WEBVTT NOTE 4. The British Army and the Grand Design 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.120 Volume 3, Chapter 4, The British Army and the Grand Design 2 00:00:07.120 --> 00:00:12.800 The British rulers, during and immediately after the French and Indian War, confronted 3 00:00:12.800 --> 00:00:19.120 the American colonies for the first time in four decades free of the restraints imposed 4 00:00:19.120 --> 00:00:22.480 by the liberal Whigs within the government. 5 00:00:22.480 --> 00:00:29.120 The Whigs were at last out of power, and hence the remaining Imperial and Tory factions were 6 00:00:29.120 --> 00:00:35.400 able to execute a grand design for cracking down on the American colonies. 7 00:00:35.400 --> 00:00:43.440 Spurred by the wise Whig, Walpole, Newcastle, Pelham policy of salutary neglect, and by 8 00:00:43.440 --> 00:00:49.320 the right to levy its own taxes, America had been allowed to flourish with a good measure 9 00:00:49.320 --> 00:00:51.680 of independence. 10 00:00:51.680 --> 00:00:58.760 The extent of salutary neglect is indicated by the complete absence of condemnation proceedings 11 00:00:58.760 --> 00:01:07.480 in the Massachusetts Admiralty Court between 1745 and Spring 1760, and of enforcement 12 00:01:07.480 --> 00:01:15.520 against colonial smuggling between 1743 and mid-1764. 13 00:01:15.520 --> 00:01:20.240 Vital checks had been maintained upon British imperial power. 14 00:01:20.240 --> 00:01:26.520 Not only were trade restrictions unenforced and taxation levied only by consent of the 15 00:01:26.520 --> 00:01:33.000 the colonial assemblies, but funds for the colonial executives were supplied only by 16 00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:37.520 the assemblies and thus subject to their power. 17 00:01:37.520 --> 00:01:44.760 Moreover, virtually no British troops had been stationed in America in peacetime. 18 00:01:44.760 --> 00:01:50.560 Troops had been largely confined to colonial militia raised and paid by the colonial legislatures 19 00:01:50.560 --> 00:01:53.000 themselves. 20 00:01:53.000 --> 00:01:59.480 The imperial grand design, hatched during the French and Indian War and put into effect 21 00:01:59.480 --> 00:02:08.480 as soon as it ended, was a comprehensive, many-sided move to subject America to the 22 00:02:08.480 --> 00:02:10.200 British power. 23 00:02:10.200 --> 00:02:15.920 The vast new domains captured from France and Spain were to be occupied and administered 24 00:02:15.920 --> 00:02:19.560 as befitted of mighty imperial power. 25 00:02:19.560 --> 00:02:26.160 The laxity of salutary neglect was to be no more. All the mercantilist laws were to be 26 00:02:26.160 --> 00:02:33.560 strengthened and, above all, vigorously enforced. The British Army was to overhaul the unruly 27 00:02:33.560 --> 00:02:41.200 colonials by being stationed in America in force. The British Army was to keep the French 28 00:02:41.200 --> 00:02:49.240 suppressed, rule the newly won western lands, and help a network of royal bureaucrats enforce 29 00:02:49.240 --> 00:02:56.440 mercantilist restrictions. To pay for all this, the British rulers hit upon a cunning expedient. 30 00:02:56.440 --> 00:03:02.880 The Americans themselves were to be taxed for that purpose. Thus the fractious Americans 31 00:03:02.880 --> 00:03:09.320 were to be forced to pay for their own suffering, to supply the funds to finance soldiers and 32 00:03:09.320 --> 00:03:17.320 customs agents who would enforce restrictions and taxes upon them. And a vast increase in 33 00:03:17.320 --> 00:03:24.320 The Americans would thus be caught in a vicious circle of tyranny. The British Army was to be stationed in America, largely to enforce unwelcome regulations and taxes upon them, while the major excuse for the unpopular taxes was to pay for the self-same army. 34 00:03:47.320 --> 00:03:55.040 It was a clever scheme for the English imperial power, but the American colonists were not 35 00:03:55.040 --> 00:03:58.320 as enchanted with the new dispensation. 36 00:03:58.320 --> 00:04:03.480 Somehow the British argument that it was no more than justice for Americans to support 37 00:04:03.480 --> 00:04:10.800 the army that liberated them from the French threat failed to impress the Americans. 38 00:04:10.800 --> 00:04:17.280 On the contrary, Americans, especially after the first phase of the war for the Ohio Valley, 39 00:04:17.280 --> 00:04:24.280 tended to regard the French and Indian War as a war for Britain and not for themselves. 40 00:04:25.320 --> 00:04:32.320 The crushing of Canada wasted American resources, oppressed and conscripted Americans, and 41 00:04:32.320 --> 00:04:38.720 wrecked their trade with Canada, all to redound to British imperial glory and the profits 42 00:04:38.720 --> 00:04:44.120 of London merchants. Furthermore, Americans reasoned that with the French conquered and 43 00:04:44.120 --> 00:04:53.240 The post-war need for a British standing army was far less, not greater than before. They 44 00:04:53.240 --> 00:04:58.580 could only regard the large new standing army of British regulars as a permanent instrument 45 00:04:58.580 --> 00:05:05.160 of oppression. And the events of the Pontiac Rebellion and the Proclamation Line only convinced 46 00:05:05.160 --> 00:05:12.160 the Americans of one, the ineptitude of the British troops as protectors, and two, the 47 00:05:12.160 --> 00:05:18.200 The Use of the Army to Prohibit American Settlement of the Tempting Virgin Lands of the Ohio 48 00:05:18.200 --> 00:05:23.960 Valley The imperial grand design had been formulated 49 00:05:23.960 --> 00:05:31.160 as early as the wartime Pitt administration. Indeed earlier, as can be seen from the truly 50 00:05:31.160 --> 00:05:39.200 ominous dispatch of Massachusetts' London agent Thomas Boland in 1756, that the British 51 00:05:39.200 --> 00:05:52.200 The British intended to govern America as they governed Ireland, specifically to keep a standing army there and to demand the right of prior approval of the acts of colonial assemblies. 52 00:05:52.200 --> 00:05:58.200 During the same year, Lord Loudon wrote from New York, governors here are ciphers. 53 00:05:58.200 --> 00:06:03.200 Their predecessors sold the whole of the king's prerogative to get their salaries. 54 00:06:03.200 --> 00:06:09.120 and until you find a fund independent of the province to pay the governors and new model 55 00:06:09.120 --> 00:06:14.080 the government, you can do nothing with the provinces. 56 00:06:14.080 --> 00:06:19.440 For Pitt, conquest and retention of North America were to be logically accompanied by 57 00:06:19.440 --> 00:06:25.340 the imposition of imperial power, the ending of salutary neglect and the stationing of 58 00:06:25.340 --> 00:06:27.120 an army in America. 59 00:06:27.120 --> 00:06:33.800 Bute, Bedford, and Grenville all had similar designs, and they envisioned Benjamin Franklin 60 00:06:33.800 --> 00:06:40.440 as the head of a new overall central government in America. Pitt ordered enforcement of the 61 00:06:40.440 --> 00:06:48.800 Trade Acts in 1760, and when Newcastle resigned in mid-1761, the latter wisely wrote that 62 00:06:48.800 --> 00:06:55.100 "...I shall certainly in and out of office oppose the continuation of the militia in 63 00:06:55.100 --> 00:07:01.540 In any shape, at least after the war has ended, I shall oppose any alteration that may be 64 00:07:01.540 --> 00:07:09.220 proposed of received usage and practice with regard to our settlements in America. Presumably, 65 00:07:09.220 --> 00:07:16.260 Newcastle was referring to salutary neglect. During the regime of Lord Bute, the imperial 66 00:07:16.260 --> 00:07:23.420 design made further strides. Bute and Parliament made a preliminary decision for a large peacetime 67 00:07:23.420 --> 00:07:30.420 A New Customs Act Pushed by Grenville as First Lord of the Admiralty encouraged British sailors 68 00:07:36.980 --> 00:07:43.980 to harass smuggling by promising them shares of the booty from condemned vessels. 69 00:07:44.480 --> 00:07:50.140 The final decision to station troops in America after the war was made by the imperialist 70 00:07:50.140 --> 00:07:55.980 Earl of Egremont, brother-in-law of George Grenville and Secretary of State for the Southern 71 00:07:55.980 --> 00:08:04.380 Department, and by Welboer Ellis, Secretary of War and a follower of Henry Fox. Egremont 72 00:08:04.380 --> 00:08:11.820 and Ellis decided in December 1762 that 12,000 troops would be stationed in America as a 73 00:08:11.820 --> 00:08:18.780 regular standing army and that the Americans would be forced to pay for its support. The 74 00:08:18.780 --> 00:08:24.020 The decision was based on the model of Ireland, where the Irish parliament had been compelled 75 00:08:24.020 --> 00:08:32.060 by England to pay for the Red Coat Army that kept Ireland in subjection. 76 00:08:32.060 --> 00:08:39.260 As liberals and opponents of strong imperial and royal power, Newcastle and the Whigs strongly 77 00:08:39.260 --> 00:08:41.920 opposed the large army. 78 00:08:41.920 --> 00:08:48.660 The crucial debate on the scheme took place in March 1763, when the army budget was submitted 79 00:08:48.660 --> 00:08:55.280 to Parliament, somewhat reduced to appease the instinctively liberal country gentry who 80 00:08:55.280 --> 00:09:02.460 tended to oppose expansion of government power and of the budget. The Whigs argued for a 81 00:09:02.460 --> 00:09:10.340 huge slash in the Army budget and for withdrawal of all troops from America. They thereby echoed 82 00:09:10.340 --> 00:09:16.380 American sentiment. The French were now conquered and the Indians controllable by the colonists 83 00:09:16.380 --> 00:09:24.300 Newcastle charged that such an extensive plan of power and military influence was never 84 00:09:24.300 --> 00:09:30.660 thought of before in this country. But the edge of Whig opposition was blunted, as so 85 00:09:30.660 --> 00:09:37.020 many times before, by the disruptive influence of Pitt, a maverick out of power whom the 86 00:09:37.020 --> 00:09:44.980 Whigs were anxious to bring into unified opposition against the ministry. Pitt, as usual the ultra-militarist 87 00:09:44.980 --> 00:09:51.620 and Warmonger attacked the government for not providing a bigger American army. Pitt 88 00:09:51.620 --> 00:09:57.580 called for bigger and better military budgets, attacked the permanent disarmament desired 89 00:09:57.580 --> 00:10:04.220 by Walpole and Newcastle, and looked forward with relish to imminent renewal of war with 90 00:10:04.220 --> 00:10:11.220 France, a country displaying the ill grace to continue in existence. As a partial and 91 00:10:11.220 --> 00:10:21.220 With the immediate means to pay for this extra expense, Bute introduced a domestic excise tax on cider, along with his army budget. 92 00:10:21.220 --> 00:10:28.220 The cider tax extended the enforcement of the excise from retail shops to private English homes. 93 00:10:28.220 --> 00:10:36.220 Cider was produced by the West Country, the great center of an instinctively liberal country gentry. 94 00:10:36.220 --> 00:10:43.340 Here was an issue of basic English liberties, both personal and economic, on which the Whigs 95 00:10:43.340 --> 00:10:49.900 could unite with the country gentry in powerful opposition. William Pitt, though happy enough 96 00:10:49.900 --> 00:10:56.220 winning power to impose an excise on beer and general warrants against dissenters, was 97 00:10:56.220 --> 00:11:02.780 now willing to join with the London merchants, Earl Temple, the Whigs and the West Country 98 00:11:02.780 --> 00:11:20.780 The City of London was vehement in opposition, and the Lord Mayor, the Alderman and the Common Council of London vigorously and repeatedly instructed their representatives in Parliament to oppose the tax. 99 00:11:20.780 --> 00:11:33.780 This pressure was characterized by a contemporary observer as a proceeding which, though by no means illegal or blameable, has no precedent that we can recollect. 100 00:11:34.780 --> 00:11:49.780 The tax on cider was able to pass in parliament despite the opposing coalition, but its lasting significance for America was the depth of the popular and ideological opposition that it engendered in England. 101 00:11:50.780 --> 00:12:00.780 Leading the opposition was John Wilkes, North Britain, which distributed widely and popularized the great slogan, 102 00:12:00.780 --> 00:12:04.780 Liberty, Property and No Excise. 103 00:12:04.780 --> 00:12:12.780 Throughout the West Country, the people rose in virtual rebellion, demonstrating, marching, resisting, 104 00:12:12.780 --> 00:12:18.780 and setting a welcome and instructive example eagerly observed by American colonists. 105 00:12:18.780 --> 00:12:21.780 Church bells were stilled. 106 00:12:21.780 --> 00:12:27.780 Thousands marched in bereavement bearing symbols of freedom and mourning. 107 00:12:27.780 --> 00:12:32.780 And Lord Bute, throughout the West Country, was hung in effigy. 108 00:12:32.780 --> 00:12:40.780 Large bonfires consumed effigies of Bute and freeholder meetings at protests were held in towns and counties. 109 00:12:40.780 --> 00:12:46.780 Above all, the people refused to pay the tax and set upon the hated tax collectors. 110 00:12:46.780 --> 00:12:51.880 The government proceeded to send an army to the West Country to subdue the people, but 111 00:12:51.880 --> 00:12:59.020 it was finally forced to repeal the provocative tax two years later. 112 00:12:59.020 --> 00:13:04.340 With the West Country in virtual rebellion, Lord Bute was forced to resign as Prime Minister 113 00:13:04.340 --> 00:13:13.860 at the beginning of April 1763. Bute was succeeded by George Grenville. Grenville's brother-in-law, 114 00:13:13.860 --> 00:13:20.820 The Earl of Egremont continued as Secretary of State and Charles Jenkinson, Secretary 115 00:13:20.820 --> 00:13:26.660 to Lord Bute. The Earl of Halifax and the Earl of Shelburne took prominent roles in 116 00:13:26.660 --> 00:13:33.940 the new administration, the last as President of the Board of Trade. The Crown did no better 117 00:13:33.940 --> 00:13:40.020 with the crucial part of the financing of the troops, the plan to tax the colonies. 118 00:13:40.020 --> 00:13:46.460 For the first time, a tax was to be imposed on the colonists in violation of the ancient 119 00:13:46.460 --> 00:13:54.420 English principle of taxation only when approved by representatives of the public. 120 00:13:54.420 --> 00:14:00.900 Spark plug of the plan was Charles Townsend, a highly conservative Whig who had been Secretary 121 00:14:00.900 --> 00:14:04.900 of War during 1761-62. 122 00:14:04.900 --> 00:14:11.700 In February 1763, Townsend was rewarded by the Crown for deserting the opposition Pelham 123 00:14:11.700 --> 00:14:20.100 Innocence and Rockingham's Whig Club, receiving appointment as President of the Board of Trade. 124 00:14:20.100 --> 00:14:26.620 Inspired by the devotion to royal prerogative by Halifax and Grenville, Townsend introduced 125 00:14:26.620 --> 00:14:33.220 a bill to tax the colonies. But even the King attacked it as hasty and premature, and Parliament 126 00:14:33.220 --> 00:14:40.360 rejected the plan at the end of March. More important, in early March, the Crown, in a 127 00:14:40.360 --> 00:14:47.060 masterful piece of tactical management, drove the plan to station troops in America through 128 00:14:47.060 --> 00:14:53.740 Parliament with a minimum of opposition. The Crown had managed to defuse the opposition 129 00:14:53.740 --> 00:15:00.580 by playing off the Newcastle Whigs against Pitt, his two major groups of opponents, and 130 00:15:00.580 --> 00:15:05.180 by Confusing the Potentially Troublesome West Country Gentry. 131 00:15:05.180 --> 00:15:10.500 Newcastle was muted by a threatened parliamentary inquiry into the financial dealings of his 132 00:15:10.500 --> 00:15:18.020 previous administration, and the Crown counted correctly on William Pitt's devotion to militarism 133 00:15:18.020 --> 00:15:21.700 to win Pitt's charismatic support. 134 00:15:21.700 --> 00:15:26.580 Despite the sometimes vehement opposition, the Crown managed to drive through Parliament 135 00:15:26.580 --> 00:15:32.920 the principle of a standing army in America, as well as a domestic tax on cider in partial 136 00:15:32.920 --> 00:15:39.920 payment thereof. The British decided to station approximately 8,000 troops permanently in 137 00:15:41.740 --> 00:15:48.260 North America. The disposition of these troops refutes the thesis of British apologists 138 00:15:48.260 --> 00:15:55.260 that the huge increase in the post-war army was needed to keep down the Western Indians 139 00:15:55.260 --> 00:15:59.260 and to man the forts of the newly conquered interior. 140 00:15:59.260 --> 00:16:06.260 Of the existing force in America, the British deliberately dissolved every one of the units of rangers 141 00:16:06.260 --> 00:16:11.260 and others established during the war as specialists in Indian fighting. 142 00:16:11.260 --> 00:16:17.260 Rangers, but not forts, were useful in protecting settlers from Indians. 143 00:16:17.260 --> 00:16:30.260 There were many indications that the British intended to use their army to keep the American colonists in line and to enforce restrictions and taxes there. 144 00:16:30.260 --> 00:16:38.260 Maurice Morgan, secretary to Lord Shelburne, along with an associate, wrote during 1763, 145 00:16:38.260 --> 00:16:46.100 I have no idea that we want military establishments against the Indians and no danger is to be 146 00:16:46.100 --> 00:16:53.340 apprehended from the Canadians. On the other hand, troops were needed in order to awe the 147 00:16:53.340 --> 00:16:58.980 British colonies, the lines of fort so much talked of before the war will restrain the 148 00:16:58.980 --> 00:17:05.620 colonies at present as well as formally. The pretenses for this regulation must be the 149 00:17:05.620 --> 00:17:09.660 and the Keeping of the Indians in Subjection. 150 00:17:09.660 --> 00:17:15.900 Another paper by Morgan succinctly summarized the grand design, that the military force 151 00:17:15.900 --> 00:17:22.060 on that continent be increased, so that, with the aid of a naval force, the whole of the 152 00:17:22.060 --> 00:17:29.380 provinces shall be surrounded, that, under pretense of regulating the Indian trade, a 153 00:17:29.380 --> 00:17:35.380 line be suddenly drawn on the back of the provinces and the country beyond that line 154 00:17:35.380 --> 00:18:04.300 The use of the Army to enforce trade restrictions and taxes in America was particularly stressed 155 00:18:04.300 --> 00:18:13.580 by the powerful Lord Halifax, who, after the death of Egremont in August 1763, had become 156 00:18:13.580 --> 00:18:17.700 Secretary of State for both departments. 157 00:18:17.700 --> 00:18:23.980 It did not take the American colonists long to see what was going on. Colonel Eliphelet 158 00:18:23.980 --> 00:18:30.300 Dyer, a member of the Council of Connecticut and the leading lawyer of Eastern Connecticut, 159 00:18:30.300 --> 00:18:36.940 Wrote from London in the spring of 1764 that Parliament seems determined to fix upon us 160 00:18:36.940 --> 00:18:44.320 a large number of regular troops under pretense for our defenses, with the revenues to be 161 00:18:44.320 --> 00:18:51.840 raised from the colonies to support them. Rather than for defense, the army was designed 162 00:18:51.840 --> 00:18:59.540 as a rod and check over us. And a leading young lawyer, John Dickinson of Philadelphia, 163 00:18:59.540 --> 00:19:07.540 condemned the formidable force established in the midst of peace to bleed America into obedience. 164 00:19:08.540 --> 00:19:20.540 Enthusiasm for the British troops among the colonists was hardly strengthened by an incident between General Amherst and the Massachusetts recruits stationed in Halifax, Nova Scotia. 165 00:19:21.540 --> 00:19:27.540 The troops' terms of enlistment were up on May 1, 1763. 166 00:19:27.540 --> 00:19:45.540 Yet the British refused to discharge them. One refusal begat another, and finally the troops refused to serve any longer. The British retaliated by cutting off all provisions to the colonial troops, who were thus forced to buy their own supplies. 167 00:19:45.540 --> 00:19:52.920 General Amherst was responsible for forcing the troops to stay, in violation of the Massachusetts 168 00:19:52.920 --> 00:19:58.820 Charter, which required consent of the General Court before Massachusetts troops could be 169 00:19:58.820 --> 00:20:04.100 forced to serve outside the colony. 170 00:20:04.100 --> 00:20:08.680 Since the beginning of the French and Indian War, there had been an appointed Commander 171 00:20:08.680 --> 00:20:15.800 Commander-in-Chief of the British Armed Forces in America. And now, in mid-1763, the Board 172 00:20:15.800 --> 00:20:23.000 of Trade recommended that the Commander-in-Chief also be made Military Governor of the Western 173 00:20:23.000 --> 00:20:31.520 Territory. The Commander, who after 1763 was General Thomas Gage, was also in charge of 174 00:20:31.520 --> 00:20:39.520 of Western Indian Affairs. To Newcastle, this military regime portended an upheaval in the 175 00:20:39.520 --> 00:20:46.760 colonies which would expect a similar fate to descend upon them. We have seen that Townsend's 176 00:20:46.760 --> 00:20:52.320 premature bill for taxing the colonies was defeated, but the plans continued brewing 177 00:20:52.320 --> 00:20:58.360 in the upper echelons of the British government. English taxation of the colonies to raise 178 00:20:58.360 --> 00:21:04.120 Revenue had been suggested by royal officials in America for half a century but had never 179 00:21:04.120 --> 00:21:11.260 been adopted during the Whig regime. The proponents had largely been governors anxious to secure 180 00:21:11.260 --> 00:21:18.260 their salaries independently of colonial assemblies or royal officials asking for troops to enforce 181 00:21:18.260 --> 00:21:27.260 customs or other regulations. The latter included Colonel Robert Quarry, Chief Customs Officer 182 00:21:27.260 --> 00:21:33.660 and Colonel David Dunbar, Surveyor General of the King's Woods. Among the governors, 183 00:21:33.660 --> 00:21:41.420 the Arch-Imperialist William Shirley and Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia were the most insistent. 184 00:21:41.420 --> 00:21:45.900 During the war, their voices were joined by such military commanders as General Braddock 185 00:21:45.900 --> 00:21:52.340 and Lord Loudon. In England, during the French and Indian War, Lord Halifax was an early 186 00:21:52.340 --> 00:21:59.340 So long as the great new castle remained as prime minister, there was no chance of approving 187 00:21:59.340 --> 00:22:06.340 Halifax suggested a stamp tax, but the most influential and fateful plan for a stamp tax 188 00:22:06.920 --> 00:22:13.920 was proposed in 1761 to Lord Bute by the royal bureaucrat Henry McCullough. 189 00:22:15.780 --> 00:22:21.180 So long as the great New Castle remained as prime minister, there was no chance of approving 190 00:22:21.180 --> 00:22:28.180 taxation of America without its consent. But New Castle's fall completely turned the tables, 191 00:22:28.180 --> 00:22:35.180 and Butte, Halifax and Townsend began to drive toward English taxation of the American colonies. 192 00:22:36.460 --> 00:22:42.780 Henry McCullough, one of the chief theoreticians of a stamp tax, was a London merchant who 193 00:22:42.780 --> 00:22:49.140 for 30 years had been a crown official and a power in North Carolina. He tried to impose 194 00:22:49.140 --> 00:22:55.860 quit-rent payments on the reluctant colonists and participated in large-scale land grants 195 00:22:55.860 --> 00:23:01.780 and speculation in land in North Carolina and across the mountains. 196 00:23:01.780 --> 00:23:07.620 His transmontane land speculation led him to espouse the British acquisition of eastern 197 00:23:07.620 --> 00:23:10.420 Louisiana from the French. 198 00:23:10.420 --> 00:23:17.320 In the autumn of 1763, McCullough, along with a colleague, was assigned to write a draft 199 00:23:17.320 --> 00:23:21.880 for a stamp tax on the North American colonies. 200 00:23:21.880 --> 00:23:28.000 Of the two drafts, McCullough's was the most daring, calling for a broad stamp tax that 201 00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:35.560 would finance not only the cost of colonial troops, but also an entire royal civil bureaucracy 202 00:23:35.560 --> 00:23:43.560 in America. McCullough's draft was rejected, however, and the competing bill, which confined 203 00:23:43.560 --> 00:23:50.400 the stamp money to financing the standing army, was selected by the Crown at the end 204 00:23:50.400 --> 00:23:58.720 of 1763. The draft of the bill was completed the following spring. Caution, however, dictated 205 00:23:58.720 --> 00:24:02.240 postponement of the stamp plan for another year.