Note (in a note) — Chapter XVII

[322] Governor Hutchinson, in a note, referring to the mercantile English letters which contained the suggestion not to allow the landing of the tea of the East India Company, says:

"These letters were dated in England the beginning of August, and were received in America the latter end of September and the beginning of October."

Mr. Bancroft states as follows the causes and circumstances of this disastrous tea agreement between the British Ministry and East India Company:

"The continued refusal of North America to receive tea from England had brought distress upon the East India Company, which had on hand, wanting a market, great quantities imported in the faith that that agreement (in the colonies, not to purchase tea imported from England) could not hold. They were able to pay neither their dividends nor their debts; their stock depreciated nearly one-half; and the Government must lose their annual payment of four hundred thousand pounds.

"The bankruptcies, brought on partly by this means, gave such a shock to credit as had not been experienced since the South Sea year, and the great manufacturers were sufferers. The directors came to Parliament with an ample confession of their humbled state, together with entreaties for assistance and relief, and particularly praying that leave might be given to export tea free of all duties to America and to foreign ports. Had such leave been granted in respect of America, it would have been an excellent commercial regulation, as well as have restored a good understanding to every part of the empire. Instead of this, Lord North proposed to give to the Company itself the right of exporting its teas. The existing law granted on their exportation to America a drawback of three-fifths only of the duties paid on importation. Lord North now offered to the East India Company a drawback of the whole. Trecothick, in the committee, also advised to take off the import duty in America of threepence the pound, as it produced no income to the revenue; but the Ministry would not listen to the thought of relieving America from taxation. 'Then,' added Trecothick in behalf of the East India Company, 'as much or more may be brought into revenue by not allowing a full exemption from the duties paid here.' But Lord North refused to discuss the right of Parliament to tax America, insisting that no difficulty could arise; that under the new regulation America would be able to buy tea from the Company at a lower price than from any other European nation, and that men will always go to the cheapest market.

"The Ministry was still in its halcyon days; no opposition was made even by the Whigs; and the measure, which was the King's own, and was designed to put America to the test, took effect as law from the 10th day of May, 1773. It was immediately followed by a most carefully prepared answer from the King to petitions from Massachusetts, announcing that he 'considered his authority to make laws in Parliament of sufficient force and validity to bind his subjects in America, in all cases whatsoever, as essential to the dignity of the Crown, and a right appertaining to the State, which it was his duty to preserve entire and inviolate;' that he therefore 'could not but be greatly displeased with the petitions and remonstrance in which that right was drawn into question,' but that he 'imputed the unwarrantable doctrines held forth in the said petitions and remonstrance to the artifices of a few.' All this while Lord Dartmouth (the new Secretary of State for the Colonies, successor to Lord Hillsborough) 'had a true desire to see lenient measures adopted towards the colonies,' not being in the least aware that he was drifting with the Cabinet towards the very system of coercion against which he gave the most public and the most explicit pledges." (History of the United States, Vol. VI., pp. 458-460.)