In the five months since Maryland’s official tobacco inspection system stopped functioning because of a political dispute between Governor Robert Eden and the lower house of the General Assembly, colonial planters began taking matters into their own hands. Why wait for the governor and the legislature to hammer out a solution when practical steps could be taken at the grassroots level? That’s exactly what a number of Anne Arundel County residents did 250 years ago.
As reported in the March 28, 1771 Maryland Gazette, “the Inhabitants, Tobacco Makers, at and about the Head of Severn, the Head of South River, the Fork of Patuxent, and Magotty, on the North Side of Severn” met three days earlier at Indian Landing “to form and adopt a private Inspection.” Augustine Gambrill and John Marriott agreed to serve as inspectors, swearing to examine “all such Tobacco, as shall be uncased, and offered to them for Inspection; and that they will not receive into the Warehouse, or pass or stamp any Tobacco, in Hogshead, Case, or Cask, that is not sound, well-conditioned, merchantable, and clear of Trash.”
Gambrill and Marriott vowed to “discharge their Duty, in Quality of Inspectors, without Fear, Favour, Affection, Malice, or Partiality.” They would use “good and legal Scales, and with just Weights,” mark the tobacco containers “with a hot Iron,” and provide owners with “a Certificate … of the Tobaccos inspected by them, with the Marks, Numbers, Weights, Quality, and Condition of the same.” The same details “shall be carefully entered in a Book … and Lists thereof given by them” to the captains who loaded the tobacco on their ships. The inspectors would work from April 1 to August 20, earning one shilling and six pence for each container examined.
Up to this point, everything described followed the usual pattern of how Maryland’s tobacco inspection system formerly functioned under government control. But then we come to this clause: “And it is hereby further agreed, by and between us, and the Inspectors herein before named, that they the said Inspectors shall not receive into the said Warehouse, or view, examine, or inspect, or brand or mark any Tobacco whatsoever, which shall be brought to the aforesaid Warehouse, by any Officer or Clergyman as such, or any other Person acting for or in behalf of them.” What was that all about?
Governor Eden and the General Assembly were at loggerheads over the expired tobacco inspection law because of the tax and fee payments—payments made in tobacco or a paper currency equivalent—it authorized provincial officials and Anglican clergymen to collect as compensation for doing their jobs. Eden wanted to keep the old rates in place and the delegates wanted to reduce them. Thus the stalemate.
Simply put, the Anne Arundel County men who set up the unofficial inspection station in their own community wanted the governor’s appointees to know that their tobacco wasn’t welcome at Indian Landing. If it wasn’t inspected, it wouldn’t be loaded on any ship, and if it couldn’t be sold overseas, then it was basically worthless. This was a blunt way to discourage government bureaucrats and men of the cloth from trying to collect their customary tobacco taxes and fees on the outdated authority of a defunct law.
With the benefit of hindsight, one noted historian later declared that the “private tobacco inspection system, which was voluntary, was generally a failure.” But the importance of the example it set—that individual citizens meeting and working together could take upon themselves the responsibilities left unmet by a dysfunctional colonial administration—should not be overlooked or underestimated. As the 1770s proceeded, there would be a lot more of that sort of thing happening in and around Annapolis and all across America.
You can read the March 28, 1771 issue of the Maryland Gazette starting here: https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc4800/sc4872/001281/html/m1281-1249.html
Glenn E. Campbell
HA Senior Historian
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