The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789 (58 page)

The committees made two simple -- and correct -- assumptions in the enforcement of the Association: first, that the majority of Virginians approved the means recommended by Congress, and, second, that because of this support, exposure to public disapproval was the most effective technique in dealing with violators. After their election, the committees ordinarily selected their chairmen -- the elder James Madison in Orange, Edmund Pendleton in Caroline, Landon Carter in Richmond, Benjamin Harrison in Charles City: all important planters -- and then proceeded to require merchants and planters to sign the Association. Anyone refusing to sign or even protesting against the requirement could expect to be branded an "enemy of the country."
Alexander Leckie felt the Caro-

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line committee's displeasure, for example, when at a public meeting at which all present were expected to sign the Association he said to a young Negro standing near by: "Piss, Jack, turn about, my boy, and sign." Three weeks later Leckie published his apology for this jocularity and for other unguarded comments -- he had said "damn them all" when contributions were being raised to defray the expenses of Virginia's delegates to the Continental Congress, and he had spread the story that Walker Taliaferro, a local patriot, had violated the agreement of 1770. Leckie's new mood was servile: he found the "weight of public censure and public hatred" absolutely "insupportable." He had plenty of company. John Morris was denounced to the committee for "Certain expressions foreign from the Good of this Country" and was compelled to confess publicly that he was "Heartily Sorry." David Wardrobe, a schoolmaster in Westmoreland County, was denounced for having written a letter considered "false, scandalous, and inimical" to America. The committee warmed to its work after delivering itself of this judgment and urged the local vestry to deny Wardrobe the use of its building for his school. Parents were told not to send their children to Wardrobe for instruction, and he himself was called upon to publish his contrition in the
Virginia Gazette
. He did so in the most abject terms: I do, most heartily and willingly, on my knees, implore the forgiveness of this country for so ungrateful a return made for the advantages I have received from it, and the bread I have earned in it, and hope, from this contrition for my offence, I shall be at least admitted to subsist amongst the people I greatly esteem, and desire that this may be printed in the
Virginia Gazette
."
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Although procedures for protecting freedom of speech and the press were not deeply embodied in judicial process as they were to be by the end of the Revolution, the action against Wardrobe and others was clearly repressive. Nor was Wardrobe's case the most flagrantly repressive, though his fear is obvious. The Orange County committee forced John Wingate to turn over pamphlets in his possession which were critical of the Continental Congress.
Terror was employed in these cases

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and in many others, as speech was controlled, the newspapers censored, and dissent crushed.
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Suppressing dissent enabled the committees to enforce the ban on imports from Britain and the West Indies. The committees also sometimes resorted to direct action against violators. There were several small tea parties in Virginia rivers during the autumn, for example. Merchants usually avoided the destruction of proscribed goods, however, by storing them with committees -- or more commonly, asking that the committees sell the goods. This procedure allowed the merchants to save their investment in the imports, for the committees returned the costs and sent the profits to Boston's poor. Prohibiting imports opened the door to profiteers -- those merchants who had large inventories and small scruples. The committees were ready to deal with such people, sometimes by setting maximum prices -- as, for example, in Caroline County -- or by inspecting merchants' accounts for evidence of profiteering, a technique also used in Caroline. A few merchants held out only to find their names published in the paper and themselves designated enemies to the country. When this occurred, the offender found himself ostracized and cut off from trade and society.

By the end of the year the Association was in full effect, and the local committees were, as Governor Dunmore sadly observed, the government of Virginia. The governor did his best to prevent the House of Burgesses from supporting local measures by postponing its meeting throughout the winter of 1774-75. He could not prevent the organizing of militia and the collecting of arms, however, and both proceeded within the counties. George Washington and his friend George Mason organized the militia in Fairfax; under their guidance the county committee levied a tax of three shillings on every tithable. The money collected was spent for military supplies, and the committee which had no legal authority to tax backed up the collection by requesting that the name of anyone who refused to pay be reported to it. Though most counties did not go this far, many organized independent companies with men voluntarily putting themselves under drill and discipline. The young James Madison, soon to be elected to the Orange County committee of safety which

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his father chaired, predicted that "Such firm and provident steps will either intimidate our enemies or enable us to defy them."
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There were pockets of indifference and even resistance to the Association and to proposals that America should arm itself. The colony of Georgia was one such pocket, where Governor James Wright, now playing on fears of the Indians and the need for British protection, now adjourning the House and discouraging a provincial congress which met in 1775, managed to keep "patriotism" off balance. Far to the north in Pennsylvania, the Quakers damped down hotheads; and in Fairfield County, Connecticut, several towns controlled by Anglicans denounced the Association and all opposition to the Crown. Yet in both Pennsylvania and Connecticut, the Association went into effect as local committees enforced nonimportation. South Carolina also saw sundry committees spring up, and imports from Britain virtually stopped. Despite western indifference, North Carolina observed nonimportation. Maryland's committees proved almost as vigorous as Virginia's, arousing so much terror in an Annapolis merchant, Anthony Stewart, that in October he burned his ship, the
Peggy Stewart
, which had recently arrived laden with tea. In Maryland in December a provincial convention ordered the regulation of prices and the enforcement of the Association by local committees.
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Parliament and the ministry learned only gradually of the American hatred of the Intolerable Acts. Both bodies regularly suspended operations around mid-August, and the year 1774 was no exception. Dartmouth followed events of the summer more closely than anyone else and even rushed back to London from the country when he heard that weapons were being smuggled from Europe to the colonies. The news that a Continental Congress would meet did not shake him even though he regarded it as an illegal body. He wrote to a friend that if the Congress should adopt an accommodating "tone" or produce a temperate proposal, its origins and character might be overlooked. The king took a less flexible line in a letter to North, writing that "the dye is now cast, the Colonies must either submit or triumph; I do not wish to come to severer measures but we must not retreat; by coolness and an unremitted

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pursuit of the measures that have been adopted I trust they will come to submit." And according to the king, after the colonies were brought to their senses, "there must always be one tax to keep up the right, and as such I approve of the Tea Duty." Lord North's attitudes too were hardening as he received reports of the likelihood of the Congress adopting nonimportation. Should the colonies decide not to trade with Britain, he remarked to Thomas Hutchinson, "Great Britain, Would take care they should trade no where else."
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North's ministry had more on its mind in the early autumn than American affairs. At the end of September it announced that elections for a new Parliament would be held. The Parliament elected in 1768 was not due to expire until 1775, but the ministry decided to surprise the opposition and secure a majority for another seven years. America figured in this decision only incidentally, though North's government expected further trouble overseas in 1775 and did not wish to have to deal with it while holding elections. American problems played little part in the elections except in those few constituencies where Wilkesite radicals demanded repeal of the Intolerable Acts. The electorate was small; policy was not an issue; and the voters were apathetic. Earlier in the year Burke had complained that "any remarkable highway robbery on Hounslow Heath would make more conversation than all the disturbances in America." And with the elections imminent he noted that the present discontent in America and the possibility of difficulties there in the future "operate as little as the division of Poland." The ministry had expected nothing else, and by mid-November the returns indicated that it had another handsome majority in the House of Commons.
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The day after the ministry announced that elections would be held, the bad news began pouring in from General Gage. He had attempted to enforce the Boston Port Act vigorously and thereby added to his problems. The Act provided that goods were not to be loaded or unloaded "at any wharf in the port, at any island, creek, landing-place, bank, or other place whatsoever." Gage interpreted these phrases to mean movement of goods anywhere within the harbor and proceeded to cut off nearby islands and Charlestown across the river. Smuggling followed almost inevitably. The mobbing of mandamus councillors, the closing

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of the courts, and the preparations for war by towns, and soon the Provincial Congress, alarmed him even more.