Chapter 4: Re: The Stamp Act

IV

RE: The Stamp Act[1]

            In March of the year 1765, the King of Great Britain assented to a bill of Parliament, affixing the Great Seal of the Realm upon a ribbon hanging from the parchment. The style of that wax seal was not altogether different from the monarchs who came before him; on its creamy surface figured the image of his Majesty astride a great stallion (perhaps in the guise of St. George upon his mighty steed, before his draconian foe) surrounded by the regal Latin: GEORGIVS III DEI GRATIA BRITANNIARVM REX FIDEI DEFENSOR (these last two a mere trinket from the King who spurned His Holiness, a king who couldn’t keep his fingers out of other ladies’ pie). The contents of the bill, coupled with a proclamation sent forth two years prior, were a live charge, which swept colonial America from the doldrums of peace and into the very midst of revolution! That bill, in coffeehouse-talk called the Stamp Act, was an internal tax upon all printed documents, and all activity dependent upon paper ceased until its repeal, freezing not only the judicial system, but also blocked the economy of marriage and gambling. O! It was the bane of the scrivener and the lawyer, and totally blasted their somnambulistic professions.

For a moment, let us pause in the above drama and saunter about in foggy London, up north beyond the old Roman walls to Clerkenwell. There now stands, as stood then in 1765 and ever stood in the tenebrous Middle Ages, a grand gate of hewn stone christened with the holy name of St. John the Evangelist. It once stood sentry, as can be seen in dusty cartographic annals dating prior to the Dissolution, as the entrance to the Priory of St. John of Jerusalem, a famed monastic precinct housing the London remnant of the Knight’s Hospitallers, which precinct towered above the monotonous cells of the Charterhouse far across Clerkenwell Street. In that Age of Faith, a Londoner heading to Newgate from the north, would pass these twins hearing the mixed song, sweet as aural ambrosia from yon Olympus dripping from the gilded strings of Phoebus’ lyre, of the Carthusians in their cells and the Doctors in their chapel. O’ how solemn and morose were those Latin lays, of those hymns to Christ the Lord, that this olde Briton heard on his southerly course to the City of London seeking a warm hearthstone!

Yet in 1765, the Priory of St. John and the Charterhouse were gone, a mere court remained for the former, and a park for the latter, yet still towering over St. John’s Street was that ancient gate. When a merchant would walk through that gate, he would hear not the song of canonical hours, but the echo of the steady application of type and ink, for the inner sanctum of St. John’s Gate was then the print shop of Sylvanus Urban. In 1765 one would enter and find on the table near the portal two pamphlets hot off the press, the ink barely dry upon the paper, one entitled “The Mutual Interest of Great Britain and the Colonies Considered” and the other “The Political Balance”. These were but twain of the sundry polemics flying from the Whigs and Tories in London on the issue of the taxes in America, yet they stand fair representatives of the debate, of which the following is a brief epitome:

Representing the party of the Earl of Chatham, the former decried that the duties now imposed on these colonies, both on foreign Sugar and on domestick Paper, will totally prevent any growth in the consumption of foreign imports, and retard the legal circuit, (which itself will retard all writs necessary for the continuance of trade and the whole mercantile economy) which noxious chimera of events will in fine, contribute to so great a loss to the yearly revenues of the Exchequer, that His Majesty and his Tories, will have to reduce us loyal British to a perpetual indentured servitude to the King of France to pay off our creditors for the debts accrued at the late war. Further, and not entirely inconsequential, this is solely the result of harboring troops among the colonies, which expense the current administration with these taxes must affray. Likewise, we would be remiss to mention, and this too is an ill portent, that these measures by the late administration of Grenville, treat our loyal brethren the Colonists not as Englishmen, but as aliens and slaves, in being taxed without having representatives in the Parliament. Should these ill motions be corrected, the affections and labours of our brethren would be united in promoting the trade and interest of this kingdom, and all things would return to their late happy and prosperous state, as things were accorded after the peace.

For the sake of being the devil’s advocate, I shall now relate the contents of the latter pamphlet, representing the party lines of the Earl of Bute and Mr. Grenville, but now as I think of it, these are paltry arguments hardly worthy of repetitions here, for they all, grown of elm in the minds of Tories, burn to ash in my apathetic mind, and indeed, what room is there really for alternatives when I know it, we are all firm Whigs here, dissenters all! Oft it is that fruitful dialogue is thus cut short in the middle of political crisis, for indeed, powder more often settles arguments than does the pen, although the merits of the latter have been lauded from the first! It is oft he who shouts his mind the loudest who wins, and I have never yet heard a contest decided by a syllogism! The master of all peripatetics might berate me for this point but I am here resolute in this observation. Indeed, let all dissenting voices quietly sail away as the Tories and Loyalists did for Nova Scotia! Let us take what is theirs and then write the books, victors all!

Irrespective of the sundry arguments pro or con, the governor of the Colony of New York had been entrusted with the care of these royal tax-stamps sent across the Atlantic from England, and now, as we return from our reverie to George Van Den Bos, the crowd upon the Fields began to make the solemn promenade to Fort George on the tip of the Island of Manhattan.

[1] Anno quinto Georgii III Regis:

WHEREAS, by an act made in the last session of Parliament several duties were granted, continued, and appropriated toward defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the British colonies and plantations in America; and whereas it is just and necessary that provision be made for raising a further revenue within your majesty's dominions in America toward defraying the said expenses; we, your majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of Great Britain, in Parliament assembled, have therefore resolved and do humbly beseech your majesty that it may be enacted, and be it enacted by the king's most excellent majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present Parliament assembled, that from and after the first day of November, one thousand seven hundred and sixty five, there shall be raised, levied, collected, and paid unto his majesty, his heirs, and successors, throughout the colonies and plantations in America [the following taxes]…

1733- The Molasses Act passes in the House of Commons, adding a six pence duty on foreign imports into New England from French sugar colonies.

November- December 1753- Virginia Gov’r R. Dinwiddie sends Maj. G. Washington to French fort on the Ohio for diplomatic negotiations.

1754- First salvo of the French and Indian War; Albany Congress convenes in NY Province.

September 13^th 1759- General James Wolfe dies in the famed Battle of Quebec.

1763- Treaty of Paris ends Seven Year War; King George III issues Royal Proclamation of 1763.

1764- Sugar Act is passed reducing the 1733 duty to 3 pence, yet ensuring harsher enforcement.

October 1765- New York colonists hold Stamp Act Congress to protest the nascent Stamp Act.

Nov 1^st 1765- Parliament begins enforcing the Stamp Act duties in the Colonies.

⁂

Chapter 3

Chapter 5

Chapter Directory

Warning: The Yellow Cardinal contains adult themes that may not be suitable for all audiences under the age of 18. Some chapters may contain descriptions of graphic scenarios including but not limited to: suggestive materials, violence, 18th century racism and slavery, sexism, etc.  Read with caution and/or parental permission.

A page from a newspaper published and printed at St. John's Gate, 1731.