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With this as his sole weapon, he sent Monroe to make a new treaty, demanding free commerce and the cessation of the impressment of seamen from American vessels in return for the continued non-enforcement of the Non-importation Act.
But the fiery Sons of Liberty refused to listen to any such compromise. They insisted on keeping the non-importation agreement until the duty on tea, as well as all other duties, should be done away with once and for all. So they determined to maintain it until the end, and they did maintain it well. Day by day the soldiers of King George III. and the citizens became greater enemies.
Undoubtedly Jefferson and his party had in mind the success of the non-importation agreements against the Stamp Act and the Townshend duties, but what was then the voluntary action of a great majority was now a burden imposed by one part of the country upon another. The people of New York and New England simply would not obey the Act.
Some were too radical; some not radical enough; and none were so acceptable that it was not easy to form combinations for their defeat. All were agreed that the non-importation act must be got rid of; but the difficulty was to find a way to be rid of it so that the nation should at once maintain its dignity, assert its rights, and escape a war.
Barlow represented that, should the revocation be extended only to the United States, Great Britain would not for that alone repeal her orders. In that case France would lose nothing of the advantage of her present position, while everything would be lost should the United States be compelled to repeal her non-importation laws against England.
Openly disbelieving in war, avowedly determined not to fight, he approached a nation struggling for life with the greatest military power on earth, and called upon it to come to terms for business reasons. His first effort was made by causing Congress to pass a Non-importation Act, excluding certain British goods, which was not to go into effect until the end of 1806.
When further testimony demonstrated that Virginia, South Carolina, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland were equally guilty of forming non-importation associations, they were added to the Restraining Act list.
Virginia met the act with rigid non-compliance, reasoned arguments, "friendly persuasion", non-importation of British goods, and finally, nullification of the act altogether. Virginians of all ranks united against the Stamp Act as they were not to unite against any British action thereafter. No one defended the act.
On May 16 the House of Burgesses adopted resolutions reasserting its exclusive right to levy taxes in Virginia and condemning recent parliamentary proposals to transport colonists accused of treason to England for trial. George Washington introduced a non-importation plan devised by Richard Henry Lee and George Mason. Before the house could act Botetourt dissolved the assembly.
Like the Americans, the Anglo-Irish entered into non-importation compacts, and they interdicted commerce. The Irish volunteers, first forty, then sixty, and at last a hundred thousand strong, were virtually an army enrolled to overawe the English ministry and Parliament. Following the spirit, if not the actual path, of the Americans, they raised a cry for commercial and legislative independence.
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