I NDIA AND THE I NTELLECTUAL O RIGINS OF THE A MERICAN R EVOLUTION
J OHN R EAD
WCSU H ISTORY M AJOR
C LIO T REASURER
T his article will explore the hypothesis that American colonists were aware of Britain’s brutal treatment of its other colonies, especially India, and that injustices in these colonies influenced the intellectual history of American anti-colonialism and allowed this fledgling outpost little option other than revolution. To explain these influences, this article will first present a brief history of American dissent against the British and then explain how other colonies influenced American thought.
The historic dissent leading up to the events of the American Revolution derived from many different antecedents. Taxation in the American colonies had always been unique to each colony’s founding charter. As the British Empire grew, Parliament felt it had the right to implement taxes on its colonies for the privilege of being part of its empire and for their protection. However, the American people saw this as an attempt at economic control, and as double jeopardy, since the British were taxes twice against them. In addition, the colonies viewed taxation through the language of subjugation.
This created a philosophical paradox for Americans owning slaves of color, which offered a parallel to the economic means of profit of its mother country.
As America heard and read about the treatment of its sister colonies and the beginning of economic control through taxation, the American colonists verbalized their discontent in terms all parties could understand: that Britain’s treatment of its colonies was equivalent to brutal and immoral slavery. Yet, from the vantage point of the
American colonies within this context, America looked outward to its sister colonies,
India and Ireland, for information on how their treatment by Britain would influence
America’s next move. Each colony was aware of the other’s plight and their view was from the perspective of being enslaved under an oppressive mother country, and the oppression of each country influenced the discourse of every other.
The intellectual resistance to British oppression begins in many ways with
George Berkeley, who was born in or near Kilkenny, Ireland on 12 March 1685.
1
Berkeley would be considered an Anglo-Irish. He was raised and schooled at Trinity
College, Dublin, where he became Bishop of Cloyne at St. Paul's Church in Dublin.
Berkeley’s talent and acute awareness of his people’s plight compelled him to take a stand against what he foresaw as the changing political climate in Britain.
1 Daniel E. Flage, “George Berkeley, 1685-1753,” The Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy Accessed March 22, 2006 at
<http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/b/berkeley.htm#H1>

In Berkeley’s view, England had been corrupted by stock scandals and trysts in high places and this corruption had led the country into profound economic and moral debt. Most of all, most English had become oblivious to the absolute decline in religion and morals. In response, Berkeley published An Essay towards Preventing the Ruin of Great
Britain. Economically, Britain had just gone through the excesses of what was called the
South Sea Bubble (1720). To put into current perspective, the South Sea Bubble was an economic downturn founded on acts of moral turpitude, akin to Watergate combined with the Depression of 1929. Berkeley explained that the country could be the better for it if it culled from this event the appropriate historical lesson.
2 Berkeley drew upon the lessons of history to argue that “we have the experience of many ages to convince us that a corrupt, luxurious people must of themselves fall into slavery, although no attempt be made upon them.” 3
It was Berkeley’s fear that once corrupted, Britain and its colonies would fall into degradation. For Berkeley, national wealth was not to be measured by money, but rather by the practical applications toward which it was used.
4 In framing his economic proposals for Britain, Berkeley hoped that the cycle of “human folly” could be broken and the nation revitalized. Domestic manufacturing and commerce would proceed unencumbered by the corruption of luxury. Using both moral and economic language to support his argument, Berkeley tried to turn Britain from what he saw as the path leading toward ruin and toward a future with a newly enlightened purpose and direction. In Berkeley’s eyes, the British elite influenced their government to be greedy.
The British government, therefore, used the East India Company’s commercial decrees to extract raw material from India to fuel the British economic engine.
Berkeley eventually spent time in the American colony of Rhode Island. While there, he befriended Samuel Johnson, with whom he would continue to correspond after his return to Great Britain. In a letter to Johnson, Berkeley told him he had written a treatise, Principles and Dialogues, to examine issues connected to mind, God, morality, and freedom. However, that manuscript was lost during his travels in Italy.
5 Berkeley continued to rework his lost manuscript as a wide-ranging new major work, the
Elementa Philosophica (1752). In the American colonies, it was read and published by
Benjamin Franklin and recognized as the first American philosophy textbook. Again, in defining ideas, he placed external archetypes in the mind of God, claiming that man’s knowledge of ideas came via his “intellectual Light or intuitive Evidence,” which he assumed to be common to all men, and “by which they all at once see the same thing to be true or right in all places at the same time, and alike invariably in all times, past,
2 George Berkeley, “An Essay towards Preventing the Ruin of Great Britain,” in
The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne Vol. VI, edited by A. A. Luce and T. E.
Jessop (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson, 1948-57), 71.
3 Ibid., 77.
4 Ibid., 74-75.
5 Flage, “George Berkeley.”

present, and to come.” 6 These philosophical writings influenced many of the American colonial elite. For men like Samuel Johnson, Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin Rush,
Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, it had become abundantly clear that America was taking a different path than the mother country and was learning to
“informationalize” from the philosophical teachings transmitted by her sister colonies.
Ultimately, the American colonies learned from her sister colonies that philosophical issues were just one piece of the American puzzle. America had to come to terms with its economic and moral status as a British colony. In 1730, the French traveler and would-be diplomat Baron de Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, suggested in his “Notes upon England” that England’s restrictive commercial code would eventually make it the first nation to be abandoned by her colonies: “I don't know what will be the result of sending so many of Europe's and Africa's inhabitants to the
West Indies, but I think that, if any nation is abandoned by its colonies, that will begin with the English.” 7
The slave trade had become a commercial imperative to Britain and her colonies.
Nevertheless, the practice appeared to have few champions. Yet it provided the British colonies with a line of communication as British ships traveled the world and with them followed the news of the empire’s transgressions. The enslavement of people of color was just one segment of Britain’s business model, which put profit over what Berkeley called “human folly fueling the cycle of ruin.” 8
In 1748 Petr Kalm, a Swedish traveler, observed in his catalog “Travels in North
America,” citing the presence of the French in Canada as cause for “the English colonist’s dependence for their security on the support of the mother country, was the main cause of the submission of the colonies.” 9 It was true that America felt the economic and military reliance of Britain’s quest for empire, which created uncomfortable pressure and was visible for the world to see.
What is important here is the corruption of man. Berkeley, Montesquieu and
Kalm saw it and spoke up against the inhumane practice of slavery in the British colonies. This was the paradoxical conduit, which provided America with both its cheap labor and its world trade communications. The issue of slavery became the language those of the rebellion use, which all parties understood.
6 Brian Young, “Samuel Johnson, 1696-1772,” The Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century
Philosophers. Accessed 22 March 2006 at
<http://www.thoemmes.com/encyclopedia/johnson.htm>
7 Iain Stewart (translator), “Montesquieu on England: His ‘Notes on England,’ with Commentary and Translation,” Oxford University Comparative Law Forum.
Accessed 22 March 2006 at
<http://ouclf.iuscomp.org/articles/montesquieu.shtml#notesone>
8 George Berkeley, “An Essay towards Preventing the Ruin of Great Britain”, 71.
9 Petr Kalm, Travels into North America, Pinkerton’s Voyages Volume XIII (Barre,
MA: Imprint Society, 1972), 460.

When we explore Britain’s other commercial trade in the her colonies, we think of textiles, such as the calicoes, silks and muslin cloth that had been available in the
American colonies through the East India Company as far back as the late seventeenth century.
10 However, slavery is not usually viewed utilizing the East Indians as part of the slave economy. America generally records the people of West Indies and Africa in this role. Although people from these areas probably represented the majority of slave imports to the American colonies, they were not the only place of import. In a recent article concerning the plight of East Indian inhabitants, “East Indian Slaves in Colonial
America ─ An Untold Facet of American History,” Francis C. Assisi found that documents regarding the little known practice of using East Indian people as slaves had been overlooked. Assisi uses archival sources from the states of Virginia, Delaware,
Maryland, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, along with the East India Company archives at the British India Office Library to confirm this enslavement. Assisi found court records, judge’s decrees, land deeds, marriage and church registers, as well as diaries, letters and oral narratives, all of which are major resources in reconstructing this tantalizing East Indian presence in colonial America. In the following example, it is clear that East Indians were utilized as slaves here in America, as well as the tangible realization of enslaving inhabitants of her sister colony of India:
For example, according to the Maryland State Archives, the genealogical records of the Mayhew/Mayhall family reveal that
Thomas Mayhew Sr., born 1708, is identical to Thomas India who petitioned the Prince George's County Court, Maryland, in March 1729, stating that he was free born, baptized in England, and imported with his mother into Maryland under indenture. He was detained as a slave by
Madam Eleanor Addison [Court Record 1728-9, 413]” 11 .
Another example of East Indian slaves in Maryland is given in the 1760 case of
Thomas Mayhew:
We can be sure of his East Indian origin because his son Thomas Mayhew
Jr. (born 1735), who escaped from the Prince George's County Jail, according to the 29 May 1760 issue of the Maryland Gazette, was described as "of a very dark complexion, his Father being an East-India
10 Susan B. Bean, Yankee India, American Commercial and Cultural Encounters with
India in the Age of Sail 1784-1860. (Salem, MA: Peabody Essex Museum, 2001), 31.
11 Francis C. Assisi, “East Asian Slaves in Colonial America: An Untold Facet of
Ameircan History,” Asian American Net. Accessed 22 March 2006 at < http://www.asianamerican.net/article10.html>

Indian ... formerly lived in lower Prince George's County" [Green, The
Maryland Gazette, 1727-61, 246].
12
Additionally, evidence from six decades earlier records the purchase of East
Indian slaves:
The Virginia Archives (Microfilm Reel no. 58. Pp. 251) inform us that on
March 1699 Henry Trent of Accomack County bought an East Indian servant by the name of Nick who was just 11 years of age.
The oppression of East Indian slaves had a similar effect on the social and intellectual history of eighteenth century America as did the enslavement of
Africans:
Like many of their fellow slaves, the East Indians too sought escape from the oppression of slavery. The Virginia Gazette recorded on 4 August 1768 that an East India Indian named Thomas Greenwich ran away from his master William Colston of Richmond County. Another runaway incident involving an East Indian was recorded on 7 March 1771 when a Virginia born African-American named Alexander Richardson, and an East Indian
“upwards of 5 feet and a half high, about 22 years old, of a very dark complexion” ran away from the sloop Betsy out of Corotoman river, in
Lancaster County. In April 1737 an East Indian belonging to Mr. John
Heylin, a Merchant in Gloucester, ran away accompanied by a “mulatto fellow named George.
In fact, Assisi cites dozens of colonial-era documents of East Indian people who had been enslaved, and attempts to detail their lives as slaves, and their place in East Indian-
American heritage and experience.
13 It is clear that the importation of East Indians to the
United States brought into sharp relief the brutal truth of Britain’s treatment of the people of her Asian colonies. The issue was not that the treatment of colonists in
America was perfect, but rather that the presence of knowledge about the conditions of
East Indians gave American complaints about their colonial treatment a greater clarity and urgency. What comes to play here is more like Kipling’s “White Man’s burden” gone horribly wrong. When an imperial power justifies its control over a lesserdeveloped country by telling itself that they are civilizing savages, that is the point at which the bankruptcy of colonial rule is made manifest. More importantly, the apparent suffering of East Indians under colonial rule made it clear what America could expect if economic conditions turned sour for Great Britain.
12 Karen Mauer Green, The Maryland Gazette, 1727-1761. (Galveston: Frontier
Press, 1990).
13 Assisi, “East Indian Slaves.”

As Britain entered into the Seven Years War (1756-63)—or as it was called in the
North American colonies, the French and Indian War—North America became the focal point of British ire. As the result of Britain’s conquest of Canada, Britain no longer needed a large military force on the continent and American colonists no longer felt they needed protection from the British. Meanwhile, Britain sought to recover the financial losses of its conflict for empire in the war. Both France and Spain, having lost colonial wars in North America, realized that to compete in the global land grab for colonies, they must recoup their losses as quickly as possible. Thus, both countries embarked upon a major naval buildup. Despite enormous odds, Prussia survived the war, retaining Silesia and confirming its place as an important European power. Russia showed itself to be a major power capable of enormous influence. The Netherlands and
Saxony had becoming increasingly vulnerable. Despite its glorious past, Spain confirmed that it was a weak client state of France with minimal military power. Britain emerged from the war as the world's dominant naval and economic power. Britain then focused its domination on India, eventually enabling it to conquer most of India and to use its resources to further expand its empire.
British involvement in India began with the vision of Sir Josia Child. From 1674 to 1689, he was head of the Leadenhall Street Council of twenty-four “committees” of company directors in England. He was the first to envision the goal of the East India
Company business as “ to establish such a politie of civill and military power, and create and secure such a large revenue as may be the foundation of a large, well-grounded, sure dominion in India for all time to come.” 14 The British were able to take control of
India mainly because it was politically fragmented. “Divide and conquer” had always worked as a British strategy. It had worked against the Native Americans during the establishment of the original thirteen colonies. By the time 1761 came along, the internal fighting between religious and ethnic groups in India had left no major force remaining that was strong enough to deter further British expansion.
15 In 1760, even the French soldier and diplomat Chevalier Law, who was part of France’s own commercial venture in India, was of the opinion that:
As far as I can see, there is nothing that you could call government between Patna and Dehli. If men in the position of
Shujaa-ud-daulah would loyally join me, I could not only beat off the
English, but would undertake the administration of the Empire." 16
14 Quoted in William Wilson Hunter, A History of British India, New Impression
Volume II. (London: Longmans Green, 1912),.272-73.
15 Stanley Wolpert, A New History of India, (New York: Oxford University Press,
2004), 185
16 H.G. Keene, The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan. September, 1998 [E-text
#1470]. Accessed 22 March 2006 at
<http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext98/tfmeh10.txt>

The East India Company saw the rise of its fortunes and its transformation from a trading venture to a ruling enterprise. Lord Robert Clive defeated the India and
French forces in the Battles of Plassey in 1757, but this was not a country take over where Britain actually cared about the South Asian people. This new economic model of
British policy was not targeted strictly at the East India colonies. In 1765, Lord Clive, governor of Bengal, wrote prophetically to his Board of Directors. “If ideas of conquest were to be the rule of our conduct,” “I foresee that we should, by necessity, be led from acquisition to acquisition, until we have the whole empire up in arms against us; and whilst we lay under the great disadvantage of fighting without a single ally, (for who could wish us well?) the natives, left without European allies, would find in their own resources, a means of carrying on war against us in a much more soldierly manner” 17
This prophetic statement influenced the American financial and ideological reaction process to British policies.
In India, this was more like a hostile corporate take-over, a raid for raw material, cheap labor and the need to make a fast pound. Lord Clive planned little for the future of India and his subsequent actions were calamitous for its people. By 1770, India was suffering famine. It was the East India Company’s corporate greed and lack of planning that cost lives, as much as one-third of the population, by murder and starvation. The Company now found itself playing the expensive role of reactive management. Despite the increase in trade and the revenue coming in from other sources, Britain found itself burdened with massive military expenditures and bankruptcy seemed a real possibility. Britain’s governmental intervention put the ailing
Company back on its feet, with Lord North's India Bill, also known as the Regulating
Act of 1773, providing for greater parliamentary control over the affairs of the Company, while placing India under the rule of a Governor-General.
18
Media coverage of world travelers making their fortunes had become world news. The American colonies heard of the fabulous riches in India and of men from the mother country that went to the sub-continent to seek their fortune. Moreover, the first verifiable record of an East Indian in North America is a 1670 colonial diary that mentions a visit to Salem, Massachusetts by an Indian from Madras who was accompanying a sea captain.
19 So, information and exploration would happen in both directions as men of the world sought their fortunes.
Furthermore, the Virginia Gazette published an account of a visit from a Mughal emissary “of a majestic Form…the
17 From Sir J. Malcolm, Life of Clive Vol. 2, 310; reprinted in Ramsay Muir, The
Making of British India 1766-1858 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1923),
82.
18 “The East India Company,” Manas. Accessed 22 March 2006 from http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/British/EAco.html
19 Jasbir Singh Kang, “Opening Doors: Punjabi Migration to America: A Tale of
Great Tenacity,” Accessed 22 March 2006 from
<http://www.punjabheritage.com/kang.html>

Magnificence of his Dress in Pearls and Diamonds, is beyond Description.” 20 One prominent success story was that of Elihu Yale, who made his fortune as an employee of the East India Company. Yale, who eventually retired in England, was persuaded to contribute toward founding Yale College in the American Colonies. His endowment to the American colony for this purpose consisted of textiles, including calicoes and muslins from India. These were sold in Boston.
21
Conversely, the American colonies also heard of the revolutionary attempts of their sister colony to repel aggressors. “The rebellions began as soon as and wherever the British rule was established. From 1763 to 1856, there were more that forty major rebellions. The Sanyasi rebellion of Bengal (1763-1800) was followed by Chuar uprising of Bengal and Bihar (1766 to 1772 and again 1795 to 1816) as Rangpur and Dinajpur
(1783), Bishnupur and Birbupur and Birbhum (1799).” 22 As early as 1769, the Salem Essex
Gazette reported British dealings with the Nawab of Arcot. Here however, it was the
British who were successfully driven from their post from Coromandel Coast.
23 “As revolutionary fervor increased—especially after the Tea Acts made the East India
Company beneficiary to colonial exploitation in America—more Americans found common cause with the people of India as fellow victims of colonial greed.” 24
It is in this light that we changed focus from the external view of British colonies to the internal view of what was happening in America. William Duer played a small role in American history, however he nearly single-handedly pulled off the deal of a lifetime, making the American colony the probable sister corporation to the East India
Company. William Duer was an English gentleman, who might have been one of these information carriers to the American colonies. Born in England in 1743, his family’s wealth was based on several West Indian plantations. After graduating Eton in 1761, he was appointed as an aide to Lord Clive, the governor of India. However, his personal health and the death of his father brought him back to Great Britain. Once recuperated, he traveled to the West Indies to inspect his inheritance and eventually ended up in
New York looking for property to supply lumber to his plantations. Duer was an opportunistic businessman. As war with America is on the horizon, he attempts to secure lumber contracts with the British Navy, during the years of 1771, 1772, and once
20 Thomas Nicholas, Entangled Objects: Exchange, Material Culture, and Colonialism
in the Pacific. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991),126..
21 East India Marine Society, The East India Marine Society of Salem, 2d ed. (Salem,
MA: W. Palfray,1831), .4.
22 Bipen Chandra, The Revolt of 1857: Excerpted from India’s Struggle for
Independence and Modern India, (New Delhi: Viking, 1988), 1.
23 G. Bhagat, Americans in India, 1784-1860. ( New York: New York University
Press, 1970).
24 Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. (New
York: Routledge Publishing, 1992), 6ff. See also Philip Curtin, Cross Cultural
Trade in World History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).

again in 1774 25 . Frustrated with his inability to use his contacts to a financial advantage with Britain, Duer turned to his neighbor Philip Schuyler. Schuyler was born into a prominent New York family in 1733. Like many early American patriot leaders, he established himself on the field of battle, in this case during the French and Indian War
(1755-60). He served in the New York State Assembly and the Second Continental
Congress, and was Alexander Hamilton's father-in-law.
26 When war broke out Duer helped to secure contracts for supplies of wood and food for the Continental army. By
March 1777, he was chosen to represent New York in the Continental Congress and came to the attention of George Washington.
27 Although I have found no documentation concerning the advantages of Duer; being a British insider using this information as an American patriot or vice versa, what is clear is that Duer saw his own economic advantage in what he learned. By 1785, he was appointed with Hamilton influence, as one of three clerks to the Congressional Board of Treasury. It is within this realm that Duer, Craigie, Clavier and Brissot try their biggest business deal yet; which is to buy the Congressional War debt from France. This was not done as an altruistic ploy of patriotic fever, but to create a corporation similar to the East India Company, with shareholders and the “contract providing that the shares held in America could be further divided [to interest any other persons, as shall be judged necessary to facilitate or secure the objects of the association or to secure their services, in any other mode as shall be judged more beneficial,] in other words, to bribe congressmen or other public servants.” 28 What is amazing here is that this corporation nearly succeeded, where the world’s strongest nation, Britain failed. Luckily for America, the French government secured a timely loan from the Dutch to retain the American debt.
29
25 R. H. Fleming, “Phyn, Ellice and Company of Schenectady,” Contributions to
Canadian Economies, IV (1932), 20-21.
26 “American Patriot: Philip Schuyler,” The American Revolution. Accessed 22
March 2006 from <http://www.americanrevolution.com/PhilipSchuyler.htm>
27 Philip Schuyler to Robert Livingston, March 17, 1777, Robert T. Livingston
Papers, N.Y. Hist. Soc.; Gerlack, Philip Schuyler, Pp. 290; Journal of the Provincial
Congress, I (Albany, N.Y., 1842), 855; John Mckesson to George Clinton, Oct. 3,
1777 in The Public Papers of George Clinton…(New York, 1899), Pp. 397 419;
Jones, “Career of William Duer,” Pp. 28-58
28 Claude Perroud (ed.), J.P. Brissot, Correspondence et papers, précédés d’un
advertissement et d’une notice sur la vie (Paris : A. Picard et fils, 1912), 210. The full text of the contract is on 208-212. See also Duer’s jottings on the back of Nathan
McFarland to Thomas Hutchins, July 23, 1788 BV II, Duer Papers.
29 [J.] P Brissot de Warville w. Etienne Claviere et al,. June 12, 1788, copy of contract, Miscellaneous Collections, Clements Library, University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor; Parker to Duer, June 7, 1788, Craigie Papers; J. P. Brissot de Warville,
New travels in the United States of America (New York, 1792), Pp. 94; Joseph
Stancliffe Davis, “William Duer, Entrepreneur, 1747-1799,” in Essays in the Earlier

Equally important was another direct link with the Eastern India Company here in the colonies. Henry Petersen was an American colonist living in Pennsylvania, who by ledger entries from 1774 to 1791 was a stockholder. In fact, this was probably as common as in today’s financial trading. In 1754, over two hundred Philadelphia merchants chipped in £348 each to create the London Coffee House. Soon, it became the center for business and political life. “ Sea captains, merchants, auctioneers, slave-traders and soldiers congregated here to do business and to talk politics. For many years, a portrait of King George hung on the Coffee House wall.” 30 By 1778, the London Coffee
House was the origin of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange. It is likely that even if Henry
Petersen was not an active member, he was aware of its existence. This would give him knowledge of most of the company’s activities, through shareholder reports, year-end statements and oral travel reports. The demographic analysis of stockholders for 1773 gives the following results: in lots over £1000, 487 names were English owning
£1,018,398 and of 325 foreign names, were mostly merchants spread throughout Europe in cities from Copenhagen to the Rhineland. From Cologne, Frankfurt and Berlin, to
Geneva, Amsterdam, Venice, and Danzig, from the Baltic to Portugal, everywhere except France, the people of Europe and North America were part and party to the investments of the East India Company. From 1753 onwards throughout the era of the
Seven Years War and the American Revolution, the years of the Shaking of the Golden
“Pagoda-Tree” in Bengal and Madras, more and more capital poured into the English
East India Stock.
31
Throughout the eighteenth century, the North American colonies experienced an extraordinary rate of population growth. Estimates of population at this time are put at
250,000 thousand inhabitants. By 1770, seven decades later, estimates show a more than ten-fold increase to 3,000,000 million. Clearly, this phenomenal growth was a prerequisite for the independence movement. Moreover, the ratio between the countries had changed. In 1700, there were twenty British for every American, but by 1775 this ratio had changed to three to one. The American population, like the corporate ledgers of the East India Company, was in a changing demographic shift. However, the proportion of American colonists who were of English culture and ancestry was on the decline. As a result of this, newer populations, many of which had left tyrannical and oppressive homelands, injected a new radical and ethnic influence into the colonies and helped to radicalize the political landscape. Eighty percent of the American population
History of American Corporations, I (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1917), 151-161, 172-173.
30 “A Blueprint for America’s Free Markets: The History of the Philadelphia Stock
Exchange,” Accessed 22 March 2006 from http://www.phlx.com/exchange/history.html
31 Holden Furber, “The United Company of Merchants of England Trading to the
East Indies, 1783-1796,” The Economic History Review 10: 2 (Nov.1940), 138-147.

was of European descent. Within this group were migrants from Germany, Scotland, and Ireland making up thirty percent of the new population.
32
America was growing up and the philosophical and economic differences and similarities in its relative prosperity were showing. In her unswerving quest for knowledge, the American colony was influenced by external ideas, which would have a track record of success. One such example of this was the similarity of America’s first flag to that of the East India Company Flag. The American historian, and coincidently, author of The Life and Times of Philip Schuyler, Benson John Lossing, stated “that the East
India Company's flag has peculiar interest for America, as some historians declare that it was the parent banner of our Stars and Stripes. The assertion that the Grand Union Flag was copied from the East India Company's flag has prima facie probability. It is indeed stated that Benjamin Franklin urged its adoption in a speech at a dinner-party on 13
December 1775, which he and Washington attended.” 33 Ultimately, this would put
America’s foundation on a different philosophical path than that of Great Britain.
Franklin and Washington represented the “North and South” extremes in ideology regarding slave and Non-slave owner. Yet, they realized that a compromise would be the only successful capitalist model, which would provide the financial accomplishments of the East India Company. Yet conversely, this compromise meant shaking off the mother country’s subjugation, while much of the southern American states were slaveholders. Eventually leading to future crossroads of conflict and civil war.
In light of the changing demographics of the thirteen colonies, the subjugation of
America’s sister colonies Ireland and India, and America’s own changing psychographics (lifestyle patterns); Britain’s need for financial recovery of its growing empire now required compensation for services rendered. Britain’s insistence on not giving the American colonies representation in Parliament fueled the fire of frustration, which was born of subjugation. However, this fledgling expansion of the British Empire created a huge military state that had a price which Britain could not pay. The need for a trans-continental army and navy had exceeded Britain’s financial capacity. Now that the full extent of the war debt had been realized, Parliament decided it must transfer the burden and let it fall on the colonies. This would be done through taxation, thus
32 Richard Middleton; Colonial America: A History, 1565-1776. (Oxford: Blackwell
Publishing 2002), 225.
33 W.J. Gordon and Wheeler Holohan. A Manual of Flags: Incorporating Flags of the
World (New York: F. Marne and Co., 1933), 263-4; and “Flags of the World”
National Geographic Magazine, December 1917, 400. In the speech, however, as said to be reproduced by one ''Robert Allan Campbell of Chicago", Franklin refers to the Company's flag as 'one... having the cross of St George for a union", and said its design ''can be readily modified, or rather extended, so as to most admirably suit our purpose.”

reproducing the same spark that had triggered the British civil war under Cromwell and
Charles I.
The British Parliament appointed George Grenville as first Lord of the British treasury in an attempt to more effectively manage the staggering national debt incurred as a result of the Seven Years War. Britain’s total debt was “£132 million (pounds), doubling previous national budgets” 34 and in the end, was the impetus for colonial unrest as a reaction to the implementation of these new monetary policies without representative rights. Initially, Grenville had to address the fiscal reality of high interest rates charged by domestic and foreign lenders. Furthermore, British property taxes at home remain high, although many expected them to ease after the Paris Peace Treaty.
This added to domestic instability and the popular dislike of Lord Grenville. Moreover, cuts in military expenditure were instituted in an effort to scale back an ever-increasing national debt. What is more “Grenville thought it monstrous that India should pay of itself by having its own taxes and paying its bills,” “whereas America was run at a thumping loss.” 35 Pressure now fell on the North American colonies to start carrying a tax load equal to other British subjects and colonies.
Lord Grenville’s first Parliamentary bill was to permit the British Navy to assist the colonial custom service in North America’s territorial waters. For the British, this act cleared up any ambiguities, which might have resulted regarding the legality of such involvement in the colonial custom service with the Royal Navy. For the colonies, it now meant that “forty-four British war ships” 36 British war ships would be enlisted in curtailing North American merchant’s illegal contraband and smuggling from Dutch colonies, Portugal, France and the West Indies (a standard practice for both British and colonials alike to avoid paying duty taxes), which would have the effect of increasing
British profits, as well as colonial tensions. Additionally, colonial ship owners would now have to post a “£2,000” 37 bond that would discourage any peripheral trade influences with the French, Spanish or Dutch. Clearly, the economic message was that
England believed it was still in control of the North American colonies after years of neglect and was now ready to start getting more involved. However, this message sent mixed signals to both the English subjects and their former allies.
With Parliament pleased with their financial chessboard geography, Grenville enacted the Sugar or Revenue Act of 1764. This act placed taxes on imported items to the colonies, such as coffee, indigo, pimento, and East Indian silk fabrics. Although paradoxically titled, the Sugar Act actually reduced the duty on molasses by half. The real thrust for Lord Grenville was the implementation of stricter customs controls in the thirteen colonies, allowing them to finally collect real taxes. The response of both the
34 Paul M. Johnson, A History of the American People, (New York: HarperPerennial
1999), 132.
35 Ibid., 133.
36 Middleton, Colonial America, 445
37 Ibid., 448

Massachusetts House of Representatives and the Virginia House of Burgesses to the
House of Commons was swift and concise:
Petition from the Massachusetts House of Representatives to the House of
Commons; November 3, 1764
That the duties laid upon foreign sugars and molasses by a former Act of
Parliament entitled " an Act for the better securing and encouraging the trade of his Majesty's sugar Colonies in America," if the Act had been executed with rigor, must have had the effect of an absolute prohibition.
That if there be no sale of fish of inferior quality it will be impossible to continue the fishery, the fish usually sent to Europe will then cost so dear that the French will be able to undersell the English at all the European markets; and by this means one of the most valuable returns to Great
Britain will be utterly lost, and that great nursery of seamen destroyed.
That the restraints laid upon the exportation of timber, boards, staves, and other lumber from the Colonies to Ireland and other parts of Europe, except Great Britain, must greatly affect the trade of this province and discourage the clearing and improving of the lands which are yet uncultivated.
That the powers given by the late Act to the court of vice-admiralty, instituted over all America, are so expressed as to leave it doubtful, whether goods seized for illicit importation in any one of the Colonies may not be removed, in order to trial, to any other colony where the judge may reside, although at many hundred miles distance from the place of seizure.
That if this construction should be admitted, many persons, however legally they goods may have been imported, must lose their property, merely from an inability of following after it, and making that defense which they might do if the trial had been in the colony where the goods were seized.
That the extension of the powers of courts of vice-admiralty has, so far as the jurisdiction of the said courts hath been extended, deprived the
Colonies of one of the most valuable of English liberties, trials by juries.
That every Act of Parliament, which in this respect distinguishes his
Majesty's subjects in the Colonies from their fellow subjects in Great
Britain, must create a very sensible concern and grief.
38
38 “Petition from the Massachusetts House of Representatives to the House of
Commons, November 3, 1764,” The Avalon Project at Yale Law School. Accessed
22 March 2005 at
>http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/amerrev/amerdocs/petition_mass_1764.ht
m?

Why did the American colonies feel this adamant about Britain’s taxation? The original British colonial charters gave specific rights to those British citizens who came to the Americas. Britain ignored the American colonial assemblies Parliamentary representation requests and held that Parliament was given the right to raise taxes in the colonies. Additionally, Britain was not involved in the day-to-day military protection from Native American attacks, which gave the American colonies the feeling of isolation from Britain. But most importantly, the American colonies saw taxation as the beginning of economic controls, which it had, read accounts of when Britain first commenced its economic take-over in India. Americans feared taxation would be the beginning of the end of total control of their way of life and eventual enslavement. It appeared that
Britain’s only interest was economic trade or when that trade was threatened by invasion by France, Spain, or major Native American uprising. Great Britain turned a deaf hear to the requests of the American colonies. Now due to Britain’s self-made worldwide debt, she expected her colonies to pay their fair share, and was willing to negate previous charters, laws or privileges to attain her objective.
This view was not just a selective view of Massachusetts, although much of the documentation is generated out of the Commonwealth’s assembly and its members. The
Southern colonies, specifically Virginia for the same reason felt just as adamant as the
North on this subject. Here is an excerpt from a Petition of the Virginia House of Burgesses
to the House of Commons: 18 December 1764.
To the Honourable the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses of Great
Britain in Parliament assembled:
\This privilege, inherent in the persons who discovered and settled these regions, could not be renounced or forfeited by their removal hither, not as vagabonds or fugitives, but licensed and encouraged by their prince and animated with a laudable desire of enlarging the British dominion, and extending its commerce. On the contrary, it was secured to them and their descendants, with all other rights and immunities of British subjects, by a royal charter, which hath been invariably recognized and confirmed by his Majesty and his predecessors in their commissions to the several governors, granting a power, and prescribing a forum of legislation; according to which, laws for the administration of justice, and for the welfare and good government of the colony, have been hitherto enacted by the Governor,
From these considerations it is hoped that the honourable House of Commons will not prosecute a measure which those who may suffer under it cannot but look upon as fitter for exiles driven from their native country, After ignominiously forfeiting her favours and protection, than for the prosperity of Britons who have at all times been forward to demonstrate all due reverence to the mother kingdom, and are so

instrumental in promoting her glory and felicity; and that British patriots will never consent to the exercise of anti-constitutional power, which even in this remote corner may be dangerous in its example to the interior parts of the British Empire, and will certainly be detrimental to its commerce.
39
Nevertheless, the Sugar Act did not raise as much revenue as had been expected, so in March 1765, the Stamp Act was passed. It was to be implemented in America on the first of November in 1765. This Act was in effect, a tax on the intelligence of the
American colony, which extended the British Stamp Act to America and taxed all newspapers, legal documents, licenses, dice, playing cards and official documents. Both of these pieces of legislation were passed easily by Parliament despite belated colonial opposition. The Stamp Act affected all classes and unified the colonies with a common purpose. Benjamin Franklin writes “…I think one may clearly see, in the system of customs now being exacted in America by Act of Parliament, the seeds sown of a total disunion of the two countries.” 40 This was a full ten years before thoughts of a revolutionary war were to come to fruition!
Likewise, the colonists did not have to look beyond the oceans, or to their sister colonies to see what ills awaited to befall them. Many knew well the hardships both colonists and Native American’s had suffered. Native American’s had fought the
Pequot, King Phillip’s and French and Indian War were to no end, only to suffer eventual alienation by their British protectors. The British originally wanted to pull forces out of the colonial garrisons, feeling they were no longer necessary after successful defeat of the French in the Seven Years War. British economic scaling-back meant pulling out of the Allegheny Mountains, thus affecting both Native Americans and colonists, each of who would suffer because of the absence of British troops. Native
Americans, because with the French gone, they had to depend on the British for loyalty and gift trade goods, would now feel the economic and cultural backlash with the
British no longer instituting these policies. The colonists, who relied on the British for protection from Native Americans, felt that as British subjects, they were ill served by the homeland. The British felt the colonists were to blame, due to the continued unrest of land encroachments and dubious ethical practices. The British Proclamation of 1763 provided a temporary stopgap measure for Native Americans by forbidding white settlers to travel past the mountain boundary of the Alleghenies. Once again it was
Benjamin Franklin who knew of the troubles inherited by Native Americans for he published their treaties 41 and was the negotiator when the Paxton boys, a group of hot headed colonists bent on taking revenge for Delaware raids; mistakenly murdered
39 “Petition from the Massachusetts House.”
40 Johnson, History of the American People, 133.
41 Scott L. Pratt, “Syllabus for Native Pragmatism,” accessed 22 March 2006 from
<http://www.americanphilosophy.org/archives/2002%20Institute/reading%20lists/pratt.htm>

innocent Susquehannock for Delaware. Native Americans like Neolin and Pontiac realize the commercial and economic importance of maintaining cultural identity, which required breaking the economic bonds from the British. With this Neolin proclaims his own declaration of Independence. Neolin advocated “… an uncompromising return to traditional ways of life. Only by shunning all trade goods, including European cloth, tools, alcohol, and weaponry, he said, would native people gain the strength to resist
European expansion into their territory.” 42 The Native Americans failed in their attempt to play the French off against the English. Paradoxically, Native American had rebelled for many of the same reasons, which East India and American would eventually face.
This had to bear heavily on Franklin’s mind, as the Continental Congress was willing to sidestep the issue of slavery for now in order to preserve the unity of the thirteen colonies.
There was a deeper philosophical issue here. The Stamp Act opened questions about representation, suspended colonial assemblies, and installed British viceadmiralty courts and trial by jury. It also created the colonial impression that England would have the North American colonies pay for British taxes. The crux now was the issue of representation. Clearly, England’s greed had caused it to overlook the
“convention of the British constitution that subjects should not be taxed without their consent or that of their represented.” 43 In Virginia, the House of Burgesses was still in session when the news came of the Stamp Act. Convinced that they alone represented the people of Virginia, they concluded that “any attempt to divest the assembly of its right had a manifest tendency to destroy British as well as American freedom.” 44
What was at stake here was right out of John Locke’s writings of individual freedom as opposed to state authority. The colonists experienced a metamorphosis, transforming their elected representatives as delegates, “whose first duty was to the interests of their constituents” 45 not Great Britain’s. Not surprisingly, Americans responded negatively to the Stamp Act, arguing that they had contributed to their own defense during the late war by providing manpower, money and supplies to the British war effort. They argued that they already paid locally raised taxes, since each colony had its own assembly, which levied local taxes. Colonists in America felt that they discharged their obligations when they paid colonial taxes and resented being compelled to pay taxes levied by a Parliament in which they were not represented.
On 11 February 1765, Jared Ingersoll, an American reporter, recorded a speech in
Britain’s Parliament. At first what is interesting is the title of this article, A Colonist
reports on the Debate in Parliament on the Stamp Act. Secondly, and probably more important in this case, is that the speech was given by Irish born Colonel Isaac Barre of
42 “Wallace, Death and Rebirth among the Seneca,” Accessed 22 March 2006 from
<http://www.siu.edu/~anthro/adams/pages/310g/readings05/notes_02-08-
05.html>
43 Middleton, Colonial America, 450,
44 Ibid, 450.
45 Ibid, 453.

the British Army. Barre along with “most of the outstanding Irishmen of the eighteenth century, including Swift, Berkeley, Burke, Goldsmith, Grattan and Tone were Trinity
College graduates and the influence of the university is discernible in their writings and speeches.” 46 Barre, who had served in the America’s Battle of Quebec in September
1759, tells of his life in Ireland and his education at Trinity College. This was also relayed in a conversation with John Durkee (1728-1782) who met Barre while serving in a Connecticut regiment during the French and Indian War.
47 Barre defends the
American cause from Parliament’s distorted view of America’s allegiance in several paragraphs that deserve to be quoted in full:
After him Mr. Charles Townsend spoke in favour of the Bill --- took
Notice of several things Mr. Barre had said, and concluded with the following or like Words, "And now will these Americans, Children planted by our Care, nourished up by our Indulgence until they are grown to a Degree of Strength & Opulence, and protected by our Arms, will they grudge to contribute their mite to relieve us from the heavy weight of that burden which we lie under?
When he had done, Mr. [Isaac] Barre rose and having explained something which he had before said & which Mr. Townsend had been remarking upon, he then took up the beforementioned Concluding words of Mr. Townsend, and in a most spirited & I thought an almost inimitable manner, said:
They planted by your Care? No! your Oppressions planted ‘em in
America. They fled from your Tyranny to a then uncultivated and unhospitable Country---where they exposed themselves to almost all the hardships to which human Nature is liable, and among others to the
Cruel ties of a Savage foe, the most subtle and I take upon me to say the most formidable of any People upon the face of Gods Earth. And yet, actuated by Principles of true English Lyberty, they met all these hardships with pleasure, compared with those they suffered in their own
Country, from the hands of those who should have been their Friends.
They nourished up by your indulgence? they grew by your neglect of Em:
---as soon as you began to care about Em, that Care was Exercised in sending persons to rule over Em, in one Department and another, who were perhaps the Deputies of Deputies to some Member of this house---
46 “History of Trinity College,” Trinity Information. Accessed 24 March 2006 from
<http://www.tcd.ie/info/trinity/history/history2.php>
47 “History: Naming Wilkes-Barre,” Wilkes University. Accessed 24 March 2006 from <http://www.wilkes.edu/pages/140.asp>

sent to Spy out their Lyberty, to misrepresent their Actions & to prey upon Em; men whose behaviour on many Occasions has caused the
Blood of those Sons of Liberty to recoil within them; men promoted to the highest Seats of Justice, some, who to my knowledge were glad by going to a foreign Country to Escape being brought to the Bar of a Court of
Justice in their own.”
They protected by your Arms? they have nobly taken up Arms in your defence, have Exerted a Valour amidst their constant & Laborious industry for the defence of a Country, whose frontier, while drench'd in blood, its interior Parts have yielded all its little Savings to your
Emolument. And believe me, remember I this Day told you so, that same
Spirit of freedom which actuated that people at first, will accompany them still.---But prudence forbids me to explain myself further. God knows I do not at this Time speak from motives of party Heat, what I deliver are the genuine Sentiments of my heart; however superiour to me in general knowledge and Experience the reputable body of this house may be, yet I claim to know more of America than most of you, having seen and been conversant in that Country. The People I believe are as truly Loyal as any Subjects the King has, but a people Jealous of their
Lyberties and who will vindicate them, if ever they should be violated--but the Subject is too delicate & I will say no more.
These Sentiments were thrown out so intirely without premeditation, so forceably and so firmly, and the breaking off so beautifully abrupt, that the whole house sat awhile as Amazed, intently Looking and without answering a Word. I own I felt Emotions that I never felt before & went the next Morning & thank'd Col. Barre in behalf of my Country for his noble and spirited Speech. However, Sir after all that was said; upon a
Division of the house upon the Question, there was about 250 to about 50 in favour of the Bill. The truth is I believe some who inclined rather against the Bill voted for it, partly because they are lath to break the
Measures of the Ministry.” 48
Parliament had made past attempts to rein in these wayward colonists by passing the Currency Act of 1751. This was done partially to curtail production of colonial paper tender, which would create a deeper dependence on the British Pound or commodities. This was an attempt to stabilize the British economy from the inflationary practice of worthless colonial notes. Conversely, it further infuriated the colonies and
48 “A Colonist Reports on the Debate in Parliament on the Stamp Act (Issac
Barre’s Speech,” American History to 1865. Accessed 23 March 2006 from
<http://courses.pasleybrothers.com/texts/Barre.htm>

plunged both Britain and North America into a recession. The colonies response was to boycott British trade goods, thereby sending a clear message to Parliament’s elite.
England should have realized its obsolescence here. The colonies were reaching political maturity and without a threat on the Continent from other Imperial powers, the finished goods were superfluous.
In America, the result of the passing of the Stamp Act was the Stamp Act riots.
Throughout the colonies, names of tax distributors were published; and agents for the
Crown were burned in effigy, tarred and feathered or harassed, even before the act was to take effect. Pressure on the Stamp Act collectors was applied throughout the colonies, until they all resigned. Not since the Albany Congress had all thirteen colonies united behind a single purpose.
However, not all of British Parliament was bent on total domination of the
American colonies. In a 14 January 1766 speech, Britain’s elder statesman, William Pitt, asked for the repeal the Stamp Act:
Gentlemen, Sir, I have been charged with giving birth to sedition in
America. They have spoken their sentiments with freedom against this unhappy act, and that freedom has become their crime. Sorry I am to hear the liberty of speech in this house, imputed as a crime. No gentleman ought to be afraid to exercise it. It is a liberty by which the gentleman who calumniates it might have profited, by which he ought to have profited. He ought to have desisted from this project. The gentleman tells us, America is obstinate; America is almost in open rebellion. I rejoice that
America has resisted. Three million of people so dead to all feelings of liberty, as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest. I come not here armed at all points, with law cases and acts of parliament, with the statute book doubled down in dog's-ears, to defend the cause of liberty: if I had, I myself would have cited the two cases of Chester and Durham. I would have cited them, to have shown that even under former arbitrary reigns, parliaments were ashamed of taxing a people without their consent, and allowed them representatives. None of these thought, or ever dreamed, of robbing the Colonies of their constitutional rights. That was to mark the era of the late administration: not that there were wanting some, when I had the honour to serve his majesty, to propose to me to burn my fingers with an American stamp-act. With the enemy at their back, with our bayonets at their breasts, in the day of their distress, perhaps the
Americans would have submitted to the imposition: but it would have been taking an ungenerous and unjust advantage.” “The India Company, merchants, stock-holders, manufacturers. Surely many of these are represented in other capacities, as owners of land, or as freemen of boroughs. It is a misfortune that more are not equally represented: but they are all inhabitants, and as such, are they not virtually

represented?...When two countries are connected together, like England and her Colonies, without being incorporated, the one must necessarily govern; the greater must rule the less; but so rule it, as not to contradict the fundamental principles that are common to both. If the gentle- man does not understand the difference between external and internal taxes, I cannot help it; but there is a plain distinction between taxes levied for the purpose of raising revenue, and duties imposed for the regulation of trade, for the accommodation of the subject: although, in the consequences, some revenue might incidentally arise from the latter.
Pitt continues his analysis with these words:
The gentleman asks, when were the Colonies emancipated? But I desire to know, when were they made slaves…In such a cause, your success would be hazardous. America, if she fell, would fall like a strong man.
She would embrace the pillars of the state, and pull down the constitution along with her. Is this your boasted peace? Not to sheathe the sword in it scabbard, but to sheathe it in the bowels of your countrymen?...The
Americans have not acted in all things with prudence and temper. They have been wronged. They have been driven to madness by injustice. Will you punish them for the madness you have occasioned?
49
On 24 May 1764 Attorney James Otis coins the phrase “taxation without representation” 50 in response to the Sugar Act and it became the colony's battle cry, culminating in the Stamp Act Congress in October 1765. For the first time, the
“language of the liberty” 51 spoke across all classes. The common man could view his world in terms he could understand, as an equal, not as a second-class citizen who had no voice to regulate or implement his own taxation. Now all men could understand the rationale of liberty. “Charleston blacks also took up the cry of liberty.” “Clearly the common people - including some women and blacks - had been given a chance to influence events and were to do so again.” 52 However, for most African Americans within this struggle, the search for liberty and freedom became transitory. Clearly,
America was not an outpost in the wilderness. American colonists were weary of the
49 Garry Wiersema (ed.), “Pitt’s Speech on the Stamp Act,” From Revolution to
Reconstruction. Accessed 23 March 2006 from <http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/1751-
1775/stampact/sapitt.htm>
50 C. Douglas Sterner, “Timeline of Events Leading to the American Revolution,
1754-1770,” Accessed 23 March 2006 from
<http://www.homeofheroes.com/hallofheroes/1st_floor/birth/1bc6a.html>
51 Middleton, Colonial America, 454.
52 Ibid.

mother country’s greedy treatment of both her colonies and for that matter, other countries.
Americans saw the need for secret inter-colony organizations like the “The Sons of Liberty, The Mechanics and the Rustics,” which were created to perform covert patriotic acts and founded in November 1765 to oppose the Stamp Act. The term "Sons of Liberty" is coinage by Colonel Isaac Barre in his Stamp Act speech 53 and becomes a display of colonial loyalty. This phrase became the designation for those dedicated to the defense of civil liberties, but took on special meaning when a group led by John Lamb and Isaac Sears formed the Sons of Liberty in New York City. The idea of Sons of Liberty charters soon spreads throughout the colonies, mainly in the cities and represents a cross section of society; consisting mostly of tradesmen, laborers, and shopkeepers. Besides transmitting intelligence to other chapters, local members resisted implementation of the
Stamp Act by persuasion, pressure, or violence. In some places, notably New York and
Connecticut, the group also functioned as a paramilitary association. The organization disbanded after repeal of the Stamp Act in March 1766; thereafter Sons of Liberty became a generic term applied to persons or groups who supported the independence movement.
54 One of these chapters, the Sons of Liberty of Rhode Island, produces a member named Silas Downer, who clearly proves his worldliness. At a dedication of a
Tree of Liberty in 1766, Downer recited the following prayer:
We do therefore, in the name and behalf of all the true SONS of LIBERTY in America,
Great Britain, Corsica, Ireland or wheresoever they are dispersed throughout the world, dedicate and solemnly devote this tree to be a
TREE of LIBERTY.----May all our councils and deliberations under its venerable branches be guided by wisdome, and directed to the support and maintenance of that liberty, which our forefathers sought out and found under trees and and in the wilderness. ---May it long flourish, and may the SONS of LIBERTY often repair hither, to confirm and strengthen each other. --When they look towards the sacred ELM, may they be penetrated with a sense of duty to themselves, their country, and their posterity:--And may they, like the house of David, grow stronger and stronger,
53 Ibid.
54 Pauline Maier, From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the
Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765-1776 (New York: W.W. Norton,
1991); Richard Walsh, Charleston's Sons of Liberty: A Study of the Artisans, 1763-
1789. (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1959).

while their enemies, like the house of Saul, grow weaker and weaker. AMEN 55
The statement provides another example of America’s knowledge of the events in the world around them. In England, however, America’s reaction to the stamp act created a kind of cognitive dissonance the result of which was that British politicians at least feigned total surprise at America’s response. Grenville did not have to deal with the colonial problems that resulted from his financial policies because he was invited to resign by George III. Lord Rockingham, who was Grenville’s replacement, continued to avoid the situation due either to willfulness or to ignorance. He continued his aggressive behavior by passing “the Declaratory Act asserting its sovereignty over
America.” 56 The colonists no longer viewed this as a fiscal matter, but rather now as a constitutional one. As a result of American resistance, England was willing to acquiesce to the colonies despite its fiscal dilemma by revoking the Stamp Act and reducing the
Molasses tax to a penny. However, England still viewed its colonies as just that: colonies. By contrast, American had what Historian Richard Middleton called: “some common principles which they were determined to assert” and a “stronger sense of an identity that was different from British.” 57 Americans had tasted rebellion against authority and liked it.
In 1767, Parliament passed the Townsend Acts to help pay the expenses involved in governing the American colonies. This law instituted levies on glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea. In response to these new taxes, the colonies again decided to follow the policy of non-importation. This letter to Parliament from Massachusetts addresses the implementation of the Townsend Act imposed on the colonies:
The house beg leave to observe to your Lordship, that the monies that shall arise by the act for gratin to his Majesty certain duties [Townsend
Act] of Paper, Glass, and other articles passed in the last session of
Parliament, are to be applied, in the first place, for the payment of the necessary charges of the administration of justice, and the support of civil government in such colonies where it shall be judged necessary; and the residue for defending, protecting and securing the colonies. They entreat you Lordship’s consideration, what may be the consequence, in some future time, if the crown in addition on to its right of appointing governors over the colonies, which that House cheerfully recognize, should appoint them such stipends, as it shall judge fit, without the consent of the people and at their expense. And as the judges of the land
55 John Wilkes, “The Sons of Liberty: By a Son of Liberty of Virginia,” Accessed
23 March 2006 at
<http://gbppr.dyndns.org/PROJ/l0pht/tezcat/Historical/Son_of_Liberty.txt>
56 Johnson, A History of the American People, 134.
57 Middleton, Colonial America, 455.

here don not hold their commissions during good behavior your
Lordship will judge, whether it may not hereafter happen, that at so great a distance from the throne, the fountain of justice, for want of an adequate check, corrupt and arbitrary rule may take place.
58
The Boston merchants began by boycotting English goods and in retaliation; in response, the Massachusetts Assembly was dissolved (1768) for sending a circular letter to other colonies explaining the common plight. British troops sent to enforce these laws and keep the peace were involved in unpleasant incidents, most notably the Boston
Massacre.
Back in Britain, Thomas Hollis (1720-1774); a reform activist, a friend of Thomas
Paine; a founder of the Society for Constitutional Information; member, Westminster
Committee, Revolution Society in London, recognizes his responsibility and kinship.
59 In an excerpt from what is known as the “Hollis Book:” Hollis, a Londoner, sympathetic to the American cause, has reprinted letters of correspondence between the American colonies and the British Parliament into book form. His purpose was to show the British subjects their government’s treachery toward her colonies. In an excerpt from the letter to “Right Hon. The Marquis of Rockingham from [the] Province of the Massachusetts-Bay,
January 22 1768:”
It is humbly conceived, that all his Majesty’s subjects, in every part of his wide extended dominions, have a just and equitable claim to the rights of that constitution, upon which government is formed, and by which sovereignty and allegiance is ascertained and limited. Your Lordship will allow us to say, that it is and essential right of a British subject, ingrafted into the constitution, or if your Lordship will admit the expression, a sacred and unalienable natural right, quietly to enjoy and have the sole disposal of his own property.
60
Paramount here is what permeates the Hollis book, the philosophical teaching of
Locke and Berkeley towards natural rights. America did understand the scope of
Britain’s corporate and political deception. Moreover, America was willing to stand up for its sisters (extended dominions) and state that we all are English and deserve the rights, which were guaranteed to Englishmen everywhere in the British Constitution.
The effect of the boycott decreased British trade and in 1770 most of the Acts were repealed, but retention of the tea tax caused the Boston Tea Party. It was the realization that America would be forced either to go the way of all of the other colonies of Great
58 Hollis, The True Sentiments of America, 31.
59 “Biographical Appendix: 1786-90 Committee,” British History Online. Accessed
24 March 2006 from <http://www.britishhistory.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=38783>
60 Hollis, True Sentiments, 29.

Britain or rebel into revolution. The crux here is that Americans did have knowledge of the subjugation of her sister colonies and was cognitively able to assimilate this into their own situation of are we next? Slavery was interpreted as the initial commercial conquest, which is dedicated to the final financial strangle hold to all inhabitants regardless of social or commercial status. The colonies reacted to British callousness with their own media broadsides and pamphlets, which now start appearing throughout all of the colonies. Many are unsigned, because of the fear of British retribution. Yet, as is clear from this advertisement from Pennsylvania, it is apparent that the American colonies were completely aware of British atrocities in India and feared that it was only a matter of time before America would suffer her same fate.
To the Tradesmen,
Mechanics, &c. of the
Province of Pennsylvania
… Hereafter, if they succeed, they will send their own Factors and
Creatures, establish Houses amongst us. Ship us all other East-India goods; and in order to full freight their Ships, take in other kind of Goods at under Freight, or (more probably) ship them on their own Accounts to their own Factors, and undersell our Merchants, till they monopolize the whole Trade. Thus our Merchants are ruined, Ship Building ceases. They will then sell Goods at any exorbitant price. Our Artificers will be unemployed, and every Tradesman will groan under the dire
Oppression. The East India Company, if once they get Footing in this
(once) happy country, will leave no Stone unturned to become your
Masters. They are an opulent Body, and Money or Credit is not wanting amongst them. They have a designing, depraved, and despotic Ministry to assist and support them. They themselves are well versed In Tyranny,
Plunder, Oppression and Bloodshed. Whole Provinces labouring under the Distresses of Oppression, Slavery, Famine, and the Sword, are familiar to them. Thus they have enriched themselves, thus they are become the most powerful Trading Company in the Universe.
61
This broadside is addressed to “America’s Trade and Journeymen” because
Britain’s intent was to acquire raw materials from its colonies and control the manufacturing of finished goods in a closed market for British shops. This would be done by virtually taking away the livelihood of these journeymen and forcing them into destitution. America was not an outpost in the wilderness, and clearly the American colonists were well aware of the mother country’s greedy treatment of her colonies, as
61 Excerpts from a broadside signed “A Mechanic,” Philadelphia, December 4,
1773Library of Congress, Printed Ephemera Collection, Portfolio 143, Folder 34d:
See http://memory.loc.gov.

well as other countries. Further examples of this included a pamphlet that was circulated through the colonies in 1773, called “The Alarm” and signed by an enigmatic
“Rusticus.” (Attributed to renowned patriot John Dickinson.) 62 This one pamphlet made clear the feelings of colonial Americans about England’s largest transnational corporation and its behavior around the world:
Their Conduct in Asia, for some Years past, has given simple Proof, how little they regard the Laws of Nations, the Rights, Liberties, or Lives of
Men. They have levied War, excited Rebellions, dethroned lawful Princes, and sacrificed Millions for the Sake of Gain. The Revenues of Mighty
Kingdoms have entered their Coffers. And these not being sufficient to glut their Avarice, they have, by the most unparalleled Barbarities,
Extortions, and Monopolies, stripped the miserable Inhabitants of their
Property, and reduced whole Provinces to Indigence and Ruin. Fifteen hundred Thousands, it is said, perished by Famine in one Year, not because the Earth denied its Fruits; but [because] this Company and their
Servants engulfed all the Necessaries of Life, and set them at so high a
Rate that the poor could not purchase them. Thus having drained the sources of that immense Wealth…they now, it seems, cast their eyes on
America… But thank God, we are not Sea Poys, nor Marattas, But British
Subjects who are born to Liberty, who know its worth, and who prize it high.” 63
It is here that I introduce the last of the Trinity college alumni. Edmund Burke had become interested in India, not as the typical “Burkeian” crusader for the downtrodden colonies; but for the financial opportunities. Investing in the East India
Company had become the speculative craze of the late eighteenth century. In 1773, he and his brother became shareholders in the Company, and like many investors in the stock market, both of them lost money. Brother William did not gain as much financially as he had hoped for when he went to India. He writes to Edmund Burke that he was
“convinced that the Company was in the hands of corrupt men who oppressed India, ignored honest merit and failed to give a return to the state or to the shareholders.” 64
Following his experience losing money with the British East India Company,
Burke saw that all of British imperialism was premised on the same foolhardy economic policy. This led to Burke’s strident criticism of British rule overseas in North America,
India and Ireland. Burke started his crusade with the Two Letters to Gentlemen in Bristol
62 Charles J. Stillé, The Life and Times of John Dickinson. Volume II. (Philadelphia:
Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1891), 460.
63 Stillé, Life and Times of John Dickinson, 460.
64 Marjie Bloy, “The Age of George III,” A Web of English History. Accessed 24
March 2006 at <http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/terrace/adw03/ceight/india/india.htm>

on the Trade of Ireland. Burke wanted to see passage of legislation to restrain Ireland,
India and America’s right to export goods to Great Britain. He wanted the British government to stop burdening the people of those countries with oppressive policies and to allow them the freedom to earn their own way. Burke wanted what we would call “free trade zones.” He realized that Britain still had a monopoly on finished goods, which would keep all of Britain’s trades busy supplying three continents with work.
Burke argued that imperial rule abroad was not only bad for the (East) Indians, but inevitably must rebound to the detriment of Britain's own society and government as well. Bad government abroad may later become bad government at home:
If we are not able to contrive some method of governing India well which will not also of necessity become the means of governing Great Britain ill, a ground is laid for their eternal separation; but none for sacrificing that
Burke continued his diatribe in his discussion of British tax policies in America: country to our constitution.
65
Again and again, revert to your old principles - seek peace and ensure it - leave America if she has taxable matter in her, to tax herself…
Leave the Americans as they anciently stood, and these distinctions, born of our unhappy contest, will die along with it… Be content to bind America by laws of trade… Do not burden them by taxes; you were not used to do so from the beginning. Let this be your reason for not taxing. …Nobody will be argued into slavery… if they are bound in their property and industry by all the restraints you can imagine on commerce, and at the same time are made packhorses of every tax you choose to impose, without the least share in granting them. The
Englishman in America will feel that this is slavery; that it is legal slavery will be no compensation either to his feelings or his understanding.
66
Unfortunately, this prophetic statement would fall on deaf ears, particularly among
Burke’s own countrymen. In a further example of British savagery, during the war in
1774, British Provost Marshal William Cunningham requisitioned a shipload of
65 “Edmund Burke,” European Stability Initiative: Statebuilding. Accessed 23 March
2006 from <http://www.esiweb.org/index.php?lang=en&id=71>
66 Edmund Burke, “Speech of Edmund Burke, esq., on American Taxation,” in
Frank Canavan, (ed.), Select Works of Edmund Burke: A New Imprint of the Payne
Edition Vol. I (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1999), 158-160. Also accessed online 23
March 2006 at
<http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/HTMLs/0005-
01_Pt03_Speech1.html#hd_lf005v1_head_015>

indentured servants whom he had kidnapped in Ireland. However, things were turned around on Cunningham, for while he was auctioning off his servants, the Sons of
Liberty freed the Irishmen and dragged Cunningham face down across the cobblestones to the base of the liberty pole.
67
Similarly, in a writing entitlement but more dangerous because it continues the change philosophical to corporal, are the memoirs of George R. T. Hewes. Hewes’s
Retrospect of the Boston Tea Party tells the story of his survival as one of the little band of patriots who drowned the tea in Boston Harbor in 1773. Hewes unmistakably understood that “the more we delay, the more strength is acquired” by the company and its puppets in the government. “Now is the time to prove our courage,” he said.
Soon, the moment came when the crowd decided for direct action and rushed into the streets. Hewes notes that “the [East India] Company received permission to transport tea, free of all duty, from Great Britain to America” which allowed it to wipe out New
England–based tea traders and wholesalers, and take over the tea business in all of
America. “Hence,” he told his biographer, “it was no longer the small vessels of private merchants, who went to vend tea for their own account in the ports of the colonies, but, on the contrary, ships of an enormous burthen, that transported immense quantities of this commodity ... the colonies were now arrived at the decisive moment when they must cast the dye, and determine their course.” 68
As Thom Hartmann explains it, the policies of the East India Company were on Hewes’ mind during the raid:
And so, Hewes says, “on a cold November evening of 1773, the first of the East India Company’s ships of tax-free tea arrived. The next morning, a pamphlet was widely circulated calling on patriots to meet at Faneuil
Hall to discuss resistance to the East India Company and its tea. Things thus appeared to be hastening to a disastrous issue. The people of the country arrived in great numbers, the inhabitants of the town assembled.
This assembly, on the 16th of December 1773, was the most numerous ever known, there being more than 2000 from the country present,” “The group called for a vote on whether to oppose the landing of the tea. The vote was unanimously affirmative, and it is related by one historian of that scene “that a person disguised after the manner of the Indians, who was in the gallery, shouted at this juncture, the cry of war; and that the meeting dissolved in the twinkling of an eye, and the multitude rushed in a mass to Griffin’s wharf.” 69
67 Paul J. Rastatter, “'Rebel' Prisoners Detained in North America,” Accessed 23
March 2006 from <http://earlyamerica.com/review/2002_summer_fall/pows.htm>
68 Thom Hartmann, “American Rebellions,” Yes! Magazine (Winter 2003).
Accessed 23 March 2006 at <http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=555>
69 Ibid.

That night, Hewes dressed as an Indian, blackened his face with coal dust, and joined crowds of other men in hacking apart the chests of tea and throwing them into the harbor. In all, the 342 chests of tea over 90,000 pounds thrown overboard that night were enough to make 24 million cups of tea and were valued by the East India Company at 9,659 Pounds Sterling or, in today’s currency, just over $1 million.
70
In response, the British Parliament passed the Boston Port Act, which stated that the Port of Boston would be closed until the citizens of Boston reimbursed the East India
Company for the tea they had destroyed. The colonists continued to refuse and a year and a half later would again state their defiance of the East India Company and Great
Britain by taking on British troops in an armed conflict at Lexington and Concord (the shot heard ’round the world) on 19 April 1775.
By the time the rebellion was a full fledged war, the British were still debating the philosophical justification for America’s financial contribution to Britain’s Empire.
Here is an excerpt from noted British economist Adam Smith. In The Wealth of Nations:
Of Colonies 1776, Smith argues:
It is not contrary to justice that America should contribute towards the discharge of the public debt of Great Britain a government to which several of the Colonies of America owe their present charters, and consequently their present constitution; and to which all the Colonies of
America owe the liberty, security, and property which they have ever since enjoyed. That public debt has been contracted in the defense, not of
Great Britain alone, but of all the different provinces of the empire; the immense debt contracted in the late war in particular, and a great part of that contracted in the war before, were both properly contracted in defense of America.
71
American colonists increasingly saw themselves and the natives of India as fellow victims of British exploitation. In 1777, a member of Congress remarking on the latest news from India, declared:
It is reported that the East Indians have risen upon their oppressors, and taken Madras. This is good news. It seems as if the time [is] coming when
Great Britain is to be called upon to make severe retribution for her
70 Ibid.
71 Garry Wiersema (ed.), “Adam Smith: The Wealth of Nations: Of Colonies,”
From Revolution to Reconstruction. Accessed 23 March 2006 from
<http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/1776-1800/adamsmith/wealth01.htm>

infamous destruction of the human species in India. Let us be wise and virtuous from her example that we may avoid her fate.
72
As the revolution raged in America’s homeland, the old world saw their chance to capitalize on Britain’s misfortune. In 1780, Britain struck the Netherlands in a preemptive strike against the Dutch-American relationship and trade. At the Mediterranean island of Minorca, Spanish and French forces defeated British forces and captured the island on 5 February 1782. In India, British and French rivalries spill over in the form of the Second Anglo-Mysore War. Here the Tipu Sutlan, ruler of Mysore and a French ally, resulted in a bloody but inconclusive stalemate. The war ended with the Treaty of
Mangalore in 1784.
73
In India, as in Britain, there were few to stand up and protest the failings of the mother country. One individual that did was English born: James A. Hicky. Hicky printed a newspaper called the Bengal Gazette, which was also called the Calcutta General
Advertiser during the 1780’s. Hicky was critical of Britain’s policies and personality by using transparent pseudonyms to expose their misdeeds. Hicky is critical of Lords Clive and Hastings and as you would expect, his paper is shut down and Hicky is jailed.
However, he writes in his defense:
Before he will bow, cringe, or fawn to any of his oppressors...he would compose ballads and sell them through the streets of Calcutta as Homer did. He has now but three things lose: his honour in the support of his paper, his liberty, and his life; the two latter he will hazard in defence of the former, for he is determined to make it a scourge of all schemers and leading tyrants; should these illegally deprive him of his liberty and confine him in a jail, he is determined to print there with every becoming spirit suited to his care and the deserts of his oppressors... Shall I tamely submit to the yoke of slavery and wanton oppression? No!
74
Clearly, the concern here was that American colonists saw how the corruption of
India, through the rule of Lords Clive and Hastings, had subjugated its population at first through economic control, then through individual greed of British representatives.
72 M.V. Kamath, The United States and India, 1776-1976 (Washington, D.C.:
Embassy of India, 1976), 24.
73 “The American Revolutionary War,” Reference.com Encyclopedia. Accessed 23
March 2006 from
<http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War>
74 M.J. Akbar, “Nothing New about Page Three: Since the days of the first Indian newspaper and Hicky's Bengal Gazette, journalism in India hasn't changed much,” The Daily Star (30 January 2005). Accessed 23 March 2006 from
<http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=20179>

The distance from Great Britain, allow these representative to have a free rein, even to the extent of repealing the justice system. American’s fears were precisely the same.
Without direct British Parliament representation by America, who could stop British follies of economic and political aggression, three thousand miles away from the homeland.
Massachusetts sent copies of their letters and requests for the British government to recognize existing charters, which had been signed by the King, to Virginia’s House of
Burgesses to their agent Dennis De Berdt, Esq. for the purpose of unifying the American colonies and to “prevent any misrepresentation of it by England.” 75 Within the letter it is clear of America’s fear that its wealth will be eaten up like just another commodity for
Great Britain:
It is observable, that though many have disregarded life and contemned liberty, yet there are few men who do not agree that property is a valuable acquisition, which ought to be held as sacred. Many have fought, and bled, and died for this, who have been insensible to all other obligations. Those who ridicule the ideas of right and justice, faith and truth among men, will put a high value upon money: Property is admitted to have an existence even in the savage state of nature: The bow, the arrow, and the tomahawk; the hunting and the fishing ground, are species of property as important to an American savage as pearls, rubies and diamonds are to the Mogul or a Nabob in the East, or the lands, tenements, hereditaments, messuages, gold and silver of the Europeans.
And if property is necessary for the support of savage life, it is by no means less so in civil society. The utopian schemes of leveling, and a community of goods, are as visionary and impracticalbe, as those which vest all property in the crown, are arbitrary despotic, and in our government unconstitutional. Now, what property can the colonist be conceived to have, if their money may be granted away by others without their consent?
76
In conclusion, at least some of the American colonies were truly concerned about what was going on in the other British colonies. Clearly for some, the concern represented the constitutional rights of all men, in every dominion. It was also clear that information from Anglo-Irish patriots, India’s revolt and famine, overseas voyages, and newspapers from Calcutta to Salem, all communicated Britain’s transgressions. Men like
Berkeley, Barre, Pitt and Burke saw this as ultimately becoming the degradation of
Britain itself. If the Irish, Indian and American colonies could be enslaved, are British subjects next? Their fear concerned the East India Company’s lack of responsibility for
75 Thomas Hollis (ed.), The True Sentiments of America, (London: I. Almon, 1768),
49.
76 Ibid., 63.

human rights by enslaving man, both physically and economically, the acquisition of cultural treasures of the colonies indigenous people by a corporation, and its irresponsible management causing death and famine, while their only goal was to show a profit. Furthermore, the letter to the Virginia Burgesses was framed in the format of a statement of property and land. This was done for several reasons; first, both the New
England and Virginia colonies were established for the purpose of colonization and the individual’s search for land, which was no longer available in Europe. Second, the
Virginia colony property owners owned larger tracts of land per farm then in New
England because of the need to grow the soil depleting crops like tobacco and cotton.
Thirdly, and probably more importantly, the Virginia colonies considered their slaves as property. These slaves represented a majority of their overall wealth. If the East India
Company had their way, the individual farm owners would have joined their field hands, as just one of the crew. Thomas Paine echoed the sentiments of the time:
Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to Tax) but “to Bind us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER” and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth.
77
In the end, it was a management decision that freed America from Britain.
Britain saw America as a financial drain that was unlikely to produce profit for the home country in the future. It also saw America’s inhabitants as having irreconcilable philosophical differences from the mother country. Britain herself—financially encumbered after being defeated—decided to cut her loses and focuses on India. Let us close with the words of Samuel Adams:
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands, which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.
78
77 Thomas Paine, The American Crisis: Anthology of American Literature, Colonial
through Romantic (New York: Macmillan, 1974), 450.
78 Samuel Adams, “American Independence,” in David J. Brewer (ed.), The
World’s Best Orations (St. Louis: Ferdinand P. Kaiser, 1899), 93-109.