1764 – The Acts and Orders passed by the Colony of Rhode Island in May 1764

Newport, Rhode Island: Samuel Hall, 1764. String. Good to Very Good. May, 1764. At the General Assembly of the governor and Company of the English colony of Rhode-Island, and Providence Plantations, in New-England, in America; begun and holden at Newport, within and for the colony aforesaid, on the first Wednesday in May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and sixty-four, and fourth of the reign of His Most Sacred Majesty George the Third, by the grace of God, king of Great-Britain, and so forth. Henry Ward, Secretary Newport, R.I. Printed by Samuel Hall, 1764.

Complete with 16 pages. Approximately 6” x11¼“. Royal court of (truncated) arms in the middle of the title. Original printers string binding. Edgewear with minor insect predation and stain in the lower free quarter of the first leaf. “Archibald Parber” ownership signature in the top margin of the last page.

Following each monthly session, the colony published

“The Acts and Orders: now made and passed by Beat of Drum, in Town of Newport” and “within Ten Days after the Rising of [the] Assembly, and with Thirty send Copies of the same to each Town-Clerk in the Colony.”

In its first section, this issue announced:

“This being the anniversary Election of Officer, Both Civil and Military, the Gentlemen whose Names are set down in the subsequent List, were chosen to serve the Colony in the offices ascribed to their respective Names, to wit:

The Hon. Stephen Hopkins, Esq; Governor. . ..

he Hon. Joseph Wanton, jun. Esq; Deputy Governor. . ..”

Following this list of the governor and deputy, it continues, announcing the names of all ten of the governor’s Assistants, the Secretary, Attorney-General, and General Treasurer, after which appear the names of the senior officers in each county’s Regiment of Militia, the colony’s Justices, Court Clerks, Justices of the Peace.

The second section of the pamphlet reports an itemized list of approximately 225 fees to be collected by the major colonial officials.

“Enacted by this General Assembly [that] shall be followeth for the future in Lawful Money. . ..” These included: “Copies not exceeding One Page . . . writing Evidences . . . transcribing the Acts of Laws passed by the General Assembly . . . affixing the Colony Seal . . . making a Certificate . . . every Writ and Seal . . . every Paper or Evidence in a Case . . . every Criminal executed to Death . . . Probate of a Will. . ..”

The pamphlet also includes a rebuttal of the act noting that the majority of representatives were “Judges of the several Courts, and Justices of the Peace [who] voting Money into their own Pockets.”

The last section includes summaries of a number of cases which place men

“Under Confinement in His Majesty’s Gaol in Providence, for Debt [as] by Misfortune they are rendered Insolvent, and unable to pay the whole of their just Debts” and an adjudication of a case which included a fine of “Twenty Pounds Old Tenor. . ..” . Stephen Hopkins, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was a Rhode Island politician and a fierce champion of paper money, i.e., “Old Tenor,” the nickname for paper currency issued by Massachusetts. He was just as fiercely opposed by Samuel Ward, a champion of “Lawful Money,” i.e., specie or silver and gold coins issued by Great Britain or Spain. The issue consumed Rhode Island for nearly all of the 1760s, with Hopkins and Ward each winning multiple governorships during that time. Finally, by 1768 the feud between both men became so disrupting that Rhode Island governance practically ground to a halt. That year, Hopkins and Ward agreed, in the interest of the colony, that neither would run for governor, and a compromise candidate, Josias Lyndon, was elected.

The “Act for establishing and regulating Fees” was, indeed, a case of politicians lining their own pockets at the expense of taxpayers for, as its opponents rightfully charged, the representatives who voted in favor of the measure were also colony officials who stood to receive the preponderance of fee payments. This dissatisfaction bubbled over less than two years later when Great Britain passed the Stamp Act which imposed an additional tax on every piece of paper or parchment used to record these colonial fee transactions.

Samuel Hall was the son-in-law of Anne Smith Franklin, the widow of Benjamin Franklin’s brother, James. After James died, Anne assumed his business and became the official printer for the colony and the first woman publisher in America. Notably, she printed the colony’s Royal Charter, its paper currency, the Newport Mercury newspaper, the Rhode Island Almanac, and Poor Richard’s Almanac. Hall joined Anne as a partner in 1761 and continued the business under his own imprint until he sold it to Solomon Southwick.

(For more information, see Carroll’s Rhode Island: Three Centuries of Democracy, Davidson’s Anne Smith Franklin, Sanderson's Biography of the signers to the Declaration of independence, Andrews’s “Current Lawful Money of New England” in The American Historical Review, Vol. 24, No. 1, “The Stamp Act, 1765” at The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History website, “An act declaring what is, and shall be, lawful money of this colony [Rhode Island] . . . 1763” at the Berkeley Law Library website, and “A Table to bring old tenor into lawful money . . . 1763” at the Rhode Island Historical Society website.)

A scarce publication. At the time of listing, no similar Rhode Island Acts and Orders from any year are for sale in the trade. The Rare Book Hub shows similar pamphlets have only appeared in two auctions although Goodspeed’s Book Shop sold several between 1929 and 1930. OCLC records of Rhode Island Acts and Orders are so polluted with reprints, microform, digital copies, and internet postings, it’s like searching for a needle in a haystack to determine how many physical examples are held in institutional collections. . (Inventory #: 010414)