Volume 3, Chapter 7, Molasses and the American Revenue Act
Of all the mercantilist measures that had not been enforced before 1763, perhaps the
most important was the Molasses Act of 1733. This act had provided for a prohibitive duty
of six pence a gallon, amounting to 100 percent, on the import of foreign molasses in order
The Mellassus trade was vital to the North, which could sell its staples in the West Indies in exchange for molasses.
The molasses could be used either as a sweetener or to produce rum, which could be then sold at home or exported.
The illegal molasses trade was largely with the French West Indies, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint-Domingue.
The illegal molasses trade was largely with the French West Indies, Guadeloupe, Martinique,
San Domingo, and the Dutch West Indies, Suriname, St. Eustatius.
Of all the illegal commerce, the molasses trade was the most benevolently indulged by
the customs officials.
Domestic vessels were openly permitted to import foreign molasses on payment of a negligible
The duty, most of which was pocketed personally by the officials, as well as fresh fruit and
wine, directly from Southern Europe. The duty charged in this way usually amounted to less
than a half penny per gallon. This open indulgence put the molasses trade on a footing far different
from that of most imports from Europe or the East Indies, which had to be smuggled secretly.
In the Seven Years' War, attempts were made, especially by Pitt, to suppress trading with
the enemy, but the molasses trade also flourished with the islands captured from the French
in the later years of the war.
In March 1763, Charles Townsend, new president of the Board of Trade, attempted to lower
the official molasses duty to two pence a gallon, and to enforce it strictly, in order
to be able to tax the colonies.
We have seen, however, that Parliament rejected the plan, and the old salutary indulgence
from molasses was quickly resumed. The post-war salutary neglect, alas, proved short-lived.
In the first place, Parliament decided, in May 1763, to use a good part of the British
Navy as a powerful instrument of enforcement of the trade laws. As an incentive to the
The naval officers, the ships and cargos seized by them for illegal trade, were now to be
sold by the courts at auction, with the proceeds divided equally between the officers themselves
and the Crown.
Twenty British warships with over 2,000 men were assigned to this task.
Absentee colonial customs officers were ordered back to America to assume their posts, and
The colonial governors, as well as the commander-in-chief, were ordered to render all possible assistance.
At first it seemed to the relieved merchants that the molasses trade would still be indulged,
and John Temple, the chief customs officer for the northern colonies, gave reassurances
to that effect. But the customs commissioners dashed these hopes in November by threatening
In response, Temple, at the end of the year, gave notice that customs officials would board
all the vessels in the West Indian trade to execute fully the Molasses Act of 1733. Governor
Francis Bernard of Massachusetts wrote that this notice caused a greater alarm in America
and had the French capture of Fort William Henry six years before. And not only the merchants,
but the rest of the public began to denounce customs officers for restricting the natural
rights and liberties of the people. The term Tory now came into common use to designate
the advocates of imperial aggrandizement over America. The British West Indies planters,
in contrast were highly gratified, especially since they made sure that their own illegal
trade with the Spanish West Indies would continue to be indulged.
The Molasses Act was scheduled to expire in 1764, and so the Massachusetts merchants took
the opportunity to bring pressure against renewal of the law. The merchants and traders
Legislators of Boston, Salem, Plymouth, and Marblehead petitioned the Massachusetts legislature
in December against renewal, and a committee of Boston merchants presented a detailed economic
argument against the duty, particularly concerned with a Massachusetts fisherman whose low-grade
product depended on the West Indies market. The Massachusetts legislature backed up the
in the Motion Against Renewal, and stressed that a lower duty, strictly enforced, would
introduce the dangerous principle of parliamentary taxation of the colony's trade.
The previous laws were deemed trade restrictions, rather than revenue measures, as Townsend's
proposal would be.
Connecticut merchants, led by Gurdon, Saltonstall and Jared Ingersoll, filed a petition against
Enforcement or Renewal of the Molasses Act. In the March session of the legislature sent
a protest to England. A committee of Philadelphia merchants asked the same of the Pennsylvania
legislature, but the agitation came too late to have any effect. Many merchants helped
organize the opposition by writing to associates or correspondents in the colonies. The most
The most fully developed example was a letter of January 1764 written by a committee of
Boston merchants to merchants in Rhode Island and Connecticut rousing them to the cause.
The merchants called on their fellows to unite our endeavors and to defeat the iniquitous
schemes of the West India interest, these overgrown West Indians. The letter inspired
The Legislature decided to send to England a remonstrance, which constituted the first
official American protest against renewal of the Molasses Act.
The remonstrance pointed out that Rhode Island did a flourishing trade in molasses, importing
In January 1764, New York merchants, inspired by a letter from Nicholas Brown of Providence,
chose a committee that issued a proclamation against enforcement of the molasses duty.
The committee pointed to the wide West Indian market for New York agricultural staples and
to the manufacturer from molasses of beer and rum, the latter vital to the Indian trade.
The merchants' protest was later approved by the New York legislature and sent to England.
During February, New York and Philadelphia merchants were also in correspondence about
joining New England's protest, and a committee of Philadelphia merchants petitioned the Pennsylvania
Assembly to oppose the renewal. This movement of pressure by merchants in the northern colonies
was the first case of inter-colonial pressure on England in behalf of colonial rights and
and Liberties. It was, however, totally unsuccessful. In fact, by the time the pressure was fairly
underway, the Crown had introduced the American Revenue Act, also called the Sugar Act, in
the spring of 1764. The London agents of the northern colonies, including Jasper Maudwit
from Massachusetts and Richard Jackson from Pennsylvania and Connecticut were remarkably
quiet, being willing to settle for a duty of two pence and thus to abandon the principle
of no English taxation upon the colonies. But the Revenue Act, as introduced in March
and passed quickly in April, to take effect at the end of September, imposed the crushing
Newcastle's continuing duty of three pence a gallon on foreign molasses and promised a
rigorous enforcement.
The Revenue Act passed easily because of Newcastle's continuing anxiety not to alienate Pitt and
thus to keep a united opposition.
A few members of parliament mildly urged reduction of the duty to two pence, but only John Husk,
An MP from Malden, who had spent his early life in New England, opposed the American
Revenue Act in Toto.
Husk, it should be noted, had been newly elected the previous year by the agitation of the
radical John Wilkes movement.
An important factor in the abject collapse of British opposition to the new molasses
duty was the failure of the London agents of northern colonies to press opposition in
in principle to the molasses duty. They confined their opposition to urging a somewhat lower
duty. Particularly grave was the defection of Richard Jackson, who also held the critically
influential post of private secretary to Prime Minister Grenville. Richard Jackson was an
old and close friend of Benjamin Franklin, and the two had co-authored an important imperialist
and the First Pamphlet during the War with France.
As an old friend and a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly's Committee of Correspondence,
Franklin embodied the American position as far as Jackson was concerned.
Yet Franklin raised no protest over the Revenue Act or against stationing a standing army in the colonies.
Indeed, Franklin went so far as to welcome the steady protection and security of a British
standing army. Franklin also reacted blithely to the plans to tax the colonies. In fact,
he even offered a helpful suggestion for a tea tax for raising revenue from America.
Much of the responsibility for Jackson's attitude and for the easy passage of the New
New Sugar Act must therefore be laid at the door of Benjamin Franklin.
Franklin's soft attitude toward the Crown and imperialism was certainly not unconnected
with his own bureaucratic post as Deputy Postmaster General of the American Colonies, or with
his son Williams' royal appointment as Governor of New Jersey.
In addition to the three pence duty on molasses, the American Revenue Act of 1764 provided
for a continued duty on foreign raw sugar and an increased rate on refined sugar, higher
import duties on foreign textiles, coffee and indigo, much higher duties on Madeira
and Canary wines, double duties on foreign goods imported from England, prohibition of
Imports of Foreign Rum or French Wines and the addition of iron, hides, whale parts,
raw silk and potash and pearl ash to the enumerated list imposed by the Navigation Acts.
A particularly important provision crippled the inter-colonial trade.
No goods could be shipped from one American colony to another without a detailed registration
with and permission from a Royal Customs Officer. Furthermore, every vessel had to
put up an expensive bond on each trip for paying duty on foreign molasses. The requirement
of a detailed registration and listing of goods, or coquet, imposed particular hardships
on small vessels engaged in local trade. Chief Justice William Allen of Pennsylvania wrote
in November 1764 of the plight of a typical owner of a small boat on the Delaware River
carrying a load of wood for iron from New Jersey to Philadelphia. He now was forced
to go 40 miles out of his way to the nearest custom house to make out his manifest, the
charge of which in his traveling makes this burden intolerable. Before the Revenue Act,
All vessels carrying non-enumerated products in the coastal trade had not been forced to
gain customs clearance.
The Cockett requirement also permitted Britain to begin the enforcement of the Restrictive
Wool Act of 1699, the Hat Act of 1732, and the Salecloth Act of 1736, which had been
virtual dead letters for many years.
The provision of the American Revenue Act proved extremely irritating to the colonists.
Despite the incentive of acquiring a share of the loot, naval officers had been reluctant
to confiscate the goods of alleged smugglers, being deterred by a healthy fear of the common-law
rule of personal liability for damages to any owner found innocent of the charge.
and liability for arresting officers was a superb way of making governmental officials
extremely careful about invading someone else's property. Now the Revenue Act virtually removed
this deterrent and opened a broad channel for injustice by limiting the owner's damage
claims to two pence if the officer could prove probable cause for the unjust seizure. And
And if the trial judge did not certify probable cause, even a minority of the customs board
could now reimburse the naval officer for paying damages.
Critical to the British campaign of strict enforcement of the trade laws was the aggrandizement
of the vice admiralty courts.
The Act of 1696 had established vice admiralty courts for the colonies.
These courts possessed jurisdiction over violations of the trade laws. The judges were appointed
by the royal governors and were able to decide cases themselves without granting the accused
the benefit of trial by jury. In the common law courts where trial was by jury, the juries
generally acquitted smugglers and violators of the trade laws as a matter of principle.
Before the Revenue Act of 1764, however, the Vice Admiralty Courts were not intolerably
oppressive for the colonist.
For one thing, the Crown decided that the Admiralty Courts did not have jurisdiction
over enumerated products or importations of goods from Europe.
This was firmly established by the Privy Council in 1743 in the Archibald Kennedy case.
It was there decided that only the navigation laws prohibiting foreign ships came under
admiralty jurisdiction. Secondly, of course, the policy of salutary neglect gave the courts
little work in any case. The American Revenue Act changed all this. First, the law made
crystal clear that the admiralty courts had jurisdiction over all trade and revenue law
Violations. Second, the new law authorized the creation of a new Admiralty Court, specifically
covering all colonial trade violations. Before 1764, each court was limited in jurisdiction
to its own colony. At the urging of Admiral Lord Colville, commander of the British North
The North American Fleet, a new overall admiralty court was set up in the fall of 1764 in the
raw little military-run town of Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Halifax was the headquarters of the North American Fleet, but remote from the center
of American commerce.
Dr. William Spry, husband of a niece of William Pitt, was appointed judge of the court.
The Englishman's fry ominously contrasted to the other vice admiralty judges who were
all American colonials.
Lord Colville had frankly written that admiralty court judges in the major colonies might be
influenced by the pressure of jobs or of their neighbors, but this pressure would be avoided
by conducting trials in far-off Halifax.
General Colfell's warnings were not simply hypothetical. They were based on the solid
experience of existing Vice Admiralty Courts, which indeed were under the influence of the
merchants and the pervasive smuggling trade. During the French and Indian War, the three
judges who successively served in the Charleston Vice Admiralty Court were unmistakably in
league with the merchants of the town. Charleston had arisen during the war as a center for
for Trade with the French West Indies, to which it was nearer than any other American
port. Not surprisingly, the vice admiralty court judge in Charleston, after 1761, was
counselor Egerton Lee, formerly a lawyer for many of the merchants in the illegal trade
and a close friend of the leading merchants of the town. Lee was usually able to find
a way to rule for the accused merchant.
In Philadelphia, Judge Edward Shippen ruled in favor of the illegal Flags of Truce method
of trading with the enemy. In New York City, the Vice Admiralty Judge, before his death
in 1762, was Louis Morris, Jr., who was notoriously partial to the harassed merchants, often waiving
jurisdiction of their cases. In fact, the New York Customs officers were moved to complain
of Morris's Partiality to their superiors in England. To these zealots, Morris was little
better than the colonial juries of the common law courts. In 1762, Morris was succeeded
by his son Richard, formerly a lawyer for accused merchants and a deputy admiralty judge
in New Jersey. Rhode Island was a great and flourishing center of illegal trade, helped
by its self-governing charter, by which the governor and all other officials, except the
appointed royal customs officers and admiralty judges, were democratically elected.
When the war with France began, the Rhode Island merchants decided that they could control
the Vice Admiralty Court better, if the colony had an admiralty court of its own, rather
than a mere branch of Massachusetts courts.
The Rhode Islanders not only quickly obtained their own court, but even persuaded the King
to appoint their own choice as admiralty judge, the Providence planter, Colonel John Andrews.
When Andrews forgot his true role and shifted toward the crown, the whole Rhode Island political
structure put pressure on Andrews and brought him into line.
In fact, the independent and individualist Rhode Island merchants publicly proclaimed
In Massachusetts, the former customs collector for Boston, Benjamin Behrends, cashiered for accepting payment for not enforcing the navigation laws, led the merchants during 1761 in an all-out legal attack on the admiralty courts.
The merchants took successful action in the common law courts to hold customs officers liable for damages to property and to recover money for the sale of confiscated property.
Thus, by 1763, the enforcement procedures of the trade acts were pleasantly lax, inefficient, and hobbled, not the least of the causes being the partiality of the admiralty judges for the merchants' problems.
A third vital change in enforcement procedures was effected in the admiralty courts. The amazing provision that the onus of proof would henceforth lie on the accused rather than on the officer who seized his property.
Thus, only a little more than a year after the end of the war with France, a comprehensive
network of expanding and strengthening enforcement of the trade acts was imposed upon the colonies.
The end of salutary neglect, revenue from molasses duties, new commodities on the enumerated
list, use of the British Navy in force to apprehend smugglers and violators, use of
of General Ritz of Assistance by Customs Officers in Massachusetts, a thoroughgoing expansion
of jurisdiction of the vice admiralty courts and the establishment of an overall colonial
admiralty court in remote Halifax, the granting of one-half of the loot from the seizure of
the goods of the accused to the arresting naval officers, placing the burden of proof
Remove on the defendant rather than on the arresting officer, and removing the latter's
common law liability for damages for false arrest, and the coerced registration of bills
of lading, cockettes, hampering small vessels in the coastal trade.
Most of the enforcement provisions of the Revenue Act had been proposed by the commissioners
of Customs and had been specifically drawn up by John Titan, their solicitor, and Robert
Yeats, chief clerk in the Treasury. The only opposition within the royal bureaucracy was
expressed by William Wood, secretary to the commissioners. Wood, an elderly holdover from
the Newcastle era, was clearly out of step with the new dispensation of aggressive Tory
Imperialism.