Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

and freed the imprisoned Roberts. Belcher then asked the Assembly to curb
this "sort of open rebellion" against the Crown.
The rebels increasingly justified themselves on the squatter-and-Indian
grant theory, thus alienating the wealthier and more respectable Nicolls
patentees, who, after all, depended for their theoretical argument on earlier,
though less arbitrary, grants from the Crown. The great armed rebellion
reached its height in the autumn of 1748 and spread into the proprietary timberlands
of Pennsylvania. As one councillor of New Jersey exclaimed in
horror: "All laws are laughed at and disregarded, and they with force cut,
carry and transport timber in the face of the magistrates and defy them . . ."
Amos Roberts now headed a virtual people's government in competition
with the official one. He divided his domain into three wards, established
courts to settle disputes, and elected militia officers. The oligarchy asserted
that Roberts had also appointed assessors and collectors to obtain taxes, but
the rebels themselves indignantly denied this claim—apparently they thought
tax collecting a rather reprehensible act. The fervor and determination of the
radical-liberal revolutionaries performed the function of pushing the vacillating
Belcher and the Assembly into line. Headed by a leading rioter, Assemblyman
John Low, the Assembly voted overwhelmingly to do nothing to suppress
the rebels, and Belcher began to listen sympathetically to the arguments
of the rebel John Bainbridge. Belcher was also helped to his new position by
the threat of an Assembly leader that he would never receive a penny's salary
if he complained to the Crown against the rebels. The Council, stronghold of
the proprietary oligarchs, then itself petitioned the king, which petition
included a criticism of Belcher's actions.
The timorous opportunist Belcher, ever ready to bow to the winds of pressure,
now hastened to urge the Assembly to vote money to protect the jails,
and threatened that, should there be any further riots, he would call in
troops from another colony and set up a military dictatorship. The Assembly
kept its head, even in response to his presumptuous demand, and declared the
colony much too poor to afford more taxes to protect the jails. It blandly suggested
an extension of the amnesty offer to the rebels. Belcher's reaction was a
letter to the king, but very weakly done and not sent in collaboration with the
Council.
The British government, however, was coming into different hands, and by
spring 1749 was beginning to pursue a much more energetically imperialistic
policy toward the colonies. The Board of Trade was under new control; more
important, the minister of foreign affairs in charge of the colonies was now
no longer the Duke of Newcastle. Heading colonial policy as secretary of state
for the Southern Department, from 1724 to 1748, Newcastle had been charmingly
lax and had left the colonies more or less alone. But now Newcastle was
succeeded by an energetic imperialist, the Duke of Bedford, who scorned
Belcher and sided wholly with the feudal proprietors.
In this auspicious atmosphere for counterrevolution, Chief Justice Robert
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