On the Road to Revolution:

New York Pays for Its Own Occupation

(REVOLUTIONARY WAR). (NEW YORK). BLAIR, W. "13th April 1767. Repeal of the Act for furnishing the Barracks with Firewood for His Majesty's Forces. 8th October 1767. Read in Council and order that a Proclamation Issue Notifying the same." [In another hand]: "Read in General Assembly Dec. 4th, 1767 and ordered to be entered on the Journal of the House." 1-1/2 pp. In a secretarial hand. Signed by Blair. P.3 blank; docketed on p. 4, with seal: "At the Court of St. James's the 13th Day of April, 1767 [followed by a list of 18 lords, marquis, an earl, viscounts, etc.]. Broken at two folds, others weak. $750.00

We cannot identify the Proclamation in Imprints. There are no details as to why the act was repealed, but the document does say the King acted on the advice of his councillors, the Lord for Plantations, and others.

John Shy,Toward Lexington: the Role of the British Army in the Coming of the American Revolution (1965), discusses the imperial debate over the Quartering Act in detail, and says the Crown accepted New York's Act. Parliament passed the act May 3, 1765, altering the previous regimen for quartering soldiers in the colonies. Now the colonial legislatures had to allocate funds for quartering soldiers, and had to house the soldiers in special barracks rather than use already existing public houses as had been the usual practice. New York's legislature protested the new conditions and refused for many months to allocate the money. Finally at the end of its 1766-67 session, in April or May, Parliament responded with the Restraining Act, which voided any measures passed by New York's assembly. Shy says, however, that New York appropriated 4500 pounds to support the troops, and "confronted with political instability at home and a patent willingness to compromise in New York, the Privy Council lamely accepted the offer and suspended execution of the Restraining Act." After New York passed its Act of support for the troops, General Gage reported to the Secretary of State: "However disagreeable the method [of disbursement] may be,...in this manner the Troops are now supplied with all the Necessarys directed by the Act of Parliament." Shy adds that the Privy Council disallowed both of New Jersey's attempts at quartering laws because of noncompliance with the British act.

Shy concludes that ultimately New York protested less against the Quartering Act than did other colonies, and conformed to the Quartering Act well enough to avoid the penalties set down under the Restraining Act. But after the British sent troops to Boston in 1769, the Sons of Liberty started a riot when that year's provision barely passed the Assembly. However, close relations between British army officers and local gentry prevented a repeat of the Boston Massacre.