WEBVTT NOTE 44. Boycotting Importers 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.000 Volume 3, Chapter 44, Boycotting the Importers 2 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:22.000 By late 1769, merchants of every province but New Hampshire had organized to support non-importation agreements of varying comprehensiveness and scope. How were they enforced? 3 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:27.840 The Merchant Association's generally appointed committees to watch over vessels and shipments 4 00:00:27.840 --> 00:00:34.880 and to promote the public boycotts of offenders. In New York, the boycott was remarkably effective. 5 00:00:35.520 --> 00:00:46.800 Total imports from Great Britain to the port fell from over 490,000 pounds in 1768 to about 75,000 6 00:01:16.800 --> 00:01:25.600 Confronted by a scaffold and a mob at the Liberty Pole was forced to pledge his cooperation. 7 00:01:25.600 --> 00:01:32.640 The following June, a transient, non-cooperating merchant named Hills had his goods seized 8 00:01:32.640 --> 00:01:39.700 and burned by a mob. Hills promptly fled New York, but these dishonorable instances 9 00:01:39.700 --> 00:01:45.640 were few and far between, and the Merchant's Committee of Inspection denounced the mob 10 00:01:45.640 --> 00:01:51.080 All-Abaction Against Hills is the work of lawless ruffians. 11 00:01:51.080 --> 00:01:57.100 Philadelphia's record of compliance was remarkable when one recalls that cities' original reluctance 12 00:01:57.100 --> 00:02:02.720 to join the boycott. The merchants' main efforts were to weaken the agreements to the looser 13 00:02:02.720 --> 00:02:11.960 terms enjoyed by the Albany and Maryland merchants. Philadelphia imports fell from £440,000 to 14 00:02:11.960 --> 00:02:16.800 to some two hundred and five thousand pounds the following year. 15 00:02:16.800 --> 00:02:23.000 No coercion or intimidation of the merchants appeared in Philadelphia. Connecticut, New 16 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:29.480 Jersey and Delaware also cheerfully complied with the agreement and gave little trouble. 17 00:02:29.480 --> 00:02:36.160 Apart from the cauldron of Boston, which will be treated below, only reluctant Newport 18 00:02:36.160 --> 00:02:43.080 in the Northern Colonies gave the non-import movement much trouble. Indeed, there is evidence 19 00:02:43.080 --> 00:02:48.120 that even prominent members of the Newport Sons of Liberty, as well as the Merchants 20 00:02:48.120 --> 00:02:55.120 Committee itself, connived at virtually open violations of the non-importation covenant. 21 00:02:56.400 --> 00:03:02.800 Compliance with the boycott in the southern provinces was another story. The indifference 22 00:03:02.800 --> 00:03:11.280 or hostility of the merchants caused imports from Britain actually to increase during 1769, 23 00:03:11.280 --> 00:03:18.000 particularly in Virginia. The opposition of the British factors and their agents in Virginia 24 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:23.800 forced the resistors to modify the boycott agreement and attempts at enforcement by the 25 00:03:23.800 --> 00:03:30.800 merchants committees of inspection or county associations were few and feeble. Enforcement 26 00:03:30.800 --> 00:03:37.240 efforts were far more successful in Maryland where many more of the merchants were native-born 27 00:03:37.240 --> 00:03:44.240 and hence more enthusiastic about resistance. Two, and not unimportant, the Philadelphia 28 00:03:44.760 --> 00:03:51.760 merchants kept a watchful and suspicious eye upon their Baltimore confreres. The boycott 29 00:03:51.760 --> 00:03:58.080 movement was not more successful in North Carolina and Georgia than in Virginia. The 30 00:03:58.080 --> 00:04:03.040 Merchants ignored the Provincial Associations instituted by the North Carolina Assembly 31 00:04:03.040 --> 00:04:10.040 in late 1769. Finally, in early June 1770, the Sons of Liberty called a general meeting 32 00:04:11.780 --> 00:04:18.780 at Wilmington, comprising many planters and others from six of the larger counties. The 33 00:04:19.040 --> 00:04:26.040 meeting agreed to boycott and publicly condemn all non-compliers with the agreement, and 34 00:04:26.040 --> 00:04:31.760 Merchants' Committees of Inspection were selected in each county, concentrating on the towns 35 00:04:31.760 --> 00:04:38.760 of Brunswick and Wilmington. By the fall of 1770, enforcement had become effective as 36 00:04:39.240 --> 00:04:46.240 a result of these efforts. In contrast to the strenuous, if belated, efforts at enforcement 37 00:04:46.920 --> 00:04:53.920 in North Carolina, Georgia made no attempt whatever to pressure compliance with the boycott. 38 00:04:53.920 --> 00:05:00.960 Fortunately, Georgia's trade was so negligible that its desertion had little effect. 39 00:05:00.960 --> 00:05:09.520 Nevertheless, a general meeting of inhabitants of Charleston at the end of June 1770 unanimously 40 00:05:09.520 --> 00:05:15.600 urged the total boycott of all trade with Georgia, which ought to be amputated from 41 00:05:15.600 --> 00:05:21.660 the rest as a rotten part that might spread a dangerous infection. 42 00:05:21.660 --> 00:05:26.940 The most interesting southern reaction, and one potentially explosive, to the problem of 43 00:05:26.940 --> 00:05:34.420 compliance occurred in South Carolina. There, Christopher Gadsden and his vigilant band 44 00:05:34.420 --> 00:05:41.700 of radical liberals stood alert to exert maximum pressure on reluctant merchants. These men, 45 00:05:41.700 --> 00:05:47.860 with their great ardor and zeal for liberty, were comparable only to the embattled libertarians 46 00:05:47.860 --> 00:05:54.260 of Boston. Like their comrades in Boston, the popular liberal forces of South Carolina 47 00:05:54.260 --> 00:06:01.260 confronted organized and articulate opposition, which was led by the wealthy young planter 48 00:06:01.260 --> 00:06:07.780 William Henry Drayton. Battling in the pages of the South Carolina Gazette during August 49 00:06:07.780 --> 00:06:14.780 1769, Drayton denounced Gadsden as an advocate of enslavement masquerading as a libertarian. 50 00:06:14.780 --> 00:06:27.780 For private associations to brand non-compliers with the boycott as traitors was a usurpation of the function of the legislature. 51 00:06:27.780 --> 00:06:39.780 Here Drayton confused the vital distinction between voluntary and coercive actions, and hence between private and governmental actions. 52 00:06:39.780 --> 00:06:59.780 It was typically conservative for Drayton to believe that estate branding and punishing a man for treason was somehow legitimate and not really coercive, whereas private denunciation and peaceful boycott were illegitimately coercive. 53 00:06:59.780 --> 00:07:06.780 Also typically conservative, Drayton advocated jailing Gadsden for the latter's views. 54 00:07:06.780 --> 00:07:13.980 The famous Gadsden-Draton debate finally led the people of Charleston to publish and distribute 55 00:07:13.980 --> 00:07:20.340 handbills in early September containing the names of the recalcitrants. 56 00:07:20.340 --> 00:07:25.380 The original motto of the Charleston General Meeting establishing the boycott had been 57 00:07:25.380 --> 00:07:33.420 sign or die, but this proved to be braggadocio as no attempt was ever made to go beyond boycott 58 00:07:33.420 --> 00:07:40.420 and Public ostracism to such violence. The leading non-signers, aside from the inevitable 59 00:07:40.660 --> 00:07:47.660 royal officials, were Drayton, William Rag, and John Gordon. Again, Drayton and Gadson 60 00:07:49.820 --> 00:07:55.840 engaged in debate on the fundamental nature of liberty. Drayton asserted that the Gadson 61 00:07:55.840 --> 00:08:02.140 liberals were laying illegal restraints upon the free wills of free men, that is, of the 62 00:08:02.140 --> 00:08:09.140 and Non-Signers. Gadsden retorted that the association violated not a single law, and 63 00:08:09.140 --> 00:08:17.020 that free men had the right to associate, and hence not to associate, with whom soever 64 00:08:17.020 --> 00:08:25.820 they pleased. Drayton replied by falling back on such cant as the old Tory doctrine of conspiracy, 65 00:08:25.820 --> 00:08:30.020 which supposedly made such boycotts punishable by law. 66 00:08:30.020 --> 00:08:36.340 Rage was more explicit in pointing out that such boycotts should be as illegal as combinations 67 00:08:36.340 --> 00:08:39.900 of labor to raise wages. 68 00:08:39.900 --> 00:08:47.860 In his rebuttal, Gadsden transcended the preceding debate to proclaim the right of a people, where 69 00:08:47.860 --> 00:08:55.340 their rights have been invaded by government, to reassert their inalienable natural rights, 70 00:08:55.340 --> 00:09:04.160 those inherent rights of society, which no climate, no time, no constitution, no contract 71 00:09:04.160 --> 00:09:07.340 can ever destroy or diminish. 72 00:09:07.340 --> 00:09:13.500 Drayton did try to suppress the boycott at law. He could not go to the courts, for most 73 00:09:13.500 --> 00:09:19.500 of the judges, to say nothing of the juries, were signers of the association, and the South 74 00:09:19.500 --> 00:09:24.900 South Carolina House summarily rejected his plea, which testified to the effectiveness 75 00:09:24.900 --> 00:09:32.060 of the boycott. Finally, the boycotters won. Drayton left in defeat for England in early 76 00:09:32.060 --> 00:09:40.180 January 1770, sailing, appropriately, on a ship carrying unsold, boycotted goods back 77 00:09:40.180 --> 00:09:48.060 to Britain. Editor Peter Timothy of the Gazette thereupon exultantly listed among the unacceptable 78 00:09:48.060 --> 00:10:00.820 The Charleston General Committee, enlivened as it was by mechanics and planters, vigorously 79 00:10:00.820 --> 00:10:07.380 enforced the boycott, aided by the Alert Merchants Committee of Inspection. Slaves imported by 80 00:10:07.380 --> 00:10:14.780 British traders were promptly sent back. Indeed, so effective was the boycott that total English 81 00:10:14.780 --> 00:10:26.940 Imports in both Carolinas fell from over 305,000 pounds in 1769 to slightly over 145,000 pounds 82 00:10:26.940 --> 00:10:36.020 in 1770. Particularly significant was the non-importation movement in Boston, for here 83 00:10:36.020 --> 00:10:42.140 the struggle for the boycott coincided with Boston's necessarily more acute conflict 84 00:10:42.140 --> 00:10:46.100 with the Customs Board and with the British Army. 85 00:10:46.100 --> 00:10:52.200 The first town to organize the boycott, Boston had to face the hostility of the British Customs 86 00:10:52.200 --> 00:10:54.500 officials and troops. 87 00:10:54.500 --> 00:11:00.660 They also had to face the effective organized opposition of John Mine, the Scottish publisher 88 00:11:00.660 --> 00:11:04.940 of the new newspaper, The Boston Chronicle. 89 00:11:04.940 --> 00:11:11.440 The Chronicle was not only the most typographically advanced paper in the country, it was also 90 00:11:11.440 --> 00:11:23.920 The Chronicle had recently begun as a newspaper above partisan stands in the political fray. 91 00:11:23.920 --> 00:11:31.000 But the Customs Board shrewdly saw an excellent opportunity for a propaganda coup and secretly 92 00:11:31.000 --> 00:11:38.040 set about subsidizing Mein's paper. Mein profited handsomely from the subsidy of being 93 00:11:38.040 --> 00:11:45.040 and after a year his stationery, or rather his vitriolic championing of the Tory cause, 94 00:11:47.880 --> 00:11:54.880 was so appreciated that the board made him its sole supplier. Mine also had clandestine 95 00:11:54.880 --> 00:12:01.000 help in writing his material from William Birch of the Customs Board and from the richly 96 00:12:01.000 --> 00:12:08.000 hated customs officer Samuel Waterhouse, whom John Adams denounced as the most notorious 97 00:12:08.040 --> 00:12:16.040 The glorious scribbler and libeler in the service of the conspirators against the liberties of America. 98 00:12:16.040 --> 00:12:26.040 Yet, Mines jealously maintained in public that he was completely unbiased and not connected with the government. 99 00:12:26.040 --> 00:12:33.040 The major confrontation between Mines and the liberals began in the spring of 1769. 100 00:12:33.040 --> 00:12:38.720 In May 8, the Boston town meeting praised the bulk of the merchants for abiding by the 101 00:12:38.720 --> 00:12:44.520 non-importation agreement. In the next few weeks, the Committee of Merchants of Boston, 102 00:12:44.520 --> 00:12:50.560 headed by John Hancock, helped to distribute thousands of handpills, urging a boycott of 103 00:12:50.560 --> 00:12:57.360 the few merchants who had not complied. The list included three relatives, two sons and 104 00:12:57.360 --> 00:13:04.140 and a nephew of the leading Tory, Thomas Hutchinson, lieutenant governor of the province. 105 00:13:04.140 --> 00:13:10.760 Another nephew of Hutchinson, later added to the list, quickly recanted his position. 106 00:13:10.760 --> 00:13:16.320 To tighten enforcement, the Boston merchants in late July appointed a committee to inspect 107 00:13:16.320 --> 00:13:21.800 any vessels from Great Britain with goods condemned by the agreement and to publish 108 00:13:21.800 --> 00:13:24.360 the names of violators. 109 00:13:24.360 --> 00:13:29.720 Another committee circulated a pledge among Boston inhabitants to boycott any merchant 110 00:13:29.720 --> 00:13:36.720 so publicized in the handbills as violators. Governor Hutchinson was outraged by the effectiveness 111 00:13:37.000 --> 00:13:43.520 of these measures. He was particularly outraged by such regular and vital functions being 112 00:13:43.520 --> 00:13:50.520 conducted by purely private, non-governmental bodies. In short, by non-state, revolutionary 113 00:13:50.520 --> 00:13:56.640 Revolutionary institutions springing up directly from among the people. So 114 00:13:56.640 --> 00:14:01.640 effective were the committees that in early August most of the merchants named 115 00:14:01.640 --> 00:14:07.400 in the original handbills hastened to recant and to promise to abide by the 116 00:14:07.400 --> 00:14:12.840 agreement. Pressing their advantage, the Boston Committee of Merchants in mid 117 00:14:12.840 --> 00:14:17.400 August condemned the remaining recalcitrants as enemies to the 118 00:14:17.400 --> 00:14:23.920 The Constitution of their country and urged their boycott. The list now included John 119 00:14:23.920 --> 00:14:31.280 Mein who stepped up his attacks to a level of continuousness. One unfair and misleading 120 00:14:31.280 --> 00:14:37.840 charge said that the signing merchants themselves, including the eminent Hancock, were secret 121 00:14:37.840 --> 00:14:44.880 violators of the non-importation agreement. Anguished and lengthy denials by the victims 122 00:14:44.880 --> 00:15:09.880 The conclusions of Mines' smear attacks did not at all deter him from compiling his charges into a large book, which was then widely distributed by eager customs officials throughout the colonies. Mines' shrewd aim was to split the libertarian movement and to sow distrust of the Boston leaders in the other provinces. 123 00:15:09.880 --> 00:15:25.880 John Mines' widely disseminated libel had a chilling effect in the colonies and gravely weakened the zeal of the non-importation movement even among the radical cadres in New York, Newport and Philadelphia. 124 00:15:25.880 --> 00:15:38.880 Mines' campaign also emboldened the non-signing merchants and heartened Hutchinson's consistent attempts to induce Parliament to outlaw boycott agreements. 125 00:15:38.880 --> 00:15:43.180 The liberals reacted by stepping up their pressure campaign. 126 00:15:43.180 --> 00:15:50.180 The Boston town meeting in early October condemned the seven recalcitrant merchants and resolved 127 00:15:50.220 --> 00:15:56.140 to enter their names on the town records so that posterity may know who those persons 128 00:15:56.140 --> 00:16:03.140 were that preferred their little private advantages to the common interest of all the colonies. 129 00:16:03.140 --> 00:16:09.900 The merchants, backed perhaps by hints of destruction of the recalcitrant's property, 130 00:16:09.900 --> 00:16:17.220 then forced the sons and nephews of Hutchinson into line. Now there remained only three merchants, 131 00:16:17.220 --> 00:16:25.180 including mine, whose names were advertised as those who audaciously continued to counteract 132 00:16:25.180 --> 00:16:32.580 the united sentiments of the body of merchants throughout North America. Of these, of course, 133 00:16:32.580 --> 00:16:39.580 The most hated was John Mein. The Free American Fire Company expelled Mein from membership, 134 00:16:40.020 --> 00:16:46.620 and the seniors of Harvard College resolved never again to have dealings with him. Finally, 135 00:16:46.620 --> 00:16:53.620 harsher measures were taken, and his property was defaced and his person threatened. Mein, 136 00:16:54.180 --> 00:17:01.180 it should be noted, was the inevitable focus of a growing climate of violence in Boston. 137 00:17:01.180 --> 00:17:20.180 In the first place, mine had never been forgiven for the brutal and sudden clumping of John Gill, a co-editor of the Boston Gazette a year and a half earlier, an attack that Sam Adams and James Otis denounced as a Spaniard-like attempt on a free press. 138 00:17:20.180 --> 00:17:28.180 A far more precipitating event was a brutal crime that stunned the whole town of Boston. 139 00:17:28.180 --> 00:17:43.180 The Liberals' popular leader, James Otis, had denounced the Customs Board commissioners in the Gazette of September 4, 1769, for maligning the Liberals as rebels and traitors. 140 00:17:43.180 --> 00:17:53.680 The next night, in brutal retaliation, John Robinson, one of the commissioners who had been so cordially hated a few years earlier in Rhode Island, 141 00:17:53.680 --> 00:18:00.180 set upon Otis with a gang of tufts and beat him unmercifully. 142 00:18:00.180 --> 00:18:07.680 From this assault, Otis never recovered, having been rendered permanently insane. 143 00:18:07.680 --> 00:18:13.680 Boston's beloved leader had fallen martyr to Tory violence. 144 00:18:13.680 --> 00:18:22.680 To what the aggrieved Sam Adams and the Gazette charged was an intended and nearly executed assassination. 145 00:18:22.680 --> 00:18:26.680 The people of Boston were ready to retaliate. 146 00:18:26.680 --> 00:18:34.680 And so, on October 28, a street crowd gathered against mine and his co-editor, John Fleming. 147 00:18:34.680 --> 00:18:41.680 The frightened mind shot into the crowd, wounding an innocent bystander. Some angry 148 00:18:41.680 --> 00:18:48.120 citizens swore out a warrant against mine for having put innocent people in bodily fear. 149 00:18:48.120 --> 00:18:53.920 Mine fled for his life to his spiritual home on a British vessel and thence to England, 150 00:18:53.920 --> 00:19:00.920 where the grateful King George awarded mine a handsome pension for his diligent services. 151 00:19:00.920 --> 00:19:22.920 The hated Tory mine had finally been routed, but his venomous work went on. His faithful ally, Fleeming, continued to publish the Chronicle, and to publish and distribute updated editions of his and mine's compendium of charges against the non-importing merchants of Boston. 152 00:19:22.920 --> 00:19:29.480 Finally, however, Mines' heavy debts and the dwindling of subscriptions and advertisements 153 00:19:29.480 --> 00:19:32.160 caught up with the enterprise. 154 00:19:32.160 --> 00:19:38.760 John Hancock was able triumphantly to take possession of the paper in behalf of Mines' 155 00:19:38.760 --> 00:19:39.760 creditors. 156 00:19:39.760 --> 00:19:48.560 By late June 1770, the voice of the most dangerous Tory organ in America, the Boston Chronicle, 157 00:19:48.560 --> 00:19:50.160 had finally been stilled.