Philadelphia Merchants Rebel Against Stamp Act in Great Meeting, November 7, 1765

The relations between the colonies and the mother country at end of the French and Indian War would doubtless have continued friendly had the latter not seen fit to pursue a new policy toward the former with respect to revenue and taxation. The colonies, until then, had been permitted to tax themselves.

The first act of the British Parliament aiming at the drawing of a revenue from the colonies was passed September 29, 1764. This act imposed a duty on “clayed sugar, indigo, coffee, etc., being a produce of a colony not under the dominion of his Majesty.”

In the colonies it was contended that “taxation and representation were inseparable, and that they could not be safe if their property might be taken from them without their consent.”

This claim of right of taxation on the one side and the denial of it on the other was the very pivot on which the Revolution turned.

England maintained her position in this matter, and in 1765 the famous Stamp Act passed both Houses of Parliament. This ordained that instruments of writing, such as deeds, bonds, notes, etc., among the colonies should be null and void unless executed on stamped paper, for which duty should be paid to the Crown.

The efforts of the American colonists to stay the mad career of the English Ministry proved unavailing. Dr. Benjamin Franklin, then in London as the agent of the Province of Pennsylvania, labored earnestly to avert a measure which his sagacity and extensive acquaintance with the American people taught him was pregnant with danger to the British Empire; but he did not entertain the thought that it would be forcibly resisted.

The opposition to the Stamp Act was so decided and universal that Lord Grenville, to conciliate the Americans, asked their agents to suggest the person to have the sale of the stamps in their respective colonies. 779Franklin named his friend John Hughes, who in the Assembly had been voting with the opponents of the Proprietaries.

Franklin’s enemies tried to make much capital out of this participation in the introduction of the stamps, while Hughes and Galloway tried to lay the blame for the popular outburst upon the Proprietary Party in both contrivance and connivance.

Massachusetts Assembly suggested that the various Houses of Representatives or Burgesses in America send committees to a meeting in New York City on the first Tuesday of October, 1765, to consider a united representation to the King and Parliament.

The Assembly of Pennsylvania decided unanimously that it ought to remonstrate against the Stamp Act, and appointed as its committee Speaker Fox and Messrs. John Dickinson, George Bryan and John Morton. Nine resolutions on the subject of the “unconstitutional impositions” were adopted unanimously.

Mr. Hughes feared being mobbed during the joy of celebration incident to the change of ministry in England. He sat at his home, armed, watching for an attack on his house, but at midnight those whom he feared dispersed, after burning a “stamp man” in effigy.

Hughes wrote to Governor John Penn and to Mr. Dickinson, the master of the ship which brought the stamps, that he had received no commission to take charge of them. The ship then lay at New Castle, afraid to proceed farther, but on October 5 she sailed up the river to Philadelphia, escorted by a man-of-war.

All the vessels in the harbor put their flags at half-mast, the bells of the State House and Christ Church were muffled and tolled until evening, and two Negroes with drums summoned the people to a meeting at the State House. This sent Robert Morris, Charles Thomson, and others to Hughes, who was very ill at his home, asking him to resign, or at least to promise not to execute his office.

The crowd, Hughes said, was stirred up by the son of Franklin’s great enemy, Chief Justice Allen.

On the following Monday, Hughes gave assurance that neither he nor his deputies would act until King George’s pleasure be known, or the law be put into execution in other colonies, or the Governor commanded him.

Hughes wrote to the Commissioners of the Stamp Office that he would perform his duties if his hands were sufficiently strengthened, but in due time he resigned.

On November 7, 1765, the merchants of Philadelphia assembled at the Court House, where they adopted nonimportation resolutions which were embodied in an agreement soon signed by almost everybody who could be described as a merchant or trader, setting forth that the difficulties they labored under were owing to the restrictions, prohibitions and ill-advised resolutions in recent acts of Parliament.

780These measures had limited the exportation of some of the produce, increased the expense of many imported articles and cut off the means of supplying themselves with sufficient specie even to pay the duties imposed.

The Province was heavily in debt to Great Britain for importations, and the Stamp Act would tend to prevent remittances, and so it was hoped the people of the Province would be frugal in the consumption of all manufactures except those of America or of Ireland, coming directly thence, and that the merchants and manufacturers of Great Britain would find it to their interest to befriend them.

The subscribers agreed and pledged their honor to direct all goods ordered from Great Britain not to be shipped and to cancel all former orders until the Stamp Act be repealed. The ships already cleared for Great Britain owned by the merchants were allowed to bring back the usual bulky articles but no dry goods, except dye stuffs, and utensils necessary for carrying on the manufactures, and to sell no articles sent on commission after January 1, 1766.

The committee which circulated this agreement for signatures, and was appointed to see to its being carried out, was composed of Thomas Willing, Samuel Mifflin, Thomas Montgomery, Samuel Howell, Samuel Wharton, John Rhea, William Fisher, Joshua Fisher, Peter Chevalier, Benjamin Fuller and Abel Jones.

In February Franklin was examined before the House of Commons, when he told them there was not enough gold and silver in the colonies to pay the stamp duty for one year. He gave it as his opinion that the people of America would never submit to paying the stamp duty unless compelled by force.

Parliament had only the alternative to compel submission or to repeal the act. It was repealed March 18, 1766, but accompanying it was the one known as the Declaratory Act, more hostile to the American rights than any of its predecessors. This act affirmed “that Parliament have, and of right ought to have power to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever.”

The news of the repeal reached America in May and caused unbounded demonstrations of joy. Though the Quakers generally would not have violently resisted the execution of the law, they shared with others the joy produced by the tidings of the repeal.

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