The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789 (22 page)

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The mob took its time on his house. Virtually everything movable within was destroyed or stolen -- papers, plate, furniture, clothing, and £900 sterling -- and what could not be moved -- walls, partitions, and roof -- were severely battered. The handsome cupola was cut off, a demolition that took three hours, and much of the slate roof was pulled down. Daybreak found the mob still hard at work; a part of the roof still survived and several brick walls still stood. Dawn finally discouraged the mob, who evidently had been determined to level the house to its foundations.

Historians reflecting on this episode have concluded that things got out of hand at Hutchinson's house. Hutchinson himself opined three days later that "The encouragers of the first mob never intended matters should go this length."
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There is other evidence along the same line, including an official statement of regret by the town meeting the following day. And Governor Bernard found much to his surprise that he would not have any difficulty in raising the militia on August 27 and for several weeks after to maintain order.

But then why should he? The opposition to the Stamp Act had expressed itself rather forcibly; no further violence seemed necessary at the end of August. The mob may have gone too far, and the town said it was sorry, but no one apologized for the riot of August 14 against Oliver, and no one repudiated opposition to taxation without consent. The riot of August 26 may have proceeded farther than the Loyal Nine intended, but they could not have felt much displeasure that it had. Hutchinson was an enemy; he was Oliver's brother-in-law; he apparently favored the Stamp Act; and he had been put in his place. In only a limited sense, then, had the action of August 26 been too extreme.

By late August two major colonies, Virginia and Massachusetts, each in its own way, had vented their anger at the Stamp Act. They in fact had started more than they knew; they had started a fire. Its spre
ad seemed virtually inevitable.

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Americans outside Massachusetts proved so adept in following Boston's violent example that we may suspect that they did not need it. Needed or not, Boston's action offered a model that captured attention everywhere in America. Revulsion from the Stamp Act permeated social groups of all sorts and came to focus, almost naturally it seems, on the men chosen to distribute the stamped paper -- on the tax collectors and their friends. By the end of October all but two of the stamp distributors had resigned, usually in order to save their lives and property; and of the remaining two, one, William Houston of North Carolina, gave way on November 16, and the other, George Angus, appointed for Georgia, did not arrive in America until January 1766. Once in Georgia, he quickly sensed what might happen to him and promptly took the oath, passed the stamped paper to the Customs collectors, and fled the colony.
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By the time Angus arrived in Georgia, the pattern of coercion and violence was well established. Mobs used whatever force necessary to produce resignations, and simply by threats they prevented the landing or the distribution of the stamped paper. In several cases they scarcely had to flex their muscles to frighten distributors into sending in their resignations. James McIvers of New York, for example, submitted his resignation even before his commission and the stamps arrived. McIvers was a merchant whose business and property were located in New York City. He was no more averse than the next man to collecting the fees of office but did not want to see his house and store of goods, which

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he estimated to be worth £20,000 sterling, destroyed. McIvers suspected that Oliver's fate might become his own, and on August 22, a week after the first Boston riot, he resigned. In a letter to the lieutenant governor explaining his decision, McIvers put his reason succinctly: "a storm was riseing, and I should soon feel it."
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In nearby New Jersey, William Coxe waited a few days longer, until September 3, before the feeling of a rising storm persuaded him to surrender his office. The governor of New Jersey, William Franklin, son of Benjamin, expressed annoyance at Coxe, who, he complained, had cowardly backed out for no reason at all. No one had threatened Coxe, the governor said, nor was Coxe going to be obstructed from carrying out his duties. The governor evidently did not read the newspapers that suggested to Coxe he would be well advised to insure his house.
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The New Hampshire distributor, George Meserve, received less subtle hints and acted even more promptly. In England when Parliament passed the Stamp Act, Meserve got himself appointed before sailing for home. The ship he sailed aboard had not yet anchored when he was made to realize his mistake. First, the pilot who boarded the ship in Boston harbor handed him a letter from several gentlemen of Portsmouth suggesting that for his own safety he should resign before returning to the town. And then a Boston mob, convinced that the ship he was on carried stamps, refused to let anyone come ashore. Meserve stayed aboard until September 10, at which time the mob learned that the ship carried no stamps. He resigned before he touched land and sent the news to the mob, who then greeted him with praise and carried him to the Exchange Tavern for a celebration. Evidently a resignation in Boston was invalid in New Hampshire -- at any rate, several days later Meserve was forced to resign publicly in Portsmouth, and in January a third time. In public, Meserve did what was expected; in private he attributed his troubles to the "damned Rebellious Spirit" which filled the crowd.
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That same spirit assumed more violent shapes elsewhere. As in Massachusetts, mobbing and rioting occurred in most extreme forms in colonies

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where political divisions already existed and where one side became identified with the Stamp Act. In several cases, indeed, one faction successfully tagged another with the responsibility for the Stamp Act, accusing its political enemies of plotting with the ministry the destruction of American liberty. Thomas Hutchinson experienced the effects of this tactic and ruefully complained of its unfairness. Hutchinson, an exponent of parliamentary government, discovered that his enemies would seize his defense of the principle of parliamentary authority as evidence of his approval of all of Parliament's work. Hutchinson was a man who appreciated the fine points of court arguments; he knew it was possible to uphold parliamentary government and simultaneously condemn the Stamp Act -- on grounds of expediency. The mob that gutted his house was a rather blunt instrument: it or its leaders had old scores to settle, and in any case it believed that Thomas Hutchinson had instigated the Act.

In Rhode Island there was no one quite like Thomas Hutchinson, but there were important political divisions which affected the response to the Stamp Act. Rhode Island, a colony founded in dissidence, had always harbored the strange and offbeat -- some said fanatics and lunatics -- but by the eve of the Revolution its politicians resembled those elsewhere in America. They operated, however, under conditions which might have aroused envy or disgust everywhere else -- a seventeenth-century charter which created a virtually independent government. Almost all offices were elective, including the governor's, and to vote a man had only to own land worth £400 in currency. It has been estimated that three-fourths of all adult males could vote if they wanted to.
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Power in the government resided in the General Assembly, a twohouse legislature that usually dominated the governor and the courts. Naturally enough, control of the General Assembly was much sought after. By the 1750s two factions had made their appearance in Rhode Island and competed for political power. Providence served as the headquarters of the Hopkins faction, so named because led by Stephen Hopkins, probably the ablest politician in the colony. Newport provided the center of the other, the Ward faction, the name derived from its leader, Samuel Ward. The two cities themselves engaged in competition for business and profit. Providence had entered a period of growth about thirty years before and by the 1750s had begun to challenge the economic supremacy of Newport, its neighbor to the south.
In several respects

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Providence had a better location than Newport. It commanded a larger surrounding area, which produced foodstuffs and raw materials for export. Since the market for such commodities was increasing, the port that could supply them would grow. Newport had only the Narragansett country across the Bay. Providence could tap southern Massachusetts and Connecticut, as well as much of Rhode Island. Providence merchants in fact had begun to supply candles, rum, barrels, and rope to Newport.

Both factions called upon the same sorts of economic groups -- merchants, tradesmen, professionals, and the small farmers in the towns and countryside tied to each. Thus the Ward-Hopkins struggle was in part a contest for economic power between Providence and Newport, each with satellites, struggling to control a government which could confer extensive economic advantages. For the General Assembly possessed the power to grant monopolies to manufacturers; it had public resources to spend on roads, buildings, bridges, and lighthouses, among other things; it apportioned taxes among the towns, and not surprisingly when Providence and the northern towns ran things, the tax bills in Newport and to the south had a way of going up, and when Newport and the southern towns won the legislature, Providence and to the north felt the bite. Control of the General Assembly also entailed control of political spoils. At the middle of the eighteenth century there were more than 150 justices of the peace to be appointed by the Assembly, and there were sheriffs, clerks, some militia officers, and others also in the gift of the Assembly.

These opportunities for economic and political advantage and one of the most democratic constitutions of the century gave rise to a raucous and exuberant factionalism. Elections were bitterly fought, and fraud -stuffing the ballot box, for example -- was not uncommon. At times voters were bought to vote the right way and some were bribed not to vote at all. In 1758, for example, only 400 out of 600 freemen in Newport voted; "one third lie still," Ezra Stiles noted, "silenced by Connexions."
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The Assembly itself was frequently the scene of disorder: shrill charges, deals, and undignified squabbles.