A Crisis

A crisis in political affairs in the colonies was now at hand. The royal governors perceived that something must speedily be done to curb the democratic spirit of the people, or local self-government would supersede royal authority. It was necessary to convince parliament of this truth. Only through the Lords of Trade and Plantations could this be done. This was a Board or Committee appointed by the crown in 1696, to whom was entrusted a general oversight of the affairs of the American colonies. It was originally composed of seven members and a president. To them the royal governors were requested to give frequent and full information of the condition of their respective governments concerning political and commercial affairs, and particularly of the proceedings of the assemblies; also of the appropriations for the public service, and how they were expended. To this Board the royal agents in the colonies addressed their letters. "It was the lion's mouth," says Frothingham in his Rise of the Republic of the United States, "into which the accusations and complaints against the colonies were indiscriminately cast."

To arouse the Lords of Trade and Plantations to action, some overt act of disobedience on the part of the colonies must be obtained. The bluff Admiral Clinton, then governor of New York, was chosen to bring on the crisis, and that province was to be the theatre of the collision. The royal governors were to aid him by representations to the Board of the turbulence of the people and their disloyalty. Governor Shirley took occasion, when the people of Boston had liberated some of their citizens from the grasp of a British admiral who had impressed them into the naval service, to represent the act as a rebellious insurrection. "The chief cause of the mobbish turn of a town inhabited by twenty thousand inhabitants," he continued, "is its constitution, by which the management of it devolves on the populace, assembled in their town meetings." Rovalists in Pennsylvania wrote words of warning, saying that "the obstinate, wrong-headed Assembly of Quakers" in that colony, "pretended not to be accountable to his majesty or his government," and that "they may, in time, apply the public money to purposes injurious to the crown and the mother country." "Virginia," wrote its governor, "formerly an orderly province, has nothing more at heart than to lessen the influence of the crown." In a similar strain loyalists wrote from all the provinces; and the Earl of Halifax, a young man a little more than thirty years of age, who had been placed at the head of The Lords of Trade, was satisfied that royal authority in the colonies was in peril, and so informed the ministry. In a letter to Governor Glen, of South Carolina, he promised "a very serious consideration on the just prerogatives of the crown and those defects of the constitution which have spread them-selves over many of the plantations, and are destructive to all order and government."

Governor Clinton sought, and soon found an occasion for a quarrel with the New York Assembly. He demanded of that body an appropriation for the support of the government, for five years next ensuing, with a view of making himself, as governor, independent of the assembly. As he expected, they refused their compliance. Then he warned them of the danger of incurring the displeasure of parliament, and dissolved the assembly. He at once wrote letters to the Lords of Trade, complaining of the rebellious tendencies of a greater portion of the assembly, charging them with claiming "all the powers and privileges of parliament;" that they had "set up the people as the high court of American appeal;" that they had "virtually assumed all of the public money into their own hands, and issued it without warrant from the governor," and, also, had assumed the right to nominate all officers of government; to reward all services by granting the salaries annually, "not to the office, but by name to the person in the office," and that the "system if not speedily remedied, would effect the dependency of the colonies on the crown." He besought the king to "make a good example for all America, by regulating the government of New York." He declared that until that should be done he could not "meet the assembly without danger of exposing the king's authority," and himself, "to contempt."