48. Partial Repeal of the Townshend Duties

We have seen that British colonial policy took a sharp turn to the right when the cabinet was reshuffled in the autumn of 1767 upon the death of Charles Townshend. The arch-imperialist Bedford faction strengthened its posts in the cabinet and the Tories North and Hillsborough assumed critical positions in the ministry. Domination by the Tory right was confirmed and intensified with the departure of the erratic centrists Chatham (William Pitt) and Shelburne from the government in October 1768. The Bedfordites and other Tory factions now greatly consolidated their control under the nominal leadership of the weak Duke of Grafton. The Whigs staunchly attempted to delve into the causes of the American disorders, but Lord North succeeded in focusing Parliament’s attention on the resistance in Britain and on the supposed need to assert imperial power over the colonies. Hillsborough, North, and Bedford pushed through resolutions denouncing Boston, pledging Parliament’s support to all measures needed to impose supremacy on the Americans, and urging the transportation of James Otis and other American leaders to England to be tried for treason.

Lord Hillsborough, furthermore, had bolder plans for crushing the Americans. They especially included: imposing a royally appointed council on Massachusetts; and cancellation of the Massachusetts Charter if its Assembly should ever again question Parliament’s absolute authority over the colonies. In addition, the Mutiny Act was to be strengthened to allow quartering of troops in private houses.

The Tories were now in control. The only gain to the liberal opposition was the accession of the Chathamites, who always tended to be liberal when Chatham was out of power. (In contrast, Grenville’s opposition was characteristically to attack the government for weakness and appeasement when dealing with the Americans.) In the cabinet only the liberals Camden and Conway opposed the harsh plans of Lord Hillsborough. So extreme were Hillsborough’s proposals, however, that even King George balked at imposing them.

Political-economic developments in Great Britain during early 1769 soon swung the ministry to decide on the repeal of the Townshend duties. There was, in the first place, the threatening Wilkite agitation and the mammoth Wilkite petition movement—joined in by the radicals, Whigs, and Chathamites—which challenged the government and which was at least partly linked with the American cause. Secondly, the war crisis with Spain and France over the Falkland Islands, coupled with troubles in unhappy Ireland, made the government anxious to find some peaceful solution to the troubles in America. Beset by conflict at home and abroad, Britain was now anxious to secure her colonial flank. Third, British merchants and manufacturers were beginning to complain bitterly as a result of the success of the spreading nonimportation boycott in America. Total American imports from Britain had fallen from over 2.15 million pounds in 1768 to under 1.35 million pounds the following year.

All of this was a potent combination. The result was a decision by the Grafton ministry in May 1769 to repeal all the Townshend taxes except the duty on tea. Repeal would be moved in the forthcoming 1770 session of Parliament. The crucial and fateful vote in the cabinet was how far to go. The liberals, led by Grafton, Camden, and Conway, advocated total repeal of the Townshend duties. The Tories, led by North, Hillsborough, and the Bedfordites, insisted on keeping the tax on tea, and they prevailed in the cabinet by a one-vote majority.

North’s arguments were shrewd enough. The other goods taxed were products of British manufacture, so that the duties lowered the sales of British manufacturers and merchants, and also dangerously stimulated the emergence of competing manufactures in the colonies. But tea was not of English manufacture and certainly could not be grown in America. Furthermore, tea furnished by far the major part of the revenue from the Townshend duties.

North’s arguments were also cunningly strategic. Retention of the tea tax would continue to assert Parliament’s sovereign right to impose such taxation; and the removal of all the duties except that on tea would split the American resistance movement, weaken its resolve, and wreck the boycott without yielding the principle or the major Townshend tax. The policy would thus deprive the radical American leadership of its mass base. The tactlessness of the proposed repeal was accentuated by Hillsborough’s letter to the colonial assemblies, announcing the cabinet decision. Stress was laid on a provocative assertion of the power of Parliament rather than on a desire for conciliation with the colonies.

When Parliament opened again, in early January 1770, the debate over repeal became part and parcel of a determined liberal opposition mounted against the ministry. The opposition was also based on taking up the cause against Wilkes’ expulsion from Parliament. The Whigs and the Chathamites launched the attack, and the ensuing polarization of opinion led to the resignation of the liberal-oriented cabinet members, beginning with Camden and ending with the Duke of Grafton, the prime minister himself. The determined opposition push failed and precipitated the backlash of a counterrevolution, with all the Tory forces in England banding together in a new unity born of fear for their entrenched positions against the American cause abroad, as well as against liberalism and radicalism at home. Lord North added the prime ministerial post to his own offices at the end of January, and this cemented Tory rule by coalescing the Tory factions. Unity was completed some months later by the death of Grenville, which permitted the old personal feud to end and the Grenvillite followers to join the cabinet. This outcome also served to discourage American faith in the English political outlook.*

On March 5, coincidentally the day of the Boston Massacre, Lord North moved the repeal of all the Townshend taxes except the tea tax. He scorned the idea of repealing the tea duty as appeasement of the colonies. America must fall at the feet of Britain before any further conciliation would be made. Parliament agreed to the repeal the same day and final action was taken in mid-April.

The liberals, however, had not given up in their defense of Americans against Great Britain. The Whigs, led by Barlow Trecothick and especially Edmund Burke, moved to censure British colonial policy when news of the Boston Massacre arrived in Britain. Burke charged that American rebelliousness was brought about precisely because of British severity and intransigence. Burke’s and Chatham’s censure resolutions, however, failed by a wide margin and provoked threats of impeachment or treason trials against Savile, Rockingham, Richmond, and other Whig leaders.

During June and July 1770, the North ministry consolidated its hard line against the colonies. The center of the British navy in America was deliberately shifted from Halifax to Boston harbor. The fort at Castle William was permanently garrisoned with British instead of American troops (although no troops were moved back into Boston itself). The Mutiny Act, however, was allowed to lapse without being renewed.

*See Charles R. Ritcheson, British Politics and the American Revolution (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1954), pp. 133–38.