Lord North Quotes
… banned all trade and intercourse with the … colonies … during the continuance of the present rebellion.
2nd Earl of Guilford. This bill cut off all trade with the American Colonies. It was meant as pressure to cease the rebellion. It did not work.
Frederick North, 1732–1792, Lord North, Prime Minister of Great Britain, Introduction of the Capture Act in Parliament, November 20, 1775
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Note that Britain was blockading Boston in the middle of 1775, some time before the outbreak of battles in Concord and Lexington in 1776. What Gates did not tell Lord Dartmouth, and maybe did not know himself, was that the skilled Massachusetts sailors smuggled a great deal through the blockade in small boats at night landing in the many inlets and coves in the Boston area. Also, do not think of Boston in 1775 as today. At that time most people had, in the city, their own farms and gardens and grew much of their own food. The Boston Commons was a common area for grazing sheep. So the British Blockade of Boston was not very effective.
The crackdown on Boston which was intended to set an example and intimidate all of the other colonies backfired, and the British were told about it by their own officials in America. But they were so rigid and ideological about monarchy, that the stimulated rebellion rather than suppress them.
Wilkes was a strong advocate for the American cause—so much so that some in Parliament tried to deny him his seat in Parliament for his disloyal point of view.
We are so used to hearing the freedom seeking reasons for the American Revolution that we overlook the more selfish and venal motives. This quotation shows that the large merchants of the colonies had banded together in an illegal conspiracy trust and monopoly and managed to keep many British competitive products out of the colonies. The British, for equally venal reasons, began to enforce the laws in favor of free trade. Many large American merchants were getting huge profits (and American consumers paying more) from their protectionist illegal monopoly. A Revolution would de facto assure that monopoly for many years to come, so they became supporters—patriots—of the American Revolution. As the Revolution drew closer, the Americans made efforts to protect the protectionism and monopoly of some of the richest Americans. See {636861}.
While the official battles of the American Revolution did not begin until 1776, parts of the American colonies were in a de facto state of rebellion and the British could not enforce their laws. See {636925} for another of the King’s statements.
This agreement was not a law as an English colony like South Carolina could not pass a law that prohibited buying English merchandise. It was unofficial and great pressure was put on any citizen who would not sign it. The merchants that did import goods other than those allowed in the agreement were boycotted by most of the signers. This quotation illustrates what may have been the first organized protectionist actions to assist domestic producers and manufacturers. It is valuable for another reason. The quotation lists goods that are exempted from the boycott. These were goods that were not made in South Carolina or nearby states at the time since if they were, they would have been protected, So we can learn what was manufactured in the colony or nearby at the time—that which is nit on the list but was important to colonial life. The list tells us what was not manufactured locally, and one of the most important were firearms and ammunition. The inability to manufacture armaments plagued the colonies and early America after the revolution. One of the major public expenditures was to create and subsidize domestic arms manufacture.
There was, well before the American Revolution, a restriction on the importation of British goods into the American colonies. Partially this was to pressure Parliament to stop some of its most repressive lawmaking. But it also supported what had become a very lucrative protectionist monopoly of large American merchants. See {636861}.
The British had closed Boston Harbor until the English merchants who lost their goods at the Boston Tea Party were paid for their damages. A convention was called to discuss a response to the closing of Boston Harbor and New York City convened a public meeting to come up with instructions for their delegates to the conference. One amazing thing was that they advocated a boycott of English goods. What was amazing was that there was no nation and New York and Massachusetts were separate entities and sectionalism was rife, yet New Yorkers were willing to sacrifice to help Bostonians. The New York sacrifice was all the greater because most of the imports from England landed at New York harbor where there was work created for New Yorkers and business for New York companies. New York stood to lose the most with a boycott. Philadelphia which also advocated a boycott, lost little as they were not a harbor for imports. New Yorkers also provided assistance to their competitors, the Bostonians who were out of work. See {589413}.
Americans were by no means united in wanting to take up arms against Britain. Relatively few of the loyalist quotations have come down to us, but here is one. It also illustrates why some Americans wanted complete independence: So that they could escape their debts to English merchants. Most however had more noble and unselfish motives. As a matter of fact, the American Revolution is unusual in the sense that there were so many men of substance who sacrificed much of their material wealth for the American ideal. There were also the rogues and opportunists as Galloway describes.
The French were carefully watching the events in the American Colonies.
Several years before the Battle of Bunker Hill, revolutionary activity had already broken out in the American colonies—See {634132} for an example. This law gave the British authorities much more “clout” in dealing with the “seditious” American activities. It protected English law enforcement officials from being tried in local Colonial courts for murder or assault in putting down insurrections. George Washington and other Patriots were outraged over this law. See {634131}.
This was written more than a year before the “blows” began. It took time to ship the men and supplies to America and the British did not handle that task with much efficiency.
Fox was one of the opposition leaders who were opposed to the heavy handed policies that the British King and Government had used.
The fear of civil war amongst the colonies if they were free from Britain was substantial.
The treaty ending the Revolutionary war guaranteed that the English bankers and merchants who had debts going back to before the American Revo
lution would have “no impediment” in collecting their debts in America. However, Rhode Island and Virginia in particular placed many impediments and made it virtually impossible for debts to be collected in their states. The John Jay led Supreme Court, in particular, overturned state actions on the grounds that they had implemented Patrick Henry’s sentiment and hence violated the treaty.
Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford KG, PC, better known by his courtesy title Lord North, which he used from 1752 to 1790, was Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1770 to 1782. He led Great Britain through most of the American War of Independence. He also held a number of other cabinet posts, including Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer.
