TOWNSHEND ACTS

TOWNSHEND ACTS, four Parliamentary acts imposed on the American colonists (1767). They take their name from Charles Townshend, chancellor of the Exchequer and head of the British government at the time they were enacted.

The first law, the Suspending Act, suspended the New York assembly until it complied with the provisions of the Quartering Act of 1765, which required colonies to supply British troops with shelter and supplies. This law resulted from General Thomas Gage's decision to concentrate troops in central reserves in New York City, from which they might be dispatched as needed. This decision imposed an unforeseen financial burden on that colony, and the New York assembly refused to appropriate funds for additional quarters in New York City because they thought there was still ample room in the barracks at Albany.

The second act was the Revenue Act, which levied import duties on lead, paper, glass, and tea—all of which colonists could import legally only from Great Britain. This revenue was earmarked to support royal officials in the colonies, including judges and governors, who had relied previously on local assemblies for their salaries. Many colonists feared that this system would put these officials beyond all local control while increasing their dependence upon the British ministry for their positions and pay. Resistance to the Revenue Act took the form of agitation, nonimportation agreements, open evasion of the duties, and the promotion of American manufactures. This act marked the second time that the British government had regulated colonial commerce to raise revenue (the first was the Sugar Act of 1764). All other commercial laws had been intended to protect some industry within the empire. British leaders like Sir William Pitt and Edmund Burke assailed the Revenue Act as anticommercial. Instead of encouraging British industry, they argued that it discouraged English manufactures and encouraged competing industries in the colonies.

A board of customs commissioners, established by the third Townshend Act, assumed responsibility for collecting the new taxes. The board was stationed at Boston and retained complete control over all American customs. It was empowered to reorganize customs, regulate or close ports of entry, appoint customs officers, hire coastguard vessels and provide them with search warrants, and take other measures necessary to enforce the revenue laws. Townshend revenues and seizures of goods would pay for this new system. Enforcement officers met with resistance from many colonists, including those who seized the Liberty and burned the Gaspée. Such actions led the customs commissioners to ask for troops, so forces headed in September 1768 from New York to Boston, where they were quartered in the city. Friction between civilians and the soldiers resulted, and all but two regiments were withdrawn in 1769. One of these was involved in the Boston Massacre (1770), after which all troops were withdrawn.

Finally, the fourth Townshend Act repealed the inland duties on tea in England and permitted it to be exported to the colonies free of all British taxes. The uproar over the Townshend Acts subsided after Parliament repealed all duties except that on tea in 1770. The controversy reemerged a few years later, however, when protests over the Tea Act led to the Boston Tea Party in 1773.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

McCusker, John J., and Kenneth Morgan, eds. The Early Modern Atlantic Economy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Middlekauff, Robert. The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.

Nash, Gary B. The Urban Crucible: The Northern Seaports and the Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986.

ShelbyBalik

O. M.Dickerson

See alsoBilleting ; Boston Tea Party ; Colonial Assemblies ; Colonial Policy, British ; Gaspée, Burning of the ; Navigation Acts ; Parliament, British ; Quartering Act andvol. 9:The Pennsylvania Farmer's Remedy ; Townshend Revenue Act .