Volume 3, Chapter 14, Enforcement Troubles
In addition to protesting the molasses duty, the colonists denounced the aggrandizement
of the vice admulty courts and the further weakening of the safeguards of trial by jury.
They also protested other provisions for tighter enforcement of the trade laws.
The creation of the new overall court at Halifax seemed particularly threatening. Not only was
the new court remote from friendly pressures by the merchants, and not only was it Britain
instead of an American appointed to the post, but Halifax was costly to travel to and suffered
from a shortage of lawyers to represent the accused. Accordingly, merchants in Massachusetts,
Rhode Island and New York petitioned their assemblies for relief and complained of the
new enforcement procedures. The pamphlet of Oxenbridge Thatcher, a leading lawyer, placed
particular stress on objection to the aggravated jurisdiction of the Admiralty Courts. The
protest of the Massachusetts Council and House put it succinctly, the extension of the powers
Most of the courts of Vice Admiralty have deprived the colonies of one of the most valuable
of English liberties, trials by juries.
Southern merchants were particularly disturbed at the red tape regulations crippling the
coastal trade, and their protests were strongly backed by Lieutenant Governor William Bull
of South Carolina.
After the Revenue Act came into force, merchants tried their best to avoid the regulations.
Sometimes action was forceful indeed. In late November 1764, Robert Heron, a customs collector of Maryland, seized a ship with a cargo of molasses. The cargo was condemned in a vice admiralty court and duly advertised for auction sale at the local tavern. The owner of the condemned vessel, a chap named Graham, got the merchants to promise to boycott any purchase of the goods.
And at the auction, Graham assaulted Heron and threw him out of the tavern.
Such forcible measures were rare, but the temper of America was plain enough, so plain
that the British officers thought it more prudent not to anger the colonist by taking
cases to the general court in Halifax.
As a result, Judge Spry languished at Halifax with little to do.
As staunch a Tory as Governor Bernard of Massachusetts urged Britain to move the admiralty court
from remote Halifax to the American mainland. Indeed, the Crown prepared to abolish the
Halifax Court and substitute three appellate vice admiralty courts, one each at Boston,
Philadelphia and Charleston. But the reorganization plans were lost in the furor over the Stamp
One collector, however, had no scruples about the wisdom of hauling defendants to Halifax.
He was John Robinson, the new collector of customs in Rhode Island. Robinson's turn
toward Halifax was prompted by a legendary record of heroic obstruction by Rhode Islanders
in the colonial courts. Rhode Island, indeed, proved a thorn in Britain's side from the
When Robinson first arrived in the colony from England in the spring of 1764, he sternly refused to play by the old lax rules of colonial officials, and therefore did not accept a huge annual £70,000 bribe from the merchants for allowing them continued freedom of trade.
and Trade Laws. However, he soon found himself blocked in the courts, even in the local admiralty court.