to take away an act of the British Parliament. 62 00:06:32.220 --> 00:06:38.220 They attempt to make it impossible for the King either to keep troops in North America 63 00:06:38.220 --> 00:06:55.220 The Massachusetts Legislature finally agreed to permit the quartering of troops, but formally insisted that this quartering come under its own authority and not that of England or its governor. 64 00:06:55.220 --> 00:07:06.220 So few citizens of Massachusetts volunteered for the 1758 campaign that Governor Pownall resorted to the hated device of conscription. 65 00:07:06.220 --> 00:07:15.220 Resentment among the people was intensified by such British recruiting methods as dragging drunken men into the army. 66 00:07:15.220 --> 00:07:22.220 The people erupted angrily in a series of riots, attacking and beating up recruiting squads, 67 00:07:22.220 --> 00:07:29.220 all of which required the British to retain a large troop in Massachusetts to crush an imminent rebellion. 68 00:07:29.220 --> 00:07:44.220 The Massachusetts draftees then resorted to the silent but effective nonviolent resistance of mass desertions, refusal to obey the hated officers, and going on sick call. 69 00:07:44.220 --> 00:07:54.220 Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson was appointed to round up deserters, and hundreds were betrayed by the government's network of paid informers. 70 00:07:54.220 --> 00:08:04.220 The people's resentment and resistance were intensified by the economic depression in Massachusetts caused by high taxes for the war effort. 71 00:08:04.220 --> 00:08:14.220 Following the disastrous Ticonderoga campaign in 1758, the English general James Wolfe wrote in vehemence and despair that 72 00:08:14.220 --> 00:08:29.220 The Americans are in general the dirtiest, most contemptible cowardly dogs that you can conceive. There is no depending upon them in action. They desert by battalions, officers and all. 73 00:08:29.220 --> 00:08:40.220 Other officials and observers remarked wonderingly of the individualistic spirit of the militia men, almost every man his own master and a general. 74 00:08:40.220 --> 00:08:53.220 With the militia officers democratically elected by their men, the notion of liberty so generally prevails that they are impatient under all kinds of superiority and authority. 75 00:08:53.220 --> 00:09:06.220 Moreover, the Americans added a new concept to the age-old European peasant and yeoman practice of desertion, the assassination of officers who would not cooperate. 76 00:09:06.220 --> 00:09:13.220 Even in the following years of English victory, the Massachusetts militia continued its resistance. 77 00:09:13.220 --> 00:09:22.220 In 1759, it refused to remain at Lake Champlain for the winter, mutinied against its officers, and returned home. 78 00:09:22.220 --> 00:09:30.220 The following year, the Massachusetts militia refused to go from Nova Scotia to Quebec and mutinied again. 79 00:09:30.220 --> 00:09:49.220 General Jeffrey Amherst had high-handedly decided in late 1759 to keep the Massachusetts troops in Nova Scotia over the winter of 1759-60, despite the fact that their terms of enlistment had expired. 80 00:09:49.220 --> 00:09:57.220 The men unanimously announced their refusal to serve any longer and wrote to the commander demanding that they be sent home. 81 00:09:57.220 --> 00:10:03.620 The Americans were all placed under guard thereafter. The British decided to shoot 82 00:10:03.620 --> 00:10:08.700 the mutinous colonist, but bloodshed was averted at the last minute when the 83 00:10:08.700 --> 00:10:13.940 Massachusetts General Court extended the terms of enlistment to six months and 84 00:10:13.940 --> 00:10:20.140 sweetened the pill with an extra bonus of four pounds per soldier. By spring, 85 00:10:20.140 --> 00:10:25.380 however, the men in the General Court remained firm. The troops unanimously 86 00:10:25.380 --> 00:10:48.380 So anxious were the Massachusetts soldiers to leave to go home that a party of them commandeered a ship and set sail for home. It was wholly in vain that Amherst demanded British-style discipline for these rebellious, democratically governed militiamen. 87 00:10:48.380 --> 00:10:58.380 Large numbers of deserting sailors, furthermore, left to join the merchant marine for large-scale smuggling and trade with the enemy. 88 00:10:58.380 --> 00:11:07.380 New York City was a lively center for deserting sailors, and New York merchants systematically hid the sailors from the British troops. 89 00:11:07.380 --> 00:11:16.380 The British compelled their return in 1757 by threatening to conduct a deliberately brutal and thorough house-to-house search 90 00:11:16.380 --> 00:11:22.460 Research, and to treat New York as a conquered city. British troops were quartered upon New 91 00:11:22.460 --> 00:11:28.740 York against the vehement opposition of the citizens they were supposedly protecting. 92 00:11:28.740 --> 00:11:35.020 In Philadelphia, pacifist mobs repeatedly attacked recruiting officers and even lynched 93 00:11:35.020 --> 00:11:42.540 one in February 1756. In general, continuing conflict raged between English commanders 94 00:11:42.540 --> 00:11:48.040 who wanted complete control over the colonial militia and the assemblies, which insisted 95 00:11:48.040 --> 00:11:52.240 on definite limitations on militia service. 96 00:11:52.240 --> 00:11:58.920 American disaffection with the war effort was particularly marked after 1756, when the 97 00:11:58.920 --> 00:12:07.620 limited campaign to grab Ohio lands was succeeded by full-scale war against French Canada. 98 00:12:07.620 --> 00:12:13.220 Americans, during the Seven Years' War, pursued a policy of trading with the enemy. 99 00:12:13.220 --> 00:12:19.300 The British bitterly alienated the other countries of Europe by repudiating all the cherished 100 00:12:19.300 --> 00:12:26.220 principles of international law on the sea that had been worked out over the past century. 101 00:12:26.220 --> 00:12:32.180 The developed and agreed upon principle of international law was that neutral ships were 102 00:12:32.180 --> 00:12:38.760 were entitled to trade with a warring country without molestation by any belligerent. Free 103 00:12:38.760 --> 00:12:46.400 ships make free goods, unless the goods were actual armaments. After finally agreeing to 104 00:12:46.400 --> 00:12:52.860 this civilized principle of international law in the late 17th century, England now 105 00:12:52.860 --> 00:13:00.220 returned to the piratical practice of attacking neutral ships trading with France and of stopping 106 00:13:00.220 --> 00:13:06.540 In Searching Neutral Ships on the High Seas England had long been the major opponent of 107 00:13:06.540 --> 00:13:13.500 rational international law and of the great libertarian concept of freedom of the seas, 108 00:13:13.500 --> 00:13:21.540 which formed an integral part of that law. Neutral's rights were corollary of that concept, 109 00:13:21.540 --> 00:13:28.660 as was the doctrine that no nation could claim ownership or sovereignty of the seas, that 110 00:13:28.660 --> 00:13:35.580 In fact, the citizens of any nation could use the open seas to trade, travel, or fish where 111 00:13:35.580 --> 00:13:42.380 they would. During the 16th century, Queen Elizabeth had not accepted the grandiose claims 112 00:13:42.380 --> 00:13:50.340 of the mystic astrologer Dr. John Dee of England's claim to ownership of the surrounding seas. 113 00:13:50.340 --> 00:13:55.540 After all, England was then engaged in asserting freedom of the seas against the presumed Spanish 114 00:13:55.540 --> 00:14:00.540 of the Nation, Portuguese Monopolies of the newly discovered oceans. 115 00:14:00.540 --> 00:14:06.380 But after the accession of the stewards, Spain was no longer a grave threat to the seas, 116 00:14:06.380 --> 00:14:12.720 and England's overriding maritime interest was to destroy the highly efficient and competitive 117 00:14:12.720 --> 00:14:15.320 Dutch shipping. 118 00:14:15.320 --> 00:14:22.400 Very early in his reign, James I claimed ownership of the surrounding seas and the fish therein, 119 00:14:22.400 --> 00:14:28.280 President Charles I arrogantly claimed sovereignty over the entire North Sea. 120 00:14:28.280 --> 00:14:33.920 In opposition to the Stuart pretensions, the great Dutch father of international law, the 121 00:14:33.920 --> 00:14:41.680 liberal Hugo Grotius, laid down the principle of freedom of the seas in his Mare Liberum 122 00:14:41.680 --> 00:14:48.400 in 1609 and integrated the principle into the natural law structure of international 123 00:14:48.400 --> 00:14:55.980 Law, in his definitive treatise of 1625, De jure belli ac pocus. 124 00:14:55.980 --> 00:15:02.360 Grotius was able to build upon the 16th century writings of the great liberal Spanish jurist 125 00:15:02.360 --> 00:15:10.800 and scholastics Francis Alfonso de Castro, Ferdinand Váquez Menchaya, and Francisco 126 00:15:10.800 --> 00:15:16.440 Suárez, who flourished even in a time when the Spanish interest was in proclaiming its 127 00:15:16.440 --> 00:15:19.440 and Sovereignty of the Seas. 128 00:15:19.440 --> 00:15:22.440 Grotius's libertarian view of freedom of the seas 129 00:15:22.440 --> 00:15:25.440 could expect to meet stern opposition in many countries, 130 00:15:25.440 --> 00:15:28.440 but the greatest opposition was in England, 131 00:15:28.440 --> 00:15:32.440 where the stewards mobilized scholars in their defense. 132 00:15:32.440 --> 00:15:36.440 The lean opponents of Grotius and celebrants of governmental 133 00:15:36.440 --> 00:15:39.440 and especially English sovereignty over the seas 134 00:15:39.440 --> 00:15:44.440 were the Scott Professor, William Wellwood, 1613, 135 00:15:44.440 --> 00:15:52.960 The Italian Board Oxford Regius Professor, Albertus Gentilis, 1613, who proclaimed absolute 136 00:15:52.960 --> 00:16:00.640 English ownership of the Atlantic as far west as America, Sir John Burroughs, Royal Bureaucrat, 137 00:16:00.640 --> 00:16:10.080 1633, and John Seldon, 1635. England continued its grandiose claims during the 17th century, 138 00:16:10.080 --> 00:16:15.280 But with its shipping ever more extensive by the end of the century, it began to consent 139 00:16:15.280 --> 00:16:21.600 to be bound by international law on the high seas. England had also been the major opponent 140 00:16:21.600 --> 00:16:28.060 of neutral rights in time of war and the Dutch their major advocate. However, in the Treaty 141 00:16:28.060 --> 00:16:36.400 of 1674 with Holland, England finally agreed to the vital rule of free ships, free goods, 142 00:16:36.400 --> 00:16:43.020 and Protection of Neutral Shipping, a principle that France and Spain had at least formally 143 00:16:43.020 --> 00:16:45.680 ratified two decades before. 144 00:16:45.680 --> 00:16:52.520 But now, on the opening of the Seven Years' War, England arrogantly informed the Dutch 145 00:16:52.520 --> 00:16:58.500 and other neutrals that any of their ships trading with France would be treated as enemy 146 00:16:58.500 --> 00:17:00.340 vessels. 147 00:17:00.340 --> 00:17:16.900 Theoretician of this British reversion to official piracy was the Tory Jacobite Charles 148 00:17:16.900 --> 00:17:23.620 Jenkinson. Britain's arrogant attacks on neutral shipping and violations of international law 149 00:17:23.620 --> 00:17:29.260 during the Seven Years' War alienated all the neutral countries of Europe, who soon 150 00:17:29.260 --> 00:17:35.100 Being raised to cry to return to freedom of the seas, particularly harassed was the highly 151 00:17:35.100 --> 00:17:41.060 efficient Dutch shipping, and fellow sufferers from British policy were Spain, Portugal, 152 00:17:41.060 --> 00:17:45.580 Sweden, Russia, Naples, Tuscany, Genoa and Sardinia.