Patriots by A. J. Langguth Read Free Book Online Page B

taking the case was to make himself popular. You see, Maury added bitterly, that here is a man who thinks the ready road to popularity is to trample on religion and on the prerogatives of the king.
    For the next few weeks Virginia’s other parsons discussed their options, but they wound up doing nothing. Within a year, Patrick Henry added a hundred and sixty-four new clients to his practice. He had defended the richest men in the colony and made himself the people’s hero. It was the same paradox James Otis had discovered when he took the side of wealthy smugglers and became the most popular man in Boston. Otis and Henry had each learned that it only increased their popularity to have gentlemen opposing them with cries of “Treason!”
    In London, George Grenville had concocted a plan for increasing Britain’s revenues. The Seven Years’ War had swelled the nation’s debt to 130 million pounds, and now Grenville’s advisers were arguing that to protect the colonies England must maintain an army of twenty thousand soldiers in America. Grenville cut their estimate in half, but the expense would still amount to another220,000 pounds each year. From his service as chancellor of the exchequer, Grenville knew that the colonists could be cunning in evading taxes, but he believed that the time had come for them to bear a fair share of their own defense. In March 1764 he introduced a new schedule of taxes in the House of Commons. The most important was the Sugar Act, which cut the duty on foreign molasses from sixpence a gallon to threepence. But, for the first time, it would be rigorously collected.
    The attractive idea of taxing the colonies had glimmered before. In 1759, William Pitt, the Great Commoner, had been annoyed that some colonial legislatures were being slow to appropriate funds for the war and had asked the governor of Virginia what he thought about levying a direct tax that would bypass them. When the governor wrote back that such a tax was sure to set off a protest, Pitt had dropped the idea. Even earlier, direct taxes had been recommended to Sir Robert Walpole at a time when his popularity was lagging. Walpole had also rejected the thought. “What!” he had said. “I have old England against me, and do you think I will have New England likewise?” He had offered to bequeath the plan to any successor with more courage than he had. Walpole had been willing to overlook America’s rampant smuggling because he calculated that England always got back whatever money the colonies earned, by way of the British goods they had to import.“This is taxing them more agreeably to their own constitution,” Walpole had said, “and ours.”
    When reports of Grenville’s new taxes reached America, the first resistance came from the king’s own party. Governor Bernard warned Parliament that even threepence on molasses was too much. He said that the merchants were predicting that the new tax would kill commerce in Massachusetts.
    Grenville rejected the American protests. Smugglers already paid as much as a penny and a half per gallon on molasses to bribe tax collectors to overlook their shipments. Even with that expense,their trade was flourishing. The merchants could certainly afford another penny and a half to make their business legitimate and assist the mother country. The Massachusetts agent in London, Jasper Mauduit, argued that a tax of one penny would cause no protest and would even generate more revenue than the higher one. But Grenville was convinced of his figures, and Parliament went along without debate. Members added a warning that England might later defray its expenses in America by levying certain stamp duties.
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    The king’s appointees in America had protested the Sugar Act, but among the patriots the law confirmed their worst predictions, and James Otis and Samuel Adams had found their cause. The idea of Britain levying taxes to raise money represented a shocking reversal of policy. In the past,