The Public Life of George Chalmers 9780231896771

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G E O R G E C H A L M E R S , ESQ. F.R.S. & S.A. Engraved by R . Cooper from an original drawing by H. Edridge

T H E PUBLIC LIFE OF GEORGE CHALMERS

BY

GRACE AMELIA COCKROFT

SUBMITTED

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF T H E

FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF

PHILOSOPHY

IN THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL COLUMBIA

NUMBER 4 5 4

N E W

SCIENCE

UNIVERSITY

Y O R K

1939

REQUIREMENTS

COPYRIGHT,

1939

BY

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

PRESS

PRINTED I N T H E UNITED S T A T E S OF A M E R I C A

PREFACE A BOOK with the title " a life " justly raises the expectation of adding to the number of individuals known and in some measure understood, of deepening the comprehension of the human gamut of aspiration and denial, of submission and revolt, of defeat and triumph. It is possible that this study may disappoint such anticipation. E v e n had the writer been competent, the materials have been lacking for a direct revelation of the inner life of the subject. N o diaries have been available and very little intimate correspondence, though there remains a large quantity of notes and letters which have been gone through laboriously and have yielded results substantial in other respects. George Chalmers had very definite opinions on many matters, on the principles of the English constitution, on the origins of the inhabitants and institutions of early Scotland, on the unshakable foundations and inevitable and irresistible progress of British industry and trade. H e felt keenly the treachery of the American rebels, the iniquities of the French enemies of mankind, the errors of his political and literary opponents, and he did not restrain the expression of his passionate convictions. But on the deeper desires of his own heart he was silent, or, if he put them into words, the evidence has vanished. Nothing in the nature of a " psychograph " of this man is here undertaken; no attempt will be made to dissect his soul. It is proposed to deal chiefly with the externals of his life, to give attention to the events which affected him incidentally, to the institutions with which he was connected, to his work and the estimation in which it was held by his contemporaries. Where his own ideas of men and occurrences found expression, they will be set forth. T h e conventional scheme of a chronological narrative, with the episodes ranged in their sequence in order to show their successive influence upon his character, is in part abandoned in favor of a topical treatment of his major interests and his diverse roles.

5

6

PREFACE

It is quite apparent that this plan has its limitations; the result will not be a popular biography. But it is hoped that a clearer understanding may ensue of some of the developments of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries which George Chalmers took part in or observed, and that the man himself may perhaps emerge a recognizable personality among his fellows. The writer is glad of this opportunity to express her appreciation of the courteous assistance which she has received from the staffs of the Skidmore College Library, the Columbia University Library, the Harvard College Library, the John Carter Brown Library, the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, the New York Historical Society, the Maryland Historical Society, the Peabody Institute of Baltimore, the British Museum, and the Public Record Office. She wishes particularly to acknowledge the kindness of Dr. William Kelly of Aberdeen, who copied numerous items from the manuscript book, A Genealogical History of the Family of Chalmers of Balnacraig and Cadet Branches, and of the owner of the book, who has permitted the material to be used. Her warm thanks are also due to the trustees and president of Skidmore College, whose grant of a year's leave of absence made possible the research on which this study is based, and to Professor Evarts B. Greene of Columbia University, who was good enough to read the chapters in their unfinished state and to offer many valuable suggestions. The friendly interest and counsel of Professor Robert Livingston Schuyler over a period of years have placed upon her an obligation of gratitude which she cannot hope to discharge. G. A. C. SKIDMORE COLLEGE, MAY

I,

1939.

ABBREVIATIONS U S E D IN FOOTNOTES Add. Mss. A. O. Β. T.

C. O. P. C. T.

British Museum Additional Manuscripts Audit Office Papers Board of Trade Papers Colonial Office Papers Privy Council Papers Treasury Papers

References to the British Museum Additional Manuscripts include catalogue number and page. Initial letters indicating a collection of state papers deposited in the Public Record Office are followed consecutively by series number, bundle or volume number, and page; where the page is not given, the document is to be identified by its date.

7

CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE

5 C H A P T E R

I

COLONIST

N C H A P T E R

II

REFUGEE

44 C H A P T E R

III

C H I E F C L E R K A T T H E O F F I C E FOR

TRADE

1.

1786-1804

84

2.

1804-1825

107 C H A P T E R

IV

COLONIAL A G E N T OF THE

BAHAMAS

1.

1792-1804

124

2.

1804-1825

140 C H A P T E R

ANTIQUARY,

V

EDITOR, AND A U T H O R C H A P T E R

177 VI

CONCLUSION

211

BIBLIOGRAPHY

210

INDEX

231

9

CHAPTER I COLONIST GEORGE C H A L M E R S , w h o w a s t o b e w e l l k n o w n i n h i s m a t u r e

years as a civil servant, an antiquarian and historian, a doughty warrior in many of the political and literary battles which engaged the attention and the pens of gentlemen of the world of George III, was a native of Scotland, as a disproportionate number of the conspicuous figures in English life and thought have been from his day to our own. T h e family was an honorable one; as early as 1313 its members had an acknowledged right to exhibit a coat of arms, " which was cut in stone on their burial places," 1 and the name was still highly respected in Moray and Aberdeen in the eighteenth century. Alexander Chalmers, the editor and biographer of the poets, a contemporary of George Chalmers and like him a resident of London in his later life, belonged to the branch which for several generations owned and published the Aberdeen Journal and were printers to the city and university. 2 There were many of the ilk on the rolls of students of both the ancient colleges of Aberdeen, the Reverend James Chalmers was professor of divinity at Marischall from 1728 to 1744, and two of the most illustrious of the principals of K i n g ' s were the Reverend George and Dr. John Chalmers whose incumbencies together covered the period from 1728 to 1800.8 The member of the family in whom we are chiefly interested sprang, not from the main stem of this ancient tree, but from a cadet branch. 4 T h e estate of Pittensear in Morayshire, together 1 John Burke, Encyclopedia of Heraldry, Scotland, and Ireland, " Chalmers."

or General Armory

2 P. J. Anderson, Studies of Aberdeen, p. 344.

in the History

and Development

3 Officers and Graduates P . J. Anderson, ed., p. 27.

of the University

and King's

of

England,

of the

University

College,

Aberdeen,

4 His bookplate, which can be seen in many of the volumes of his library, bears the Chalmers arms as described in Burke, loc. cit. 11

12

THE

PUBLIC

LIFE

OF

GEORGE

CHALMERS

with sundry other parcels of land in the same county, was owned in the seventeenth century by one James Chalmers who bequeathed the property to his eldest son Gtorge. The heir to this George, Archibald by name, seems to have been less conscious of the interest and dignity of his house than some of his relations thought he ought to have been. Over the protest of his sister and her husband—he had no brothers—he disposed of Pittensear to James Ogilvie in 1742, and thus the ancestral acres passed out of the Chalmers family in the year in which the subject of this study was born. 5 James Chalmers, the younger brother of this George and uncle of Archibald, was the grandfather of our George Chalmers. He had a large family and, one would judge, a very moderate substance. One, possibly two, of his younger sons went to seek their fortunes overseas. The eldest, James, secured the postmaster ship of the tiny village of Fochabers in the parish of Bellie in Morayshire, and to him and his wife, Isabella Ruddoch, the daughter of a neighboring farmer, were born six children. Of these, Alexander was the father of several sons and daughters in whom their uncle, George Chalmers, all his life manifested a deep and helpful interest. One of them, James, lived with him in London for many years, assisted him in his researches in the antiquities of Scotland, and was the administrator of his estate. Another, f o r whom his uncle solicited a post in the West Indies, died there, as did a third. There were four daughters, three of whom outlived their brothers; with the son of the fourth they were declared to be next of kin and lawful heirs of James Chalmers when he died in 1 8 4 1 , and inherited the substantial property which George Chalmers had accumulated. 5 Records of Elgin, W . Cramond, ed., I, 449. Notes relating to the Chalmers family have been contributed by Dr. William Kelly of Aberdeen from a manuscript book entitled A Genealogical History 0} the Family of Chalmers of Balnacraig and Cadet Branches, compiled by the late Alexander M. Munroe, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and City Chamberlain of Aberdeen, and dated 1901.

COLONIST

13

The Genealogical History of the Family of Chalmers informs us that George Chalmers, the second son of the postmaster, was baptized at Fochabers β on December 26, 1742, that he attended the parish school, and that he went in due course to the University of Aberdeen. The obituary which appeared in the year of his death in both the Gentleman's Magazine and the Annual Register states that " he was educated at King's College, Aberdeen, principally under the celebrated Dr. Reid," and competent later writers have repeated this assertion.7 But though there are references in his later correspondence to friends and experiences of his Aberdeen days, the accessible records of the university do not furnish indubitable proof of his graduation nor, indeed, of his attendance. It is true that two students of the same name appear on the rolls of King's as having been admitted in 1757; the entries are as follows: Georgius Chalmers, Aberdonensis Georgius Chalmers, Moraviensis, Nat. V . D. M. de Mortlach (Glass) A.M. 8 The second of these proceeded to the degree of Master of Arts, which with thirteen others he received on April 1, 1761,® but it would seem that this cannot be the George Chalmers with whom we are concerned, because, though Fochabers is located in the county of Moray, he was not the son of the minister of 6Bos\vell remarked of Fochabers on August 26, 1773, that it was " a poorlike village, many of the houses ruinous." Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D., p. 83. 7 Gentleman's Magazine, X C V (1823), pp. 564-565; Annual Register, 1825, PP· 253-254; articles in the Dictionary of National Biography by Aeneas Mackay, and in the Encyclopcdia Britannica, n t h edition, by James Macdonald, who says that " he completed the usual course." See also biographical note in Political Annals, Book II, published in Collections of the New York Historical Society, 1868. 8 Roll of Alumni in Arts of the University 1596-1860, P. J. Anderson, ed., p. 80. 9 Officers and Graduates p. 242.

of the University

and King's and King's

College of

Aberdeen,

College,

Aberdeen,

14

THE

PUBLIC

LIFE

OF

GEORGE

CHALMERS

the word of God of Mortlach. If we accept " Georgius Chalmers, Aberdonensis " as the later distinguished public figure, we must conclude that the family had left Fochabers and moved to Aberdeenshire and that he was a member of the college for one year only, the name not appearing again on the rolls. Nor was there another George Chalmers at K i n g ' s between 1742 and 1763, the years of his birth and his emigration to Maryland. T h e late Peter John Anderson, librarian of the university, who prepared for publication various selections from its records from which citations have already been made, includes the following note in his list of the alumni of Marischall College: Doctor of Laws, 1775, March 31, George Chalmers, Hon., Author of Caledonia, etc. " who lately presented to the College a collection of gold, silver and copper medals and coins collected chiefly at Tripoli and Algiers." 10 T h o u g h one hesitates to challenge the accuracy of this distinguished authority, the suggestion is ventured that the presentation may have been made by another individual of the same not uncommon name and later wrongly attributed to the wellknown author. T w o or three observations may be offered in support of this conclusion, though the point is not of primary importance. First, though it is possible that the ship on which he sailed with his uncle to America called on the way at Mediterranean ports where he may have picked up an assortment of medals and coins, it is odd that the g i f t was made to Marischall and not to King's, his own college, at that time an entirely separate and rival institution. Then, it seems a somewhat extravagant acknowledgment for the ancient foundation to make to an unknown young lawyer in a remote frontier town w h o had as yet written nothing except perhaps some political tracts which could hardly have found their way to Scotland. But more surprising still is the fact that Chalmers never appears to have 10 Fasti Academiae Mariscallanae Aberdonensis, I I , 9 9 ; see a l s o Studies in the History and Dei'elopmcnt of the University of Aberdeen, p. 133, n. 3.

COLONIST

15

claimed the doctoral dignity, intensely desired by so illustrious a man as Samuel Johnson. O n his bookplate and on the title pages of his numerous books and pamphlets he invariably added to his name the letters F . R . S . and S . A . , indicating his pride in his membership in the two learned societies, but he never used those representing academic distinction, an omission that would hardly have been in keeping with his character. George Chalmers may not have received a degree from Aberdeen, but the belief that he spent some time there as a student is too widely held and too strong to be disregarded. Though they had a long and honorable history and had graduated many men who added lustre to the scholarship of Scotland, in the middle of the eighteenth century both colleges were poor, their buildings in bad repair, and their methods of teaching antiquated and inefficient. The professors in rotation gave instruction in all the subjects of the curriculum in arts from the entrance of the students throughout their period of residence; these instructors were known as " regents." A t K i n g ' s the professor of Greek was distinguished by title, and there had been since the foundation a " h u m a n i s t " who taught Latin; but in 1760 the principal complained of Thomas Gordon, the incumbent of the latter post, that " he has scarcely ever had the face of a public class." 11 T h e state of learning at Aberdeen seems to have been no higher than at O x f o r d and Cambridge during the same period. But a renascence was already beginning and the great age of the Scottish universities was at hand. A t King's, under Dr. John Chalmers, Thomas Reid began to teach in 1751 and, with John Leslie and Roderick McLeod, served as regent during the years when presumably George Chalmers was a student. James Beattie was professor at Marischall, as was Alexander Gerard, who later went over to King's. The Aberdeen Philosophical Society was 11 Officers and Graduates of the University and King's College, Aberdeen, P. J. Anderson, ed., p. 49, n. 1. See also his Studies in the History and Development of the University of Aberdeen, p. 152, and Andrew Lang, A History of Scotland, I V , 409 ff.

l6

THE

PUBLIC

LIFE

OF

GEORGE

CHALMERS

founded in 1758 by these men and others and became a centre of intense intellectual activity. This is the time, too, when the teaching and practice of medicine in Scotland was greatly influenced by Dr. John Gregory, the " mediciner " at King's. 1 · All in all, the place was bursting into new life and vigor, and young men could scarcely fail to be stimulated by the close relation possible in so small an institution with such minds as those of Reid and Beattie. The later correspondence of George Chalmers with the Reverend David Love, a fellow-Loyalist from Maryland who had also been at Aberdeen, contains many references to the reading and philosophical reflections which they had begun to enjoy in their student days. A f t e r his terms at the university Chalmers spent some time in Edinburgh reading law. 13 He seems also to have plunged with youthful zest into the problems of what we should to-day call economics which were always to interest him keenly, and before he was twenty to have taken his first fling at those " men of narrow and contracted views " who could not see that their country's advantage and their own would best be served by a policy of courage and optimism. In 1762 there was published anonymously at Edinburgh a fifteen-page pamphlet entitled Considerations relating to the Late Order of the Two Banks established at Edinburgh by which they have recalled OneFourth of their Cash-Accompts, which has been ascribed to George Chalmers. 1,4 There is nothing in its contents to invalidate the conclusion: the author argues, as Chalmers argued all his days, that contracting the circulation of the currency is a source of inconceivable mischief to a trading peeple, and that 12 Anderson, Studies of Aberdeen, pp. 75 ff.

in the History

and Development

of the

University

13 Notes on a hearing before the Commission of Enquiry, A. O. 12: 103, p. 112. The writer has no information as to the name of the lawyer in whose office he carried on his legal studies, and is unable to state precisely the period during which he was thus engaged. 14 B y H a l k e t t and Laing, Dictionary English Literature, I, 418.

of Anonymous

and

Pseudonymous

COLONIST

17

an increase of the money medium stimulates commerce. He roundly condemns the banks for their short-sightedness in not preventing the current crisis by securing cash in England when the exchange was low, and for their selfishness in attempting to save themselves at the risk of destroying the trade and industry of their country. In Scotland, in the middle of the eighteenth century, opportunities for ambitious young men, even for those of conspicuous ability, were limited, and a restlessness was on them. Samuel Johnson derisively remarked in July, 1763, that " t h e noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the highroad that leads him to England " ; but there were other high roads stretching before eager eyes in that year. It was the full tide of Britain's imperial greatness, she had defeated all her enemies, she had conquered a world. And it was to the new Britain of the west that George Chalmers, now twenty years old, turned his face. The path was well-blazed; many Scots had preceded him and many were to follow. One, perhaps two, of his uncles had already been to Maryland and had become involved in one of the innumerable lawsuits which choked the calendars of the colonial courts; the young man's legal knowledge would be welcome. He sailed with his father's brother from Port Glasgow in the early summer of 1763, arriving in the Chesapeake in August. 1 5 Annapolis in the 1760's was a delightful place. The Reverend Jonathan Boucher wrote wistfully in 1 7 8 9 : It was then the genteelest town in North America, and many of its inhabitants were highly respectable as to station, fortune, and education. I hardly know a town in England so desirable as Annapolis then was. 1 ® 15 Evidence given before the Commission of Enquiry; D. P. Coke's notebook, edited by Η . E. Egerton with the title The Royal Commission on the Losses and Services of American Loyalists, p. 38. 16 Reminiscences of an American Loyalist, p. 65.

l8

THE

PUBLIC

LIFE

OF G E O R G E

CHALMERS

Perhaps allowance must be made for the rose-colored memories of an elderly man, eking out an existence in the straightened circumstances to which his loyalty to the king had brought him and looking back with homesick longing upon the happy and prosperous days when he was the incumbent of a fat living and the friend and adviser of the governor of the province. But from William Eddis, who went out as surveyor of the customs with Governor Eden in 1769, comes the same testimony. The vigorous outdoor life which the planters led, their high spirits, the lavish hospitality they offered to the popular governor and his suite at their luxurious country-houses, seemed to him only less notable than the beauty and polite deportment of the women, the brilliance of the fashionable gatherings which marked the gay season in the town, and the remarkable interest shown by this provincial society in intellectual pursuits. 17 But it was not among the land-holding gentry that the Chalmerses, uncle and nephew, would find their social level. And to imply that this charming community which Eddis depicts was representative of Maryland as a whole would be absurd. Aristocrats of wealth and breeding, still less of brains, are never numerous in the most stable order, and the picture of the province by other contemporary observers is painted in very different colors. Even the owners of large estates, if they were remotely situated, were not distinguished by elegance of manner or refinement of taste. They were often boorish in their habits, only semi-literate, and quite unfitted to mingle on terms of equality with the gentlemen who surrounded the governor. And 17 Eddis collected many of the letters which he had written to friends at home during the eight eventful years of his sojourn in Maryland, and published them by subscription in 1792 under the title, Letters from America, Historical and Descriptive, comprising Occurrences from 1769 to 1777 Inclusive. The list of subscribers included many distinguished names, and the book went so well that by January, 1794, Dilly, who sold it, had only one copy left (Rev. David Love to George Chalmers, Add. Mss. 22,900, p. 215). Besides Eddis, who is an unrivalled source, J. T. Scharf, History of Maryland, II, ch. xviii, may be consulted; it contains a wealth of interesting details of the social life of the period, drawn from contemporary accounts but rather poorly digested and ill-arranged.

COLONIST

19

the g r e a t planters, t h o u g h the m o s t picturesque and the m o s t f r e q u e n t l y described figures o f the S o u t h e r n colonies, w e r e not, o f course, the sole inhabitants. I m m i g r a t i o n into M a r y l a n d in the m i d d l e o f the eighteenth century w a s rapid. T h e back count r y o f F r e d e r i c k C o u n t y w a s b e i n g settled by a s t u r d y population, w h i c h included " P a l a t i n e s " f r o m the R h i n e l a n d as well a s m a n y apprentices, redemptioners, a n d convicts f r o m B r i t a i n a n d Ireland, w h o w e r e f r e e citizens w h e n they had

worked

o u t their y e a r s o f servitude. T h e y cultivated their f a r m s in a m u c h less w a s t e f u l f a s h i o n than did the tidewater a r i s t o c r a c y , a n d they lived f r u g a l l y , supplying their o w n w a n t s to a g r e a t degree. T h e y m a d e n o pretensions to refinement, a n d l i f e a m o n g t h e m w a s rude and elemental. T o the older communities, also, there w a s a constant, t h o u g h less s t r i k i n g , i n f l u x o f n e w life. In the plantation provinces the m e r c h a n t s w e r e seldom native A m e r i c a n s ; B r i t i s h houses m a i n t a i n e d " f a c t o r s " w h o w e r e v e r y frequently S c o t s m e n . O d d l y e n o u g h , too, t h o u g h the C h u r c h o f E n g l a n d w a s established in M a r y l a n d a n d supported by an annual levy o f thirty p o u n d s o f t o b a c c o per poll on all taxable males in each parish, m a n y o f the c l e r g y m e n w e r e Scots. T h e f o r t y - f o u r livings w e r e in the g i f t o f the g o v e r n o r a n d w e r e o f t e n bestowed at the behest o f the lord proprietor, sometimes upon individuals w h o s e fitness f o r a spiritual office w a s not conspicuous. R e p l y i n g in J u l y , 1 7 6 4 , to a request o f the proprietor's a g e n t that he provide f o r the R e v e r end D a v i d L o v e , G o v e r n o r S h a r p e w r o t e that he w o u l d be g l a d t o d o so f o r the candidate " seemed t o be a decent a n d wellb e h a v e d m a n , " a n d added I wish he may preach as well as he looks and pronounce English a little better that the Generality of our Scotch Clergymen who hold at present so many of the Benefices in the Province that near half of the Inhabitants have some R o o m for saying that they are obliged to pay their Minister for preaching to them in an unknown Tongue.18 18Archives of Maryland, "Correspondence of Governor Sharpe, 1761-

1771," p. 166.

20

THE

PUBLIC

LIFE

OF

GEORGE

CHALMERS

This David Love had been at one of the colleges at Aberdeen some years earlier than George Chalmers, and a warm friendship, which was to last as long as both should live, sprang up between them. Among those men in whose interest Chalmers was later active as the agent of Maryland Loyalists were a large number with distinctively Scottish names. Though he had travelled three thousand miles and more from Scotland, the boy must very soon have been made to feel at home among his transplanted fellow-countrymen, whose harsh northern speech, almost incomprehensible to their neighbors of English descent, would fall sweetly upon the ears of a homesick young Aberdonian. So in spite of his uncle's death, which occurred very soon after their arrival, he decided to remain in Maryland where he was making new friends and where the prospects of success seemed good. 19 Quite likely he was his uncle's heir; in any case he had considerably more money to invest than was usual. On December 18, 1764, a warrant was issued at the land office to George Chalmers for a parcel of 1007 acres in Worcester County on the Eastern Shore, a tract nearly four times the size of the average holding in that county. Purchase price, quitrent for one year, and payment for improvements already made, amounted to £58 1 1 s . 9 l /2d, in addition to the very large fees required by the numerous officials through whose hands the transaction passed. 20 The description of the land indicates that the district was practically a wilderness, and there is little likelihood that he had any intention of occupying his new estate, which he named Fochabers after his native village in Morayshire. It was a speculation and in a short time he made an advantageous sale. On June 23, 1768, he disposed of the land to one Smith Horsey 19 Notes on the hearing before the Commission of Enquiry, loc. cit. 20 The records of the purchase are at the land office; Liber B. C. and G. S., Certificate, 24, p. 3 1 3 ; Patent, 25, p. 398. The process of taking up land was complicated and expensive; it is described by C. P. Gould, The Land System in Maryland, 1720-1765, and by N. D. Mereness, Maryland as a Proprietary Province, ch. i.

COLONIST

21

" in consideration of the sum of three hundred pounds current money to him in hand paid before the executing these presents," thus realizing a considerable profit even after deducting four years' quitrents and the fees and allowing for the depreciation of the provincial currency in terms of sterling. 21 Those early years of his residence in Maryland, when life seemed to be opening so promisingly before him, were, as we now know, pregnant with trouble. The causes of conflict lay deep in the social and economic structure of the colony, but sharp and spectacular as was the controversy over the Stamp Act, George Chalmers could hardly have been aware that it was but the beginning of a decade of strife in which the British Empire was to be torn asunder and his own youthful fortunes brought to naught. A s a budding lawyer he may be supposed to have resented the obstacle placed in the path of his professional progress by the requirement that all legal papers should bear stamps. In 1780, furthermore, he expressed the opinion that " a real objection " to the Stamp Act lay in the remission of the returns of the tax to the exchequer: " England could not pay taxes long were the amount constantly expended in foreign countries." 22 But though he might question the expediency of the measure, he did not at the time or for long afterward doubt the right of parliament to legislate for all subjects of the crown, wherever in the world they might happen to be, and on all matters. Moreever, looking back on the period after his return to Great Britain, he was inclined to regard the repeal of the act as a fatal mistake, for it led the Americans to believe that they could intimidate the British government. 23 21 T h e deed of sale is to be found at the courthouse, S n o w Hill, Worcester County, Liber G, pp. 490-492. Maryland currency w a s unusually stable: in 1764 it w a s redeemable at twenty t o fifteen, though by 1773 the rate had fallen to twenty t o twelve. S e e Mereness, op. cit., p. 127, and Chalmers's memorial to the Commission of Enquiry, October, 1783, in A . O. 13: 93. 22 Unpublished letter to Lord Mansfield in the John Carter Brown Library. 23 See below, p. 46. A generation later he apparently changed his mind,

22

THE

PUBLIC

LIFE

OF

GEORGE

CHALMERS

Shortly a f t e r this phase of the struggle had resulted in what was taken in the colonies to be a victory f o r their contention, George Chalmers moved f r o m Annapolis to Baltimore. Perhaps there were already enough or too many lawyers in the older town where it may have been difficult f o r a newcomer to establish himself, particularly f o r a youth with a pronounced Scots äccent. T h e exact date of his removal has not been ascertained. In June, 1768, in the deed of sale of his land, his place of residence is given as A n n Arundel County. T h e county-seat of Baltimore County was moved f r o m Joppa to Baltimore T o w n in that y e a r ; it would seem likely that the now increased possibilities of professional employment there would appeal to him, and the Reverend William Edmiston of Baltimore testified before the Commission of E n q u i r y that he had known him since 1 7 6 9 . Baltimore was a booming frontier town. 2 4 B u t when George Chalmers moved there f r o m Annapolis in 1 7 6 8 or 1 7 6 9 , it must have seemed to him not a little crude as compared with that centre of fashion and elegance. T h e town was reaching out to draw in the smaller settlements in the neighborhood, but there were vacant stretches between, and the steep hills which separated the s w i f t brooks made the problem of laying out the streets one of the greatest difficulty. T h e houses were f o r the most part " poor, mean, and irregular," and the community had as yet no very high standards of public order or cleanliness. The streets were choked with debris, hogs roamed at will, and vagabonds lurked in dark corners to rob the unprotected w a y farer. T h e need of policing and lighting, to defend decent citizens f r o m assaults of thieves and to save them f r o m breaking their bones by falling over " the mountains of rubbish, stones and bricks," was urged in the newspapers by the public-spirited, as will be noted in chapter iv. W h e t h e r this was a genuine conversion to the colonial point of view or merely the argument of a lawyer defending the position of his clients it is impossible to say. 24 See Scharf, loc. cit.; also his Chronicles of Baltimore, Baltimore City and County for interesting details.

and History

of

COLONIST

23

but in the winter of 1776-1777, when the Continental Congress was in session in Baltimore, conditions were still deplorable. 25 Though a relatively late settlement it was not isolated. Travel by water to other communities around the bay was easy, it was located on the great route from north to south, and it was a natural outlet for the western counties. Mail-coaches began to run regularly in 1765 between Baltimore and Philadelphia, and in August, 1773, appeared the first issue of the first newspaper, the Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser, to be followed in 1775 by a second, Dunlap's Maryland Gazette. T o this bustling, primitive, but ambitious and growing Baltimore came George Chalmers at the age of about twenty-six to build a practice and his fortune. H e later claimed that in the six or seven years of his life there he had laid secure foundations for both, and his friends testified that this assertion was not groundless. H e stated to the commissioners appointed in 1782 to investigate the losses of Loyalist refugees that he had engaged in every sort of legal practice, and that he had been admitted to plead in the higher as well as the lower courts. 26 T h e evidence of his professional activity is not extensive. Those records of the Baltimore county court which have been preserved are very fragmentary, 2 7 and no mention of George Chalmers has been discovered in the few volumes which remain for the period. In the proceedings of the provincial court the only references to him are inconsequential: he witnessed three legal papers, and he was granted power of attorney to settle an estate.28 Harris and McHenry do not give his name in the index of their Maryland Reports, but in the case of Thompson v. Towson, tried in April Term, 1772, one of the lawyers bore the initials, " G. C . " Possibly this lawyer was George Chal25 Letters of Oliver Wolcott and William Ellery in Letters of of the Continental

Congress,

Members

E . C . B u r n e t t , ed., I I , 18", η. 3, a n d 188.

26 Notes on a hearing before the Commission of Enquiry, loc. cit. 27 They are stored in the Baltimore City Courthouse and are described by Louis D o w Scisco in the Maryland Historical Magazine, X X I I , 254 ff. 2 8 L i b e r D D , 3 (1763-1765), PP. 65 a n d 581; 5 (1770-1774), pp. 368 a n d 307.

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CHALMERS

mers; 2 8 if so, he was in distinguished company for the others were Paca, S. Chase, and Hall.80 In the commissary's court for the probate of wills he appeared before the Honorable Walter Dulany in March Term and July Term, I773." 1 And the chancery records indicate that he pleaded once, in February Court, 1773; it was probably on this occasion that he won the approval of the great Daniel Dulany for his eloquence and the care with which he had prepared his case.32 But if one may accept his own statements, made, it is true, with the object of conveying an impression of his consequence, the infrequency of the references to him in the court records is no evidence of lack of success. He claimed that his income amounted " by moderate computation " to £500 Sterling per annum, which, he said, would equal £1500 in England " a s it procured to him all the Enjoyments of the province where he lived." Lawyers' fees were very high and his list for 1774, which he testified he had sent for collection to the sheriffs of the four counties in whose courts he had pleaded, amounted to 83,200 lbs. of tobacco. Had these fees all been paid, which they were not, they would have been worth, after deduction of six per cent for collection charges and four per cent for insolvencies, £622 ios. In addition, his money fees as counsellor and conveyancer were on the average £120 Sterling, and he had other incidental sources of profit. Just over thirty, he had established for himself a comfortable economic position and an enviable reputation as an able lawyer which was recognized by the government of the province, for when Harford County was constituted out of the northeast portion of Baltimore County, and officers were chosen in March, 1774, he was appointed clerk 29 T h e writer is indebted for this suggestion to Judge Carroll T . Bond of Baltimore, who says that he k n o w s of no other attorney of the period w h o had those initials. 30 Maryland

Reports,

Harris and M c H e n r y , eds., pp. 504-509.

31 Liber 44, pp. 483 ff, 487 ff. 3 2 Liber W K , 1, pp. 130-133 ; deposition of Rev. D a v i d L o v e in support of Chalmers's memorial t o the Commission of Enquiry, A . O. 13: 93.

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of indictment and prosecutor of the lord proprietary's pleas. This appointment came " without solicitation," and though it was worth only £10 Sterling a year, " it added something to his professional respectability." Had not the troubles arisen, said the Reverend William Edmiston, rector of St. Thomas's, he would have been one of the foremost lawyers in the province. 83 But the clouds had been gathering during the whole of his residence in Maryland, and by the time of this official acknowledgment of his competence and loyalty the storm was about to break which would overwhelm George Chalmers and thousands of other prosperous and worthy subjects of the king. Though the Stamp A c t had been repealed, the British government was not relieved of the need which it had been designed to meet, and the new attempt to raise money for imperial expenses was no less unpopular than the preceding. The opposition to the Townshend duties in the South was organized by the planters who were in a state of perpetual and hopeless indebtedness to their British creditors. Indeed, it has been argued that their bitterness was as much against their creditors as against the government, and that they were more anxious to reduce the consumption than the importation of British goods in an effort to lower the cost of living. 44 On the other hand and in contrast to the merchants of the northern colonies, the southern trading class in general stood aloof or was actively hostile to the colonial measures because its members were representatives of British houses. A s has been pointed out, these factors were very often Scotsmen, and the dislike with which they 33 Supplemental memorial, 1782, A. O. 13: 60; memorial to the Commission of Enquiry, with depositions, 1783, A. O. 13: 93; notes on the hearing, A. O. 12: 103, p. 112. 34 A. M. Schlesinger, The Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution, p. 135. In 1791 a group of British merchants submitted a statement of the sums owing them, which, including sixteen years of accrued interest, reached a total of £4,930,656; of this amount £4,137,944 was due from the area south of Pennsylvania. I. S. Harrell, Loyalism in Virginia, p. 26. For the opposing view see T. P. Abernethy, Western Lands and the American Revolution,

P- 364.

20

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CHALMERS

came to be regarded ultimately involved all their fellowcountrymen. A t this stage of the conflict in Maryland the most spectacular instance of the determination of the radical leaders to tolerate no deviation from the course of action which they had sanctioned involved friends of George Chalmers. The brig Good Intent arrived at Annapolis in January, 1770, bringing a valuable consignment to the merchants James Dick and his son-inlaw Anthony Stewart. They were discreet enough to defer to public opinion, asking the consent of the community to unload the ship. A conference of representatives of the various counties was accordingly held which decided against permitting the goods to be landed, and in spite of all the official influence which could be brought to bear, the ship's master was compelled to return to England with an unbroken cargo. Robert Eden, the young and well-liked governor of the province, was powerless to control the popular will, and His Majesty's disapproval was visited upon him in the following summer when promotion to the rank of lieutenant-colonel was refused him.35 But the sentiment in favor of non-importation was dying down all over the country, and after the repeal of all duties but the threepence on tea, which was retained out of deference to the king's devotion to principle, the northern commercial centres, one after another, rescinded their agreements. The small towns acted first, then New York in July, Philadelphia in September, and Boston in October, emphasizing, however, their resolution to import no tea until that duty, too, was removed. The Baltimore merchants, always the rivals of the Philadelphians and unwilling to suffer unduly in a cause which its initial sponsors were now deserting, determined to follow the example. Their lack of proper spirit was roundly denounced at a meeting of the representatives of the counties held on 35 Eden to Hillsborough, Feb. 2, Aug. 7 and 19, 1770, in Chalmers M S S . in the New Y o r k Public Library, misplaced in Papers relating to Nova Scotia, pp. 41-43. An account of the incident is given in B . C. Steiner, Life and Administration of Sir Robert Eden, pp. 31-33.

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October 25 at Annapolis, where the sentiments of the country gentlemen prevailed, but the planters of Maryland were unable to keep the trading classes in line." T h o u g h George Chalmers's friends were among the merchants who wished only to be allowed to make their lawful profit under the mercantile system, and though he would never admit any constitutional objection to the laws, he was later to assail the system of parliamentary regulation of trade for another reason. Trade, which is conducted for the purpose of gain, should be free to seek the most profitable channels, he believed, and certainly the yearly revenue from the duties was too small a sum to fight over. But these expressions of doubt o f the completeness of the wisdom of the British government came after his return to England, and after his study of the epochal attack on the edifice of mercantilism in the Wealth of Nations. Whether Chalmers's opinion, first expressed in a letter to Lord Mansfield in 1780 and expanded in his subsequent books, represents his independent conclusion drawn from personal observation and reflection or his conversion by A d a m Smith remains a question. In the early 1770's Maryland was intensely preoccupied with its own domestic problem. The long-standing feud between the assembly, bent upon lowering the fees payable to the officials and clergy of the province, and the council, in which sat the great office-holders, had entered a crucial phase. T h e act by which the schedule was established was due to expire in October, 1770, and a bill reducing it all along the line met with the usual relentless opposition in the upper house. A deadlock ensued, and the law regulating the collection of fees lapsed. Feeling ran high, and when the judges of the land office commanded a clerk to continue to collect the fees according to the old scale, the assembly ordered his imprisonment for contempt. This action appearing unjust to the chivalrous governer, he prorogued the house for three days in order to effect the man's release; and 36 For the resolution of censure see Scharf, History of Maryland,

II, 120.

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OF

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CHALMERS

when this period proved insufficient for the cooling of legislative ire, which was now transferred from the council to himself, he again prorogued and then dissolved the assembly. No provision having been made for the payment of government servants, Eden by proclamation over his own signature now prohibited officers from taking greater fees than were permitted by the act which had expired. T o his opponents it seemed that fees were taxes which he was imposing on the citizens by executive act without sanction of law; but his supporters, and he had many, insisted that the regulation of fees belonged to the proprietor whose deputy he was. The lawyers in the assembly were leaders of the assault upon the privileges of office, and as an evidence of their good faith many of them announced that they would accept fees on a scale of icw. per 100 lbs. of tobacco instead of the authorized 12s. 6d. George Chalmers's practice and consequently his income were showing gratifying growth; all he asked was peace and order. He later commented bitterly on " the Anarchical Spirit of the populace and the tumult of the times which concurred with Interest to overturn all legal Establishments " so that he " was compelled by violence rather than by Justice to State his Attorney's fees of 1774 @ ios. currency instead of 12s. 6d. Sterling per cwt." " But to the student of his life the most interesting incident of this period is the resolution of the assembly embodying its rejoinder to the governor's strictures on its treatment of the unlucky land office clerk. Eden had declared that it was worse than the act of a highwayman, and the members replied with a spirited justification of their conduct: This House is constitutionally invested with a power to commit to the public jail, by way of punishment, any person for breach of privilege or contempt, there to remain until discharged by order of the House. . . . This House, as the grand inquest of the province, has an unquestionable authority founded on precedent and long 37 Memorial, Oct., 1783, loc. cit.

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uninterrupted usage, to hear and enquire into all complaints and grievances, and as incidental to that authority, has constitutionally a power to commit any person for any crime whatsoever.'8 This is not a new demand, of course, but merely an aspect of their general claim to occupy in the province exactly the position of the House of Commons in England. Though there is no way of knowing precisely what George Chalmers thought of this particular assertion, there are in his histories of the colonies sundry references to the charters as having created bodies politic with the same limited rights and powers as a domestic corporation, and he repeatedly insisted upon the inferiority of the colonial legislatures.OT It seems likely, therefore, that in 1 7 7 3 he regarded this contention of the legislature as unwarrantable presumption, and it is accordingly interesting to find him forty-five years later supporting the assembly of the Bahamas, for which he was agent, when it made an almost identical declaration of right. 40 No settlement of this vexed question was ever effected in proprietary Maryland, and the attention of citizens of the province was now drawn to matters of more serious and widespread import. In the effort to save the East India Company from bankruptcy, Lord North's government, as is well known, granted a drawback of the twelvepenny duty on tea payable in England; the threepence collected in the colonial ports was retained for, Lord North admitted, " the K i n g meant to try the case in America." The colonists were thus placed in a position of tactical advantage, and it is upon the alleged injustice of taxation without representation that patriotic eloquence then and ever since has focussed attention. It is clear, nevertheless, that it was not the petty tax, which many of them had been 38 Printed in Steiner, of>. cit., p. 71. Accounts of the fee controversy are also given by J. V. L. McMahon, Historical View of the Government of Maryland, pp. 382-401; and by Mereness, op. cit., ch. v. 39 See, for example, Political Annals, pp. 142, 293, 364, 684-685; and Introduction to the History of the Revolt (1845), I, 219. 40 See below, pp. 162-3.

30

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CHALMERS

paying for three years, but the threat of an English monopoly which once more aroused the American merchants to a determined opposition, gave the radicals their long-awaited opportunity to use " direct methods," and brought the dispute over the right of Britain to control the economic life of her colonies to its crisis. This proposition has been so convincingly demonstrated 4 ' that no further proof of its truth need be adduced. Chalmers in his comments on the events of this period, written seven years later, bears testimony that the kernel of the problem was the dread of the merchants of a powerful competitor, though, had the masses of the people been aware of their own interest, " it might have been perceived that by augmenting the number of sellers, it gave a proportional advantage to the buyers." To him, of course, there was no question of the constitutionality of the law: " The East India Company were enabled to perform what every other subject can do, to export their teas to the colonies, paying on the import 3d. in lieu of a shilling on the export." " It is impossible to say what Lord North could have done at this juncture which would have met with American approbation, though many citizens, including Benjamin Franklin, were aghast at the wholesale destruction of private property at the hands of the Boston mob; but it is certain that the action he did take was perfectly fitted to bring about the most deplorable consequences for the British Empire. Unwisely harsh punishment was meted out to Massachusetts, and those who had been regarded by the law-abiding element as vandals and criminals were transformed into heroes and martyrs. The woes of the Bay Colony became the concern of all liberty-loving Americans. New England differed from the planting colonies in religion, economic interests, and habits of life, 43 but an attack upon the 41 By A. M. Schlesinger, op. cit. 42 Letter to Lord Mansfield, previously cited. 43 George Chalmers lost no opportunity in his histories to show his hatred of the Puritans, and Boucher wrote of the aversion of the people of Virginia

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sacred charter and the ancient right of trial by jury was of ominous significance to all, while closing the port of Boston seemed a dastardly attempt to coerce brave men by reducing their women and children to starvation. Eddis wrote, " All America is in a flame." ** In his memorial to the Commission of Enquiry and his testimony before it Chalmers dates the commencement of " the troubles " in the province of Maryland from the first great meeting in Baltimore held at the courthouse on M a y 31. T h e excitement was intense and both sides had prepared to use whatever measures were necessary to gain their ends. Chalmers told the commissioners that he had been chosen by the loyal citizens as their spokesman in defense of the measure of the government, but " the leaders of the Opposition had brought the principal L a w y e r s from Annapolis to support them as they were apprehensive their own Numbers and Talents would be insufficient to carry the point they aimed at." H e was given no chance to speak. The heat in the crowded hall was almost unbearable, and " he retired to his own House which was near the Meeting in order to refresh himself." Returning after a short absence, he met his friend Henry Thompson who was in bad case. " Bloody and dishevelled," Thompson explained that, when he had attempted to say a few words opposed to the sentiments of the majority, he had narrowly escaped being thrown out of the window or over the staircase. Chalmers was well known to be a supporter of the government; he had only two months before been given a small but significant appointment in the newly established H a r f o r d County. H a v i n g every reason to expect similar attentions to himself should he reappear, and observing with concern the height of the courthouse window above the rocky bed of Jones's Falls which lay beneath, our prudent young Scot quickly removed himself from proximity and Maryland to Massachusetts as " an hereditary national disesteem confirmed by their own personal dislike." View of the Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution, Preface, x x x i v . 44 Op. cit., p. 158.

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OF GEORGE

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to danger. H e says that " f r o m this time neither himself nor any of the friends of Government attended any Meeting as they had tried what could be done and found great Danger and no benefit from it." Thereafter he carried pistols for his defense whenever he went out and slept with them beside his bed. The friends of government having been coerced by threat or by actual violence, the Baltimore county meeting proceeded to pass resolutions authorizing the soliciting of subscriptions for the relief of Boston and recommending the summoning of a provincial convention and of a congress of all the colonies to devise a concerted program. A n n Arundel, where planting interest predominated, had already gone further: at a meeting on M a y 25 its citizens had expressed their readiness to join in an association for both the immediate cessation of the importation of British goods and, at some future date, if the other colonies would agree, for the non-exportation of their own products to Britain. Significant of their characteristic grievance is the angry resolve " that it is the opinion of this meeting that the gentlemen of the law in this province bring no suit for the recovery of any debt, due f r o m any inhabitant of this province to any inhabitant of Great Britain, until the said act be repealed." T h o u g h a protest was signed by 163 persons, " amongst whom were to be found many of the first importance in this city, and in the neighborhood," that the resolution was " founded in treachery and rashness," it was confirmed two days later, and ä similar suspension of debt collection was favored in meetings held in four other counties, among them H a r f o r d where Chalmers had that spring been appointed prosecutor of the proprietary's pleas.'" In September the Continental Congress agreed upon countrywide measures for the persuasion or coercion of the reluctant which were to go into effect on December ι, 4 β but even before that date the radical element in Maryland had made plain their determination to impose their will upon their own community. 45 Eddis, op. cit., pp. 159 and 162; Schlesinger, op. cit., p. 361. 46 Journals

of the Continental

Congress,

I, 75 fF.

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On October 14 there arrived in Annapolis harbor a vessel named the Peggy Stewart, owned, like the cargo of the Good Intent, by Chalmers's friends Dick and Stewart; she carried seventeen packages of tea which had been ordered in May by the firm T. C. Williams and Company. No doubt the owners expected some unpleasantness, but they took the risk and Stewart paid the duty on the tea, in order, as he explained later, to release the fifty-three passengers from a leaky boat in which they had already spent three uncomfortable months. The patriots of Ann Arundel, urged on by several extremists from Baltimore, insisted on condign punishment, and on the advice of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, to save himself from what Eddis terms " the American discipline of tarring and feathering " and his invalid wife from terror and possible insult, Stewart agreed to burn not only the tea but his ship. Running it aground and himself setting it afire, he watched it blaze with feelings easily to be imagined. The loss entailed in that sacrificial burntoffering to the Goddess of Liberty was £i,896. 47 Approving heartily of the suggestion of the Continental Congress that the right-minded assume the duty of superintendence over the private lives and business affairs of all the people, a Baltimore meeting held on November 30 set up a committee of observation which chose four of its members to observe the arrival of all vessels at the port and to keep the chairman informed of developments.48 When the second Maryland Convention voted to form a provincial militia, the committee resolved on January 16 that the name of every person, who shall upon personal Application made to him by the Committee or any person under their appointment, refuse or decline to subscribe or Contribute for the purchase of arms and ammunition be taken down and laid before the Committee at the next meeting after such refusal together with the reasons for such refusal.48 47 Eddis, op. cit., pp. 172-183; Schlesinger, op. cit., pp. 389-392. 48 Maryland Journal, Nov. 30, 1774 and Jan. 2, 1775. 49 Proceedings of the Baltimore Committee of Observation, to be seen at the Maryland Historical Society.

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T h u s it w a s already unsafe in Baltimore early in 1 7 7 5

for

men to fail to join a militia company and " use their utmost endeavours to make themselves masters of the military exercises," or to make a financial contribution to the colonial cause. " W e are little behind the N e w E n g l a n d e r s , " wrote one indignant and loyal merchant, " mustering, purchasing arms, ammunition, etc. W e have some violent, fanatical spirits a m o n g us, w h o do everything in their power to run us to the utmost extremity."

50

T h e active and able Committee of Observation

quickly perfected its technique of surveillance and within a f e w weeks had practically superseded the established local g o v ernment. T h e g r o u p to which Chalmers belonged, which included the officials, many of the clergy ( w h o , Jonathan Boucher said, could religion), 5 1

not be disloyal

without

first

renouncing

their

the loyal merchants and factors of British

firms,

and a minority of the professional classes, f o u n d the even tenor of their law-abiding lives rudely interrupted by a relentless force, to which they would not g i v e their adherence but of which they were obliged to take note in the conduct of every detail of their existence. O n January 17, while the town w a s buzzing with the news of the resolutions passed on the previous day, and those, a l w a y s a large number, w h o find it hard to come abruptly to decisions so momentous, were suffering agonies of uncertainty, the C o m mittee of Observation struck suddenly at a prominent critic. T h e Reverend W i l l i a m Edmiston w a s a native of

Maryland,

but since he had been presented by G o v e r n o r Sharpe to the desirable living of St. T h o m a s ' s in Baltimore at the express request of L o r d Baltimore, it is not surprising that he stood staunchly f o r the existing order. N o doubt the determination to reduce the fees of the clergy and the refusal to pay the duty on tea were to him but different manifestations of the same dangerous spirit of innovation which w a s threatening all the 50 Letter of J a m e s Christie dated Feb. 22, 1775, referred to below, p. 37. 51 Sermon preached in 1775, in View of the Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution, p. 455.

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institutions of church and state, of God and His Majesty. He had been outspoken in his denunciation of those treasonable and irreligious practices, and the committee evidently decided to take this opportunity to demonstrate the risk involved in flouting the sentiment of the dominant faction. They summoned Mr. Edmiston to appear before them at the courthouse, giving him two hours to prepare an answer to the charges. Under no delusion as to the danger of his situation, Edmiston despatched a messenger to his friend George Chalmers, begging him for advice as to how to proceed. He says that he doubted whether Chalmers would dare to respond, " owing to the violence of the people," but the latter came at once and together they wrote a statement and apology. The clergyman admits that his " political sentiments are different from what most people think at this time," but since " they are disagreeable to the gentlemen of the county " and may, contrary to his intention, " have the unhappy effect of spreading confusion among the Inhabitants of the parish," he solemnly promises " to avoid giving any just cause of offense, by propagating hereafter any opinion opposite to the decisions of the Continental Congress or the Provincial Convention." He ends by passionately protesting his devotion to his country and his earnest prayer that " brotherly love will bury in oblivion all animosity " between himself and his parishoners." The committee accepted his explanation and pledge, but, though punishment had been warded off for the moment, this attack on Edmiston badly alarmed the loyal group in Baltimore, and others of their number had evidence that they were looked upon with suspicion. These men were Chalmers's intimates and he says that with them " he endeavoured to promote at Baltimore Town an Association among the friends of Government for their mutual protection." They proposed not only to unite for their own safety but to hold themselves in readiness to " act as the posse comitatus in dispersing by force any Mob " when 5 2 P r o c e e d i n g s of the Committee of Observation, deposition in support of Chalmers's memorial, loc. cit.

Jan.

17,

1775,

and

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CHALMERS

called upon to do so by the high sheriff " who was a loyal Subject." 63 Accordingly, Chalmers and another gentleman, who is not named, waited upon Governor E d e n to o f f e r their services and to ask f o r some stands of arms. Though the governor expressed gratitude f o r their devotion and approbation of their plan, he delayed too long; by the end of April it was no longer possible f o r him to send the ammunition, f o r control of the stores was taken over by the convention. 5 * Hesitant though he was to put muskets into the hands of the loyal party, Eden did cooperate in another scheme which, according to Chalmers, originated with himself and " M r . Christie," presumably the sheriff. M a n y of the justices of the peace were " themselves promoters of Sedition," and the governor was persuaded in issuing commissions in early March to omit the names of nine of the leaders of " the faction." There was an immediate outcry; the governor was accused of having perpetrated " a violent insult on the Bench " at the instigation of " a contemptible junto in Baltimore T o w n , " and the Committee of Observation passed and published resolutions of sympathy and praise of " those worthy gentlemen whose abrupt Dismission with all the Circumstances attending i t " did them " the greatest H o n o u r . " 55 But though this move was infuriating to the patriot party and Chalmers declared that had it become known that he was " the Chief Instrument " he would certainly have been " massacred," it is unlikely that it had any significant influence upon the situation which had to a great degree passed out of the control of the constituted authorities. T h e regulation of every detail of business and personal life by 53 This officer, Robert Christie, had been critical of the Stamp Act and the Townshend measures and had even been a member of the Committee of Correspondence, but he was now aghast at the speed and effectiveness with which the Committee of Observation had displaced the local government. 54 Chalmers's memorial, Oct., 1783, loc. cit. 55 Notes of Daniel Parker Coke, Η. E. Egerton, ed., op. cit., p. 39; letter from a gentleman in Harford County to a friend in Philadelphia, dated March 13. i"75, printed in Force, American Archives, 4th series, II, 1 2 4 - 1 2 5 ; Maryland Journal, March 29, 1775.

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" committees, conventions and congresses," to use a phrase of Jonathan Boucher, was practically complete. James Christie, a brother and business partner of the sheriff and " the most particular friend " of George Chalmers, was being closely watched. Of Scottish parentage, his prosperity as a merchant resting chiefly upon a close connection with British houses, he resented those measures which hampered the orderly processes of trade. In January he had received a communication, courteously worded, indeed, but containing a scarcely veiled threat of serious consequences if he persisted in his attitude of defiance. Again in May there was a complaint against him, and when summoned to answer it, he was " not at home " ; this was conduct more courageous than wise. On June 19 a new charge was laid before a meeting of the committee. Christie attended, requested a hearing, and was instructed to appear on July 17, but before that day ruin had overtaken him and the abyss was yawning before his feet. On February 22 he had written in intimate fashion to his cousin, Lieutenant-Colonel Gabriel Christie who was stationed at Antigua, telling him that he had suffered " the greatest misfortune in the power of fate to inflict," the death of his beloved wife. All his fortitude is scarcely sufficient to sustain him and he thinks of going home to Scotland. Domestic trials are made more bitter by " the terrible confusion with our politics " ; " there is no depending on anything." His brother " the Provost " is well but " vexed by our public affairs and wishes himself away." " So violent and fanatical" are some that " we moderate people are under a necessity of uniting for our defense, after being threatened with expulsion, loss of life, etc. for not acceding to what we deem treason and rebellion." With the half-humorous, half-serious remark, " a part of yours, or any other regiment, I believe, would keep us very quiet," he enquires how long his cousin expects to remain in the West Indies and concludes with affectionate good wishes. This private letter was intercepted and turned over to the committee, furnishing his enemies with an unrivalled opportunity.

38

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T h a t Christie realized at once that he was undone is evident. Though, probably without much hope, he made an appeal to public mercy through the newspapers, he took immediate steps to wind up his affairs. T h e Maryland members of the Second Continental Congress, to which the Committee of Observation submitted the case, presently replied that that body had referred it to the convention which was about to assemble at Annapolis. Christie attended in person, but the delegates were adamant. Resolving that he had manifested " a spirit and principle altogether inimical to the rights and liberties of America," they forbade all persons to trade, deal or barter with him, and ordered him to leave the province by September 1. T h e Baltimore committee had set a guard about his house which had already cost him £ 3 1 i y s \ he was now required to deposit £ 5 0 0 Sterling in addition, " to be expended occasionally towards his proportion of all charges and expenses incurred and to be incurred f o r the defense of America, during the present contest with Great Britain." T h e convention ironically added that if any of this sum remained it should be restored and that no other punishment should be inflicted, and graciously conceded to him the privilege of negotiating his bills of exchange and collecting his debts. The severity of his punishment seems out of proportion to the offense, but those were critical times and the passion of resentment against Great Britain was reflected in a passion of suspicion and hate against all who supported her in America, actively or by mere refusal to act. 56 T h e Maryland Convention was engaged at the time in d r a f t ing a program which would make it impossible f o r anyone longer to remain passive. A f t e r denouncing " the arbitrary and vindictive statutes " and " the cruel prosecution of the w a r 56 See H. J. Eckenrode, The Revolution in Virginia, p. 99, for the parallel case of the young schoolmaster, David Wardrobe, also a Scotsman. For the Christie case see Proceedings of the Committee of Observations, various minutes for May, June, and July, 1775; Dunlaf's Maryland Gazette, July 18 and August 2 2 ; Maryland Journal, July 19; Letters of Members of the Continental Congress, E. C. Burnett, ed., I, 164-165; Archives of Maryland, " Proceedings of the Maryland Convention, 1775," pp. 9, 11-13.

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against the people of Massachusetts bay," it declared that it was " necessary and justifiable to repel force with force," and drew up the terms of " an association " to promote and support the present opposition to the utmost. The county committees were to arrange that these Articles of Association of the Freemen of Maryland should be offered to all persons, and the names of any who refused to subscribe were to be returned " to the end that the Convention may take order therein." All able-bodied freemen between the ages of sixteen and fifty, excepting only physicians, clergymen, those whose religious principles prevented their bearing arms, and the household of the governor, were required to enroll before September 1 5 in one of the forty militia companies. The convention on its own authority proceeded to issue $266,666 in paper money. It arrogated to itself sovereign power, constituting itself the legislature and supreme court of appeal and setting up the executive, the Council of Safety. 5 7 The old machinery of government now ceased altogether to function; the assembly never met again, and though Governor Eden remained at his post f o r several months longer, he was impotent. H e wrote on August 27 to L o r d Dartmouth, then head of the American department, that a real and oppressive tyranny had been established in the province, sadly reporting that two members of his council had been elected to the Council of Safety. 5 8 Chalmers in his memorial thus sums up the situation: " All was lost in Maryland before the Civil W a r was formally announced in Britain by the royal Proclamation of August 1 7 7 5 . The proprietary government was completely overturned, though the Officers were permitted to remain in degraded Stations." 59 The requirement of the convention that the adult male residents of the province must subscribe to the association and enroll in the militia forced all to an immediate decision, for the 57 Archives of Maryland, " Proceedings of the Maryland Convention 1775," pp. 15 ff58 Printed in Scharf, op. cit., II, 187-189. 59 1783, loc. cit.

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dead line had been set for September 1 5 . Numerous prominent and influential people from various parts of the province now prepared to go to England, to several of whom Eden gave letters of introduction to men in high governmental circles. For Chalmers and his intimate circle the situation was acute. Gilbert Buchanan, the son of a prosperous merchant of Annapolis and Chalmers's friend for the rest of their lives, had been too outspoken a critic of colonial activity, and his business had suffered. He departed from the province in August, feeling himself to be in actual danger and abandoning property which he afterwards claimed to be worth £50,000. 60 James Christie had been ordered to go by September 1. The governor's kind heart was touched by his sufferings, and he gave him a letter to his brother William Eden, then secretary of state for the northern department, with the request that he present the bearer to Lord Dartmouth. 01 The Reverend William Edmiston, who had undertaken to refrain from expressing opinions unacceptable to the now dominant party, could no longer contain his rage and indignation. Chalmers testified that he refused the sacrament to the leaders of the extremists; 6 2 if he dared to go so f a r at this juncture, he did so well knowing that he was inviting the heaviest punishment and must have been prepared to face it or leave the neighborhood. George Chalmers later declared that he had been continuously alert in the British cause, and his friends agreed that he was indeed very active in speaking and writing and giving advice and suggestions to those whose devotion to the mother country was greater than their information or their skill in debate.®3 60 A. O. 12: 6, 181-193. 61 Alluded to in Eden's letter to Dartmouth, Sept. 9, 1775, printed in Maryland Historical Magazine, II, 95 ff. A post evidently was found for Christie; he was referred to in 1782 as "late Commissary-General of the troops under the command of Major-General Grant in the West Indies." Deposition in support of George Chalmers's memorial, Sept. 7, 1782, A. O. 1 3 : 60. 62 Evidence in support of Edmiston's memorial, A. O. 12: 6, pp. 47-58. 63 The famous pamphlet Plain Truth, signed " Candidus," written in reply to Paine's Common Sense, was not the work of George Chalmers, though it

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H e had taken the lead in the unsuccessful effort of the early spring to induce the governor to arm the loyal men of Baltimore and had suggested the changes in the commission of the peace. But he must have been prudent in all these manifestations of devotion to the mother country, for his name appears on no available list of suspects and nowhere in the Proceedings of the Committee of Observation, nor was he among those on whom was conferred the doubtful honor of o u t l a w r y . " H e declared that he was in constant peril, but one gets the impression that he was never, even in those days of his youthful ardor, one to rush into danger. Moral courage he no doubt possessed and a staunch attachment to his principles and his friends, but he was not likely to seek opportunities to display his hardihood. His conduct at the meeting of M a y 31, 1774, seems to be typical of him. A s he stated in his memorial to the treasury in 1 777» " h e courted not persecution to make a merit of it." Chalmers's decision to leave the country of his adoption was no doubt due primarily to his unwillingness to subscribe to the Maryland association and to bear arms against the k i n g ; this he must do or suffer the consequences which, though vague as yet, would surely be unpleasant. H i s righteous anger at the savage chastisement of his friend Christie unquestionably contributed. A n d there was also the fact that his income was being seriously reduced. A s has already been indicated, one consequence of the fee controversy was a striking reduction in the charges of lawyers. Moreover, the convention, to discourage the popular passion for litigation " during these times of public calamity," has frequently been ascribed to him. Its authorship w a s acknowledged by James Chalmers, a substantial landowner of Kent County, w h o raised and commanded the Maryland Loyalist Regiment. Evidence before the Commission of Enquiry, A . O. 12: 6, pp. 30-46. 64 H i s name was, indeed, one of a long list of fugitives presented at the General Court of the W e s t e r n Shore at M a y Term, 1781, but " n o conviction having been had the several A c t i o n s aforesaid were by the Court ordered t o be entered, Struck-off " in the following spring. Judgments, Liber 66 T B H I, p. 586, and 67 T B H 2, p. 235; also a certificate among the Loyalist Papers in the Public Record Office signed by T h o m a s Brook Hodgkin, Clerk of the General Court.

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had ordered that new cases should be commenced only with the license of the county committee; 8 5 known as he was to be an opponent of the popular cause, he could not hope for even his rightful share of the limited legal business. Like Christie he proceeded hurriedly to settle his affairs. He would appear to have had no real property, but there were numerous other matters to attend to. The collection of the debts due to him he entrusted to Robert Christie, the sheriff, with little hope that much would be recovered in view of the widespread and embittered determination of the inhabitants of the province to throw off the burden of their obligations. 8 ® T o Dr. Alexander Stenhouse, a Scottish physician, he gave power of attorney, leaving in his hands the papers of his clients and money to pay any outstanding bills.87 He took with him to England the sum of £530. Edmiston told the Commission of Enquiry that he left Baltimore " suddenly in September and went to Newcastle on the Delaware where finding a ship bound for Dublin, he embarked on board her, arriving in England in November." 88 Since Chalmers and Christie also left Maryland in September and reached London in November, it is likely that the friends travelled together. Christie was taking his motherless little boys to their grandmother in Stirling; Edmiston's wife and three children remained in Maryland until the end of the war. Chalmers had less than these to grieve for, but present comfort and the prospect of future affluence and power were gone. He was returning to Great Britain at the age of thirty-three to begin again at the bottom of the ladder, and again in a country that was strange to him. Throughout his life his closest friends were those men to whom he was bound by a common Scottish birthright and by memories of common loss and indignity. With James and 65 Archives

of Maryland,

" Proceedings of the Convention, 1775," pp. 15 ff.

66 Memorial to the treasury, 1777, loc. cit. 67 Advertisement in Dunlap's Gazette, Nov. 7, 14, 21, 1775. Stenhouse found life increasingly difficult and shortly afterward decided to leave the colony.

68 A. O. 12: 6, 47-53.

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Robert Christie, Dr. Stenhouse, Gilbert Buchanan, and David Love of Maryland, and with Thomas Macknight, a refugee from North Carolina," he carried on an affectionate correspondence so long as they survived, and seemed always happy to serve them. A s late as 1 8 2 1 one of James Christie's sons was asking a favor for old time's sake. Buchanan, who had a delightful wit and ventured even to rally Chalmers on his literary affectations, took orders soon after his return from Maryland and was for many years rector of Woodmanstern in Surrey; Chalmers was god-father to one of his sons and used all his influence to secure the boy's appointment and promotion in the navy, seeing to it that he was placed on a ship of which one of his own relatives was in command. Stenhouse settled in Edinburgh after the war and often made purchases of old books and documents and arranged for research agents to work for Chalmers in the Scottish archives. When in 1806 the doctor was making his will, he wrote: Among the little I have to leave is your picture, it is a good likeness of what you were twenty years ago. Who shall I bequeath it to, for my son John will not have the regard for it that I would wish as he does not know the regard I had for the original. The numerous letters of Love are full of evidence of confidence and devotion. F o r Horatio Sharpe, too, Chalmers had a warm respect, and when the former governor of Maryland died in November, 1790, he sent a mourning ring to Love and a subscription in Sharpe's name, in addition to one in his own, to a new college in Edinburgh. Though he became increasingly bitter and arrogant in his political and literary disputes as the years went by, he remained deeply attached to the friends of his young manhood. 70 69 There is an interesting sketch of this admirable and unfortunate man in Janet Schaw, The Journal of a Lady of Quality, E. W . and C. M. A n d r e w s , eds., App. X I I . 70 There are many letters from these old friends in the four volumes of the Chalmers correspondence in the British Museum, Add. Mss. 22,90022,903.

CHAPTER

II

REFUGEE THE clue to an understanding of the activities of George Chalmers for a decade after his return from Maryland would appear to be his resentful rage; indeed, bitter dislike of America and things American kept cropping up all his life. His early career and fortunes had been ruined, and the national humiliation added to his sense of personal injury. His hatred of those responsible for his wrongs and those of his country extended not only to all open rebels but also to those more dangerous enemies of His Majesty, those subtler foes who were boring from within the very citadel. His loathing of such outspoken traitors as Burke and F o x was equalled by his scorn of those to whose lack of forethought he attributed the early failure to keep a firm hand on the colonial bridle, and of those whose weakness and pusillanimity had shrunk from administering a crushing military defeat while it was still possible to do so. He arrived in England in November, 1775, and there is no hint in his papers as to how he busied himself for the next year and a half. It is not unnatural to suppose that he may have paid a visit to his old haunts in Moray and Aberdeen which he had not seen for more than twelve years. A n d it is barely possible that his knowledge of American affairs and personalities may have been utilized by certain agents of the government who were engaged in spying upon the movements of the congressional envoys to Paris. The basis for this suggestion is admittedly weak, consisting as it does of a single letter signed with his name and dated at Paris on M a y 26, 1777. The handwriting is not identical with that of the notes and letters known to have been written by him in that year, and there is no reference in later correspondence to any such adventure. The name was not uncommon; 44

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there may well have been another engaged in this precarious business. On the other hand, it is credible that he may have made a hurried visit to Paris, and the letter itself is not incompatible with his character, his sources of information, and his judgment of men and events. It is a report to a government agent who operated under the alias " George Cartling " on the activities of Franklin and Deane, with a disapproving comment on a speech in the House of Commons by Lord George Germain, who had made certain indiscreet and unfounded comments on developments in America. 1 If George Chalmers was in Paris on a secret mission late in May, 1777, his visit was brief, for his other business must have kept him fairly closely occupied in London where he was by that date established. 2 H e was already furiously engaged in the pamphlet war then raging on the subject upon which he felt most deeply. Edmund Burke's famous Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol on the Affairs of America is dated on April 3, 1777, and Chalmers's anonymous Answer front the Electors of Bristol to the Letter of Edmund Burke, Esq. on M a y 20.3 H o w much more open, candid, and honorable it would be, the latter exclaims, if the American party, instead of using tactics which for years have only tended to inflame discontent and promote distrust, would " at once adopt the celebrated policy of a very respectable Dean 1 This letter is t o be found a m o n g the Auckland Papers ( A d d . Mss. 34,413, pp. 468-469). Many items in these volumes for the period 1772-79 deal w i t h the operations of spies in France and E n g l a n d ; for a brief description see A n d r e w s and Davenport, Guide to the Manuscript Materials for the History of the United States to 1783 in the British Museum, etc., p. 145. 2 T h e earliest letters of the London period bear no address, but by September, 1780, he was writing from " Mr. Knibbs's, Corner of Park StreetO x f o r d Street." Sometime between July 8, 1784, and March 17, 1785, he moved to 31 Berkeley Square, where he lived, presumably in lodgings, until the spring of 1787. 3 H i s own copy was bound with his Miscellaneous Works, 8 vols. ( E v a n s ' catalogue of his library, N o . 90). T h e pamphlet is ascribed to Chalmers by all the bibliographers, and by the catalogues of the British Museum, the Bodleian and the London Libraries.

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[Josiah Tucker], and boldly move for the independence of the colonies! " The fault of England has been to be, not too severe, but too lenient with the Americans. The repeal of the Stamp Act, in which his adversary takes pride as evidence of the high statesmanship of " the Rockinghams," was, on the contrary, the initial mistake. A little firmness at the beginning of the disturbance would have stopped the fount from which all later evils have flowed. But it is still not too late. " That it is a hopeless war we deny . . . unless we suppose an impossibility, that those in power, with example and experience before them, will act a similar part with the repealers of the Stamp Act." The colonists are not to be " thrust back into a slavery " ; they are merely to be required " to reassume the character of subjects under the mildest government upon earth." Parliament has agreed to forbear to use its right to tax them, an unquestionable right which Burke himself has admitted. But the Americans must agree to make some contribution to the expenses of the establishment under which they prosper and they must submit unconditionally to the law of the land. They cannot divest themselves of their allegiance; it is inalienable and cannot be cancelled except by act of parliament. The Earl of Abingdon, an excitable young peer and a leading critic in the House of Lords of North's measures, found even Burke insufficiently warm in the American cause and took him to task in a tract entitled, Thoughts on the Letter of Edmund Burke, Esq., to the Sheriffs of Bristol, on the Affairs of America. This rather unimportant publication seems to have roused Chalmers to a species of frenzy, and his first effusion appears mild and urbane beside his second.4 All of those dead or alive who have ever shown any sympathy or compliance with the American contention share the odium which he heaps upon Burke and " the chaste descendant of Lord Holland " ; and Franklin, whom Abingdon has called a 4 Second Thoughts: or Observations upon Lord Abingdon's Thoughts on the Letter of Edmund Burke, Esq., to the Sheriffs of Bristol, by the Author of the Ansiver to Mr. Burke's Letter.

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great philanthropist and friend of liberty, Chalmers accuses of unnamable villainies. Slightly calmer as he turns to the divergent philosophies of imperial government which are in conflict, he states again without qualification his belief in the complete sovereignity of parliament. What is this " British Constitution " about which so much is heard ? " Is it something visible, tangible, describable,—something which has never been changed or altered ? " Quite the contrary. " Where is the man who will venture to say any more than that the Constitution is the will of the legislature operating upon the distribution of the whole mass of power: that, so f a r from being anything distinct from law, it is a part of the law? " Here in a sentence is the position of the orthodox English Whig. 5 During these weeks he was occupied, also, in an effort to secure from the government palpable evidence of its appreciation of his sufferings and services to His Majesty's cause in Maryland. He was one of a considerable and increasing number who found life unendurable in America. The Declaration of Independence had forced the issue, and while many supporters of the old connection remained, hoping to lend their aid to the king's armies and to salvage something from the wreck of their own fortunes, others abandoned a situation fraught with peril and fled the continent. Though there was probably little actual destitution among those who were able to betake themselves across the Atlantic at this early stage of the war, all of them felt that their devotion to king and country merited the grateful recognition of His Majesty's ministers. The treasury was assailed with loud cries for help and it did not turn a deaf ear. B y 1782 £40,280 was being paid annually in regular allowances to 3 1 5 persons, in addition to occasional sums which amounted to between seventeen and eighteen 5 It will be interesting later to compare this opinion with the one he expressed when he was defending the claims of the Bahama Assembly. At that time the constitution was something very real indeed.

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thousand a year. This was intended not as compensation but as temporary provision for maintenance." George Chalmers had brought a substantial sum to England, but as he had not yet secured employment, and as Christie and Stenhouse found it impossible to make any remittance of the sums owing him in Maryland, it was becoming alarmingly depleted. In June, 1777, he made application for relief. Andrew Stuart, M.P., on the recommendation of Sir John Dalrymple, who had come to have a high opinion of Chalmers's merit and abilities, sent his memorial with a very kind covering letter to Sir Grey Cooper, secretary of the treasury. The petitioner had prepared a practically identical statement for Lord George Germain, the American secretary, which, certified by Sir Robert Eden, was also transmitted to the lords commissioners of the treasury. The memorial was considered on August 16, and Chalmers was awarded £ 1 0 0 in advance and £ 1 0 0 a year thereafter. 7 With the defeat of Burgoyne in the autumn of that year and the French alliance in the following February the position of the Loyalists in America became increasingly precarious except in those limited areas where British authority was maintained by an army of occupation. The ever-growing group in London of men of former wealth and distinction in the colonies took steps early in 1 7 7 9 to organize for mutual assistance and to increase the pressure upon the government for idemnification of their losses. George Chalmers preserved among his papers the records of a number of meetings held in various coffeehouses during the spring and summer of that year in which it is evident that he played a leading part. 8 The stream of refugees flowing into England was greatly augmented after Cornwallis's surrender in October, 1 7 8 1 . Lord 6 J. Eardley-Wilmot, Historical View of the Commission for Enquiring into the Losses, Services and Claims of the American Loyalists, pp. 15-23. 7 Original documents are in A. O. 13: 60. 8 Chalmers M S S . in the Harvard College Library, American Papers, I and II, and Miscellaneous Papers, pp. 75 ff.

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Shelburne had long been convinced of the inexpediency of continuing military measures against the Americans, and when he became head of the government on the death of Rockingham in July, 1782, he at once set himself to bring the war to an end. T o his mind there was no alternative to recognizing the independence of the revolted colonies, and while he hoped and endeavored to secure just treatment from the United States for those who were unwilling to renounce their allegiance, he admitted the responsibility of Great Britain herself to make some restitution to those who had sustained great losses through their loyalty. Accordingly, he undertook the systematization of the hitherto rather haphazard procedure, and on September 4, 1782, John Wilmot and Daniel Parker Coke, both members of parliament, were notified of their appointment by the treasury as commissioners of inquiry into the losses of the Loyalists. Between October of that year and the following January they investigated the claims of 3 1 5 persons, recommending suspension of fifty-six allowances, discontinuance of twenty-five, reduction of ninety, and increase of ten. During the ensuing spring 428 new requests were considered." George Chalmers hastened to submit his case. He prepared a new memorial to the treasury, presenting the legal claim of loyal subjects to compensation by their government for losses incurred in " doing their true duty and service of allegiance." He outlines his activities in support of the measures of the lawful government in Maryland, declaring that he has incurred thereby property losses of about £1,000 and income losses amounting to at least £500 Sterling a year. He asks whether he is not " justly entitled, if not to full compensation for his income, at least to an annual revenue, while he lives, of equivalent value, having respect to his character as a gentleman, and to his talents, as a writer, to the fidelity of his former conduct, and to the usefulness of his present labors." Dissatisfied with the award of 1777, he had already persuaded his friend Sir John Dal9 Eardley-Wilmot, op. cit., pp. 15-24.

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rymple to write in protest to Sir Grey Cooper, w h o had replied that " it was as much as had been granted to any Gentleman of his R a n k . " Chalmers was nettled by this failure to appreciate the dignity of his status in Maryland, and took the occasion of the hearing to remonstrate. " A m e r i c a not being a Country of R a n k , " he declared, " there can be no rank superior to that of the B a r . " A n d he doubled the estimate of his property losses, claiming £2,ooo. 10 This claim it is impossible to explain for he owned no land. It is, indeed, difficult to escape the conclusion, in view of the slight evidence of his professional consequence disclosed by the records of the Maryland courts, that he was guilty of some exaggeration in all his descriptions of the position which he had occupied in the colony. N o doubt he was not the only one of whom this could be said. The failure to obtain from the American peace commissioners more than an undertaking to recommend to the states equitable consideration of Loyalist claims forced the British government to assume a still greater measure of responsibility for their indemnification, and in July, 1783, the Commission of Enquiry was set up by act of parliament. W i l m o t and Coke, w h o had for nearly a year been engaged in a similar task assigned them by the treasury, were now to be assisted by three other commissioners and two secretaries. A house was taken f o r them in Bedford R o w , Lincoln's Inn Fields, claims were advertised for, and the inquiry began in the first week of October. Either at this time or somewhat earlier the Loyalists f r o m each colony had appointed one of their number to serve as their representative. T h e commissioners determined to make use of these agents in their quest for accurate information, and as a compliment to them it was proposed to give preference in point of time to their cases. 11 George Chalmers had been con10 His memorial was read on Dec. 19, 1782, supported by the sworn depositions of James Christie, Robert Christie, and Rev. William Edmiston. Documents are in A. O. 13: 60; notes on the hearing, A. O. 12: 103, p. 112. 11 Eardley-Wilmot, op. cit., pp. 43-49; Rules for the Proceedings of the Commissioners of American Claims, A. O. 13: 93.

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sistently energetic in the concerns of the Maryland group and was their logical choice. He had accordingly the right to an early consideration of his claim. Though in the previous winter Messrs. Wilmot and Coke had expressed sympathy for him and recommended him for government employment, they had not seen fit to increase his allowance. Supporting his third memorial with the depositions of two other gentlemen in addition to three sent in the previous autumn and with more detailed accounts of his takings in tobacco and money during his last two years in Baltimore, he comments bitterly on the failure of the Duke of Portland to provide a post for him. " Wearied with eight years Solicitude," he now renounces all claim for loss of property and reduces to £300 his demand for compensation for deprivation of income. 12 His memorial was read and evidence heard between November 2 1 and 29, 1783, but no action was taken by parliament on indemnification of Loyalists for a dishearteningly long time. Not until June 6, 1788, was a concrete proposal submitted by Pitt and accepted by the House of Commons. If the zealous and unswerving loyalty of a claimant were unquestionable, he should receive compensation according to the following scale: full payment of proved losses up to £10,000; 90% between £10,000 and £35,000; 8 5 % between £35,000 and £50,000; and 80% above £50,000. For loss of income from an office or profession, pensions should be granted on the basis of 50% of yearly receipts up to £400, with 40% for every £ 1 0 0 between £400 and £1,500, and 3 0 % for every £ 1 0 0 above £1,500. When the commission made its final report in 1790, it had examined 4 , 1 1 8 claims for losses amounting to £8,026,245, which were liquidated for £3,292,455; after deductions of £80,000, payment of £ 3 , 1 1 2 , 4 5 5 was authorized. It also recommended the granting of pensions to 204 persons involving an annual outlay of £25,785, not including allowances to 588 others, the widows 12 Documents are in A. O. 13: 93. Rev. David Love and Dr. Stenhouse made depositions in support of his memorial.

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15

and orphans of loyal subjects. By that date Chalmers had been otherwise provided for. Though the commission allowed his last claim for lost income, it awarded no pension, for, as was noted in the record, he was now in receipt of a salary of £500 a year as chief clerk in the Office for Trade. 1 4 Chalmers was extremely faithful to his duties as agent, earnest in his efforts to secure compensation for his fellowrefugees and to assist the commission in its labors in every way in his power. He gave evidence for a large number of petitioners, frankly and honestly so far as can be judged, and he furnished the investigators with various sorts of information which he was able to supply both from his first-hand knowledge of the colonial situation and from the researches which he was then carrying on in the archives. 15 Precisely how long he acted in the capacity of agent is not known. There exists in his handwriting a draft entitled, " Heads of what the Agents for the American Loyalists wish and desire as soon as convenient in the present session of Parliament," and endorsed, " Delivered to Mr. Dempster, May 1 5 , 1 7 8 6 , " while an address to His Majesty expressing the gratitude of his loyal subjects late resident in the revolted colonies, dated July 2, 1788, was signed by Robert Alexander. 1 ® But though George Chalmers ceased to act 13 Eardley-Wilmot, op. cit., pp. 69 ff. and App. IX. J. Holland Rose gives a total of £2,426,207. His figures are taken from the budgets as given in the Annual Registers, and he says that it is impossible to reconcile them with Wilmot's. Life of William Pitt, Part I, p. 445, n. 2. 14 Α. Ο. 12: 109, p. 108. H e made oath on Aug. 28, 1788, that this was his " only place of employment of profit or emolument, ecclesiastical, civil, or military, under H i s Majesty." A. O. 13: 83. 15 Among his papers are many drafts of letters to influential individuals, of petitions to H i s Majesty, and of suggestions to the members of the commission. Letters to the secretaries are in A. O. 13: 93; letters and notes in American Papers, I, 91 ff. 16 Robert Alexander, who had been one of the leaders of " the faction " in Baltimore, had been unable, when the time came to make the final defiant gesture, to bring himself to sign the Declaration of Independence or to take the oath renouncing the ancient allegiance. H e had arrived in England in the spring of 1784 almost penniless, and was now chief of the martyrs.

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for them officially, his concern for them did not diminish. In the long litigation over the redemption of the Maryland paper money he had no personal interest, but he continued for more than twenty years to give of his time and influence in the unsuccessful attempt to secure for his old friends an equitable settlement. 17 Chalmers's energy was by no means exhausted by these activities on behalf of the Loyalists. During the early 1780's he was also engaged upon a number of literary projects of varying importance but with the common purpose of denouncing and arousing public opinion against the Americans and those in England who supported them. H e credited Sir John Dalrymple with having put into his mind the idea of writing a history of the British colonies; 1 8 it was clearly undertaken with the aim of exposing the constant weakness of British colonial administration, and the persistent failure to heed warnings of the intention of the Americans to achieve independence. H e was confident that no honest man with the proofs before him could fail to agree with his conclusions and he set himself to collect information from every available quarter. Since he did not begin his researches until some time after his arrival in England, he was obliged to depend on friends who were still in America for details which were available only there. Colonial newspapers were secured, carefully read, anno1 7 Though both the Committee f o r T r a d e and the l a w officers of the c r o w n had returned the opinion that the holders of the bills had a claim on the Bank of England stock which had been deposited as security, Addington's government consented to t r a n s f e r the funds to the United States. A m e r i c a n good will w a s a matter of great importance to the British government in 1803. This matter is discussed at some length in S c h a r f , op. cit., II, 504 ff. M a n y original letters and copies and d r a f t s of documents a r e to be found among the Chalmers M S S . in Papers relating to M a r y l a n d , II, 24-59. 1 8 E d w a r d D. Neill, author of Terra Mariae, says that in the preparation of his book he used a copy of Chalmers's Political Annals on the title-page of which appeared the f o l l o w i n g inscription: " S i r J o h n D a l r y m p l e , B a r t . T h e author presents these A n n a l s which had n e v e r been written but f o r his advice, the only merit of which is owing to his kindness, as an evidence of the consideration and gratitude of the author." P . 54, n. 1.

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tated, and filed. The replies to a set of queries sent by the agents to the Loyalists in New Y o r k were grist to his mill. Anthony Stewart wrote from America that he would be glad to furnish him with the facts which he had requested for his book. " The accurate Mr. James Brook," formerly clerk of the council in Maryland, sent a response. Robert Alexander and Robert Christie gave him copies of letters which had come to them. General Gage returned courteous and detailed answers to a series of pointed questions concerning his experience in Boston. Chalmers had, of course, no correspondents in the revolutionary party. 19 The richest mine was the Old Paper Office where were collected in a vast unorganized mass all the documents which had any bearing upon England's relations with the colonies. But the archives were regarded as part of the king's private library, to which searchers were admitted infrequently and then only by special permission of the secretary of state for the southern department and for the purpose of examining papers which had been exactly specified beforehand. 20 Chalmers seems to have applied rather to the American secretary to whom he was already known at least by name. There may have been delay, but on March 4, 1780, William K n o x , the undersecretary, wrote to Sir John A y l o f f e and Thomas Astle, who were " Digesters of the State Papers " in the " Office of the K i n g ' s Remembrancer," granting the privilege in more than usually liberal terms. 21 19 These items are scattered through his papers. T h e questions sent to Gage and his reply are in Papers relating to Canada, pp. 34-36. 20 See Andrews, Guide to the Materials for American the Public Record Office of Great Britain, I, 24.

History

to 1783 in

2 1 " Mr. Chalmbers [ j i c ] being engaged in writing the History of the British Colonies in N o r t h America, Lord George Germain in order to encourage so useful a W o r k has directed me to desire you will give him access t o such papers in your Possession as relate to the said colonies & permit him t o make Extracts of such as he shall judge proper for his purpose." C. O. 5 : 2 5 1 (Domestick, despatched), p. 301.

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Chalmers must have worked early and late after he received this authorization, for the first volume of his Political Annals was published in that same year and gives evidence on every page of his careful use of the documents. His desire to finish his book (which he shortly decided to expand into two, each projected in two large volumes) did not, however, prevent his attending to what he considered to be an even more pressing duty, namely, acquainting influential statesmen with significant pieces of information which he discovered in his searches and which seemed to have bearing on the contemporary situation. Undoubtedly he also intended by this means to bring himself to their attention from time to time in the hope of inducing them to provide a place for him in government service. There is a brief manuscript among his papers in the Harvard College Library entitled, " Notes shewing that there has at all times been a party in England prior to the present reign, which promoted the gratification of the colonies at the expense of the Kingdom," and endorsed in his hand, " May 3, 1781, sent to Lord N . " In the British Museum may be seen a draft headed " Memoirs of the Canaries, sent to Lord Shelburne September 26, 1782." It contains facts relating to the geography and history of the islands, their trade and value, which Chalmers offered, with or without solicitation, for the guidance of the minister in making peace with Spain. More interesting than either of these is an earlier and very long letter to Lord Mansfield dated September 18, 1780. The manuscript, which consists of 156 pages in Chalmers's most careful hand, bears on its titlepage the following note: " This letter to Lord Mansfield was really sent to his Lordship, as a letter; and it was read by his Lordship, who said, that he would warrant the truth of it." It states in brief and clear language the opinions which its author held at that time with regard to the mistakes which he believed had persistently marked British colonial policy, and the reforms which he thought should be undertaken when the provinces had been reduced to submission, a consummation of the war to the possibility of which he still clung. The ideas

56

THE

PUBLIC

LIFE

OF

GEORGE

CHALMERS

which are here expressed are moderate and well-balanced, and no doubt Chalmers hoped that some heed would be paid to them. But it was too late in 1780 to suggest improvements in the administration of the old empire. 22 H e was now ready to put his views before a wider public. T h e first volume of his Political Annals treated of events to the year 1688 in great detail, and the author stated in the preface that the second book was " in great forwardness " and would be speedily published. This promise was never fulfilled, though there exist three chapters in manuscript bringing the account down to 1696. 23 He may have dropped the project in order to write his Introduction to the History of the Revolt of the Colonies, designed to be in the nature of a political pamphlet of timely significance. This, too, was never finished, indeed, never published in his lifetime. Volume I, to the end of the reign of George I, was printed by Baker and Galabin in 1782 but was immediately suppressed. W h y Chalmers took this step we can only conjecture. H e was diligently seeking employment in one of the government departments and he may have been told that, if he offered this book for sale, all hope of an appointment must be abandoned. It ascribed the failure of Britain's colonial enterprise to the weak and vacillating policy of successive ministries,—this at the very time when the nation was smarting under the humiliation of the treaty of peace and a first-rate political crisis was brewing. In the catalogue issued by Messrs. Evans for the sale of his library in September, 1841, the statement is made that " in consequence of the arrival of peace, the author did not feel disposed to proceed " ; Thorpe, another bookseller, is more definite: " Volume I is said to have been suppressed by recommendation of Lord 22 Papers relating to N e w England, I V , 76-77; Papers relating t o the W e s t Indies, America, Africa, and the Canaries, 1696-1786, A d d Mss. 14,034, PP· 347 ff·! letter t o Lord Mansfield in the John Carter B r o w n Library, already cited. 23 T h e manuscript of 257 pages is in the library of the N e w Y o r k H i s torical S o c i e t y ; it w a s published in the society's Collections f o r 1868.

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Liverpool." 24 Whoever the mentor, discretion prevailed over the desire of creating a literary sensation, the edition was withdrawn and the impression destroyed, and except for about a dozen copies distributed among his friends, the book was as if it had not been written. 25 In the Political Annals Chalmers is more careful to sustain the elegance and suave balance of the best eighteenth century writing than in the Introduction to the History of the Revolt; here he sometimes lays aside urbanity and writes with a pen dipped in gall. The change in temper is not difficult to explain: between 1780 and 1782 Cornwallis had been outmanoevered, for the second time in four years the commander of a British army had surrendered to the rebels, and the government had decided to abandon the fight. It was a bitter pill for British pride less than two decades after transcendent victories, and Chalmers was not the only man who struck out furiously in resentment. Y e t , allowing for the occasionally venomous tone and slightly different emphasis, the second book does not differ in its thesis from the first. They may profitably be considered together as a statement of the results of his experience in America and the fruit of his researches at the State Paper Office. In the Political Annals one finds, as might be expected, the more lucid exposition of his conception of the constitutional relation of the colonies to the mother country. A s a W h i g he emphasizes the complete sovereignty of parliament in contrast 24 Evans' catalogue, No. 98; supplement to Thorpe's catalogue for 1843, No. 675. 25 Several of these copies have been brought to America. Gilbert Buchanan's is in the N e w York Public Library, Thomas Macknight's is in the John Carter Brown Library, Chalmers's own, with interlinear corrections in his handwriting, is in the William L. Clements Library at Ann Arbor. The Harvard College Library has a copy, inscribed " from the author to Mr. Strange, as an evidence of his respect and regard," from which Jared Sparks prepared the edition published in 1845, the account being continued through the reign of George II from a manuscript purchased at the sale of the Chalmers library. References in the following pages are to this edition.

58

THE

PUBLIC

LIFE

OF

GEORGE

CHALMERS

to the limited fields in which either the royal prerogative or the subordinate legislative capacity o f the colonial assemblies m i g h t operate; " for, were its authority confined to less space than the limits of the E m p i r e , o r to f e w e r persons or things than all, it would not be legislative o r supreme."

2e

Commenting

on F r a n k l i n ' s claim b e f o r e the H o u s e o f C o m m o n s that the colonies cannot legally be taxed without their o w n consent, he says that they have never been subjected to that oppressive treatment. T h e law of E n g l a n d declares " that n o burdens shall be imposed on the E n g l i s h nation, but b y the E n g l i s h nation itself " expressing its will through " the great b o d y politic," the parliament. T h e " E n g l i s h nation " includes all E n g l i s h m e n everywhere. Pennsylvania had been created a province of the English empire by its patent, the Pennsylvanians consequently must have been at all times, members of the English nation, parts of the whole; and their will, therefore, hath always been included in the will of the state." E v e r y Englishman is endowed w i t h rights of w h i c h he can never be deprived, but which, nevertheless, he cannot a l w a y s exercise. T h e proudest peer of the realm, who emigrates to a colony, cannot exercise the important rights of the peerage. T h e most eloquent member of the house of commons, who follows his example, would no longer enjoy his privilege. A n d the freeholder of Middlesex, who wishes to enjoy his colonial freedom, could no more vote for his favourite candidate. B u t these rights are merely suspended by their o w n choice, not lost. T h e y may, at any time, return to England, and become electors of a borough, or county sheriffs, or aldermen, members of parliament, or ministers of state.28 26 Pp. 671-672. 27 P. 658, n. 18. 28 Pp. 678-679·

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Though in no doubt that any laws passed by parliament can be made binding on the colonies, the commercial monopoly imposed at the behest of special interests in England Chalmers believes to be hostile to the general good. Following the reasoning of Adam Smith, he approves the encouragement of the English fisheries by parliament, which wisely judged " that the fleet of England must always be navigated by sailors, who, being bred within the kingdom, may be obtained at the call of danger, either by force or influence." 28 But the interference with the free flow of trade he condemns: All monopolies are necessarily prejudicial to the commercial system, which has, at every period of its annals, flourished while protected by freedom, and decayed when repressed by restraint. The colonial trade has always been extremely advantageous to the nation: Yet men of discernment have thought that the monopoly of it, however beneficial to the interests of individuals, has proved detrimental to the prosperity of the whole.80 His conviction that the revolt of the colonies should be attributed to two fundamental causes, the weakness of British policy and the consistent determination of the Americans, particularly the New Englanders, to achieve virtual if not nominal independence, furnishes the thread of the argument in both books. Even in the Political Annals, where the tone of the criticism is fairly moderate and dignified, he says, From the Revolution to the present times, English statesmen more than any other on earth, have substituted temporary expedient for uniformity of system, because their attention was perpetually dragged to objects nearer and more interesting.31 In the Introduction to the History of the Revolt he does not restrain himself. Relating the circumstances of the quarrel 29 Introduction

to the History

of the Revolt,

I, 125.

30 Political Annals, p. 312. He expressed this opinion very forcefully in his letter to Lord Mansfield. 31 P . 295.

6θ

THE

PUBLIC

LIFE

OF G E O R G E

CHALMERS

between the governor and the assembly of Massachusetts in 1 7 2 6 , he remarks, There was here laid the foundation of future contest, in which the vigour of the delegates obtained an easy but decisive victory over the imbecility of statesmen, who sacrificed the regal authority and national rights to their own ease. 82 A n d again, referring to Walpole's long administration, While the same ministers occupied the cabinet, the colonial policy of the late reign, weak and degrading, because contradictory and temporizing, continued neither to do credit to themselves, nor to promote the true interest of the state. 33 H e shows intense dislike of the people of N e w England, of their religious intolerance and their turbulent character. H e makes continual reference to their unjustifiable political pretensions and believes that the example of their " republican " f o r m of government has had a most unfortunate influence upon other colonies, until by an easy progression, they had gradually abrogated their original constitutions, prior to the war of 1739, with a view to enjoy in the northern settlements, direct independence, in the southern, all its advantages, without the name. 34 The estimate of Chalmers's work, in his day and down to our own, has differed according to the mental slant of his critics. A l l have agreed that a prodigious amount of labor went into the preparation of his books and that he observed the laws of scientific composition. H e went directly to the sources and added to each chapter notes and the careful citation of authorities. H e declared that he endeavored to put events in their own setting and to view them through the eyes of contemporary 32 Vol. II, 31. 33Ibid., p.

in.

34 Ibid., p. 254. H e continued to hold this opinion throughout his life; see Opinions of Eminent lawyers (1814), xvi.

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observers, a praiseworthy aim perhaps not always realized. 35 His conclusions, of course, are another matter and seem to different commentators warranted or outrageous according to their own predispositions. A contemporary reviewer of the Political Annals in the London Magazine or Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer states his belief that, had such a history of the political development of the colonies existed at the opening of the reign of George III, no government would have ventured on the policy which brought on the war. The author has shown " sound judgment, discernment, a sacred regard for truth, indefatigable industry, and access to the proper documents." 88 On the other hand, the Monthly Review, more friendly to the colonies, though it admits the work to be of great value " on account of the distinctness of its detail, the authenticity of its documents, and the elegant manner in which it is written," laments " the most studied application of every fact " to the justification of Chalmers's own position, and asserts that " in indulging the warmth of political disputation, he loses the dignity of history." 37 Toward the middle of the nineteenth century, William Smyth, professor of modern history at Cambridge, advised his students to turn over the pages of the Political Annals, " for curious particulars often occur " ; but told them that it was " an immense, heavy, tedious book," which they need not, indeed, could not, read, except the last chapter which contains Chalmers's arguments for the British right of taxation. 33 About the same time in America the historian Brodhead was complaining, not of the style, but of the bias of the opinions expressed, and of " serious misstatements " and " gross misrepresentations." 39 Bancroft's copy, which may be seen in the 35 Political Annals, p. 16. 36 Vol. X L I X (1780), 34. 37 Vol. L X I I (1780), 465. 38 Lectures on Modern History 39 History

(3rd edition, 1849), p. 552.

of the State of New York

(1853), I, 42 and 62.

THE

62

PUBLIC

LIFE

OF

GEORGE

CHALMERS

N e w Y o r k Public L i b r a r y , abounds in marginal notes taking issue with Chalmers's statements, and the American historian elsewhere accuses him of writing " like a lawyer and a disappointed politician, not like a calm inquirer." 4 0 But Jared Sparks, in his preface to the 1845 edition of the to the History

of the Revolt,

copious treasure

of

Introduction

speaks o f the earlier book as " a

historical

facts,"

and of

the

author's

" candor and honesty." H e also remarks that Chalmers wrote like a lawyer, but believes it " probable that any

American

lawyer taking the same premises, would come to the same conclusions." T h e error " lies in the mode of viewing the subject," f o r it w a s " not a question to be settled by technical construction of laws." T h e r e were " deeper principles " in the British constitution which " were overlooked by Chalmers, or swallowed up in what he considered the omnipotence of parliamentary legislation." It may be observed that John Marshall thought so well of the Political

Annals

that he used it as a

source of information f o r his much-admired Life

of

Wash-

ington without a l w a y s g i v i n g credit to his authority. 4 1 T o this day, indeed, historians are unable to dispense with the results of Chalmers's research. 42 E v e n as early as 1780, when he w a s irate at the inexplicable weakness of the military campaigns in A m e r i c a and was suggesting to L o r d Mansfield means by which the deficiencies in imperial administration might be overcome, Chalmers seems to have been more than half convinced by the arguments of A d a m Smith and Josiah T u c k e r that colonies were a detriment rather than an asset to a trading people. In the Political 40 Quoted in J. W i n s o r , Narrative

and Critical

History

Annals

we

of America,

V,

352. n· 2· 41 W . A. Foran, " John Marshall as a Historian," in American Historical Review, Oct., 1937, pp. 51 ff.

42 For comments by contemporary writers see R. G. Adams, Political Ideas of the American Revolution, pp. 15 and 194; C. M. Andrews, Colonial Self-Government, p. 338; Ο. M. Dickerson, American Colonial Government, p. 369; Ε . B. Greene, Provincial America, p. 326.

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r e a d : " H a d a system, thus pernicious and favoured, continued without interruption, the state might, in a little period of years, have become enslaved by its o w n dependencies." duction

to the History

of the Revolt

48

The

Intro-

begins with a petulant

query " whether the f a m o u s achievement of Columbus introduced the greatest g o o d or evil, by discovering a new world to the old " ; and later in the same w o r k the author e x c l a i m s : H a p p y ! had the kingdom and the colonists sufficiently reflected that it answered no salutary purpose with regard to the interests of Britain, to protect and cherish distant establishments, which the national councils, whether directed by whigs or tories, could not govern." In that year, when he w a s writing his vitriolic attack upon both the spineless British ministers and the deceitful Americans, he w a s also preparing another volume with the quite different purpose of proving to his mortified fellow-countrymen

that

all w a s not lost, but, on the contrary, that E n g l a n d still possessed the qualities and advantages which had made her great. T h i s w a s the well-known Estimate

of the Comparative

Britain,

and

during

the

Present

Four

Strength

Preceeding

of

Reigns.

First published in 1782, it w a s to g o through seven editions in the next quarter-century and to be translated into several languages including the Russian. 4 5 T h e most familiar of these editions, that of 1786, shows a number of alterations f r o m the original f o r m , expansion of the explanation, and some changes in order though not in argument. Evidently that version pleased the author, f o r thereafter, in 1794, 1802, 1804, 1810, and in the Edinburgh edition of 1812, he merely added to this foundation supplementary chapters to bring the subject up to date. H e sternly takes to task those prophets of doom w h o have " struck the nation with an universal panic." H u m e ' s " fine 43 P. 312. 44 Vol. I, 3, and II, 106. 45 L. J . Ragatz, Guide for the Study of British Caribbean History, p. 285.

64

THE

PUBLIC

LIFE

OF

GEORGE

CHALMERS

essay " was written with " the laudable purpose of convincing the public of the impossibility of losing our money by a wrong balance of trade, so long as we preserve our people and our industry," and Chalmers engages to prove by unassailable facts that Price's mournful picture of declining population and trade is inaccurate. 46 Many wars have been waged during the four reigns under review, and in each there has been a period of trade depression from which the nation has rebounded to unprecedented heights. T h o u g h each generation has produced its own pessimists, the history of England has been a story of continuous expansion and progress because her population is industrious and thrifty and her constitution founded upon liberty and the protection of individual rights. That the independence of the United States would prove to be an unmixed blessing to the parent state had been prophesied by Smith and Tucker, was accepted in principle by Chalmers in 1782, and could in 1786 be demonstrated by statistics of trade. 47 France and Spain had assisted the American rebels " in the hope that they could ruin the affairs of Great Britain by contributing to their independence." But " the means, which were used to enfeeble this country, have actually augmented its strength, whatever may have been the fate of the other belligerent parties." H e concludes on a hopeful note: The individual, who desponds, indulges a passion the most to be deplored, because it is the most incurable. The nation, which, in any conjuncture, entertains doubts of her own abilities, is already conquered, since she is enslaved by her irresolution or by her fears. The foregoing discussions would prove, if recent experience did 46 David Hume, " Of the Balance of Trade," in Essays Moral, Political and Literary (1741 and 1742) ; Richard Price, Essay on the Population of England from the Revolution to the Present Time (1780). 47 Chalmers had not been so full of admiration for Josiah Tucker during the war, but in 1794 he wrote: " Dean Tucker happily lives to see this! The prophesies of the worthy Dean were founded in experience and wisdom, the predictions of other prophets originated merely in theories and subtleties." Preface to Estimate, xxxi. Three letters of Tucker were advertised for sale with his library; Evans' catalogue, No. 1825.

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not confirm the truth, that never ought we to have entertained a juster confidence in our own powers than in the present moment. . . . 48 The grateful reception accorded to this optimistic work by a public which ardently longed to feel its spirits raised and its self-confidence restored is attested by friendly reviews," as well as by the exhaustion of the successive editions. His Majesty himself sent an order to the bookseller signed by the royal hand. 50 Chalmers's method was to confound assertions by figures, to substitute " accurate research for delusive speculation." H e includes innumerable tables, footnotes, references to official calculations, and all the scholarly paraphernalia, asserting little, as he says, " without the citation of sufficient authorities, or the mention of authentic documents." An economist of our own generation, after commenting on the conflicting returns which often resulted from eighteenth century use of " political arithmetic," lists Chalmers in a small group of men who " had an aptitude for that type of inquiry, and could gather and use critically a considerable quantity of data, covering a considerable range of problems." 51 In fact, it is hardly fair to dismiss him, as is done in a recent study, as " too much of an antiquarian for his own writings to be regarded as illustrating the typical point of view of the period." 52 It is true that his antiquarian interests became engrossing in the last two decades of his life, but at this earlier stage if he was not typical, it was because he was looking forward to renewed and expanded brilliance for his country rather than back to a golden age. 48 Edition of 1786, p. 238. 49 English Reinew, I (1783), 129 ff.; Monthly Review, L X V I I I (1783), 51 ff.; L X X V I (1786), 213 ff.; Gentlemen's Magazine, L V I (1786), Part II, pp. 978 ff. 50 Letter advertised for sale, Evans' catalogue, No. 525. 51 Wesley C. Mitchell, Business Cycles, the Problem and its Setting, p. 191. 52 Helen Taft Manning, British Revolution, p. 76, n. 4.

Colonial Government

after the

American

66

THE

PUBLIC

LIFE

OF

GEORGE

CHALMERS

Besides these ambitious works which he was proud to own, Chalmers found time to take a share, for the most part anonymously, in the political battle of pamphlets which was then going on. Some of his productions were written in a calm and judicious temper as, for instance, The Propriety of Allowing a Qualified Export of Wool, Discussed Historically, published in 1 7 8 2 ; 5 3 others, like the earlier effusions already described, in the immoderate style of eighteenth century controversy. H i s hatred of the friends of America and, as he believed, the enemies of their own country had not abated, and the coalition of North with F o x and Burke filled him with contempt. In January·, 1784, somewhat belatedly, Stockdale brought out The Beauties of Fox, North and Burke, Selected from their Speeches, to be closely followed the next month by The Deformities of Fox and Burke, Faithfully Selected from their Speeches. Though neither tract is signed, both are ascribed to Chalmers. It was not difficult to prove out of their own mouths that F o x and Burke had for ten years accused North of innumerable villainies, of " indolence, ignorance, folly and even treachery," and their followers would find it hard to meet the charge. A third pamphlet, using the same trenchant method of damning the enemy with his own words, appeared in 1786, entitled Opposition Politics Exemplified 53 Listed with Chalmers's Miscellaneous Works in Evans' catalogue, N o . 90. A copy may be seen in the Boston Public Library, bound with other pamphlets which were probably written by him, in a volume formerly owned by James Chalmers, whose signature appears on the fly-leaf. It is attributed t o Chalmers by Aeneas Mackay, loc. cit., and by Salkeld's Catalogue. Halkett and Laing, however, ascribe it to Sir Joseph Banks (op. cit., I V , 447), and the British Museum lists it with Banks's writings. 54 Ascribed by Halkett and Laing, op. cit., I, 183, II, 34, and I V , 266. John Rylands' Library of Manchester lists the second a s his but not the first; but the third and later editions of these t w o tracts were printed together and entitled, The Beauties and Deformities 0} Fox, North and Burke. T h e British Museum attributes to him Parliamentary Portraits, which is stated on the title-page to have been written by " the Author of the Beauties of Fox, North and Burke." T h e third tract is listed with Chalmers's Miscellaneous Works in Evans' catalogue, loc. cit., and is ascribed by the British Museum catalogue.

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O f considerably more importance, however, than mere vituperative attacks on individuals of whom he happened to disapprove are Chalmers's contributions to the discussion of the proposed modifications of the mercantile system. The commercial and colonial policy of the ministries immediately following the overthrow of Lord North in March, 1782, was exceedingly liberal. Shelburne cherished plans for reform of the imperial administration which were all but revolutionary, and William Pitt, his chancellor of the exchequer and soon to be prime minister, embraced his ideas with youthful enthusiasm." Both were anxious to make friends of the United States and, though the political bond had been broken, to restore and strengthen those commercial connections which had so long and so profitably bound together the British Isles, the East and West Indies, and the temperate regions of the North American continent. In the bitter fight over the treaty of peace Shelburne was forced out of office in February, 1783, but during " t h e ministerial interregnum " Pitt introduced a bill " for the provisional establishment and regulation of trade and intercourse between the subjects of Great Britain and those of the United States of North America," which would have permitted American ships to bring goods to Great Britain and the W e s t Indies on practically the old footing. It was violently attacked by all those in and out of parliament who, from principle or from motives of personal interest, opposed any change in orthodox mercantile doctrine. 58 A m o n g the most notable critics of the measure was John Baker Holroyd, Earl of Sheffield, whose famous pamphlet, Observations on the Commerce of the American States with Europe 55 J. Holland Rose, biographer of Pitt, thinks that at this period he owed more to Shelburne than to Adam Smith; Lecky says that both had thoroughly mastered and adopted Smith's views. Rose, op. cit,, Part I, 183-184; Lecky, History 0} England in the Eighteenth Century, V, 36. 56 See H. C. Bell, "British Commercial Policy in the West Indies, 17831793." English Historical Review, July, 1916, pp. 429 ff.; E. C. Burnett, " Observations of London Merchants on American Trade, 1783," American Historical Review, July, 1913, pp. 769 ff-

68

THE

PUBLIC

LIFE

OF G E O R G E

CHALMERS

and the West Indies, first published in the spring of 1783) quickly went through six editions. Edward Gibbon, his admiring friend, believed that he, single-handed, defeated the bill and saved the Navigation Act, " the palladium of Britain," 57 but the fact is that political circumstances were hostile to an enlightened commercial policy. Pitt had resigned on March 3 1 , and on April 2 that curious aggregation, " the Fox-North Coalition," nominally led by the Duke of Portland, kissed hands. Pitt's bill was allowed to die and the king-in-council was empowered to regulate trade with the United States. An order-incouncil of July 2, drafted by William Knox, lately undersecretary in the American department and a staunch supporter of North, 58 admitted American ships to British ports on the same terms as before the war but excluded them from the West Indies. A long list of American products might be carried to the islands, but only in vessels of British registry, and not including meat, dairy products, or fish, which it was hoped and believed could be supplied by the remaining North American colonies to which Loyalists were now removing in large numbers. But the discussion was not ended. There was a large and increasingly vocal group who wished for one reason or another to see a modification of the acts of trade. The influence of Adam Smith upon that minority whose political opinions were evolved through intellectual processes was undoubtedly growing. The constantly expanding output of English industry called for a corresponding expansion of trade and pointed to the ultimate logic and wisdom of buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest wherever they might be. Mercantile SI Miscellaneous Works, I, 171. Professor Bemis believes that his influence was indeed very great; see Jay's Treaty, p. 31. See also R. Coupland, The American Revolution and the British Empire, p. 167. 58 Knox's evidence before the Committee for Trade, March 18, 1784, Β. T. 5: 11 PP· 35 ff· Sheffield and Sackville both expressed to Knox their satisfaction that his plan had been adopted. Historical Manuscripts Commission, Various Collections, VI, 191.

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interests favored some relaxation of the restrictions, " and the " West India interest," by some esteemed the most powerful political group in England, were declaring that the economic life of the islands was threatened by the interference with the trade between them and the continent.80 The notorious use or abuse of the royal prerogative by which the coalition was dismissed and Pitt appointed first lord of the treasury in December, 1783, created a political situation of the utmost delicacy. There is no evidence that the opinions of the new prime minister had altered since March, but expediency dictated that he move warily. The act of parliament of 1782, sponsored by Burke in the interests of economical reform, had abolished the old Board of Trade and authorized the appointment of an unpaid committee of the privy council to exercise the powers hitherto held by the board.® 1 A t a meeting of the council on March 5, 1784, His Majesty named a " C o m mittee for the Consideration of all Matters relating to Trade and Foreign Plantations " with the particular task of formulating a report on West India trade. It consisted at first of sixteen members, increased by January, 1786, to twenty-two. A group of distinguished men, they worked long and conscientiously without pay, holding many meetings with a high average of attendance, and hearing witnesses of all shades of opinion.02 59 Burnett, op. cit., p. 769. Richard Champion was a spokesman of the merchants; see his long pamphlet entitled, Considerations on the Present Situation of Great Britain and the United States of America. 60 More than seventy members of parliament owned West India plantations; see A. M. Schlesinger, op. cit., pp. 403-4, and L. J. Ragatz, The Fall of the Planter Class in the British Caribbean, pp. 52-53. Bryan Edwards, a wealthy Jamaica planter, expressed very ably the arguments of his class; he later wrote the useful History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies. 61 Act 22 Geo. I l l , c. 82. 62 The minutes are in Β. T. 5: 1, 2, and 3 ; the list of members is given on the title-page of Β. T. 5 : 2. The composition and work of this committee are discussed by Anna Lane Lingelbach, " The Inception of the British Board of Trade," American Historical Review, July, 1925, pp. 701 ff.

yo

THE

PUBLIC

LIFE

OF

GEORGE

CHALMERS

A m o n g those called before the committee was George Chalmers, who was present on Saturday and again on Tuesday, the third and sixth of April. The questions put to him concerned the trade between Maryland and the W e s t Indies, and he came well primed with statistics. Asked whether he thought that Maryland, in retaliation for the order-in-council, might refuse admission to British ships, he replied that, though " it is extremely difficult to say what such kind of people may do in resentment," he believed that the commerce of the West Indies was " of more essential Consequence to them than to us," and that interest would conquer. The planters, who were in the majority in the legislature, would wish as many traders as possible to come to their ports in order to increase the market for their tobacco, and would defeat any attempt to exclude the ships of any nation. They were, besides, greatly addicted to the use of choice West India rum and would continue to buy it because " they have always been a people who prefer the best of everything when they can get it." Mr. Chalmers was requested to hand in a paper showing the annual export of fish from Scotland to the W e s t Indies, which he undertook with alacrity to prepare from the custom house accounts for 1767, 1768, and I709.®3 But not alone before the committee were opinions expressed. There was another spate of pamphleteering; men of all political complexions and all degrees of literary ability rushed into print. T h e West India planters declared that the whole economy of the Caribbean colonies and the very lives of their slaves depended upon their getting lumber and food cheaply and in large quantities from North America, possible only if the multitude of small American coasting schooners were permitted as before the war to engage in the trade. A d a m Smith and his disciples contended against sacrificing the well-being of the W e s t Indies and, indeed, the prosperity of Great Britain herself 63 Β. T. 5 : i, pp. I3-I44·

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to the profit of a small group of selfish men.® But the question was not one which could be discussed objectively; the American revolt was too recent for its bitterness to have been forgotten. To the British shipbuilders who rejoiced to be relieved of the competition of the New Englanders, to the exponents of mercantilism who still cherished their vision of a self-contained empire, were added the Loyalists and their sympathizers who argued that the Americans must be treated as foreigners, must be made to feel the value of that birthright which they had sold for a mess of pottage. Among the latter we find George Chalmers, whose Opinions on Interesting Subjects of Public Law and Commercial Policy Arising from American Independence now appeared. The first section of the long pamphlet is concerned with the question of the status of the citizens of the United States. Though he clings to his position that allegiance is not alienable by the decision of the individual, nor can the privileges of a subject arbitrarily be taken from him, it is his view that they may be withdrawn by act of parliament. H e believes that the Loyalists remain British subjects and " cannot be bereaved of every social right by mere implication," but " the revolted Colonists forfeited to the law all that the law had ever conferred." The king has relinquished sovereignty over them, and parliament, by accepting the treaty of peace, has " expressed the assent of the community, to the expulsion of the American citizens from the social compact." They therefore have no rights within the realm beyond those of other foreigners, and the acts of navigation and trade are legally in operation against them. 65 64 Letter from Smith to William Eden, Journal and Correspondence William, Lord Auckland, I, 64-65.

of

65 He had asked the opinion of Lloyd Kenyon, master of the rolls, and had received an answer confirming his own (American Papers, II, 2-3). John Reeves, his later colleague at the Office for Trade, disagreed. He believed that a natural-born subject could not lose his rights by any procedure, " not by the legal judgment of his peers, nor by the law of the land." See Two Tracts showing that Americans bom before the Independence, are, by the Law of England, not Aliens (London, 1816). The first, A Discussion, was

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Chalmers's recent expressions of opinion, published and unpublished, might lead one to conclude that he had become an apostle of complete freedom of trade. But it was freedom within the empire that he advocated. T h e Americans, having cut themselves off from the benefits of citizenship (and England is well rid of them), must not be permitted " to act as rivals in the commerce of the W e s t Indies, which the British nation is still bound to defend." A strong and self-sufficient empire, building up its fleet in time of peace that it may have means of protection in time of war, is still his principle of policy. The self-centered protests of the W e s t Indians he dismisses with impatience. Even if the United States in retaliation for a supposed injury should prohibit all trade with the British Islands, provisions can and should be obtained within the empire,—salt meats from Ireland, fish from Newfoundland, horses from England, Scotland and Ireland, wheat from England, Canada, and N o v a Scotia, and poultry from Bermuda " if the W e s t Indians shall continue too high-minded to raise their own." Sailors and farmers are the two classes " who are the most worthy of the protection of the British legislature," and " the public will gain in exact proportion, as the interest of these two useful bodies of men are protected." Though the problem of marketing the W e s t India rum which was formerly consumed in prodigious quantities in the thirteen colonies would be difficult if the United States should refuse to take it, under no circumstances should the solution be the admission of American ships to West Indian ports, for by that concession England would be assisting to raise up for herself a powerful rival and a potential foe. N o doubt the lumbering industry will tend to develop in Canada and N o v a Scotia, but " the naval policy of Britain requires, that the British W e s t Indies should be supplied from the rivers of Germany and the shores of the Baltic " in order to insure freights for British vessels. Sympathy with the Loyalwritten in 1808 and was included in Chalmers's Opinions (1814).

of Eminent

Lawyers,

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ist refugees in the newer continental provinces should not blind statesmen to the primary concern, the naval strength of Britain. Though timber abounds, the colonists should be prevented from engaging in ship-building. Nearly a fatal mistake had once been made; of 6 7 9 ships in the W e s t India trade in 1772 two-thirds were built in America. " T h e independence of the United States has happily freed the empire from this evil." The report of the Committee for Trade and Plantations was delivered to the king-in-council on M a y 31, 1784.®® In general one must conclude that having heard much argument about it and about, they came out by that same door where in they went. A s has been sagely observed, " a Committee made up largely of successful politicians, several of whom were hostile to America, could scarcely have been expected to upset long established traditions." " Discounting many tales of distress from the West Indies on the ground that the evidence was not reliable and that it would have been possible, except during a very short period, to purchase provisions at reasonable rates in London, they made light of the dependence of the islands upon the United States. They expressed the belief that within three years or little more Canada and N o v a Scotia would be able to furnish at moderate prices most of the articles needed from North America by the planters. Even if the cost were slightly higher, it was their duty to procure their supplies within the empire, for the subjects of His Majesty " are by every Right exclusively entitled to the advantages which may be derived from a commerce of this nature." But it was probably the plight of the shipping industry, its great need for freights for its empty bottoms and employment for 60,000 demobilized seamen, which provided the most convincing argument. Believing as they did that upon the maintenance of the merchant marine depended the supremacy, the very existence, of England, the committee could not entertain the suggestion of admitting another people to a share in intra-imperial trade or fisheries. 66 Β. T. s : i, pp. 203-54. 67 A. L. Lingelbach, op. cit., p. 707.

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Pitt accepted their decision since he could not ignore the recommendations of important men whose support he needed for other projects of reform perhaps nearer to his heart. 88 The orders-in-council were continued in operation until 1788, when their principles were embodied in a statute. A n d , as is admitted by modern students, they were sanctioned to a considerable degree by their results. Though the ability of Canada, Newfoundland, and the maritime provinces to supply the West Indies had been over-estimated, in the words of Professor Ragatz, " From the point of view of the Empire as a whole, the new regime early and fully justified itself." It was, however, a major political defeat for the hitherto impregnable West India interest, and the planters did not cease to protest." Whether or not George Chalmers could flatter himself that he had had any influence upon the deliberations of the committee, he agreed heartily with their conclusions. In the following year he prepared some notes which he sent to Charles Jenkinson, its most influential member, intended perhaps to assist him in defending the government's position in the House of Commons. The colonies were settled for the benefit of the nation, Chalmers says, and not for the advantage of particular districts or particular men. Since the British West Indies do not produce more sugar than can be marketed within the empire and can procure their necessities in London at prices no greater than they would have to pay in the ports of the United States, though the freights may be higher, there are no arguments for abandoning the traditional policy. The planters claim that the expenses of growing sugar have risen and that the islands have been devastated by four bad hurricanes since 1779. Let them emulate the French, who are a frugal people, live on their 68 It may be that he had in some measure been won over to their point of view. In a letter to J o h n J a y , dated A u g u s t 25, 1785, J o h n A d a m s , the newly-appointed American minister, reported a conversation in which the prime minister was staunch in his support of the navigation system. Works 0} John Adams, V I I I , 306; also S . F . Bemis, op. cit., p. 27. 69 L . J . R a g a t z , op. cit., pp. 184 fr. S e e also H . C. Bell, op. cit., pp. 439-41.

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estates, and personally manage their negroes. There is no remedy for them but economy and efficiency.70 Though the Committee of the Privy Council for Trade and Plantations had been appointed particularly to receive evidence and make a recommendation on West Indian commerce, it was not disbanded when its report had been presented. It continued to hold fairly frequent sessions and in January, 1785, began by His Majesty's command to consider another proposed modification of a traditional policy. This concerned the trade relations between England and Ireland. The first breach in the mercantile system as applied to the smaller kingdom had been made by Lord North under an inescapable compulsion in 1778. It was that or the certainty of revolt. A f t e r other measures were passed in 1779-80, Irish ships were admitted to colonial ports and might participate in the carrying trade between England and the colonies. Granted full legislative competence in 1782 and 1783, the Irish parliament now possessed the power of regulating Irish commerce, but the people were still irked by the prohibitions or heavy duties on some of their products at English ports and by the regulations which forbade the importation into England of colonial goods which had been landed in Ireland. Pitt now proposed to eliminate these few remaining restrictions, the parliament of Ireland in return agreeing that all the hereditary revenues in excess of £656,000 should be appropriated for naval defense, and the Committee for Trade after protracted hearings concluded to favor the proposals. 71 The business interests of England at once organized to meet this threat to their entrenched position. Petitions poured in upon 7 0 " H i n t s as to the W e s t India Business, 1785," endorsed " F o r Jenkinson," American Papers, II, 40-44.

Mr.

71 P i t t ' s speeches of Feb. 22 and May 11, 1785, in Parliamentary History, X X V . Report of the Lords of the Committee of Council appointed for the Consideration of all Matters relating to Trade and Foreign Plantations upon the Two Questions Referred to them by His Majesty's Order in Council of the 14th of January last, printed in 1785; not in Β. T. 5 : 2.

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the committee and both houses of parliament,72 and the war of pamphlets was bitter. Lord Sheffield again took a leading part in the opposition to the prime minister's plan. He prophesied a large migration of English capital and labor to Ireland, which, because of the advantages of her situation and cheap victualling, would certainly become the entrepot for Europe if the single privilege remaining to England were eliminated.73 George Chalmers appears to have written three tracts in support of the proposals of the government with which he was now in sympathy though he had opposed the West Indian plan.74 A Short View of the Proposals appeared before the investigation conducted by the Committee for Trade and before the debates in the House of Commons, and is a summary statement of arguments which are more elaborately developed in The Arrangements with Ireland, Considered. The concessions offered are very unimportant, Chalmers says, compared with those previously extended by the opponents of the present measures; in other words, the discussion to be 72 The Manchester petition to the House of Lords contained 120,000 signatures, and Jenkinson stated in the House of Commons that sixty-four petitions had been received by the Committee. Parliamentary History, X X V , 626; also, R. Coupland, op. cit., p. 155, and W . Bowden, " T h e Influence of the Manufacturers on Some of the Early Policies of William Pitt," American Historical Review, July, 1924, pp. 655 ff. 73 But Sheffield supported the Union. In a speech of Apr. n , 1799, he stated that he had opposed the trade arrangements of 1785 because he feared that they might interfere with the consummation of this larger purpose. Parliamentary History, X X X I V , 939. 74 A Short View of the Proposals Lately Made for the Final Adjustment of the Commercial System between Great Britain and Ireland; The Arrangements with Ireland Considered; An Answer to the Reply to the Supposed Treasury Pamphlet. All three of these tracts are listed with Chalmers's Miscellaneous Works in Evans' catalogue, No. 90. Copies are to be seen in the pamphlet volume in the Boston Public Library already cited. The Reply to the Treasury Pamphlet referred unmistakably to Chalmers as the author of The Arrangements with Ireland Considered, and The Answer to the Reply was believed by his contemporaries to have been written by him. See The Rolliad, or Probationary Odes for the Laureateship and Political Miscellanies (1795), p. 205. Aeneas Mackay, loc. cit., mentions " T h r e e Tracts on the Irish Arrangements."

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realistic should have taken place four years before. T h e fear that British capital and labor will migrate to Ireland is ridiculous. Will labor go to seek lower wages and will capital wish to employ unskilled hands? A more important question is, can Irish textiles, especially wool, compete in English markets with the home product if the duty is lowered or removed? His conclusion is that they cannot because the cost of raw wool is fortyfive to fifty per cent higher in Ireland than in England. A s for the effect on foreign trade, Chalmers believes that it will be negligible, for, after all, the Irish can now do everything but carry to England colonial goods which have been landed in Ireland. Great Britain has maintained the trade with the West Indies in spite of Ireland's favorable position because o f her superior skill and capital; Dean Tucker and Lord Sheffield himself have proved this contention beyond peradventure. T h e aspect o f the matter in which he characteristically shows the keenest interest is its possible effect upon the navigation system, but he believes that there is no danger that this will be weakened. British ships will continue to be used more than Irish because they can afford to offer lower freights in the W e s t Indies. In any case, the increase of Irish ships and sailors, far from being a menace, will be a benefit, for, unlike the maritime strength which was unwisely permitted to grow up in American colonies, this, being close at hand, will be available in time o f war. He is always impatient at the constant West Indian " groans." H e fears no increase in the smuggling of foreign sugars, for the French government will be active to prevent it, and the Irish have no cargoes to carry out in exchange. T h e lightening of the public burdens by the Irish contribution is an important item in the program, but it is of less significance than the opportunity now given to heal the unfortunate differences which have long persisted between the two kingdoms. Ireland is now calm and happy and " a peaceful and industrious Ireland is a mine o f riches and a tower o f strength to B r i t a i n . " This pamphlet gives renewed evidence of his earnest perusal of the works o f Josiah Tucker and Adam Smith. Like the Dean

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of Gloucester he is struck by the absurdity of conquering and settling " distant deserts " for the sake of getting a nation of customers. They have constantly to be supported and defended, and the returns on the investment are meagre. He comments approvingly on Smith's condemnation of monopolies and restrictions on the free flow of trade; but with his more famous fellow-countryman he believes that " defense is of more importance than opulence." H e is adamant where the safety of the navigation system is concerned. It was known that George Rose, secretary of the treasury, had produced the official apologia for the measures," and A Reply to the Treasury Pamphlet was believed to have been written by Edmund Burke. The line of argument must have seemed very curious in the man who only seven years before had been urging on his constituents his enlightened vision of a prosperity common to both England and Ireland. The contrast between the generous and statesmanlike attitude of Letters to Gentlemen in the City of Bristol, and the narrow partisanship of the Reply to the Treasury Pamphlet is insufficiently explained by the impulse to defend the measures of Lord North with whom he had been publicly reconciled. T h e writer of the tract of 1785 declares that equality of trade between England and Ireland would be " palpable injustice and open robbery " of England, and that " depopulation, bankruptcy, and a consequent degradation from the place she at present holds among the powers of the world must inevitably follow." Burke was an Irishman; this is not his voice even when raised in factional debate. The denunciation of the revenue clause and the plea in the House of Commons against repeating in Ireland the disastrous mistake made in America, though far-fetched, have yet a more authentic r i n g . " 75 The Proposed

System of Trade with Ireland

Explained.

76 T h i s pamphlet is ascribed t o Burke by Halkett and Laing (op. cit., V , 96) and by Stonehill, Block and Stonehill (Anonyma and Pseudonyme, III, 2,234), but it is not included in any modern edition of his writings.

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George Chalmers, however, certainly believed that he was dealing with Burke, T T and in his third tract, An Answer to the Reply to the Supposed Treasury Pamphlet, he launched all the sharpest shafts in his quiver against " the Right Honorable Author," " our very consistent Commentator." Having given expression to his personal dislike o f his opponent, he takes up his objections to the proposals of the government and answers them item by item. T h e line of his argument is substantially that which has already been outlined. T h e final debates on the resolutions occurred in May. Lord North extravagantly declared that the plan " would impoverish British manufacturers by whom the immense taxes of this country were paid," and it is difficult to acquit Burke and F o x o f the charge o f playing partisan politics. The combined assaults of all its enemies produced such amendments to the proposal as were indignantly repudiated by Ireland. Not only were many o f the promised advantages withdrawn, but the revised resolutions required her parliament to undertake to pass all laws enacted at Westminster for the regulation of trade, a stipulation in gross violation of her recently achieved legislative independence. But the English supporters of Pitt were bitter in their denunciation o f Irish ingratitude, 78 and the failure of his generous scheme seems to have disheartened him. He would never consent to its reconsideration, though Grattan and his colleagues in Ireland anxiously sought a renewal of the negotiations.7® A f t e r this fiasco the Committee for Trade met very infrequently, until in December it was called upon to consider new commercial arrangements with France. There was a sharp division of opinion between upholders of the old system on the 77 " This Reply is . . . confidently attributed to the late paymaster general." P . 3. 78 Rose to Jenkinson, Aug. 25, 1785: " It is difficult to say whether Cowardice, Treachery, or Wrong-headedness have prevailed most in Ireland. . . . Compromise will never do. . . . They have rejected the settlement, and they must ask for it again." Liverpool Papers, X X I X , Add. Mss. 38,218, P· 33479 Lecky, op. cit., V, 37.

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one hand, men like Lord Carmarthen, the foreign secretary, and Charles Jenkinson, and on the other, Pitt and William Eden, who had been converted to the doctrines of A d a m Smith. The treaty, which was signed on September 26, 1786, was inevitably less liberal than that for which the prime minister had hoped, but it is the only one of his major projects for freeing trade from its ancient restrictions which attained any measure of success. Lecky has called it his " chief title to legislative fame." 80 Before these negotiations were completed, the Committee for Trade had been completely reorganized. 81 Since its creation it had operated under extremely unsatisfactory conditions, without clerks or offices of its own, without even the respect and consideration which the dignity of its members and the importance of its business merited. F o x and Burke jeered at " this mock committee," and even the lord president of the council refused to take it seriously. Charles Jenkinson, who was the most assiduous of all in his attendance, threatened to resign. 82 A f t e r a long period of hesitation and uncertainty it was finally determined to effect a reconstitution of those departments which dealt with commerce and the colonies, including the " plantations department" which had been recently built up under Grey Elliott in the office of the secretary of state, and to set up an expanded and permanent committee of the privy council with a sufficient establishment. Jenkinson, whose ambition was further to be gratified with a peerage, was to be its head. Accordingly, at a meeting of the council on August 23, 1786, His Majesty revoked the order-in-council of March 5,1784, and appointed a new and much larger committee. The Archbishop 80 hoc. cit. The treaty is printed in Parliamentary History, X X V I , 233254, and a brief synopsis may be read in Rose, op. cit., Part I, 339. 81 Mrs. Lingelbachs article, which has already been cited, is the best treatment of the reorganization of the committee. 82 Parliamentary History, X X V , 605 and 648; Stephen Cottrell to Jenkinson, June 18 and July 21, 1785, Liverpool Papers X X I X , Add. Mss. 38,218, pp. 308 and 317.

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o f Canterbury and the chief ministers of state of both Great Britain and Ireland were made ex officio members, to which list were added the names of about a dozen gentlemen most of whom had acted in a similar capacity for the last two years and a half. T h e y were still to be unpaid and no stipulation was set down as to the size of a quorum. Jenkinson, who was now Lord Hawkesbury and chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, was designated president, William Wyndham Grenville, vice-president, and the committee was ordered to consider all matters which had been referred to its predecessor. It was given adequate quarters in the northern part of the Old Treasury Building facing Whitehall (where it continued to carry on its work until 1823) and a staff consisting of three secretaries, who were also clerks-in-ordinary to the privy council, and seven " inferior " clerks, together with an office keeper, a " necessary woman," and three messengers. 83 T h i s event is of the utmost importance in the life of George Chalmers, for it opened to him the coveted career in the government service. The reasons for the decision to appoint him to the responsible position of chief clerk to the new committee can only be surmised. Presumably the Loyalist agents were fairly well known to the heads of the various departments, and he had been recommended by the Commission of Enquiry as worthy and well-qualified. His literary activity had placed him before the eyes of the public. Though in his two ambitious histories of the colonies he had ventured to attack the imperial policy of earlier administrations and to ascribe the triumph of American designs to British incompetence, he prudently suppressed the sharper of these indictments when the disapproval of certain men in high places became apparent. H i s political pamphlets had bitterly impugned the critics of the contemporary ministry, and though they were anonymous, it is likely that their authorship was known in quarters where that 83 T h e membership appears in the minutes, Β . T . 5 : 4, pp. 2-3, the arrangements for the establishment in the same volume, pp. 11-16.

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k n o w l e d g e would do him the most good. H i s Estimate Comparative

Strength

of

the

had appealed so strongly to the public

taste as to warrant a second and thoroughly revised edition in the year of the reorganization of the committee and no doubt to mark him as a man whose special talent for collecting and a r r a n g i n g statistical material might be very useful. T h o u g h no evidence has been available to show w h e n or by w h o m Chalmers w a s introduced to Charles Jenkinson, it is clear that f o r some time he had lost no opportunity to b r i n g himself to the latter's attention. Called to t e s t i f y before the first committee in April, 1784, as has been noted, his conclusions in the matter of the regulation of trade w i t h the U n i t e d States, e x pressed orally and in his pamphlet, Opinions Subjects American

of Public

Law and Commercial

Independence,

on

Policy

Interesting

Arising

from

agreed perfectly with those of its lead-

ing member. H e seems to have employed himself, w i t h or without solicitation, in collecting and submitting items o f i n f o r m a tion on various matters of trade. Besides the report on the trade in fish between Scotland and the W e s t Indies, and the " H i n t s as to the W e s t India Business," already referred to, there is a m o n g the Liverpool Papers a letter dealing with the sale of a Mediterranean pass by an Irish to an A m e r i c a n ship-master, written to Chalmers by his friend R o b e r t Christie and evidently f o r w a r d e d to Jenkinson. T h e r e are also t w o letters f r o m Chalmers himself, one concerning the whale fisheries, dated M a r c h 22, 1786, and another in June stating that he w a s sending " A brief

sketch by w a y

of

a short view

of

the

Commercial

M e a s u r e s . " T h e reference in the latter may be to a " D r t . of a Supposed Letter f r o m a M e m b e r of Parliament to one of his Constituents G i v i n g an A c c o u n t of M r . Jenkinson's T r a d e B i l l , " w h i c h is to be seen in the H a r v a r d College L i b r a r y . Since it is improbable that a document of such character w a s prepared at just this time by more than one person, it m a y be assumed that it w a s upon this one that Jenkinson requested the opinion o f W i l l i a m F a w k e n e r , clerk-in-ordinary to the p r i v y council,

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who replied in terms somewhat uncomplimentary to the unofficial adviser. 84 Though the Liverpool Papers contain sundry letters recommending other aspirants to positions in the new establishment, there are none referring to George Chalmers: we may perhaps conclude f r o m that circumstance that he was Jenkinson's own nominee. In any case it was determined to make him first clerk at a salary of £500, though, so f a r as can be judged, he was entirely without experience in such work. The long struggle for official notice had met with success; at the age of f o r t y - f o u r he was again to have comfort, security, and a position of some dignity. He was to have, too, an incomparable opportunity to engage in the research in which he took such satisfaction, and sufficient leisure to enable him to present to the world that vast bulk of literary product at which one can but marvel. 84 Liverpool Papers, X X X , Add. Mss. 38,219, pp. 34, 51, 153, 191; American Papers, II, 9-21.

CHAPTER III CHIEF CLERK AT THE OFFICE FOR TRADE i.

1786-1804

T H E n e w l y - f o r m e d standing committee, like its predecessor, w a s officially styled the " C o m m i t t e e o f the P r i v y Council f o r the

Consideration

of

All

Matters

Relating

to

Trade

and

F o r e i g n P l a n t a t i o n s , " or briefly, the " Committee f o r T r a d e . " Its members were referred to as the " L o r d s of T r a d e " and its headquarters as the " Office f o r T r a d e . " T h o u g h this remained true until 1 8 6 1 , 1 it is not surprising that the familiar old name, the B o a r d of T r a d e , remained to some extent in popular use and ultimately supplanted the cumbersome official title. T h a t the n e w committee w a s at first a subsidiary of

the

p r i v y council is made clear not only by its name but by the organization o f its staff. Stephen (later S i r S t e p h e n ) Cottrell and W i l l i a m F a w k e n e r , t w o o f the f o u r clerks-in-ordinary of the council w h o had served the first committee as secretaries, continued to act in that capacity w i t h £500 a year in addition to their already c o m f o r t a b l e income f r o m their salaries and fees. G r e y Elliott, w h o had headed the short-lived plantations office, w a s made an additional clerk-in-ordinary " f o r the particular service o f the C o m m i t t e e , " but when he presently died, no successor w a s appointed. O f the seven i n f e r i o r clerks G e o r g e C h a l m e r s w a s chief clerk w i t h the same stipend as the secretaries. T h e H o n o r a b l e Richard C h e t w y n d , w h o had already been in the office of the secretary of state f o r six years and w a s highly approved by Cottrell, F a w k e n e r , and Elliott as a y o u n g man of g o o d f a m i l y and high character and ability, w a s appointed second clerk at £200. John P o r t e r w a s brought o v e r f r o m the plantations office w i t h Elliott and w a s given a £50 advance over the £100 which he had been 1 P. R. O., Lists and Indexes,

84

No. X L V I , p. x.

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CLERK

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FOR

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85

receiving. William Budge was a protege of Sir Banks Jenkinson, who described him as " modest, diligent and intelligent"; he had been in the navy and was reluctant to exchange a life of adventure for an office stool, but promotion was slow in the service and his mother needed the £120 a year. T h e three junior clerks were to be paid £100 each. John Sowerby had been in the privy council office for two years and a half and, like Chetwynd and Porter, knew the ways of a government department. Thomas Lack was only seventeen, but his long years of faithful and honorable service prove him to have been an industrious and sensible lad; George W o o d was to turn out less dependable. W h e n in July, 1787, it was decided to add a law clerk to the staff, the committee appointed John Reeves, an able young barrister whom they had occasionally employed and of whom Pitt entertained a high opinion. T h e roll of George Chalmers's colleagues was now complete. 2 Elliott died in May, 1787," and Chetwynd resigned when he succeeded to a viscountcy in January, 1792. 4 W o o d found it inconvenient to combine attention to his duties with devotion to his private affairs, and being invited in 1798 to make his choice, gave up his position. Budge and two young men subsequently appointed to fill these vacancies left during the nineties to go to other services where the salary scale was higher. W i t h these exceptions the gentlemen appointed in 1786 remained in the office until, many years later, they died or were honorably 2 Letters concerning appointments in Liverpool Papers, X X X , Add. Mss. 38,219, pp. 227, 231, 232, 238, 268, 326, 331. T h e original list is given in Β. T. 5: 4, p. 15, Reeves's appointment, ibid., p. 322. In a later minute there is information about Porter, Sowerby, and L a c k : Β. T. 5 : 29, p. 266. Salaries are stated in Β. T . 5 : 4, p. 13. 3 T h e last letter signed by him is dated M a y 24 ( Β . T. 3: 1, p. 76), and an entry in the treasury accounts would seem to fix the date of his death as May 31 ( T . 31: 345, p. 30). 4 T h o u g h an active clerkship w a s beneath the notice of a viscount, he remained on the list of clerks-in-extraordinary of the privy council and succeeded to Cottrell's well-paid post as clerk-in-ordinary in August, 1810, thus becoming secretary to the committee. Greville, his successor, termed him " incompetent." Greville Memoirs, II, 87.

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retired, a fact which indicates that, although there was some grumbling, theirs must have been a secure and relatively satisfactory existence. T h e regime of the office does not sound unduly laborious. T h e clerks were required to be at their desks by eleven o'clock, earlier on the days when the committee met, and to remain until four or " until the business o f the Office be over." Each in turn took the Sunday hours. I f they wished to leave before closing time " upon particular occasions o f private Business," they were " to mention their desire to the Clerk of the Council in Waiting or the Chief Clerk," who would " at all times be ready to allow them every reasonable indulgence." T h e hours of the porter, office-keeper, and messenger were from ten to four, one messenger also being on duty each Sunday. 5 George Chalmers was given general charge of the office. He allotted the work to be done among the junior clerks and saw to it that they observed the office-hours. H e sent the messengers on their errands and recorded their expenses. He arranged for minor repairs to the furnishings and made all purchases from tradesmen, submitting requests for articles o f any considerable cost for the approval of the president or vice-president. H e was the accountant. T h e members of the committee received no salaries and the staff was paid directly by the exchequer, no fees being taken in this office; but the chief clerk kept account of contingencies, and after the lords of trade had signified their approval, paid the bills with money provided at their order. T h e incident fund was appropriated out of the civil list revenues to cover such running expenses as coals for twenty fires, candles and later oil, stationery, " replacement of wear and tear," and the treasury and exchequer fees which in most departments were paid by the recipients of the salaries themselves.® T h e tendency for more than twenty-five years was to stretch the fund to include small additions to the incomes of 5 Regulations in the minutes, May 14, 1792, Β. T . 5 : 8, pp. 3 9 ff. 6 Reports of Committees X I I I , App. Η.

of the House of Commons,

" Privy Council Office,"

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the staff rather than to go through the procedure of altering the scale which had been established by orders-in-council. Thus, when their Lordships were pleased to signify their approval of " the laborious and faithful s e r v i c e s " of Thomas Lack in February, 1795, of George Chalmers in January, 1796, and of John Porter in October, 1800, it was done by granting them annual allowances of £150, £200 and £100 respectively from the contingent bill in addition to their regular salaries. When questioned by a parliamentary committee, Chalmers said that these sums " were purposely not put on the Establishment that they might not be claimed by or serve as a precedent to their Successors who might not have the same Claims." 7 The cost of extra clerical assistance was also borne by the fund. The messengers were paid from a special imprest, but the allowance for board, the wages of the door-keeper, added to the establishment some time after it had been set up, and £20 a year to the necessary woman for the services of a maid, were paid from the incident fund, as were the pensions of superannuated servants. It is thus not surprising that the incident expenses showed a slight but steady increase with the passage of time/ For many years the statements submitted do not convey an impression of order and efficiency in the management of the affairs of the office, but the blame must not rest upon the shoulders of the chief clerk, who was a systematic person. A t first no estimate of expenses was prepared; instead, the committee was in the habit of requesting the treasury to furnish Mr. Chalmers with money to pay tradesmen's bills which had been approved, and in addition " whatever sum may be deemed necessary by Their Lordships." The treasury was inclined to be niggardly, and Chalmers was frequently obliged to send to his superiors a memorandum to the effect that no funds remained in his hands, when another indefinite appropriation 7 Loc. cit. 8 Chalmers reported to the parliamentary committee an account of £2,083 f ° r 1794» and estimated the need of £3,237 for 1804. Loc. cit., and Β. T. 5 : 14, p. 132.

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would be asked for. Cottrell once or twice and Chalmers regularly f o r fifteen years advanced various sums which were recovered f r o m the next imprest. In April, 1794, the office w a s indebted to the chief clerk in the amount of £509 ys It was not until M a y , 1 8 0 1 , that the committee began to ask f o r a specific sum over and above the bills, usually four or five hundred pounds f o r the ensuing quarter, and the accounts which Chalmers rendered on April 2 2 , 1 8 0 2 , balanced f o r the first time. 10 Presumably the statements were prepared at the committee's order, but they were irregular and frequently long delayed. Chalmers's first account, presented on February 4, 1 7 8 8 , covered the period f r o m the establishment of the office to J a n u a r y 5, 1 7 8 8 . T h e messengers had not been paid since Christmas, 1 7 8 6 , but at this time they were put on the separate imprest so that they did not again suffer. Down to 1 7 9 4 there were annual reports; f r o m then through 1 7 9 9 they were semiannual. In 1 8 0 0 quarterly accounts began but they were often very tardy. 1 1 Addington had little financial ability, but at the beginning of his administration an effort apparently was made to introduce a greater measure of order and method into the a f f a i r s of the Office f o r Trade. A s has been pointed out, in M a y , 1 8 0 1 , the committee began to request a quarterly sum large enough to cover the needs of the establishment; and by request of Nicholas Vansittart, secretary of the treasury, Chalmers prepared an estimate of probable contingent needs f o r 1 8 0 2 and 1804. The committee, furthermore, seems to have called f o r all delayed statements, f o r he submitted six, bringing 9 Β. T. 5 : 9, p. 207. This state of affairs was by no means unprecedented; see Andrews, Guide, etc., I, 92. 10 Β. T. S: 13, p. 89. The clerical work for the privy council committee on the coinage was done in the Office for Trade. Chalmers kept these accounts also; they usually showed a small balance. 11 For instance, the account for the half-year, Jan. 5 to July 5. 1796, is dated Nov. 15, 1797; for July 5, 1798, to Jan. 5, 1799, Apr. io, 1800; and for the quarter Apr. 5 to July 5, 1800, Oct. 30, 1801. Β. T. 5 : 11, p. 20; 5 : 12, pp. I and 339.

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his accounts up to date in April, 1802. But the reform was short-lived; perhaps the renewal of the war turned the attention of all public men to more imminent needs. The old lack of system reasserted itself, and it was not until 1 8 1 0 , when a thorough reorganization was instituted, that quarterly reports appear on schedule. The failure to arrange the financial business of the office according to a careful plan might seem to modern eyes a symptom of general inefficiency and even to carry a hint of corruption, albeit on a small scale. Not so at this period. A committee of the House of Commons reporting on the government departments in 1798 commented with respect and appreciation on " the great and laborious Services of the highest Concern to the State " which were rendered by the several committees of the privy council, and declared that " the general Scale of the Establishment appears to be formed with a considerable attention to Public Economy." 1 2 Several of the members certainly gave a large amount of time unpaid to the business of the Committee for Trade and they required a reasonable attention to duty from their subordinates. The regulations of the office, laid down in 1786 and 1792 and supplemented from time to time, were not burdensome but the staff was required to observe them. Even the chief clerk did not absent himself from his desk without a good reason and the approval of the president, and two under clerks who were persistently unreliable were dismissed. The appointment of Charles Jenkinson, now Lord Hawkesbury, as president of the Committee for Trade was apparently dictated by political considerations. He was not popular and his economic theories were at variance with those which Pitt had espoused. He opposed any relaxation of the mercantile system and was largely responsible for forcing the modification of the liberal treaty which Pitt had hoped to conclude with France. But he was able, devoted, and, so long as his health permitted, 12 Report,

previously cited, p. 187.

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u n r e m i t t i n g in his attention to the duties o f his office. D u r i n g the l o n g period in w h i c h he held this position o f

influence,

f r o m 1 7 8 6 to 1804, n o i m p o r t a n t alteration o f the c o m m e r c i a l code could be effected. Though

Hawkesbury

is described

by a c o n t e m p o r a r y

as

" v e r y silent, cold and r e s e r v e d " a n d b y a m o d e r n student as " selfish, u n g r a t e f u l a n d g r a s p i n g , "

13

George Chalmers

was

devoted to h i m and seems to h a v e e n j o y e d his particular f a v o r and confidence. T h e c h i e f clerk i n t e r v i e w e d visitors to the office and decided w h e t h e r the business o f those w h o came w i t h o u t s u m m o n s w a s o f sufficient m o m e n t to j u s t i f y their admittance t o an interview w i t h the b u s y president. 1 4 H e read m a n y n e w s papers, especially the A m e r i c a n , a n d called attention to significant items. H e carried o n an e x t e n s i v e correspondence f o r the committee, and his o w n a c q u a i n t a n c e s f r e q u e n t l y supplied inf o r m a t i o n o f g r e a t v a l u e . 1 5 H e w a s back a n d f o r t h to the C i t y a n d in and out o f the o t h e r offices daily, and the f r u i t o f his casual conversations he passed o n to his c h i e f . T h e L i v e r p o o l P a p e r s contain dozens o f brief notes, despatched s o m e t i m e s t w o a n d three in a single d a y , to a c q u a i n t the president w i t h items o r ideas w h i c h seemed t o be interesting or valuable. T h e papers o f the d e f u n c t B o a r d o f T r a d e , w h i c h h a d been scattered and w e r e n o w

collected

in one place a g a i n ,

were

delivered into C h a l m e r s ' s c u s t o d y as soon a s the establishment w a s set up, a n d he f r e q u e n t l y m a d e searches a m o n g those d o c u 13 Thomas Hutchinson, Diary and Letters, II, 187; A. L. Lingelbach, op. cit., p. 709. His failure to defend John Reeves in a serious difficulty does not add to one's admiration for him. See below, p. 185, for a brief reference to this incident. 14 A literary enemy of Chalmers doubted that it was " absolutely necessary for my Lord of Liverpool to keep any gaunt mastiff . . . to growl at the gate of the Council Office, or to frighten beggars from the Board of Trade." Antenor's " Letter to George Chalmers," in Chalmeriana, reprinted from the Morning Chronicle. 15 Lord Sheffield, Arthur Young, and Sir Joseph Banks, among others, wrote to him frequently in friendly fashion, though it is likely that his introduction to them was through his official connection.

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ments. He and Reeves, the law clerk, were often associated in the preparations of reports on both historical and current questions, as also in the scrutiny of colonial legislation and in the drafting of commissions and instructions to royal officials in the provinces. His legal knowledge and firsthand information about conditions in America were put to great use in this period of his service. One may, indeed, fairly conclude that for nearly a score of years George Chalmers's intimacy with its president enabled him to exercise considerable indirect influence upon the deliberations of the committee. In his correspondence there are to be found numerous requests that he use his acknowledged power in behalf of the writers of the letters, and his appointment in 1792 as agent of the Bahamas is further indication that he was believed to be in a position to bring pressure to bear upon persons in high office. This close relationship with Hawkesbury was a source of deep gratification to Chalmers, for his own convictions seem to have agreed perfectly with those of his superior. Both were devoted to the expansion of British commerce, to the defense of the navigation system, and to the binding of the empire into a closely-knit and self-sufficient unit. The committee was constantly on the alert for opportunities to facilitate trade with the ports of Europe and the United States and to extend the area where British manufactures might find a market. Information was solicited from private travellers and from British officials on foreign service. 19 When Lord Macartney was appointed ambassador to China, the lords of trade recommended that he carry with him as gifts samples of goods to tempt the oriental eye. Cooperating cordially with the Royal Society and the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, 17 they generously rewarded inventors of new products and methods. George Chalmers was 16 See letters from Phineas Bond, for many years consul at Philadelphia, printed in the American Historical Association Report for 1896, pp. 513-659. 17 Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society from 1778 to 1820, was made a member of the committee in March, 1797.

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ordered on October 26, 1 7 8 7 , to pay to one D r . Cuthbert Gordon, who claimed to have discovered a new dye process, the sum of £ 2 0 0 f o r his encouragement, and an additional £ 1 0 0 in May, 1792.18 Though the committee w a s anxious to find new vents abroad f o r British goods, it showed no willingness to share the home market with foreigners. E v e n the powerful E a s t India Company was forbidden to expand its sale of calicoes, 19 and the profits of English landlords were protected by prohibition of the importation of wheat until the price reached a very high level, 46s. a quarter in 1 7 9 0 and 54s. a year later. 20 Harvests were poor and suffering was widespread, but George Chalmers at this period did not doubt that the interest of the country gentlemen should have " first weight and consideration." He was extremely busy in the autumn of 1 7 9 2 assembling evidence on the state of the corn trade, and we find A r t h u r Y o u n g characteristically begging him to use his influence with the committee to induce it to raise prices still higher in order to promote " frugality of consumption " and to combat Jacobinism. T h e particular care of the lords of trade was always the safeguarding of England's primacy on the sea. P a r t of their duty w a s to arrange f o r adequate sources of naval stores, flax, hemp, and masting timber, and to ensure that the provisions of the navigation acts respecting ownership and nationality of crew were observed before granting registry to ships. T h e y were constantly considering ways and means of building up the fisheries, the nursery of the fleet. They did not regard it as beneath their dignity to discuss suggestions f o r attracting whalers from N e w England as well as f r o m N o v a Scotia to move the base of their operations to Great Britain, and studiously to compare the 18 Β. T. 5 : 4, p. 370 and 5: 8, p. 58. 19 Β. T. 5: s, pp. 69, 72, 90, 99, 120. 20 is to 134. Com

A long report was delivered to the king-in-council in March, 1790; it be found at the end of the volume of the privy council register, P. C. 2 : George Chalmers included it in the fourth edition of his Tracts on the Trade. See also J. H. Rose, op. cit., Part II, 289.

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relative merits of whale and seal oil f o r street lighting. H a w k e s bury gave a great deal of thought to the problems of the whale fishery: Chalmers called it " the child of your Lordship's policy." 2 1 Though their chief point of contact with the colonies was through regulation of trade, the committee was intrusted, also, with certain aspects of administration. A t this period it always examined and in some cases drafted the commissions and instructions of royal officials, and it carefully scrutinized provincial legislation. In these functions, as has been noted, the law clerk and the chief clerk, who also was trained in the law, were frequently employed. One would not expect to find the lords of trade doubting the eighteenth century dogma that the colonies existed solely f o r the advantage of the colonizing power. George Chalmers remarked in some " Observations on Additional Instructions to the Governor of Canada " , dated October 3 , 1 7 8 7 , that " it was not wise to give special encouragement to distant dominions." 22 It had become his conviction, to be attributed in part to his constant study of A d a m Smith and Josiah Tucker, that to build up great settlements, which not only drained the mother country of her man power but inevitably came to be her commercial competitors, w a s the height of folly. T h i s seems to have been the general opinion of the committee, and when in 1 7 9 2 it considered a letter f r o m the lieutenant-governor of L o w e r Canada deploring the addition of numbers of Irish to the population of the United States and suggesting that the stream be turned to the St. Lawrence Valley, it recommended rather that all possible means be used to check the movement at its source, and that only if those endeavors were unsuccessful should the question of the destination of the migrants be given serious 21 Liverpool Papers X L I , Add. Mss. 38,236, p. 312. See G. S. Graham, " The Migrations of the Nantucket Whale Fishery," New England Quarterly, June, 1935, PP· i / 9 f f · 22 Papers relating to Canada, p. 52.

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attention. 2 3 N e w f o u n d l a n d , of vital importance as a

fishing

station, w a s not intended to become a true colony, but it proved impossible to prevent some permanent settlement. Chalmers had written in 1 7 8 4 : " I f

the use of a nursery is to supply the

public with sailors, w h e n the dangers of war require their aid, it is in vain to breed seamen, whose services cannot easily be commanded when they are wanted the most."

24

he sent to L o r d H a w k e s b u r y a long report

In A p r i l , 1793, showing

that,

though more fish were taken and more wealth brought into the nation, it w a s deplorably true that N e w f o u n d l a n d

had

" gradually become more of a Colony and less of a F i s h e r y that

f o r m e r l y . " T h i s development he thought w a s " o w i n g

rather to the Natural Process of Inhabitancy and Population, than to the Operation and Result of any L a w , " and implied that, though unfortunate, it w a s inevitable. 2 5 F o r the control o f colonial commerce the principles enunciated in the report of M a y , 1784, with which, as w e have seen, Chalmers was in complete accord, served f o r many years. T h e bill which in 1788 enacted into law the regulations originally embodied in the order-in-council of

July,

1783,

was

d r a f t e d by John Reeves with the assistance of the solicitor of the customs. 2 " W i t h regard to the N o r t h A m e r i c a n provinces the intention w a s to retain that market exclusively for B r i t i s h goods, and it w a s w i t h the greatest reluctance that the committee could bring itself to recommend the modification of the law which circumstances occasionally made unavoidable. 2 7

So

long as the W e s t Indies continued to deserve maternal care b y contributing to the prosperity and solidarity of the empire, 23 Β . T . 5 : 8, p. 101. See also letters of Phineas Bond to Evan Nepean and the Duke of Leeds, loc. cit. 24 Opinions

on Interesting

Subjects,

p. 65.

2 5 Liverpool Papers, X L I , Add. Mss. 38, 229, pp. 3-11. 26 Β . T . 5 : 4, p. 382; act 28 Geo. I l l , c. 6. 27 F o r a general discussion of colonial trade regulations of this period see Η . T . Manning, op. cit., ch. ix, and G. S. Graham, British Policy and Canada, ch. iv ff.

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so long, in the words of Chalmers, did they " merit every aid and facility which Great Britain can give, consistent with her naval policy and domestic interests." 28 But should conflict of advantage arise, there was no doubt as to which must prevail. Their continued protests against the restrictions put upon their trade with the Americans fell on deaf ears. T h e committee remained adamant in its belief that the regulations adopted in 1783 were wise and fruitful, and a report issued in 1791 declared a direct intercourse between the United States and the British colonies to be out of the question. Fear of the rising naval power of the United States was widespread. 28 Though England would not permit her North American and Caribbean colonies to buy their provisions in the nearest and cheapest market, the pressure of the growing population of the mother country, whose food supply the government, prejudiced in favor of the land-holding class, was refusing adequately to supplement, forced a limitation on the amount which could be spared for the West Indies. A careful system of rationing was maintained for many years, and the schedules for the export of corn from the four ports of London, Bristol, Liverpool, and Glasgow were regularly prepared by George Chalmers. The W e s t India governors were authorized by the act of 1788 with the advice of their councils temporarily to suspend the restrictions on trade in times of stress, for natural disasters were recognized to be all too usual a feature of life in the islands. They were constantly under pressure to use this power, and the Committee for Trade thought them weakly amenable to local influences. Sharp comments are to be found in the minutes even before the war brought its long stringency. Though the planters should suffer severely, short of absolute 28 Opinions on Interesting Subjects,

p. 120.

29 Phineas Bond had written to the Duke of Leeds from Philadelphia on August 15, 1789: " T h e trade to our islands would afford America a productive nursery for seamen, and at least diminish if not eventually annihilate, that nursery, which the present commerce of Great Britain affords in no slight degree." Op. cit., p. 611.

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famine there was to be no abatement of the principle of the Navigation Act. The policy of admitting foreign ships of small size to a f e w specified ports might seem to be inconsistent with this principle, but only superficially. T h e system of " free ports " dates f r o m 1 7 6 6 and was confirmed and extended by a series of acts in the eighties and nineties. Under these laws alien ship-masters, not including those of the United States, who procured a license f r o m the governor of the British colony concerned, were permitted to bring a large variety of produce f r o m the American possessions of European states to a free port, there to be exchanged f o r British goods. T o some the institution appeared to be a threat to the traditional closed empire, 80 but the Committee f o r Trade looked upon it as a useful outlet f o r British manufactures, and hence not a breach but a bulwark of the mercantile system. Stephen Cottrell, writing on April 1 7 , 1 7 9 0 , on behalf of the committee, told the home secretary that the lords of trade were not apprehensive of the commercial rivalry of the subjects of the Spanish monarchy, and they expressed their satisfaction with the results of the trade in minutes dated M a y 1 5 , 1790, and February 22, 1 7 9 2 . 3 1 I f we may judge by the requests scattered through the papers of the Committee f o r Trade f r o m almost all the coast towns of the Caribbean that they be allowed to share the benefits of this commerce, we must conclude that their prosperity was greatly enhanced by the admission of foreign traders; but we should be wrong if we believed this to be the chief reason f o r the maintenance of free ports. It was as a mechanism f o r extending the market f o r British goods that the institution excited the enthusiasm of the committee. 30 See Lord Sheffield, Observations on the Commerce of the American States tvith Europe and the IVest Indies, p. 72. 31 Β. T. s : 6, pp. 221 ff. and 5: 8, pp. 380 ff. Cottrell's letter is printed in " English Policy toward America", documents edited by F. J. Turner, American Historical Rci iciv, Oct., 1902, pp. 78-86.

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The founding in May, 1789, of " The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade " with an office in Old Jewry was the beginning of an organized campaign to instruct the public on the atrocities of the traffic in human beings. 32 William Wilberforce, a close friend of the prime minister, agreed to act as parliamentary spokesman, and Pitt himself was very sympathetic to the effort. A n order-in-council of February 1 1 , 1788, authorized the Committee for Trade to collect evidence, and a circular letter was despatched to the West India governors requesting them to send information. 33 Statements of fact and opinion were obtained in answer to seventy-four questions put to all sorts of people—colonial agents, planters, ship-masters, naval officers, travellers. 3 * The inquiry lasted more than a year, and the amount of work involved " in digesting and arranging the several parts of the Evidence according to the plan laid down by the Committee " was so considerable that Their Lordships were pleased to recommend to the treasury that compensation be made to the officers and clerks of the Office for Trade " for their extraordinary Trouble and Attendance." Cottrell, Fawkener, Reeves, and Chalmers were each allowed £200, with £ 1 0 0 to Chetwynd and £25 apiece to the under clerks. In addition, there was an increase in the incident expenses of £437 1 is for stationery, clerical assistance, and extra coal and candles. 35 The material, which was voluminous and damning, was carefully organized under six heads, but the committee made no recommendation. It is evident that its members were seriously divided in their conclusions. 38 32 The subject is discussed in R. Coupland, Wilberforce, ch. i v ; F. J. Klingberg, The Anti-Slavery Movement in England, ch. iii; L. J. Ragatz, The Fall of the Planter Class in the British Caribbean, ch. viii; J. H. Rose, The Life of William Pitt, Part I, ch. xx. 33 Feb. 27, 1788, C. O. 5: 36. 34 The questions may be seen in Liverpool Papers X X V I I , Add. Mss. 38,416, pp. 13 ff. 35 Β. T. 5: s, pp. 188 ff. and 199 ff. 36 The evidence is contained in Β. T. 6:9-12. The report, which is dated

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The Jenkinson family was not friendly to the suggestion of regulation of the trade. Robert, the son, later to be prime minister as second E a r l of Liverpool, was with Henry Dundas active in the opposition in the House of Commons. The father, president of the Committee f o r T r a d e , had felt no prickings of conscience as he listened month a f t e r month to h o r r i f y i n g tales of man's inhumanity to man, and used his influence in the Lords to prevent action. T h e question was one of great importance, he said; the trade had been developing f o r a century and a half under the protection of parliament, and a vast amount of money had been invested in good faith. Nothing should be done in haste. 37 In spite of Pitt's efforts and Wilberforce's almost superhuman labor dilatory tactics in both houses delayed debate. A n d the terrible insurrection in the French islands which followed the liberation of the slaves there served to point the moral and adorn the tale of the opposition. Though the House of Commons voted in April, 1 7 9 2 , f o r gradual abolition, by the following spring England was engaged in war with a people one of whose crimes against mankind was the incitement of blacks to bloody revolt against their masters. Abolitionism came to be associated with Jacobinism, and it is not surprising that Wilberforce's attempts to secure a law implementing the resolution of 1 7 9 2 were futile f o r many years. The contribution of the president of the Committee f o r Trade to their cause did not g o unrecognized by the slavetraders. Liverpool, the chief port of the traffic, bestowed the freedom of the borough on him on J u n e 20, 1 7 8 8 , " in gratitude f o r the essential services rendered to the town of Liverpool by H i s Lordship's late exertion in Parliament in support of the A f r i c a n slave trade " ; and some years later when he was raised in rank, he took the title of E a r l of Liverpool, and March 28, 1789, appears in the Parliamentary Papers, H. C. 1789, vol. X X V I , 646a. An abstract is given by Coupland, op. cit., pp. 116-117, and by Klingberg, op. cit., pp. 79-80. 37 Parliamentary History, X X I X , 1353.

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the corporation invited him to quarter the arms of the b o r o u g h w i t h his own. 3 8 T h e attitude o f G e o r g e C h a l m e r s on the question o f

the

A f r i c a n trade w a s that natural in a man whose youth had been spent in a slaveholding community, w h o looked to a leading opponent o f regulation as his patron and friend, and w h o w a s himself a f t e r 1 7 9 2 the agent o f a W e s t Indian colony.

He

declared that all interference w i t h the property rights o f the planters w a s both unconstitutional and illegal, and to the end of his life he had nothing but loathing f o r the abolitionist and all his w o r k s . T h o u g h f e w o f his letters of this period are available, those written to him by his L o y a l i s t friend, the Reverend

David

L o v e , are in answer to and in endorsement of his o w n . T h e Bible, says L o v e , not only does not condemn but actually authorizes slavery. S l a v e - o w n e r s as a class take g o o d care of their slaves because it is to their advantage

to keep them

well.

Merchants and planters m i g h t be induced by persuasion to cooperate to improve conditions gradually, " and gradual changes usually take deepest root and prove most lasting," but they will only be enraged by acts of parliament. Suppose the Jamaica assembly should say, " W h a t right has the E n g l i s h parliament to interfere w i t h the management of our estates? L e t us join the A m e r i c a n s and leave E n g l a n d to herself." B o t h of them " k n o w by experience w h a t little effect an unpopular act of parliament has on the other side of the A t l a n t i c . " T h o u g h L o v e agrees w i t h Chalmers's low estimate of the value of colonies and remarks parenthetically that in his opinion the w i t h d r a w a l of the islands " would be a happy circumstance f o r this k i n g dom " and " the sooner it happens the better," he wonders that ministers will court humiliation, " only exposing their w e a k ness, and d r a w i n g d o w n contempt and hatred upon their o w n heads." W h e n one of W i l b e r f o r c e ' s motions w a s defeated in 1 7 9 1 , the clergyman wrote that he w a s " glad the business had 38 Documents

Illustrative

of the Slat e Trade to America,

E. Donnan, ed.,

II, 589, 11. ι ; Liverpool Papers, C X X I , Add. Mss. 38,310, p. 199.

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so wise and just a termination," adding the pious reflection that the introduction of negroes into the islands may have been the method chosen by Divine Providence to civilize and Christianize them. 39 T h e long war with France was to bring such powerful forces to bear upon the Committee for Trade and the conditions under which it operated as ultimately to alter in a great degree its character and its policies. 40 But the changes were very gradual and for a long time imperceptible. S o far and for so long as possible the old arrangements were adhered to, the old paths followed. T h e fleet was more than ever the committee's first concern. Stores must be provided, but more important than all else was man-power. T h e impressment of sailors even on board foreign vessels, a practice which was to rouse the United States to fury and to be a contributing cause o f war between the two nations, was justified by the doctrine o f inalienable allegiance. 41 Another aspect of the same question presented itself at the turn of the century. Hard times at home, particularly in Ireland and Scotland, were impelling hundreds and thousands to leave the home of their fathers to seek a better life in a new land. Americans came among them " seducing " them by lavish assurances of wealth and freedom from care across the sea. Though the committee would not concede the right even of the starving to deprive the king of their services, it recommended the passage of an act o f parliament granting amnesty to those who had departed illegally if they would return to their duty. 42 W e have had several earlier occasions to notice George Chalmers's strong opinions on these points. Convinced like the majority of lawyers that a man's nationality was indelible, he 39 Letters dated Apr. 19, May 26, and Dec. 4, 1788, and May 20, 1791, in Add. Mss. 22,900. 40 See Sir H. L. Smith, The Board 41 Β. T. 5 : 11, p. 185. 42 Β. T. 5: 13, pp. 62 ff.

of Trade,

pp. 48 ff.

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was continually strengthened in his conclusion that the founding of colonies was the acme of stupidity. H e wrote to Lord Liverpool after the publication of the terms o f the Treaty of A m i e n s : " I f it fell to my lot to vindicate the peace, I would defend it, as a safe and honourable peace, because it has retained few o f our conquests." 4 3 People should stay at home. Y e t he was faced with the disquieting fact that the economic developments which at this time he took great satisfaction in observing seemed inexorably to be driving the simple folk of his own country from their native hills. T h e profits of sheep-raising were turning the Highlands into a great pasture, depopulating whole counties, and the evicted crofters were pouring down to the ports in a despairing stream. H e prepared a paper in which he undertook to make some remedial suggestions. Since it is likely that American agents have been among them " decoying them with fair promises," the customs officers should be instructed " to use all allowable measures for stopping for the present all Ships carrying out Emigrants," but this must be recognized to be only a temporary expedient and not a solution. T h e government must go to the root of the matter and try to halt the process of the substitution of wool-growing for cropping which is forcing thousands from their little farms and from their country. A survey should be made and a plan devised by " some plain person, practically skilled " for the development of waste areas, and the cooperation of owners should be sought by appealing to their own interest. All the Owners of Estates which are on the Eve of being laid under Sheep have some favour for themselves or Relatives to solicit from Government, such as Promotion in the Army, Navy, or the Indies. It is not, therefore, unreasonable to suppose that they would attend to a request from Government to suspend for one year the introduction of Sheep, till some means shall be devised to reserve at the same time the Inhabitants in their Native Country. 43 Liverpool Papers, X L V I , Add. Mss. 38,235, p. 238.

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This may be the letter which was considered by the committee on May 26, 1 8 0 3 , " but, as is well known, no effective steps were taken to prevent the heartless expulsion of the Highlanders from their ancient homes. The corn laws brought suffering upon those people who were buying rather than selling grain. Bad harvests in 1794 and 1795 raised the cost of food to famine heights. The eastern Baltic region together with Egypt seemed the most likely sources of supply, but Prussia forbade export from her ports, and there were great difficulties in the way of trade with the Turkish dominions. The old wheat was exhausted in the early summer of 1795 and the harvest was blighted by extraordinary cold. Times were unendurably hard, thousands were facing starvation, and mob outbreaks were frequent and widespread. The committee grimly recorded its opinion on July 24 that " it will be highly expedient that a supply of Foreign Grain . . . should be procured with all possible despatch." 45 Various suggestions were made to meet the emergency. Dudley Ryder, vice-president of the committee, proposed in the House of Commons, and frightened members of parliament agreed, that the consumption of wheat in their households should be reduced by one-third.48 The committee advocated extension of the use of potatoes and potato flour. George Chalmers contributed his anonymous pamphlet, Useful Suggestions Favourable to the Comfort of the Labouring People and to Decent Housekeepers, which besides moral precepts included some practical advice to housewives to depend on vegetables and nourishing soups (receipts for which were thoughtfully supplied) for a few weeks until the crisis should be passed. More productive of results, Professor Rose suggests, was the offer of bounties on foreign corn and the high-handed use of the navy to force neutral ships to bring their cargoes to British 44 Β. T. 5: 14, p. 66. The paper is in an unbound folder in the N e w York Public Library. 45 Β. T. 5: io, p. 95· 46 Parliamentary

History,

X X X I I , 687 ff.

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ports.47 The worst of the famine months were those of the winter of 1 7 9 5 - 1 7 9 6 ; prices were lower by May, and the harvest was somewhat more abundant. But bad times were not over. Again in 1799 the lords of trade were urging the foreign secretary to instruct the diplomatic representatives to further the grain trade by every means in their p o w e r . " Y e t even in those years of great suffering the merchants of Liverpool protested that they were sustaining great losses through the importation of foreign corn, and the committee was memorialized on the matter by the Kent Agricultural Society. 48 The W e s t India Islands had immediately felt the result of hostilities when French privateers began to prey upon ships in Caribbean waters. Prices rose by leaps and bounds, and the governors were besought to open the ports to American vessels bringing food and lumber. But the committee maintained its stiff opposition; in August, 1793, Secretary Dundas was advised to inform Dunmore of the Bahamas that he had acted illegally in admitting provisions in foreign bottoms and that " such a Measure cannot be justified but from absolute necessity." 50 Absolute necessity was upon them, however, and the governors could not avoid taking action. The situation became acute when in the spring of 1794 the coercion of neutral shipping by the British navy drove the United States to reprisals, and the embargo shut off the supplies which the governors had taken upon themselves to admit without sanction of law. The price of flour in Jamaica, which had been 85s. a barrel in the winter, rose to 200s. in May. 5 1 The rage of the Americans was a matter of surprise to the British ministers, but they were finally brought 47 Op. cit., Part II, 287-291. See also Bemis, op. cit., pp. 154 ff., 193 ff., 235, and A. T. Mahan, The Influence 0} Sea Power upon the French Rtt'olution and Empire, II, ch. xvii. 48 Minutes Dec. 13, Β. T. 5: 11, p. 390. See also minutes of Sept. 27, 1809, and Dec. 6, 1811; Β. T. 5: 19, p. 239 and 5: 21, p. 72. 49 Β. T. s : 10, pp. 383. 4U50 Β. T. 5 : 9, p. 49. 51 S. F. Bemis, op. cit., p. 230; see also, L. J. Ragatz, op. cit., pp. 229 ff.

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to a realization that they must m a k e concessions on this and other points or risk adding the United States to the list of their enemies. T h e objectionable orders-in-council were quietly modified and negotiations undertaken w i t h the special A m e r i c a n commissioner sent over to arrange f o r a commercial treaty. John Jay's instructions required him to demand the admission of A m e r i c a n ships to W e s t Indian ports, and all the opponents of this breach in the mercantile system were mobilized to d e f e a t him. L o r d H a w k e s b u r y had not abated his determination ; George Chalmers was in constant communication

with

him and with L o r d Sheffield, A l d e r m a n Curtis, and others of their group. T h e question to Chalmers's mind w a s simply whether this Country shall give up the principal advantage which it derives from her Sugar Islands. T h e general proposition amounts to this: That the essential Interests of the Nation should be Sacrificed to the particular Interests of a few. This will not bear a fair discussion. A s f o r him, he had " never changed his opinion f o r a moment since the year 1 7 8 4 . "

52

T h e compromise suggestion, attributed to Hamilton, 5 3

of

admitting only small A m e r i c a n ships, thus preserving to Great Britain the transatlantic trade, w a s incorporated in the treaty which w a s signed, Chalmers reported to his chief, in a mood of " very good humor " on the part of both negotiators. 5 4 It w a s rejected with indignation by the U n i t e d States S e n a t e ; the illfated Article X I I w a s suspended, the act of 1788 continued to regulate the trade, and provisions still could not legally be brought to the W e s t Indies in foreign bottoms. T h e stringency of the next t w o years in E n g l a n d resulted in a reduction of the quantity of corn w h i c h could be spared f o r export to the islands. T h e allotment f o r the autumn quarter 52 Liverpool Papers, X L , Add. Mss. 38,229, p. 313. Other letters of Chalmers on this subject may be found in this volume. 53 By Professor Bemis, op. cit., p. 238, n. 21. 54 Liverpool Papers, X L I , Add. Mss. 38,230, p. 109.

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was regularly three-eighths of the yearly amount, but in September and December, 1 7 9 5 , the committee permitted only oneeighth of the allowance of flour to be sent. It was not until October, 1 7 9 6 , that the West India merchants were permitted to ship additional corn to make up the deficiency." T h e governors under the circumstances had no choice but to suspend the restrictions, but the committee agreed most reluctantly to transgression of the cherished system f o r short periods only and was alert f o r any signs of leniency beyond the irreducible minimum. T h a t a desperate condition confronted the governors seems not to have penetrated the consciousness of L o r d Liverpool and his colleagues. They ignored the harrowing tales of distress and their warnings grew sharper. T h e y were greatly exercised just at this time by a report f r o m Bond, the consul at Philadelphia, that the shipping of the United States was showing a notable increase in consequence of " the I n d i g e n c i e s already afforded to it by the Government of this Country . . . to the very great diminution and detriment of the Navigation of this K i n g dom." 5β On April 2, 1 7 9 9 , therefore, they refused a request of Governor Dowdeswell of the Bahamas that American ships be permitted to carry goods between those islands and the Spanish colonies, even though such an arrangement might be profitable " in a commercial sense." On M a y 6, 1800, the attention of the governors of Jamaica and Barbadoes was called to their oaths and to the liability of forfeiture of their bond of £ 1 , 0 0 0 , while the secretary of state was asked to express " H i s M a j e s t y ' s high displeasure . . . to such of the Governors as have taken upon themelves to depart f r o m any of the Instructions conveying H i s M a j e s t y ' s Commands." 57 On the other hand, the committee clung tenaciously to its contention that the system of free ports, to which vessels of the 55 Β. T. 5: 10, pp. 110, 144, 255. 56 Β. T. 5 : 11, p. 282. S. F. Bemis says that in 1790 American ships carried less than 50% of Anglo-American commerce, and by 1800, 95%. Op. cit., p. 40.

57 Β. T. 5 : ii, pp. 282 fr.; 5: 12, p. 8.

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United States were not admitted, was not a menace to British superiority on the sea, and was of so great importance to commerce that no interference with the trade should be tolerated, even though it was carried on in ships belonging to nations with which the king was at war. Naval officers, however, were intent on the capture of hostile ships with the dual purpose of discomfiting the foes of His Majesty and lining their own pockets with the prize money. Admiral Parker, George Chalmers wrote to Lord Liverpool, was believed to have made " a vast fortune " during the period of his command of the Jamaica station,58 and he and his like were impatient of the subtle distinctions between licensed and unlicensed enemy traders, particularly since there was good reason for suspicion that systematic forgery of permits was practiced. Chalmers, though he approved the trade both as an officer of the committee and agent of the Bahamas, admitted that it was merely " a permissive traffic and not a legal commerce " and that, if ships were seized and carried to an admiralty court, " they must according to strict law be condemned as lawful prize." 58 The committee insisted that the licenses be honored. It listened sympathetically to petitions from merchants of the islands and of British towns with connections there, and repeatedly urged the admiralty to give to naval commanders in those seas the most positive orders " that in future they do not in any wise, or under any pretense, interrupt this Intercourse, which is in a political as well as a commercial Light, of so great advantage to this Country, in the present Conjuncture." 6 1 Though it declined to advise the increase in the number of free ports with the rapidity desired by the petitioners in the West Indies, the committee, having requested the chief clerk to prepare a report on the scope and operation of the various 58 Admiral Duckworth, on the other hand, " is not so rapacious." Liverpool Papers, X L V I I , Add. Mss. 38,236, p. 26. 59 Loc.

cit.

60 Minutes for June 8, 1801, Β. T. 5 : 12, pp. 312 ff. An earlier letter to the admiralty is noted in Β. T. 5: 11, pp. 355 ff.

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laws f r o m their initiation, g a v e the matter very serious consideration in M a r c h , 1805, and recommended the consolidation o f the acts and the addition of three to the list of ports. S o profitable w a s the trade that the system w a s gradually but continually elaborated and extended throughout the whole o f the period d o w n to the twenties." 1 2.

1804-1825

A g e d and s u f f e r i n g f r o m a painful disease, L o r d L i v e r p o o l w a s very irregular in his attendance at the board a f t e r October, 1800, though it is evident f r o m Chalmers's letters to h i m that he did not entirely relinquish his hold on its business. W h e n finally

in M a y , 1804, he w a s obliged to resign the presidency,

the chief

clerk

w r o t e to him in terms of

admiration

and

affection: It was only on Saturday, that we knew here certainly, that the Duke of Montrose was to succeed Y o u r Lordship as President of the Committee. The whole office received this intimation with great regret. T h e y considered Y o u r Lordship as the founder of this Establishment, eighteen years ago, and the father of the several members of it, during that long period. The records of the office will form the standing Memorial of your wisdom and experience, of the activity of your labours, and the Utility of your Measures to the State. A s for me, give me leave to assure Y o u r Lordship that you will aways find me perfectly ready to obey your wishes as commands. . . . 82 Chalmers had v e r y great reason f o r his attachment to his chief. N o t only had L i v e r p o o l gratified him by reliance on his unquestioned competence; he had also seen to it that his devoted subordinate had material evidence of the committee's satisfaction with his services. Besides the special grant f o r e x t r a w o r k at the time of the investigation of the slave trade w h i c h Chal61 Β. T. 5: i s , pp. 76 ff. S e e D . B. Goebel, " B r i t i s h Trade to the Spanish Colonies, 1796-1823," American Historical Revieiv, Jan., 1938, pp. 288 ff. 62 Liverpool Papers, X L V I I , Add. Mss. 38,236, p. 299.

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m e r s shared w i t h o t h e r m e m b e r s o f the s t a f f , £200 a y e a r w a s allowed h i m f r o m the incident f u n d b e g i n n i n g J a n u a r y 5, 1 7 9 6 , a s h a s been noted. W h e n questioned b y the c o m m i t t e e o f the H o u s e o f C o m m o n s on A p r i l 2 7 , 1 7 9 8 , he explained that this y e a r l y s u m w a s g i v e n to h i m f o r t w o r e a s o n s : because he w a s " in constant attendance u p o n the O f f i c e , " a n d because the g o v ernment at the t i m e o f his a p p o i n t m e n t h a d taken f r o m h i m the pension t o that a m o u n t w h i c h h e h a d been r e c e i v i n g as a L o y a l i s t . " C o n f i d e n t o f h i s p a t r o n ' s interest in his a f f a i r s , he immediately

reported

this

interview

to

Liverpool,

and

the

conclusion is justified that it w a s t h r o u g h the latter's influence that the a l l o w a n c e h a d been b e s t o w e d . " A r e v i s i o n o f the s a l a r y scale o f the establishment h a d been approved before L o r d Liverpool's resignation, though " o w i n g t o multiplicity

of

Business

and

other

obstacles,"

including

c h a n g e s o f a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , it w a s not s u b m i t t e d f o r his m a j e s t y ' s pleasure until N o v e m b e r ,

1805. A

h i g h e r basic rate f o r each

r a n k w a s a r r a n g e d w i t h specific increases at the end o f

five

a n d ten y e a r s o f s e r v i c e ; the certificates sent to the t r e a s u r y n o w called f o r the a n n u a l p a y m e n t to the staff o f £ 5 , 3 5 5 , a total w h i c h w o u l d g r a d u a l l y increase, in c o n t r a s t t o the £3,020 o f the o r i g i n a l list.®5 G e o r g e C h a l m e r s profited b y this g e n e r a l a d v a n c e ; h i s s a l a r y w a s raised f r o m £500 to £800, w h i c h w i t h his a l l o w a n c e g a v e h i m £1,000 a y e a r . T h o u g h h i s stipend r e m a i n e d at t h i s c o m f o r t a b l e figure f o r the r e m a i n d e r o f his l i f e , his services seem to h a v e been less h i g h l y esteemed b y later presidents o f

the

63 T h e treasury had allowed him i i o o in 1777. N o t h i n g appears in the Loyalist papers nor in his o w n notes to reconcile these figures. 64 Liverpool Papers, X L I I I , Add. Mss. 38,232, pp. 36-37. 65 T h e clerks, encouraged by the committee, attempted to have the n e w schedule made retroactive t o the beginning of 1803 in order t o recover the sums which they w o u l d have received had the proposal been put into operation with no delay. But the treasury replied t o their memorial that the board w a s not empowered t o change a date which had been fixed by orderin-council. Minutes, Β. T. 5 : 15, pp. 315 ff. and 372, and 5 : 17, p. 179; memorial and letters in Β. Τ. 1: 34.

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committee than by Lord Liverpool. Shortly before the latter's death in 1807 Chalmers sent him a copy of a pamphlet, Some Thoughts on the Present Crisis of our Domestic Affairs, which he had printed anonymously. in support of the administration of Lord Hawkesbury, Liverpool's son, and which he offered to distribute at his own expense under Hawkesbury's directions. He declared that the tract had been written to give Liverpool " an additional proof of my ancient attachment " and as a tribute to his heir, " for I have scarcely any connection with anybody else in power." ββ The available materials, much less voluminous for the later than for the earlier period, certainly indicate that Chalmers's chief contribution was made during the first eighteen years of his official career, and that, though he was to continue in the employ of the Committee for Trade for more than two decades longer, he was never again admitted to the close and influential relation in which he had served and reflected the opinion of the first president. He despatched respectful letters to the successive heads of the committee and an occasional tribute in the form of a turtle obtained from one of his correspondents in the Bahamas, but the tone of his address lacks the confidence with which he had been accustomed to approach Lord Liverpool, His advice was no longer heard with attention by those in authority, and he ceased to approve of their policies. In the brief Whig regime a serious breach was made in the mercantile system: an act of parliament legalized the importation of lumber and food into the West Indies in neutral ships, though they were still forbidden to carry away sugar, indigo, cotton, coffee and cocoa.87 At once loud cries of woe arose from the Irish provision merchants, but, though the Whigs shortly fell from power and Lord Auckland was succeeded as president by Lord Bathurst, who had not, like his predecessor, 66 Liverpool Papers, X L V I I , Add. Mss. 38,236, p. 367. 6 7 4 6 Geo. III, c. h i ; order-in-council recorded in minutes, Β. T. 5 : 16, p. 290.

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been converted to the doctrines of A d a m S m i t h , the act continued in force f o r the duration of the w a r , and the A m e r i c a n s w e r e in practical possession of the Caribbean trade. A n o t h e r citadel w h i c h L i v e r p o o l and Chalmers had staunchly defended fell d u r i n g the n e x t y e a r w h e n the long campaign f o r the abolition of the slave trade ended s o m e w h a t suddenly in victory. T h e r e is no single explanation of this success. Constant dropping w e a r s a w a y the hardest stone, and the unstinted eloquence o f W i l b e r f o r c e had its effect. Humanitarianism

had

ceased to be a monopoly of the F r e n c h revolutionaries ; it w a s n o w possible to shudder at the h o r r o r s of the middle passage without being suspected of Jacobinism. E c o n o m i c conditions had undergone a change both in the mother country and the islands. W i t h the vast extension of British commerce the importance o f the A f r i c a n trade had become relatively less in the total, and the political influence of its advocates consequently less p o w e r f u l . T h e profits of sugar g r o w i n g had been seriously reduced in the past fifteen years, 6 8 and the old British planters feared the competition of the conquered

islands with

their

larger area and unexhausted soil if they should be stocked with slaves. T h o u g h the W e s t India interest in L o n d o n naturally opposed the revival of the m o v e m e n t w h i c h they had with g o o d reason believed to be dead and decently interred,

Chalmers

seems to suggest in his letters to L o r d L i v e r p o o l and to his B a h a m a correspondents that the planters and merchants were acting n o w without their f o r m e r unanimity and therefore w i t h diminished force. 8 9 In spite o f the opposition of the implacable g r o u p led by H a w k e s b u r y , n o w home secretary, a bill passed both houses of parliament in M a r c h , 1807, abolishing the slave trade as " contrary to the principles o f justice, humanity, and 68 J. F. Barham, M . P . for Stockbridge, said profits had been reduced by two-thirds. Parliamentary Debates, II, 463. 69 Letter t o Liverpool, Liverpool Papers, C C X X V I I , Add. Mss. 38,416, p. 31"; letter t o the committee of correspondence, enclosed in Governor Cameron's letter t o Cooke, Mar. n , 1808, C. O. 2 3 : 5 3 . See also below, p. 147·

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sound policy." T h o u g h Lord Grenville congratulated the House of Lords " in having now performed one of the most glorious acts that had ever been done by any assembly of any nation in the world," to Chalmers it was a defeat both to the material interests of his clients in the W e s t Indies and to the dialectical position which he had maintained for many years. 10 A s will be shown in more detail later, he had come to be critical of the corn laws and to doubt both their capacity to produce their intended effect and the desirability of the effect if it were attained. T h e improvement in agricultural method was increasing the productivity of the land and the wealth of the country gentlemen, who, he had believed, should have " first weight and consideration," but it was also producing other effects so dire as to lead him to question its ultimate benefit. 71 That the chief clerk should have forfeited the favorable opinion of his superiors by open criticism of their measures is not surprising. Lord Bathurst, who held the office of president of the Committee for Trade from 1807 to 1813, seems never to have had any strong regard for him and ultimately to have looked upon him with active disapproval and dislike. He passed over Chalmers in 1808 to appoint Porter and Lack as additional clerks of the privy council, and in 1810, after Sir Stephen Cottrell had been permitted with every mark of esteem to resign his honorable, well-paid, and not too arduous offices of clerk-inordinary of the council and secretary of the committee, it was Thomas Lack who was once more singled out for promotion. He was given the title of assistant secretary with another addition of £200 to his salary. In 1812 it was raised again, until he was now receiving the yearly sum of £1,350 in contrast to the £1,000 to which Chalmers had attained in 1805. Porter, too, had £250 more than he. 72 Though these younger men had begun as 70 Parliamentary Debates, IX, 170; act 47 Geo. I l l , c. 36. See R. Coupland, IVilberforce, ch. ix, and British Anti-Slavery Movement, pp. 106 ff.; also F. J. Klingberg, op. eit., pp. n 8 f f . 71 See below, pp. 204-5. 72 Reeves received only £800 for his office as law clerk, but he held several others as well.

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subordinate to him and were still nominally his juniors on the establishment, it was abundantly clear that Bathurst regarded his work as less valuable than theirs, f o r , when in J u l y , 1 8 1 2 , the committee recommended the advances to them, the increased expenditure was justified by the announcement of the intention not to appoint a successor to the chief clerk upon his death. 73 Chalmers, to be sure, was approaching seventy years of age, but he was still sufficiently confident of his powers and importance to write to the president a stiff letter of protest, 74 and the grim satisfaction was his of keeping the committee waiting f o r thirteen years before they were permitted to enjoy their contemplated economies. A few years later he was guilty of a blazing indiscretion, to use no stronger term, which justly brought official censure upon him, when L o r d Bathurst, now secretary of state f o r w a r and the colonies, accused him of making improper use of his opportunities f o r securing official information. A s will appear in the following chapter, the governor of the Bahamas more than once complained to the colonial office that the assembly, with which he was at loggerheads, was receiving information of vital importance before it came to his hands, which could emanate f r o m only one source, the agent of the colony. Finally on December 22, 1 8 1 7 , Henry Goulburn, the undersecretary, addressed a pointed letter to the lords of trade enclosing the evidence. T h e committee, through the Honorable Frederick John Robinson, its vice-president, indicated to the chief clerk its serious displeasure and exacted f r o m him an undertaking that he would not, without their full permission, " f o r the purpose of conducting the Business of his Constituents in the Colonies, avail himself . . . of any Official Document which would not have been open to his Inspection had he not held a Situation in the Department." Lack, conveying the apologies of the committee to L o r d Bathurst, stated that Their Lordships 73 Β. T. 5 : 21, p. 348. 74 Letter listed for sale in supplement to Thorpe's catalogue, 1843, No. 654

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believed that in the future no similar cause of complaint would be given by Mr. Chalmers. His superiors stood by their old servant, but one easily imagines their none too patient hope that they would not be called upon to do so much longer.76 There is no doubt that Chalmers in common with many other public officers took a very casual attitude toward the state papers. The records of the office had been committed to his care at the time of its establishment in 1786, and after 1792 it was a part of the duty of the clerk, John Porter, to keep a book in which every paper was entered, with a note of the day it was received, by whom withdrawn, and when returned." Nevertheless, Chalmers seems to have taken home many documents and either deliberately or carelessly to have kept them; the originals appear surprisingly often among the notes and copies which he made, and are scattered among libraries in the United States as well as in England. A s he grew older, he became more and more violent in his controversial manners, and, finding it hard to believe that any decent person could differ with him, probably found it correspondingly easy to justify in his mind the employment of any weapons which happened to be convenient. Chalmers's function during the last fifteen years seems to have been almost wholly routine. The reports of his researches among the records grow fewer; the only one of any importance concerns the original boundaries of Nova Scotia. 77 Whether his preoccupation with his literary labors lessened his interest in his public duties, or the slight call his office made upon his time and energies left him, like Gibbon more than thirty years 75 Goulburn to Lack with enclosures, Β. Τ. 1: 123; Lack to Goulburn, Jan. 22, 1818, C. O. 23: 67; noted in minutes, Β. T. 5: 26, pp. 325 ft. This episode is discussed at greater length in connection with the Bahama agency, see below, pp. 165-66. 76 Β. T. 5: 8, p. 308. 77 This document, a little out of the province of the committee as by then it had developed, was sent on October. 31, 1816, to Bathurst who passed it on to the foreign office (F. O. 5: 119) ; a draft, with various letters, is in Papers relating to Nova Scotia, pp. 48 ff.

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before, undisturbed in h i s library, the fact appears to be that the w o r k that C h a l m e r s did at the Office for T r a d e by no means fully engaged him. O n e must j u d g e that his real life d u r i n g his last quarter of a century w a s that o f the man o f letters. N o n e the less, his duties as office accountant continued to be carefully and punctually p e r f o r m e d to the end of his days. A n intensified interest in administrative retrenchment had begun to m a n i f e s t itself about 1808. A n order-in-council, dated A p r i l 6 in that year, directed that the fees and gratuities w h i c h had hitherto been taken by the officers and clerks of the p r i v y council office should be turned into a general fund f r o m w h i c h regular salaries w o u l d henceforth be paid t h e m ; on J a n u a r y 1 1 , 1810, the C o m m i t t e e f o r T r a d e suggested that their expenses should be met in the same manner and it w a s so agreed. 7 8 T h e H o u s e of C o m m o n s had called at v a r i o u s times f o r statements comparing expenditures in governmental departments with those of f o r m e r years, and in June, 1810, an act w a s passed requiring that an account of the increase and diminution of pensions, and

allowances

should

be laid b e f o r e

salaries,

parliament

between F e b r u a r y 1 and L a d y D a y of each year. T h i s account Chalmers regularly prepared. Apparently he wished to make his return by an original plan of his o w n , for, on J a n u a r y 29, 1812, his report w a s sent back to him with the request that he make use o f the printed f o r m . 7 9 F r o m this date it is v e r y easy to trace the a u g m e n t i n g expenses of the office. T h e order-in-council setting up the establishment had authorized the payment of salaries to staff and servants a m o u n t i n g to £3,020. In 1 7 9 6 they w e r e receiving £4,428 10 s., and in 1806 £ 5 , 3 1 7 10s. in consequence o f the changes in the schedule effected in the previous year. T h e r e w a s a s a v i n g of £1,000 w h e n Cottrell and F a w k e n e r were taken off the office list in 1810, and L a c k ' s increase came out o f the privy council fee f u n d ; but in 1 8 1 2 another 78 P. C. 2: 184, pp. 341 ff., and 378. 79 Β. Τ. ι : 62; act 50 Geo. Ill, c. 117.

reorganization

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brought an increase of £870 over the preceding year. The decision in 1817 to pay the vice-president the yearly salary of £2,000 and the inclusion of the corn receiver's department in the establishment in 1821 materially augmented the pay-roll, which in 1824, the last full year of Chalmer's service, amounted to £9,845 5j. 4d.*0 T h e incident expenses, however, which had been £2,440 l i s . gd. in 1807, were susceptible of considerable diminution. George Chalmers, with the thrift of his race, took seriously the new regime of economy. H e looked carefully even into the quarterly accounts of the necessary woman, who had been in the service of the committee since its foundation and whose bills had always been paid without question. Believing some of her charges to be unwarranted, Chalmers declined at Ladyday, 1811, any longer to honor them, and Mrs. Stacey, after twenty-five years of comfortable petty larceny, was not unnaturally indignant. The chief clerk remaining adamant, she finally took her complaint to the president in 1815. Chalmers's long letter to Lord Clancarty, who then filled that post, explained that he was not unwilling that she should receive additional compensation, in fact he recommended it, but he refused to countenance g r a f t in the office. 81 B y such careful management the incident expenses were substantially reduced. T h e addition of the corn receiver's department sent the bills up again, as did the moving of the office in 1823, but the decision to cease the purchase of stationery from a tradesman and to procure the supply from His Majesty's Stationery Office brought a notable saving, and for 1824 the incident account was only £1,697 Ι 3 ί · I O T h e office records of these postwar years contain numerous inquiries from the treasury and from parliamentary committees 80 This figure is arrived at from Chalmer's quarterly accounts: Β. T. 3 : 18, pp. 150, 231, 335, 398. 81 A n allowance of £10 a year from the time that her bills were protested was granted on May 21, 1815, and on October 2, 1823, she was allowed a further £40 for an additional maid servant. By that date she had been in the employ of the office for thirty-seven years. 82 From Chalmers's quarterly accounts, loc.

cit.

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into government expenses, together with suggestions of methods by which the personnel or cost of the departments might be reduced. Though in 1 8 1 2 the lords of trade had expressed their intention of dispensing with the services of a chief clerk a f t e r the demise of the present incumbent, they replied in 1 8 1 7 to a circular letter of the lords of the treasury that they could not see their w a y to reduce their staff at that time. But when in response to parliamentary pressure the inquiry was repeated in 1 8 2 1 , they indicated their willingness to consider a reorganization of the office " upon a more simple and convenient principle." T h i s principle would seem to have been threefold: the ending of the custom of giving allowances to certain clerks f o r special services; an arrangement of the staff in three classes, f o r each of which there was to be a definite basic salary, with an increase of £ 1 0 f o r every year of service and the expectation (though not the right) of moving up f r o m class to class as vacancies made promotion possible; and the suppression of the offices of both the chief clerk and the law clerk. T h e final d r a f t of these " proposals of economy and retrenchment," adopted on March 2 3 , 1 8 2 2 , provided f o r an establishment of twelve, including the corn receiver and his two clerks, to cost £ 4 , 3 0 0 a year exclusive of the salary of the vice-president and the wages of the servants. It was stated, however, that the new schedule could not go into effect until the offices of the law clerk and the chief clerk had been vacated. 83 John Reeves, now over seventy and with thirty-six years of service behind him, was willing to resign. " With a degree of praiseworthy Liberality," he even abstained " f r o m pressing f o r any specific amount of Superannuation," since he held another " situation of Emolument from the f a v o u r of the C r o w n . " T h e committee, therefore, recording in a minute their " high sense of his c o n d u c t " and of " the Zeal and Integrity which have always marked his Public Character," granted him a 83 Β. T. 5: 30, p. 181.

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pension of £400, one-half the amount of his salary. T h e office of law clerk w a s abolished on J u l y 16, 1 8 2 3 , " it appearing to the L o r d s of the Committee that the Duties of an Officer of this Description [ m i g h t ] without Inconvenience be dispensed w i t h . " 84 George Chalmers, less conscious of the weaknesses of age than Reeves though ten years his senior, or possibly merely less sensitive and more stubborn in the face of implied criticism, clung tenaciously to his prescriptive rights. H e continued in harness well into his eighty-third year and was induced to f o r e g o his emoluments by no persuasion less mandatory than that of death itself. When that event, so long delayed, occurred on M a y 3 1 , 1 8 2 5 , there ensued some slight confusion, arising f r o m the fact that he had deposited the money delivered to him f o r the incident fund in the bank of Messrs. Drummond, and it was necessary to wait until a will had been found or letters of administration issued. " The Winding up of the Account as relates to the last Chief Clerk " is not recorded in the minutes until November 30, when the balance of his salary to the amount of £ 1 5 3 8i·. 6d. appears as an item. 85 T o a memorial of Robert Pitcairn, writer to His M a j e s t y ' s Signet in Scotland, soliciting the appointment which Chalmers had held, the committee returned the answer that it was proposed to abolish the office, and on J u l y 3 0 proceeded to put their decision into effect. B u t though the office of chief clerk was declared to be superfluous, in the same minute in which they recorded this opinion, Their Lordships expressed their consciousness of " the great Increase which has taken place in the Business transacted in this Department." The additional labor and responsibility had devolved chiefly upon Thomas L a c k , the 84 Β. T. 5: 31, pp. 227 ff.; P. C. 2 : 205, pp. 148-49. Apparently Their Lordships had underestimated the amount of legal business done in the office, for in July, 1825, an arrangement was entered into with the colonial office to share tho services and pay one-third the salary of James Stephen, Junior, the counsel for that department. Β. T. 5: 34, p. 69. 85 Β. T. s : J4- PP· 1 ff· and 24S·

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assistant secretary, and the augmentation of his salary to £1,500 w a s ordered, " with peculiar satisfaction " and even with the comment that f o r his industry and merit it w a s felt to be " a f t e r all, an inadequate recompense."

8β

L i k e L a c k , G e o r g e Chalmers had entered the Office f o r T r a d e upon its establishment, but f o r the final thirteen years o f his l o n g connection he had k n o w n that he w a s regarded as a supernumerary. H i s contribution w a s of slight consequence, his l i f e w a s centered elsewhere, and it ended w i t h n o expression o f regret f r o m his superiors, merely the dry comment that his decease enabled them to proceed with their resolution to abolish his office. It may be well in concluding this chapter to recall that in his thirty-nine y e a r s of service to the Committee f o r T r a d e , G e o r g e C h a l m e r s had had occasion to observe notable changes not only in the policies which it advocated but also in its character and functions.

The

Honorable

Frederick

John

Robinson,

later

V i s c o u n t Goderich and Earl of Ripon, w h o held successively the offices o f vice-president and president f r o m 1 8 1 2 to 1823, and W i l l i a m

Huskisson, Chalmers's last chief, had

become

advocates o f freer trade. O n M a y 8, 1820, Robinson stated in the H o u s e of C o m m o n s his opinion " that the restrictive system o f commerce in this country w a s founded on error, and calculated to d e f e a t the object f o r which it w a s adopted," and on A p r i l i , 1822, introduced a bill for the regulation of colonial trade intended to " substitute a direct intercourse f o r one w h i c h is circuitous, dilatory and expensive." T h e act passed on June 2 4 of that y e a r w a s stated in the minutes to be " the first legislative admission of a direct permanent commerce between H i s 86 Β. T . 5 : 34, pp. 67 ff. T h i s opinion was not universally held, however. C h a r l e s Greville, w h o was clerk of the privy council, called Lack " incompetent," and V e s e y - F i t z g e r a l d , who became president of the Board of T r a d e in 1829, made James Deacon Hume joint assistant secretary because, he said, " nobody in the Office knew anything of its business." Charles Poulett T h o m p s o n also " descanted on the inefficiency of his subordinates" and superannuated L a c k in 1836, after fifty years of service. Grcrillc Memoirs, I, 223; I I , 8 7 ; I I I , 330.

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Majesty's colonies in the W e s t Indies and the United States in the vessels of the United States," and was only one of five important bills sponsored by the committee and passed in a single year for the freeing of British trade and navigation. 87 It is also clear in retrospect that since the onset of the long war an evolution had been taking place substantially altering the form and status of the committee itself. Beginning as a group of H i s Majesty's privy councillors who met to consider and recommend policies and procedure in matters relating to trade and the empire, the committee had become predominantly an administrative board whose duties were strictly limited to commerce. It may be that the first Earl of Liverpool himself had realized the tendency and attempted to halt it. The third secretary of state, for war and the colonies, created in 1794, was not actually given the responsibility for colonial affairs until peace was made in 1801, and with the renewal of the war, the attention of that minister being bent on the pressing necessity of defeating Napoleon, he had little time to spare for the other aspect of his office. In February, 1803, the lords of trade protested to L o r d Hobart, then the third secretary, against the growing negligence of his department in the matter of submitting colonial laws for their consideration. He agreed that all acts of assemblies should thereafter regularly be transmitted to the lord president to be laid before the king-in-council; that body would, presumably, ask for the opinion of the committee concerning the expediency of confirming or disallowing them.*8 It has been seen that a considerable reorganization of the establishment took place in 1808. Cottrell and Fawkener, having been assigned fixed salaries by the privy council, were no longer to receive the £500 a year which had been paid each of them 87 Parliamentary

Debates,

N e w Series, I, 182 and V I , 1415 ff.; minutes,

Β. T. 5 : 31, p. 346. The acts are 3 Geo. IV, c. 41, 42, 43, 44, 45. For a discussion of this development of policy see E . H a l e v y , A History People,

1815-1830,

pp. 119-23.

88 Β. T. 5 : 13, pp. 339 ff·; 5 : 14, PP- 4 8 « .

of the

English

I20

THE

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CHALMERS

by the Office for Trade, though they retained the title of secretary to the committee. For part of the £1,000 thus freed the lords of trade found immediate use. In a minute dated August 20 they expressed the opinion that it would be well if the relationship between their office and that of the privy council should be closer, " since this Board . . . acts frequently as a Committee of Privy Council." They spoke of the inconvenience which had often arisen from their clerks' not belonging to the council office, " and consequently having no relation whatever in the Business transacted by the Lords here as a Committee of Privy Council." They also mentioned their reluctance to trouble the insufficient staff of the council office to give them access to the papers, to which " this Board . . . can have reference only by an Application to that office." The committee suggested, in order " to connect the Business of both Departments usefully," that two of the clerks of the Office for Trade be made underclerks of the privy council, and, as has been noted, submitted the names of John Porter and Thomas Lack in whose accuracy and diligence they expressed the utmost confidence. Their appointments having been approved, Porter was given charge of the registers of licenses to trade, while Lack was made " minute-clerk." Each was to receive an additional £300 a year in wartime, £200 in peace.89 These incidents seem worth pointing out. The lords of trade had already been driven to complain that their function of scrutinizing and handing down opinions on colonial laws was no longer given its due recognition by the secretary of state, and now we find them deploring the gulf which had appeared between the committee and the privy council from which it had sprung. Even the machinery which was set up at their request professedly to bring into closer relations their work as a committee of council and as a board of trade was chiefly designed to take care of business which fell into the second category. In 181 ο in a report to the privy council they once again felt it necessary to define their position: 89 Β. T. s : 18, pp. 212, 241 ff.

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the Committee of Trade, although acting distinctly from the Privy Council merely for the greater convenience of deliberation on the particular Subjects referred to their consideration, are actually a part of the Privy Council.90 But the transformation was seemingly inevitable and the development becomes even more apparent if one looks at the record of attendance at the meetings of the committee. There being no stipulation in the order-in-council of 1786 as to the size of a quorum, there were numerous occasions early in its history when the president acted alone, but this was not the rule. Beginning in July, 1 8 1 0 , however, one may say that, practically speaking, there were no more sessions in which its members met as a group for joint deliberation.91 The president and vice-president, often one of them, constituted the committee to all intents and purposes. Lord Clancarty was appointed president in September, 1 8 1 2 , and continued titular head until January, 1 8 1 8 , but in November, 1 8 1 3 , he went off to The Hague as minister, from there in August, 1 8 1 4 , to the Congress of Vienna, and back again to The Hague in May, 1 8 1 6 . The Honorable Frederick John Robinson, the vice-president, carried the entire burden during his absence and after September, 1 8 1 7 , was paid a yearly salary of £2,ooo. 92 Lord Bathurst, who was Clancarty's predecessor in the office,93 was in 1 8 1 3 made secretary of state for war and the colonies, and it is from his appointment that the existence of an active and efficient colonial department is usually dated. 90 P. C. 2 : 184, p. 341. 91 On the suggestion of Sir James Stephen an attempt was made in 184849 to revive the Board of Trade as a consultative body but with no significant result. See W . P. Morrell, British Colonial Policy in the Age of Peel and Russell, pp. 204-5. 92 Ten years later the president also began to receive a salary. 93 H e was a member of the cabinet as " President of the Board of Trade." Clancarty, w h o was so consistently in absentia, was, with the vice-president, Robinson, " not of the cabinet." When Robinson himself became president in 1818, he was given cabinet rank. Lists of His Majesty's ministers are to be found in Parliamentary Debates.

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Perhaps his experience as head of the Committee f o r T r a d e had convinced him that that organization should no longer have even the semblance of supervision over the a f f a i r s of the colonies aside f r o m their trade, and the committee ultimately agreed. But not f o r some time was there any overt recognition that this function had passed f r o m its hands. Though, as another student has pointed out, on J u n e 7, 1 8 1 6 , the vice-president, as usual sitting alone, referred a colonial statute to the secretary of state " as being of a political rather than of a commercial nature," 84 there are numerous instances in the next few years of the committee's tendering advice on non-commercial laws." 5 However, Huskisson having become president, the relation of the Board of Trade (so named) and the colonial department was clarified in a statement recorded in the minutes f o r J u l y 14, 1 8 2 3 . The paper had been drafted in the office of the secretary of state and was now approved by the president. Colonial acts relating to trade would thereafter be transmitted privately to the Board of Trade and an answer returned to the colonial department. Acts involving points of law would be eubmitted similarly to the privy council, with the request that the opinion of the law officers of the crown be secured. But with respect to all other Colonial Acts which involve points of policy or administration, the responsibility of deciding upon which must rest exclusively with the Colonial Department, it is to be understood that no examination need take place by the Board of 94 Η. T. Mantling, op. cit., pp. 512-13. 95 The following acts of the Bahama legislature may be mentioned as illustrations: " an act the more effectually to prevent the desertion of slaves," recommended for disallowance on May 21, 1 8 1 7 ; "an act for the erecting and repairing of churches," referred to Reeves and on his advice recommended for disallowance on June 9, 1817; " an act to establish a triennial census of slaves in these islands," recommended for disallowance on July 22, 1 8 1 9 ; "an act for preventing the profanation of religious rites and false worshipping of God," recommended for disallowance on Reeves's advice, August 22, 1819. Β. T. 5 : 26, pp. 75 and 1 0 1 ; 5 : 28, pp. 86 and 121.

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Trade, but that Lord Bathurst will attend at the Board, and give his opinion generally as to the propriety of their being sanctioned. The Board of Trade would then recommend their confirmation or rejection, in form as once had been done in fact, in the presence of the Secretary of State.®6 Thus before the death of George Chalmers in May, 1825, the committee of council envisaged by Burke and established by Pitt had completely lost its original character. It no longer held deliberative sessions, its chief executive member was paid, and it abandoned any claim to control or even to superintendence over the affairs of the plantations. It had become in fact a board of trade responsible to parliament. But in true British fashion no change had ever been made in its legal status. T h e order-in-council of A u g u s t 23, 1786, was never withdrawn; it remains, indeed, nominally in force to this day. 9 ' 96 Β. T. s : 31, pp. 363 ff. 97 Sir H. L. Smith, op. cit., pp. 44, 45, 50, 243. See A. L. Lingelbach, " William Huskisson as President of the Board of Trade," American Historical Review, July, 1938, pp. 759 ff., for some discussion of the work of the board at the time of Chalmers's death.

CHAPTER IV COLONIAL AGENT FOR THE BAHAMAS i.

1792-1804

HAVING recognized the independence of the thirteen colonies, the British government was faced with the problem of finding an asylum for those loyal subjects whose devotion to the king had made it impossible for them to continue living among their former neighbors. Hundreds went " home " to England, where, as we have seen, their property losses were ultimately recompensed to some degree in money; thousands more were assisted to settle in the wilderness north of the Bay of Fundy and north-west of the St. Lawrence, Lake Ontario, and Lake Erie. Florida having been surrendered to Spain, it was decided to move the fugitives from the southern states who had taken refuge there to the hitherto thinly occupied archipelego of the Bahamas. 1 They were not enthusiastic about the project, nor were the older settlers eager to have them come; but no other solution of the pressing problem occurring to the harassed ministers, the refugees were taken aboard the transports. Parliament provided for the purchase of the soil from the proprietors, and land grants were made on very liberal terms. 2 W i t h their slaves they more than doubled the population of the colony in less than two years. By the summer of 1785 there were approximately 1 F o r brief descriptions of the Bahamas at this period see L. M. Penson, The Colonial Agents of the British West Indies, pp. 9 9 - 1 0 7 ; W . H . Siebert, The Legacy of the American Resolution to the British IVest Indies and the Bahamas; J . H . W r i g h t , History of the Bahama Islands. 2 On July 30, 1783, £7,000 was appropriated and on July 15, 1786, £6,356 more. Land was 50 acres, quitrents were remitted for 10 years, of charge. T . 28: 2, pp. 234, 264; instructions 1 0 and 2 5 , 1 7 8 4 , C. O. 2 4 : 14. !

-4

for the purchase of the soil, sold at a price of IOJ. for and surveys were made free to Governor Maxwell, S e p t

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125

9,000 people in the islands, two-thirds of whom were colored; by 1789 there were more than 11,000 including 8,000 blacks.1' Mostly planters who had lived luxuriously on their large estates, they were an arrogant lot, and Governor John Maxwell, whose sympathies were with their reluctant hosts, found it impossible to satisfy their exorbitant requirements. The secretary of state, Lord Sydney, urged him to be conciliatory, pointing out that the newcomers had suffered greatly for their devotion to H i s Majesty. T h o u g h Maxwell had a good record and was undeserving of what was bound to appear a severe reprimand, the minister even acceded to the peremptory demand for a change of governor. Maxwell was recalled with a somewhat lame apology, and the Earl of Dunmore, the former royal governor of Virginia, was appointed in May, 1787. 4 But Dunmore was to prove even less acceptable to the recent settlers than Maxwell. He had already given ample evidence in Virginia that he was a headstrong, violent man, and he had hardly arrived in the islands before he had aroused the antagonism of the equally opinionated immigrants. Like his predecessor he favored the older inhabitants and antagonized the new, by delaying the dissolution of the assembly which had been elected before their arrival and by discriminating against his opponents in the granting of the land; and in spite of the repeated recommendations of his superiors in England that he " cultivate the Support and gain the Confidence " of the inhabitants, he continued on his obstinate way. 5 These were the circumstances and this the colony for which George Chalmers sought the office of agent. He was a Loyalist and, as has been shown, had taken a prominent part in the effort to obtain compensation for the losses of the refugees. 3 Professor Siebert believes that between six and seven thousand people arrived from June, 1783, to April, 1785; Chalmers's notes seem to show that the increase was somewhat more gradual. Siebert, op. cit., p. 22; Bahama Papers, I. 4 Letters are in C. O. 23: 25 and 26, and in C. O. 37: 23. 5 Letters are in C. O. 23: 34 and 24: 14.

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A s chief clerk to the C o m m i t t e e f o r T r a d e he w a s now in the position which, at the time of his recommendation o f R i c h a r d Cumberland f o r the same office, G o v e r n o r Shirley had declared to be desirable: he had " a f a v o u r a b l e A c c e s s to the B o a r d s b e f o r e which he is to Sollicit."

6

H e could, moreover, count on

substantial backing. W h e n a certain A l e x a n d e r Ross, a W e s t F l o r i d a Loyalist, went out to the B a h a m a s in 1790, he carried, besides Chalmers's application to L o r d D u n m o r e , a letter of recommendation f r o m E v a n Nepean, f o r many years a person o f consequence in v a r i o u s g o v e r n m e n t departments. R o s s reported in June that D u n m o r e w a s f a v o r a b l y disposed to Chalmers, but advised him to o f f e r his services directly to the assembly, " an attention w h i c h they will consider a tribute of respect." H e wrote again in N o v e m b e r and in December to say that he believed the chances of the appointment to be g o o d , and in October, 1 7 9 1 , he w a s able to report success. 7 I t was, nevertheless, not until July, 1792, that the act passed the legislature; on A u g u s t

17 it received the assent of

the

g o v e r n o r , w h o wrote to C h a l m e r s a v e r y cordial note of congratulation. H e w a s appointed agent " to represent, solicit and transact the a f f a i r s of these Islands, in Great Britain " at a salary of £150 Sterling, the act to continue in force for t w o y e a r s " and no longer." A committee of correspondence w a s named in the bill itself, consisting of three councillors and six members of the assembly, w h o were ordered to keep t w o books recording the letters e x c h a n g e d w i t h the agent, one f o r each house. T h e y immediately wrote i n f o r m i n g him of his unanim o u s appointment, enclosing a copy o f the act and promising as soon as possible to furnish him " w i t h such essential i n f o r mation as w e m a y be enabled to procure respecting the state of these Islands."

8

6 Quoted by L . M. Penson, op. cit., p. 165. 7 Add. Mss. 22,900, pp. 105, n 8 , 132, 155, 174. 8 Ibid., pp. 176 and 177; act, C. O. 2 5 : 8, No. 196.

COLONIAL

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12"J

The general functions of the colonial agents have been so competently studied and so lucidly set forth 9 that it is unnecessary to elaborate upon them. Chalmers secured a copy of the early instructions prepared for its agent by the legislature of Jamaica which may well have been his guide. 10 Though on one occasion some twenty years later he was to be censured by his constituents for neglect of his duty, he appears to have been in general " attentive to the Interest of the Islands." He used his influence to promote measures in parliament which he conceived to be to their advantage and to oppose those which would be unacceptable to them. After the outbreak of the war with France he constantly urged that adequate measures of defense be taken to protect the homes and trade of the colonists as well from the excessive zeal of His Majesty's navy as from His Majesty's enemies. And when the abolition movement threatened the institution upon which the economic life of the islands depended, he opposed it unrelentingly, though fruitlessly, with arguments of law, justice, and expediency, and with the heavy invective which he did not hesitate to employ in all his controversies. With political and commercial affairs one would expect the agent to be occupied, but he was also busy on a variety of other matters. John Wells, publisher of the Bahama Gazette, expressed a wish that Chalmers should try to procure " respectable " clergymen for two vacant livings, and he made application to the Bishop of London. A group of gentlemen interested in establishing a library requested him to choose a bookseller for them and to make additions to their list of books. A committee of visitors for a projected high school suggested to the committee of correspondence that he be authorized to engage two teachers who were capable of giving instruction in English, writing, arithmetic, and bookkeeping, and were members of 9 By L. M. Penson, op. cit. 10 Quoted by Miss Penson, pp. 119-20. Chalmers's copy is among his manuscripts in the Library of Congress, Vernon-Wager Papers, I V , 203-4.

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the Church of England. 1 1 T h e committee of correspondence was not always faithful to its obligation to keep him informed officially of developments in the colony, but he carried on a voluminous interchange with individual members and with other citizens. Besides urging him to activity on behalf of the community at large they constantly pressed him to use his influence to secure preferment f o r themselves or their relations, and even requested of him services of a purely personal character. 1 2 Sometimes they were grateful. A g i f t of a turtle was an occasional mark of appreciation, and Thomas Roker, whom he helped to the office of receiver-general and treasurer, named a son f o r him, perhaps in the hope of future f a v o r s for the young man. Though Chalmers enjoyed confidential relations with several of the successive governors, there was no question in his mind that his responsibility was to the assembly of the colony. H e had made his initial approch to L o r d Dunmore, who had favored his appointment, but he was to be at least partially responsible f o r the enforced retirement of that disreputable old man. T h e reasons f o r Dunmore's recall in J u l y , 1 7 9 6 , were no doubt chiefly his failure to enforce the commercial regulations, his unauthorized appointment of his son as lieutenant-governor, and the extravagance of his expenditure f o r military works, but it is also true that Chalmers actively besieged the secretary of state with evidence of the governor's corruption and general offensiveness to the Bahamians. H e was given great credit by his constituents f o r the happy issue out of all their afflictions; they thanked him profusely as individuals, and William W y l l y , a leading lawyer and planter, wrote that only the new governor's appeal f o r a truce to faction had stood in the w a y of the agent's 11 Add. Mss. 22,900, p. 264, and 22,901, p. 103; Dec. 12, 1795, and Mar. 4, 1806, Bahama Papers I and V. 12 William Wylly, later to be Chalmers's bete noir, asked him to select a school for his two young sons; he expressed a preference for Winchester or " Eaton." Nov. 7, 1799, Bahama Papers, I I I .

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receiving a formal vote of thanks of the assembly and a piece of plate. 13 George Chalmers's original appointment in August, 1792, had been made for two years, but owing to the confused political situation it was not renewed until December, 1795. The second act differed in some particulars from the first. T h e committee of correspondence was now, and continued, to consist of all members of the council and assembly, any five of whom might act during a recess and might act, too, as separate bodies in cases of dispute between the houses. They were to maintain an office with a paid clerk who was given strict instructions as to the care of the correspondence. Chalmers's salary remained the same, £150, " clear of all deductions," and he was authorized to put in a requisition for any money " reasonably expended in the public service." This appointment was for three instead of two years, and to guard against a repetition of the embarrassment which had arisen from Dunmore's interference with the legislative procedure, the phrase was added " until the end of the then next Session of the General Assembly." 14 Such testimony to the esteem in which he was held was very gratifying to Chalmers, and he took care to confide it in the proper quarters. 15 It would have pleased him still more had it been accompanied by tangible evidence of appreciation, but the turmoil in the colony had not been without its adverse effect upon him as well. H e had received his salary for the first year of his service; bills had then been sent for only £250 instead of the £300 owing for the ensuing two years, and those were among a number which were protested. Nothing at all had been 13 Letters to Chalmers are in Bahama Papers, I and I I ; resolves of the assembly and letters to the secretary of state in C. O. 23: 34 and 35. 14 Act, C. O. 25:9, No. 230. An act had passed the assembly in 1784 but dissolution had followed before it had received the assent of the governor. Peter Edwards to Chalmers, Add. Mss. 22,900, p. 260. 15 Chalmers to John King, enclosing letter of committee, Apr. 27, 179", C. O. 23 : 36.

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paid since. B y A u g u s t 14, 1 7 9 7 , he w o u l d have arrears o f f o u r years' salary in addition to £50 f o r incidental expenses. 1 8 N o t only did he write officially to the committee but plaintively to all his correspondents. W y l l y replied that the assembly had made an appropriation f o r the y e a r 1793-94 but it had never been p a i d : " It seems that his L o r d s h i p and his T r e a s u r e r could not spare it." T h e protested bills had been d r a w n by John Miller, a member of the council and a wealthy man, but his fortunes had g o n e d o w n with the g o v e r n o r ' s . R o k e r , speaker of the assembly, advised C h a l m e r s to send an account f o r the amount o w i n g plus eight percent interest, and Peter E d w a r d s , shortly to be made a j u d g e , encouraged him to expect payment as soon as some of the money had been recovered which had been misappropriated by the dishonest g o v e r n o r and his thievish following. B u t it w a s not until December that W y l l y i n f o r m e d him that an order had actually been issued and g o o d bills were on the w a y , t h o u g h the interest w o u l d have to wait over until the next session. E d w a r d s expressed pleasure at the n e w s but acidly remarked that in his opinion " the same means might have been adopted b e f o r e , " and John W e l l s w a s ashamed of " the extreme shabbiness of the business." T h e bland innocence of the committee's comment on " the large arrears which to our surprise w e f o u n d due to y o u " lends color to the suspicion that to pay their debts w a s their last concern. 1 7 T h e new g o v e r n o r , John Forbes, w h o w a s a l a w y e r and a statesman rather than a superannuated soldier, behaved with the greatest tact and discretion. T h o u g h D u n m o r e remained in the colony f o r some time, and the clique which had profited by the corruption of his administration and which dominated the council made it as difficult as possible f o r his successor, F o r b e s soon w o n the confidence of the m a j o r i t y of the assembly. T h e y 16 Chalmers to committee, Apr. 30, 1797, copy in Add. Mss. 22,900, pp. 343-45· 17 Most of the letters are to be found in Bahama Papers, II and I I I ; Edwards's is in Add. Mss. 22,900, pp. 376-78; that of the committee in Papers relating to the Crooked Islands, p. 3.

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wrote enthusiastically to their agent that at last they had a governor exactly to their liking, but their jubilation came to a swift and tragic end. T h e pressing request o f both governor and agent for additional naval and military defense having been tardily granted, and General White commanding in Santo Domingo having been ordered to despatch five hundred men, that officer seized the opportunity " to sweep his hospitals upon the Bahamas." They brought with them the dreaded yellow fever which quickly infected the town, and the governor, who did not know how to order his life in a hot climate, was in no condition to withstand it. He succumbed in June, 1797, only nine months after his arrival, and the despatches are full of expressions of profound grief. The colony was at once seething with excitement, all the Dunmore faction springing again into action. Robert Hunt, the president of the council, whom Forbes had rightly regarded with deep distrust, took over the government and proceeded to play a cautious, waiting game, failing even to read publicly the commission of the late governor, which had belatedly arrived two months after his death. George Chalmers, calling the attention of the secretary of state to this omission, pointed out that legally Dunmore's commission remained in force; there was even a rumor in the islands that he was to be reinstated, and his coterie was taking advantage of the interregnum to line its pockets in the old fashion. It is no wonder that the agent urged in the name of his correspondents that a strong governor be sent out soon, preferably a stranger to the islands who would have no commitments to any party. 18 Though Sir Joseph Banks solicited the appointment for his old friend, James Maria Matra, who had been his shipmate in the Endeavour when they sailed with Captain Cook, and whose health was nearly worn out after a long residence in Morocco, 1 9 18 Thomas Haven and Stephen Haven to Portland, June 8, Chalmers to Portland, Oct. 12, 1797, C. O. 23: 36; Haven, Roker, Wells, and Wylly to Chalmers in Bahama Papers, II. 19 Aug. 3, 1797, C. O. 23: 36.

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a more vigorous though possibly less picturesque character seemed to be called for. William Dowdeswell, thirty-six years old and with both military and parliamentary experience, arrived in the Bahamas on March 13, 1798. Between him and Chalmers there was mutual confidence, and his letters indicate a man of good judgment and dry, cynical humor whom it would be difficult to impose upon. H i s shrewd estimates of the excited politicians whom it was his mission to soothe make entertaining reading, and his common sense in a remarkably short time brought outward if not perfect concord to the colony. There was, however, one outburst of jealous rage before that happy consummation had been reached, its occasion being the act again renewing George Chalmers's appointment as agent. The bill had passed the assembly unanimously, but, in the words of Stephen Haven, the solicitor-general, " Lord Dunmore's creatures on the Council " who, like Chalmers's own correspondents, attributed the removal of their patron to the agent's influence, " took advantage of a thin Board and threw out our Agency A c t . " Their excuse was his charge of £66 8i. 6d. for damages suffered through the long arrears of his salary, which a committee of the council declared to be improper and not by any means to be allowed. B u t his friends who had urged him to make the claim assured him that nothing had been lost. By the terms of the act of 1795 his appointment ran to the end of the next session of the legislature, and by that time the governor would have altered the character of the council. The house had resolved that his reappointment as agent for the colony was " a wise and proper measure calculated to promote the true Interests and Commerce thereof," and a minority of the council had signed a protest against the rejection of the bill, calling it " a high-handed attack upon the Privileges of the House of Assembly, whose officer he is by law," and declaring that the conduct of Mr. Chalmers had been " upright, honourable and unexceptionable," had " very much promoted the Interest and Commerce of this Colony," and had " amply justified the confidence reposed in him by the Legislature." W h e n a

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similar measure was introduced at the next session, it was passed in both houses apparently without debate and continued his appointment for five instead of three years. 20 Besides this petty factional bickering in which he naturally took a keen interest because it affected his pocket, George Chalmers was concerned with many other matters of larger import to the colony. One after another the wartime Bahama governors tried to meet the problem of securing an adequate supply of provisions without bringing down upon their heads the condemnation of the lords of trade, who, as has been seen, were determined to prevent vessels owned in the United States from engaging in the West India trade. But necessity produced by natural calamity or the activity of His Majesty's enemies forced each in turn to admit American ships bringing food and lumber. In every case the reprimand was immediate and sharp. With this policy, one must judge from his published writings and from his letters to his chief, the president of the Committee for Trade, Chalmers found himself in complete accord. Though as agent for the colony he no doubt sympathized with the afflictions of the islanders, yet as a government servant he was in agreement with the principle which denied " that the Essential interests of the Nation should be Sacrificed to the particular interests of a f e w . " 21 But though Their Lordships refused except under conditions of greatest stringency to consent to a relaxation of the commercial regulations, they were, as has been seen, at the same time eager to protect and extend the commerce of the free ports notwithstanding hostilities. Here the controversy lay with those ship-captains who, through an excess of zeal or greed, interfered with the trade. A free port had been established in the Bahamas by the act of 1787, renewed and made perpetual in 1792, through which 20 Letters to Chalmers, Add. Mss. 22,900, p. 395, and in Bahama Papers, I I I ; minutes enclosed in Dowdeswell's letter to Portland, Dec. 9, 1798, C. O. 23: 38; act, C. O. 2 5 : 10, No. 307. 21 See above, p. 104.

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a large quantity of British goods was dispensed through the Caribbean. Dowdeswell's instructions had emphasized the importance of the commerce, but, whether inadvertently or by design, the order-in-council on which his instructions were based had omitted sugar and coffee from the list of articles which could be imported, though they had been included in the provisions of the act of 1792. The Bahama merchants immediately requested their agent to urge that these items be restored, and Chalmers prepared a memorial dated April 23, 1798. The Committee for Trade recommended compliance on May 16, and the governor was shortly afterwards assured that sugar and coffee might now legally be imported. In a letter to Chalmers of January 23 of the following year he mentioned the extensive benefits which the trade had enjoyed from the concession, and since no explanation was offered for the brief restriction, one is left to wonder whether there was any good reason at all.22 The commerce was of the greatest possible consequence to the Bahamas; " t h e Spanish trade keeps us alive," wrote one of Chalmers's correspondents early in 1799. Spanish money constituted almost the entire currency of the colony, English coins were seldom seen and never to any great amount. But the navy was particularly active in the spring of 1799 and practically destroyed the trade, thereby bringing great distress upon the islands.23 Both governor and agent made strong representations to the Committee for Trade which received a sympathetic hearing and brought a sharp protest to the admiralty. Sir Hyde Parker, who was in command and who profited by the seizures, retorted by complaining of " the loose manner " in which licenses for carrying on trade were granted, but Dowdeswell and Chalmers reminded their superiors that, 22 27 Geo. I l l , c. 27, and 32 Geo. I l l , c. 3 7 ; official correspondence in C. O. 2 3 : 37; letters to Chalmers in Bahama Papers, III, and Papers relating to the Crooked Islands. 23 John Wells wrote on June 29 that the trade was practically at an end for the Spanish would not take the risk. Bahama Papers, II.

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though the commerce was in the last analysis an illegal one f o r both the participants, it was none the less vitally important. T h e firm stand taken by the committee had its effect, and the governor, reporting to Chalmers in February, 1800, the recent increase in the trade, stated his flattering opinion that " much of the good consequences resulting from this Intercourse I shall always think and indeed am fully persuaded are to be attributed to your attention and exertion in the welfare of this Colony." M S o lucrative was the trade to the island of New Providence that the settlers on the barren Crooked Islands were eager to share it, but their application to have Portland B a y made a port of entry was denied by the Committee for Trade after reference to the customs. There was insufficient realization in England of the plight of these unfortunate people, which was merely to an intensified degree the general condition of the planters in all the Bahamas. The virgin soil was rich and they had flung themselves with ardor into the cultivation of cotton, with tremendous yields for a few years. Their early success was their undoing. They felled the trees, leaving the land open to the terrific winds which blow up from the Caribbean; and they failed to restore the strength of the soil which lay thin upon the rocks and was exhausted within a short time. T o complete their distress, the plants were attacked by insects which reduced the acreage which a slave could tend by one-half, and the planters fell heavily into debt. By 1800 " ruin stared them in the face." The improvident habits which they had learned in the southern colonies from which they came did not suggest study and industry and careful fertilization; their remedy was to move to fresh land. But after the generous grants made in the mid-eighties, the land office had been closed in March, 1790, possibly, as George Chalmers surmised, as a means of restraining the corrupt hand of Lord Dunmore. 25 24 Dowdeswell to Portland in C. O. 23: 39; Chalmers to Liverpool, cited above, p. 106; Dowdeswell to Chalmers, Add. Mss. 22,901, pp. 94-95. 25 Draft dated Oct. 6, 1798, in Bahama Papers, III.

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T h e first reference to the insect pests in the Chalmers papers occurs in a letter f r o m John Wells dated J a n u a r y 1, 1796. In the following autumn there was an unusually severe hurricane, the yellow fever raged, and the chenille and red bug continued their destructive work. Immediately upon his arrival Governor Dowdeswell was besieged with pleas f o r relief in the f o r m of new lands. With the consent of a large majority of the council he ventured to make temporary grants on Acklins Island, though he had no instructions to do so and feared that he had overstepped his powers. Portland, whose aide-de-camp the young soldier had been in Ireland, was inclined to be indulgent. H e could not, however, permit the planters to hold both tracts; one must revert to the crown, an arrangement which the governor well knew would be unsatisfactory, since the owners had spent a good deal of money in improving their estates. B e f o r e long he forwarded a petition begging that they might keep the new grants. 28 George Chalmers busied himself about this matter in a variety of ways. H e was in frequent communication with Dowdeswell and received f r o m the committee of correspondence instructions to support the governor's application. H e wrote to W y l l y , as the best-informed of his correspondents, f o r his view of their needs and received the inevitable reply that " new lands are absolutely necessary to save our planters from destruction." T o S i r Joseph Banks, a member of the Committee f o r Trade and president of the Royal Society, he applied f o r scientific information. S i r Joseph in his crusty way attributed the distress of the islanders to three causes: " their improvident mode of cultivation . . . the twaddle of the Minister who will not grant new lands to replace the fertility of those exhausted by this impolitic proceeding . . . and the red bug and chenille." T h e first condition might be corrected by diligence and prudence, and the second by a change of ministers or a change of heart. T h e planters should vary their crops and fertilize heavily; they 26 Correspondence in C. O. 23: 37, 39, and 40.

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should try to drive off the flying moths which lay the eggs; the minister, he believed, " nothing will eradicate but death." " T h e opinion that to depend exclusively on one crop was unwise was not new. Dunmore had broached the possibility of the cultivation of grapes in the Bahamas several years earlier, and the Committee for Trade had recommended the establishment of a few French emigres from the wine country who could demonstrate the method. The establishment of a botanical garden there had been proposed by the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce and recommended by the committee in that same year, 1793, but nothing had come of either idea.28 Chalmers now took up the latter suggestion with his customary energy and interested Banks in the project for diversifying the vegetation of the islands. The agent advised the legislature to make a formal request for a collection of tropical plants, while Sir Joseph wrote to the superintendent of the old and successful garden in St. Vincent and drafted a plan for one in the Bahamas. Governor Dowdeswell expressed a polite interest in the scheme, but recommended out of his bitter experience that no expense should be incurred until provision had actually been made, even though the legislature should seem to be committed to the undertaking. His prudent if somewhat cynical advice was disregarded by the enthusiasts, and a year or so later the commissary of St. Vincent was to be heard complaining that, when after much trouble he and the superintendent of the garden had succeeded in packing and finding conveyance in an armed schooner for two hundred boxes of plants, there was neither garden nor gardener to receive them; and when he applied to the Bahama assembly for reimbursement, he " was paid short near £400." However, the plants were divided among the planters, and John Wells anticipated 2 7 W y l l y ' s letter to Chalmers, Add. Mss. 22,901, pp. 84 ff.; Banks's letter and the replies of sixteen of " the most intelligent and experienced planters " to a series of questions submitted by the legislature, in Bahama Papers, I I I and I V ; other letters in Papers relating to the Crooked Islands, pp. 3 ff. 28 Β. T. 5 : 9, pp. 20 and 214.

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that the breadfruit would thrive and furnish a welcome addition to their supply of provisions. 2 * When Dowdeswell brought up the matter of land grants again in 1801, George Chalmers prepared for Lord Hobart, recently appointed secretary of state for war and the colonies, a statement setting forth the arguments for the reopening of the land office. He, together with John Reeves, was consulted by the Committee for Trade concerning the additional instructions being prepared for Dowdeswell's successor, John Halkett. Whether the deciding factor was Chalmers's logic or the change in ministry which had recently occurred, an order-in-council of February 10, 1802, annulled the instructions of March, 1790, and those issued to the new governor authorized resumption of the granting of land. He was to avoid the creation of large estates, allotting no more than 1,000 acres to any one person without the royal permission; the purchase price was to be a penny the acre, with an annual quitrent of the same amount. 30 But though this campaign had been won and the government's aversion to more extensive settlement overcome, the economic difficulties of the colony were not thereby ended. Indeed, the realization that the soil of the islands could not furnish a livelihood for their population is increasingly apparent. A renewed application of the people of the Crooked Islands that a free port be opened, presented by Governor Halkett shortly after his arrival, was finally looked upon with favor by the Committee for Trade which recommended its establishment on March 22, 1804. 31 A few days before this meeting of the committee the lengthy dispute between Bermuda and the Bahamas over the ownership 29 Chalmers's suggestion to the speaker of the assembly, Add. Mss. 22,900, p. 353; letter of the committee of correspondence authorizing request for plants in Papers relating to the Crooked Islands, p. 3 ; others in Bahama Papers, III. 30 Chalmers's statement dated Sept. 30, 1801, C. O. 23: 40; Halkett's instructions dated March, 1802, C. O. 23: 41. 31 Β. T. 5: 14, p. 23a

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of the T u r k s Islands, in the course of which Chalmers had at intervals for more than ten years tenaciously argued the case of his constituents, had also been brought to a decision favorable to the latter. T h e T u r k s Islands were barren rocks without fresh water, valuable for the salt ponds from which, since 1788, American vessels had been permitted to carry away salt. The real point at issue between the Bermuda and Bahama governments was, of course, the right to tax this export, a right which had now been awarded to the Bahamas. Their next request was that the salt ponds in other islands might likewise be opened to American traders, and in their solicitation they had the support of the merchants of Glasgow trading to the Bahamas, to whom the planters were deeply in debt. Further credit could not be extended unless something were done " to ameliorate their Situation and put them in a way of liquidating their Debts," and the method suggested in the memorial of the Glasgow traders was to permit the Bahamas to market the salt which nature had so bountifully provided. The Committee for Trade agreed. A n act passed in 1804 admitted American ships to Exuma, Caicos, and the Crooked Islands for the exclusive purpose of carrying away salt. 32 In all these matters George Chalmers had been extremely active in furthering the desires of his clients, and as evidence of their gratitude a committee of the assembly recommended in January, 1804, that he be granted the sum of one hundred guineas " in Addition to the Salary allowed by L a w in Consideration of Extraordinary Services in Soliciting the A f f a i r s of this Colony." B y the act assented to on December 28 of the same year his appointment was continued for five years and to the end of the following session, and his salary raised to £250 Sterling clear of all deductions. 33 32Halkett to Hobart, May 1, 1802, C. O. 23: 41; memorial of the merchants of Glasgow, Apr. 23, 1804, Β. Τ. 1: 23; act, 44 Geo. I l l , c. 101. 33 Minutes enclosed in letter of Halkett, Mar. 31, 1804, C. O. 23: 45; act, C. O. 25: 12, No. 431.

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A t this stage in his public career George Chalmers's services were highly acceptable to those to whom he was accountable both in London and the colony, to both the king's representative and the legislature. But in the year 1804, as has been seen, occurred the retirement f r o m the presidency of the Committee f o r Trade of the first E a r l of Liverpool with whom Chalmers had long been on terms of confidence and affection, and the appointment to the office of the first of a succession of men who did not so honor him. In the Bahamas, also, that year saw a new governor who came to regard him with distrust and aversion. N e w issues, too, made their appearance in which men felt so passionately as to fail utterly to keep their mental balance. N o w begins a long period of almost continuous conflict in the islands, which was to endure long beyond the life of Chalmers. There arose disputes between the governor and the assembly and a renewal of the feud between the two houses of the legislature. M o r e ominous still, opposition to the policy of the authorities at home was to be marked by claims of local sovereignty among these Loyalists and their sons strangely reminiscent of those they had denounced forty years before, and to end only with the triumphant demonstration by the mother country of that legislative supremacy over the lesser colonies which she had failed to maintain over the greater. George Chalmers was never notable f o r tact, and f o r compromise he was constitutionally unfitted; and in the colonial business as in literary controversy he was ever ready to impute unworthy motives to his adversaries. H e assumed a position which appears very odd to the reader of his views of the seventies and eighties and which is hard to explain except on the ground of political opportunism. Charles Cameron, who succeeded J o h n Halkett as governor of the Bahamas, had previously served in lands acquired by military conquest. It may be that this experience of more arbitrary government unfitted him f o r the administration of a colony with long established civil institutions, whose inhabi-

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tants cherished a jealous sense of their political rights as Englishmen. Then, too, he arrived at the onset of the particularly difficult problem arising from the abolition movement. His term of office was one of almost constant storms, but that it was on the whole acceptable to H i s Majesty's ministers, or that he had influential backing, is apparent from the fact that he was not replaced for sixteen years, though he merited and received occasional sharp reprimands. O n his arrival in the colony on September 25, 1804, Cameron reported to his superiors in England that " the utmost harmony prevails in every Department under my Government," 34 but this happy condition was unfortunately destined to be of short duration. The governor was constantly in financial straits and appears to have come out with the intention of using his office to recoup his fortune, according to good precedent. 35 T h e system of licensing vessels for the Spanish trade presented itself to his eager eye as an excellent opportunity, and he proceeded to charge a special fee in addition to that authorized by the order-in-council. Protests came in a flood, and he received an emphatic note from London forbidding the practice and ordering him to send home a list of the fees taken. 36 The free port trade was a bad thing to tamper with for it was a favorite project of the British government; but learning nothing from this experience and complaining of the bad faith of the Spanish traders, who, he said, forged licenses, altered dates, and counterfeited the governor's arms and signature, ST he now began to require a bond which, if the license was not returned, was put in suit. One of Chalmers's correspondents wrote to 34 Several letters dated in 1804 and 1805, C. O. 23: 46. 3 5 " A t first setting out, he was too civil by half; it is now understood that civility meant nothing, and that money, money only was his object." Sentence from a communication from " a gentleman in Nassau " enclosed in Chalmers's letter to George Rose, vice-president of the Committee for Trade, Mar. 15, 1808, Β. Τ. ι : 38. 36 Hawkesbury to Cameron, Aug. 8, 1805, C. O. 24: 16. 37 Cameron to Cooke, July 6, 7, and 13, 1807, C. O. 23: 52.

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him that, though it was true that there had been abuse, there had been no difficulty when the governor was receiving his fees, and that if the practice of requiring bonds should be continued, the trade would be ruined. 38 N o such bond was required in the other colonies in which free ports had been established, and the Committee f o r Trade, to w h o m the question was referred, expressed the opinion that it was an unwarranted hardship upon the commerce of the Bahamas. Recognizing, however, that there was undoubtedly a measure of truth in Cameron's contention, they recommended that a general form of license be prepared which should be used by all the governors, and that greater care be exercised that they should not be improperly used. Lord Castlereagh, then secretary of state for war and the colonies, wrote to Cameron ordering suspension of the suits for license bonds. 39 The governor had now " got testy " 40 and was involved in an ill-tempered controversy with the assembly, which had asked to be permitted to see his instructions in the matter of the licenses only to be met with an irascible refusal. Repeating the request at the opening of the session of 1807, the house claimed to be the constitutional advisers of the executive and refused to proceed with the public business until they were assured that their representatives would meet with attention and consideration. The governor continuing obstinate, a deadlock ensued, and his address on February 29 announcing the prorogation of the legislature was full of righteous indignation against a perverse and froward people, a model of all that such an address should not be. " It gives me great pleasure," he told them, " that an opportunity is at last afforded me of putting an end to the evils brought on the inhabitants of this colony by the present House of Assembly." One is not surprised to read that the assembly proceeded at once to draft a petition to H i s Majesty 38 Quoted in Chalmers's letter to Rose, loc. cit. 39 Β. T. 5: 18, pp. 60-78; Castlereagh to Cameron, May 7, 1808, C. O. 23: 5340 Expression used in letter quoted by Chalmers to Rose, loc. cit.

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claiming that their rights had been infringed, which they despatched to their agent with directions that it be presented to the privy council. N o r is it astonishing that L o r d Castlereagh should have delivered through the undersecretary, E d w a r d Cooke, a sound scolding to the choleric governor. 4 1 Cameron's reply shows him to have been little chastened, though he thanked Castlereagh f o r sending his admonition privately and Cooke f o r expressing the unpalatable advice so kindly. H e refused, however, to admit any error on his part of principle or tactics; the effect of his speech and the dismissal of the assembly would have been salutary, he maintained, had it not been f o r the inflammatory communications of the colonial agent whom he blamed f o r the refractory spirit of the colony. T h i s was not the first time that Cameron had complained of Chalmers. In a letter marked " private and confidential," written in March before he had had any intimation that his discipline of the assembly would not meet with hearty approval in London, he had told Cooke that " they are encouraged by the Colonial Agent in all their improprieties," and commented on the fact that the orders of the privy council were generally known in Nassau before he had received them. N o w he enclosed an extract of a letter to the committee of correspondence, written by Chalmers on J u l y 7, which seemed to indicate that the latter had had access to information regarding Castlereagh's intentions more than a week before they were committed to paper by the undersecretary. H o w did the agent come by this knowledge of H i s Lordship's private commands, the governor angrily and not unnaturally demanded, f o r Chalmers's communication was too accurate to be merely a shrewd guess 42 . 41 Governor's speech and petition enclosed in letters from Chalmers to Cottrell for submission to the council, Apr. 4 and 27, 1808, C. O. 2 3 : 5 5 ; Cooke's letter to Cameron, July 18, 1808, C. O. 24: 16, quoted by Η. T. Manning, op. cit., p. 142-43. 42 Cameron to Cooke, Mar. 9, C. O. 23 : 53 ; Cameron to Castlereagh, Oct. π , 1808, C. O. 2 3 : 54·

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T h e g o v e r n o r had also maintained throughout the controversy that the issue w h i c h actually had aroused the house had not been the matter of the licenses at all but the a n g r y revulsion o f the planters f r o m the presence in the islands of n e g r o troops, the threat they saw to their security in any sign of an alteration in the relationship between the white and black races. 43 T h o u g h both the assembly and the secretary o f state declined f o r the m o m e n t to take up his challenge, p r e f e r r i n g to confine their immediate attention to the g o v e r n o r ' s high-handed treatment o f the representatives of the people, he w a s no doubt at least partly accurate in his j u d g m e n t . T h e issue could not long be i g n o r e d ; the irrepressible conflict w a s all but upon them. T h e campaign f o r the abolition of the slave trade, in so f a r a s it concerned the C o m m i t t e e f o r T r a d e , has been briefly described. T h e first episode, the accumulation and arrangement o f the evidence b y the staff of the Office f o r T r a d e , had taken place b e f o r e G e o r g e Chalmers, the chief clerk, had been appointed agent f o r the B a h a m a s . T h e experience did not alter his opinions. H i s long residence in M a r y l a n d and his association w i t h the Jenkinson f a m i l y , the arch-enemies of abolition, had set his mind in the mold f r o m w h i c h it never broke and which fitted him well to present the v i e w s of his constituents. T h e shelving of W i l b e r f o r c e ' s resolution Chalmers and his friend D a v i d L o v e had noted w i t h satisfaction, and the persistent e f f o r t of the abolitionists in parliament to revive it were a n n o y i n g but f o r a long time not seriously disquieting. T h e agent i n f o r m e d his correspondents in 1 7 9 7 that he believed the w a y had been f o u n d f o r a final disposal of the " v e x a t i o u s quest i o n . " T h e H o u s e of C o m m o n s had resolved to request that instructions be sent to the W e s t India g o v e r n o r s to recommend to their respective assemblies that they pass meliorative acts. I m p r o v i n g the condition of the slaves, C h a l m e r s thought, would make them more productive, importation f r o m A f r i c a would become less necessary, and abolition of the trade w o u l d take place of itself f o r w a n t of demand. 43 Letter t o Cooke, Apr. 9, C. O. 2 3 : 5 3 ; to Castlereagh, loc.

cit.

COLONIAL

AGENT

FOR

THE

BAHAMAS

I45

Such is the turn, which is at length given to this uncomfortable business, which has teazed the bosom of our domestic peace, and obstructed the course of a circuitous Commerce. This event will now lead on very properly to your intended Act, for meliorating the condition of your Slaves, which is already better than the circumstances of the poorer people in Great Britain and Ireland. T h e Bahama assembly was engaged at the date of his writing in debate on the act to which he referred, which received the assent of the governor on M a y 11, 1797. T h e parliamentary resolution which he had reported took f o r m in a circular despatched by the home secretary to the governors a year later.*4 Chalmers's optimism was ill-founded; the " vexatious question " would not down. It appeared first in one guise and then in another to plague H i s Majesty's servants, who at this stage chiefly wished to ignore it in order to be free to attend to more urgent matters presented to their attention by Napoleon Bonaparte. T h e defense of the W e s t Indies was an especially perplexing problem, because, while the colonists kept clamoring for British forces to supplement their inadequate militia, the men died like flies in the heat and filth of the barracks. The idea of stationing in the islands negro troops to whom the climate was less hostile occurred to the ministers as a solution eminently satisfactory from their point of view, and black regiments were sent to the Bahamas in 1801. Their arrival was observed by the inhabitants " with consternation and horror." 45 Hobart, who that year became secretary of state for war and the colonies, was persuaded to replace them with white men, but the ranks were constantly in a state of depletion due to illness. It apparently made no difference what the season or whether the 44 Portland showed no particular interest in the response of the island legislatures to the recommendations; noted by Η. T. Manning, op. cit., p. 490. See L. M. Penson, op. cit., p. 230, for a reference to the action in parliament. Chalmers's letter, dated Apr. 8, 1797, Add. Mss. 22,900, p. 331; act, C. O. 25: 10, No. 271. 45 Hunt to Portland, May 9, 1801, C. O. 23: 39.

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troops w e r e n e w o r seasoned, a n d in the spring o f 1807 there came t o the islands the d i s t u r b i n g n e w s that the use o f n e g r o soldiers w a s to be r e s u m e d . T h o u g h both C h a l m e r s a n d C a m eron protested v i g o r o u s l y , the firm a n s w e r came back that H i s M a j e s t y ' s m i n i s t e r s felt it t o be " their duty not to be s w a y e d by

mere prejudice."

Lord

Castlereagh,

who

had

succeeded

H o b a r t , r e g r e t t e d that " the A s s e m b l y o f the B a h a m a Islands have

not

considered

the

subject

with

a

more

enlightened

r e g a r d , " a n d a d v i s e d the g o v e r n o r to p r o v e b y the firmness o f his a n s w e r to the h o u s e " that as H i s M a j e s t y ' s representative he w a s not t o be shaken f r o m the true course o f his D u t y by any Casual Circumstance." T h i s l i g h t - h e a r t e d a d m o n i t i o n indicated that the g o v e r n m e n t had m a d e up its m i n d , a n d G e o r g e C h a l m e r s w a s f o r once w r o n g in his confident forecast. O n M a y 28 he w r o t e to the committee o f c o r r e s p o n d e n c e that he believed they h a d w o n their point. " T h e o b n o x i o u s troops w i l l p r o b a b l y be r e m o v e d , o t h e r s will be sent in their place, and the G o v e r n o r w i l l probably be told that if he h a d e x e r t e d his a u t h o r i t y , all this trouble m i g h t h a v e been s a v e d . " B u t C a s t l e r e a g h ' s letter o f A u g u s t 6 reiterated the d e t e r m i n a t i o n o f the g o v e r n m e n t " to persevere in supporting t h i s n e w

Institution,"

and

recommended

His

M a j e s t y ' s s u b j e c t s in the B a h a m a s to " reconcile themselves to the a r r a n g e m e n t . "

46

C a m e r o n , h a v i n g received his c o m m a n d s , e n d e a v o r e d loyally to obey them, a n d w a s , t h e r e f o r e , particularly a g g r i e v e d w h e n he w a s r e p r i m a n d e d f o r his failure to conciliate the legislature. It w a s his c o n v i c t i o n that he had o f f e n d e d the h o u s e f a r less by his r e f u s a l to c o m m u n i c a t e his instructions in the m a t t e r o f the licenses, t h o u g h it w a s o f that that they openly complained, than by his f a i t h f u l a d h e r e n c e to his orders to c o u n t e n a n c e n o insult to H i s M a j e s t y ' s f o r c e s w h a t e v e r their color. B u t t h o u g h the g o v e r n o r w a s m a d e t o feel the displeasure o f the ministers, 46 Castlereagh to Cameron, May 9, C. O. 23: 51; Aug. 6, 1807, C. O. 24: 16; Chalmers to the committee of correspondence, enclosed in Cameron's letter to Cooke, Mar. 7, 1808, C. O. 23: 53.

COLONIAL

AGENT

FOR

THE

BAHAMAS

I47

and his opponents allowed to exult at his discomfiture, there w a s no change in the arrangements f o r the garrison. T h e black troops remained in the B a h a m a s f o r many years. 4 7 It w a s possibly because of the intense excitement arising f r o m the long dispute between the g o v e r n o r and assembly that the statute passed in the British parliament prohibiting the slave trade went almost unnoticed in the B a h a m a s . G e o r g e Chalmers had called their attention to the revival o f parliamentary activity on the question o f abolition, which, he said, had given him " very unexpectedly great trouble and still greater v e x a t i o n . " H e complained of " a strange apathy in m a n y persons w h o are connected with the W e s t Indies," and, o f course, emphasized the earnest efforts o f their agent, " w h o had to struggle as well as he could with irresistible p o w e r . " C h a n g e d conditions in the Caribbean had divided W e s t Indian sentiment, as has been noted. In the B a h a m a s the progressive exhaustion of the soil w a s rapidly effecting the t r a n s f o r m a t i o n o f the islands f r o m an agricultural to a commercial economy. Planters had already begun to emigrate to more fertile regions, and the demand and selling price f o r

slaves were declining.

A

source of

fresh

negroes was, therefore, o f less consequence there than in the sugar islands where the labor supply had constantly to be replenished, and the n e w s o f the abolition o f the trade seems to have been received v e r y quietly. In 1 8 1 5 , w h e n the colony was protesting against the proposed registry bill, it w a s stated by a committee of the assembly that, since the colony had

long

ceased to be supplied with slaves f r o m A f r i c a , " abolition consequently w a s of little immediate i n j u r y to any but those directly concerned in the trade itself . . . and the B r i t i s h planters were sensible of no inconvenience and felt no resentment. . . ." T h e 47 There are a great many letters on this subject. For this period they are to be found in C. O. 23: 39-54, and in C. O. 24: 14 and 16. Later uneasiness is manifest in a report of a committee of the assembly, minutes for Jan. g, 1816, C. O. 26: 19; in Chalmers's letter to Lord Bathurst, Mar. 1, 1816, C. O. 23: 63; and in Grant's to Bathurst, Jan. 16, 1824, C. O. 23: 73.

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governor acknowledged without comment the circular letter announcing the passage of the act and promised obedience.4" But the Bahamians were as determined as the inhabitants of other islands to resist any attempt to alter the status of the blacks already in the community, who outnumbered the whites more than two to one. The presence of the West India regiments was resented because they put dangerous notions into the minds of the slaves, and free negro laborers were almost as unwelcome. Cameron reported in March, 1808, that he had refused assent to a law imposing a penalty of £40 on any proprietor who manumitted a slave, and in 1 8 1 1 the apprehension of the citizens at the number of free negroes led to a proposal to tax the masters of indented blacks in an attempt to discourage their employment. William Vesey Munnings, the chief justice, who was in charge of the government during the protracted absence of Governor Cameron, reported this plan, enclosing a statement signed by fifteen members of the assembly which significantly claimed the exclusive power of the legislature to regulate the internal concerns of the colony. This communication drew a sharp response from the home government, urged to do its duty by the African Institution in the person of James Stephen; Munnings was ordered to veto the bill. T w o years later another member of the vigilant Stephen family called the attention of Lord Bathurst, now secretary of state for war and the colonies, to other laws penalizing free persons of color in the Bahamas. Though the colonial legislature doubtless had the right to pass acts imposing a tax on colored shop-keepers and limiting the privilege of voting to white men, the younger James Stephen, counsel in Bathurst's department, observed that such laws were " inconsistent with the liberal and equitable principles of legislation to which in this country we are accustomed to refer." Bathurst instructed 48 Chalmers to the committee of correspondence, May 15, 1806, enclosed in Cameron to Cooke, Mar. 7, 1808; C. O. 2 3 : 53; Cameron to Windham, June 9, 1807, C. O. 2 3 : 51; minutes of assembly, Dec. 15, 1815, C. O. 2 6 : 19. See also L. J . Ragatz, op. cit.f pp. 276-277, and F . J . Klingberg, op. cit., pp. 121-22.

COLONIAL

AGENT

FOR

THE

BAHAMAS

I49

Cameron to try to secure the repeal of at least the first of those acts, but though the governor reported on February 8, 1815, that after considerable opposition he had succeeded in persuading the assembly to reduce the tax by one-half, it was not until another year had elapsed that he could write that Lord Bathurst's wishes had been fully carried o u t . " George Chalmers was apparently oblivious of this brewing storm. During those last years of the war such of his activities as were concerned with his agency were chiefly directed towards improving the trading opportunities of his clients; he was convinced, as he stated to Robinson, vice-president of the Committee for Trade, that the Bahamas should be considered " as commercial rather than as planting Establishments." 50 The decision of the A f r i c a n Institution in February, 1815, to force a centralized system of slave registration upon the colonies seems to have escaped his attention entirely, until on June 13 Wilberforce moved for leave to bring in a bill " for the better preventing the Illicit Importation of Slaves into the British Colonies." Not until July 6 did he send off a communication on the subject to his correspondents in the Bahamas. It is less surprising that they at once realized the peril and that they expressed just anger with their agent who had not kept them informed of the ominous trend of events. Immediately upon its organization for the session of the autumn of 1815 the assembly took up the matter and resolved that this H o u s e is e x t r e m e l y dissatisfied that the A g e n t o f

this

C o l o n y in L o n d o n has not k e p t the C o m m i s s i o n e r s of C o r r e s p o n d e n c e duly and f u l l y a d v i s e d f r o m time to time, of the nature, e x t e n t , a n d fatal tendency o f

p r o c e e d i n g s , so decidedly and o f

late so

o p e n l y directed to the e x t i n c t i o n of the B r i t i s h C o l o n i e s in the W e s t Indies. 49 Cameron to Cooke, C. O. 23: 53; Stephen to Peel, and Munnings to Liverpool, C. 0 . 23: 58; James Stephen, Junior, to Henry Goulburn, Feb. 8, 1814, C. O. 23: 61; Cameron to Goulburn, Feb. 8, 1815, C. O. 23: 62 and Jan. 25, 1816, C. O. 23: 63. 50 Chalmers to Robinson, Apr. 27, 1815, Β. Τ. 1: 98.

150

They

THE

did,

PUBLIC

LIFE

nevertheless,

OF

GEORGE

reappoint h i m

CHALMERS

at the same

salary,

t h o u g h f o r the reduced term o f t w o years, evidently p r e f e r r i n g not t o c h a n g e horses in the middle o f this turbulent stream. O n e m u s t conclude that it w a s C h a l m e r s ' s e x t r e m e preoccupation w i t h his o w n a f f a i r s that had kept him u n a w a r e of this development, f o r , if one m a y j u d g e f r o m the f a c t that letters dated in the s p r i n g o f 1 8 1 5 w e r e addressed to h i m at his home, he w a s not absent f r o m L o n d o n . It is quite possible that it w a s this reprimand, a l u r k i n g consciousness o f guilt, and a f e a r o f l o s i n g the y e a r l y £250, w h i c h spurred h i m on to his c o n t i n u o u s and often

ill-advised

e f f o r t s to d e f e a t

the schemes of

the

T h e assembly proceeded to declare the allegations o f

the

abolitionists. 5 1 A f r i c a n Institution to be one a n d all w i t h o u t f o u n d a t i o n , a n d s m u g g l i n g a n d ill-treatment o f slaves to be u n k n o w n in the B a h a m a s . T h e i r constitutional position, similar t o that o f the o t h e r legislatures, w a s that the colonists as B r i t i s h

subjects

h a d the e x c l u s i v e r i g h t to regulate their o w n internal a f f a i r s a n d , in particular, to t a x themselves. T h e proposed l a w , they said, w o u l d be an interference in colonial concerns a n d the r e g i s t r y fee a particularly o b n o x i o u s f o r m o f t a x , " u n j u s t a n d unconstitutional in principle, oppressive a n d ruinous in pract i c e . " T h e i r a g e n t λvas f u r n i s h e d w i t h a copy of their resolutions, w i t h instructions " to m a k e such use of the same as he m a y conceive m o s t conducive to the V i e w s o f this H o u s e " ; specifically he w a s to h a v e t w o h u n d r e d copies printed

and

distributed in L o n d o n . 5 2 C h a l m e r s , determined to vindicate himself in the eyes o f his constituents, prepared the resolutions f o r the press, p r e f a c i n g t h e m w i t h an introduction in the d i s a g r e e a b l y unrestrained style 51 Minutes, Nov. 15, i8rs, C. O. 26: 19; act, C. O. 25: 16, No. 621. 52 Minutes, Dec. 15 and 28, 1815, C. O. 26: 19. The general constitutional aspects of the successive disputes arising from the proposals of the abolitionists have been so fully dealt with by Professor R. L. Schuyler as to render unnecessary any extended treatment here. See his Parliament and the British Empire,

ch. iv, passim.

COLONIAL

AGENT

FOR

THE

BAHAMAS

I5I

o f his later years, rendered especially violent in this case by his uneasy sense o f having hitherto failed in his duty. 53 A labored historical sketch of previous reform movements endeavors to show that they had all been reprehensible in motive and disastrous in effect. Comparing by implication the abolitionists to the men of Cromwell's day, " who produced events of such mighty mischief, in Britain [and] were called Puritans from their affectations," and to the Jacobins, " who deluded France to her destruction and disgrace," he imputes to the agitators of his own day dark and unworthy designs only partly hidden under a veil o f hypocrisy. Proceeding from abusive suggestions to the consideration o f the charges of the African Institution concerning the smuggling and mistreatment of slaves, he utterly denies them at least in so far as they apply to his clients. Smuggling would be impossible under the vigilant eye of the British navy and customs service, and, even more to the point, unprofitable. In the Bahamas, indeed, " the proprietors would much rather export their old slaves than buy new ones," such are the economic conditions. Slavery is sanctioned by the law o f nature and the Christian religion, and property in slaves protected not only by the underlying principle of the British constitution that a man's private possessions are sacred, but by " innumerable " acts of parliament. But it is the constitutional implications which are to him o f the greatest consequence, for " t h e zealous projectors of this outrageous measure mean to move the Parliament to legalize their unexampled project, and thereby to make the British legislature their instrument of a thousand wrongs." Insisting on the parallel between the parliament and the colonial assemblies, both o f which can be summoned only by the king's writ and sit in the king's presence, he claims that though " the King, sitting 53 Proofs and Demonstrations how much the Projec ted Registry Negroes is Unfounded and Uncalled for, etc.

0}

Colonial

152

THE

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LIFE

OF

GEORGE

CHALMERS

in his Parliament, is sovereign over the whole empire," in the same way, " the King, sitting in his Assembly, is sovereign over whole countries, or islands, constituting that particular government." Ignorance, or malignity, sometimes speaks of the Colonial Assemblies, as so many corporations, with an illusion to the petty corporations of Cornwall, or Caithness. If, indeed, nothing more be meant than that the King, the Lords, and the Commons, assembled in Parliament, form the body politic, or corporation of the state, it may be equally allowed, that the King's Representative, and the two Houses of Assembly, form, in the same manner, the body politic, or corporation, of the colonial constitution. The ominous similarity between the present circumstances and those of fifty years before in the continental colonies inevitably presents itself to the candid mind. " Could it have been foreseen that the Stamp Act, which was fifty times less oppressive than the proposed Registry of Negroes, would occasion so much mischief?" An irritated people easily intimidated the stampmasters, and the act was repealed. But other laws, " highly inexpedient," followed, " that were, of course, regarded by the colonists as tyrannical." The obnoxious statutes were withdrawn, but " how much more wise it had been not to offer coercion to a sovereign court." Not only should the sad lesson of the defeat and humiliation of the nation be recalled; so should the efforts made to heal the breach, and the promises to His Majesty's subjects in America. " Taxation by Parliament, for the purpose of revenue, was relinquished forever." These acts of conciliation came too late, rendered futile by " the successive acts of inexpediency, during those times of vacillation." " Prime wisdom " consists in learning from experience. This was strange doctrine from the pen of the author of the Political Annals, of the Introduction to the History of the Revolt, of the attacks on all supporters of the American position; from the man who had stated that the parliament of England possessed a power " which is so transcendent in its nature, that it cannot be restrained as to persons or to cause," that a colonial

COLONIAL

AGENT

FOR

THE

BAHAMAS

I53

charter created a body politic empowered to exercise no more rights and powers than any other corporation within the realm, and that the great error with respect to the Stamp Act had been its repeal. It could hardly go unnoticed by his opponents. The anonymous writer of an article in The Philanthropist for January, 1 8 1 7 , pointed out that upon the topic of the powers of parliament " Mr. Chalmers must have been very much puzzled indeed. For an apostle of the " divine right " and of passive non-resistance, this was a ground as dangerous as any on which he could possibly tread. Something must be given up, either his principles or his argument. We shall see how Mr. Chalmers manages the matter. " The British government has no right to legislate for the colonies." If so, the resistance of the Americans was not a crime, as people, like Mr. Chalmers, have been so fond of calling it. Mr. Chalmers, however, endeavors to save himself by putting in the clause, " without having an adequate cause." Now we desire him to explain himself a little: Does he mean to say, that, when the British legislature has an adequate cause, it may legislate for the colonies? Or does he mean to say, that, whatever the cause it may have, it can never have a right to legislate for the colonies ? Why does he mince and mutter? Why not speak out? James Stephen, in his Second Letter to William Wilberforce to which reference must again be made, admitted that conditions in the Bahamas were unusually good, a situation which he attributed in part to the exhaustion of the soil which reduced their need of slaves, in part to the fact that they did not raise sugar, and in great degree to the humanity and wisdom of the laws in which could be traced " the intelligence and wisdom of Mr. Wylly, Attorney-general of those islands, whose attachment to the cause of Abolition is well-known in this country." But though there is no complaint to be made of the Bahamas, they should be included in the plan for registry because of the ease of smuggling to the other islands. However, if the colony will undertake to restrain the exportation of slaves to all others, an exception might be made in its case. Had the agent " thought

154

T H E

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LIFE

OF

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CHALMERS

fit to apply to the promoters o f the Bill, he might not only have had the offer o f this exception, but a voluntary justification of his constituents f r o m the charge they are so anxious to repel." T h e r e is a calm assumption o f authority in this magnanimous proposal which goes f a r to support those w h o asserted that the A f r i c a n Institution could dictate to the government of Great Britain, and could not have failed to infuriate their opponents. A n d Chalmers personally must have smarted under the barb not concealed in the irony o f the n e x t sentence: I can scarcely, however, regret that this conciliatory course was not taken, when I consider how much fame the learned agent would have lost, and how much information and entertainment the world would have lost, if his very erudite and profoundly philosophical, political, ethical, theological, poetical, lively and liberal introduction had been suppressed. In the meantime, members of H i s M a j e s t y ' s government were persuaded that it would be unwise to proceed with the registry bill in its present f o r m and in the face of the bitter opposition. T h o u g h convinced of the need o f some such system of identifying slaves and thus of protecting the free negroes, they believed that it would be possible to persuade the colonies themselves to undertake the r e f o r m , and W i l b e r f o r c e reluctantly agreed not to push his measure. T h e agents, meeting with L o r d Bathurst on M a y 15, 1816, had promised to use their influence with their constituents to have analogous laws passed in the self-governing colonies, and on June 28 the minister sent his circular letter to each W e s t India governor, instructing him to introduce a bill at the next session of the legislature. 5 4 T h e message o f G o v e r n o r C a m e r o n to the assembly of the B a h a m a s , delivered on N o v e m b e r 12, 1 8 1 6 , was couched in w h a t w a s f o r him a very moderate tone. It w a s registration and not manumission that w a s aimed at, he assured the members; nor w a s the recommendation based upon evidence that there 54 Professor Schuyler regards the withdrawal of the registry bill as a greater victory for the colonies than the repeal of the Stamp Act had been, because it was unaccompanied by a declaratory act. Op. cit., pp. 129-31.

COLONIAL

AGENT

FOR

THE

BAHAMAS

155

had been any systematic violation of the Abolition Act, quite the contrary so far as that colony was concerned. The law was urged because the ending of the war and the withdrawal of part of the fleet made evasion easier. But he did not hide the determination of the government to have some protection assured. And, though the cabinet would be reluctant to sanction the interference of parliament in a question of this sort, his hearers were warned that " it is the opinion of His Majesty's Ministers that this interference cannot be successfully resisted if the measure were to be rejected by the Legislative Assemblies of the Colonies." There was no suggestion of doubt that the right and power so to act was possessed by parliament. Despite his very conciliatory language the assembly resolutely declined to follow the governor's advice. The council, on the other hand, made up chiefly of office-holders dependent on executive favor, expressed their willingness to carry out His E x cellency's recommendation for an act of registration and readily to concur with the assembly in such a measure. 55 This division of the houses intensified the bitterness of the conflict, which was rendered still more violent by the spectacular altercation which now arose between the assembly and the attorney-general, William W y l l y . W y l l y was a native of Georgia who had been called to the English bar after education in the law at the University of Edinburgh and Gray's Inn. A Loyalist soldier, he had abandoned a considerable property in the revolted colony and had gone first to New Brunswick, coming in 1787 to the Bahamas. H e had been a leader in the faction opposed to Lord Dunmore, as has appeared, and had accepted appointment as chief justice under Governor Forbes somewhat against his will. Later, with Governor Dowdeswell's approval, he had exchanged offices with Moses Franks, W y l l y becoming attorney-general and Franks, who had held that position, assuming the chief justiceship. Presently W y l l y became advocate and procurator-general as 55 Documents are enclosed in Cameron's letter to Bathurst, Jan. 11, 1817, C. O. 2 3 : 64·

156

THE

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LIFE

OF

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well, and his combined salaries amounted to more than £1,000 Sterling. In addition, he carried on a large and lucrative practice and possessed substantial property in land and slaves. H e was one of the wealthiest and probably the ablest citizen of the community. Intolerant, violent, conceited, completely honest, and given to the most unbounded enthusiasm and devotion is the man who appears in his numerous letters to George Chalmers, an admirable and infuriating person, incapable alike of concealment or moderation in either his loves or his hates. A t what period he, a slave-owner, became interested in the activities of the abolitionists it is impossible to state with any certainty. H e had a large share in the drafting of the Consolidated Slave A c t of 1797, 56 and, as has been shown, was given credit by the leaders of the A f r i c a n Institution for the excellence of the act of 1805 which safeguarded the interests of the negroes in trials of claims of freedom. U p to the opening of this controversy he seems to have regarded with complacence the position of the blacks in the Bahamas. Though a correspondent of the A f r i c a n Institution at least as early as 1811 and an honorary life governor by 1816, in 1812 he wrote to Zachary Macaulay defending his fellow-citizens: " T h e injured A f r i c a n is always sure to find in the Bahama Islands, not only able and generous advocates to plead his Cause, but intelligent Courts and upright Juries to do him Justice." 47 A n d he asserted on September 11, 1816, that he had " every reason to believe and to know that the laws for the Abolition of the Slave Trade had been faithfully executed here." 58 But criticism was something which he was not able to endure quietly. He had brought an action in the court of vice-admiralty to prevent an owner's removing three of his slaves to Georgia, and the court had freed one of them on the ground that, though she had been brought into the colony since the 56 Letter to Chalmers, Nov. 25, 1797, Bahama Papers, III. 57 Copy in minutes, Apr. 15, 1812, C. O. 2 6 : 19. 58 W y l l y to Cameron, C. O. 23: 63.

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passage of the Abolition Act, she had been offered for sale. The case aroused a great deal of adverse comment," and when shortly afterward, in December, 1 8 1 5 , Wylly was asked to turn in answers to questions prepared by the committee of the house appointed to consider the registry bill, he seized the occasion to give vent to his resentment. The committee returned his paper to him on the ground that he had introduced " a variety of matter entirely unconnected with the enquiry," and asked him to meet with them. He flatly refused to make any alteration in his written statement, though he did attend the meeting of the committee and permit his oral answers to be taken down. Wylly had the bad judgment to relate this episode to his correspondents in London and to send them a copy of certain ill-tempered observations upon the courts of the Bahamas, which were considerably at variance with his earlier favorable comments and fuller than the testimony accepted by the committee. And James Stephen had the inconceivably bad taste to include the story in an appendix to his Second Letter to William Wilberforce, printing in full Wylly's written replies and accusing the committee of suppressing and garbling his testimony. This fateful publication had been received in the colony before the meeting of the legislature, and, its ire already excited by the proposal that it should pass the obnoxious registry bill, the assembly turned to the congenial task of disciplining a prominent official who was known to be sympathetic with the designs of its hated authors. A committee having been appointed " to enquire whether His Majesty's Attorney-General of these Islands did correspond with any of the Directors, Officers, or others of the African Institution on the subject of his examination before a Select Committee of this House during the last session," Wylly was summoned to appear before it. Characteristically enraged at the affront to his dignity, he returned an injudicious refusal to 59 Committee of correspondence to Chalmers, Feb. 4, 1817, copy in C. O. 23: 64. The incident is discussed in Wright, op. cit., pp. 433 ff., and Siebert, op. cit., pp. 32 ff.

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answer questions " until the pleasure of H i s R o y a l Highness the Prince Regent (to whom only or to his Representative, the Attorney-General is accountable f o r his official conduct) shall have been signified to him upon that head." Whereupon the assembly declared him guilty of breach of privilege " by injuriously and scandalously misrepresenting the proceedings of the House during the last session," and cited him to be brought before the bar f o r contempt. B u t when the messenger of the house went to his plantation to serve the summons, he found the gate shut and guarded by a score of W y l l y ' s negroes, who, it was charged, were armed and prevented him f r o m carrying out his duty. The assembly then issued a warrant f o r W y l l y ' s arrest, and when he defiantly rode in to Government House to attend a meeting called by the governor, he was followed into the office of the governor's private secretary, there arrested by the provost-marshal and the messenger, and lodged in the common gaol. H e was immediately released by Chief Justice Munnings and two associate justices on a writ of habeas corpus, and leaving the court, he furiously expressed his mind to all within reach of his voice. He admitted his correspondence with the abolitionists, acknowledged the repulse of the messenger by his armed slaves, heaped abuse upon the assembly, declared the negroes an oppressed people and himself their protector, and " menaced all his opponents with some secret but powerful influence that he had with His Majesty's Government." In short, he behaved like an undisciplined man almost insane with anger. He was assaulted on the street by a member of the assembly, dragged f r o m his horse and struck repeatedly with a whip. T h e judges, who had first released him f o r forty-eight hours, extended his bail f o r three days, at the end of which period, when a third warrant was ordered, the governor dissolved the assembly thus putting a stop to the proceedings. He also suspended the provost-marshal f o r his insolent language and conduct in violating the immunity of Government House, appointing his private secretary in his place. T h e members of the

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assembly, though still determined to bring about the dismissal and disgrace of Wylly, who was regarded as a public enemy, were no longer satisfied to stop there. Claiming all the privileges of the House of Commons including that of imprisonment for contempt, they asserted that not only Wylly by refusing to obey their order, but the judges by admitting him to bail, and the governor by dissolving the house without a cause which they recognized as valid, had violated their rights. For more than three years political functions in the Bahamas were at a standstill while the assembly demanded recognition of its claim to a status superior to both other branches of the government.60 The committee of correspondence hastened to apprize the agent of the tension in the colony and its cause, and to urge him to give " his most active and zealous attention to the question of the rights of the assembly." He was warned that there were two legal opinions in his recently published Opinions of Eminent Lawyers which " would seem to have some little tendency to weaken the claim of the Assembly to Parliamentary privileges not expressly granted by the Crown or established by positive enactment of Statute Law." Evidently conscious of the insecure legal foundation of their position, they urged him to base his arguments on precedent rather than mere theory, to refer not to " the opinion of black letter lawyers, but to gentlemen who know the invariable practice in the colonies," for English men of the law are frequently as ignorant of the West Indies as of " the Hindu Pandects of the East." 61 Chalmers was already engaged in the none too easy task of explaining to Lord Bathurst the failure of the assembly to pass the registry bill. " His Lordship was very angry," he reported to the committee; " the Bahamas had behaved worse than any of the other islands." The secretary of state refused to consider 60 The story is told in documents enclosed in Cameron's letter to Bathurst, Feb. 12, 1817, C. O. 2 3 : 64. There are also some letters to Chalmers in Bahama Papers, V. 61 Committee of correspondence to George Chalmers, Feb. 1, 1817, Bahama Papers, V ; copy in C. O. 2 3 : 64.

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their Triennial Census Act as an acceptable substitute; in fact, he seems to have refused to consider it at all, for when Chalmers wrote alluding to a conversation which he had had with H i s Lordship and enclosing a copy of the bill about which they had talked, Goulburn replied that Bathurst had never seen nor heard of the bill before. Chalmers, nettled, insisted not very tactfully that the secretary was in error on this point and misinformed on several others. Other B a h a m a laws, also, were unpleasing to H i s Majesty's government, more particularly the " act for the erecting and repairing of churches, the maintenance of ministers of the gospel, and the support of the p o o r , " which, in spite of all that Chalmers could do to save or amend it, was disallowed on the recommendation of the Committee for Trade, which had listened to the advice of the Bishop of London and J a m e s Stephen.®2 And now he was presented with the problem of justifying to the ministers and the people of Great Britain the actions of the assembly which could hardly fail to appear to have persecuted a man of eminence and integrity and which made high claims to equality with the House of Commons itself. He wrote to Lewis Kerr, the speaker of the Bahama chamber, that the secretary of state had " already received very strong impressions from his correspondents," and that " he bestowed his momentary ill-humor on me and through me on the Assembly." H i s colleague, John Reeves, " laughed " at the notion of accusing the attorney-general of " levying war against the K i n g , " the English newspapers which noticed the incident were unfriendly, and when the case was submitted to John Lens, sergeant-atlaw of Lincoln's Inn, that eminent lawyer could see no such analogy between the assembly and the House of Commons as would warrant the conclusion that their powers of privilege were equal, and stated his opinion that unless the assembly were admitted to have all the powers contended for, the judges had 62 Chalmers to the committee of correspondence, Apr. i, 1817, C. O. 23: 64; Chalmers to Bathurst, May 5, to Goulburn, May 24, to Bathurst, June 3, C. O. 23: 66; Β. T . 5: 26, 75. 101, 141.

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the right to look into the particular nature of the contempt and to discharge or remand. Bathurst, writing to Cameron, conveyed H i s Royal Highness's sanction of the dissolution of the assembly and the suspension of the provost-marshal (though because of his long service he might be restored on making a public apology), and his " unqualified disapproval of the illegal and unconstitutional course which the House of Assembly have pursued." 63 One would say, then, that Chalmers had very little chance of succeeding in his attempt to exonerate his constituents, but he proceeded, none the less, to d r a f t and present The Representation of the House of Assembly of the Bahamas to the Right Honourable Earl Bathurst, the Colonial Secretary of State, etc., respecting their Proceedings dtiring the last Session, 1816-γ, with an Appendix and Documents by George Chalmers, FRS SA.e4 Believing, evidently, that it is good strategy to take the offensive, he begins with an attack on the message of the governor, which, he says, was " plainly drawn by Attorney-General Wylly," and then pays his respects to those societies in England " which clamor for confiscation of slaves against the constitution and the laws," to " those misstatements of ignorance, misrepresentations of design, and the busy intermeddling of fanatical folly." T h e legislature of the Bahamas did not pass a registry law because it was unnecessary, f o r the acts of abolition are " highly penal " and " none but idiots would risque their persons and property " in an attempt to evade them. Proceeding to the story of the misdeeds of Mr. Wylly, he speaks of his contemptuousness, of his scurrility, of his selfsufficiency and pride, " so elevated by his association with the African philanthropists," and accuses him, in spite of Reeves's 63 Chalmers's letters and newspaper cuttings in Bahama Papers, V ; Bathurst's letters to Cameron, Apr. 31 [jjc] and May 12, 1817, C. O. 24: 17. 64 A copy of the MS. is in the Bahama Papers, V, dated April; another, dated May 13, is in C. O. 23: 66. It was printed but not sold, and a printed copy is also to be found in C. O. 23: 66.

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ridicule, of " levying w a r against the K i n g , approaching to the very verge of high treason." W y l l y has been his confidential correspondent; now he is " a peace-breaker," " a prodigious criminal," " a guilty character," and it w a s " but a trifling circumstance " that the arrest of " this malefactor " should have taken place in the home of the governor, where he had fled " thinking no doubt that Government-House would be his safest shield." The governor has " countenanced the corrupt Attorney-General " ; by dissolving the assembly he has committed a breach of privilege; he has weakened the security of the people of the Bahamas " by this corrupt and unconstitutional interposition," and reduced the government to " anarchy." But " this Governor is no stranger to corruption " : his son, " a youth studying the law," holds three offices by deputy, contrary to H i s Majesty's instructions. A f t e r this painful exhibition of petty spite Chalmers proceeds to his argument in support of the claims of the assembly. H e insists on the analogy between the colonial legislatures and the British parliament; " t h e privileges of the Bahama A s sembly only differ f r o m the privileges of the House of Commons in extent and magnitude." With illustrations drawn from the history of both England and the colonies he asserts the power of the assembly to summon and commit to gaol violators of its rights, as " the Grand Inquest of the Colony, and superior tribunal to any of the Courts of L a w therein on all questions, touching their own privileges." It is entertaining at this point to pause to compare this statement with that of the assembly of Maryland, which in 1 7 7 3 asserted its position in almost identical terms. 65 One wonders whether a faint echo of unhappy far-off things and battles long ago was not stirring in the old man's memory. It is the same battle but he is now fighting on the other side. H e who in 1 7 7 7 declared that the American assemblies " must never be allowed to assume those privileges which the House of Commons are 65 Quoted above, pp. 28-29.

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justly entitled to have, upon principles that neither can nor must be applied to the Assemblies of the Colonies," is now claiming for what he then called " a provincial and subordinate " legislature all the privileges and authority possessed by " the universal and supreme Parliament." " He had worked hard on his Representation and sent it to Lord Bathurst in May, believing, or at least implying, that it would set him right on many points which had been " egregiously misstated to His Lordship's official candour." It must have been a blow to his pride to receive no reply for six weeks, even though the secretary's attention had been recalled to him in June by the gift of a Bahama turtle; and then, on requesting to be allowed to wait upon His Lordship to enquire what had been done, to have a curt note acquainting him that " as Lord B. has long since signified to the Governor of the Bahamas the commands of His Royal Highness the Prince Regent relative to the subject adverted to in Mr. Chalmers's communication of the . . . May, he does not deem it necessary to give Mr. C. the trouble of calling in Downing Street." 97 But if this pamphlet was ignored in so humiliating a fashion in Whitehall, such was not the case in the Bahamas. Cameron and Wylly were both aroused, the former in particular by the suggestion that he had not written his own message. And the council, recording in their minutes their indignation at the aspersions cast on the governor's character and their opinion that the pamphlet " had a direct tendency to excite a spirit of dissatisfaction and discord in the Colony," resolved " that the said George Chalmers hath (in the opinion of this Board) by such unauthorized and unwarrantable conduct, forfeited the Trust and Confidence reposed in him. . . ." When the bill to continue the act appointing him agent was sent up from the lower house, the council voted to postpone its second reading for three months, thus to all intents and purposes defeating it. 66 Answer

from the Electors

of

Bristol.

67 May 13 and July 3, 1817, C. O. 23: 66.

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T h e new assembly finally meeting on September 2 after two prorogations due to disorder in the town, the governor laid L o r d Bathurst's despatch before it, conveying the censure of H i s Royal Highness of its conduct and claims. F a r from cowed, it resolved that " the House of Assembly is the sole constitutional judge of its own privileges," and that His Majesty's ministers have " no more control over the privileges of the Colonial Assemblies than over those of the British Parliament " ; and pledged itself not only not to vote supplies, but not to pass any but the most necessary laws until the decisions of the judges in the matter of the bailment of W y l l y had been reversed. T h e council, on which the judges sat, refusing the bill of reversal and throwing out the revenue bill because salaries were not provided for those officers who were the object of popular resentment, the house fulfilled its threat. Only one bill was passed, the Census Act, which the assembly thought " amply sufficient to prevent infraction of the Abolition L a w s . . . though it may fall far short o f the visionary speculations of that dangerous party at home, whose ulterior views concentrate in the dishonest and sanguinary scheme of a N e g r o Empire throughout the W e s t Indies." Its members regretted that circumstances prevented their entering upon the discussion of other desirable legislation. 68 T h e reply of Bathurst was hostile in the extreme to all their pretensions. Commenting on the protest of the judges who had been deprived of their salaries, he threatened to provide some other means of remunerating them and to submit to parliament a proposal for imposing additional duties on Bahama trade to cover the sums thus expended. 89 T h e agent, too, felt the heavy hand of official disapproval. Bathurst did not like George Chalmers. A s has been pointed 68 Minutes of assembly, Sept. 9 and 10, minutes of council, Sept. 23 and Oct. 22, 1817, C. O. 26: 19; messages to governor enclosed in Cameron's letter to Bathurst, Nov. 12, 1817, C. O. 23: 65. 69 Bathurst to Cameron, Feb. 28, 1818, C. O. 24: 1 7 ; letter quoted by Η. T . Manning, op. cit,, pp. 147-48.

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out in the preceding chapter, he had passed over him time and again when opportunity arose for preferment in the Office for Trade, and in 1812 had indicated his opinion that the contribution of the chief clerk was insufficiently important to warrant continuing his office. A s colonial secretary, H i s Lordship had several times refused to receive Chalmers, and paid no attention to his exaggerated accounts of events in the Bahamas. Governor Cameron also disliked Chalmers and with good reason. H e had complained of the agent as early as 1808, as we have seen, alleging that his instructions were frequently known in the colony before he had himself received them. When he overstayed a leave of absence in 1812, Chalmers, no doubt recalling his success in the case of Lord Dunmore, had seized the occasion to try to have him replaced, commenting on his errors of judgment and unfavorably comparing his " resources of mind " and " habits of attention to advice " with those of the locum tenens, Chief Justice Munnings. 7 0 But the agent's influence was no longer sufficient to effect his purpose, and the governor was back in the islands by the end of the year. It was inevitable that he should discover that this attempt to have him dismissed had been made and that it should intensify his hatred. N o w in connection with the W y l l y case he found abundant evidence that Chalmers was endeavoring " to destroy every shadow of respect for the K i n g ' s Authority here." He enclosed in a letter to Bathurst several comments of Chalmers on the younger Stephen, in which the agent had been so indiscreet as to remark that the counsel in the colonial office had been appointed to his position through the power of the A f r i c a n Institution and exerted an undue and corrupting influence upon the secretary. 71 It was not, however, this slur upon his competence which finally spurred Lord Bathurst on to act, nor a report of the resolutions of censure upon Chalmers passed in the council of the colony; it was the evidence, additions to which Cameron 70 Chalmers to Liverpool, Feb. 3, 1812, C. O. 23: 59. 71 Cameron to Bathurst, Aug. 12, 1817, C. O. 23: 64.

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continued to send him, that the agent had had and used i n f o r mation to which he should not have had access or about which he should have remained silent. L o r d B a t h u r s t w a s suspicious that there w a s a leak in his office, as he had and continued to have reason to be, and he pounced upon this case f o r w h i c h he had proof to make an example. H e ordered Goulburn to write a sharp note of protest to the lords of trade, Chalmers's superiors, demanding that their lordships " take such measures with respect to M r . Chalmers as they m a y consider effectual f o r preventing in future any repetition of his offence " ; the alternative would be " to exclude f r o m any office in this C o u n t r y the person w h o m a y be nominated on the part of the B a h a m a s to act as their Colonial A g e n t . " A s has been reported, C h a l m e r s w a s summoned b e f o r e the board, reproved, and undertook not to err again, and T h o m a s L a c k conveyed his promise to the irate secretary of state. 72 B u t if he had offended against official standards of ethics, by the same token he had pleased his constituents. T h o u g h the council refused to concur in the act of

reappointment,

the

assembly determined to continue him in office, t e s t i f y i n g to their satisfaction in the f o l l o w i n g resolution: that the thanks of this House be given to George Chalmers, Esquire, for his long, upright, and faithful Services as Agent for this Colony, and for his uniform and meritorious exertions in promoting the welfare of these Islands, and supporting the Rights and Privileges of the Representatives of the People thereof. H e , on his part, encouraged them to persevere in the struggle in which he assured them they must ultimately succeed, f o r the house " is the sole j u d g e of

its privileges, and the proper

a v e n g e r of its own w r o n g s . " B y unstinted e f f o r t and support of their contention he erased f r o m his record the stigma of 1 8 1 5 , though the student of his l i f e m a y deplore the means w h i c h he w a s willing to e m p l o y . " 72 See above pp. 112-13 where citations are given. 73 Minutes Mar. 16 and 20, 1819, C. O. 2 6 : 2 0 ; Munnings to Bathurst, Apr. 12, 1819, C. O. 2 3 : 68.

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Furthermore, though he had not escaped humiliation, one of his desires was shortly afterward gratified, the removal of Charles Cameron from the Bahamas. The unhappy governor had asked for and received a second leave of absence and sailed for home on April 18, 1818. His leave was extended for three months in May, 1819, but when in the autumn he craved additional indulgence, it was refused, nor could Lord Bathurst recommend that the treasury grant him a pension. Ordering his immediate return to the islands, the secretary of state instructed him to handle the assembly tactfully, taking no notice of any but the most extreme instances of intransigence but warning the members " temperately " of the disagreeable consequences which would certainly follow continued failure to provide for the expenses of government. Evidently despairing of success in this exacting assignment, Cameron could not bring himself to go, and Bathurst was free to proceed with the selection of his successor. T h e appointment of Major-General Lewis Grant was decided upon before the end of that year, and Chalmers, with more zeal than discretion, hastened to assure the secretary that the new governor would be received in the Bahamas " with open arms." '* Governor Grant was confronted by a difficult situation on his arrival in September, 1820. Munnings, the chief justice and the particular object of popular criticism, had again been temporary head of the government, and the deadlock had continued. N o salaries had been voted for the officials involved in the W y l l y case, and the acts which were forwarded to England were almost uniformly unsatisfactory to the colonial office. T h e assembly could not be induced to return to the path of duty even by the despatches of September, 1819, announcing the act of parliament which made it unlawful to make a purchase of land or borrow money on the security of slave-property unless registered in the office of the registrar of colonial slaves in England, and warning the colony that the failure to send a 74 Instructions to Cameron, Nov. 3, 1819, C. O. 24: 17; Chalmers to Bathurst, Jan. 5, 1820, C. O. 23: 69.

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registry list might have very serious consequences for the owners. Fortunately, Grant was a firm and a temperate man, and good judgment and common sense prevailed in the colonial office. T h e same cannot be said of the agent, who submitted uninvited and contentious (and unheeded) suggestions for the new governor's instructions." The first pressing problem was the making of some provision for the injured W y l l y . A n allowance of £200 had been given to him in 1818, but he was anxious to leave the islands. It seemed well to further his desire, and he was offered the office of chief justice of St. Vincent which he thankfully accepted. This arrangement had wisely been completed before the meeting of the assembly in November. 7 8 Though it was composed of nearly the same membership as the last house, the governor expressed the wish of His Majesty's government " to bury in oblivion the whole unpleasant subject " of their dispute. T h e colonial office would forego the requirement of any expression of contrition from the assembly, it in turn to abandon its demand for explicit recognition of its claims. A f t e r some show of reluctance on the part of the factional leaders to give up the position which they had so long and so stubbornly maintained, he secured the passage of an act " to heal and put an end to certain differences and disputes." The privileges of the assembly were declared to stand as they were before the W y l l y affair, but the proviso was added that the house did not acknowledge that there was " any matter or principle of a novel or unconstitutional nature in any part of the proceedings," and the act was accompanied by a resolution reasserting their " undoubted right to arrest and imprison for contempt any who misrepresent the House " and their determination never to grant salaries to W y l l y or any judge who took part in the case. The governor well knew that " the Bill itself was a perfect nullity," but with the unanimous consent 75 Despatches in C. O. 24: 17; Chalmers to Bathurst, Jan. 5, 1820, C. O. 23: 69. 76 Correspondence in C. O. 23 : 67 and 69, and in C. O. 24: 17.

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of the council he signed it in order that the public business might after three years be resumed. Then he dissolved the assembly in the hope of securing the election of men who would be more amenable to moderate counsels. His forebearance was rewarded at least to some degree. The new body revived the expired acts and passed a revenue bill. Salaries were voted " prospectively " for all officers, which, as he commented, was " gaining something." In the following spring he was able to report that the legislature had not only made its appropriations as usual but had allowed the governor £4,000 to be used to pay up the arrears. He had reason to hope " that all our incumbrances may be quietly got over." 71 Since March, 1 8 1 9 , George Chalmers had been continued as agent by resolution of the assembly over the expressed opposition of the council. In the improved atmosphere of the new legislature it was possible formally to renew his appointment, though not without some bickering between the houses; the bill sent up by the assembly provided for a term of five years which the council reduced to one. The governor's instructions, however, forbade him to assent to any measure other than a revenue act to run for less than two years, and this period was agreed to in conference. Though Chalmers's efforts in their behalf had had the enthusiastic approval of the assembly and he had supported their refusal to carry on the public business, he had suffered from the political stalemate. A s in Dunmore's time his salary was f a r in arrears; £750 Sterling was owing him by the time a special appropriation act was passed.78 Grant applied the same capacity for patience and understanding to matters other than financial. Though he told Bathurst that he knew that the Registry Act which was finally passed in April, 1 8 2 1 , was imperfect, he begged him not to recommend 77 Act assented to Nov. 30, 1820, C. O. 25: 17, No. 654; Grant to Bathurst, Nov. 25, Dec. 4 and 26, 1820, C. O. 23: 69; May 30, 1821, C. O. 23: 70; Apr. 20, 1822, C. O. 23: 71. 78 Acts, C. O. 25: 17, No. 662, assented to Mar. 16, and No. 682, assented to Apr. 21, 1821.

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its disallowance but to suffer it to remain in abeyance for a time. Bathurst replied that it was distinctly imperfect, but since it indicated a more reasonable disposition on the part of the assembly, he had advised His Majesty to approve it.78 There were others in the king's service less wise and longsuffering than Grant. With the founding in January, 1823, of the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Dominions, the abolitionists transferred their attention from the slave-trade to the institution of slavery itself, and coming out into the open, as their enemies charged, announced their intention of working for the emancipation of all British subjects who were held in bondage. Most of them (there were two notable exceptions) had never seen the West Indies and eagerly accepted all the stories of barbarous cruelty, some fantastic, some unfortunately well-substantiated, which were spread abroad. The Caribbean experience of Stephen and Macaulay had been a generation earlier, but they refused to admit that any appreciable reform had been made or could be made in the inhuman system. Some of the leaders, moreover, were interested in the production of sugar in the east and active in the campaign to equalize the duties on the West and East India product, and were, therefore, open to the charge of hypocritically covering their business operations with a sanctimonious cloak. One may indicate a regret that some of the agitators had not been a little more patient, a little better informed, without failing in appreciation of the unselfish purpose and the tireless courage of such men as William Wilberforce upon whom the weight of West India hatred rested. In March, 1823, this disinterested humanitarian published An Appeal to the Religion, Justice and Humanity of the Inhabitants of the British Empire, in behalf of the Negro Slaves in the West Indies. In the same month he presented in the House of Commons a petition signed by a group of Quakers asking for the abolition of the institution of slavery in all the 79 Grant to Bathurst, July 2, 1821, C. O. 23: 70; Bathurst to Grant, Dec. 22, 1821, C. O. 24: 17.

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king's dominions, and his younger follower and successor as leader of the cause, T h o m a s Fowell Buxton, gave notice of his intention to bring in a motion to that effect. 40 T h e standing committee o f the W e s t India planters and merchants at once recognized the ominous symptoms of a new campaign. W i t h the hope of forestalling parliamentary action they resolved to take the lead in recommending a plan for ameliorative measures, and on A p r i l 25 appointed a sub-committee of eighteen men, ten of w h o m were members of parliament. Convinced that a crisis w a s at hand, this sub-committee met several times in the next fortnight, and even before Buxton's motion had been presented to the house, had prepared a thoroughgoing scheme of reform whose adoption they were ready to urge upon the legislatures, w a r n i n g them to expect the worst if they failed to heed the advice. 81 T h e agents were also aroused. Stating that their actions were " unconnected with any proceedings of the Planters resident here relative to the internal Regulations of the Colonies," they too set up a standing committee, which met on April 25 and on M a y 3 made a representation to L o r d Bathurst. T h e y recalled to his memory the facts that " the system of Colonization of the W e s t Indies by means of Slave Labour had been devised by the British Councils and sanctioned by British laws," that legislative

protection

had

been

" repeatedly

and

solemnly

pledged to that immense property," and that, though improvement in the condition of the slaves was doubtless desirable and even necessary, " it was strictly within the province of

the

Colonial Legislatures." T h e communication was signed by four of the agents one of w h o m w a s George Chalmers. T h e reader of the literary efforts of his later years is inclined to conclude, however, that the style of this production is insufficiently violent and the commas sprinkled with too sparing a hand to have come f r o m his pen. 85 80 Parliamentary Debates, 2nd series, V I I I , 625-630.

81 Chalmers MSS., Papers relating to the West Indies, pp. 39 ff. 82 Ibid., pp. 45 ff.

172

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L I F E OF GEORGE

CHALMERS

W h e t h e r or not it w a s o w i n g to the protests o f the representatives of the W e s t

India

interest, the resolution

which

B u x t o n o f f e r e d in the H o u s e o f C o m m o n s , e n v i s a g i n g action by the B r i t i s h parliament i m m e d i a t e l y t o e n f o r c e i m p r o v e m e n t o f conditions a n d w i t h i n the not-distant f u t u r e to eliminate slavery entirely, w a s

set aside

on M a y

15-16

in f a v o r

of

C a n n i n g ' s plan o f r e f o r m to be e f f e c t e d b y the colonies themselves. 8 3 B a t h u r s t called the s u b - c o m m i t t e e o f the planters a n d m e r c h a n t s into c o n f e r e n c e a n d based h i s a m e l i o r a t i v e plan on their m e m o r a n d a , a d d i n g o n l y the stipulation that the evidence o f slaves should be received in court. 8 4 O n M a y 2 8 he sent o u t his c a r e f u l l y d r a w n

despatches i n f o r m i n g the g o v e r n o r s

c r o w n colonies that orders-in-council instituting the

reforms

w o u l d shortly f o l l o w , a n d i n s t r u c t i n g the g o v e r n o r s o f governing

islands to u r g e upon

their

legislatures the

measures if they w i s h e d to a v o i d p a r l i a m e n t a r y The

standing

committee

authorized

their

of

selfsame

intervention.

sub-committee

to

transmit t o the legislatures a f u l l statement " in the most e x plicit and impressive l a n g u a g e " o f

the present situation, and

the opinion o f the committee that it w o u l d depend w h o l l y on the response o f

the colonies

whether

o r n o t the

agitation

subsided. 8 5 T h e n e w s o f the renewed attack in p a r l i a m e n t a n d the communication o f the standing c o m m i t t e e o f the planters and merchants b r o u g h t an indignant r e t o r t f r o m the B a h a m a s , w h e r e the conciliatory policy of the g o v e r n o r h a d allayed but h a d not completely r e m o v e d either f a c t i o n a l bitterness or apprehension o f interference w i t h their rights. T h e r e w a s i m m e d i a t e l y pre83 Parliamentary Debates, 2nd series, IX, 257-360. Both Canning and Huskisson resigned as governors of the African Institution in that year. Letters of Canning to Macaulay, Oct. 26, 1823, Huskisson to Canning, Nov. 2, 1823, and Huskisson to Sanders, Jan. 22, 1824, are in Huskisson Papers, XII, Add. Mss. 38,745, pp. 69, 81, 182-83. They express great doubt of the wisdom of the program of the Abolition Society. 84 Letter of Bathurst to West India agents, Feb. 28, 1824, copy in Papers relating to the West Indies, pp. 54 ff. 85 Ibid., pp. 41 ff.

COLONIAL

AGENT

FOR

THE

BAHAMAS

I73

pared An Official Letter from the Commissioners of Correspondence of the Bahama Islands to George Chalmers, Esq. Colonial Agent, Concerning the Proposed Abolition of Slavery in the West Indies, which the recipient was authorized to distribute in London. In his letter of comment on the document Grant observed to Bathurst that, though it purported to express the sentiments of the entire colony, it actually had been prepared by a dozen or so of the extremists in the assembly. The temper of the house as a whole was much less passionate than the language of this effusion would indicate, but he was inclined to expect that, unfortunately, Mr. Chalmers, to whose discretion it was consigned, would be " rather disposed to give it all publicity." He was right. It was printed and circulated at the expense of the planters and merchants. 86 In presenting the resolutions offered by Canning and the circular letter of the colonial secretary at the autumn session of the legislature, the governor tactfully emphasized the fact that this was " a matter entirely between the Executive and the Colonial Assemblies." He added that, though in his belief the provision made for the welfare of the slaves in the Bahamas was " nowhere surpassed," there was certainly room for improvement, and he recommended consideration and enactment of the plan outlined by Bathurst at the suggestion of the Society of West India Merchants. A s he no doubt anticipated, there was an instant outcry of injured innocence, but in spite of indignation, the assembly did proceed with a number of reforms which the governor reported to his superiors with considerable gratification. H e was, in fact, so well pleased with the harmony which he had every right to think he had brought to the recently distracted colony that he asked for a leave of absence and departed for England on M a y 17, 1825, proudly bearing with him three complimentary addresses as a proof of the good 86 L. J. Ragatz, Guide for the Study of British Caribbean History, p. 444; Grant to Bathurst, Dec. 12, 1823, C. O. 23: 72; copy of document in Papers relating to the West Indies, pp. 19 ff.

174

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L I F E OF GEORGE

CHALMERS

f e e l i n g w h i c h existed between h i m a n d the s u b j e c t s o f

the

k i n g in the Bahamas. 8 7 B a t h u r s t , h o w e v e r , w a s not impressed. T o h i m the i m p o r t a n t f a c t w a s their c o n t u m a c i o u s resistance t o instructions f r o m the colonial office. I n the preceding A u g u s t he had sent t o G r a n t a copy o f the order-in-council prepared f o r T r i n i d a d w i t h an e x p r e s s i o n o f his " earnest desire " that the legislature o f t h e B a h a m a s should e m b o d y

in their

statutes

its " entire

Sub-

stance," only to hear that they h a d r e f u s e d to alter their c o d e f u r t h e r . O n J u l y 31 he despatched t o the u n l u c k y

Munnings,

w h o h a d a g a i n taken o v e r the g o v e r n m e n t at a difficult m o m e n t , a letter o f pointed reproof and w a r n i n g . " A deep and u n i v e r s a l interest is here taken in the C o n d i t i o n o f the S l a v e s , " he w r o t e , a n d he could not venture t o a n s w e r f o r the results to w h i c h such protracted delays m i g h t lead in the n e x t session o f parliament. 8 8 T h e g o v e r n m e n t h a d passed to " a u t h o r i t a t i v e a d m o n i t i o n , " w h i c h w a s to p r o v e little m o r e e f f e c t i v e than " r e c o m m e n d a t i o n a n d a d v i c e " ; n o r w a s the o f f e r o f liberal trade concessions to those colonies w h i c h w o u l d c o n f o r m sufficient to b r i n g them to a state o f grace. A l l that remained w a s f o r p a r l i a m e n t to exercise that r i g h t , undoubted in E n g l a n d , bitterly protested in the W e s t Indies, to legislate on the issue on w h i c h the assemblies had declined to act in a m a n n e r s o o t h i n g to the nonc o n f o r m i s t conscience. In the Q u a k e r phrase, a large b o d y of E n g l i s h m e n " had a concern " f o r the black-skinned b o n d s m e n f a r a w a y in the Caribbean, t h o u g h , a s the assembly o f

the

B a h a m a s a n d their a g e n t bitterly pointed out time a f t e r time, they w e r e not as yet seriously troubled b y the miserable plight o f millions o f their f e l l o w - s u b j e c t s in the mills and m i n e s o f England.88 87 Grant to Horton, July 11, 1825, C. O. 23: 73. 88 Bathurst to Grant, Aug. 14, 1824; Bathurst to the "Officer Administering the Government of the Bahamas," July 31, 1825, C. O. 24: 17. 89 " Overlooking some hundreds of abuses absolutely stinking under their nostrils, they chuse for the theatre of their philanthropy, some country as far as possible beyond the range of their own physical observation." Official Letter

from the Commissioners

of Correspondence

to George

Chalmers,

Esq.

COLONIAL

AGENT

FOR

THE

BAHAMAS

I75

Nor did the increasing difficulties of the W e s t Indies arouse their sympathies in any like degree. The lavishness of their lives and the inefficiency of their methods of cultivation rendered the planters in the old colonies unable to compete on equal terms with the newly-acquired and hitherto unexploited possessions of the crown. Emancipation of their slaves in 1833 was only the final and mortal wound. The light, thin soil had brought an earlier and swifter decline to planting in the Bahamas. Emigration had begun as early as 1800, and when the transfer of slaves to the newer British possessions was prohibited in 1824, the discouraged owners of the exhausted lands turned to Cuba. Governor Grant suggested that to save some of these subjects for the king they be permitted to settle with their negroes on Crab and Passage Islands on the understanding that black children born there would be free. Quit rents had fallen seriously behind, and the land when seized frequently did not bring enough to pay the arrears. The legislature asked in 1823 for complete relief from this burden; the governor, transmitting the petition, thought the request unreasonable, but suggested as a compromise that the rents should be collected from the year 1820, all unpaid up to that date being remitted. 90 The trade of the islands, whose free development might have compensated for the decline of their agriculture, had been hampered by the persistently narrow view of the Committee for Trade, and though Robinson and Huskisson were now advocating more liberal policies, the United States government was manoevring in the twenties for the advantage of its own citizens and greatly to the detriment of the Bahamas. 91 W i t h the evergrowing threat to the security of their slave-property the future of the islands did not appear very hopeful in the last years of the life of George Chalmers. 90 G r a n t t o B a t h u r s t , J u l y I, 1824, C. O . 2 3 : 73, a n d Sept. 10, 1823, C. O . 2 3 : -2. 91 L. J . R a g a t z , The Fall ch. χ, passim.

of the Planter

Class in the British

Caribbean,

176

THE

PUBLIC

LIFE

OF

GEORGE

CHALMERS

U p to the very end, however, he was active in the fight for the preservation of the economic and political rights of his clients. He continued periodically to beg the Committee f o r Trade to do something for their commerce, receiving courteous but vague replies, and as a member of the standing committee of the West India agents he joined in the protests with which they plied the secretary of state. Bathurst thoroughly distrusted him and inquired of Grant in 1824 whether he suspected that the Bahama agent might again be guilty of forwarding confidential information. The governor, with a gleam of humor, thought not. The agent and the speaker of the house exchanged frequent letters, presumably on the public business since they had never seen each other; but if Kerr were to learn anything sensational from Chalmers, Grant thought him totally incapable of refraining from using it to serve his own vainglorious love of notoriety. 82 Chalmers's services remained highly acceptable to his correspondents in the assembly. He had passed his eightieth birthday, but in January, 1823, they again appointed him as their agent, though once more the hostile council forced the reduction of the term from five years to two. A n d after his death they chose as his successor a young colleague of his in the Office for Trade, Edward John Lack, indicating that " a favourable Access to the Boards before which he is to Sollicit" was still the indispensable qualification for an agent. But Lack was the last to hold the office of agent of the Bahamas; there was not enough for him to do to justify the expense to a povertystricken community. 93 92 June 23, 1824, C. O. 23: 73. 93 L. M. Penson, op. cit., pp. 242 and 253; acts, C. O. 25: 17, Nos. 699 and 772; minutes Jan. 2, 1823, C. O. 26: 21.

CHAPTER Υ ANTIQUARY, EDITOR, AND AUTHOR BY his appointment at the age of forty-four to a secure and comfortable post under the reorganized Committee for Trade George Chalmers was relieved for the rest of his life from serious anxiety over financial matters, and his position continued steadily to improve. His combined salaries as chief clerk and colonial agent amounted after 1805 to £1250 yearly, and the royalties from the continuous output of his books and pamphlets must have added substantially to his income. Shortly after the beginning of his long service at the Office for Trade he left the lodgings in Berkeley Square and took the house at 29, Green Street, Grosvenor Square, which remained his home from the spring of 1787 for more than twenty years. In 1808 he moved for the last time to a location more convenient to his office in Whitehall and here, at 3, James Street, Buckingham Gate, he spent the remainder of his life. 1 His was a bachelor's establishment, but his nephew, James Chalmers, the son of his brother Alexander, came from Elgin to make his home with him and was for years his assistant in the collection and arrangement of his literary materials and after his death the administrator of his estate. W i t h Lord Liverpool's cordial approval Chalmers every year gave himself a pleasant holiday. Leaving London usually about the middle of August, when parliament had adjourned and business was accordingly less pressing, he often set out on extended tours of Great Britain. Boswell had met him in Edinburgh in August, 1 7 8 2 ; 2 he was in Liverpool in 1784, in Col1 Boyle's Court and Country Guide and Town Visiting Directory for 1807 and subsequent years. 2 " Sunday August 4, 1782 . . . The Doctor and I walked on the Castlehill, where we were joined by Mr. George Chalmers who never fails to give one information." Private Papers of James Boswell from Malahide Castle, X V , 109.

1/7

178

THE

PUBLIC

LIFE

OF

GEORGE

CHALMERS

ehester in 1790, in B a t h in 1 7 9 1 , and in Scotland again in 1789, 1791 and 1794. A f t e r a brief illness in 1798 his physician advised a stay at T u n b r i d g e W e l l s , and before his return t o t o w n he also visited R a m s g a t e . T h e seaside resort pleased him, and he regularly spent a f e w weeks there in the late summer and early autumn f o r the last t w e n t y years or more of his life. In his forties and fifties he displayed a tendency to w o r r y about his health, complaining to his f r i e n d s L o v e and Stenhouse o f failing eyesight and v a r i o u s infirmities of the

flesh.

But

these must have been but the slight and passing ailments of a naturally robust constitution f o r he lived on to an advanced age with no serious illness to sap his vitality. H i s activities as chief clerk in the Office for T r a d e and as agent f o r the B a h a m a s have been described in the f o r e g o i n g chapters. W e turn now to his career as a man of letters which, as the years went by, absorbed more and more of his time and attention. H i s early product w a s political in character, whatever its f o r m , and its aim, as has appeared, w a s at the same time to discredit the protagonists in E n g l a n d of the A m e r i c a n cause and to encourage his fellow-subjects to take new courage f o r their country. W i t h o u t ceasing to attend to current events and to search f o r their causes in the past, in the mid-eighties he began to evince a scholarly interest in the w o r k s o f authors w h o commented, as he did himself, upon the occurrences of their day. D u r i n g a convalescence f r o m a short illness in 1785 he read intensively in the writings of D e f o e and prepared a brief sketch of his life which Stockdale published at first separately and anonymously, then, in the n e x t year, prefaced to an edition of the History

of the Union

between

England

and

Scotland,

and in 1790, corrected and enlarged to 8 4 pages, as an annex to Robinson

Crusoe.

In 1787 the same publisher brought out

the collected w o r k s of Samuel Johnson in thirteen volumes w i t h t w o supplementary volumes containing the Debates

in

Parlia-

ment, which had been concocted by Johnson during the years 1 7 4 0 4 3 . T h o u g h the brief preface to the Debates

is nowhere

acknowledged by Chalmers, Boswell attributed it to him, notic-

ANTIQUARY,

EDITOR,

AND

AUTHOR

179

3

ing that it was " written by no inferior hand." The same year saw the anonymous publication in Dublin, with a brief biographical sketch, of the Historical Tracts of Sir John Davies, who was attorney-general and speaker of the House of Commons of Ireland in the reign of James I.4 Recognized now as a competent student of historical and scientific matters, Chalmers, in the winter of 1790-91, sought admission to the two learned bodies, the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Society. He was elected to the former on January 13 and to the latter on May 5, 1791.° As a mark of appreciation, he immediately wrote for presentation at a meeting of the Antiquaries a letter entitled, " On the late continuance of torture in Great Britain," which was read on March 3 and printed in their publication, Archaeologia. Other contributions through the years testified to his gratification, as did his constant use of the capitals signifying his membership in the two societies on his bookplate and on the title-pages of his books. Not unnaturally his antiquarian interest was chiefly though not exclusively directed to his native land. At least as early as 1790 he was carrying on an active correspondence with all sorts of people in all parts of Scotland and on November 20, 1792, he was elected a corresponding member of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries. He was eager to receive information of every kind, as to the topography, the speech, the family histories, the curious legendary lore of the isolated districts. Eminent men 3 Life of Johnson, John Wilson Croker, ed., I, 169, n. 1. Croker did not think highly of this edition of the Debates. Aeneas Mackay erroneously gives the date as 1794; loc. cil. 4 Ascribed to Chalmers by the British Museum Catalogue, and by Aeneas Mackay, loc. cit., who, however, gives the date as 1786. There may have been an earlier English edition. 5 The sponsors of his application to the Society of Antiquaries were Joseph Banks, A. Dalrymple, J. Topham, Rd. Molesworth, Ch. Combe, and Sam'l Ayscough (Minute-Book, X X I I I , 467-468) ; and to the Royal Society, John Reeves, J. Topham, C. Blagden, W . Seward, Pat. Russell, J. Rennell, Thos. Astle, S. Harper, Rd. Molesworth, and George Steevens (Certificates, 17841800, date Feb. 3, 1791). His distinguished friend, Sir Joseph Banks, was president of the Royal Society from 1778 until his death in 1820.

ΐ8θ

THE

PUBLIC

LIFE

OF

GEORGE

CHALMERS

responded to his inquiries. Walter Scott, says his biographer, in the mid-nineties was supplying Chalmers " with border ballads for the illustration of his researches into Scottish history." β Later, the younger antiquary, David Laing, was his enthusiastic admirer and aid. 7 Thomas Telford promised to send information of any Scottish antiquities discovered in the excavations for the Caledonian Canal. 8 Chalmers's intimate friends were pressed into service. Dr. Alexander Stenhouse, once of Baltimore and now living in Edinburgh, whose interests he still watched over in London, engaged and paid researchers for him and made purchases of old books and papers. The ministers of remote parishes were appealed to and acquaintances of acquaintances were not spared. H e amassed a prodigious quantity of letters and notes and became the leading authority of his day upon the past of Scotland. 8 While the labor of collecting and docketing this vast mass of information was carried on in his home with the aid of his nephew, he did not at this period ignore the wealth of materials at his disposal in the government archives. A Collection of Treaties between Great Britain and Other Powers, which appeared in two volumes in 1790, a modern student considers to be among the most useful of his contributions. 10 Nor was he indifferent to the momentous events of the age in which he was living. The French Revolution had burst with all the ominous portent of a meteor across the summer sky of 1789, but, invalidating the figure, failed to die away in a shower of sparks and continued to blaze with ever growing menace. 6 J. G. Lockhart, Life of Sir Walter

Scott,

I, 292.

7 In Laing's portrait by Sir W i l l i a m Fettes D o u g l a s a picture of Chalmers stands on the table. W . J. Couper, " George Chalmers's Historical Account of Printing in Scotland," Records of the Glasgow Bibliographical Society, V I I , N o . V I , 62 ff. 8 Letter advertised for sale, Evans' catalogue, N o . 1800. 9 Many of these letters are in the British Museum, Add. Mss. 22,90022,903. A f e w have been printed by the Historical Manuscripts Commission among the Laing Manuscripts, w h e r e others are noted. 10 L. M. Penson, op. cit., p. 168.

ANTIQUARY,

EDITOR,

AND

AUTHOR

l8l

To George Chalmers, as to his aging antagonist Edmund Burke, the threat could not be confined to the country of its origin; the enthusiasm with which many misguided Englishmen hailed the gathering conflagration was proof enough that their own country and its ancient indigenous institutions were in danger, while the triumphant acclamations which rang across the Atlantic were evidence for Chalmers that this was but another manifestation of the same malignant spirit which had brought about the wreck of his own fortunes. One finds among his letters allusions to incidents at home and abroad which breathe his detestation of the revolution and its agents long before hostilities had broken out between France and England. And the war, when it came, was, like all wars to the patriot, different from all others, for it was forced upon us by the outrageous proceedings of France, which, if we had not drawn the sword, would have overturned all religion and law, and would have destroyed all persons and property. . . . With all my propensities, I cannot be persuaded that peace could have been obtained without sacrificing everything which ought to be dear to us as men or citizens.11 The reappearance of Thomas Paine upon the political stage of both continents was the signal for a bitter and scurrilous attack, almost certainly the work of Chalmers though written under the cloak of the pseudonym, " Francis Oldys, A.M., of the University of Pennsylvania." 12 The name was devised, says 11 Draft of letter to Thomas Earle, Add. Mss. 22,900, pp. 222-227. 12 The Life of Thomas Pain [jiY], the Author of Rights of Men [jic] with a Defence of his Writings, by Francis Oldys, A.M. of the University of Pennsylvania. Generally ascribed by bibliographers (though Sabin expresses some doubt), and by the authors of the articles on Chalmers in the Dictionary of National Biography and the Encyclopedia Britannica, n t h edition. Certain of his contemporaries declared that they had penetrated his disguise. H e was accused of being the author by a contributor to the Morning Chronicle, Feb. 4, 1797 (see below, p. 194), and by the writer of the letter referred to on pp. 207-8. David Love, his intimate friend, believed it to be his, for he wrote that " after reading a few sentences, I could have laid my hand on the author among ten thousand and said ' Thou art the man' . . . "

I82

THE

PUBLIC

LIFE

OF

GEORGE

CHALMERS

Paine's admiring biographer, " to compare with Paine's honorary degree from the same institution, as well as to lend dignity to the publication by making it appear the work of a clergyman." 1 3 To modern eyes it seems an indecent performance, but it was enormously successful, running through ten editions. Chalmers's friend, the Reverend David Love, wrote that he was " wonderfully pleased " with it, and believed that " the wise part of the public will be benefited by the author's laudable industry, though others will neither receive correction nor instruction." Sympathy with the revolution was the unforgivable sin. The ironical dedication of the third edition of the Estimate of the Comparative Strength, which was brought out in 1794, contained a savage assault upon Dr. James Currie of Liverpool who, signing himself " Jasper Wilson " , had ventured to oppose the war. 14 When certain of Currie's friends remonstrated with Chalmers for the brutality of his language, which, one of them said, " was calculated to wound Currie's reputation as a man and a citizen, to injure him essentially in his professional capacity, and to cause inconceivable distress to his numerous and respectable connection," he replied that, though it gave him genuine pain to hold up to reprobation a gentleman of whom he had always had a very good opinion, he felt it to be his duty to bring to public attention the perilous possibilities in the doctor's " Jacobinical principles." It was the well-meaning men who were doing " infinite mischief " to the nation, indeed to the world, by their " Zealous Applause " of the French Revolution. 15 (letter dated July 30, 1791, Add. Ms?. 22,900, p. 154). So far as is known to this writer, Chalmers never acknowledged the pamphlet. 13 M. D. Conway, The Life of Thomas

Paine, I, xiv-xvi, 337-338.

14 A Letter, Commercial and Political, addressed to the Rt. Hon. William Pitt; In Which the Real Interests of Britain, in the present Crisis are considered, and some Observations arc offered on the General State of Europe. Reviewed in the British Critic, I I (Sept., 1793), 67 ff. 15 Letters are to be found in Add. Mss. 22,goo, pp. 218-267. Chalmers seems, nevertheless, to have cherished a real respect for Currie's abilities, for

ANTIQUARY,

EDITOR,

AND

AUTHOR

183

T w o volumes of Parliamentary Portraits, published in 1795, contain biographical sketches of one hundred members of parliament, and the work is dedicated to Addington. 1 6 The critics of government are pilloried, its friends held up to admiration. F o x is still the object of the author's indignant scorn, but Burke has seen a great light and been welcomed back to the fold. Already in the Life of Thomas Pain tribute had been paid to " the wisdom of his policy, the zeal of his patriotism, the learning of his illustrations, the bursts of his eloquence," and now he is extolled as " the eagle-eyed Burke " who " pointed out long ago, from the topmast, the dangerous rocks that threatened the vessel of the state, if she were suffered to steer a French course." 17 Although this compilation is declared on its title-page to have been prepared by the author of The Beauties of Fox, North and Burke, which seems typical enough of Chalmers, internal evidence compels doubt that he did in fact write all of the contents. H e was throughout his life an opponent of the abolitionists and a vitriolic critic of Wilberforce, yet here the great reformer is declared " justly to be deemed one of the greatest ornaments of mankind." With that boundless liberality the philosopher feels for all human nature, he felt that a poor negro was never meant, by nature or necessity, to be the tortured slave of his fellow creatures. These were the rights of man in which he evinced his zeal for their when he had recovered from his hysteria, he alluded to him in a letter to Lord Liverpool as " the most reading m a n " of the town of Liverpool. Liverpool Papers, X L V I , Add. Mss. 38,235, p. 277. 16 Ascribed to Chalmers by Halkett and Laing, op. cit., IV, 302, and by the British Museum Catalogue. 17 Vol. I, 70. B y 1800 Burke was " this uncommon m a n " who was " a friend of government by habit, and was only an opportunist by chance." It would be inexcusable to fail to call attention to the following masterpiece of elision: " H e continued his exertions, gained great popularity, rose to high distinctions in the state, became the object of general admiration, and died on July 8, 1797, full of years and crowned with honourable fame." Appendix to the Supplemental

Apology,

pp. 16, 23, 25.

184

THE

PUBLIC

LIFE

OF

GEOSGE

CHALMERS

defense, by his incessant and laborious efforts to relieve nations, born and yet unborn, from the yoke of servitude, and the scourge of cruelty. A f t e r alluding to Wilberforce's careful investigation of facts relating to the slave trade, the long parliamentary battle, and the selfish motives of his leading opponents, the writer concludes with the hope that the great leader will live to see his object " fully attained through the medium of the British legislature." 1 β One is left with the choice of two alternatives. Either some of the Portraits were not from the pen of Chalmers, or else the end was held to justify the means as on certain other occasions: this was election material intended to exalt the faithful and true and abase their enemies, and since Wilberforce was an intimate friend of the prime minister, he must perforce belong to the angelic host. The former hypothesis seems preferable, for whatever Chalmers's faults in controversy, and they were legion, dissimulation was not one of them. And though his admiration for Pitt was very great at this period and Pitt was an enemy of the trade, one would think that even his political loyalty would hardly lead him, a West India agent, to declare slavery a violation of natural law, or, considering his relation to the Jenkinson clan, to suggest that unworthy purposes must lie beneath opposition to this particular object of the prime minister. One may indeed confess to surprise that he was willing to include the encomium on Wilberforce at all. There is a third possibility, that none of the sketches are his; but acceptance would force the exclusion also of The Beauties of Fox, North and Burke, which is so characteristic of him that it is difficult to discard. A number of timely short pamphlets mark the years of the later nineties. Some Tracts on the Com Trade and Com Laws, written by Charles Smith in the middle of the century, was rescued by Chalmers from oblivion and edited anonymously 18 Vol. II, 45-46.

ANTIQUARY,

EDITOR,

AND

AUTHOR

185

with some comments of his own and a reprint of the report of the corn laws, issued in March, 1790, by the committee which he served. 19 Useful Suggestions Favourable to the Comfort of the Labouring People was prepared, as has been mentioned, during the summer of 1795, a season of extreme shortage of grain, to exhort the populace to keep calm and eat vegetables and soup.20 Facts and Observations Relative to the Coinage and, Circulation of Counterfeit Money, with Suggestions for Remedying the Evil is dated in the autumn of the same year. 21 John Reeves, the law clerk in the Office for Trade, found himself in serious trouble at this time in consequence of the publication of a pamphlet, Thoughts on the English Government, which was resented by the more radical party as an insult to the British constitution itself. A committee was appointed by the House of Commons to investigate the case; Reeves was tried for libel but was acquitted in May, 1796. The president of the Committee for Trade could not afford to espouse his cause and washed his hands of him in the debate,22 but the chief clerk sprang to the defense of his colleague with A Vindication of the Privilege of the People in Respect to the Constitutional Right of Free Discussion.23 One must conclude from his strictures on Dr. Currie that he believed that the " constitutional right " should be limited to " safe " people. George Chalmers's political philosophy in these years of his middle life can be summed up as devotion to the conservative principles which were also those of his chief, Lord Liverpool. 19 Ascribed by the British Museum Catalogue. 20 Ascribed by Halkett and Laing, op. cit., V I , 154, and by the British Museum Catalogue. 21 Ascribed by Halkett and Laing, op. cit., II, 250, and by the British Museum Catalogue. 22 Dec. 2, 1795, Parliamentary

History,

X X X I I , 685-686.

23 Ascribed by Halkett and Laing, op. cit., V I , 184, and by Aeneas Mackay and James Macdonald, loc. cit. The copy in the Columbia University Library is bound with several others which had belonged to Lord Denman, chief justice in the 1830's; it is inscribed, " B y the Late George Chalmers, Esq. F R S S A , of the Board of Trade and Privy Council Office."

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As has been shown, he believed wholeheartedly in the need for safeguarding the economic interests of the landowning classes at home and for maintaining the naval defense through limiting the commerce of the empire to British shipping. He expressed great admiration for the prime minister, but it was the Pitt of the nineties, not the ardent young reformer of the earlier period. For he regarded with detestation those misguided men who would tamper with the foundations of the great structure of the constitution.24 Political power rested and should rest in the hands of men of property, for it is they who have a stake in the country and, being independent, may " deliver their sentiments according to their conscientious opinion." 25 Advocates of even moderate parliamentary reform, therefore, are to him the enemies of order and good government, and he is particularly concerned when he finds " men of consequence " holding dangerous doctrines. His sense of the duty and destiny of the rich to govern the country has an expression in the sketch of the career of Richard Brinsley Sheridan in Parliamentary Portraits which deserves to be a classic: The moment that the populace are permitted to become reformers, or legislators, there is an end of British freedom. The legislative adults of the empire are the proprietors of its lands, and those of the movable property on its surface. As for those possessing none, they are but the political minors of the state. While they enjoy an equal right to the protection of its laws, they ought to have none in their framing, until by talent, by interest, by inheritance, or good fortune, they acquire a certain property and consequently a stable interest in the prosperity of the country 24 " . . . the zealots of innovation . . . joined . . . by their usual allies, the well-meaning men, who are ever ready, with their well-meaning projects, to make good, indifferent, and bad, worse." Dedication to the Estimate of the Comparative Strength, edition of 1794, xcix. 25 Parliamentary

Portraits,

I, 133.

26 Vol. II, 32. Though doubt has been cast on the belief that Chalmers was the author of all these sketches, this and the preceding citation are so completely in his vein that they may be accepted as his.

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The institutions of England, like her ancient oaks the fruit of her soil and the product of many centuries of growth, are best adapted to Englishmen. The Revolution was glorious " not because much was done, but because little was done; because none of the old foundations of our government were weakened, and none of the landmarks of the law were removed." It was glorious because it was accomplished in characteristic English fashion, by parliament sitting quietly and voting independently " what necessity demanded and wisdom approved." 21 Reeves's metaphor of the king as the trunk and the lords and commons mere branches which may be lopped off without killing the tree aroused the ire of the opponents of the prerogative; Chalmers says the figure is not libellous, though it is unfortunately worded. There have been periods in English history when for years together parliament did not meet, yet the body politic did not die. The king calls and dissolves parliament; it cannot exist without him, but he continues to act during its recesses. The king is " the executive government." Twelve years later Chalmers was developing this argument. " The conceit of an Executive Government distinct from the King is a groundless assumption." Though the privy council is " a very ancient authority of most high and honourable jurisdiction," the cabinet council is unknown to the law. The king may appoint and replace his ministers at will, and " the notion of making the King accountable for dismissing his own Servants is unconstitutional." 27 Vindication of the Privilege of the People, pp. 65-67. Locke's significance, Chalmers says, has been grossly exaggerated. " It is not sufficiently known, that neither Mr. Locke nor his Treatise on Government, were in England at the Revolution: so that neither Somers, nor the other considerate lawyers, who acted with such masterly wisdom, knew anything of him, or his book. H e came over from Holland with the woman, and the baggage, after the business was done, and not in front of the battle with Burnet. Yet, our constitutional lawyers prate and act, as if our whole ' constitution of government' had been copied literally from Mr. Locke's subsequent treatise." p. 61, n.

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The true and constitutional ground of argument is, that the King, in discharging the acknowledged functions of his legal prerogative, is omnipotent and unaccountable; in the same manner as the House of Lords, when acting in its judicial capacity, is omnipotent and unaccountable;—and, as the House of Commons, when acting upon points of privilege, is omnipotent and unaccountable. The king, in short, is one of the estates of the realm. 28 A n enthusiastic observer of the rapid expansion of English industry and trade, he believed that the chief object of government should be to create the conditions under which they might flourish. And that object can best be accomplished by protecting property and freedom, by repressing f r a u d s and preventing " combinations." T h e good of the nation is achieved by every man pursuing his own good. When every man busies himself in promoting his own interest, and caring for his own affairs, he thereby promotes the public interest, which consists of the general aggregate of each particular interest. Millions have become rich and happy by considering the care of themselves, as the great object of life. Thousands have ruined themselves and degraded their families, by troubling about public affairs. Men who wish to improve their condition must work hard, for " opulence, which is acquired by constant industry, and steadyattention, is the true road in this happy island to genuine importance." It is only by success in this endeavor that they become in Chalmers's eyes competent to participate in the political life of the state. H e fervently subscribes to the religious tenet of the Calvinist bourgeoisie that God indicates H i s elect by making them prosperous. T h e masses should be taught to be content in the station in which it has pleased a beneficent and practical deity to place them, and not " to clamour like children in the nursery, not for 28 Thoughts on the Present Crisis of our Domestic Affairs, pp. 39 ff. This pamphlet was published anonymously in support of Lord Hawkesbury's administration, as has been noted above, p. 109.

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what would do them good, but for what would do them harm." For how is British industry to progress without a growing multitude of skillful and docile " manufacturers " ? It is unfortunate if enclosure of the open fields and commons brings suffering to the evicted, unfortunate but the unavoidable price of the " amelioration of agriculture." Let the dispossessed repair to the industrial cities and train their children in habits of diligence and obedience to authority. F a r from being of any real advantage either to the country or to the workers themselves, high wages would undermine the predominance of England in foreign markets and thus reduce opportunities for employment. W o r s e than that, high wages occasion idleness and dissipation and encourage the lower classes to spend time in ale-houses " where they become politicians and governmentmongers, restless and discontented." The government has their interests at heart; rejoicing in the greatness of their country, let them work and murmur not. 29 Reverting for a time to the more purely literary concerns of this period, we find that Chalmers's researches among the Scottish sources resulted in the completion of the Life of Thomas Ruddiman, for the first half of the eighteenth century keeper of the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh and leading scholar of the northern capital. Incidental to the story of the life and learned accomplishments of his subject, who was at once a librarian, a printer, a writer of leading text-books, an editor of Ovid and L i v y , and a diligent student of the antiquities of his native land, Chalmers included in his text and appendices much material of fascinating interest. There are, for instance, various items relating to the history of education in Scotland in the seventeenth century, and some pages on early newssheets, continental, English, and Scottish, together with a chronological list of British newspapers from the Civil W a r s to the author's own day. H e establishes the date of the first printing press in Edinburgh as 1507, a fact recently disclosed 29 Estimate of the Comparative xciii, xciv, 26.

Strength,

edition of

1794, pp. lxxviii,

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by " the intelligent, and industrious, William Robertson of the General Register's House," who was carrying on research under Chalmers's directions. It would have been well had Chalmers contented himself with such unexceptionable indications of his industry and erudition, but Ruddiman's edition of the works of the Reformation leader, George Buchanan, gave his biographer an excuse to launch into a violent attack upon this enemy of the Queen of the Scots and upon all her traducers, past, present, and future. H e had conceived for the unfortunate Mary, two hundred years at rest in her lamentable grave, a romantic passion which sustained him all his days, and to the end of his life he could be driven into a literary frenzy by the merest hint of suspicion that she was not a woman of sublime wisdom and stainless purity. He had been baptized into the Church of Scotland, but, possibly in consequence of his espousal of the banner of the beautiful heroine of the old lost cause, had become a bitter critic of Presbyterianism and all its works, political, theological, and intellectual. In addition to its vehemence, rather ridiculous in view of the remoteness of the cause, the book is written in a ponderous style, which, the literary enemies of Chalmers contended, was a studied but halting imitation of Johnson. He can never have known the doctor intimately, but he cherished for him an ardent admiration, 30 shared by many of his generation, and his desire to follow his great model led him to adopt a " Johnsonian pomposity " full of " the stately march of syllables and the sesquipedalia verba " upon which his critics pounced with glee.31 30 Boswell reports a meeting on Jan. 5, 1790, " called by publick advertisement to take effectual measures for erecting a monument to Dr. Johnson. To the disgrace of the London Booksellers, only one was there, Mr. George Nicoll, a Scotchman, who contributed five guineas. Mr. George Chalmers, the writer on Finance, etc., handsomely came and contributed the same sum." Private Papers of James Boswell from Malahide Castle, X V I I I , 15. 31 Monthly Review, X X I , N. S. (1796), 262. The reviewer in the Annual Register, however, treats with respect " the curious and entertaining Life of Ruddiman"; X X X V I , Part II (1794), 377·

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Even his friends must have winced at hero-worship carried to such absurd lengths as to speak of a letter, which Ruddiman had written in English and which the sage thought should have been couched in sonorous Latin periods, as " honored by Johnson's disapprobation " ; and to make occasion to communicate the striking piece of information that the Scottish scholar had once possessed a garment " like the waistcoat of Johnson, when he attended his Irene, of Scarlet cloth and decorated with broad gold lace." 32 But if George Chalmers had exposed himself to reproof and ridicule through having devoted a book much too bulky, much too pompous, much too contentious, and much too panegyrical, to a provincial grammarian, who, in the disdainful eyes of an English reviewer, " occupied no very brilliant situation," 33 this performance was nothing in comparison with that which followed it three years later, when in very good company he was taken in by the fabrications of young William Henry Ireland and picked up the cudgels in behalf of his fellow-victims and his own scholarly reputation. Samuel Ireland, a respectable engraver and dealer in books and prints and a collector of curiosities, had a precocious seventeen-year-old son, who joined to a passionate love of antiquities, inherited from his father, and to considerable literary ability a pretty talent for forgery. After four years at school in France he was articled to a conveyancer in chancery in New Inn, in whose office he had free access not only to a collection of legal documents of the reigns of Elizabeth and James I but also to a store of old paper and seals and to ink which could easily be given an antique appearance. Probably first as a practical joke, he concocted the scheme of presenting to his father, an admirer of the choicest in art and literature, a mortgage deed which 32 The book was so thoroughly satisfactory to the descendants of its subject, however, that they presented the author with a silver standish. Letter from Thomas Ruddiman Steuart, July 2, 1795, Add. Mss. 22,900, p. 270. 33 Monthly Review, loc. cit.

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purported to be an instrument signed by the hand of no other than Shakespeare himself. The effect was much better than he had anticipated. Not only was his father deceived and enraptured, but when the paper was submitted to various gentlemen of letters and the law, they also fell into transports of delight. The temptation was too great for a clever boy. Other documents inevitably followed; several of a legal nature which were easiest for him to imitate, then, as he grew bolder, a letter from Shakespeare to Ann Hathaway, one from the queen to the dramatist, his " Profession of Faith," a transcript of King Lear, some amended pages of Hamlet, and finally, with fatal daring, a play, Vortigern and Rowena. The pseudo-archaic spelling should have deceived no acute reader, and the explanation of the source of the treasure should have put all on guard, for young Ireland declared that the papers had been given to him by a certain rich man who asked only that his name be withheld. But his father, entranced, proceeded to arrange an exhibit in his house in Norfolk Street, The Strand, which opened in February, 1795, and continued for more than a year, and to take subscriptions at four guineas for the publication of the documents in facsimile. Not only was his doting parent deluded; twenty gentlemen, including the well-known pedagogue, Dr. Parr, and Henry Pye, the poet laureate, signed a statement solemnly attesting their belief in the genuineness of the discoveries; Joseph Warton declared the Profession of Faith finer than anything in the Anglican liturgy; the exuberant Boswell kissed the relics, kneeling; and Sheridan in the spring of 1796 undertook to produce the play at Drury Lane. The leading players were extremely sceptical. Mrs. Siddons refused a part, and John Philip Kemble, cast in the chief role, wished to open on All Fools' Day. But Sheridan persisted in spite of the hesitation of the company and of the fact that in March Edmund Malone, the noted Shakespearean editor, pronounced the manuscripts to be spurious from such evidence as

ANTIQUARY,

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handwriting, spelling, and the use of words." A ribald crowd assembled on the first night, April 2, Kemble burlesqued his awkward lines, and the play was a ridiculous failure. There could be no shadow of doubt that the creator of Hamlet would never have perpetrated Vortigern. Young Ireland finally confessed the hoax to an older friend and disappeared. His father was crushed beneath a weight of public odium and died in 1800, protesting to the end his innocence and his belief in the authenticity of the documents." The town was in an uproar. Shouts of derisive mirth arose from these who had not been deceived or who had had the good judgment or the good luck not to commit themselves publicly. And those who had piously worshipped were indignant that once again a clever imposter had succeeded in hoodwinking them. Macpherson, Chatterton, and now Ireland: there ought to be a condign punishment for the crime of imposing on the public, wrote Thomas Ruddiman Steuart to George Chalmers. The latter was exceeding wroth but for a different cause. He had been one of the intimate Ireland coterie. His name was on the list of subscribers to the fund and he had brought distinguished acquaintances to view the exhibit.38 Now he was a laughing-stock and he could not bear it quietly. He lashed out, not at the Irelands but at Malone who had proved him wrong. His book was anonymous,37 but its authorship seems from the start to have been an open secret and the two sequels were acknowledged. Beginning with the grudging admission in the Advertisement that they have been deceived, he nevertheless claims that those who accepted the Ireland forgeries as genuine had every right 34 Exposure of the Ireland Forgeries: an Inquiry of Certain Papers Attributed to Shakespeare.

into the

35 F a c t s t a k e n f r o m S i r S i d n e y L e e ' s article in t h e Dictionary Biography.

Authenticity of

National

36 T h e r e a r e f r i e n d l y l e t t e r s f r o m h i m t o S a m u e l I r e l a n d in A d d . M s s .

30,348. 37 Apology for the Believers hibited in Norfolk-Street.

in the S haks pear e-Papers.

which

were

ex-

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on their side. Malone himself had led the world to expect that other Shakespeareana would be found, and here they were complete with seals, antique ink and paper, signatures corresponding to known examples, and all the trappings. I f " the Believers " accepted them, the fault is his whom he venemously calls throughout " the Public Accuser." He ridicules Malone's arguments and declares that if he happens to be right it is merely " by accident," for he is wholly wrong " by system." The critic had scornfully dismissed the Believers as knowing nothing of Shakespeare, the theatre, or the development of their language. The barb festered in Chalmers's breast, and he seized the opportunity to prove that he at least knew a great deal. A sketch of the history of English drama from the Middle Ages down to the early seventeenth century, replete with reference to documents in the State Paper Office and the Lord Chancellor's office, is followed by a contentious chapter on Shakespeare himself in which he takes issue with Malone on every page. His most extraordinary assertion is that the sonnets which his adversary had listed as having been written to a man had actually been directed to Queen Elizabeth, " whom the greatest philologists and philosophers of her reign, addressed both as a male, and a female." There is a vast amount of curious information, but there is also a vast and revolting prejudice and conceit in this ill-tempered unwillingness to admit error in what was, after all, a minor matter. No one but George Chalmers, said the Monthly Review, which had been none too complimentary about either his Ruddiman or the Political Annals twelve years before, would ever have written more than six hundred pages on so trifling a subject. 38 The Morning Chronicle, whose political complexion was the opposite of Chalmers's, did not fail to call attention to the similarity in style between the Apology and the notorious Life of Thomas Pain which had appeared under a fictitious name, and proceeded, " It will be no great wonder, 38 Vol. XXII, N. S. (1/97), 356.

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therefore, if the whole gang of forgers should soon discover themselves." 39 A judicious and scholarly reviewer in the British Critic " objects to the personal acrimony with which the book is penned," and appeals to Malone to be temperate in his reply, for " controversies of a literary nature . . . might surely be carried on between gentlemen without any kind of personal hostility." Though he points out the errors in judgment with which the book abounds, he attributes to the author the virtues of diligence and erudition and begs him to believe that his comments are offered in friendliness and with great respect.40 Malone instinctively wished to rush into print in his own defense but was dissuaded by his distinguished friend, the Earl of Charlemont of the Royal Irish Academy, who advised him not to do Chalmers the honor of noticing his " petulance." " The scornful silence of his adversary and George Steevens's scoffing question, " W h a t can he know of Shakespeare?" infuriating enough to Chalmers's sensitive vanity, might possibly have been passed over, but there now appeared an anonymous poem, entitled The Pursuits of Literature, paying its satirical compliments to a number of well-known men of the day not omitting the author of the Apology: See on the critics in his pride of place, Laborious Chalmers drops his leaden mace. The epithets were cunningly chosen, and the effect upon their subject was explosive. Having publicly in the press over his own signature charged Thomas J. Mathias, like himself a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Society of Antiquaries, and a holder of a clerkship in the queen's treasury, with the authorship of the lampoon and accused him of the " Jacobinical practices " which have " for 39 Chalmers preserved the cuttings, which are in Add. Mss. 22,goo, pp. 274 ff. and 319 fF. 40 Vol. I X (May, 1797), 512 ff. 41 Historical Manuscripts Commission, Manuscripts and Correspondence of James, First Earl of Charlemont, I I , 310.

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years undermined the Constitution in Church and State, by libelling the King's Ministers, and insulting the Supporters of His Majesty's Government," 42 Chalmers again grasped his pen to prove them all wrong. 43 " The meddler Mathias " will feel the weight of the leaden mace before he is done; here are proofs that he is the author of the Pursuits of Literature, proofs of his Impertinence, Malignity, Jacobinism, Ignorance, Nonsense, Inability to write Poetry, proofs that he cannot write at all. Insisting that he is not defending " the suppositious papers " which he has previously avowed to be spurious, he again attacks Malone's reasoning and declares that the latter has not replied because he knows that his position is untenable. He goes over the whole ground once more, clinging to his theories, adding little, but contradicting whenever he can the assertions of his adversaries and belittling their achievements. Here were, as the British Critic points out, 654 pages added to 628, and to what purpose? " Another ponderous volume on these miserable and exploded papers! The public shrinks appalled at the monstrous and disproportionate birth." The hitherto friendly reviewer recalls his careful attempt to indicate the mistakes of the first volume while remaining on good terms with the author, but his well-meant effort has been met with " unreasonable anger." He delivers a merited and stinging rebuke: We thought, in this and other instances, that liberal men might differ, especially on questions of mere curiosity, without enmity. Such a man Mr. Chalmers is not, at least in criticism. In accounts, he is probably more candid; as every man is least jealous of that quality which is the least likely to be disputed. That he is a valuable man the public knows, and we have not the slightest desire to 42 Chalmers to " Mr. Herriot," Mar. 15, 1798, asking publication of an enclosed paragraph in the Sun and the True Briton; copy in Add. Mss. 22,900, p. 386. Chalmers, though violent, was not mistaken; Mathias did write the satires, which were pretty generally condemned. See article " Mathias " in the Dictionary of National Biography. 43 Supplemental

Apology

for the Believers

in the Shakspeare

Papers.

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dispute; but that he is a wretched conjecturer about poets, and no judge of poetry, he has proved by the very process for which he quotes Johnson in his Dedication, " by writing himself down . . . " " His dogmatism is beyond all example." 4* A number of attacks upon Chalmers, serious and satirical, appearing originally in the hostile Morning Chronicle, were collected and published pseudonymously by George Hardinge with the title Chalmeriana.4S Rhymes addressed to the Knight of the Leaden Mace and to Leaden George poke fun at the length and dullness of his books, at his ponderous style, at his Scotticisms. A long letter signed " Antenor possibly written by Mathias himself, takes him harshly to task for his arrogance and passion and the offensiveness of his attacks on Malone, Steevens, and Mathias, and plainly states an uncomplimentary opinion of his literary talents. The Monthly Review is contemptuous. While admitting the author's industry and accuracy in detail to be " useful and distinguishing characters of a controversial writer," it justly comments on his lack of taste and deplores the continuance of " this idle controversy," which is wasting paper " which should be destined to more useful purposes." *" Chalmers would not be hushed. He sent copies of his childish and ill-mannered outburst to numbers of people, to friends and critics in Scotland as well as England, to his correspondents in the remote Bahamas, to eminent members of His Majesty's government, most of whom replied with polite but non-committal thanks. But neither jeers nor cold silence could intimidate him; he clung to his course, and a third volume appeared, entitled An Appendix to the Supplemented Apology for the Believers in the Suppositious Shakspeare-Papers. 44 Vol. X V (Feb., 1800), 1 2 4 » . 45 David Laing refers to this compilation as " this most infamous and cruel attack on one of the most worthy of men." Note in Lowndes, Bibliographical Manual. 46 Vol. X X X I , N. S. (1800), 186, and X X X I I , 332-333.

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Notwithstanding the title, however, Chalmers had abandoned the old quarrel for a still older one, the authorship of the Junius letters. His choice was Hugh Macaulay Boyd, and his arguments are remarkably unconvincing. He had decided that the writer was an Irishman, young, well-educated, clever, who was not " a great person," but who had access to sources of information and who " liked to fish in troubled waters." Boyd was all of these. His hand and style in other writings are, according to Chalmers, strikingly like those of Junius, and there is " the same anarchical principle." In addition, there is the accusation of his own wife which Boyd never denied. Dealing briefly with the evidence supporting the charges against other men who have been suspected, Chalmers discards it all. Ergo, the culprit must have been his candidate for the dishonor. No reviewer took him seriously. The Monthly Review dismisses him as " our Supplemento-Critico-Biographico-Appendico-Apologetical Author," and the more urbane but quite as caustic British Critic observes that although Boyd undoubtedly copied Junius in style and argument, that is no more cause for suspecting him to have been the writer of the very able letters than is Chalmers's patent imitation of Johnson justification for ascribing to him the great doctor's immortal works.47 Lord Macartney, to whom Chalmers had sent a copy of the proof of the book, took the trouble to write in detail his reasons for not accepting the conclusions, though " great industry, research, ingenuity, and critical sagacity are displayed in this treatise." After having been " shut up on a small packet with Mr. Boyd on a four months' passage to India " during which he " had frequent opportunities of sounding his depth and of studying and knowing him well," his lordship was sure that though Boyd admired Junius and had committed passages to memory, he was totally incapable of composing the letters.44 47 Monthly Review, X X X I V , N. S. (1800), 128; British Critic, X V I (July, 1800), 16 ff. 48 This copy with marginal notes and summary by Lord Macartney is in the British Museum.

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Chalmers, however, had made up his mind and was not to be moved then or later. In 1 8 1 7 when the controversy had been revived, and again in 1819, he made the same charges on the same flimsy, but to him incontrovertible, evidence and with the same negligible influence.4* But though George Chalmers's reputation as a literary critic might seem doomed to eternal blight by this series of egregious errors, there were those who regarded his erudition with admiration. A new issue of Steevens's edition of the plays of Shakespeare in twenty-one volumes, prepared by Isaac Reed, was brought out in 1803, " with the corrections and illustrations of various commentators." Together with notes by Johnson, Pope, Warburton, and his adversaries, Steevens and Malone, are included Chalmers's " Farther Account of the Rise and Progress of the English Stage," and his Addenda to the same, reprinted from the Apology and the Supplemental Apology; and his chronology of the plays, which differed from Malone's, is referred to respectfully. In spite of his lapses of judgment and manners, he was not then and cannot now be entirely disregarded as a Shakespearean scholar. Students still find useful his store of details, diligently and carefully amassed, though his presentation is distasteful and his conclusions untenable.5* Meantime, the main stream of his research flowed on. In 1800 Cadell and Davies brought out his edition of the works of Allan Ramsay, author of the Gentle Shepherd, in two volumes, with a brief life of the poet. It was still sufficiently valuable fifty years later as to justify A. Fullerton and Company in publishing a new edition with no important alterations in the text.51 They proposed, however, to make certain changes in the punctuation, which they described as " peculiar." It was indeed. He had a growing and finally uncontrollable passion 49 The Author of Junius Ascertained, 1817; new edition, 1819. 50 Reference to his contribution to the knowledge of their subject is made by the following modern Shakespearean scholars: Sir Edmund K. Chambers, Sir Sidney Lee, Harley Granville-Baker, William Witherle Lawrence, J. Churton Collins, and Samuel A. Tannenbaum. 51 It appeared in 1851 in three volumes.

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for commas, which he scattered with a lavish hand and without discernible rhyme or reason. Nothing would cure him, neither the ridicule of foes nor affectionate counsel. Gilbert Buchanan had ventured gently to criticize the Apology in this regard. T h i s friend of his Maryland days was an L L . D . of Cambridge, but Chalmers did not alter his ways. His relations with the publishing house of Constable in Edinburgh remained on an extremely cordial basis for many years. The first letters of Archibald Constable, dated in the spring of 1804, refer to the Poetical Works of Sir David Lyndsay as all but ready for the press, urge the issuance of a prospectus of Caledonia before the next number of the Edinburgh Review, and suggest as a project for the near future a life of Queen Mary, while Alexander Hunter, an associate of the firm, calls for articles for the Scots Magazine, a publication of the house. 52 F o r a man who was also head of the staff of the Office for Trade and a colonial agent this would seem to be an ambitious program, and it was not surprising that the Lyndsay was delayed for two years, the first volume of Caledonia for three, while the Life of Mary, Queen of Scots did not appear until 1818, and Caledonia was never completed. Here may be an explanation of Lord Bathurst's feeling that the services of the chief clerk to the Committee for Trade were not of sufficient value to justify maintaining the position. The Poetical Works of Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount, a poet and diplomat at the court of the father of M a r y Stuart, gave him an opportunity to pay his compliments in passing to the harbingers of the Reformation and to touch upon certain controversial matters relating to the early inhabitants of Scotland and their language which he promised would be dealt with more fully in his forthcoming Caledonia,53 52 These letters are in Add. Mss. 22,901. 53 Stenhouse reported that the Lyndsay was selling " dully " in Edinburgh, It was " too dear " and " too severe on former editors." H i s own opinion w a s "that the Devil and Davy Lyndsay never matched you." Add. Mss. 22,901, P· 343·

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The great project was discussed with Professor Andrew Brown of the University of Edinburgh as early as 1 7 9 5 , " and at that date the preparations for the writing had been going on for some years. The amassing of the material was enormously costly; large bills are noted in letters from his agents, William Anderson, Dr. Stenhouse, and others, and one wonders how Chalmers was able to finance it at that period. The plan as announced called for four volumes: I, a general history of Scotland; I I , a dictionary of places, chorographical and philological; I I I and I V , the local history of every shire in Scotland. A s actually realized it had undergone some changes. Volume I was a history in four books; I, the Roman period, 80-446; I I , the Pictish period, 446-843; I I I , the Scottish period, 843-1097; and I V , the Scoto-Saxon period, 1097-1306, with a " Supplemental View " to 1806. Volumes I I and I I I comprised histories of fourteen shires, the seven south-east and the seven southwest. The advertisement of the third volume, which did not appear until 1824, stated that the fourth, dealing with the northern counties, was well in hand and estimated that two years should see the fulfillment of the monumental task. But he was eighty-one and two years were not vouchsafed to him. The first large quarto volume was published by Cadell in London and Constable in Edinburgh in 1807, the second in 1 8 1 0 . The preface, though opening with an expression of humble deprecation ( " I presume to lay before the Public a work, which has been the agreeable amusement of many eveni n g s " ) , continued in the strain of self-glorification which the reader has learned to dread: " Few histories can be found, wherein there are so many charters called for, so many records avouched, so many facts ascertained, and so many documents quoted." A s the Scots Magazine suggested, this was no doubt true, but it would have been in better taste to have left it for some one else to say. It must be acknowledged that George Chalmers, in spite of 54 Historical Manuscripts Commission, Laing Manuscripts,

II, 583.

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OF GEORGE

CHALMERS

his learning, was not a thoroughly competent judge of the authenticity of a document. He had been badly fooled by the Irelands and, together with a great many other students, he was taken in by another clever forgery. Charles Bertram had fabricated a manuscript on Roman Britain which he put forward as the work of a fourteenth century monk, a suppositious Richard of Westminster, and Chalmers based his description of Scotland in Roman times on the iters of " the Westminister monk, to whom every British antiquary is so greatly indebted for his interesting researches." 55 Moreover, he had no doubt whatever of the historicity of the chronology of Genesis: where " the luminous touch of Moses " has demonstrated what is truth, all other theories are disproved by any divergence from it.5" And in conformity with the scholarship of his generation he accepted the identity of language as incontrovertible proof of descent from a common stock.57 As had unfortunately become habitual with him, any, living or dead, whose opinions differed from his were thereby convicted of imbecility if not of downright dishonesty. " The inaccuracies and prejudices of Sir John Skene and Sir James Balfour render them unworthy of trust." Buchanan " was very capable of deliberate falsehood." " Robertson and Hume are supposed to have approached almost to the perfection of historic composition: And they had both attained it, if the one had had more knowledge of the affairs of Scotland, and the other had had more research into the annals of Britain." Of Robertson he had earlier remarked venomously: " We may, however, see how studious the King's historiographer is to 55 Vol. I, 126 and 132. Articles on Chalmers and Bertram in the Dictionary 0} National Biography. 56 " One of the latest and ablest inquirers about the origin of the Goths is Gibbon. A s he does not admit the Mosaic account of the dispersion, and the subsequent migrations of mankind, he knows not how to trace the dubious descent of the Gothic people." Vol. I, 11, r. 57 " . . . people speaking the same language must necessarily be descended from a common stock." Vol. I, 12, x.

ANTIQUARY,

EDITOR,

AND

AUTHOR

20ß

display his egregious want of knowledge of the Scottish constitution.58 Instances such as these of spite and malevolence, and the dogmatic assertion of the complete truth of his own statements, would not be likely to escape the attention of the reviewers. " The petulance and blind presumption and arrogance of Chalmers " are contrasted by the Annual Register with " the dispassionate, moderate and sensible manner " of his antagonist, Dr. John Jamieson, in his treatment of " the eternal Pictish question." The Quarterly Review is repelled by " his supreme contempt of all who may presume to differ or to doubt," and remarks that " it is truly diverting to observe his astonishment at the celebrity of Dr. Robertson." Even the friendly Scots Magazine deplores " the peculiar exaltation" with which he celebrates his triumph over a rival, and indicates its regret that he has not perceived that to proclaim one's own merits quite so frankly is " proscribed by the fastidiousness of modern refinement." His manner of writing, which Buckle later declared to be " absolutely afflicting," was no more pleasing to a discriminating taste among his contemporaries. It was compounded, according to the Quarterly Review, " out of the dregs of Johnson and Gibbon," and his mimicry of them, the Annual Register declared, was " carried to the full length of caricature." The Quarterly thought him " no more capable of comprehending the difference between good and bad writing than a man born blind is able to distinguish colors." A bad ear and the poor literary judgment which selects pompous phrases and delights in " what is called fine writing " have produced a book whose style must be condemned. But for the gigantic industry and erudition of the author no one could fail to have the deepest respect. " His patient research, laborious induction, clear and accurate reasoning," " his unglozing integrity, his rugged and undeviating veracity, and his resolute pursuit of facts and probabilities " won the Quarterly's 58 Vol. I, 734. 826, 885, 847.

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CHALMERS

admiration. The Scots Magazine knew of no individual " who [possessed] stronger claims to the gratitude of the Scottish nation than Mr. Chalmers," and on February 24, 1807, he was made an honorary member of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.5» Notwithstanding its faults of manner and matter Caledonia still remained at the end of the century sufficiently useful and authoritative to. justify a handsome new edition in eight volumes published under the auspices of the New Club of Paisley. In addition to the contents of the three volumes brought out during the lifetime of the author, here divided into six, there is printed the material which Chalmers left in manuscript, descriptions of ten counties north of the Forth and a sketch of the progress of Scotland down to 1 8 2 1 . The introduction states that the historical portion was not changed, but parish notes were brought up to date, the spelling of place-names in some places modernized, and, necessarily, the work throughout repunctuated. Perhaps as a result of the attention newly directed to its author and the consequent possibility of profits both for him and the publisher, that hardy perennial, The Estimate of the Comparative Strength, reappeared in 1 8 1 0 in a sixth edition, and in Edinburgh in 1 8 1 2 under a slightly different title. Chapters 1 to 1 3 were unchanged from the edition of 1794, but considerable material was added to bring the discussion up to date. The most noticeable change in Chalmers's social and political thinking which appears in these later versions of the book first published in 1 7 8 2 is the indication that a doubt has arisen in his mind as to the wisdom of " the agricultural amelioration " about which he was enthusiastic a generation earlier. " More skill, more money, more efficient work " are employed 59 Archaeologia Scotica, III, App. II, 19; reference supplied by the courtesy of Mr. A. J. H. Edwards, secretary of the society. Reviews referred to are in Annual Register, X L I X (1807), 998 ff.; Quarterly Review, I V (Nov., 1810), 342 ff.; Scots Magazine, L X X (1808), 273 ff. and 756ff.; L X X I (1809), 119 ff.; L X X I I (1810), 757 ff. and 8 9 7 « .

ANTIQUARY,

EDITOR,

AND

AUTHOR

205

upon the land, which produces more in bad seasons than fifty years before in good. But there is a calamitous effect as well, the depopulation of the shires. One looks in vain, of course, for any touch of Cobbett's sympathy with the unfortunate people: it is a bad system because it is increasing the number of idle and vicious who are a charge upon the community. It may have been the disturbed condition of the country districts quite as much as persistent reading and reflection upon the impregnable principles of A d a m Smith which led Chalmers to conclude that the corn laws were at the best useless and at the worst downright harmful in their effect. A f t e r prolonged consideration of the corn accounts, printed by order of parliament in 1800, the corn laws appeared to him " like continued attempts to regulate the seasons," which, good or bad, " have been the efficient causes of plenty, or scarcity, from the epoch of the exportation bounty to the present time." It was now his opinion that " the growers of corn [might] be entirely trusted with their own interests," and that " they [had] no very valid right to claim the exclusive supply of the domestic market, which they [were] unable to fill with sufficient quantities, and . . . unwilling to fill at adequate prices." 80 He retained his conviction that only by industry and thrift can a man or a nation prosper, and his high confidence in England's capacity to triumph in the long war and emerge with enhanced power and wealth. In November, 1815, he produced a brief pamphlet entitled The State of the United Kingdom at the Peace of Paris, in which he showed by figures " the prodigious augmentation " of the foreign trade and shipping under the protection of the British fleet. The Comparative Views of the State of Great Britain and Ireland enlarged on this theme in 1817, though he was disquieted by " the idle and improvident habits of the lower orders," and argued for a reform of the poor laws which, he declared, were demoralizing the poor " by 60 Estimate

331. 361, 372-

of the

Comparative

Strength,

edition of

1810, pp. 313, 318,

2O6

THE

PUBLIC

LIFE

OF

GEORGE

CHALMERS

inculcating a belief that they have a right to relief, however improvident they may have been." A criticism of the report of the bullion committee of the House of Commons, written in 1810, appeared in a third edition in 1816. Long and fearfully ponderous it seemed to a reviewer in the Quarterly Review, and it seems no less so to the modern reader. Yet three editions would indicate that, in spite of the immoderate tone of the author's disagreement with all those who ventured to hold opinions at variance with his own, his were of sufficient weight to gain a wide audience among his contemporaries. The Opinions of Eminent Lawyers on Various Points of English Jurisprudence, first published in 1814, remains to this day extremely useful. As its title shows, it is a collection of opinions delivered to the Board of Trade which Chalmers's researches had brought to light. A preface of some fifty pages contains a sketch of the history of early committees of council and of the Board of Trade, whose work he considers to have been of great value, and whose suppression in 1782, for which he chiefly blames Shelburne, a serious mistake. He takes occasion in this introduction to repeat his oft-stated belief in " the settled purpose of the revolted colonies to acquire direct independence," and in the final section once more to dispute with Reeves the question of the status in English law of the citizens of the United States. It is, of course, not this preposterous and outworn argument which gives value to the book, but the authentic statements of the law-officers of the crown on important matters, many of which were here made available for the first time. In 1 8 1 2 had appeared a curious pamphlet which on the surface would appear to be his but which there is good reason to believe was not actually the work of the chief clerk of the Office for Trade. The prime minister, Spencer Perceval, was assassinated in the lobby of the House of Commons by one John Bellingham, whose mind was deranged by misfortunes which he attributed to the neglect of his interests by the government.

ANTIQUARY,

EDITOR,

AND

AUTHOR

20J

Shortly a f t e r the tragedy there was published An Appeal to the Generosity of the British Nation in a Statement of Facts on Behalf of the Afflicted Widow and Unoffending Offspring of the Unfortunate Mr. Bellingham over the name of " George Chalmers Esq." A f t e r expressing sympathy for the plight of the convicted man, whose life up to that point had been one of " exemplary fortitude, forbearance, and integrity," and suggesting a public subscription f o r the innocent family who were now destitute, the writer advises the friends of the late minister " to confine their eulogies on the object of their idolatry to his private virtues, and to observe a most profound silence whenever the honour of the Country, and the rights of the people are mentioned." He accuses Perceval of responsibility for the massacre of the Danes at Copenhagen and for the sacrifice of British lives at Walcheren, and includes George Rose, vice-president of the Committee for Trade, among those " who, shielded by office, make little scruple to outrage the feelings of men less fortunate than themselves." In spite of the signature and of the acceptance of the pamphlet as Chalmers's by the writer of his obituary in the Gentleman's Magazine, the basis for doubt is strong. One might be convinced simply by the internal inconsistency between an attack on Perceval as " having a strong personal interest in prolonging the war " because his brother held a war-time sinecure, and Chalmers's well-known patriotic enthusiasm, hatred of the French, and belief in England's ability to weather the storm. But there is in existence as well an irate letter from one who signed himself " the true George Chalmers, author of the Appeal to the Generosity of the British Nation." The gentleman of the name who lived at 3, James Street, Buckingham Gate, had evidently protested publicly that the pamphlet was " a gross libel " upon him. A f t e r accusing him of " the impertinent egotism of supposing himself to be the only George Chalmers in the world," the writer of the letter recalled " a string of libellous falsehoods entituled the life of T o m Paine " published twenty years before. " T h e Reverend Mr. O l d i s , '

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CHALMERS

its reputed author, " had as little concern in that time-serving pamphlet as your correspondent from Buckingham-Gate had in my appeal to the generosity of the British nation." 91 Though this epistle would seem to dispose of the unlikely possibility that the government servant would be so unwise as to assail the policy and motives of His Majesty's ministers over his own signature, there is no evading his responsibility for the eccentricities of the tracts in defense of his clients in the West Indies which have already been analyzed. His Bahama correspondents warned him that certain statements of high legal authorities which he had included in his Opinions of Eminent Lawyers weakened their case, but Chalmers cast precedent and consistency to the winds. Legal and constitutional principles to the contrary notwithstanding, the criterion for colonial administration is to be expediency. This is the view for which he had reviled Edmund Burke forty years before, the weak and easy course which in mid-eighteenth century cabinets he had castigated as " imbecilic." With the exception of the Comparative Views, published the following year, it is the last of his writings which has any bearing upon public questions. But his literary studies continued. His controversy with Malone had not been forgotten, and in 1 8 1 5 he disputed, in an unpublished brochure, the latter's dating of The Tempest. Churchyard's Chips Concerning Scotland, which appeared in both London and Edinburgh in 1 8 1 7 , gave him an opportunity in his brief life of this sixteenth century poet furiously to beat that ancient and very dead horse, the monstrous wickedness of those men who had conspired against their innocent queen. And this was but a prelude to a longer and more ambitious defense of his heroine which appeared in the following year. John Whitaker, the historian of the city of Manchester, a 61 This letter is in the New York Public Library, pasted on the inner cover of the copy of the second edition of the The Life of Thomas Pain to which it refers, and may be the one mentioned by Sabin, No. 11763. It is headed " Near Pastow, June 14th, 1812," and is addressed to " Mr. John Lambert, No. 143 Strand, London."

ANTIQUARY,

EDITOR,

AND

AUTHOR

20g

fellow-member of the Society of Antiquaries, and a fellowworshipper at Mary's shrine, had been busy for years collecting materials f o r what he intended should be the definitive exculpation of the queen. H e had received assistance from Chalmers, to whom Mrs. Whitaker sent the manuscript on the death of her husband in 1808. Though Chalmers rewrote the book, greatly enlarging it, he felt no inclination to alter its general tenor in which he heartily concurred." Mary is still the pathetic victim of an infamous plot, and all her foes are false, corrupt, abominably vile. Bothwell raped his queen and compelled her to marry him. Buchanan " had no religion or morals," was " an ingrate, by principle, and a falsifier by habit." The famous Casket Letters were forged by Maitland, " the ablest and corruptest minister in B r i t a i n " next to Cecil, who, under Elizabeth's orders and " with gross corruption," persuaded Murray and his associates to swear to their genuineness. A s for the queen of England, Like a fiend, she tempted and betrayed; like a fury, she reproached, and tormented, the miscreants of her delusion and treachery. Like another Hecate, she thrust them forward into rebellion, and then deceived them, for the gratification of her envy, her hate, her strong desire of double dealing. Mary's only fault arose from her efforts to free herself from her " indefensible," " unjustifiable," and " odious " imprisonment—under such circumstances no fault at all. This effusion of Chalmers, published at the age of seventyfive, violates most of the canons of history and literature. E v i dence unfavorable to his thesis he either belittles or rejects entirely; the aim of his search for documents, in the opinion of the Monthly Review, was not to establish the truth but to support his contention. T h e malignity of his charges against the Scottish reformers is " rendered perfectly inoperative by its absurdity." And " the absurd redundance of his punctuation 62 The Life of Mary, Queen of Scots,

2 vols.

2IO

THE

PUBLIC

LIFE

OF

GEORGE

renders his meaning scarcely intelligible."

CHALMERS

Nevertheless, this

83

book like the others cannot be ignored. H e had a s usual consulted original sources of i n f o r m a t i o n and had included many interesting and curious quotations. V o l u m e I I contains " subsidiary memoirs " of F r a n c i s I I , D a r n l e y , Bothwell, M u r r a y , and Maitland, convenient summaries w h i c h are still valuable. A d v a n c i n g age did not slow his pen, though it may have increased his bitterness and dulled his perceptions. T h e resumption of the Junius controversy brought, as has been noted, a statement by C h a l m e r s that he w a s still of the unshaken convicition that the author of

the letters w a s H u g h

Macaulay

B o y d . T w o brief papers were presented, one to the Society of A n t i q u a r i e s in 1 8 1 9 , " and one in 1824 to the n e w l y - f o r m e d Bannatyne Club, of which S i r W a l t e r Scott w a s president, " by their F r i e n d and Associate, G e o r g e C h a l m e r s . " Remains

of

Some

of

the Scottish

Kings

65

The

Poetic

appeared in

1824,

including brief sketches of the lives o f the monarchs

from

James I to Charles I and comments on " these E l e g a n t Relicks of Poetical K i n g s . " A spirited t h o u g h anonymous defense of the unfortunate Stuart queen and exposure of the spuriousness of some love letters recently attributed to her by D r . H u g h Campbell was, appropriately enough, his final offering. 8 6 63 Vol. X C , N. S. ( 1 8 1 9 ) , 1 1 4 « . 64 Obseri'ations upon the Spuriousness in his " Titles of Honour." 65 Writings

of Robert

Hcnryson,

66 A Detection of the Love Letters Work to Mary, Queen of Scots.

of a Document,

published by Seiden

etc. Lately

Attributed

in Hugh

Campbell's

CHAPTER

VI

CONCLUSION GEORGE CHALMERS kept his vigorous health until the very end of his life. It has been seen that he resolutely refused to heed all hints that he resign his post in the Office for Trade, and that he took an active part in the efforts of the West India agents to combat the agitation of the Anti-Slavery Society in the mid-twenties. At the age of eighty-one he was at work upon a number of ambitious literary projects. He looked forward to the speedy completion of the last volume of Caledonia and had a history of Scottish printing well under way. 1 He had in mind a life of the poet Thomson 2 and had talked of a history of the reign of David I. But the citadel, though staunch, was not impregnable. His final illness must have been of very brief duration. He signed the office accounts for the quarter ending April 5, 1825, had the imprest deposited in Drummond's Bank, and in the ensuing weeks authorized the payment of various small sums for which the usual careful record was kept.3 A writer in the Sun tells of having spent some hours with him only a few days before his death, " and never found him in better spirits, or more likely for a long time, notwithstanding his advanced age, to spare his friends the regret of losing so valuable a member of society." 4 He died at his home in James Street on May 3 1 , 1825. 5 Though born into the Church of Scotland, Chalmers had become, as has been shown, a violent opponent of the party of the Scottish Reformation, and his outspoken sympathy with the 1 Manuscript in the National Library of Scotland, 639 pp., described by Rev. W. J. Couper, loc. cit. 2 He owned a small mahogany table which had belonged to Thomson and which was offered for sale with his library. Evans' catalogue, No. 868. 3 Β. T. 3: 18, p. 440; Β. T. 5: 34, pp. 1 and 247. 4 Quoted in the obituary in Gentleman's Magazine, loc. cit. 5 The Times, June 2, 1825.

211

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OF

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CHALMERS

Catholic cause of that era had not escaped the attention of his critics.® Whatever his inner convictions may have been, all his financial obligations to his parish of St. Margaret's Westminster were scrupulously performed, and he was buried in the churchyard on June 6. The grounds about the church have since been levelled, and there is no way of ascertaining the location of his grave. 7 He was described as being " tall, stout, and manly in person," with a remarkable resemblance to his countryman, Henry Dundas, Lord Melville. The face of the middle-aged man whom Henry Edridge painted in 1808 with snowy stock and ruffles is handsome and distinguished, with highly intelligent eyes and a rather petulant mouth. This portrait, a small water-color, hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, and an engraving made from it is given an honorable place on the staircase of the Society of Antiquaries. 8 It was his great misfortune to outlive all the friends of his youth, but his nephew and collaborator was a son to him. Curiously, he, a lawyer, left no will, and it was necessary for James Chalmers to apply for permission to administer the estate. Leave was granted on October 27, 1825, the estimate of the value of the property for which security was given being £7,000. The younger Chalmers continued to live at the house in James Street, arranging and docketing his uncle's papers many of which are endorsed in his neat hand. When he, too, died a bachelor and intestate in the spring of 1841," his sisters and their children decided to sell the library 6 Quarterly Review, IV (1810), 346; Monthly 121. See also, Rev. W . J. Couper, loc. cit.

Review,

XC, N. S. (1819),

7 Information from the parish clerk. Note of interment in Parish Register, Burials (1823-26), p. 201. 8 Constable wrote in 1812 urging him to come to Scotland to sit to Geddes, but though the complacent note appears on the back of the letter, " the most rising Scots artist," there is no evidence that he made the journey. Add. Mss. 22,902, p. 96. 9 Records of administration at Somerset H o u s e : St. Albans, 1825, Administration, Middlesex, October; Prerogative Calendars, 1841, Middlesex, May.

CONCLUSION

213

and realize the substantial sum which the vast array of books and documents would bring. Arrangements were entered into with the booksellers, Messrs. Evans of 92, Pall Mall, who prepared to dispose of the collection. A catalogue was made and the sale was held in three parts, on Monday, September 27, 1841, and eight following days; Monday, March 7, 1842, and five following days; and Monday, November 10, and seven following days. It brought, in the twenty-three days, a total sum of £6,190 ι is. The dispersal of this remarkable collection made a considerable stir among bibliophiles. Evans advertised it as " the Library of a Gentleman," and whoever held the copy of the catalogue now owned by the New Y o r k Public Library wrote on the fly-leaf, " a noble and choice collection full of splendid specialities [ i t c ] . " The Times remarked that the marginal notes which their owner had " with patient laboriousness " made on almost every book and paper " contributed in no small degree to increase the interest felt regarding the library of a man who had been so long before the literary world." 10 The manuscripts included hundreds of letters to Chalmers on all sorts of subjects, drafts and copies of his replies, cuttings from newspapers, his notes and copies of official papers, and, it must be acknowledged, a good many documents which seem to be the originals themselves and which one would expect to find only in the government repositories. 11 Many of the items were sold to other booksellers, who in turn disposed of them to purchasers in England and America.

Under any circumstanccs a summary of the career of a man who lived eighty-two years would be difficult to write. George Chalmers's eight decades began in rural Scotland before " the forty-five." They covered the imperial triumph of England over 10 Sept. 30, 1841. 11 See comment by P r o f e s s o r C h a r l e s Historical Review, Jan., 1905, p. 330.

M. A n d r e w s ,

in the

American

214

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OF

GEORGE

CHALMERS

all her rivals and her swift dethronement f r o m that dizzy pinnacle to the depths of humiliation at the hands of her own children, in which collapse his own y o u t h f u l fortunes were involved. They included the twenty-year-long struggle with the ancient enemy, during which the nation again passed through the waters of bitterness to emerge only a f t e r long agony. It was the age of that metamorphosis of production which wrought a greater change in men's habits of life and of thought than any war or political revolution. Chalmers had watched all these tremendous events sometimes with rage in his heart and gall on his tongue but never with despair. H e believed that the power was there to withstand any strain, to repair the damage, and to come out of any trial strong and invincible. H e was incurably hopeful for his country. H i s services to the Committee f o r Trade, at first highly valued by his superiors, were later to be less fully appreciated. But the mass of his careful reports is impressive, and the meticulous exactness of his accounts was maintained to the end. H i s constituents in the Bahamas trusted implicitly in his earnest care f o r their interests and in his undeviating attachment to their political principles and economic institutions. H i s literary output was immense in its bulk and range. H e was indefatigable in his researches and prodigiously productive. Painstaking and accurate in preparation, he went directly to the source for his information, and one may confidently trust and make use of the facts which he set forth. A historian whose method was scientific and whose books are still valuable f o r their data, an economist with a genuine g i f t for the organization and interpretation of statistics, a lover and careful editor of the literature of his people—these are his claims to consideration by later generations. But infinite capacity for taking pains does not constitute greatness. T h o u g h George Chalmers possessed that capacity in the highest degree, he had also conspicuous faults of mind and character which temper one's appreciation of his unquestionably admirable qualities. Dogmatism and obstinacy distinguished

CONCLUSION

215

him, consistency and reliability of judgment did not. H e was vain and he was vindictive. Though he was frequently proved to have been in error, he was never willing to acknowledge his glaring mistakes. H e imputed the lowest motives to his adversaries, and the unfairness and ferocity of his attacks upon them arouse indignation more than a century after his death. These are not the marks of scholarship of the highest order, nor of a noble and magnanimous spirit.

BIBLIOGRAPHY I. PRINTED W O R K S

OF GEORGE

CHALMERS

relating to the Late Order of the Two Banks established 1. Considerations at Edinburgh; by which they hrn'c recalled one-fourth of the CashAccompts. Edinburgh, 1762, 15 pp. A n o n . 2. An Answer from the Electors of Bristol to the Letter of Edmund Esq. on the Affairs of America. London, 1777, 90 pp. Anon.

Burke,

3. Second Thoughts: or Observations upon Lord Abingdon's Thoughts on the Letter of Edmund Burke, Esq. to the Sheriffs of Bristol, by the Author of the Answer to Mr. Burke's Letter. London, 1777, 74 pp. Anon. 4. Political Annals of the present United Colonies from their Settlement to the Peace of 1763; Compiled chiefly from Records and authorised often by the Insertion of State-Papers. Book I (to 1688), London, 1780, 695 pp.; book II (1688 to 1696), in Collections of the Neiv York Historical Society, 1868, pp. 1-176. 5. An Introduction to the History of the Revolt of the Colonies: Giving, from the State-Papers, a Comprehensive View of their Conduct, from the Successive Settlement of each, to their Declaration of Independence, and of the Policy of Britain during er 'cry Reign. V o l . I ( t o the end of the reign of George I ) , printed in 1782 but suppressed. In 1845 a n edition was prepared by Jared Sparks from one of the f e w extant copies, with the addition of material dealing with the reign of George I I printed f r o m a manuscript secured at the sale of Chalmers's l i b r a r y ; Boston, 2 vols. 6. An Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Britain during the Present and Four Preceding Reigns, and of the Losses of her Trade from every war since the Revolution, to which is added an Essay on Population by the Lord Chief Justice Hale. London, 1782, 197 pp. Second edition, 1786, 250 pp. T h i r d edition, with a dedication to D r . James Currie, 1794, cxliv, 289 pp. F o u r t h edition, including Gregory K i n g ' s State of England, 1802, x , 449 pp. F i f t h edition, 1804, x x i v , 440 pp. S i x t h edition, 1810, x x i i , 443 pp.; published in Edinburgh under the title, An Historical View of the Domestic Economy of Great Britain, and Ireland, from the Earliest to the Present Times: with a Comparative Estimate of their Efficient Strength, arising from their Populosity, and Agriculture, their Manufactures, and Trade, in nrry Age. 1812, x x v , 496 pp. 7. The Propriety of allowing a Qualified cally. London, 1782, 88 pp. Anon. 8. The Beauties of Fox, North the Passing of the Quebec Time, -with a copious Index Spectamur agendo. London, 216

Export

of Wool

discussed

histori-

and Burke, Selected from their Speeches from Act, in the Year 1774, down to the Present to the Whole, and an Address to the Public. 1784, 92 pp. Anon.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

217

9. The Deformities of Fox and Burke, Faithfully Selected from their Speeches. Together with Authentic Copies of the Addresses Presented to the King's Most Excellent Majesty, on the Rejection of the East India Bill, introduced by Mr. Fox, atui the Dismission of the late Administration from His Majesty's Councils. London, 1784, 68 pp. Anon. 10. Opinions on Interesting Subjects of Public Lau· and Commercial Policy arising from American Independence. London, 1784, 195 pp.; second edition, 1785. 11. The Life of Daniel Defoe. London, 178s, 24 pp. Anon. Prefixed to an edition of The History of the Union between England and Scotland and acknowledged, 1786; expanded and annexed to an edition of Robinson Crusoe, 1790, 84 pp. 12. A Short View of the Proposals lately made for the Final Adjustment of the Commercial System between Great Britain and Ireland. London, 1785, 27 pp. Anon. 13. The Arrangements with Ireland Considered. London, 1785, 86 pp. Anon. 14. An Answer to the Reply to the Supposed Treasury Pamphlet. London, 1785, 88 pp. Anon. 15. Opposition Politics Exemplified. London, 1786, 63 pp. Anon. 16. Historical Tracts: by Sir John Davies, Attorney General and Speaker of the House of Commons in Ireland; to which is prefixed a new Life of the Author from Authentic Documents. Dublin, 1787, x x x v i i i , 313 pp. Anon. 17. Preface to Debates in Parliament by Samuel Johnson, LL.D., issued as a supplement to the Works of Samuel Johnson. London, 1787. Anon. 18. A Collection of Treaties between Great Britain and Other Powers. London, 1790, 2 vols. 19. The Life of Thomas Pain, the Author of Rights of Men, with a Defense of his Writings, by Francis Oldys, A.M., of the University of Pennsylvania. London, 1791, 128 pp. Ten editions were printed in London between 1791 and 1793; editions were also brought out in Philadelphia, Boston, and Dublin, (Sabin, No. 57168). 20. The Life of Thomas Ruddiman, A.M., the Keeper, for almost Fifty Years, of the Library belonging to the Faculty of Advocates at Edinburgh: to which are subjoined new Anecdotes of Buchanan. London and Edinburgh, 1794, 467 pp. 21. Parliamentary Portraits: or Characters of the British Senate, containing the Political History, with Biographical Sketches, of the Leading Members of the Lords and Commons, to which is prefixed a Review of the Present Administration, also a Reference to the Names, and a copious Index. Dedicated to the Right Hon. Henry Addington, Speaker of the House of Commons. By the Author of the Beauties of Fox, North and Burke, first published in 1783. London, 1795, 2 vols. Anon. 22. Useful Suggestions favourable to the Comfort of the Labouring People, and to Deccnt Housekeepers, explaining how a Small Income may be made to go far in a Family, so as to occasion a Considerable Saz'ing in

218

BIBLIOGRAPHY

the Article of Bread, a Circumstance of Great Importance to be known at the present Juncture. London and Edinburgh, 1795, 17 pp. Anon. 23. Facts and Observations relative to the Coinage and Circulation of Counterfeit or Base Money,· with Suggestions for Remedying the Evil. London, 1795, 18 pp. Anon. 24. A Vindication of the Privilege of the People, in Respect to the Constitutional Right of Free Discussion: with a Retrospect to Various Preceedings relative to Violations of that Right. London, 1796, 80 pp. Anon. 25. An Apology for the Believers in the Shakspeare-Papcrs, which were Exhibited in Norfolk-Street. London, 1797, 628 pp. Anon. 26. Supplemental Apology for the Believers in the Shakspcare-Papers, being a Reply to Mr. Μ alone's Answer, which was early announced but never published; with a Dedication to George Steevens, F.R.S., S.A., and a Postscript to T. J. Mathias, F.R.S., S.A., the Author of the Pursuits of Literature. London, 1799, 654 pp. 27. Tracts on the Corn Trade and Corn-Laws by Charles Smith, Esq. London, date of first edition not ascertained; second edition, 1808; fourth edition, to which is noiv added a Supplement of Interesting Pieces on the Same Subject, with some Account of the Life of Mr. Smith, 1804. Anon. 28. An Appendix to the Supplemental Apology for the Believers in the Suppositioits Shakspeare-Papers: being the Documents for the Opinion that Hugh McAulay Boyd wrote Junius's Letters. London, 1800, 147 pp. 29. The Poems of Allan Ramsay. A New Edition, corrected and enlarged, with a Glossary. To which are prefixed a Life of the Author, from Authentic Documents, and Remarks on his Poems from a Large View of their Merits. London, 1800, 2 vols. Reprinted with some additions and corrections, London, Edinburgh, Dublin, 1851, 3 vols. 30. Natural and Political Observations and Conclusions upon the State and Condition of England, 1696, by Gregory King, Esq., Lancaster Herald, to which is prefixed a Life of the Author. London, 1804, xxvii, 42 pp. 31. The Poetical Works of Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount, Lion King at Arms under James V. A New Edition, corrected and enlarged, zvith a Life of the Author, Prefatory Dissertations, and an Appropriate Glossary. London and Edinburgh, 1806, 3 vols. 32. Caledonia: or an Account, Historical and Topographic, from the Most Ancient to the Present Time. London and Edinburgh, vol. I, 1807, vol. II, 1810, vol. I l l , 1824. A n edition containing some supplementary material from manuscripts in the Advocates' Library (now the National Library of Scotland) was published in Paisley under the auspices of the New N e w Club, 1887-1902, 8 vols. 33. Thoughts on the Present Crisis of our Domestic Lawyer. London, 1807, 59 pp. Anon.

Affairs,

by

Another

34. Considerations on Commerce, Bullion and Coin, Circulation and Exchanges: with a Vieiv to our Present Circumstances. London, 1810. Third edition, To which is prefixed The State of the United Kingdom at the Peace of Paris, 1815, with Sir George Shuckburgh-Evelyn's Table

BIBLIOGRAPHY of the Deprecation Years,

of Money

and Prices

2ig

of Necessaries

of Life

for 800

English

Juris-

1816.

35. Opinions

of

prudence. 36. Another

Eminent

Lawyers

on

Various

Points

of

London, 1814, 2 vols. Account

the Story

of the Incidents,

of Shakspeare's

it Ascertained:

evincing

with

Drama.

the Poet's

from

Tempest the

which

were

Original

the Title,

derived;

and a Part

and the True

Connexion

of

Era of

of the Royal

Family

L o n d o n , f o r t y copies printed but not published,

1815, 82 pp. 37. State

of the United-Kingdom

Respecting their

the

Trade;

38. Proofs

People;

their Shipping;

and Demonstrations

Negroes

is unfounded

Resolves spectable

Energies;

and their Finances.

and uncalled

Registry:

the

Examination,

prefixed

by

1815:

Agriculture;

London, 1816, 16 pp. Registry

The

Colonial

and Detail of the

Whole

Chalmers,

of

the Reports

on Oath,

of the Case.

George

20,

their

on the Principle

as to the Facts

an Introduction

November

for. Comprehending,

Assembly

with

Persons,

of Paris,

Domestic

how much the Projected

of the Bahama

Proposed

at the Peace their

and

of

the

most

re-

arranged,

F.R.S.,

S.A.

and

London,

1816, xiii, 55 pp. 39. The

Representation

of the House

Rt.

Hon.

Earl

ing

their

Proceedings,

pendix

Bathurst,

during

of Documents,

of Assembly

the Colonial their

by George

of the Bahamas

Secretary

of State,

etc.,

1816-17,

with

last Session,

Chalmers,

F.R.S.,

S.A.

to

the

respectan

Ap-

L o n d o n , printed

but not sold, 1817. 40. Comparative before

Views

the War;

41. Churchyard's Pieces

of the State

as it is, since

Chips

Relative

concerning

Ornamented

his Writing,

and Signature.

Author

of

Amounting

A

Edition,

New Life

and Prospects.

ologia, 45. The 46. The

their

Arms,

of

his

and a Life

and a Fac-Simile

a Concatenation

eiwcing

London, that

Boyd

of

of of

Circum-

1817,

115

wrote

pp.

Junius,

drawn with

from

the State-Papers

Ten Plates

of Medals,

of a Document,

published

with Portraits,

Friend

by

L o n d o n , 1821, 12 p p . ; reprinted f r o m

of some Esq.,

Writings

and of the

x i v , 20 pp.

Collection

Seiden Archae-

XXVII.

Chalmers,

and Presented by

from

of Scots,

illustrated

of Honour."

Folloiving

Makyne,

a

Notices,

Demonstration.

a Postscript,

Queen

Remains

by George

was,

L o n d o n , 1818, 2 v o l s .

X I X , No.

Poetic

as it

L o n d o n and E d i n b u r g h , 1817, 2 1 1 pp.

upon the Spuriousness

in his " Titles

being

Historical

Churchyard's

Moral

Memoirs,

44. Observations

and Ireland:

L o n d o n , 1817, 96 pp.

18191

of Mary,

six Subsidiary

with

Ascertained,

to with

and not Francis, 43. The

with

Junius

stances,

Britain

Scotland:

to that Country;

the Author: 42. The

of Great the Peace.

of the Scottish

of Robert

Testament

to the and

Kings,

now

first

collected

etc. L o n d o n , 1824, 208 pp.

President Associate,

Henryson,

of Cresseid, and Members George

consisting

of Robene

are Respectfully of

Chalmers.

and

Dedicated

the Bannatyne Edinburgh,

Club, 1824,

220

BIBLIOGRAPHY

47. A Detection of the Love-Letters lately Attributed in Hugh Campbell's Work to Mary, Queen of Scots, wherein his Plagiarisms are Proved and his Fictions Fixed. London, 1825, 47 pp. Anon. The Catalogue of the Very Curious, Valuable and Extensive Library of the late George Chalmers, Esq., F.R.S., S.A., prepared by Messrs. Evans for the sale in 1841 and 1842, mentions among his Miscellaneous Works, Present Politics of Ireland, and Laffan's Political Arithmetic, both dated 1786. Lowndes's Bibliographical Manual of English Literature contains a list of the works of Chalmers, which, it is stated by Aeneas Mackay in his article in the Dictionary of National Biography, was prepared by David L a i n g ; it includes A Letter on a disputed Point of Geneology in the Stewart Family, and An Account of the Kings, their Coronation: of the Parliament, its Constitution; of the King's Authority, and of the Officers of State, neither dated. Chalmers's contributions to the proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries may be found in the volumes of Archacologia. II.

M A N U S C R I P T LETTERS A N D P A P E R S OF GEORGE

CHALMERS

These comprise letters written by and to George Chalmers on all sorts of subjects, as well as an immense and varied assortment of materials collected by him in connection with his official and literary work. T h e Evans catalogue is not very clear in its description of the 5,772 titles and " lots " of books and manuscripts offered for sale; Thomas Thorpe, a bookseller who made extensive purchases, issued a supplement to his catalogue for 1843 which is somewhat more satisfactory. Many of the items, distributed among a great number of buyers, a r e to all intents and purposes lost, but fortunately certain important collections were secured, either at the time of the sale or later, by public institutions, or by individuals who deposited them in repositories where they are available for the use of students. I. I N T H E BRITISH

MUSEUM

F o u r volumes of correspondence, Add. Mss. 22,900-22,903; most of the contents consists of letters written to Chalmers, but there are also occasional drafts of his replies on important matters. Many letters from Chalmers to the first and second Earls of Liverpool a r e to be found in the numerous volumes of the Liverpool Papers, Add. Mss. 38,190-38,489. T h e r e are some Chalmers manuscripts among the P a p e r s on Coinage, Bullion, and Paper Currency, Add. Mss. 18,901, 18,902. P a p e r s Relating to the W e s t Indies, America, Africa, and the Canaries, Papers of the Board of T r a d e and Plantations, 1710-1781, and a volume of Maps of parts of America, are listed as " from the library of George Chalmers," Add. Mss. 14,034-14,036. Parochial Statistics of Scotland, Materials for a Monastic History, and A r m s of the Scottish Nobility, were among his collections of Scottish documents, Add. Mss. 15,746, 15,747. 26,694, 26,695.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

221

Four letters of Chalmers relating to the Ireland papers are in Add. Mss. 30,348· Additional scattered letters may be found by reference to the catalogues. 2. I N T H E UNIVERSITY OF LONDON LIBRARY, SOUTH

KENSINGTON

Several manuscripts owned by Chalmers and a number of autograph letters, including sixteen written to Sir Joseph Banks between 1788 and 1804. 3. I N T H E NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND, EDINBURGH

Materials for a history of Scottish poetry and printing, described by Rev. W . J. Couper in Records of the Glasgow Bibliographical Society, V I I , No. V I , 62-89. The partially written M S . of the fourth volume of Caledonia, together with materials for its completion. Included in the edition published at Paisley, 1887-1902. 4- I N T H E UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURCH LIBRARY

Chalmers papers among the Laing Manuscripts, noted in Reports Historical Manuscripts Commission, 72, 1 and 2, vol. II.

of

the

5. I N T H E LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

This collection was made chiefly by Peter Force, and the documents are described in the Handbook of the Manuscripts in the Library of Congress. A short account of the English plantations in America, 1688, 1 vol. Ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the British colonies, 1 vol. Papers relating to Newfoundland, 1775-1786, 1 vol. Papers relating to Quebec, 1781-1801, 1 vol. Observations upon the oral and written evidence adduced during the investigation respecting the administration of justice in the Province of Quebec, Nov. 3, 1787, ι vol. Papers regarding trade conditions in various countries, miscellaneous dates, ι vol. Papers relating to New Hampshire, 1651-1774, 2 vols.; contain original census returns for the years, 1773-74. Contemporary copy of the address left with H i s Excellency Governor T r y o n the 3rd of July 1775 by the Worshipful Whitehead Hicks, Esq., M a y o r of the City of N e w Y o r k , with the Governor's answer, 1 vol. Papers relating to Scotland, 1687, 1734, 1818-20, 3 vols. Papers relating to Rio Janeiro, 1794, 1 vol.; contains a large amount of material concerning Loyalist claims. Papers relating to the W e s t Indies, 1762-1824, 1 vol.; contains transcripts of records of the activities of the W e s t India agents in opposition to the Abolition Society, 1821-24. Papers Papers Papers Papers

relating relating relating relating

to the Bahamas, 1785-1807, 1 vol. and separate pages. to the Barbadoes, 1663-1762, 1 vol. to the Crooked Islands, 1795-1805, 1 vol. to Jamaica, 1698-1784, 1 vol.

222

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Vernon-Wager Papers, 17 vols.; contain correspondence of Admirals Edward Vernon and Sir Charles Wager, together with a large amount of miscellaneous material relating to the West Indies, Bahamas, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia in the eighteenth century. 6 . I N T H E HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY

This collection was made by Jared Sparks and is described by Justin Winsor in the Calendar of Sparks Manuscripts. Besides the items listed below, which belonged to Chalmers, there are copies of several documents owned by other libraries. Thomas Ainslie's Journal of the Siege of Quebec, 1775, 1 vol. Journal of the Siege of Quebec, 1775, and a Narrative of Facts relative to American Affairs, 1768, 1 vol. Journal of the Board of Trade, Dec. 23, 1766, to July 29, 1767, 1 vol.; believed by Justin Winsor to be the original office copy. American Papers, 1493-1814, 2 vols.; contain considerable information regarding Loyalist activity in London. Miscellaneous Papers relating chiefly to the American Revolution, 1 vol.; contains additional Loyalist material. Notes and Extracts relating to Maryland and Virginia, 1727-61, 1 vol. Papers relating to Massachusetts and Plymouth, 1 vol.; relates chiefly to the American Revolution. Papers relating to New England, 1643-1786, 4 vols. Papers relating to New Jersey, 1683-1775, 1 vol. 7 . I N T H E J O H N CARTER BROWN LIBRARY, BROWN U N I V E R S I T Y

Letter to Lord Mansfield, dated September 18, 1780, 156 pp. Papers relating to the Bahama Islands, 1728-1818, 5 vols.; like the similar volume in the Library of Congress, they contain letters received by George Chalmers as agent of the Bahamas from individuals and from the committee of correspondence. 8 . I N T H E LIBRARY OK T H E N E W

YORK

HISTORICAL

SOCIETY

Original manuscript of Political Annals, Book I I ; printed in the Collections of the society, 1868. Three autograph letters from George Chalmers to Rufus King, American minister to the Court of St. James, July 4 and 6, 1798, and May 2, 1803; copies of other letters in King's letter books. 9. I N T H E N E W YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

It may be well to point out and correct an erroneous statement recently made that " Chalmers' papers are preserved in the British Museum and there are transcripts in the New Y o r k Public Library." 1 Few if any of these documents are transcripts of those preserved in the British Museum. Like those in other libraries in England and the United States, they are part 1 Η. T . Manning, British Colonial Government after the American lution, p. 76, n. 4.

Revo-

BIBLIOGRAPHY

223

of his vast and now scattered collection of letters, newspapers cuttings, notes and copies made from state papers, and occasionally the originals themselves. The following five volumes were secured by George B a n c r o f t : Original manuscript of Introduction to the History of the Revolt, Papers relating to Carolina, 1662-1791, 2 vols. Papers relating to Georgia, 1730-98, 1 vol. Papers relating to Rhode Island, 1637-1785, 1 vol.

Book II.

The following twenty-one volumes were purchased from Thomas Thorpe by Colonel Thomas Aspinwall, for many years American consul in London, and from him by Samuel Lathan Barlow of N e w Y o r k City who disposed of them to the library. Various selections from these papers were published in 1871 by the Massachusetts Historical Society, under the direction of an editorial committee of which Colonel Aspinwall was chairman. Collections, vols. I X and X . Papers relating to Canada, 1692-1792, 1 vol.; contains a number of questions concerning the conduct of the American W a r sent by Chalmers to General Gage, together with the general's reply. Papers relating to Connecticut, 1639-1757, 3 vols.; contain copies and some originals of records of a land dispute with the Mohegan Indians in the 1730's. Papers relating to the Indians, 1750-75, 1 vol.; contains original letters of Sir William Johnson to Major-General Monckton and others. Papers relating to Maryland, 1619-1812, 2 vols. Papers relating to N e w Y o r k , 1608-1792, 4 vols.; contain some original letters to Monckton. Papers relating to N o v a Scotia, 1745-1817, 1 v o l . ; contains six letters of Governor Eden of Maryland, written from Annapolis and inserted here by mistake. Papers relating to Pennsylvania, 1620-1779, 2 vols. Papers relating to Philadelphia, 1760-89, 2 vols.; contain original letters to Monckton on the subject of the military operations of 1760 in the Ohio Valley, including the journal of Robert Rogers of the Rangers written during his march to the western posts. These volumes are described and the Rogers journal printed in the Bulletin of the New York Public Library, April 1933, pp. 261 ff. Papers relating to Virginia, 1606-1775, 4 vols.; contain various original documents concerned with Lord Dunmore. Papers relating to W e s t Florida, 1763-82, 1 vol. The library possesses, in addition to these volumes, a folder of miscellaneous papers, the most interesting of which is one dated M a y 5, 1802, dealing with emigration from the Scottish Highlands. T h e r e is, also, a small leather-bound pocket note-book, in which Chalmers evidently jotted down ideas and items for his writings as they came to his attention.

224

BIBLIOGRAPHY I I I . ARCHIVE

MATERIALS

A. M A R Y L A N D

I.

Unpublished

Land records are for the most part at the Land Office at Annapolis; the deed of sale of Chalmers's estate Fochabers is to be found at the county-seat of Worcester County, Snow Hill. Records of the provincial court, the court of chancery, and the commissary's court are at the Land Office. Baltimore County court records for the pre-revolutionary period are at the Baltimore City Courthouse; they are ill-preserved and fragmentary. A volume of photostats of the Proceedings of the Baltimore County Committee of Observation is to be seen at the Maryland Historical Society. 2.

Published

Archives of Maryland. Publication has been selective; the volumes most useful for the period of Chalmers's residence in the province are those containing the correspondence of Governor Horatio Sharpe and the proceedings of the Convention of Maryland. Laws of Maryland, A . C. Hanson, ed. Annapolis, 1787. Maryland Reports, being a Series of the Most Important Law Cases Argued and Determined in the Provincial Court and Court of Appeals of the then Province of Maryland, from the year 1JOO down to the American Revolution, T. Harris and J. McHenry, eds. New Y o r k , 1809. Journals of the Continental Congress, W . C. Ford, ed. Washington, 1904-24, 34 vols. Letters of Members of the Continental Congress, E. C. Burnett, ed. Washington, 1921-36, 8 vols. B. LONDON

The following guides are helpful: C. M. Andrews, Guide to the Materials for American History to 1783 in the Public Record Office of Great Britain. Washington, 1912-14, 2 vols. C. M. Andrews and F. G. Davenport, Guide to the Manuscript Materials for the History of the United States to 1783 in the British Museum, in the Minor London Archives, and in the Libraries of Oxford and Cambridge. Washington, 1908. H. C. Bell, D. W . Parker and others, Guide to the British IVest India Archive Materials in London and in the Islands for the History of the United States. Washington, 1926. C. O. Paullin and F. L. Paxson, Guide to the Materials in the London Archives for the History of the United since 1783. Washington, 1914. I.. J. Ragatz, Guide for the Study of British Caribbean History. Washington, 1932.

BIBLIOGRAPHY l. In the British Parliamentary

Papers:

225

Museum

a complete but inadequately indexed collection

of

the printed papers. In addition to the L i v e r p o o l P a p e r s , a l r e a d y noted, of which g r e a t use w a s made, some documents b e a r i n g upon the events dealt with in this b o o k w e r e found a m o n g the A u c k l a n d P a p e r s , A d d . Mss. 34,412-34,471, a n d the H u s k i s s o n P a p e r s , A d d . M s s . 38,734-38,770. 2. In the Public

Record

Office

a. M a t e r i a l s f o r the study of the services and losses of the Loyalists. Audit

Office

Papers:

A . O . 12, bound volumes. A . O . 13, bundles of o r i g i n a l

documents.

T r a n s c r i p t s of m a n y of these d o c u m e n t s h a v e been made f o r the

New

Y o r k P u b l i c L i b r a r y . T h e note-book of Daniel P a r k e r C o k e , one of the commissioners of inquiry, has been edited f o r the R o x b u r g h e C l u b b y Η . E . E g e r t o n , under the title, The

Royal

Services

Oxford,

of

American

Loyalists,

Commission

on the Losses

and

evidence

the

1915. T h e

in

C a n a d i a n claims, t o g e t h e r w i t h a portion of that heard in London, h a s been printed by the B u r e a u of A r c h i v e s of the P r o v i n c e of O n t a r i o in its Sccond

Report,

1904, T o r o n t o , 1905.

b. M a t e r i a l s f o r the study of G e o r g e C h a l m e r s ' s career at the Office f o r T r a d e Board

of Trade

Papers:

Β . T . 1 : 1-336, i n - l e t t e r s ; f o r the C h a l m e r s period, vols. 1-212. Β. T . 3 : 1-28, o u t - l e t t e r s ; f o r the C h a l m e r s period, vols. 1-19. Β . T . 5 : 1-59, m i n u t e s ; f o r the C h a l m e r s period, vols. 1-33. Β . T . 6 : 1-284, " m i s c e l l a n e a " ; vols. 9-12, evidence on the slave trade c o l lected by the c o m m i t t e e in 1788; vols. 126-128, minutes of the mittee

on the

Coinage;

vols.

153-169, orders-in-council

Com-

referring

to

colonial l a w s ; vols. 194-213, m a t t e r r e l a t i n g to the licensing of neutral shipping during the w a r . Colonial C. O . 5 :

Office

Papers:

ι and 2, indexed a s " O r i g i n a l Correspondence of the B o a r d

of

T r a d e " . V o l . 2 c o v e r s the period 1777 to 1807 and contains the document entitled, " Distribution of the business f o r m e r l y transacted by the B o a r d of T r a d e . " C . O . 3 1 8 : ι and 2, also listed as " B o a r d of T r a d e O r i g i n a l Correspondence." M a n y papers w e r e prepared under the supervision of C h a l m e r s , and there a r e numerous notes in his h a n d w r i t i n g . Privy

Council

Papers:

P . C . 2 : 129 and f o l l o w i n g volumes, p r i v y council register. Treasury

Papers:

Τ . ι : 586, a bundle of unbound papers, containing various documents relati n g to the period b e t w e e n 1782 and 1786.

220

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Τ. 29: 54 and following volumes, minutes. T. 3 1 : 341 and following volumes, treasury accounts. c. Materials for the study of the Bahama agency Colonial

Office

Papers:

C. O. 2 3 : I-II, original correspondence, Board of Trade; 12-101, original correspondence, secretary of state, 1696-1837; for the Chalmers period, vols. 10 and 31-74. C. O. 24: ι-19, entry-books of despatches, commissions, instructions, etc., 1717-1834; for the Chalmers period, vols. 10-17. C. O. 25: 1-29 acts, 1729-1898; for the Chalmers period, vols.'8-18. C. O. 26: 1-43 sessional papers; for, the Chalmers period, vols. 13-20. C. O. 27: I-II, newspapers; 12-17, shipping returns, etc.; 18-68, statistics. Treasury

Papers:

T . 28: 2 and 3, patents of governors and other officers, and appropriations for the colonial establishments. The archive material at Nassau was reported by the Colonial Secretary's Office as being very fragmentary, and no effort was made to examine it. See Bell, Parker, et al., Guide, etc., pp. 329 ff. IV.

WRITINGS

OF C O N T E M P O R A R I E S

OF GEORGE

CHALMERS

Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, with a Life of the Author, Notes, and Illustrations by his Grandson. Boston, 1853, 10 vols. Journal and Correspondence of William, Lord Auckland. London, 1861, 2 vols. " Letters of Phineas Bond, British Consul at Philadelphia, to the Foreign Office, 1787, 1788, 1789", American Historical Association Report, 1896, pp· 513-659· J . Boswell, Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D., F. A . Pottle and C. H. Bennett, eds. New York, 1936. Idem, Life of Samuel Johnson, J . W. Croker, ed. London, 1848. 10 vols. Idem, Private Papers from Malahide Castle, G. Scott and F . J . Pottle, eds. Mt. Vernon, Ν. Y., 1928-34, 18 vols. Rev. J . Boucher, Reminiscences of an American Loyalist. Boston, 1925. Idem, Vietv of the Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution. London, 1797. H'orks of Edmund Burke. Boston, 1839, 9 vols. R. Champion, Considerations on the Present Situation of Great Britain and the United States of North America. London, 1784. D. Dulany, Considerations on the Propriety of Imposing Taxes on the British Colonies for the Purpose of Raising a Revenue by Act of Parliament. Annapolis, 1765; reprinted in the Maryland Historical Magazine, 1911 and 1912. J. Eardley-Wilmot, Historical View of the Commission for Enquiring into the Losses, Services and Claims of the American Loyalists. London, 1815.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

2 2"J

W . Eddis, Letters from America, Historical and Descriptive. London, 1792. B. Edwards, History, Ck>il and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies. London, 1793. A n edition published at Philadelphia in 1806 contains also A General Description of the Bahama Islands by Daniel McKinnan. Idem, Thoughts on the Late Proceedings of Government, Respecting the Trade of the West India Islands with the United States of North America. London, 1784. Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon, Esq., with Memoirs of his Life and Writings, composed by himself, illustrated from his Letters, with Occasional Notes and Narrative by John, Lord Sheffield. First edition, Basel, 1796, 7 vols.; edition used, Dublin, 1796, 3 vols. C. C. F. Greville, The Greville Memoirs: a Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, H e n r y Reeve, ed. London, 1874, 3 vols. T . W . Griffith, Annals of Baltimore. Baltimore, 1824. Idem, Sketches of the Early History of Maryland. Baltimore, 1821. G. Hardinge, Chalmeriana. London, 1800. Pseud. The Philosophical Works of Daind Ilumc. Boston and Edinburgh, 1854, 4 vols. T . Hutchinson, Diary and Letters. Boston, 1884, 2 vols. W . Knox, Extra Official State Papers. London, 1789, 2 vols. J. G. Lockhart, Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott. Edinburgh, 183738, 7 vols.; edition used, Edinburgh, 1902, 10 vols. J. Marryat, More Thoughts still on the State of the II'est India Colonies and the Proceedings of the African Institution. London, 1815. R. Price, Essay on the Population of England from the Resolution to the Present Time. London, 1780. London, 1783. J . Reeves, History of the Government of Newfoundland. Idem, Thoughts on the English Government. London, 1796. Anon. Idem, Tivo Tracts, showing, that Americans born before the Independence, are, by the Law of England, not Aliens. London, 1816. Anon. G. Rose, Proposed System of Trade with Ireland Explained. London, 1785. Janet Schaw, Journal of a Lady of Quality, E. W . and C. M. Andrews, eds. New Haven, 1934. Lord Sheffield, Observations on the Commerce of the American States with Europe and the West Indies. London, 1783. Idem, Observations on the Manufactures, Trade and Present State of Ireland. Dublin, 1785. Idem, Observations on the Objections made to the Export of Wool from Great Britain to Ireland. London, 1800. Idem, Observations on the Project for Abolishing the Slave Trade. London, 1790. J. Stephen, A Defence of the Bill for the Registration of Slaves, 7 V o Letters to William Wilberforce. London, 1816. J . Stevenson, An Address to Brian Edwards. London, 1784.

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T . P. Abernethy, Western Lands and the American Revolution. New York, 1937. R. G. Adams, Political Ideas of the American Revolution. Durham, N. C., 1922. P. J. Anderson, ed., Fasti Academiac Mariscallanae Aberdonensis. Aberdeen, 1889. Idem, ed., Officers and Graduates of the University and King's College, Aberdeen. Aberdeen, 1893. Idem, ed., Roll of Alumni in Arts of the University and King's College of Aberdeen, 1596-1860. Aberdeen, 1900. Idem, Studies in the History and Development of the Unii'ersity of Aberdeen. Aberdeen, 1906. T . S. Anderson, The Command of the Hoive Brothers. New York, 1936. C. M. Andrews, Colonial Self-Government. New York, 1904. A . E. Aspinwall, The British West Indies. London, 1913. History of Baltimore, Maryland from its Founding as a Town to the Current Year, 1229-1898, various authors. Baltimore, 1898. A . H. Basye, The Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations, commonly known as the Board of Trade, 1748-1782. New Haven, 1925. H. C. Bell, " British Commercial Policy in the West Indies, 1783-1793," English Historical Rez'ieiv, July, 1916, pp. 429 ff. S. F. Bemis, Jay's Treaty, a Study in Commerce and Diplomacy. New York, 1923. Idem, " Relations between the Vermont Separatists and Great Britain, 17891791," American Historical Review, April, 1916, pp. 547 ff. Sir W . Besant, London North of the Thames. London, 1911. C. T. Bond, The Court of Appeals of Maryland, A History. Baltimore, 1928. W . Bowden, " Influence of the Manufacturers on some of the early Policies of William Pitt," American Historical Review, July, 1924, pp. 655 ff. A.G. Bradley, Colonial Americans in Exile. New Y o r k , 1932. J. R. Brodhead, History of the State of Neiv York. New York, 1853, 2 vols. E. C. Burnett, " Observations of London Merchants on American Trade", American Historical Reznew, July, 1913, pp. 769 ff. Ε. B. Chancellor, The Eighteenth Century in Londonj London, 1920. D. M. Clark, British Opinion and the American Revolution. New Haven, 1930. M. D. Conway, The Life of Thomas Paine. New Y o r k , 1892, 2 vols. Rev. W . J. Couper, " George Chalmers' Historical Account of Printing in Scotland", Records of the Glasgow Bibliographical Society, V I I , No. VI, 62-89. R. Coupland, The American Revolution and the British Empire. London, 1930.

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Idem, The British Anti-Slavery Movement. London, 1933. Idem, Wilberforce, A Narrative. Oxford, 1923. Μ. H . Cox and P. Norman, eds. for the London County Council, Survey of London. 14 vols. Volumes dealing with the Parish of St. Margaret's Westminster, 1926, 1930, 1931. W. Cramond, ed., Records of Elgin. Aberdeen, 1903. Ο. M. Dickerson, American Colonial Government, 1696-1765. Cleveland, 1912. E. Donnan, ed., Documents Illustrative of the Slave Trade to America. Washington, 1930-32, 3 vols. H. J . Eckenrode, The Revolution in Virginia. Boston and New York. 1916. Η. E. Egerton, The Causes and Character of the American Revolution. Oxford, 1923. L. D. Einstein, Divided Loyalties, Americans in England during the War of Independence. Boston and New York, 1933. Sir G. V . Fiddes, The Dominions and Colonial Office. London, 1926. W. A . Foran, " John Marshall as a Historian," American Historical Review, Oct., 1937, pp. 51 ff. P. H. Giddens, " Land Polities and Administration in Colonial Maryland, 1 753- 1 769·" Maryland Historical Magazine, 1933. D. B. Goebel, " British Trade to the Spanish Colonies," American Historical Review, January, 1938, pp. 288 ff. C. P. Gould, The Land System in Maryland, 1720-1765. Baltimore, 1913. G. S. Graham, British Policy and Canada. London, 1930. Idem, " The Migrations of the Nantucket Whale Fishery," New England Quarterly, June, 1935, pp. 179 ffΕ. B. Greene, Provincial America, 1690-1740. New York, 1905. E. Halevy, A History of the English People, 1815-1830. New York, 1924. I. S. Harrell, Loyalism in Virginia. Philadelphia, 1926. F. J . Hinkhouse, Preliminaries of the American Revolution as seen in the English Press. New York, 1926. E. A . Jones, American Members of the Inns of Court. London, 1924. F. J . Klingberg, The Anti-Slai'ery Movement in England. N e w Haven, 1926. A. Lang, A History of Scotland. Edinburgh, 1907, 4 vols. W. Ε. H . Lecky, A History of England in the Eighteenth Century. London, 1887, 8 vols. A. L . Lingelbach, " The Inception of the British Board of Trade," American Historical Rcviciv, July, 1925, pp. 701 ff. Idem, " William Huskisson as President of the Board of Trade," American Historical Rei'iezv, July, 1938, pp. 759 ff. C. P. Lucas, Historical Geography of the British Colonies. Oxford, 18901 9 1 1 , 6 vols. J . V . L. McMalion, Historical View of the Government of Maryland from its Colonization to the Present Day. Baltimore, 1831. A. T . Mahan, Influence of Sea Poivcr upon the French Revolution and Empire. Boston, 1894, 2 vols.

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Η. Τ . Manning, British Colonial Government after the American Revolution, 1782-1820. New Haven, 1933. N. D. Mereness, Maryland as a Proprietary Province. New Y o r k , 1901. W . C. Mitchell, Business Cyclcs, the Problem and its Setting. New Y o r k , 1927. J. Morley, Burke. New Y o r k , 1879. W . P. Morrell, British Colonial Policy in the Age of Peel and Russell. Oxford, 1930. E. D. Neill, Terra Mariae. Philadelphia, 1867. L. M. Penson, The Colonial Agents of the British IVest Indies. London, 1924. W . W . Preston, History of Harford County, Maryland. Baltimore, 1901. R. Purviance, A Narrative of Events which occurred in Baltimore Town during the Revolutionary ll'ar. Baltimore, 1849. L. J. Ragatz, Fall of the Planter Class in the British Caribbean, 1763-1833. New York, 1928. E. S. Riley, The Ancient City. Annapolis, 1887. J. H. Rose, Life of IVilliam Pitt. London, 1911. Idem, Short Life of IVilliam Pitt. London, 1925. L. Sabine, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution. Boston, 1864, 2 vols. J. T . Scharf, The Chronicles of Baltimore. Baltimore, 1874. Idem, History of Baltimore, Baltimore City and County. Philadelphia, 1881. Idem, History of Maryland. Baltimore, 1879, 3 vols. Α . M. Schlesinger, Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution. New York, 1917. R. L. Schuyler, Parliament and the British Empire. New Y o r k , 1929. W . H. Siebert, " Dispersion of American Tories," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, September, 1914, pp. 185 ff. Idem, The Flight of the American Loyalists to the British Isles. Columbus, 1911. Idem, The Legacy of the American Resolution to the British I Vest Indies and the Bahamas. Columbus, 1913. J. S. Silver, The Provisional Government of Maryland, 1774-1777. Baltimore, 1895· A . L. Sioussat, Old Baltimore. New Y o r k , 1931. Sir H. L. Smith, The Board of Trade. London, 1928. W . Smythe, Lectures on Modern History. Boston, 1839; 3rd American edition, revised and corrected by Jared Sparks, 1849. B. C. Steiner, Life and Administration of Sir Robert Eden. Baltimore, 1898. Sir G. O. Trevelyan, George III and Charles Fox. London, 1912-14, 2 vols. C. H. Van Tyne, The Loyalists in the American Revolution. New York, 1902. J. Winsor, A Narrative and Critical History of America. Boston and New York, 1884-89, 8 vols. J. M. Wright, History of the Bahama Islands zcith a Special Study of the Abolition of Slavery in the Colony. Baltimore, 1905.

INDEX Aberdeen, University of, 13-16 Abolition Society, 97, 110 African Institution, 148, 149, 150,151, 154. 156 Annapolis: social conditions in, 1718; revolutionary activity in, 26, 32. 33 Anti-slavery Society, 170 Bahamas: settlement of Loyalists in, 124-25; controversies between governors and assembly of, 125, 128, 141-43, 155-69; free ports in, 13335, 138; economic difficulties of, 135-38, 175; employment of negro troops in, 144-47; opposition to abolition in, 144, 147; opposition to registry of slaves in, 149, 150, 154-55. 164, 167-70; opposition to emancipation in, 172-73 George Chalmers, agent of, see under Chalmers, George Baltimore: social conditions in, 2223; revolutionary activity in, 3134, 41 George Chalmers in, see under Chalmers, George Banks, Sir Joseph, 90, 91, 131, 136, 137, 179 Bathurst, Lord, 109, i n , 112, 121, 123, 159, 163, 164, 165, 169, 171, 172. 173. 176 Boucher, Rev. Jonathan, 17, 34, 37 Boswell, James, 13, 177, 178, 190, 192 Buchanan, Gilbert, 40, 43, 200 Burke, Edmund, 45, 66, 78, 183 Buxton, Thomas Fowell, 171 Cameron, Charles, 140, 141, 142, 143, 146, 148, 149, 154, 163, 165, 167 Canning, George, 172 Castlereagh, Lord, 142, 143, 146 Chalmers, George: baptism of, 13; education of, 13-16; emigration of, 17; purchase and sale of land by, 20-21; removal of, to Baltimore, 22; legal practice of, 23-25; political activity of, 31, 35, 36, 4°, 41, 42; return of, from America, 41-43; possible visit of, to Paris, 44-45; residences of, in London, 45, 177; activity of, in behalf of Loyal-

ists, 48, 51-53; applications of, for relief, 48-51; evidence of, before first Committee for Trade, 70; relations of, with Charles Jenkinson, first Earl of Liverpool, 74, 82, 90, 91, 107-9; appointment of, as chief clerk of Office for Trade, 83; duties of, 84, 86-91, 113-15; salary of, 108, 177; loss of influence of, 109-13, 116, 177; reprimand of, for misuse of office, 112-13, 165-66; agent for Bahamas, acts appointing, 126, 129, 132-33, 139, 150, 169, 176; salary of, in arrears, 129-30, 169; activity of, in behalf of constituents, 134, 135,136, 139· 150-52, 159, i / i , 176; comments on services of, 132, 130, 149, 163, 166, 176; death of, 117, 2 i i ; portrait of, 212; sale cf library of, 212 Literary activity o f : Considerations relating to the Late Order of the Two Banks, 16; Answer from the Electors of Bristol, 4546; Second Thoughts, φ-47; permission given to, to use state papers, 54; letter of, to Lord Mansfield, 55-56; Political Annals, 56-62, 152; Introduction to the History of the Revolt, 5662, 152; Estimate of the Comparative Strength, 63-65, 82, 204; tracts on the Irish trade arrangements, 66, 76-79; Beauties of Fox, North and Burke, 66, 183-84; Deformities of Fox and Burke, 66; Opinions on Interesting Subjects, 71-73; life of Defoe, 178; Opposition Politics Exemplified, 66; Historical Tracts of Sir John Davies, 179; preface to Johnson's Debates in Parliament, 178; Collection of Treaties, 180; Life of Thomas Pain, 181-82, 207-8; Life of Thomas Ruddiman, 189-91; Parliamentary Portraits, 18384; Useful Suggestions, 102,185 ; Facts and Obseri'ations relative to the Coinage, 185; Vindication of the Privilege of the People, 231

232

INDEX

185; Ireland forgeries, 191-93; Apology for the Believers, 19395; Supplemental Apology, 19597; Tracts on the Corn Trade, 184; Appendix to the Supplemental Apology, 197-99, 2 1 0 ; Chalmers as Shakespearean scholar, 194, 199; Poems of Alan Ramsay, 199; Poetical Works of Sir David Lyndsay, 200; Caledonia, 179-80, 201-4; Thoughts on the Present Crisis of our Domestic Affairs, 109, 188; Considerations on Commerce, 216; not a u t h o r of Appeal to the Generosity of the British Nation, 207-8; Opinions of Eminent Lawyers, 159, 206, 208; Another Account of the Incidents, 208; Proofs and Demonstrations, 1 5 1 - 5 2 ; Representation of the House of Assembly, 161 ; Churchyard's Chips, 208; Author of Junius Ascertained, 198-199, 2 1 0 ; Life of Mary, Queen of Scots, 209-10; contributions to the Society of Antiquaries and the Bannatyne Club, 210; Poetic Remains. 210; Detection of the Love-Letters, 210; plans for history of Scottish printing and lives of Thomson and David I, 2 1 1 ; membership of, in Royal Society, 176; in Society of Antiquaries, 176; in Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 204 Opinions of, on English political and constitutional questions: 21, 27, 47, 180-1, 183, 185-89, 204-6; on relation of colonies to mother country, 46, 56, 58, 59, 60, 63, 64, 72-73. 74. 93. 94-95. 101, 151-53, 162-63; on regulation of trade, 27, 59. 70. 71- 7 3. 74, 76-78, 94. 95, 104,106, 1 3 3 ; on abolition and emancipation, 99, 1 1 1 , 144-45, 146, 147, 151, 161, 171 C o m m e n t s on character o f : 41, 42-43. 87, 113, 115, 117, 140, 162, 176, 2 1 3 - 1 5 ; criticisms of writings of, 60-62, 65, 153-54, 190, 1 94-95, 196-9·', 198-99, 202, 2034. 209 Chalmers, James, 2, 177, 212 Chetwynd, Hon. Richard, 84, 85 Christie, James, 37-38, 40, 42, 50

Christie, Robert, 36, 42, 43, 50, 54 Committee for T r a d e : appointment of first committee, 69; report of, on trade with W e s t Indies, 7 3 ; report of, on trade with Ireland, 7 5 ; consideration by, of t r e a t y with France, 79-80; appointment of second committee, 80-1; conservative policies of, 92-95, 100, 102, 103-5; support of svstem of f r e e ports by, 96, 105-7; hearings by, on slave trade, 97; changing policies of, 109-11, 118-19; evolution of, 119-23 Chalmers, George, chief clerk to, see under Chalmers, George Cottrell, Sir Stephen, 84, 88, 96, 97, 111 Currie, Dr. James, 182 Dalrymple, Sir John, 48, 49, 53 Dowdeswell, William, 105, 132, 134, 137, 138 Dunmore, Lord, 103, 125-28, 135 Dundas, H e n r y ( L o r d Melville), 98, 212 Eddis, William. 18, 31, 33 Eden, Sir Robert, 18, 26, 27, 28, 36, 39, 40, 48 Eden, William ( L o r d A u c k l a n d ) , 40, 80, 109 Edmiston, Rev. William, 22, 25, 3435, 40, 42, 50 Elliott, Grey, 80, 84, 85 F a w k e n e r , William, 82, 84, 97, 114, 119 Forbes, John, 130-31 F r e e ports, 06, 105-7, 133-35, 138 Gibbon, E d w a r d , 68, 113, 202, 203 Grant, Maj.-Gen. Lewis, 167, 168, 169, 172, 173, 176 H a l k e t t , John, 138, 140 H o b a r t , Lord, 119, 138, 145, 146 Huskisson, William, 118, 122, 172, 175 Ireland forgeries, 191-98 Jenkinson, Charles ( B a r o n H a w k e s bury, first E a r l of L i v e r p o o l ) , 74, 80, 81, 89, 90, 98-99, 107, 1 1 9 Jenkinson, Robert (second E a r l of Liverpool), 98, 109, n o Johnson, Samuel, 15, 17, 178, 190-91, 198, 203

INDEX Knox, William, 54, 68 Lack, Edward John, 176 Lack, Thomas, 85, 87, 111, 112, 11718, 120 Love, Rev. David, 16, 19, 20, 43, 114, 178, 182 Loyalists: in Maryland, 34-38, 40, 42-43; compensation of, 47-52; activity of, in London, 48; settlement of, in Bahamas, 124-25 Macknight, Thomas, 43, 57 Malone, Edmund, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 208 Maryland: conditions in, 18-19; opposition to Stamp Act in, 2 1 ; opposition to Townshend duties in, 25-27; fee controversy in, 27-29, 162; sympathy with Boston in, 3033; Maryland Convention, 33, 38, 39 Munnings, William Vesey, 148, 158, 167, 173. 175 North, Lord, 29, 30, 75, 78, 79 Office for Trade: organization and personnel of, 84-86; expenses of, 86-89, 114-16; papers of. 90, 113 George Chalmers, chief clerk in, see Chalmers, George

233

Pitt, William, 69, 75. 79. 80. 97, 98, 184 Porter, John, 84, 85, 87, 111, 120 Portland, Duke of, 51, 136, 145 Reeves, John, 71, 85, 94, 97, 116-17, 122, 160, 185, 187 Robinson, Hon. Frederick John (Viscount Goderich, Earl of Ripon), 112, 118, i2i, 175 Scotsmen, in Maryland, 19, 20, 25 Scott, Sir Walter, 180, 210 Sharpe, Horatio, 19, 34, 43 Sheffield, Lord, 67-68, 76, 77 Smith, Adam, 27, 62, 64, 68, 70-71, 80, 93 Stenhouse, Dr. Alexander, 42, 43, 178, 180, 200, 201 Stephen, James, 148,153,157, 160,170 Stephen, James, Jr., 117,121, 148,165 Stewart, Anthony, 26, 33, 54 Tucker, Rev. Josiah, 46,62, 64, 77,93 West India trade, 69, 70, 71. 73, 9497, 103-7, 133-35 Wilberforce, William, 97, 98, 99, 110, 149. 154, 170, 183 Wylly, William, 128, 130, 153, 15559, 164, 167, 168

VITA GRACE AMELIA COCKROFT, daughter of the late William Henry and Amelia ( L a n g ) Cockroft, born December 22, 1893, in Almonte, Ontario, Canada; naturalized American citizen. Ph.B., Brown University, 1 9 1 4 ; A . M . , Clark University, 1923. Member of seminar conducted by Professor Robert L . Schuyler in British Imperial History at Columbia University. Member Department of History, Skidmore College, 1916-1922, 1927-.