Hydrarchy, Colonists and Revolution in the British Atlantic

World

A Thesis

Presented to

The Faculty of the Graduate School

of Millersville University of Pennsylvania

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

of Master of Arts

History

2

By Michael C. McCloskey

November 15, 2013

This Thesis for the Master of History Degree by

Michael C. McCloskey

has been approved on behalf of the

Graduate School by

Thesis Committee:

Research Advisor

3

Committee Member

Committee Member

Date

Table of Contents

Timeline—page 4

Introduction—page 6

Section I—England and Mercantilism

England and Mercantilism—page 8

The Navigation Acts—page 15

Section II—Bermuda and New England: Two Children of the Same

Mother

Bermuda—page 23

New England—page 27

Section III

4

The Role of Smuggling—36

Examples of Competition and Conflict—page 41 Revolutionary Implications—page 53

Conclusion: Evolution of an American Identity—page 59

Section IV

Bibliography—page 61

Original Sources—page 61

Secondary Sources—page 63

End Notes—67

Timeline

1584 Hakluyt writes Discourse Concerning Western Planting

1609 Wreck of the Sea Venture in Bermuda

1610 Sir George Somers dies in Bermuda in November

1615 King James I charters the Somers Islands Company, entity

from the Virginia Company

1641 Massachusetts General Court appoints September 2, as public

day of Thanksgiving

5

1648 John Cotton publishes Way of Congregational Churches Cleared

1651 Oliver Cromwell establishes the Navigation Acts

1660 Charles II returns to England to reestablish the royal

family and nullifies the parliamentary Navigation Acts and

creates his own.

1663 Charles II strengthens Navigation Acts / The second

Navigation Act

1673 Charles II strengthens Navigation Acts

1681 King Charles II issues the charter on 4th of March for the

founding of the colony of Pennsylvania

1682 Dissolution of Somers Islands Company

1686 Establishment of Governor Andros as the Governor of

the Dominion of New England

1688 Samuel Sewell of Massachusetts is sent on a diplomatic

mission to meet with Increase Mather in England, in an

attempt to reclaim their charter and manner of governance.

1696 William III strengthens Navigation Acts

6

1696 Creation of the Board of Trade

1700 Benjamin Bennett appointed Lieutenant Governor of Bermuda

1702 Death of King William

1702 War of Spanish Succession in Europe begins.

1713 War of Spanish Succession in Europe ends.

1733 The Molasses Act

1774 Petition of the Grand Continental Congress to the King

1774 Bermuda receives warning from the first Continental

Congress in July

1774 “Black Powder Affair” in Bermuda August 14

1775 The Act of Exclusion

1775 The Prohibitory Act

1776 Adam Smith writes Wealth of Nations

1776 Anglo-American Revolution

7

Introduction

Hydrarchy was a term coined by Richard Braithwaite, an upper

class-gentleman of the English Revolution, to describe the

English ruling elite. But it was brought back into the lexicon of

terms more recently by Peter Linebaugh and Markus Rediker in

their work, Many Headed Hydra (2000).1 The Hydrarchy as defined by

Richard Braithwaite consisted of the oligarchy of the British

Atlantic Colonial System. Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker use

the simplified definition of a “maritime state” as a

confederation of independent entities: a ship itself could fit

this description and its crew who “self organized from below”,

became the labor on the new water-borne factories. 2 This

approach ‘from below’ included the everyday mariner and small

merchant.

8

When approached ‘from above,’ the Hydrarchy is easily

described as the maritime trading elite, the maritime oligarchy

of the Atlantic World. These were the joint stock companies, the

governors, the merchant elites, and ultimately the seat of power

in Parliament and the King. This is the definition of Hydrarchy

used within the essay. How is it that the oligarchy of the

Atlantic World, called the Hydrarchy, came to compete against the

colonists, driving a wedge between the two which led to conflict,

and an eventual revolution? This question is what this paper will

address, essentially discussing how the competition and conflict

inherent in the Hydrarchy’s relations with the colonies led to

the development of an economic American identity.

The Hydrarchy’s methods of transportation and communication

were the Atlantic Ocean itself; these were also the means by

which their power was established and elevated. States had a hand

in all of them, and without their support the ventures assembled

could not have existed.3 Too much was needed and too much was at

stake; it was now a matter of national security. If the power

9

objective among nations in the sixteenth and seventeenth century

was to expand their wealth and power through mercantilism, then

they had to acquire colonies.

This paper will be divided into three sections discussing

this Hydrarchy and its competitive relations with colonial

elites. Section one will deal with Great Britain and the

mercantilist system itself. These two entities combined and

guided the Hydrarchy in their decision making. Section two looks

at the colonial system, focusing on the settlements of Bermuda

and New England. The ruling elites as power brokers are addressed

here. In the third section, the paper addresses the competition

and conflict of imperial and colonial elites. All of these events

contributed to the formation of an American identity over the

course of time and, for British continental America, led

ultimately to revolution.

10

Section I

Great Britain and Mercantilism

In the English world of the seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries, the method used to achieve expansion of wealth was

colonialism, the act of creating a colony in a foreign land for

the benefit of the mother country. John McCusker and Russell

Menard call their theory of colonialism the “Staples Thesis.” It

explains the movement of labor and capital from the metropolis to

the colony. The reasons for this were the high demand of

resources in the metropolis, and the availability of resources in

the colony. The demand created a cost for the resource that

11

outweighed the risks of acquiring it, leading to the shift of

labor to the colony. These satellite colonies to the mother

country would provide raw materials and labor to be processed and

refined, ultimately to be sold back to the colonies or other

locations at as great a profit as possible.4

This complete circle of captive commerce was only one of the

methods employed in an economic philosophy better known as

mercantilism. In this manner, the accumulation of specie was

increased as much as possible, and a captive market for finished

products could be relied upon instead of counting on foreign

trade, which was always subject to disruption by wars and

protectionist tariffs. This created a positive balance of trade

where incoming specie exceeded the value of exports.5 The

driving force behind all of this, in regards to the English

aspect of the Atlantic World, was generally based in London, in a

body known as the Board of Trade and Plantations. This was the

governmental body which regulated the colonies and the joint

stock companies that ventured out, and hoped to gain a profit

12

from their efforts. In time they created something more lasting

than profits; unwittingly, they created the cultural foundations

of a new nation.

The historian Bernard Bailyn argued that the Atlantic World

was a system, and while many others have focused on the

individual parts, he saw a greater scope to those parts.

Regarding mercantilism and British colonialism, he saw the

tradition of dissent as inherent to the colonies, in that the

colonial Houses of Assembly were constantly at odds with the

royal governors. Bailyn masterfully explained this in his Origins

of American Politics (1967). Here he stated that “there was strife,

first of all, between the branches of government—between the

executives on one hand and the legislatives on the other…on

occasions to a total paralysis of government.”6 His school of

thought could be seen as having a top-down approach to the

dissent. Bailyn’s argument was that there was a conflict within

the Hydrarchy from above.

13

Marcus Rediker saw the key to the development of the

Atlantic World as class struggle. From the lowest slave, to the

sailors on the ships, all the way to the stockholders in London,

it was a contest of classes. Rediker conceived the very concept

of freedom and liberty as being developed on the waves and

planted in port cities along the coast of the Americas. 7 At this

juncture, the common people of the Americas were being influenced

by sailors’ ideas and concepts of equality and liberty. The cry

for political liberty, on reaching Boston harbor, reached a

population that had already fought trade wars against the Dutch

and Native Americans.8 They had ideological conflicts among

themselves, and they had originally left England to find a place

where they could worship in a manner that was free from

persecution. Theirs was a religion unsanctioned, and in

dissention from what the Church of England prescribed for the

faithful within that nation. Even though these settlers saw

themselves as Englishmen and women, the idea that they were equal

to people living in England was not held by the king or those in

Parliament. The colonists did not leave their views of self,

14

hidden. They told the Crown exactly what they thought. In the

Petition of the Grand Continental Congress to the King (1774) the colonists

stated, “we were born the heirs of freedom, and ever enjoyed our

rights under the auspices of your royal ancestors…” and describe

themselves as being “English freemen.”9 These men had a clearly

defined sense of who they were and the heritage from which they

came. Bailyn saw it in the fact that the colonies had a

legislature that competed in interests with the governor. Rediker

saw the resistance come from below, from the working classes.

Either way, New England was prepared to take on the mantle of

dissent, having had a long-established tradition of doing so from

the beginning. All that was required for them was time.

It seemed that England was more than willing to give the new

colonies that time, so long as England was able to pursue their

mercantilist aims. From the sixteenth century to the eighteenth,

Great Britain used that time to perfect its joint stock

companies. There was the Muscovy Company (1555 Russian trade),

the Levant Company (the Mediterranean in the region of the

15

Bosporus Straights), the Virginia Company (1609), and the Somers

Islands Company (1612/1615 Bermuda). Of these companies, the

Somers Islands Company was the only one to last beyond 1620.10 In

New England, after 1620, there were a host of colonies, each one

a type of company in its own right. There was the Massachusetts

Bay Colony (1629), the New Haven Colony (1638), New Hampshire

Colony, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, as well.11 Each behaved

similarly to the companies that were set up to extract the

resources and profits from the newly established colonies. Each

of these companies patterned their structure off of the earlier

Dutch model in an effort to minimize the risk and maximize the

profit, and remain at home. England was, of course, the

headquarters for all of these ventures, many of which have

remained, as of yet, unmentioned. But these chairmen of the

board, when it came to the New World, were from where English

policy was made, not on the high seas. The ship captains and

governors (the go-betweens) became their factors in the Americas,

and thus became the ruling class of the Hydrarchy from above.

16

England’s long history of conflict within and without its

borders prepared it well for the needs of empire building. Being

an island nation, it was realized early on the key to power and

growth was going to be naval power. This important recognition

began with Henry VII when he established the first dry dock in

England at Portsmouth in 1496.12 The inventories demonstrate a

keen sense that naval power is going to be the key to solidifying

Henry VII power at home. It also demonstrates that he was not

going to be content looking inward, but that the key to growth

was going to be to expand. Along with canvas, rope, oakum, and

masts, was also listed gunpowder. This is not necessarily

unusual, but the quantity must have been enormous. The

inventories show that seventeen British pounds, sixteen

shillings, and six pence was spent on gunpowder at six pence per

pound. Prior to going decimal there were two hundred forty pence

per pound. That makes a total inventory of gunpowder for one ship

at six hundred eighty pounds. That is a quantity demonstrating an

expansive intent. Henry VII was expecting trouble and was

preparing to meet it head on.

17

The first two ships constructed in England were the Regent

and the Sovereign. These ships carried 225 and 141 guns

respectively and were a demonstration of English resolve.13 It

was not these two ships that are so singular to Henry VII but

rather the infrastructure he laid down. Understanding that his

kingdom was going to require a navy, he actively constructed the

support structure a naval power would require. He determined

capital was better spent on storehouses and the establishment of

in-country dry docks than construction of vessels. The maritime

tradition of the English and the hiring out of Dutch ships meant

Henry VII did not need to build many of his own, which allowed

him to spread his resources elsewhere. In fact Sean Cunningham

states that from 1497 until 1509, England did not have to engage

in heavy military spending owing to a relatively peaceful twelve-

year span, beginning with peace with Scotland. Henry VIII would

reap the benefits of this by having a substantial war chest to

work from.

18

It took four more monarchs and the Spanish to demonstrate to

England that the New World is going to be where conflicts in

Europe will be settled. Massive amounts of treasure from the

Americas made Spain a superpower and the rest of Europe took

notice. Queen Elizabeth I was convinced by Richard Hakluyt that

the answer to much of England’s trouble lied in the west.

Elizabeth, seeing an opportunity for expansion of English sea

power, unleashed her Sea Dogs upon the Spanish with a goal

(unofficially of course) of raiding and capturing a portion of

the wealth on its return trip from the Americas. Men such as

Humphrey Gilbert, Sir Frances Drake, and Sir Walter Raleigh laid

the ground work of English exploration in the New World, albeit

on plunder. In fact, Sir Walter Raleigh established the first

English colony in the New World, Virginia in 1584.14 This gave

the English a point from which they launched sorties after the

Spanish fleet. From Jamestown, England eventually established a

foothold and fledgling colony of their own. Little did they

realize at the time how important Raleigh’s outpost became.

19

Sir Walter Raleigh did something at this juncture that had a

long standing effect for the future of the Atlantic World and

English legacy. He sought support and backing from the Crown of

England. This ensured the power of the state could be called upon

when private entities would just not be enough to maintain the

colonies. It also ensured that an English presence or some

representative of the Crown was going to be present wherever

English ships landed. What eventually developed out of this was a

private/public partnership where much of the risk was taken by

Raleigh and the investors but supported with men and material

from the Crown.15 This ensured that if things went wrong on a

raid of Spanish ships, the monarch was left without tarnish and

was still able to benefit from successes.

In 1603 James I took the throne of England and became a

critical monarch in establishing an English, and eventually

American, New World. There were obvious reasons why he would want

to expand the English reach to America and they were diverse.

Here we will focus on two: the economic and the political. The

20

economic incentive was simple. The revenue generated from the

resources in the Americas was staggering. Wood, pitch, hemp for

rope and fabric, tobacco (though James I abhorred it), fishing

waters, and the fur trade were just a few. These enterprises

1 Peter Linebaugh, and Marcus Rediker, The Many Headed Hydra (Boston, Beacon Press: 2000), pp, 143, 14.

2 Ibid, p. 144.3 Jonathan Israel, Dutch Primacy in World Trade (New York, Clarendon Press: 1989), p. 67.4 John McCusker and Russell Menard, The Economy of British America: 1607-1789 (Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press: 1985), pp, 19-235 McCusker and Menard, The Economy of British America, pp. 11, 36, 376 Bernard Bailyn, The Origins of American Politics, (New York, Vintage Books: 1967), p. 64.7 Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The Many Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic, (Boston, Beacon Press: 2000), pp. 162,163.8John Ferling, “Struggle for a Continent: The Wars of Early America”, The Early American Series, (Arlington Heights, Il. Harlan Davidson, Inc: 1993), pp. 41, 42.9 Continental Congress, The Petition of the Grand Continental Congress to the King, (Boston, S. Curwen (printer): 1774), pp. 4,5.10 Robert Brenner, Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflicts, and London’s Overseas Traders, (New York, Verso Press: 2003), pp. 4,11,13, 92n, 93.11 Francis J. Bremer, John Winthrop: America’s Forgotten Founding Father, (New York, OxfordUniversity Press: 2003), pp. 153, 302, 303.12 M.Oppenheim, ed., Naval Accounts and Inventories of the Reign of Henry VII: 1485-5 and 1495-7, Vol. 8, (London, Navy Records Society: 1896), pp. xxxiv.

13 Sean Cunningham, Henry VII, (New York, Routledge: 2007), pp. 261, 262.14 Kenneth R. Andrews, Trade, Plunder, and Settlement: Maritime Enterprise and the Genesis of the British Empire: 1480-1630, (New York, Cambridge University Press: 1984), p. 200.

21

needed labor and there was plenty to be found in England, some of

them more troubling than others to the Crown, namely the

Puritans. This is part of the political side. This group of

people wanted to purify the English church by following a

Calvinistic approach to Protestantism. It wanted to eliminate the

hierarchical structure of the Bishops and replace it with a more

democratic form of governance, congregationalism. This is where

each congregation chose the manner of worship and prayer

according to its needs. There was no overarching structure with

enforcement authority, so long as the congregations kept within

the doctrinal bounds. In John Cotton’s Way of Congregational Churches

Cleared, he addressed this issue to his detractors’ in1648,

demonstrating the debate was far from over by then. “Yet some

ordinances of Christ may be found and administered in a church of

believers, without officers”.16 It is easy to see how this view

of faith would have an adverse effect on monarchical rule. James 15 Andrews, Trade, Plunder, and Settlement, pp. 202, 205.16 John Cotton, Way of Congregational Churches Cleared, The Second Part (being Doctrinal, and Controversial) Concern9ing Congregational Churches and their Government, (Cornhill,Matthew Simmons at the sign of the three Golden-Lions: 1648), Part 2, p. 10, this is a reprint of the original by Kessinger Publishing’s Rare Mystical Reprints.

22

I had had enough of the church telling him what to do in Scotland

and he was not interested in repeating the situation. As a result

he allowed the first group of Puritans to sail to the Americas

where they eventually landed at Plymouth in what would become the

colony of Massachusetts Bay.

Looking at a map of the American colonies from the 1620s to

the 1640s, the two English colonies of Jamestown and Plymouth can

be seen as bookends preventing Spanish advancement from the south

and French advancement form the North. The Dutch in New Amsterdam

(New York) were dealt with in the Anglo-Dutch war of 1664. The

eastern seaboard of continental America was now open for English

settlement. In addition, emigration to the Americas under the

reign of James I was lax compared to the Spanish, the more

successful colonizing power up to this point.17 This

comparatively relaxed emigration policy eventually ensured the

English hegemony of the region in a political sense. There were

going to be regional differences but up until the opening of the

17 J.H Elliot, Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830, (New Haven, Yale University Press: 2006), p. 51.

23

Revolution, the English colonies on the mainland of North America

considered themselves English. The tool that was used to keep the

revenue generated by the colonies in English elite hands was

created by a Puritan revolutionary, Oliver Cromwell. His tenure

and most notably the Navigation Acts will have far reaching

implications for the New World well beyond the intention of

keeping revenue from leaving the realm.

The Navigation Acts

One of the primary means by which the Hydrarchy in England

ran its trade in the Atlantic World during this period, as

previously stated, was through the Navigation Acts. The

importance of these Acts cannot be overstated. They were the

benchmark by which all trade within the English context would be

done (post-1651), much to the consternation of the colonists. The

first round of the Navigation Acts was instituted by Oliver

Cromwell during his period of power.18 When Charles II came to 18 Mark Kishlansky, A Monarchy Transformed: Britain 1603-1714, (New York, Allen Lane ThePenguin Press: 1996), p. 201.

24

the throne he eliminated the original statutes, and replaced them

with his own version. Though he would not want much to do with

the policies of a perpetrator of regicide, Charles II kept this

one.

What was it about these Navigation Acts that appealed to

Charles II? It was the control of trade and the factors involved

in it. It would ensure (with proper application) an increased

traffic in the use of English shipping. The legislation itself

had nineteen parts to it, each addressing different points of the

law: it may have been long, but the essentials were fairly

simple. For any of the English colonies in the world, any trade

which was to be done with them, in English goods were to “be

carried by English ships, with an English captain and at least ¾

of the crew was to be English.”19 This was to ensure the

employment of the merchant marine, and all the trades pertaining

to the maintenance of English fleets. It was also aimed at the

19 John Raithby, ed., Statutes of the Realm: volume 5: 1628-80, An Act for the Encouraging and Increasing of Shipping and Navigation, 1660, (London, History of Parliament trust: 1819), p. 246 URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=47266&strquery=Navigation,Date Accessed 14 November, 2012.

25

Dutch and the trade competition with which England constantly

found itself entangled. What this legislation did, in addition to

its intended purpose, is what we are more concerned with. It

meant that the colonies were only allowed to trade with England.

Only English ships were to perform all the transport for all the

goods coming into and out of England and the colonies, or ships

belonging to English dominions. Specific commodities were only

allowed to be transported on English ships, such as “sugar,

tobacco, indigo, rice, cacoa, molasses and naval stores”.20 The

latter involved “Masts Timber or Boards…Salt Pitch Tar Rozin Hemp

and Flax…” only to be carried on English ships, excluding all

other nations. The idea that only England and its agents could

trade with “Asia, Africa, America and England” did more than turn

a few heads. It made prospective merchants within the colonies

strike out on their own creating illicit trade. 21 In regards to

English seamen, the ports they looked to were the western ports

20 Marcus Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World 1700-1750, (New York, Cambridge University Press: 1987),pp. 19, 20.21 Raithby (editor), Navigation Acts 1660, pp. 2, 6, URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=47266&strquery=Navigation,

26

of “Bristol, Liverpool, and Glasgow”. These ports expanded in

importance due to the illicit trade taking place and their

relative distance from London, the seat of power.22 This was much

the same reason that west end trade in Bermuda was primarily acts

of smuggling. It allowed a distance from the prying eyes of the

Crown. The eighteenth-century Bermudian merchant and Planter

Henry Tucker, knew this and established his home, called “The

Grove,” on the west end of the island, far from the colonial

capital at the East end.23 Free trade was not a practice

sanctioned by the Crown, though many were in the act of

practicing free trade anyway. The growth of west end ports in

Bermuda is just one indicator of this.

The second Navigation Act was passed in 1663, and was

motivated by politics. In an effort to check French influence in

the New World, England granted Portugal the ability to trade with

British America, duty free. The focus was on the highly

22 Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, p. 40.

23 Philip Hamilton, The Making and Unmaking of a Revolutionary Family: The Tuckers of Virginia 1752-1830, (Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press: 2003), p. 11.

27

desirable commodity of Madeira wine.24 Historian Louis Cullen

assembled the numbers to demonstrate that the Navigation Acts

were working, at least in the eyes of England and their goals.

They looked at the total departures listed by William Bolton, a

factor in the Madeira wine export trade, and found forty-eight

percent of the 545 ships listed that sailed went to the British

West Indies. Fully seventy-four percent of the totals went to

British ports in the New World.25 England was realizing that

trade was diplomacy by another name, and could be used to

advantage in the Atlantic World. To go against this

protectionist view was treason in the eyes of the King.

The reason the English saw this as treasonous was that the

budding free trade that was happening in the Caribbean and the

North American colonies was lending assistance to other nations’

colonies with whom England was in conflict. It also meant the

revenues from taxes and duties were not coming into government

24Louis M. Cullen, “Irish Businessman and French Courtier: The Career of Thomas Sutton, comte de Clonard 1722-1782”, The Early Modern Atlantic Economy, John J.McCusker and Kenneth Morgan, editors, (New York, The Cambridge University Press: 2000), p. 111.25 Cullen, Irish Businessman and French Courtier, pp. 111, 112.

28

coffers but were in turn going into private merchants’ pockets.

In essence, these merchants were embezzling the government out of

the funds it needed. This duty was at 6d per pound on tobacco,

and in the early seventeenth century (specifically the 1620s)

tobacco was king and was the savior of the colonies as a

financial venture. Sugar took its place after a major depression

hit the tobacco market. The problem was that everyone else could

see this as well, and wanted to get into the act. This had the

impact of depressing the values of tobacco. Another aspect to

this involving the staple crop of tobacco was that large

quantities were being imported to England from Spain. This

Spanish tobacco was much cheaper and of generally a better

quality than the English imports.26 Eventually, it became less

expensive to import tobacco in its leaf form at 4d per pound, but

even still, well over 80,000 pounds of Spanish tobacco made it

into London to compete against the tobacco from Bermuda and other

colonies.27 This is an example of how the governing body, in the

26 Henry C. Wilkinson, The Adventurers of Bermuda: A History of the Island from its Discovery untilis Dissolution of the Somers Islands Company in 1684, (London, Oxford University Press: 1958), p. 163.

29

interests of state revenue, allowed a competition of another

power (Spain) to enter into the country against that of the

companies. It is a fine example of Adam Smith’s theories (yet to

be developed) in action and in opposition to the Navigation Acts.

Not all contemporaries were in agreement with the Navigation

Acts, nor were they in approval of the views their fellow

Englishmen were holding of the colonists. Robert Dodsley

recognized the importance of the colonies to the economic well-

being of England. He felt a pang of fear at the thought of what

colonists might do if they had a sense of the contempt that

“people of a better figure” had of them. After all, the

colonists provided the influx of wealth to England for their

finished product.28 The attitude that developed out of this view

of the colonists as existing to serve the mother country was a

we/they mentality. In England, the we component continued to reap

the benefits of colonial labor. By 1774, that we shifted to the

27 Wilkinson, The Adventurers of Bermuda, p. 166.28 Breen, Marketplace of Revolution, pp. 90, 91.

30

other side of the Atlantic, and a new identity emerged from an

economy built on Atlantic trade and commerce.

From the perspective of the leadership in London, they had

been given very powerful tools in maintaining a mercantilist

machine that had been developed over the course of the preceding

fifty-one years. In 1660, Charles II returned to England to

reestablish the royal family and the House of Stuart on the

throne. What he found in place when he got there was a

strengthened navy, ordinances passed to man the navy through

impressments, and a system designed to exclude competition and

enrich the pockets of the state (and by extension, the king). All

this was done under the watch of Cromwell, beginning in 1651,

with the Navigation Acts. In 1660, Charles II nullified the

parliamentary Navigation Acts and created his own. In fact, he

liked them so much that he strengthened the initial act with two

more in 1663 and 1673; William III would add to it again in

1696.29 These Acts were designed to strengthen the navy and to

maximize the profits of monopoly companies, such as the East

31

India Company –which they did. It also had the effect of creating

disconnectedness between the colonies and the leadership in

London, though not as strong as the ones established in the

eighteenth century, specifically post-1764.

Just the year before, in 1763, the Seven Years War finally

came to a close. In America it was known as the French and Indian

War and the British were victorious only through spending a great

deal of treasure and blood to that end. In an effort to recoup

those losses, a new policy was adopted regarding the Navigation

Acts which the colonists would look upon with great derision,

with major consequences for the future of the colonies. Historian

Oliver M. Dickerson tells us that prior to 1764 there seems to be

little evidence for unrest regarding the Navigation Acts in

America—“the system worked”—but after that date policies were

enacted for the sake of “revenue and political exploitation”. 30

The Sugar Act of 1764 and 1766 raised the tariff on processed 29 John Raithby (editor), An Act for the Encouraging and Increasing of Shipping and Navigation, Statutes of the realm: volume 5: 1628-1680, 1819, p. 246, British History Online, URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=47266&strquery=Navigation, Date Accessed, November 14, 2012; David C. Douglas (editor), American Historical Documents, Volume 9, (New York, Oxford University Press: 1964), pp.356-365.

32

sugar across the board while molasses and raw sugar remained the

same. All wine imported to the Americas was heavily taxed, “Seven

pounds sterling per ton”.31 New rules to commerce that could lead

to confiscation of cargo without the proper paper work were put

in place, hidden in the legislation itself. To give an idea of

the impact of the Sugar Act, the total amount collected for the

year 1772 was 30,000 pounds sterling. But it was levied on five

ports of call in all the colonies: New York, Boston, Charleston,

Philadelphia, and Quebec.32 This had massive implications on the

trade and consumption of goods in the region. Understand that the

revenue from the Sugar Act went directly to a separate account

specifically for the treasury. No part of this new series of

taxes was being used to pay for salaries or infrastructure,

another point of evidence leading to the view the Sugar Act was

nothing more than a cash grab.33 The Stamp Act (1765) proved so

unpopular that it was repealed after only four and a half months,

and the Quartering Act (1765) required governments to provide for

the housing of soldiers while in the colonies rather than England

providing it. This was found in section VII of the law. It

33

required “fire, candles, vinegar, and salt, bedding, utensils,

for dressing their victuals, and small beer or cider, not

exceeding five pints, or half a pint of rum mixed with half a

pint of water, to each man, without paying anything for the

same”.34 Then there came the Townsend Acts of 1767 which added

further duties and added an administration to the American ports

to oversee the collection of the said duties. Customs

Racketeering and entrapment became common and sailors could no

longer sell their own cargo outside of the customs, a long-held

right.35 None of these acts were passed with any input from those

governed.

The Navigation Acts were the beginning of the end for the

western colonies ties to England as a mercantilist outpost. The

irony of the situation was that the king, in securing his

authority over the colonies, managed to sow the seeds of their

rebellion. In fact, up until 1774, colonists were still

expressing their allegiance to the Crown, but now they were

interspersing language such as “American Rights and Liberties” in

34

place of “Rights of Englishmen” though that was expressed as

well.36 The point of the Navigation Act of 1660 was to maximize

the profit through transporting English goods, whether acquired

in the colonies or from England, in English ships with English

crews. It dictated the ports of call that could be accessed and

served as a mechanism to closed and managed trade. This meant

that free trade, a concept that had been developing in the

Americas for some time since the establishment of the colonies,

was officially coming to a close. Parliament had chosen to

attack the foundation of the colonial economic system and the

heart of the colonists’ prosperity; in the colonists’ eyes, the

Crown was attacking their livelihoods, their liberties, and by

extension, their lives.

30 Oliver M. Dickerson, The Navigation Acts and the American Revolution, (New York, A.S. Barnes & Company: 1951), p. xiii, xiv .

31 Dickerson, Navigation Acts, pp. 172-175.

32 Ibid, 178-184.

33 Ibid, 186.34 Merrell Jensen, ed., English Historical Documents: American Colonial Documents to 1776, (New York, Oxford University Press: 1964), pp. 657, 658.35 Dickerson, pp. 208, 211, 214

35

The historian Stephen Saunders Webb correctly asserted that

the English Civil War had caused “the development of autonomous

colonial elites and institutions, and provided a republican

ideology…”.37 England had been warned of growing independence

bred out of distance from the mother country and ambition. What

was born out of this conflict in England was a new Hydrarchy from

above in America. It was a new set of maritime elites with their

own interests, and yet, they still had ties to England.

Why was this so? It had its roots in the very entreaties to

colonization in the first place. Beginning with Richard Hakluyt

in the late sixteenth century, England began to consider

expanding westward. Hakluyt wrote a book called Discourse Concerning

Western Planting (1584) that was all about the possibilities and

advantages that western colonies held for England. It was the

same argument heard later in the expansion westward. “They will

36 U.S. Continental Congress, Extracts from the Votes and Proceedings of the American Continental Congress held on the 5th of September 1774 Containing The Bill of Rights, a List of Grievances,Occasional Resolves, the Association, an Address to the People of Great Britain, and a Memorial to the Inhabitants of the British American Colonies, (Boston, Edes and Gill (printer): 1774), pp.4, 11, Early American Imprints, Accessed November 14, 2012.

37 Ibid, p. 441

36

provide markets for English manufacturers. They will provide a

nursery for English seamen. They will be an outlet for idle

soldiers and sailors as well as an outlet for the poor and

unemployed of England”.38 Who was it that Hakluyt was

recommending to be sent west? It was the masses that were

discontent and would cause trouble for the powers that be in

England.39 This situation was very similar to those who would

settle in Virginia at Jamestown, or the Puritans in

Massachusetts. All of these people had reasons to leave England,

and it was not because they were getting along well with the

authorities.

The issue of relatively autonomous colonial trade with the

rest of the world, outside of the Navigation Acts, was not a new

one to England. It was recognized as far back as the origins of

the acts themselves, during the English Civil War. Oliver

Cromwell rightly saw that England’s merchant marine and Navy

needed to be bolstered against outside competition, which was the

38 Douglas, ed. English Historical Documents, p. 10239 Linebaugh and Rediker, pp. 16, 20.

37

whole reason for the development of the Navigation Acts in the

first place. However, he had more pressing issues closer to home

that required his attention and as a result, the colonies were,

more or less, left to their devices for the time being. It was

status quo for the New World.

38

Section II

Bermuda and New England: Two Different Children of the Same

Mother

Bermuda

Bermuda, a small but pivotally important island six hundred

miles east of South Carolina, is the key to understanding what

was going on in the Atlantic World in the seventeenth and

eighteenth centuries. It was the very salvation of the Jamestown

settlement in 1610,40 and it was also the beginning of the

undoing of England’s permanent presence in the New World by the

years approaching the Anglo-American Revolution with the

Bermudian Gun Powder Plot of 1775. Known as Las Islas de los Diablos

for years before the Sea Venture wreck of 1609, Bermuda was

considered to be the bane of mariners. Due to the flow of the

Gulf Stream, just about every sailing ship had to come within

striking distance of the island.41 The shoals that surround up to

39

three miles of the island gave rise to the reputation, along with

the cahow bird and its loud call, terrifying to those unlucky

enough to have marooned there.42 There is evidence that

Portuguese or Spanish survivors of a wreck had been on the

island, and upon their rescue, enhanced its reputation.43 But in

1609, something happened that changed English fates in the

Atlantic. A flotilla leaving England on a relief voyage to

Jamestown got caught in a hurricane and scattered. Most made it

to Virginia, but the Sea Venture, the flagship of the flotilla, was

separated from the fleet. On board were the new Governor of

Jamestown, Sir Thomas Gates; the Captain of the vessel, Captain

Christopher Newport; and Admiral Sir George Somers, for whom the

company would later be named.44

40 Lorri Glover and Daniel Blake Smith, The Shipwreck that Saved Jamestown: The Sea Venture Castaways and the Fate of America, (New York, Henry Holt and Company: 2009), pp. 169, 236.41 Glover and Smith, p. 169.42 Linebaugh and Rediker, Many Headed Hydra, pp. 9, 10.43 Henry C. Wilkinson, The Adventurers of Bermuda: A History of that Island from its Discovery Until the Dissolution of the Somers Islands Company in 1684, (New York, Oxford University Press: 1958), pp. 20, 21.44 Michael Jarvis, In the Eye of All Trade: Bermuda Bermudians and the Maritime Atlantic World 1680-1783, (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press: 2010), pp. 12,13 ; Linebaugh and Rediker, Many Headed Hydra, p. 9.

40

By a matter of chance both the admiral of the fleet, Sir

George Somers, and the new Governor of Virginia, Sir Thomas

Gates, both found themselves on the same vessel.45 This led to a

clash of personalities; the two men agreed that while upon the

seas, Admiral Somers would be in command. When on land, Sir

Thomas Gates would carry precedence. When the Sea Venture wrecked

off the coast of Bermuda, the agreement of who was in charge, and

even if the expedition was still even under way, was brought into

question. Conflict among the leadership, or at least a visible

dislike of one another leading to a healthy competition, was at

the core of Bermuda’s discovery by the English, and it would

remain that way for centuries to come.46

Bermuda was considered to be a location to avoid in the

middle of the Atlantic in the early seventeenth-century even

though it came to eventually hold a primary position in the

Atlantic World, both geographically and economically. It was luck

or fate that led the Sea Venture to accidently find one of only 45 Lorri Glover and Daniel Blake Smith, The Shipwreck that Saved Jamestown, p. 72.46 Virginia Bernhard, A Tale of Two Colonies, p. 69; Lori Glover and Daniel Blake Smith, The Shipwreck that Saved Jamestown, p. 132

41

two safe passages through the shoals in 1609, when a hurricane

scattered their English fleet and marooned them on the island for

ten months.47 One of these survivors, Silvester Jourdain,

recounted that the waters “afforded nothing but gusts, storms,

and foul weather,” continuing the undeserved reputation.48 It was

an unwitting moment of good fortune. The timing kept the early

settlers from reaching Jamestown during the “Starving Time” and

has been credited by some historians, such as Virginia Bernhard,

in her book A Tale of Two Colonies (2011), and Lorri Glover with Daniel

Blake Smith, in their book The Shipwreck that Saved Jamestown (2008), as

being a key ingredient in the success of Jamestown. In so doing,

it was also a key ingredient in the maintenance of an English

presence in North America.

Admiral Sir George Somers had a keen eye for islands and a

possible means by which to profit by his efforts. Some

historians, such as Lorri Glover and Daniel Blake Smith, make the

47 Michael Jarvis, In the Eye of All Trade: Bermuda, Bermudians, and the Maritime Atlantic World, 1680-1783, (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press: 2010), pp. 12, 1348 Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, the Many Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic, (Boston, Beacon Press: 2000), p. 9

42

argument that the castaways who remained on Bermuda while the

remainder of the wrecked settlers left for Jamestown, were

instructed to do so by the command of the Admiral.49 There was

much they could do in the way of exploration and mapping. They

could have been experimenting and searching for navigable

entryways to the island. They could experiment in different

crops and seek out and identify the many types of animal life

present on the island at the time. It is quite possible they

were taking inventory and awaiting the return of their commander.

Had he lived longer (he died on the islands in November of 1610),

he might have lived to see his wealth prosper through his efforts

of mapping and experimenting of the agricultural possibilities

Bermuda held.50 Few doubt he would have been the island’s first

colonial Governor. History would prove Admiral Somers’ foresight

correct, in many ways.

What is important for our purposes in this essay is not that

Sir George Somers landed on the island of Bermuda, or that he saw

49 Glover and Smith, pp. 167, 168, 21450 Ibid, p. 215

43

value in the islands and their location in relation to the new

colony of Jamestown (only ten days’ sail), but rather that the

competition and conflict so readily displayed itself from the

very beginning. Factions developed among the voyagers, which set

a precedent which was followed by Bermudians much later. Mutinies

were threatened, and at one point the workers finishing the

Patience and Deliverance, ceased construction and lived in the forest

to demonstrate their displeasure at leaving Bermuda, the land of

plenty, for Jamestown, the land of want and suffering.51 This was

an early example of the conflict between Crown and colonist.

Chartered in 1615 by King James I, the Somers Islands

Company came into existence, taking its name from the bold

Admiral who died on the Island of Bermuda. Initially the Somers

Island Company was an extension of the Virginia Company. In short

order however, it took over as the dominant entity from the

latter, which had dominion over the islands up to this point. The

enticements that brought investors into this new venture included

51 Lori Glover and Daniel Blake Smith, The Shipwreck that Saved Jamestown: The Sea Venture Castaways and the Fate of America, (New York, Holt Paperbacks: 2009), pp. 166, 167

44

“freedom from all taxes for seven years, state aid in case of

aggression, and near absolute authority in governing life in the

colony.”52 This gave Bermuda a unique perspective in being able

to govern as the locals saw fit, according to their needs.

What kind of rule would early settlers expect from the new

company since the separation from the Virginia Company? Not much

different from the previous experience in Jamestown; out of “117

initial investors, only ten were not investors in the Virginia

Company.”53 This gave the Virginia Company de facto rule in

Bermuda, and was one way investors could help to recoup losses

from their Virginia venture. The implication being, that the

focus of the company on the island would be on monopoly and

profit. Maritime trade, on the other hand, took it in a different

direction.

52 Jarvis, In the Eye of All Trade, p. 1953 Jarvis, p. 19

45

New England

New England was going to be very different in its cultural

composition when compared to the Bermuda and Virginia

settlements. Not only was there a difference in the people who

were settling in those regions (New England being primarily

Puritan dissenters) but in contrast to the Massachusetts Bay, the

investors were very different as well. Only four of the original

investors from the Levant Company took part: “Francis Flyer,

Matthew Craddock, Samuel Vassall, and Nathan Wright”.54 This in

itself demonstrates a difference in the nature of each of the

respective colonies, an important difference that had major

consequences later on. Bermuda was much more strongly influenced

by mainstream, conservative, English culture, reflective of the

company’s leadership. 54 Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, p. 273

46

In 1620, a new presence was injected on the shores of what

became New England. This was a different type of settler than

England had been sending previously, with unforeseen consequences

which led to a cultural defiance against the crown and mother

country. The Puritans coming to the New World did so as a result

of religious persecution in the wake of the consolidation of

power by James I. In June of 1616, James I approached his judges

in the Court of Star Chamber to make clear to them what his

expectations were, and to give warning that he intended to extend

his authority. He began;

I understand the inheritance of the King and subjects in this land must be determined by commonlaw…[But] there is another law, of all laws free and supreme, which is God’s law, and by this all common and municipal laws must be governed, and except they have dependence on this law, they are unjust and unlawful…that law in this kingdom hath been too much neglected, and churchmen too much had in contempt.55

His Majesty gave two limitations to his Star Chamber Court. First

“encroach not upon the authority of the Crown;” secondly he

55 J. P. Kenyon ed., The Stuart Constitution, 1603-1688: Documents and Commentary, Second Edition, (New York, Cambridge University Press: 1986), pp. 84

47

stated to “keep yourselves within your own benches, not to invade

other jurisdictions”.56 This was an announcement in the direction

of absolutist authority; dissenters had been put on notice.

Two years later James I gave fresh instructions to his

Justices of the Peace. These men were charged with enforcement of

the King’s edicts and maintaining law and order. Of the list of

twenty instructions, number one was “to levy the 12d [fine] upon

absentees from Church according to the statutes of Elizabeth c.2

and 3 James [c. 4]”. The third instruction was to take “the names

of all recusants within their several parishes, with the names of

their children above nine years old and the names of their

servants…”57 While the statute could have been directed at the

Catholic presence in London, it was just as surely aimed at the

Puritan influence, as well. These royal instructions demonstrate

a monarch who was becoming more unwilling to bend in the face of

dissension. In 1620, the Puritan migration west to New England

began.

56 Kenyon, The Stuart Constitution, p. 8557 Kenyon, Stuart Constitution, p. 450

48

The coming of the puritans marked the arrival of a new sort

of colonists in the Americas. They were made up of entire

families, and they brought with them trades, farmers, and all the

things needed to transplant a society from one shore to another.

This is a stark contrast to what had come to the New World in

Virginia. The vast majority of Virginian settlers were young

males without families, “laborers…out of work soldiers and self

important gentlemen” looking for a better life from that which

they left in England.58 The initial settlers of New England by

Puritan dissenters were looking for a better life as well.

However, there was a defining cultural difference between the two

regions. The Jamestown region was run like a small fiefdom. It

had a concept of governance and culture much more in tune with

the established power structure in England at the time. The

Massachusetts Bay colony was made up of religious dissenters

(Puritans), who were members of a protestant sect who felt the

Church of England was losing its way and falling back into papist

49

traditions.59 They believed that the teaching contained in the

Bible, and only the teaching contained in the Bible, was the

foundation upon which the Church should be built. Furthermore, a

main tenet of Puritanism was that all were equally worthless

before God, and that it was only by God’s grace and election that

salvation was achieved. Francis Bremer pointed out this unity by

addressing a portion of the Modell of Christian Charity speech before

the pilgrims left for the New World.

Here John Winthrop stated:

…the meanest as well as the richest, the wealthiest as well as the strongest, the lowest aswell as the highest, they all have the same Spirit, the same Jesus, the same faith; they are all fellow-members, fellow-travellers, fellow-soldiers, fellow-citizens, fellow-heirs, and therefore they must be loved with a sincere and cordial love.60

58 Glover and Smith, p. 35, 8059 Ralph Walton Perry, Puritanism and Democracy, (New York, Harper Torchbooks: 1944), p. 71, 7260? Francis J. Bremer, Congregational Communion: Clerical Friendship in the Anglo-American Puritan Community: 1619-1692, (Boston, Northeastern University Press: 1994), pp. 7,8, 9

50

In this statement, the rich and poor, the strong and weak, the

laborer and gentleman are lumped together in one category. Ralph

Barton Perry called puritans the “left wing of Protestantism”. 61

This is a concept of equality that was dangerous to a power

structure in England that relied on class distinction to maintain

order. The Puritan society was still a hierarchical one, but on a

much smaller scale. The equality found was one of a spiritual

equality and was strongly held by the Puritan faithful.

Once the colony became established - with some difficulty -

the stockholders of the Massachusetts Bay Company petitioned for

a charter. In 1628 a final charter was completed. In this there

was a very important omission that established the location of

the annual meeting of stockholders. This meant that the

Massachusetts Bay colony did not have to convene in London near

the seats of power.62 It could meet in the New World where it had

much more freedom to pass legislation favorable to the Puritan

mindset.

61 Ralph Walton Perry, Puritanism and Democracy, p. 6762 Francis J Bremer, John Winthrop: America’s Forgotten Founding Father, (New York, OxfordUniversity Press: 2003), p. 359

51

The New England colonies began to trade with other nations’

colonies apart from those of England. By the second half of the

seventeenth century this situation was an affront to the

Navigation Acts, and viewed as treason by members of the Board of

Trade. Timber, pitch, furs, and various surpluses upon which

England had been relying, were now being diverted to other

colonies, providing a larger profit and an easier transport run

than the trans-Atlantic trade. Trade with the various colonies

throughout the New World became a necessity, especially for those

receiving foodstuffs from the continent. This was a direct

competition to the mercantile system designed to benefit the

mother country.

This region became very important for maritime international

trade, and made fortunes for merchants willing to try their luck.

To add to what has already been mentioned, there was sugar,

tobacco, dye woods, tar, Bermuda cedar, and other products from

other nations, such as: “livestock, poultry, preserved meat and

fish, butter, whale oil, Indian corn, cabbages, pails and tubs,

52

staves, furniture, and other wooden wares, woven Palmetto hats

and mats, beeswax and honey, candles, rosewater, hides and

saddles, rope” and eventually trade in tea, Delftware, and china

flatware. 63 The economic implications to both Great Britain and

the colonies could not be ignored.

There is another dimension to insert at this point. It is

the cultural foundation of dissention which the Puritan settlers

brought with them to their new home. James I thought that by

allowing the puritans to leave and worship as they chose, in a

land across the ocean, he was removing a political irritation,

which to him, seemed seditious. Here was a group of people

telling the King that he was wrong in his persecutions. For this

monarch, the need for the freedom to exert rule by divine right

was overwhelming. James I would not be told what to do, nor would

he be told that he was wrong.

He allowed the puritans to leave, and in New England they

established colonies based on the puritan work ethic with an

63 Jarvis, pp. 78,79, 89

53

emphasis on learning and literacy. This allowed the Puritan

tradition of dissension to take root in the New World where it

found an environment in which to flourish.64 This is not to say

removal of dissension is the primary reason for the allowance of

the puritans to sail west to the New World. There were also large

economic reasons as well. The Navigation Acts being employed at

the time would have required the new community to trade directly

with the mother country and their allies only. This ensured that

the flow of revenues and resources stayed within the English

system, while getting individuals to voluntarily make a dangerous

and expensive journey all for the benefit of England and the

King.

To the colonists, the realities of life were very harsh.

These realities had to be contended with before they could

establish the beginnings of a government 2,500 miles from their

previous home in England. Indian attacks could come at any time. 64 For additional reading on the development of print in the colonies see David D. Hall Cultures in Print. He explores the cultural differences of print within the context of how it relates to the societies in which it is established, when it is established, and who has control of the presses. For amore focused look at Revolutionary Print, see Thomas Larkin’s Thomas Paine and the Literature of Revolution (2005).

54

Disease was ever-present, as was conflict between various

European powers to see who could gain control of as much

territory as possible in the New World. The resources available

seemed limitless. These competing powers were attracted by giant

timbers, beaver fur pelts, and of course, tobacco. There were

food stuffs grown at the various farms, and rum distilled from

molasses, the byproduct of the sugar grown in the Caribbean. With

all of these goods, and much of it in a surplus, the American

colonists began supplying the many colonies of various nations in

the Caribbean and other ports of call. This would fly in the face

of the Navigation Acts, and was a tenet of their free-trade

philosophy.

There is another aspect to the tradition of independence

that was inherent in New England at the time. While they still

saw themselves as Englishmen and believed they were entitled to

all the rights thereof, the Massachusetts Bay colonists had an

advantage that all the other colonists lacked. Each joint-stock

company and each colony had to have some representative in

55

London, prepared to appear before the Board of Trade or

Parliament when called. Massachusetts had no such clause within

their initial charter.65 This gave the colony a buffer period in

regards to answering inquiries into their activities, and whether

or not they were following the edicts of the Crown. It also

allowed for greater time to prepare or cover up extra-legal

trading activities when they occurred. This action was

premeditated, and was taken with the concern that some of the

activities in Massachusetts might not be to the liking of the

authorities in London, whether it regarded religion, trade, or

taxation. John Winthrop knew that there would be forces in London

interested in the failure of his colony. During the English Civil

War, he had personal friends and family fighting for the

Parliamentary cause. In a letter dated February, 1649, he stated,

“the Army hath prospered beyond all expectations, in Wales, in

Kent, at Colchester, and especially against the Scots”.66 His

allegiance during the English Civil War, not to mention his

65 Bremer, John Winthrop, p. 35966 Bremer, 374

56

religious convictions and affiliation, would have made him

powerful enemies across the Atlantic.

Beginning in 1641 with the rumblings of the English Civil

War on the horizon, the Massachusetts General Court appointed

September 2, 1641 as “public day of Thanksgiving ‘for the good

success of Parliament in England’” harkening back to the

intensity of gratitude felt in the first Thanksgiving. This act

of thanks was in response to the Triennial Act which forced the

King, then Charles I, to call Parliament every three years. This

was a severe limitation to the king’s power.67 Siding with

Parliament in such a way demonstrated one’s loyalty, and it was

not being shown to the monarchy. Not long after the Triennial

Act, Parliament “banned taxation without its consent,

specifically ship money and forced loans, as well as

unparliamentarily taxes on trade”.68 This view of a struggle

between Parliament and the Crown was seen as having been outside

forces working against the opposing poles in London. Robert 67 Ibid, p. 33468 Robert Brenner, Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and London’s Overseas Traders: 1550-1653, (New York, Verso Publishing: 2003) p. 691

57

Brenner in his Merchants and Revolution presents this view as having

been “not the ends but the means to adopt in order to secure

broadly held principles”. 69 The actions of the court in

Massachusetts in support of Parliament, as opposed to the Crown,

could be viewed as seditious, if not treasonous. If this official

court sanction was not viewed as seditious, then the efforts of

some of the clergy in Massachusetts Bay certainly were. William

Hooke of the Plymouth colony asked his congregation to “let us

pray against them, and sing against them, and live against them.”

He continued by saying that “the role of the colonists was to lie

in wait in the wilderness, to come upon the backs of God’s

enemies with deadly fasting and prayer, murderers that will kill

point blank from one end of the world to the other”.70

John Winthrop, as Governor of the Colony of Massachusetts

Bay, was responsible for the actions and well-being of the

colonists. His view was sought in all sorts of various matters

both personal and legal. It is highly unlikely that the

69 Brenner, pp. 691, 692, 69370 Bremer, John Winthrop, p. 334

58

Massachusetts General Court would make such a bold and sweeping

statement of alliance as they did in their declaration of

Thanksgiving without at least the tacit approval of their

governor. We now see a competition, engaged in by the leadership

of both Massachusetts and London, which eventually leads to

conflict. This made Governor Winthrop just as guilty in his

sedition as the courts and clergy.

Eight years after King William III ascended to the throne,

he decided to attempt to make this nearly unmanageable core of

colony administration somewhat less complicated by the creation

of the Board of Trade. It was established in 1696 by the King,

which, in theory, gave him greater control over the legal actions

of the colonies and placed him in a better position to handle

disputes. In reality, it became another bureaucratic piece to the

colonial system after 1704.71

The New England coast was not alone in its subversion

against Crown authority. During the period of 1682-1782, a

71 Edward J. Cashin, Governor Henry Ellis and the Transformation of British North America, (Athens, University of Georgia Press: 1994), pp. 47, 48

59

combination developed involving a free-trade loving people along

the coastline of the mainland American colonies, an island colony

in Bermuda that was basically ignored by the mother country, and

a people who were willing to trade with just about anyone so long

as the goods do not go through the customs house. Lastly came the

leadership in London. To those colonists in the New World, London

seemed a world away—remote, and out of touch with the realities

of colonial life. One example of this is cited by Michael Jarvis,

where tobacco was smuggled into Bermuda, by way of the west end

of the island chain. The period was the 1680s, and tobacco had

begun to boom on the island. There was to be imposed a “penny a

pound tax” on the crop when it was exported. The colonies of the

Caribbean and the Americas were ripe markets, which paid a

premium for certain commodities, and that made the Bermuda

merchants much more willing to engage in smuggling, bypassing the

customs house and freight charge on the British magazine ship.72

Here, for the British subject at Bermuda, the opportunity for

heightened profits superseded his English duty to follow the

72 Jarvis, pp. 78, 501

60

official mercantilist agenda. He went into competition with the

mother country and the company that represented it. This

emulsion of differing perspectives led to a competition and

conflict among the Hydrarchy, which eventually brought about a

revolution that would change the world.

England was the epicenter of westward expansion to the North

American continent in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

It was the financial hub around which successful colonialism

sprang. But in creating its own success in the Atlantic World, it

spread the seeds for its New World empire’s eventual demise. The

Commissioners for Trade and Plantations were gathered as a

governing body to keep colonialism running smoothly; it rarely

did, though, since political factions and religious differences

constantly came into play. It also had to deal with international

trade disputes, mostly among the colonies that it governed. On

any given page within the Journal of the Commissioners of Trade and

Plantations Preserved in the Public Records Office, one can find references to

New York, Virginia, Barbados, Jamaica, Nevis, and Bermuda.

61

Addressed as the Board of Trade, these men became a part of the

Hydrarchy in London and the governing body through which the

Crown exerted influence in the Atlantic World.

Section III: Competition, Conflict, and Revolution

The Role of Smuggling

Almost as early as the Somers Islands Company began, and

tried to enforce its monopoly, the people of the island began to

find ways to circumvent that monopoly. Here is part of that

competition of the Hydrarchy. Smuggling by Bermudians, while seen

as a crime by the mother country, was a part of daily life in the

maritime trades of Bermuda. Marcus Rediker estimates a “threefold

increase in profits through trading by stealth”.73 There was far

too much money to be made by trading with ports that otherwise

73 Marcus Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, p. 42

62

were disallowed to be visited by English ships. During periods of

conflict, and warfare especially, privateering (the act of

sanctioned piracy by a state) and illegal trade abounded.

Merchants like the Tuckers, a very wealthy and influential

maritime family in Bermuda and the Americas, found themselves

with “more tonnage than they had possessed previously, because

their privateering campaigns normally produced overall gains”.74

This excess equipage was commonly the reason for the eventual

downturn in shipping fortunes. In times of peace the demand for

goods was just not there.

The reason for taking up smuggling was quite plain. The

duties and taxes imposed on products sometimes doubled the

cost.75 The cycle of high import duties and smuggling led to

increasing taxes and a redoubled effort to bypass the taxes.

Eventually the “tax burden was twice the level of their French

counterparts”.76 In turn, colonists looked to illicit trade even

74 Rediker, Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, pp. 34, 35

63

more. The American shippers, having already been accustomed to

trading with various ports of call outside of English ports,

adopted the mentality of free trade which had rapidly become a

marker for a new economic identity that began developing in North

America around the 1720s.

The situation in the Caribbean from the 1680s through the

close of the American Revolution was such that many of the other

nations were not providing all that was needed for their

existence. The Bermudians, with their sloops and armed with a

knowledge of the reefs and coves of the islands, were able to

commonly circumvent the efforts to cease the illicit trade, even

when the authorities were well aware a ship had been engaged in

such an endeavor.77 The new commodities that were in vogue were

“tobacco, sugar coffee, tea, chocolate, and printed cottons”.78

75 Carol Shammas, The Revolutionary Impact of European Demand for Tropical Goods, The Early Modern Atlantic Economy, John J. McCusker and Kenneth Morgan (editors), (New York, The Cambridge University Press: 2000) , p. 18076 Carol Shammas, The Revolutionary Impact of European Demand for Tropical Goods,, p. 18177 Jarvis, p. 17278 Shammas, p. 169

64

These commodities were what the Navigation Acts targeted, having

seen the sudden growth in their demand.

All goods, however, were required to be transported

according to the laws of England. That meant, according to the

Navigation Acts, that English goods had to be imported and

exported on English ships with English crews, this included

colonists. The New England mariner and merchant, along with his

compatriots in Philadelphia were notorious for ignoring this

particular piece of legislation, which was designed to enhance

profits and act as a protection for English trade. One of the

reasons for this was the great distance from the “customs control

of London”.79 One example of this was Newport, Rhode Island. This

New England seaport community was so filled with illicit trade

that the customs agents “dared not exercise their office for fear

of the fury and unruliness of a threatening mob”.80 What the

Navigations Acts and the disregard for them actually did, was

begin to drive a wedge between the Old World and the New. This 79 Markus Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 42, 6080 Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, p. 66

65

was one of the many signs of competition and conflict that arose

in world of the trading elites. The question on both sides was

very similar: how to best increase profits and reduce

expenditures. This is no different from today’s businesses - but

in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the stakes seemed

much higher to the colonists than to today’s businessman. The

colonies had debtor’s prison.

European conflicts were another reason for the expansion of

smuggling in the New World. One of the major conflicts going on

at the time was the War of Spanish Succession (1702-1713) in

Europe. And as in all conflicts involving European powers, these

conflicts spilled over into the Colonies. The French were once

again the enemies of England, and trade with any of their

settlements in the colonies was forbidden under the Navigation

Acts.81 New England and the trade thereof, was largely reliant on

a great deal of inter-colonial trade, in addition to the

mercantile system which tied New England to England itself.

81 Allen Taylor, American Colonies: The Setting of North America, (New York, Penguin Books:2001), pp. 292, 293

66

Remembering the independent spirit of New Englanders, it was only

a matter of time before someone would have to be made an example

of.

One example of the punishments for trade with the enemy can

be gleaned through minutes relating to a party in New England who

traded with the French in a period they were considered enemies.

Five men - John Borland, Samuel Vetch, Roger Lawson, William

Rouse, and Ebenezer Coffin - were the objects of the Board’s ire.

On April 7, 1707 the company, in defense of itself, had sent a

complaint to the Board of Trade that they had “already suffered

imprisonment and loss of ship and goods &c….”.82 Though the line

is small, it is telling. These were men of some means, as they

owned a vessel, or else they would not have mentioned the loss of

the ship in the seizure. Imprisonment was no small affair

either. If there was no one to care for the prisoner during

their time in the gaol, chances were good they would starve. The

difference in connection to the halls of power is evident in the

frequency of the mention of the Jones case, which will be 82 Board of Trade, p. 342

67

discussed later, in comparison to that of Vetch and company. In

the case of the latter, there are only five mentions about the

case in the minutes before they are condemned by the

Massachusetts colony.83

Other examples of the massive amounts of smuggling were

going on right under the noses of officials in the colonies. One

of the primary cash crops of was sugar and the most prized of the

byproducts of the process of refining sugar was molasses.

Distilleries abounded all over New England and the drink of

choice in these maritime communities was rum, which was made from

molasses. In the colony of Massachusetts alone, for the years of

1754-1755, Bernard Bailyn tells us that “384 hogsheads of

molasses were officially entered into Boston Harbor”. While this

may seem like a substantial amount of molasses, it took “40,000

hogsheads to keep the sixty-three distilleries going”.84 This is

such a massive scale of smuggling, and it being only one colony

83 Ibid, p. 34584 Bailyn, Bernard, Atlantic History: Concept and Contours, (Cambridge, Harvard University Press: 2005), p. 90

68

that the impunity with which the smugglers operated led to a

belief that their actions were right and proper. What is meant by

this was that through having ignored the Molasses Act and

smuggling becoming so large scale it was considered the norm.

This eventually evolved into a concept of free trade. This had

been going on for the past twenty years or more. Even in 1743,

ten years into the Molasses Act, William Bollan sent a letter to

the Board of Trade informing them of the gross amounts of

smuggling taking place. He told the Board that Holland was

sending, “yarn, spun hemp, paper, gunpowder, iron, and goods of

all kinds used in men’s and women’s clothing”.85 Also included in

the report was a mention of the French and how they were

encroaching on the English market with broadcloth, a commodity

with which England liked to provide the colonies. Looking ahead

to Bailyn’s period of 1755, nothing has changed, and the

colonists have had twenty years to refine their trade. It is

through this constant trade that the elites made their fortunes,

85 Douglas, David C, English Historical Documents, p. 373

69

and competition and conflict will become a matter of daily

expectation in everyday life.

How else did this competition and conflict play out? In the

early years of New England’s settlement, it was a matter of

necessity that trade with other regions in the New World took

place. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was having challenges that

warrented the leadership to outside its borders for support.

In1639 the realization that trade was going to be the means that

would allow the “City on a Hill” to be successful led John

Winthrop, the colonies’ governor, to send out his son in search

of avenues for trade. One of these ports of call was Bermuda,

where sugar, tobacco, and indigo were purchased.86 Robert Rich,

the Earl of Warwick, was an influential puritan who was heavily

involved in the early colonization of Bermuda. It was through

these dissenting ties that Winthrop felt sending his son to

Bermuda was a worthy risk. He expected his son to be well

received. Thus began a relationship with Bermuda and New England

86 Francis Bremer, Jonathan Winthrop: America’s Forgotten Founding Father, (New York, Oxford University Press: 2003), pp. 331, 332

70

that continued for more than one hundred and fifty years, and

this relationship will have very profound effects in the future.

From this point on, New England maintained ties with the whole of

the West Indies to strengthen its position and trade became its

foundation whether through legal trade or smuggling.

Examples of Competition and Conflict

Two powerful reflections of competition and conflict

occurred in Bermuda, the first occurred between the Board of

Trade and the Clerk of Courts, Francis Jones. Colonel Francis

Jones immigrated to Bermuda in December of 1671 on the ship

Hopewell. His job was as a Customs Officer called a “searcher,”

and it was his responsibility to go onboard vessels to ensure

they were following the laws of trade and paying the appropriate

71

duties to the Crown.87 At that time, the Somers Islands Company

was in control of the Bermuda Islands, and any form of trade that

was done that was not through their official channels was

considered to be smuggling, and could be tried as such.

This was a very lucrative and powerful position on the

island. Over the term of his career he was able to amass a total

of 250 acres of land on an island chain that covered only twenty-

three square miles. Twenty-five of those acres were on Ireland

Island, on the extreme southwest tip of the chain. 88 Ireland

Island became central to the defense strategy of the Islands. The

primary defenses against Bermuda’s closest military threat in the

Caribbean after the American Revolution (the United States) were

eventually posted there. While there were fortifications in

various locations around Bermuda, Ireland Island’s guns looked

west, to America. The area was easily defensible and next to

impossible to be approached without being seen. The strategic

87 Bermudian National Trust, Bermuda’s Architectural Heritage: Paget, V. 6, (Hamilton, Bermuda, The Bermuda National Trust: 2010), pp. 5, 8

88 Paget, p. 8

72

importance of the island was clear. The western end of the island

was also used for other purposes, including smuggling, in which

it was very important to keep a good distance between operations

and the Governor. The record would show that Colonel Jones and

the governor would want as little contact with one another as

possible.

Understanding the position of Colonel Jones and his son,

Captain Francis Jones, Jr., is central to understanding the

conflict that was about to take place. The year was 1707 and the

Joneses were at the height of their power on the island. King

William III had recently passed away, and a new monarch sat on

the throne: Queen Anne. It appeared that some on the island of

Bermuda had decided that they have had enough of Colonel Jones in

his position, and sought to remove him from his standing in the

community by having reported him to the Board of Trade. The

issue at hand was whether or not “Mr. Jones had a patent from Her

Majesty for the places of Secretary and Provost Marshal of the

said islands, or no.” 89

73

What began to unfold was an interesting web of charge and

counter-charge which put the island of Bermuda into a virtual

standstill, judicially speaking, and left a question as to who

the official Clerk of Courts actually was. This was thought to

have been settled in favor of the Jones camp after the death of

King William, by the new Queen herself. In order to maintain the

continuity of the government and to keep the wheels of the

bureaucracy moving, Queen Anne made a proclamation that all those

who had served in an official capacity with a patent from the

King would continue to do so until Her Majesty the Queen had

chosen otherwise. There was even an act of Parliament that aided

in the insurance of the continuity of government, “Explaining a

clause in the Act of the seventh of King William for the better Security of his Majesty’s

Royal person and Government”. 90 This act was to allow all those with

patents to keep their positions for a period of six months,

“after the six months, all officers ought to renew their

patents.” The Jones camp believed that they had nothing to worry89 Board of Trade, Journal of the Commissioners for Trade and Plantations (London, His Majesty’s Stationary Office:1920), reprint University of MichiganPress 2012, p. 37590 Board of Trade, p. 375

74

about in regards to the primary accusation. They saw the Queen’s

proclamation as an extension of the patent, and they believed

that they would not need to file for a new one.91 However, that

challenge to Jones’ authority remained, which would need to be

addressed before any further business could be done, and before

he could return to his post. This feud demonstrated how the

elites of trade, though they were supposed to be working towards

the same ends, worked against each other in a competition and

conflict which eventually caused a complete disruption to the

judicial system of Bermuda, at least in regards to what the

Official Records of the Board of Trade had to say.

What began to unfold was an interesting web of charge and

counter-charge which put the island of Bermuda into a virtual

standstill, judicially speaking, and left a question as to who

the official Clerk of Courts actually was. This was thought to

have been settled by the Jones camp after the death of King

William, by the new Queen herself. In order to maintain the

continuity of the government and to keep the wheels of the 91 Ibid, p. 375, 379

75

bureaucracy moving, Queen Anne made a proclamation that all those

who had served in an official capacity with a patent from the

King would continue to do so until Her Majesty the Queen had

chosen otherwise. There was even an act of Parliament that aided

in the insurance of the continuity of government, “Explaining a

clause in the Act of the seventh of King William for the better Security of his Majesty’s

Royal person and Government”. 92 This act was to allow all those with

patents to keep their positions for a period of six months,

“after the six months, all officers ought to renew their

patents.” The Jones camp believed that they had nothing to worry

about in regards to the primary accusation. They saw the Queen’s

proclamation as an extension of the patent, and they believed

that they would not need to file for a new one.93 However, that

challenge to Jones’ authority remained, which would have needed

to be addressed before any further business could be done, and

before he could return to his post. This feud demonstrated how

the elites of trade, though they were supposed to be working

92 Board of Trade, p. 37593 Ibid, p. 375, 379

76

towards the same ends, worked against each other in a competition

and conflict which eventually caused a complete disruption to the

judicial system of Bermuda, at least in regards to what the

Official Records of the Board of Trade had to say.

A powerful customs agent, Jones had managed to amass a large

amount of property on the island and established his family as

one that was going to have to be dealt with if any shipping is

going to take place there. After all, he was the primary customs

official on the island and arguably second in power only to the

Governor.94 These twenty-five acres may have been the impetus

for the whole issue at hand. Further research in Bermudian

archives may eventually determine that. It was in the west end

that smuggling was at its height in Bermuda.95 During this

period, the Governor’s mansion and official port of call on the

island were on St. George’s Island, on the east end, perhaps as

far away from Jones’ land on Ireland Island as you can get and

94 The Bermuda National Trust, Paget, Volume 6, Historic Buildings Book Project,(Bermuda: The Bermuda National Trust, 2010), p. 895 Hamilton, The Making and Unmaking of a Revolutionary Family, p. 11

77

still be on Bermuda. The suspicion is that there was “unofficial”

trade which took place at the property, and that this began to

gain the ire of others who could either not take part, because

they were unable to acquire the land necessary, or they really

held the conviction that their oath to the crown was being

mocked. Bear in mind also that some historians, such as Michael

Jarvis, regard the Bennett tenure on Bermuda as being very lax on

smuggling, due to a break in the close ties to England when

tobacco prices plummeted. Benjamin Bennett was the governor of

Bermuda during this period. As a result, smuggling increased, and

apparently even the Governor took part.96 This is not

unsurprising. In the first half of the 1700s, it seemed that so

many respected merchantmen and betters were involved with illicit

trade that in 1726 Daniel Defoe was able to defend himself

against acts of smuggling by accusing his accusers of the same

thing.97 Perhaps this issue was more about two large fish in one

small pond.96 Jarvis, pp. 167, 168

97 Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, p. 51

78

Two other key components to this turn of fortune for Francis

Jones, were the installation of Benjamin Bennett as Lieutenant

Governor in 1700 and the death of King William in 1702.98 This

left a question as to whether the patents held by Francis Jones

were valid, or if there was grounds for revoking the charter

giving Jones authority on the island of Bermuda. The loss of the

joint monarchs whom issued the initial patents was seen by Jones’

opponents as effectively having stripped Francis Jones of his

authority. His aspirations for the family would then have come

to very little. As it was, the Joneses were going to be tough

family with which to keep up.

Prior to all of the official complaints, letters to and from

the Board of Trade to Captain Jones and Col. Bennet concerning

Capt. Jones, all addressed him as “secretary and provost marshal”

of the island. Even during the investigation his titles were used

to address him. This implies that the official response to the

complaints may not have been what was desired by the governor.

98 Stephen Saunders Webb, The Governors-General: The English Army and the Definition of the Empire, 1569-1681, (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press: 1979), p. 473

79

Yet the proceedings continued anyway. The official reinstatement

occurred in April, 1704, much to the distaste of Governor

Bennett, and the situation was still not resolved by the end of

1707. Looking though the Official Records, we find entreaties

being sent to the Board of Trade, asking for a resolution to be

brought regarding the matter as late as December of that year.

The fight for authority between Governor Bennett and Francis

Jones was a long, drawn-out affair. 99 Either there were much more

pressing issues that were occupying the Board of Trade at the

time or Francis Jones had some very powerful friends on the Board

or influencing it.

By April of 1708 a resolution to the feud seemed to have

been in place. Captain Jones was demanding his rents (payments

for services rendered and property used) through the Board of

Trade to Governor Bennett.100 This demonstrated that things had

begun to run as usual on the island again. An uneasy truce was

put into place. Each side seemed to allow the other to go about

99 Ibid, pp. 1, 3, 375100 Webb, The Governors General, p. 484

80

their business as long they stayed out of each other’s way. Then,

in the June 8, 1708 entry of the minutes of the Board of Trade,

Governor Bennett fired the first salvo of a renewed antagonism

against Mr. Jones. He sent affidavits pertaining to Daniel

Greatbeach and Colonel Peniston, declaring that they never did

pen anything in favor of Captain Francis Jones, when in fact they

had. This gave the impression the previous recommendations were

forgeries. A new fight in the old rivalry was on. For the next

six months, Bennett continued to communicate with the Board of

Trade in his efforts to remove Captain Jones from his posts as

secretary and provost marshal of Bermuda. In December of 1708,

Francis Jones fought back with a letter detailing “87 articles of

complaint” against Governor Bennett. Though Jones was silent in

the minutes, he was not idle.101

The last entry pertaining to the Bennett/Jones dispute is

dated January 27, 1709. At this juncture we are left with a

cliffhanger. Both parties in the complaints agreed to await

decision on the issue until February, the minutes for which are 101 Board of Trade, p. 553

81

not in the volumes available at this time. It could not have gone

too poorly for Jones, however, considering that his son, Francis

Jones III, eventually went on to become president of Bermuda

later in his life.102 This whole affair seems to be a clash of

personalities of two powerful men, both of whom were charged with

exercising the affairs of the Crown.

Here are two members of the Hydrarchy who, by all rights,

should have worked in unison toward the greater execution of

maritime trade and improving the influence of the English Crown

within the region. The reality expressed above was much more

representative of the Legislature and Governor relationship in

North America as related by Bernard Bailyn in his Origins of American

Politics (1968). In his top down approach to the political situation

in North America (part of the English Hydrarchy), the competition

and conflict between these powerful bodies had their roots in the

English legal systems and tradition of the rights of Englishmen.

The difference came into play with the new recognition of the

colonies not having complied with the Navigation Acts, and the 102 Ibid, p. 582

82

Throne now having the time and opportunity to begin to address

the issue.

Another example of the competition and conflict is from New

England, with repercussions for that region’s very existence as

they knew it. By 1686, Governor Andros had been put in place to

run the Dominion of New England as a first step towards bringing

the colonists there under the heel of the Crown. His selection

as the Governor of the Dominion of New England was no accident.

Andros had served in the Irish Guards, and while in Ireland, he

had learned the authoritarian techniques of “forceful

colonization,” in which a methodical subjugation of the native

people was to take place. The expectation was that Andros would

employ the lessons learned in Ireland in New England when he took

over.103 Samuel Sewell, a contemporary diarist in the inner

circles of Massachusetts government prior to the new Dominion,

“prayed that God would pardon each Magistrate and Deputies

Sin”.104 It appears from Sewell’s diary that he was expecting hard

83

days ahead. Even during the Sabbath meeting on May 16, Sewell

recorded that “Mr. Willard prayed not for the Governor or

Government as formerly; but spake as implied it to be changed…” –

an overt act of protest to the sudden change of fortunes to New

England.105 Even more so, there were three men mentioned in the

diary who refused to take the oath of allegiance. They were

Captain Hutchinson of the local militia, William Johnson, Esq.,

and one of the Lieutenants under the command of one Captain

Lidget. As a result, the entire company of men refused to take

the oath of allegiance as well.106 Many New Englanders bristled

under the thought of the loss of their so long enjoyed

independence. The Dominion of New England was in place, and a

Royal Governor sat at its head. No legislative assembly was to

exist. Representation was a thing of the past, “taxes were

imposed without representation,” something the puritan

Congregational tradition would not allow on its own, and, even

worse, the “third Church of Boston was forced to share its

meetinghouse with an Anglican Congregation”.107 The situation was

beginning to look bleak for the Massachusetts Colony. It was

84

reported by Edward Randolph, agent for the King, that “not one

Minister op’ned his lipps to pray for the King, hoping the tyme

of their deliverance from monarchy & popery was at hand”. 108If

you want to know the temperament of the New England population in

the late seventeenth century, listen to its preachers. Those

elected to high office will also follow in their wake. Any

relief from the Andros regime placed over them, would be

welcomed.

As a consequence, Samuel Sewell of Massachusetts was sent

on a diplomatic mission in 1688 to meet with Increase Mather in

England, in an attempt to reclaim their charter and manner of

governance.109 While making the crossing, the ship, America, that

103 Webb, pp. 39, 49

104 Samuel Sewell, The Diary of Samuel Sewell: 1674-1708, Vol. 1, M. Halsey Thomas, ed. (New York, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux: 1973), p. 114.

105 Sewell, The Diary of Samuel Sewell, Vol. 1, p. 113.

106Sewell, pp. 116-118.

107 Francis Bremer, Congregational Communion, (Boston, Northeastern University Press: 1994), pp. 245, 246.

108 Bremer, Congregational Communion, p. 246.

109 Sewell, , p. 184.

85

Mr. Sewall was traveling in, had met with a ship in transit on

Sunday, December 30th, 1688, and learned of the Glorious

Revolution, while on the way to defend his colony against King

James II, who then was no longer in power.110 He recalled a dream

after hearing the news of the fall of King James II. In it he

stated that he, “dreamed of Military matters, arms and Captains,

and of a suddain, Major Gookin very well clad from head to

foot….his coat and breeches of blood-red silk…” (Major Gookin was

a good friend of Sewell’s back in Massachusetts). Sewell was

girding himself mentally for the possibility of a greater

conflict that never came.111 His relief must have been immense,

for both the Parliamentary cause and his home colony, when he

discovered the changed situation in England.

Sewell’s travels in England saw a great deal of visitations

to schools and universities, as well as a great deal of shopping

for family back home, but his primary purpose was still

unfulfilled. That purpose, now that James II was no longer on the

110 Ibid, p. 187.111 Ibid, p. 187.

86

throne, was to secure the patent, or at least to be able to bring

economic stability and credit, back to the New England property

owners, both of which had been greatly reduced under the Andros

regime and the loss of the Charter. The point about credit was

key to the elite of New England. Without it, their ability to

continue in the trades they had been engaged in previously would

have been greatly curtailed, and their power reduced

considerably. His apprehension was still evident in his title of

the letter sent and recorded in his diary on April 26th; “Hat in

Hand &c.”112 His deference, however, was more for show than deeply

felt out of fear. In his company and lobbying for the return of

the Charter was Edward Harley, who was Governor of Dunkirk, and

Philip Wharton, “fourth baron,” who was an important and

prominent puritan with connection in court who “introduced Nathan

Mather (brother to the New England divine, Increase Mather) to

both James II and William III.”113 In so doing, Samuel Sewell was

connected to parties working against James II prior to the

112 Ibid, pp. 212, 213.

113 Sewall, notes, p. 212.

87

Glorious Revolution of 1688 and placed his allegiance with the

Convention Parliament and William III. The conflict in England

and the connections tying the anti-Stuart factions to New England

would lead to a greater conflict which began in Boston on April

18th, 1689. It was the revolution against the Andros Government

and the Dominion of New England. Governor Andros’ days in power

were numbered. The last week in June, Sewell received a letter

which informed him of the essentially bloodless revolution that

had taken place. In his entry dated June 28, 1689, Sewell

recorded the event, “We were surpris’d with joy”.114 The chances

that the Charter would be returned became even greater indeed and

New Englanders demonstrated a willingness to take up arms in

conflict, regardless of station, when necessary to achieve their

ends.

Some might find the New England deposition of Governor

Andros to be in opposition to the Crown and thus in opposition to

William and Mary, the new monarchs. What the New Englanders saw

114 Ibid, p. 222.

88

was a representative of King James II still in power, who owed

his allegiance to the Catholic King. Protestant New England

wanted to do whatever it could to remove what it saw as

oppressive policies and to demonstrate their loyalty to the new

King and Queen. By removing Governor Andros they were in effect

removing whatever authority James II might have had remaining by

eliminated his authority in the New World. It also helped that

King William III was also known as William of Orange from the

Netherlands, a very Protestant country. New England Protestants

would have seen them as a spiritual ally in the continuous

struggle for true religion.

The news in the letter Sewall received was that the Prince

of Orange had taken England, and the new war with France, meant

that New England was going to be far from the new monarch’s mind,

while he needed to consolidate his power in England. Bear in

mind also that in this transition, the two most powerful

Hydrarchies in the world bordered on war, and one lost his throne

to the original Atlantic Hydrarchy, the Dutch. What did this

89

mean? This meant that New England could go about governing

themselves as they had in the past since in 1692; the Charter was

once again returned to New England.115 The second example of the

competition and conflict is from Bermuda and carried with it,

revolutionary implications, the Bermudian-American Gunpowder Plot

of 1774. It is an example that will be repeated at varying levels

through the Anglo-American Revolution of 1776.

115 Ibid, p. 291.

90

Revolutionary Implications

The more Revolutionary reflection of this conflict occurred

in the so-called Bermuda Gunpowder Plot. Tensions were building

on the mainland colonies of North America, and another conflict

was about to take place in Bermuda with serious implications for

the Americans. It mirrored, somewhat, the disagreement between

the Americans and British on an individual scale, one a merchant

and businessmen and the other, a Royal governor the

representative of Royal authority on the island. The antagonists

were a rather intrepid business man and adventurer, Colonel Henry

91

Tucker and the local Governor, George James Bruere. The former

served as a delegate to the Continental Congress and as a

representative in London. His connections were strong, as well.

Bermuda received a fair warning from the first Continental

Congress in July 1774, warning them that they were going to cease

trade with Great Britain and the colonies one year from “the

first day of December next (1775)” if the political differences

then brewing did not get resolved.116 In a word, Bermuda was on

notice that war was coming. The effect that the Navigation Acts

had on the island’s economy and subsistence would have been

immense. Michael Jarvis relates that “famine and potential civil

unrest” was likely to be the result of American resolve not to

trade with Great Britain. This was a view that was shared very

strongly by the son of Henry Tucker, St. George Tucker.

Businesses would be ruined. Bermudians moved into action, but on

an unofficial level.117

116 Continental Congress, Extracts from the votes and Proceedings of the American Continental Congress, (Boston, Edes and Gill: 1774), p.22.117 Jarvis, In the Eye of All Trade, p. 386.

92

Henry Tucker and an “extralegal” delegation were sent to

Philadelphia to petition Continental Congress to exempt the

island from what they saw would be a crippling trade embargo,

which it would indeed have been. The island did not have the

capacity to sustain itself. Congress saw a means to acquiring

something they desperately needed to fight a revolution,

gunpowder. Congress “resolved to grant entry to any vessel

carrying gunpowder, saltpeter, muskets, cannon, or other war

material…” and many knew about the poorly guarded magazine

located at St. Georges in Bermuda. Tucker made the decision to

let the powder go in exchange for the ability to continue to

trade needed provisions for the island.118 This flew in the face

of Governor Bruere, who has been trying to maintain England’s

interests as best he could. Henry Tucker, Bermuda’s Chief

Justice’s own son-in-law, was engaging in treason.

On August 14, 1774, Bermudians and Americans “broke into the

magazine and rolled over one hundred barrels of gunpowder half a

mile to boats waiting at Tobacco Bay…”119 The governor was not 118 Jarvis, pp. 385-387.

93

made aware until the next day, and even then the majority of the

population did their best to obstruct news of the theft going to

England. The next morning Bruere responded and issued a reward

for the apprehension of “any person who can make a proper

discovery before the Magistrates”.120 None came forward. It was

this very gunpowder theft that allowed the colonists to take the

engagement with England to the next level. Bermuda became the

launching pad for the Anglo-American Revolution.

Two weeks later, at the August 31 meeting, Governor Bruere

made an appeal to the Council that demonstrated the challenges he

was up against. The Bermudians, or at least a large part of them,

were well aware of what would happen if they could not gain

access to American produce. The governor himself went to hire a

sloop to go to Boston and attempt to locate the powder and those

responsible for its theft. He continued: “But to my surprise and

astonishment some persons have intimidated the Man (captain of

119 Ibid, 389.120 J. C. Arnell, ed., Minutes of His Majesty’s Council: Bermuda-August 15, 1775, Bermuda Journal of Archaeology and Maritime History, Volume 11, (Canada, Bermuda Maritime Association: 1999), pp. 186, 187.

94

the Sloop) by having the impudence & Assurance to tell the Man

that they would take away the Sloop’s rudder and secure his sails

if he offered to fit her”. The Council, in the same minutes,

called this occurrence, “A Sloop very much out of repair that had

neither Master nor Men”.121 On October 2, the Continental Congress

allowed for Bermuda to trade all but “British manufactured

goods,” providing the ability for the island to maintain its

sustainability. England, however, was not so generous as to

allow this free trade to continue, especially in the face of open

rebellion. In December 1775, Parliament banned trade with

American “rebellious colonies”. In the effort to keep Bermuda

fed, the mariner and merchant could lose everything.122

Why did Parliament find the colonies in rebellion at this

point? In large part it was the concept of Virtual

Representation. This was the idea that members of Parliament not

only represented the constituency from which they were elected,

but also that of the entire empire. The colonists saw this as a

121 Arnell, pp. 186, 187.122 Jarvis, p. 392.

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farce. How could someone who was almost three thousand miles away

have any insight as to the needs of the colonists on a day to day

basis? With the line in the sand thus drawn, Parliament issued

the Act of Exclusion.123

The Act of Exclusion treated the Americans as foreigners in

the eyes of the Navigation Acts, and seems to have terrified St.

George Tucker. In a letter dated March 31, 1776, he voiced his

anger and fear of both parties to the Honorable John Page. He

called the American Revolutionary leadership men with “misguided

zeal or ruthless ambition” and described the English leadership

as having “blindness prevailing among a set of men who seem to

have resigned the important interest of the British nation, to

the calls of ambition and the considerations of conquest”. He

continued to paint a picture of war on the continent and famine

in the islands. Of the impending hunger, St. George stated, “What

are the horrors of death in the martial field,…compared with the

slow of deliberate, but not less certain, attacks of famine”? 124

123 Thomas Ladenburg, “Digital History”, The Stamp Act and Virtual Representation, 2007. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/teachers/lesson_plans/pdfs/unit1_7.pdf, accessed November 15, 2013

96

Since the islands had been growing cash crops, rather than

produce for consumption, his point was a valid concern, to a

degree. He stated that they had “no internal resources, and our

external supplies are cut off by the most unjust and cruel act

that ever Tyrant could devise”. More to the point was the fear of

disrupted trade and loss of business to his shipping company, and

the inability for his contacts in England to provide for credit

and goods to be sold and traded. Remembering that he was writing

from a British colony loyal to the Crown (Bermuda) he injected

descriptions of his locale as being “this wretched spot” and that

he would “rather fall in the field or perish at the stake, than

be doomed to a miserable exit…”.125 What seemed more believable

was that he was attempting to lay the groundwork for his return

to Virginia and did not want to have his extended stay in Bermuda

affect his standing back home.

The Tuckers were one of the wealthiest families on the

island and it is highly unlikely they were going to starve given

their connections. What was more likely to have been the concern

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of St. George was the arrival of the “act of parliament

prohibiting all trade and intercourse with the United Colonies,

and subjecting all vessels to forfeiture for a breach thereof”.126

This act of Prohibition was a thinly veiled warning to his

contacts back home as to what was happening in British colonies

regarding the revolutionary activities of the “United Colonies”.

While the Tuckers would have been certainly concerned about their

interests abroad, they were not the only merchants on the island.

Indeed the concern would have been for the entire trade network

on the island. In only a little more than two months’ time, the

Declaration of Independence was ratified.

To underscore how important it was for Bermuda to trade with

the colonies for its subsistence, a full nine months after

England banned trade with the American colonies the Council

petitioned the Governor to allow for sanctioned trade with the 124 Letter from St. George Tucker to Hon. John Page dated March 31, 1776. Copy,Swem Library at William and Mary, the Coleman-Tucker Collection, microfilm roll M-12, page 1.

125 Letter from St. George Tucker to Hon. John Page, March 31, 1776, p. 2.

126 Letter from St. George Tucker to Hon. John Page, March 31, 1776, p.1.

98

Americans. The petition stated: “we have no staple of any kind,

by which we can procure the common necessities of Life, nor can

we encourage the most distant Hoppe of reaping any supplies from

the Production of the Country…” The petition continued to state

the “impracticability of the plan” [to supply Bermuda from

England] and urged the Governor to “consider seriously the

Distresses of the Inhabitants of this little Country and at the

same time kindly grant them every Indulgence and Relief in your

Excellency’s Power”. At the end of the meeting a “Form of

License” was presented before the Board to allow for the

“procurement of provisions”.127 In effect, they established a

back door to trading with the American Colonies.

A previous letter dated just less than a year earlier,

August 26, 1775, gave St. George sensitive troop placements and

speculation of movements. A contemporary of Tucker’s, Archibald

Campbell stated that, “they are unified in their December hour,

127 J. C. Arnell (editor), Minutes of His Majesty’s Council: Bermuda-August 15, 1775, BermudaJournal of Archaeology and Maritime History, Volume 12, (Canada, Bermuda Maritime Association: 2001), pp. 162, 163.

99

they have reduced their number to 1000 men under the command of

P. Kerry”. Apparently there was a conflict in the ranks. Serving

under Kerry, it was related that a Col. Neilson, “will not serve

under him as he is supposed to be one of the delegates to

Congress”.128 This was extraordinarily valuable information.

Campbell was conveying areas of danger to St. George Tucker.

This information would be very helpful if he was to decide to

launch or land vessels carrying cargo. In the same page, Campbell

warned St. George that Boston was growing with British troops

under Lord Summerset, and Campbell let him know that Boston was

cut off from trade for the time being. The independent streak

that had been developing for generations in the New World was

clashing with the conservatism of the Ancien Regime. St. George

Tucker and the trading elites were in the thick of it.

This was a contest of two eminent members of the Hydrarchy,

competing on the highest levels against one another. Henry

128 Letter from Dr. Archibald Campbell to St. George Tucker, August 26, 1775, College of William and Mary, Swem Library, Special Collections, Coleman TuckerPapers, Microfilm M-11, p. 2.

100

Tucker remained on the Council through the 1782 minutes and

played an active role in the governance of the island.129 George

Bruere continued to maintain his position through to 1780, the

gunpowder theft notwithstanding.130 The entire affair indicates

the extreme ties the Atlantic World had developed between each of

the regions: of Bermuda, England, and North America. That one

colony could face starvation and ruin, should trade with the

other be severed, was a strong bond indeed. It also demonstrated

the lengths that colonists would go to in order to maintain their

colonies, their status within it, and the rights they so fiercely

believed were their birthright.131 This was the seeds of undoing

for England as a primary power in their former western empire.

129 J. C. Arnell (editor), Minutes of His Majesty’s Council: Bermuda-August 15, 1775, BermudaJournal of Archaeology and Maritime History, Volume 14, (Canada, Bermuda Maritime Association: 2003), pp. 192-207.

130 Jarvis, p. 390.131 Continental Congress, Extracts from the Votes and Proceedings of the American Continental Congress, p. 27.

101

\

Conclusion: Evolution of an American Identity

In addressing the independent economic identity that

Americans developed, the date of December 1775 is paramount.

That is the date at which Parliament saw fit to exclude any and

all trade of its country and colonies with the American colonies

in rebellion. The effect of this was to exclude them from trade

with Great Britain at large, and in the language of the

Navigation Acts, define them as other than English. If that is

the case, then an argument can be made for the date of the

creation of an American identity as recognized by a foreign power

as December 1775 with the Prohibitory Act, and by the very power

that did not want them to go in the first place. This placed the

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American colonies in the same category as every other foreign

power when viewed by the Navigation Acts, excluded from the trade

privileges by Great Britain.

The historian Merrill Jensen called it “Independence by the

Act of Parliament” and the direct language from the Prohibitory

Act (22 December, 1775) stated,

All manner of trade and commerce is and shall be prohibited with the colonies [in rebellion]…and all other ships and vessels whatsoever, together with theircargoes apparel, and furniture and all other ships and vessels trading in any port or place of the said colonies, or going to trade, or coming from trading, inany port or place, shall be forfeited to his Majesty, as if the same were the ships and effects of open enemies, and shall be so adjudged, deemed, and taken in all courts of admiralty, and in all other courts whatsoever.132

The progression from initial settlement, outpost for

dissention and reliance on the mother country made the Atlantic

World an incubator for new ideas in governance and international

trade. The conflicts and competition between the maritime

elites, the Hydrarchy in tandem with the Navigation Acts, drove a

132 Jensen, p. 853.

103

wedge between the colonists and the mother country, setting the

colonists on a direction toward free trade. That infighting

allowed new concepts of self to develop in the colonies which

profoundly shaped the political course of the continent. It acted

as a training ground for international relations and fostered a

new economic identity and sense of self in the New World.

England and its policies were itself the crucible that forged

American identity out of the ingredients the Atlantic World

provided.

104

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End Notes