The Parliamentary Bully

From about 1770, English policy toward the Thirteen Colonies was puzzling. Given that they were the wealthiest of all of England’s possessions, one of England’s largest trading partners – raw materials and food went to England in return for manufactured goods. The relationship between the Mother Country and the Thirteen Colonies was an excellent example of the British Mercantile system.

For the record, while the British colonies in the Caribbean generated wealth from sugar, rum, molasses, cocoa, and coffee, most farms were owned by absentee landlords in England. Tea plantations in India were either owned by the British East India Company or by absentee owners counting their pounds in London. Thus, the wealth was in England, not in Jamaica, St. Kitts, Madras (now Chennai), or Bombay (now Mumbai).

The Thirteen Colonies had a vital resource that England and its Royal Navy and Royal Merchant fleet needed, and that was hard species of oak. England’s hardwood forests were being denuded, and it was buying lumber from Sweden and Russia, which was both expensive and of lower quality than that found in the hardwood forests east of the Appalachians.

By the time the American Revolution began, 30 percent of His Majesty King George III’s merchant fleet was built in the Thirteen Colonies and owned by its residents. This percentage was rising, spurred by a healthy, growing economy.

The Royal Navy was considering building frigates in U.S. shipyards because they could be built faster, cheaper, and of better quality than what could be done in England. Plus, the yards were far from French naval bases.

Americans – both Patriots and Loyalists – were an educated lot. Literacy in the Thirteen Colonies was much higher than in England. In the colonies, 85 – 95% of the men and ~50% of the women were considered literate versus England’s ~50% for men and 40% for women. Literacy was defined at the time as being able to read, write, and do sums, i.e., add, subtract, and maybe basic multiplication.

Rather than take stock in why the Patriots were rebelling, Lord North and his allies in Parliament decided that they needed to spank their rebellious citizens. First to be signed into law was the New England Trade and Fisheries Act of 1775. In it, Parliament rescinded the right of New Englanders to fish off Newfoundland, and it forbade anyone in the Thirteen Colonies from buying from or selling to any customer in North America, the Caribbean, England, or Ireland.

This act was akin to throwing gasoline on a fire. Already, the Patriots were in open rebellion even though war had not yet broken out. The New England Trade and Fisheries Act also cut off British merchants from their most lucrative market.

After the Battle of Lexington and Concord, England is now at war with the Thirteen Colonies. Only about 50% of the population favored rebellion, about 15% were Loyalists, and the balance didn’t want to be involved.

Lord North’s government was at a crossroads. It could either try to address the grievances that would soon be laid out in the Declaration of Independence, or he could double down on his punitive policies. North chose the latter, and out came the Prohibitory Act of 1775, which was a de facto declaration of war and authorized Parliament to issue letters of marque, hire mercenaries, and directed the Royal Navy to blockade the Thirteen Colonies’ ports.

The rest is history and a lesson politicians all over the world need to learn.

1774 Cartoon depicting British Leaders forcing tea down the throat of an American Woman.