WEBVTT NOTE 64. The Continental Association 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.600 Volume 3, Chapter 64, The Continental Association 2 00:00:05.600 --> 00:00:12.000 As the Congress ended, the colonists hastened to ratify the results at provincial congresses, 3 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:19.100 which were extralegal revolutionary bodies whose composition was very much like the official assemblies. 4 00:00:19.100 --> 00:00:26.200 Localities throughout the colonies created committees of inspection, observation, or public safety 5 00:00:26.200 --> 00:00:33.200 to oversee and enforce the association agreement. In Massachusetts, General Gage's refusal 6 00:00:33.240 --> 00:00:39.840 to permit the assembly to meet brought about the institution of a provincial congress, 7 00:00:39.840 --> 00:00:46.120 which endorsed the congress's measures in early December. Weeks earlier, Marblehead 8 00:00:46.120 --> 00:00:52.180 and Newbury Port had taken the lead in forming local committees of inspection. The Boston 9 00:00:52.180 --> 00:00:59.060 In a recent town meeting selected a committee of 63, including Cushing, Hancock, Sam Adams, 10 00:00:59.060 --> 00:01:04.480 Paul Revere and Henry Bass, to enforce the association. 11 00:01:04.480 --> 00:01:10.500 In Massachusetts, few towns needed to establish new commissions of inspection, as they would 12 00:01:10.500 --> 00:01:17.920 simply continue committees already chosen to enforce the now-superceded Solemn League 13 00:01:17.920 --> 00:01:19.820 and Covenant. 14 00:01:19.820 --> 00:01:25.700 Only the town of Marshfield refused to agree to the association. New Hampshire's Provincial 15 00:01:25.700 --> 00:01:32.140 Congress unanimously endorsed the association in late January, and many towns appointed 16 00:01:32.140 --> 00:01:39.140 local committees. In Rhode Island and Connecticut, there was no need for special congresses since 17 00:01:39.140 --> 00:01:45.220 the official assemblies were uniquely free from British control. Hence the assemblies 18 00:01:45.220 --> 00:02:02.220 The committees themselves ratified the boycott. In Connecticut, resistance to the association centered in the small Anglican elements of many small towns in Fairfield County, Ridgefield, Newtown, and Reading among them. 19 00:02:02.220 --> 00:02:08.220 New Jersey, on the other hand, had little trouble in ratifying and setting up local committees. 20 00:02:08.220 --> 00:02:14.220 The provincial assembly itself approved the Congress's proceedings at the end of January. 21 00:02:14.220 --> 00:02:23.360 The situation in Pennsylvania, in contrast, was highly delicate, but soon proved successful. 22 00:02:23.360 --> 00:02:30.220 The Radicals realized that to enforce the association, the conservative Committee of 43 and the Philadelphia 23 00:02:30.220 --> 00:02:35.020 politics that it dominated had to be bypassed. 24 00:02:35.020 --> 00:02:41.000 On November 14, the Radicals held their own mass meeting and decided to hold elections 25 00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:48.960 by Ballot, with the city and county of Philadelphia each electing its own committee. In the election, 26 00:02:48.960 --> 00:02:55.000 the radical committee slate won an overwhelming victory in the city. As a result, the new 27 00:02:55.000 --> 00:03:02.880 committee of 66 was far more radical than the old Philadelphia committee of 43. The 28 00:03:02.880 --> 00:03:09.440 counties also chose committees of inspection to enforce the association. Finally, the Pennsylvania 29 00:03:09.440 --> 00:03:16.440 Maryland Assembly itself ratified the Continental Association and then set up a Provincial Congress 30 00:03:16.440 --> 00:03:23.440 that endorsed the Continental Congress in late January. As for Delaware, its assembly 31 00:03:23.440 --> 00:03:30.440 unanimously endorsed the Congress, but Anglican Sussex County refused to select a Committee 32 00:03:30.440 --> 00:03:37.400 of Inspection. Maryland was the first of the southern colonies to act. Many of its counties 33 00:03:37.400 --> 00:03:44.400 Virginia chose committees of inspection in a provincial convention unanimously endorsed the Congress in early December. 34 00:03:44.400 --> 00:03:53.400 Virginia, too, acted quickly in forming committees. Its provincial convention endorsed the Congress's proceedings at the end of March. 35 00:03:53.400 --> 00:04:04.400 North Carolina also began early, its enforcement committees, particularly at Wilmington and the Tidewater counties, being established in early December. 36 00:04:04.400 --> 00:04:11.600 December. However, North Carolina's Provincial Convention did not endorse the Congress until 37 00:04:11.600 --> 00:04:17.680 the following April. In South Carolina, the battle for ratification and enforcement of the 38 00:04:17.680 --> 00:04:25.280 Association was led by the Liberal General Committee of Charleston. Radical liberals, led by Gadsden in 39 00:04:25.280 --> 00:04:31.360 the South Carolina Gazette, urged ratification without the galling and discriminatory exemption 40 00:04:31.360 --> 00:04:38.560 for Rice Exports, while from the right, the indigo planters wanted to include South Carolina's 41 00:04:38.560 --> 00:04:41.600 other staple in the exemption. 42 00:04:41.600 --> 00:04:47.400 At the South Carolina Provincial Congress in mid-January, the magnificent Gadsden argued 43 00:04:47.400 --> 00:04:53.500 against special privilege for rice, while John Rutledge pleaded hardship and dependence 44 00:04:53.500 --> 00:04:57.440 of the colony on the export of rice to Britain. 45 00:04:57.440 --> 00:05:02.000 Furthermore, to purchase the support of the indigo interest, the General Committee had 46 00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:08.840 suggested that privileged rice growers compensate the indigo planters by buying a certain proportion 47 00:05:08.840 --> 00:05:10.320 of the latter crop. 48 00:05:10.320 --> 00:05:17.680 The indigo subsidy was defended by the Rutledge's, William Henry Drayton and even Thomas Lynch. 49 00:05:17.680 --> 00:05:24.360 While Gadsden cuttingly asked why only the indigo growers and not other people in the 50 00:05:24.360 --> 00:05:30.680 Province should benefit from the Rice Exemption. Finally, the compensation was extended to 51 00:05:30.680 --> 00:05:38.560 other agricultural commodities. South Carolina's Provincial Congress set up an unusually systematic 52 00:05:38.560 --> 00:05:44.800 set of local enforcement committees. In every parish and district, members of the Congress 53 00:05:44.800 --> 00:05:50.720 composed a majority of the committee, and future vacancies were to be filled in elections 54 00:05:50.720 --> 00:05:52.920 by the Inhabitants. 55 00:05:52.920 --> 00:05:59.320 Two colonies failed to gratify the association, New York and Georgia. 56 00:05:59.320 --> 00:06:05.440 Many of New York's conservative intellectuals, such as the Anglican ministers Samuel Seabury 57 00:06:05.440 --> 00:06:11.820 and Thomas Chandler, removed themselves in disgust from the association movement, openly 58 00:06:11.820 --> 00:06:16.560 denouncing it and being branded as Tories in return. 59 00:06:16.560 --> 00:06:20.680 With the bulk of conservatives determined to stay within the popular movement in New 60 00:06:20.680 --> 00:06:28.120 York and thereby to guide and emasculate it, the conservative committee of 51, however, 61 00:06:28.120 --> 00:06:33.800 was forced to dissolve and yield to the clamor of the radical committee of mechanics for 62 00:06:33.800 --> 00:06:36.680 a public election of a new committee. 63 00:06:36.680 --> 00:06:43.320 At a public meeting on November 22, the newly elected committee of 60 was dominated by the 64 00:06:43.320 --> 00:06:51.200 Radicals, including Isaac Sears and Alexander MacDougall. However, the landlord-run rural 65 00:06:51.200 --> 00:06:58.720 counties remained apathetic to the revolutionary movement, and only Suffolk, Ulster and Albany 66 00:06:58.720 --> 00:07:06.080 counties endorsed the association. In Suffolk, particularly, the several towns hastened to 67 00:07:06.080 --> 00:07:11.960 appoint enforcement committees. Radicals attempted to form committees of inspection in Queens 68 00:07:11.960 --> 00:07:18.820 and try on counties but with little success. Thus, when committees in Jamaica and Newtown 69 00:07:18.820 --> 00:07:25.660 Queens were appointed, the committees were speedily repudiated by many of their citizens. 70 00:07:25.660 --> 00:07:31.940 In upcountry Dutchess County, a Tory association openly combated the boycott and the majority 71 00:07:31.940 --> 00:07:37.860 of freeholders swore to obey the constituted laws of the land and to enforce obedience 72 00:07:37.860 --> 00:07:44.580 to the Rightful Authority of King and Parliament. A majority of Jamaica freeholders signed a 73 00:07:44.580 --> 00:07:51.260 Loyalist oath, and Oyster Bay was largely Tory. A public meeting of freeholders of Albany 74 00:07:51.260 --> 00:07:58.060 County pledged loyalty to established government, and a loyalty poll was constructed in Ulster 75 00:07:58.060 --> 00:08:04.460 County. The radicals made a determined effort to get the New York Assembly to ratify the 76 00:08:04.460 --> 00:08:13.540 Association, but failed by one vote. Notwithstanding, the Radical Committee of 60 proved sufficient 77 00:08:13.540 --> 00:08:19.660 in controlling the course of the trade in New York City. In Georgia, conditions in late 78 00:08:19.660 --> 00:08:27.700 1774 were more favorable for ratification. The looming Indian War had faded, and Rice 79 00:08:27.700 --> 00:08:33.520 had received its exemption from the Continental Congress. But now many of the radical leaders 80 00:08:33.520 --> 00:08:40.080 in Georgia began to lose their nerve. The Savannah and the assembly radicals proposed 81 00:08:40.080 --> 00:08:47.080 to endorse the association only if more time were granted for launching non-importation 82 00:08:47.080 --> 00:08:54.960 and non-exportation. Only the pure radicals of St. John's Parish, led by Dr. Lyman Hall, 83 00:08:54.960 --> 00:09:02.040 adopted the association without deviation on December 1. A provincial congress met in 84 00:09:02.040 --> 00:09:09.220 in Georgia on January 18. Only five of the 12 parishes sent delegates, and these represented 85 00:09:09.220 --> 00:09:16.700 only small minorities of their parishes. The Congress then, lacking self-confidence, decided 86 00:09:16.700 --> 00:09:23.640 to submit its extra-legal decisions to the official Georgia Assembly. The Congress proceeded 87 00:09:23.640 --> 00:09:31.920 to ratify the association, but with modifications, postponing non-importation to March 15 and 88 00:09:31.920 --> 00:09:39.680 Non-Exportation to December 1, 1775 Governor Wright dissolved the assembly before 89 00:09:39.680 --> 00:09:45.560 it could ratify, but the Congress tried to redeem itself by publishing its decisions. 90 00:09:45.560 --> 00:09:52.820 It did not, however, go so far as to ratify, undeluded, the actual measures of the Continental 91 00:09:52.820 --> 00:10:00.260 Congress. Local committees in every province began immediately to enforce non-importation 92 00:10:00.260 --> 00:10:06.140 after December 1 and Non-Consumption the following March. 93 00:10:06.140 --> 00:10:11.700 In addition to boycotting and ostracizing violators, the same methods were used against 94 00:10:11.700 --> 00:10:14.740 persons of known Tory leanings. 95 00:10:14.740 --> 00:10:21.740 While historians have remarked on the paradox of a libertarian movement using coercive measures 96 00:10:21.740 --> 00:10:27.940 against dissidents, the remarkable thing is the degree of libertarian means that this 97 00:10:27.940 --> 00:10:34.820 This movement used, in pursuit of its ends, never before in history had so much reliance 98 00:10:34.820 --> 00:10:41.440 been placed on such non-violent methods of mass struggle as the boycott, and on such 99 00:10:41.440 --> 00:10:49.100 libertarian and non-violent means of enforcing the boycott as secondary boycotts, social 100 00:10:49.100 --> 00:10:54.320 ostracism, blacklist and public obloquy. 101 00:10:54.320 --> 00:11:00.640 This unprecedented constancy of libertarian ends and means, especially for a revolutionary 102 00:11:00.640 --> 00:11:07.120 mass movement of such size and scope, was marred only around the edges by such minor 103 00:11:07.120 --> 00:11:13.840 excesses as the use of the tarpot, the rail and the feathers. The whole association movement 104 00:11:13.840 --> 00:11:21.800 of 1774-75 is a remarkable testament to the strength of libertarian ideals permeating 105 00:11:21.800 --> 00:11:28.920 in the Revolutionary Era. One of the earliest examples of organized, voluntary boycott took 106 00:11:28.920 --> 00:11:35.800 place in Worcester, Massachusetts in early November when over 40 blacksmiths of the county 107 00:11:35.800 --> 00:11:43.000 pledged to refuse to sell their services to all who violated the association in any way. 108 00:11:43.000 --> 00:11:50.080 They also resolved to do no further work for specified persons and families with Tory leanings, 109 00:11:50.080 --> 00:11:56.360 particularly Timothy Ruggles and others who had been trying to form a Tory association 110 00:11:56.360 --> 00:12:02.700 supported by Governor Gage and pledged each other mutual aid against a popular threat 111 00:12:02.700 --> 00:12:08.360 to their lives or liberties or properties. Further pressure on the Ruggles group came 112 00:12:08.360 --> 00:12:14.320 from the Massachusetts Provincial Congress on December 9, which recommended to the local 113 00:12:14.320 --> 00:12:19.960 committees of correspondence a widespread public notice to such associations and any 114 00:12:19.960 --> 00:12:26.160 Many people signing them that their names be published to the world, their persons treated 115 00:12:26.160 --> 00:12:32.540 with that neglect, and their memories transmitted to posterity with that ignominy which such 116 00:12:32.540 --> 00:12:38.880 unnatural conduct must deserve. Under this pressure, the Ruggles Group found that it 117 00:12:38.880 --> 00:12:45.400 was virtually devoid of signers. Only in the incorrigible Tory town of Marshfield did a 118 00:12:45.400 --> 00:12:51.800 A sizable number gathered to sign a loyalist association, and even they had to send a hurried 119 00:12:51.800 --> 00:12:54.880 call to British troops for protection. 120 00:12:54.880 --> 00:13:00.400 There was little trouble about endorsing non-importation in Massachusetts. 121 00:13:00.400 --> 00:13:04.500 Non-consumption presented a more difficult enforcement problem. 122 00:13:04.500 --> 00:13:10.640 The Newbury Port Inspection Committee solved the matter by requiring shopkeepers to produce 123 00:13:10.640 --> 00:13:18.640 A certificate from a Committee of Inspection attesting that the goods were not sold in violation of the association. 124 00:13:18.640 --> 00:13:26.640 Tea, a product hitherto in great demand in the colonies, was the biggest non-consumption problem. 125 00:13:26.640 --> 00:13:34.640 Typical of Committee vigilance was the crackdown on Thomas Lilley of Marblehead for buying tea for his own consumption. 126 00:13:34.640 --> 00:13:42.080 Lely was pressured into publicly burning the English tea and publicly recanting his errors. 127 00:13:42.080 --> 00:13:48.160 A particular problem was the itinerant peddlers who sold East India tea in the country towns. 128 00:13:48.160 --> 00:13:51.560 A certificate here would not be practicable. 129 00:13:51.560 --> 00:13:58.840 Hence the Provincial Congress in mid-February urged abstinence from all trading with peddlers. 130 00:13:58.840 --> 00:14:05.100 Even before the meeting of the Continental Congress, radical editors had begun publicly 131 00:14:05.100 --> 00:14:12.360 blacklisting Massachusetts supporters of the intolerable acts and traitors accepting jobs 132 00:14:12.360 --> 00:14:14.700 in the gage regime. 133 00:14:14.700 --> 00:14:22.020 The Norwich packet of Connecticut on October 13 blasted the Reverend Samuel Peters, a Tory 134 00:14:22.020 --> 00:14:30.300 Anglican Minister as the most unnatural monster and detestable parasite to this country. 135 00:14:30.300 --> 00:14:38.000 In response, the Petersham town meeting branded 14 Tories incorrigible enemies of America 136 00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:43.020 for being opposed to the Continental Congress and the Association. 137 00:14:43.020 --> 00:14:49.820 The Marblehead town meeting decided to boycott a half-dozen of its citizens as abettors of 138 00:14:49.820 --> 00:14:56.820 of tyranny and parasites of their country. Sometimes, of course, there were excesses, 139 00:14:56.860 --> 00:15:03.860 as when mob coercion forced Dr. Abraham Alden of Bidford and John Taylor of Shrewsbury to 140 00:15:04.140 --> 00:15:11.140 confess their errors. In New Hampshire, non-importation was energetically enforced in the port of 141 00:15:11.840 --> 00:15:18.760 Portsmouth by the Committee of 45. The main trouble was in the country towns where peddlers 142 00:15:18.760 --> 00:15:24.520 This violated non-importation and non-consumption regulations. 143 00:15:24.520 --> 00:15:31.720 As a solution, the towns of Exeter, Kingston, Newmarket and Brentwood imposed a prohibition 144 00:15:31.720 --> 00:15:33.680 upon peddling. 145 00:15:33.680 --> 00:15:39.120 The Provincial Convention in late January endorsed the prohibition and extended it to 146 00:15:39.120 --> 00:15:46.040 the province, urging all citizens to maintain the boycott by abandoning the use of tea. 147 00:15:46.040 --> 00:15:52.060 Rhode Island enforced the association very well. One excess in that province went beyond 148 00:15:52.060 --> 00:15:58.720 voluntary market means, the requirement by the town of Providence that all traders show 149 00:15:58.720 --> 00:16:05.160 certificates of compliance with the association. Connecticut did little direct importing of 150 00:16:05.160 --> 00:16:11.660 its own, therefore its problem was largely that of enforcing non-consumption. The vigilant 151 00:16:11.660 --> 00:16:17.260 and committees of inspection conducted their own private trials of people accused of violating 152 00:16:17.260 --> 00:16:23.740 the association. These trials were almost always fair and impartial. They required full 153 00:16:23.740 --> 00:16:29.540 proof of violations according to the laws of evidence and invited the defendant to appear 154 00:16:29.540 --> 00:16:36.660 voluntarily. This procedure began in Hartford County in late January and soon spread to 155 00:16:36.660 --> 00:16:53.660 The Committee of the Town of Norwich also adopted the idea of requiring dealers under pain of boycott to certify that their goods were not acquired in violation of the association. 156 00:16:53.660 --> 00:17:12.660 One problem that plagued Connecticut and many other colonies was introduced by the Continental Congress's demand that merchants and traders not take advantage of scarcity and that they hold the prices of boycotted goods to the previous year's levels. 157 00:17:12.660 --> 00:17:22.660 This absurd attempt at voluntary price fixing betrayed a monumental ignorance of how the market price system operates. 158 00:17:22.660 --> 00:17:32.100 When goods become scarce, as under non-importation agreements, the free market price rises to 159 00:17:32.100 --> 00:17:35.060 account for the greater scarcity. 160 00:17:35.060 --> 00:17:41.540 Putting the matter into such pseudo-moralistic terms as taking unfair advantage of the scarcity 161 00:17:41.540 --> 00:17:48.380 completely ignores the rationing function of the price system. 162 00:17:48.380 --> 00:17:55.380 If prices do not rise to reflect increased scarcity, then the goods will soon disappear 163 00:17:55.400 --> 00:18:02.400 and not be available at all to those clamoring to buy. Consumers as well as producers are 164 00:18:03.280 --> 00:18:10.280 gravely injured by this form of price control. In Connecticut, in late January, a joint meeting 165 00:18:11.120 --> 00:18:18.120 of committees of inspection of Hartford County attempted to impose fixed retail prices on 166 00:18:18.380 --> 00:18:48.380 New York was the great feeder port for New Jersey and Connecticut, hence its importance for enforcing non-importation. Fortunately, the radicals on the Committee of Sixty soon took over the commercial affairs of the city, and the Committee rigorously enforced the boycott. Great mobs prevented several English ships from landing. Happily, while enforcing non-importation, 167 00:18:48.380 --> 00:19:02.380 When the enforcement of the boycott was rigorous, the committee showed instinctive economic sense by not insisting on prices remaining the same as the supposedly God-given prices of the previous year. 168 00:19:02.380 --> 00:19:13.380 In this way, the committee did not aggravate the substantial amount of Tory sentiment in New York, while allowing effective imposition of the boycott. 169 00:19:13.380 --> 00:19:21.820 Furthermore, the rigorous enforcement of non-importation upon the city made unimportant the fact that 170 00:19:21.820 --> 00:19:29.380 non-consumption could not begin to be enforced outside the city, and Albany, Ulster and Suffolk 171 00:19:29.380 --> 00:19:35.120 counties, the only areas where local inspection committees were available. 172 00:19:35.120 --> 00:19:42.280 Probably most of the infractions, again, occurred in the area of tea consumption, like the Ruggles 173 00:19:42.280 --> 00:19:49.020 Association in Massachusetts, Tory organizations did not get very far in New York. A group 174 00:19:49.020 --> 00:19:55.600 of Tories in ultra-conservative and landlord-ridden duchess in Westchester Counties attempted 175 00:19:55.600 --> 00:20:02.520 to form such associations, but did not succeed. The association was also well enforced in 176 00:20:02.520 --> 00:20:08.120 New Jersey, where there were few ports. The Elizabethtown Committee cooperated with their 177 00:20:08.120 --> 00:20:38.120 Woodbridge Township in Gloucester County also enforced the boycott wholeheartedly, and a tea party was held by New Jersey Indians when East Indian Tea almost landed secretly at Greenwich, in Cumberland County, and in February the Committees of Observation of Elizabeth Town in Woodbridge decided on a complete boycott of trade with the Tories' citizenry of Staten Island. 178 00:20:38.120 --> 00:20:45.120 Tea drinking, a favorite pastime of Americans, again proved the most difficult part of the 179 00:20:45.120 --> 00:20:52.920 association to enforce. When Silas Newcomb of Cumberland County announced rather rashly 180 00:20:52.920 --> 00:20:58.080 that he proposed to drink tea, all dealings were broken off with him by the Cumberland 181 00:20:58.080 --> 00:21:05.880 Committee and in two months he abjectly recanted. Philadelphia, filled with conservative Quaker 182 00:21:05.880 --> 00:21:12.880 For merchants was the big problem area for the American rebels. Here was the weak link 183 00:21:13.040 --> 00:21:19.440 that threatened to collapse the entire boycott movement. In the late 17th century, the Quaker 184 00:21:19.440 --> 00:21:26.440 creed of nonviolence had been radically individualist and anti-statist. But during the 18th century, 185 00:21:28.520 --> 00:21:35.520 Pennsylvania Quakers had become increasingly conservative, statist and even warlike. 186 00:21:35.880 --> 00:21:42.320 Quaker nonviolence was now largely a thinly veiled camouflage for highly conservative, 187 00:21:42.320 --> 00:21:45.040 quasi-Tory views. 188 00:21:45.040 --> 00:21:50.640 The official Quaker Committee of Sufferings in Pennsylvania and New Jersey kept up a steady 189 00:21:50.640 --> 00:21:58.240 drumfire of agitation against the association and other anti-British measures. 190 00:21:58.240 --> 00:22:05.160 Which agitation, despite its nonviolence, was supposedly in violation of Quaker religious 191 00:22:05.160 --> 00:22:06.160 views? 192 00:22:06.160 --> 00:22:11.920 A Quaker meeting for Pennsylvania and New Jersey in late January was quite explicitly 193 00:22:11.920 --> 00:22:13.400 Tory. 194 00:22:13.400 --> 00:22:20.680 It denounced every usurpation of power and authority in opposition to the laws and government 195 00:22:20.680 --> 00:22:28.480 and all combinations, insurrections, conspiracies and illegal assemblages. 196 00:22:28.480 --> 00:22:34.360 The official Quakers were not able to silence their pro-association brethren. 197 00:22:34.360 --> 00:22:43.840 Despite these problems, the Philadelphia Committee of 66 did an excellent job of enforcing non-importation. 198 00:22:43.840 --> 00:22:49.760 The committee divided its membership into six districts, and one member from each district 199 00:22:49.760 --> 00:22:56.320 was delegated each morning to inspect all incoming vessels. This enforcement, as in 200 00:22:56.320 --> 00:23:04.520 New York, was greatly facilitated by a sensible laxity in fixing import prices. Despite the 201 00:23:04.520 --> 00:23:12.920 de jure pronunciamentos, for example, dry goods prices had increased by 25 to 100% by 202 00:23:12.920 --> 00:23:21.960 by March 1775. Delaware, a small and agricultural, rather than commercial province, was scarcely 203 00:23:21.960 --> 00:23:28.220 a center for non-importation struggles and had little trouble in enforcing the boycott. 204 00:23:28.220 --> 00:23:34.120 The southern colonies had particular problems in enforcing the boycott, especially where 205 00:23:34.120 --> 00:23:40.580 the merchants were Scots or factors of Scottish firms. Scottish zeal for the American cause 206 00:23:40.580 --> 00:23:47.220 was less than ardent, but with the planters heavily in debt to these merchants in the normal 207 00:23:47.220 --> 00:23:54.220 course of trade, the southerners had a powerful political weapon against the Tories, a threat 208 00:23:54.540 --> 00:24:01.540 to suspend the judicial collection of debts. Maryland faced the problem of a score of navigable 209 00:24:02.500 --> 00:24:08.340 rivers where imports could enter the province, but keen vigilance by committees of radicals 210 00:24:08.340 --> 00:24:14.700 Lawyers at the commercial centers of Baltimore and Annapolis ensured effective enforcement 211 00:24:14.700 --> 00:24:21.500 of the association. In December, a provincial convention resolved that all lawyers should 212 00:24:21.500 --> 00:24:27.720 refuse to prosecute any suits, especially collections of debt, for those who violated 213 00:24:27.720 --> 00:24:34.900 the boycott. In enforcing non-consumption, tea was again the main problem. Sometimes 214 00:24:34.900 --> 00:24:41.260 A bit of violence was added, as in the case of the stubborn tea dealer, John Parks. Parks 215 00:24:41.260 --> 00:24:47.180 was boycotted by the Committee for Upper Frederick County, and to the boycott was added the breaking 216 00:24:47.180 --> 00:24:53.140 of his doors and windows by a mob. Unfortunately, the rigors of enforcement here extended to 217 00:24:53.140 --> 00:24:59.260 price fixing as well, and the local and provincial committees tried, canute-like, to hold back 218 00:24:59.260 --> 00:25:17.140 The Opposition of Scottish Merchants in Factors was particularly strong in Virginia. That 219 00:25:17.140 --> 00:25:22.260 colony led in closing down collections of debts as a means of putting further pressure 220 00:25:22.260 --> 00:25:52.140 Many historians have charged that the court closings, and indeed much of the revolutionary 221 00:25:52.140 --> 00:26:15.140 The measure was a means of putting pressure on Britain to repeal the intolerable acts, just as similar pressure had been used against the Stamp Act a decade before. 222 00:26:15.140 --> 00:26:21.140 This is indicated by the fact that when some grasping planter debtors urged a boycott of 223 00:26:21.140 --> 00:26:28.860 merchants not just for violating the association, but also for failing to extend credit, this 224 00:26:28.860 --> 00:26:32.740 attempt was immediately slapped down by the leadership. 225 00:26:32.740 --> 00:26:38.700 Indeed, Peyton Randolph, who had presided at the Continental Congress, sternly reminded 226 00:26:38.700 --> 00:27:08.700 And even for strictly political purposes against Britain, a good many of the more moderate of the Virginia leaders opposed the temporary non-payment of debts as unjust. These included George Washington, Robert Beverly, Peyton Randolph, and Edmund Pendleton. Backing 227 00:27:08.700 --> 00:27:15.700 The most radical non-payment were the more radical George Mason, Patrick Henry, Landon Carter, and Richard Henry Lee. 228 00:27:15.700 --> 00:27:20.700 Both sides of the dispute, of course, were led by large tobacco planters. 229 00:27:20.700 --> 00:27:26.700 The Virginia rebels made enforcement of the boycott much more difficult than it had to be. 230 00:27:26.700 --> 00:27:31.700 In the first place, they frenziedly tried to prevent any price increases, 231 00:27:31.700 --> 00:27:41.700 and the committees arrogantly insisted on inspecting the day books and invoices of the merchants to make sure that prices were not increasing. 232 00:27:41.700 --> 00:27:48.700 Indeed, price-fixing committees were actively harassing merchants in many Virginia counties. 233 00:27:48.700 --> 00:27:59.700 The other unnecessary task taken up by the radicals was the decision to require every individual citizen to sign the Continental Association. 234 00:27:59.700 --> 00:28:06.180 Association. This went beyond all the other colonies and forced the radicals to boycott 235 00:28:06.180 --> 00:28:12.100 not only violators of the association but also any of those who were not enthusiastic 236 00:28:12.100 --> 00:28:19.220 enough to endorse it. All this considerably multiplied the roster of supposed delinquents 237 00:28:19.220 --> 00:28:25.980 and those harassed by the popular forces. As in the other colonies, open Tories were 238 00:28:25.980 --> 00:28:32.020 were, of course, held up to public obloquy. As elsewhere, the difficult article of consumption 239 00:28:32.020 --> 00:28:38.660 to boycott was tea. This was the product requiring enforcement. Tea parties were held at the 240 00:28:38.660 --> 00:28:45.340 port of Yorktown to reinforce the boycott. North Carolina, as so often happened, largely 241 00:28:45.340 --> 00:28:51.740 followed the example of neighboring Virginia. Here the body of suspect Scottish merchants 242 00:28:51.740 --> 00:28:58.140 was compactly gathered at Wilmington. The merchants agreed to obey the boycott, but 243 00:28:58.140 --> 00:29:04.800 understandably balked at price fixing. The implacable committees persisted in carefully 244 00:29:04.800 --> 00:29:11.980 supervising prices, and committees in Pitt and Rowan Counties and in Wilmington presumed 245 00:29:11.980 --> 00:29:18.980 to fix maximum prices for salt, dry goods, rum and gunpowder. 246 00:29:18.980 --> 00:29:24.280 The Wilmington Committee also followed the aggressive Virginia lead of insisting that 247 00:29:24.280 --> 00:29:31.280 every individual sign the association. When eleven Scottish merchants refused to sign, 248 00:29:31.500 --> 00:29:38.420 they were boycotted. Eight recanted and signed. The most striking example of tormenting a 249 00:29:38.420 --> 00:29:45.420 non-signer was the case of Thomas McKnight of Currituck County, in the extreme northeastern 250 00:29:45.420 --> 00:29:55.420 A member of the Provincial Convention in April, McKnight, announced that he would abide by the Association, but would not endorse it. 251 00:29:55.420 --> 00:30:00.420 A struggle now raged at the Convention on whether to harass him further. 252 00:30:00.420 --> 00:30:04.420 The majority favored accepting McKnight's course. 253 00:30:04.420 --> 00:30:14.420 But the fanatical minority threatened to withdraw from and split the Convention, and thus forced through a boycott of the candid McKnight. 254 00:30:14.420 --> 00:30:15.980 Night. 255 00:30:15.980 --> 00:30:21.980 To put pressure on British merchants, the North Carolina liberals, again following Virginia, 256 00:30:21.980 --> 00:30:28.380 refused to allow the courts to operate, thus suspending collections of debts. 257 00:30:28.380 --> 00:30:33.500 There was little trouble, furthermore, in enforcing the non-consumption agreement. 258 00:30:33.500 --> 00:30:40.300 As could be expected, the radicals were active and zealous in South Carolina. 259 00:30:40.300 --> 00:30:45.660 Charleston's radical-oriented General Committee led the enforcement and advanced beyond the 260 00:30:45.660 --> 00:30:52.540 Continental Association by establishing its own Association for Non-Consumption of Tea 261 00:30:52.540 --> 00:30:59.780 to begin on November 1. At committee direction, the schoolboys of Charleston collected all 262 00:30:59.780 --> 00:31:07.340 the tea in the city and burned it publicly on Guy Fawkes Day, November 5. Merchants of 263 00:31:07.340 --> 00:31:14.260 Charleson were induced by the committee to dump their English-imported tea into the river. 264 00:31:14.260 --> 00:31:21.020 Non-importation was enforced with great efficiency and zeal. Sometimes, as in the McKnight case, 265 00:31:21.020 --> 00:31:26.300 enforcement degenerated into petty absurdities. Consider, for example, the case of Robert 266 00:31:26.300 --> 00:31:32.620 Smith, who returned from London to Charleston, bringing with him his furniture and two horses. 267 00:31:32.620 --> 00:31:42.620 Immediately, the ultra-radicals led by Christopher Gadsden denounced this act as an import in violation of the association. 268 00:31:42.620 --> 00:31:51.620 After the General Committee had narrowly approved Smith's action, Gadsden and 250 radicals urged reconsideration. 269 00:31:51.620 --> 00:31:59.620 But led by Lynch and the Rutledge's, the General Committee continued to endorse Smith, but by one vote only. 270 00:31:59.620 --> 00:32:06.620 As elsewhere in the South, action was taken against collection of debt by British or Tory creditors. 271 00:32:06.620 --> 00:32:17.620 South Carolina's provincial congress in January decided that any judicial processes for debt had to be approved by local committees of observation. 272 00:32:17.620 --> 00:32:27.620 The absence of anti-creditor animus per se is seen in the instruction to the local committees to permit prosecution for debt 273 00:32:27.620 --> 00:32:33.600 for Debt, whenever debtors were trying to evade their obligations permanently or to 274 00:32:33.600 --> 00:32:36.740 defraud their creditors. 275 00:32:36.740 --> 00:32:42.020 Georgia did not join in the non-importation agreement until March, and even then there 276 00:32:42.020 --> 00:32:47.340 was no effective enforcement in that royal, bureaucrat-ridden colony. 277 00:32:47.340 --> 00:32:53.100 The colonies were then faced with the problem of boycotting this loan holdout of the thirteen 278 00:32:53.100 --> 00:32:59.560 in American Colonies. Accordingly, on February 8, the Charleston General Committee decreed 279 00:32:59.560 --> 00:33:07.060 a boycott of trade with all citizens of Georgia. The radical enclave of St. John's Parish 280 00:33:07.060 --> 00:33:13.640 hastened to send delegates to Charleston urging exemption for themselves, and the perplexed 281 00:33:13.640 --> 00:33:20.240 General Assembly agreed to turn the case over to the next meeting of the Continental Congress. 282 00:33:20.240 --> 00:33:25.720 In the meanwhile, however, the boycott of Georgia persisted and the poor citizens of 283 00:33:25.720 --> 00:33:32.340 St. John's were forced against their principles to engage in limited trade with the Tory merchants 284 00:33:32.340 --> 00:33:38.860 of Savannah. Quebec had also been invited to join the association. The English merchants 285 00:33:38.860 --> 00:33:46.340 of Quebec were willing to join, but the overwhelming French majority was understandably loath to 286 00:33:46.340 --> 00:33:53.460 to join with either wing of its hated oppressors, and the English merchants understandably feared 287 00:33:53.460 --> 00:33:57.140 that they would simply lose their trade to their French rivals. 288 00:33:57.140 --> 00:34:01.220 Quebec therefore did not join the association. 289 00:34:01.220 --> 00:34:07.620 By mid-April, the Philadelphia Committee began the colonial boycotts of the non-signing colonies 290 00:34:07.620 --> 00:34:12.900 – Georgia, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. 291 00:34:12.900 --> 00:34:18.060 The task of checking and certifying the good faith of merchants within the several colonies 292 00:34:18.060 --> 00:34:20.780 was not unduly difficult. 293 00:34:20.780 --> 00:34:25.060 Local committees in the seaports performed the major tasks. 294 00:34:25.060 --> 00:34:30.780 But how could the genuineness of goods and merchants be assured in the coastal trade 295 00:34:30.780 --> 00:34:36.380 when the merchants of two remote colonies traded with each other? 296 00:34:36.380 --> 00:34:42.380 Early in the association movement, a Salem merchant trading with Virginia hit on a happy 297 00:34:42.380 --> 00:34:48.860 is the only device that served also to cement and expand the scope of the network of revolutionary 298 00:34:48.860 --> 00:34:52.260 popular institutions in America. 299 00:34:52.260 --> 00:34:58.460 The merchant asked the Salem Committee of Correspondence to issue him a certificate 300 00:34:58.460 --> 00:35:03.380 vouching for his devotion to the cause of American liberty. 301 00:35:03.380 --> 00:35:10.780 The Boston Committee of Correspondence enthusiastically welcomed the idea and the plan, spearheaded 302 00:35:10.780 --> 00:35:16.060 by Providence and the Virginia Counties was soon adopted in the other provinces.