ABSTRACT
In 1764 this doctrine which took the subordination of the colonies to the needs of the mother country for granted was no longer acceptable to the colonies as their opposition to the Sugar Act showed. Prompted by a post-war depression they began to demand equality and recognition of their own interests. This they did in the established framework of mercantilism. The colonies were neither ready to develop completely new economic models nor did they confront the mother country with their own brand of mercantilism. Instead they recurred to those recent and more advanced mercantilist doctrines, which viewed different parts of the Empire as economic units with complementary functions. When the colonies sent their raw and staple products to the mother country, they thereby paid for the manufactured goods which they received in return. The northern colonies even went so far as to claim that it did not matter at all from where they procured the money to pay for British manufactures. They therefore demanded unhampered access to foreign markets, particularly the foreign West Indies and southern Europe. In their pamphlets the colonists cited exclusively those passages from mercantilist writers like Josiah Child, Malachy Postlethwayt, Josiah Tucker, William Wood - as well as Cato and Montesquieu where appropriate -, where this "natural relationship**7 between colonies and mother country was discussed. They neglected, of course, all other aspects of mercantilist thinking in which, by definition, the subordination of the colonies to the mother country was taken for granted. The colonies wanted recognition of their particular economic needs, and it was this they had in mind whenever they referred to the British Empire.8 "To represent them as an 'expensive appendage of the British Empire...' is certainly one of the greatest errors;.. . Every advantage accruing to the colonies by their connection with the mothercountry is amply - dearly - paid fo r . . . by the restrictions of their commerce**, wrote John Dickinson in 1765.9 He consequently defined the Navigation Acts as "intended to preserve an intercourse between the mother-country and her colonies, and thus to cultivate a mutual affection; to promote the interests of both by an exchange of their most
valuable productions for her manufactures, thereby to increase the shipping of both, and thus render them capable of affording aid to each other."" What the colonies claimed was membership in the Empire on an equal footing with the mother country, not a second-class membership. They did not want dramatic changes which would have endangered their remarkable growth. They expected recognition of their growing importance, and the British Empire was the frame of reference in which they voiced their demands. "Let it be demonstrated that the subjects of the British Empire in Europe and America are the same, that the hardships of the latter will ever recoil upon the former. In theory it is supposed that each is equally important to the other, that all partake of the adversity and depression of any. The theory is just and time will certainly establish i t . . ."u Daniel Dulany, who stated this in 1765, was already advancing to more broadly conceived political demands. The call for equality in the economic field, which was triggered off by the news of the Sugar Act, was but a foretaste of what the British government would be confronted with when it passed the Stanip Act and the Townshend Acts and thus brought to a test the question of the legal status of the colonies and of parliamentary sovereignty. Both these measures led the colonials to demand political equality within the Empire. In this debate the term "empire" was used as a rhetorical device which was to indicate that in spite of the new political theories proposed by the colonists they still considered themselves as part of the larger community, i. e. the British Empire.12 This is not the place to discuss in detail the development of the arguments used by the Americans, beginning with the denial of Parliament's right to lay internal duties to the final point where all legislation without the explicit consent of the colonies was considered illegal. It should be noted, however, that while Americans asserted their rights against parliamentary "encroachments", they were very vague about a positive description of what Parliament did have the right to do. From their point of view this was not even necessary. It was the firm belief of many Americans that they only opposed a novel, unheard-of exercise of power by the British Parliament. When Americans talked about the British Empire, they meant the status quo of legal, commercial, and other ties that existed between mother country and colonies. A passage from John Dickinson's Farmer's Letters which in 1768-69 motivated opposition as no other publication had done thus far, may illustrate the point: "He, who considers these provinces as states distinct from the British empire, has very slender notions of justice, or of their interests. We are but parts
of a whole; and therefore there must exist a power somewhere, to preside, and preserve the connection in due order. This power is lodged in the Parliament; and we are as much dependent on Great-Britain, as a perfectly free people can be on another."13
