A.       The Mercantile System

The economic setting for the coming of the revolution was shaped by the economic theory called mercantilism.  Mercantilism would be sharply criticized by Adam Smith, in his Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations in 1776, but from 1650 until near the end of the 18^th century, mercantilism reigned supreme in Britain, and it became the foundation for organizing Great Britain’s colonial empire.

A.       Based on the idea of reciprocal needs and benefits. Colonies would supply the raw materials, and the Mother Country would produce the finished goods, which the  colonies would buy, along with consumers in the British Isles.  The idea was that production and consumption, as much as possible, would remain within the British Empire.  This would keep the English and their colonies from spending hard dollars with foreign nations.  In facts, England expected to sell lots of goods to other nations, thus increasing its favorable balance of trade, which meant more gold flowing into the hands of Englishmen so both the colonies and the mother country should prosper under mercantilism.

A.       Although mercantilism was thought up to benefit primarily the mother country, and the colonies were seen as producing raw materials and consuming finished goods produced by the mother country, the mercantile system, in practice, benefited the American colonies tremendously.  It gave them a monopoly in the production of certain goods like tobacco, rice, indigo and brought subsidizes to some products like indigo and naval stores. 

A.       The colonies would complain about British regulations, especially the limitations  Britain imposed on the production of hats and finished iron products in the colonies and the custom duties on certain foreign goods imported, the imperial system based on mercantilism was very beneficial for the colonies as well as the Mother Country.

A.       However, on the eve of the American Revolution, mercantilism came in for lots of criticism, from Americans and their British allies, like Edmund Burke, eloquent member of parliament, who claimed the colonies had been neglected by Britain and treated like step children.

A.       The origins of the mercantile laws go way back, but especially to the time of the Protectorate (1650-1658), under Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector, whose Puritan/Parliamentary armies defeated those of Charles II in 1647.  Despite the English civil war, England merchant fleet was challenging the Dutch for the European carrying trade, bringing goods from one part of Europe to another and from the Americas to Europe. 

A.       The Dutch were ensconced in the America—in parts of Brazil, on several Caribbean Island, and on the North American Continent, in New Netherland, located between the Connecticut River in the north and Delaware Bay in the South, smack in between New England and the Chesapeake colonies of Britain.

A.   The Dutch were  heavily engaged in carrying tobacco from VA and MY.  In 1651, parliament excluded nearly all foreign shipping from England and colonial ports.  Goods imported to England or the colonies had to be carried on British ships, whose crews were composed of a majority of English subjects (that included colonials).

A.   This mercantile law was followed by others after the Stuart Restoration.  The Navigation Act of 1660 made the requirement that the English ships importing goods had to have crews ¾ of whom were English and listed or enumerated certain colonial goods that had to be shipped directly to England or another colony, not to Europe.  The Navigation Act of 1673 tightened up this enumerated policy, forcing ship captains to post bonds that they were indeed taking cargoes to other colonies or directly to England.

A.   Charles II (1660-1685) tried to enforce the Navigation Acts by increasing the number of imperial custom agents in colonial American ports, and giving considerable administrative authority over the colonies to the Lords of Trade and Plantation.  Still difficult to enforce, and the opposition of Mass Bay to British trade regulations was one of the primary reason its charter was revoked in 1684, and the imposition of the Dominion of England in 1685.

A.   Following the Glorious Revolution, King William and Queen Mary continued efforts to centralized colonial governance, which, remember, had gotten very loose during the years of the English Civil War and its aftermath (1640-1660). 

A.   William got parliament to enact the Navigation Act of 1696, which affirmed the earlier trade laws and tried to tighten up enforcement.  He also created the Board of Trade, replacing the Lords of Trade, which was given more oversight over both politics and trade in the colonies.  Governors were vented and appointed through the Board, and the governors wererequired to swear an oath to enforce the navigation laws; custom officials were given powers to issue writs of assistance, as general search warrants were called. 

A.   The Board of Trade, often acting on behalf of the King’s Privy Council, intervened to fix boundaries between colonies and pushed the production of naval stores and indigo, and to restrict colonial production of goods that might compete with Britain:  Woolen Act (1699), prohibited the export of raw wool, woolen yarn, and cloth; the Hat Act (1732) forbade the export of beaver hats out of the province in which they were made; the Iron Act (1750) curtailed iron manufacture, and the Currency Act (1751) which restricted, strongly, the circulation of paper money in the colonies. 

A.   Remember the goal of mercantilism was to make the British Empire as economically self-sufficient as possible and this depended upon tightening up and centralizing political control as well.  The latter did not happen, with the demise of the Dominion of New England and the rise of the assemblies after 1700. 

A.   In fact, the era of Robert Walpole, the first great British Prime Minister, from 1722 to 1740s, was accompanied by commercial expansion and loose enforcement of the navigation acts.  Indeed, although political oversight remained something the Board of Trade took seriously, Walpole urged colonial governors not to be too rigid in their enforcement of the trade laws.  “Let sleeping dogs lie,” was his watchword.  His imperial policy toward the colonies has been expressed in the terms Salutary Neglect.  Of the 8, 563 colonial laws examined by the Board of Trade, acting pretty much as an appeals court, only 469—about five percent—were deemed inconsistent with the laws of England.

A.   England defeats France and gains Canada and all lands east of the MS, with the exception of New Orleans, which is part of the lands west of the MS that France ceded to its ally Spain. 

A.   Now, the colonies had nothing to fear from the French and the Indians, more or less.  Americans are very self-confident, and never more sure of themselves and proud of being Englishmen than after the F&I war.  Even though the French and Indian War was followed by a depression in Britain and America (as was common with the adjustment of the economy to the end of war), the British provinces in America were one of the most prosperous places on earth.  People in American were generally more prosperous as a group than people generally were in England, though American did not have the larger very wealthy class.  Life is good.

A.   The prosperity of the 18^th century gave the stability necessary for the colonial Americans to build strong local governments.  The “salutary neglect era,” roughly from 1720 to 1763, meant that the British colonists in American had a goodly measure of self-government.  “Americans essentially governed themselves within a loose imperial framework,” sums it up pretty well.

A.   Colonial governments based on British models.  Idea of balance, not separated powers and checks embodied in the 1787 Constitution, but a balance among the different elements of society.  You see, in England, the king and the two houses of Parliament represented different strata of society but shared the tasks of governing.  The Monarch still had great authority, and the division among the executive, legislative, and judicial functions remained blurred.  It was similar in the colonies.

A.   The governor was appointed either by the king in the royal colonies or the proprietor in the proprietary colonies or elected by the people in Conn and RI (compact colonies).  The colonial council was appointed, either by the king (royal colonies) or the proprietors or the assemblies in Conn & RI. 

A.   Along with the elected assemblies, the governors and councils did the business of government.  However, as in England, with the king, Lords, and Commons, there was considerable overlap of powers.  Governor sat with the Council and shared in legislative work; as was the case with the House of Lords, the provincial council often served as the colony’s high court; and the assemblymen frequently served as judges, magistrates in the villages or justices of the peace in the county.

A.   The assemblies began to take on the privileges and prerogatives of Parliament.  They chose their officers, sat without the governor present and initiated legislation.  They got freedom of speech, immunity from arrest and power over their proceedings.  They got control of taxation and finance, and could use against the governor. 

A.   Theoretically, and on paper, the royal governors were very powerful, with more authority than even the king in England.  They could call and dismiss assemblies, veto legislation, control spending, enforce the law, make appointments, head of the army and navy in their province, and in Anglican colonies special responsibility for the Church.  But in practice, governors had to depend upon the assemblies, if they were going to get paid.   This power of the purse is decisive. 

A.   Governors, however, were not helpless, and royal governors could usually hold their own with the assembly, often with the collusion of the council, whose membership the governor controlled, more or less.