1768: The King’s Military Occupation of Boston Awakens American Resistance

by Colin Lowry –

 

“Are the inhabitants of this town still to be affronted in the night as well as the day by soldiers armed with muskets and fixed bayonets?”

“Will the spirits of people as yet un-subdued by tyranny, unawed by the menaces of arbitrary power, submit to be governed by military force?”

(Boston Gazette, December 5, 1768. Signed Vindex, written by Samuel Adams)

What started out as a simple petition to the King and his ministers by the elected Representatives of Massachusetts in February 1768, led to a full military invasion of Boston by the Fall of 1768, and the declaration by the King in November, that the colony appeared “to be in a state of disobedience to all law and government; and has proceeded to measures subversive of the constitution, and attended with circumstances that manifest a disposition to throw off their dependence on Great Britain.”

What had the people and their Representatives done, that could cause the King to declare that they were “turbulent and seditious persons, who, under false pretenses have but too successfully deluded numbers of my subjects in America; and whose practices, if suffered to prevail, cannot fail to produce the most fatal consequences to my colonies immediately, and, in the end, to all the dominions of my crown.”[i]

The King and his ministers had made it clear, that the crime that the Massachusetts colony had committed, had to be severely punished, and that if that failed to stop its spread to other colonies, the entire British empire would be ruined.

What was this supposed crime? The House of Representatives had written a letter, opposing the Townshend Acts of Parliament, and had written a petition of grievances which they sent to the King, and had then sent copies of the letter to all 12 of their sister American colonies, asking for their opinion of what they should do. This last step, seeking a unified response of the American colonies to the Crown’s policy, was the unforgivable sin. Massachusetts would be made an example of with harsh repression, including the dissolving of their elected House of Representatives, and a military occupation. The Crown’s plan was designed to crush all opposition in Massachusetts and scare the rest of the American colonies into submission. But it actually resulted in a stronger and more unified American resistance than ever before; and the next year, the colonies would fight back not with bullets, but with the Non Importation Association, a wider boycott of all British goods, that caused the Townshend Acts to be partially repealed in the Spring of 1770.

The people of Massachusetts would succeed in enlisting the help of the other American colonies to join in opposing the Crown’s repression, and this would be repeated again after the Boston Tea Party in 1773, which changed the American Revolution’s character from passive resistance into open defiance. The Crown reacted to the Tea Party by replacing the Massachusetts government with a military government led by General Gage, and closing the port of Boston completely with a more severe military occupation in 1774. But this strategy once again failed, and the American colonies united in the First Continental Congress of 1774, which created a national American government led by the Patriot leadership of Massachusetts and Virginia. It is not a coincidence that the armed conflict at the Battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775, would happen just outside of Boston. 

1767: The Calm Before the Storm

The Stamp Act resistance of the American colonies in 1765, had succeeded in getting it repealed in 1766, but it was unclear if the British government would refrain from re-igniting the conflict that had almost caused a total revolt. Benjamin Franklin had been instrumental in the Stamp Act repeal in Parliament, and the return of the Whig political hero William Pitt into the government Cabinet, was regarded by the Americans as an assurance that another crisis was not on the immediate horizon. But by early spring of 1767, William Pitt, now the Earl of Chatham, was seriously ill again, and the man who had learned nothing from the experience of the Stamp Act, Charles Townshend, was now running the Cabinet. Townshend was more worried about attempts to crack down on the East India Company, by forcing it to pay taxes, than he was about problems in the American colonies. So, he decided it was high time the colonists paid their fair share, and the money he expected to collect to the now heavily in debt British Treasury, could be used to give wealthy landowners in England a tax cut, while also protecting the East India Company shareholders, including himself.

As Parliament worked out the details of the new acts that aimed to do much more than just raise revenue from the American colonies, Benjamin Franklin was working behind the scenes, to try to warn those who might listen, of the folly of repeating the Stamp Act disaster. He wrote an almost prophetic letter to his friend Lord Kames in Edinburgh, who was a Scottish High Court Justice, revealing his thoughts on the possible separation of America from Britain. From London, Franklin wrote:

“America may suffer at present under the arbitrary power of this country; she may suffer awhile in a separation from it, but these are temporary evils that she will outgrow. America, an immense territory, favored by nature with all advantages of climate, soil, great navigable rivers and lakes, must become a great country, populous and mighty; and will, in less time than is generally conceived, be able to shake off shackles that may be imposed on her and perhaps place them on the imposers. In the meantime, every act of oppression will sour their tempers, lessen greatly- if not annihilate- the profits of your commerce with them, and hasten their final revolt; for the seeds of liberty are universally found there, and nothing can eradicate them. And yet there remains among that people so much respect, veneration and affection for Britain that, if cultivated prudently with kind usage and tenderness for their privileges, they might easily be governed for all ages without force or considerable expense. But I do not see here a sufficient quantity of the wisdom that is necessary to produce such a conduct, and I lament the want of it.”[ii]

 

Townshend’s proposed acts went far beyond simple taxes on the colonies:

• The first part of the act put a tax on the import of tea, glass, lead, paint and paper, which appeared to be less obtrusive than the Stamp Act two years earlier.
• In the second part, he proposed that a new Board of Commissioners of Customs, would set up their headquarters in Boston. To add more to the enforcement power of this new operation, he announced that any violations of the acts would be tried in Admiralty Court, and that new courts would be established in Boston, Philadelphia and Charleston. This allowed the British government to avoid the established courts of the colonies, and avoid locally appointed juries, stacking the odds of conviction in their favor.
• In the third part of the acts, he brought back the use of Writs of Assistance, that had previously inflamed the American colonies and Massachusetts in particular, in the court case that made James Otis a hero to the Patriot cause in 1761, where he argued these writs were the mark of tyrants. The Writs of Assistance were warrants of unlimited scope and power, that could be used to seize without warning any property, or allow officers of the Crown the right to break open warehouses, stores, or even homes, and arrest anyone without a warrant. Even in England of the 18^th century, these were considered extreme violations of the rights of subjects, and were rarely used. But now this hated practice was to be aimed directly at the colonists.
• The fourth part of the acts was an unapologetic attack on the rights of the elected governments of the colonies themselves. The colonial assemblies and local elected officials had always paid the salaries of the governors, lieutenant governors, judges, and other officials appointed by the Crown, which required their yearly approval. But now, the Townshend Acts would replace that, by paying all of these officials directly from London, and the money to pay them would be taken from the increased revenue from the taxes upon the Americans.

If Townshend and the King’s ministers were looking to pick a fight with the American colonies, the third and fourth parts alone would have been irritating enough, but the whole package was more than any American could bear.

The Parliament approved the Townshend Acts on May 15, 1767, and they were to go into effect that November. In an ironic twist of fate, Charles Townshend died of influenza two months before the acts went into effect, but the consequences of them were only just beginning to be seen by the end of the year.

In the same session of Parliament, another attempt at dictating to the colonial legislatures what the Crown wanted, resulted in the passing of the New York Restraining Act. This act related to the refusal of the New York Legislature, to provide for the large number of British Army troops now garrisoned in several areas of the colony, under the command of General Gage. The previous year, the Legislature had complied with what was required under the Quartering Act, but had ignored requests by General Gage for more funds. This impasse lasted for all of 1766, but now Townshend and the Parliament came up with what they thought was a simple solution. They required that the New York Legislature should vote to pay the extra funds for the stationing of the troops, and if they refused, then the Legislature would be dissolved. This was simple political blackmail, with a standing army to back it up.

This new attack on the rights of the elected colonial assemblies, combined with the Townshend acts was quickly opposed by John Dickinson, a lawyer and moderate member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.  Dickinson wrote a series of 12 letters, published under the name of Letters From a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies, with the first one published in the Pennsylvania Gazette in December, 1767. In the first letter, Dickinson aims at the threat posed by the New York Restraining Act, writing that, “with a good deal of surprise I have observed, that little notice has been taken of an act of Parliament, as injurious in its principle to the liberties of these colonies as the Stamp Act was: I mean the act for suspending the legislature of New York.”[iii] Examining the deeper issue he writes, that if the Representatives of New York “may be legally deprived, in such a case, of the privilege of making laws, why may they not, with equal reason, be deprived of every other privilege? Or why may not every colony be treated in the same manner, when any of them shall dare deny their assent, to any impositions that shall be directed?”

In his analysis of where this attack on the legislature of New York may lead, he writes that: “it seems therefore to me as much a violation of the liberty of the people of that province, and consequently of all of these colonies, as if the Parliament had sent a number of regiments to be quartered upon them, till they should comply. For it is evident, that the suspension is meant as a compulsion: and the method of compelling is totally different. It is indeed probable, that the sight of red coats, and the beating of drums, would have been most alarming, because people are generally more influenced   by their eyes and ears than by their reason: but whoever seriously considers the matter, must perceive, that a dreadful stroke is aimed at the liberty of these colonies: for the cause of one is the cause of all.”

In the second letter, Dickinson went after the Townshend Acts piece by piece, writing that, “If you ONCE admit that Great Britain can lay duties upon her exports to us for the purpose of raising money from us only, she will then proceed to lay duties on articles which she prohibits us to manufacture—and the tragedy of American liberty is finished.”

The Letters From A Farmer were quickly reprinted in every colony in America, and gained widespread support, leading to the collected letters being printed in book editions in America, London, Dublin and Paris by June of 1768.

 

Massachusetts Takes the Lead in Organizing a United Resistance

In early January, 1768, the Massachusetts House of Representatives was back in session, facing the new Board of Customs Commissioners that had just set up their operations in Boston two months before. The leaders of the House were Samuel Adams and James Otis, who had both led the resistance to the Stamp Act in 1765, and now had to craft a response to the new and likely more difficult to handle Townshend Acts. In the previous crisis, the boycott of British goods, combined with efforts to increase local manufactures, had been an effective strategy to counter the Stamp Act. It was the Massachusetts House that had called for the meeting of all of the colonies, to work together at the Stamp Act Congress in the fall of 1765, a meeting that the British authorities denounced as illegal and dangerous.

Wary of already being singled out by the Parliament, who directed that Boston would be used as the location for the new Customs Commissioners and an Admiralty court, the leadership of the House decided to appeal to the other colonies for support in opposing the current policies emanating from the British government. The House spent most of January debating and crafting a set of letters to send to various ministers of the Cabinet in England, opposing the Townshend Acts in moderate language, and asking for them to be repealed, which was the normal political course of action they had always followed before.

Their next step, was to compose a petition directly to the King asking for redress, which was approved by the House on January 20^th, 1768. This letter was written by Samuel Adams, and although it is written in a humble style, it does contain some phrasing in a sly sarcasm, that certainly caught the attention of King George III. After reviewing the history of the Charter of Massachusetts Bay, and the rights it grants to the people in the province, it states that “if these acts of Parliament shall remain in force and your Majesty’s commons in Great Britain shall continue to exercise the power of granting the property of their fellow subjects in this province, your people must then regret their unhappy fate of having only the name left of free subjects.”[iv]

Having already sent their own letter of petition to the King, the House then wrote to the elected assemblies of all of the other colonies. This circular letter, as it became known, was so dangerous, that the King and Lord Hillsborough considered it as justification for a military occupation and elimination of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

What did it actually say? It began with a simple statement, referencing the great difficulties the late acts of Parliament had produced on their own constituents, and that, “it seems to be necessary, that all possible care should be taken, that the representations of the several assemblies upon so delicate a point, should harmonize with each other: The House therefore hopes that this letter will be candidly considered in no other light, than as expressing a disposition freely to communicate their mind to a  sister colony, upon a common concern in the same manner as they would be glad to receive the sentiments of your or any other House of Assembly on the continent.”[v] The letter continued, outlining the objections to the Townshend Acts, then asserting “that it is an essential, unalterable right in nature, ingrafted into the British Constitution, as a fundamental law and ever held sacred and irrevocable by the subjects within the realm; that what a man has honestly acquired is absolutely his own, which he may freely give, but cannot be taken from him without his consent: That the American subjects may therefore…assert this natural and constitutional right.”

The leaders of the Massachusetts House would now wait for the responses of the other colonies to their appeal, and in the meantime, started work on a resolution supporting local manufacturing in America. In early March, the House passed a resolution, stating that “this House will, by all prudent means, endeavor to discountenance the use of foreign superfluities, and to encourage the manufactures of this Province.”[vi] At the same time, working in parallel with the House, the Sons of Liberty had organized a meeting of most of the merchants of Boston, at which those present renounced all commerce with Britain until the Townshend Acts were repealed. They then invited all of the American colonies to join in this effort. Thus, what became known as the Non Importation Association, was begun completely outside of any official political body that the British government could control.

The second anniversary of the repeal of the Stamp Act was celebrated on March 18th under the tight control of the Sons of Liberty leadership, who wanted to make sure there would be no violence that day. There had been nothing that could have been reported as a riot in Boston for two years, and the policy of passive resistance was now the strategy of the patriots. In the early morning of the 18^th, two effigies of customs officials were seen hanging from the Liberty Tree, but they were removed by senior members of the Sons of Liberty, to encourage a more peaceful celebration. A large festival and dinner was organized at Faneuil Hall, where many toasts were made to William Pitt, the Pennsylvania Farmer, freedom of the press, and a call to unanimity, economy, patriotism and perseverance through out the colonies. By nightfall, most of the people had left the celebration, but a large group spilled out into the streets, and attempted to make a large bonfire, which was quickly stopped by another small group of the Sons of Liberty. The remaining crowd then marched with drums banging and streamers flying with a large cart to the Liberty Tree, where they fired four guns, then marched past the Governor’s house, and dispersed into the night.

 

Wilkes and Liberty: An Election, A Massacre, And Upheaval in England.

Events in England in the spring of 1768, produced a tidal wave of change in the minds of the American colonists by the summer, regarding what their future might look like under military occupation. This change in opinion, was brought about by the dramatic return to England from exile in France, of the radical Whig political figure, John Wilkes.

Wilkes was a former member of Parliament, who had in 1763 published in his newspaper, the North Briton No. 45, an attack on the peace treaty with France, which the King considered as an attack on him personally. Wilkes was arrested using a General Warrant, and 40 people who helped print and distribute the paper, were charged with seditious libel. This case became infamous in England and America, as it touched upon the issue of the freedom of the press, and the use of General Warrants, with such a broad scope, it was feared they could be used to simply silence and imprison any political opposition. During a series of trials, Wilkes was at first acquitted, then charged with a different crime and convicted, and then removed from Parliament by the House of Lords. A supporter of the King’s party challenged Wilkes to a duel, and shot him, causing a serious wound to his abdomen. At this point in early 1764, Wilkes’ political backers, which included Lord Temple, the Marquis of Rockingham, and William Pitt, helped him flee to France, where he avoided serving his sentence. But, by 1768, with changes in the British Ministry, and heavily in debt to his French creditors, Wilkes sailed back to London, hoping to win back his seat in Parliament.

The conditions in England had changed dramatically since Wilkes had left, as the economy and the pay of the working class had plummeted, which led to strikes and violent unrest in London. Many of the merchants who had been almost ruined by the Stamp Act and the disruption of the American trade in 1765, had deep resentments against the current governing ministers, making them more receptive to a figure like Wilkes. While John Wilkes publicly presented himself as a man of the common people, privately he was actually a member of the political elite, having been a member of the notorious Hellfire Club, run by Sir Francis Dashwood. His reputation as a rake with women, and indebted to aristocratic Lords, was paradoxical to his public persona as a champion of liberty. However, at this time in England, those suffering the most from the current government’s policies, were looking for a new figurehead to lead them, and Wilkes fulfilled that role.

In late March 1768, Wilkes announced he would run for Parliament, in the election at Middlesex, just outside of London. Wilkes began his campaign, setting out from the city with 250 coaches filled with supporters, wearing blue cockades in their hats, and “Wilkes and Liberty” cards in their hands. The campaign had printed 40,000 handbills, that reminded his supporters “to preserve peace and good order… to convince the world that Liberty is not joined with licentiousness.”[vii] While the campaign remained mostly peaceful, there was a fight with supporters of his opponent, where several people on a rival coach were knocked down and pelted with stones, breaking the glass, and finally stripping the wheels off of the offending carriage.

As the Middlesex election was counted at Brentford on March 28, Wilkes took the lead, and in the final tally, easily won a seat in the House of Commons against two other candidates. Thousands of people, mostly tradesmen and the working poor, celebrated his victory, taking over the streets in noisy processions. At night, the large roving crowds demanded that houses display lit candles in their windows, or they might be smashed. Doors of houses and stores displayed the number 45, to confirm the support of Wilkes, or suffer the consequences from the mob. On the second night after the election, the crowds turned their fury against the elite themselves, smashing all the windows at the mansions of several members of the House of Lords. At the Lord Mayor of London’s mansion, several thousand people had gathered at night, and had then smashed all the windows and lamps, while shouting “Wilkes forever!”

While many of Wilkes’ political allies condemned the riots of the mob, some welcomed his election back into Parliament as an opportunity. The Duke of Richmond, writing to Lord Newcastle, said that Wilkes had “carried his election by being supposed a friend to Liberty, and I think it will show the Administration that, though they may buy Lords & Commons and carry on their measures smoothly in Parliament, yet they are not so much approved of by the Nation.”[viii] Newcastle agreed, and that view was shared by many of the Whig party.

However, the election of Wilkes now brought a real political crisis to the ministers of the government. Would Wilkes be allowed to actually take his seat in the new session of Parliament, set to commence after the Easter recess? The King himself privately told his minister Lord North, that Wilkes must not be allowed to return to Parliament. Lord North was left to decide how to use the powers of the law to keep Wilkes out, since he had not served his sentence in 1764. After several court appearances the Attorney General Lord Mansfield refused to allow him bail, and sent him to the custody of the King’s Bench prison. However, as Wilkes was escorted by the authorities in a coach, a large crowd of supporters approached on Westminster Bridge, and they took control of the horses and turned the coach around, dashing through the city with the authorities in pursuit. Somehow, Wilkes later appeared that evening at the upper floor window of a tavern in Spitalfields, thanking his supporters, but insisting that he would follow the law and turn himself in at the prison, which he did that night.

With Wilkes now confined to the King’s Bench Prison, his supporters grew more desperate, and large crowds started to gather each day on the St. George’s Fields, which were adjacent to the prison on the south side of London. On May 10, the first day of the opening of Parliament, fearful that huge crowds would march to the prison, the government ordered two army regiments to support the local authorities. In the morning, thousands of people from all over London came to St. George’s Fields, and by the afternoon the crowd swelled to 20,000. Rumors spread that an attempt would be made to break open the prison doors to free Wilkes, so that he could take his rightful place in Parliament. In the afternoon, the crowd started to break through the ranks of the soldiers guarding the outer railing of the prison. At this point, a local Justice read the Riot Act to the crowd, which was met with a volley of stones and more cheers of “Wilkes and Liberty Forever!” The crowd became more raucous, and chants of “No Wilkes, No King!” were heard along with “Damn the King, damn the Government, damn the Justices!”  After more stones were thrown at the soldiers, they were ordered to open fire on the huge crowd, killing six instantly and wounding about 15 more. Many soldiers reloaded and shot again at the crowd, but most of the bullets went over their heads, this time killing and wounding people on the road nearby, bringing the death toll to eleven, and at least 18 wounded.

The huge crowd now moving through London spread the word of the massacre at St. George’s Fields, and a riotous mob bent on revenge, now smashed their way through the city. The houses of two of the local magistrates were immediately attacked and a group of five hundred sawyers, literally pulled down a recently built saw mill in another part of the city. A mob appeared at Westminster, outside the House of Lords, with cries of Wilkes and Liberty, and chanting “that bread and beer were too dear, and that it was as well to be hanged as starved.”[ix]

Benjamin Franklin was in London acting as a colonial agent at this time. He witnessed the riots, and wrote a letter in the aftermath to his friend in Philadelphia, John Ross describing the scene:

          “Even this capital, the residence of the King, is now a daily scene of lawless riot and confusion. Mobs patrolling the streets at noonday, some knocking down all that will not roar for Wilkes and Liberty; courts of justice afraid to give judgements against him; coal heavers and porters pulling down the houses of coal merchants that refuse to give them more wages; sawyers destroying sawmills; sailors unrigging all the outward bound ships and suffering none at all to sail until merchants agree to raise their pay, watermen destroying private boats and threatening bridges across the Thames; soldiers firing among the mobs and killing men, women and children, which seems only to have produced a universal sullenness, that looks like a great black cloud coming on ready to burst in a general tempest.”[x]

The crisis had been so severe, that a rumor spread through political circles, that the King had considered abdicating the throne. In the aftermath, several of the soldiers that had been involved in the killings at St. George’s Fields were tried in court, but none were convicted. While dozens were arrested for various crimes during the riot following the massacre, the tide of public opinion was one of disgust at the killings of civilians, and a growing hopelessness that any political change would take place. Lord Newcastle writing to the Marquis of Rockingham, said “we must be either governed by a mad, lawless mob, or the peace be preserved only by a military force; both of which are unknown to our Constitution,”[xi]

 

The Royal Plot Against Massachusetts Thickens

Royal Governor Frances Bernard of Massachusetts had long wished to get rid of the power of the Patriot faction within the elected House of Representatives, and the Governor’s Council, so he secretly had been writing letters portraying the situation in the colony as if it were ruled by mobs whose leaders had encouraged riots and lawlessness in opposition to the authority of the British government. He had initiated a request to General Gage in New York, to have him send troops to police the province, but wanted to be sure that if Gage were to do so, he would not implicate him as the source of the request. Gage was certainly sympathetic to the request, but lacked authority to do so on his own, and encouraged Bernard to write to ministers in England to accomplish it. Bernard did take that advice, and went a step further, writing to naval officers in Nova Scotia, Canada, requesting a warship be sent to help crack down on smuggling, and add enforcement to the Board of Customs Commissioners at Boston, who had been frustrated in their efforts to gain increased revenue and seizures of vessels.

This request was the first to bear fruit, as the 50 gun warship Romney arrived in Boston harbor on May 17^th, with the purpose of policing the incoming shipping and trade. But Captain Corner decided to use the Romney for an additional purpose, impressing sailors from merchant ships entering Boston, into the service of the navy. The practice of impressment by the British navy was basically a legalized form of kidnapping people into lifelong service in harsh conditions, whenever the captain of a ship needed more manpower. Soon, many merchant ships were avoiding Boston harbor, to escape the threat of losing their sailors, which reduced the possible taxes that the Commissioners could even collect. It also increased the resistance of the people toward the Royal Government, and Bernard in particular, who did have it in his power to order even a Navy Captain to not impress the local residents.

The Commissioners had not had much success seizing ships involved in smuggling goods, but now with the Romney on their side, they decided to go after their biggest political target: John Hancock, the wealthiest man in Boston, member of the House of Representatives and importer of goods, many suspected of being smuggled. They began by inducing a witness to change his story about the cargo of one of Hancock’s ships, the Liberty, that was involved in a smuggling episode in which the charges had been dropped in early May. On June 10^th, two customs agents, Hallowell and Harrison, accompanied by the dubious witness, had convinced the Commissioners to issue an order to seize the Liberty, and proceed with the case in Admiralty court. Normally this would be done by the civil authorities of the colony, but the customs agents decided to flex their power by using the crew of the Romney to avoid any delays.

They arrived at Hancock’s wharf in the early evening, and boarded the Liberty, only after they had seen two boats from the Romney loaded with armed Marines rowing toward them. Some of Hancock’s employees, as well as other dockworkers also saw the boats approaching, and rushed to protect the ship. As the Marines took over the ship, they ended up in a tug of war against the crowd over the rope lines that held the Liberty to the dock. Once the Marines had threatened the crowd by drawing cutlasses, the contest ended, and they towed the Liberty away from the wharf and anchored it alongside the Romney.

The two customs agents now tried to run from the wharf, but the angry crowd caught up with them, and pelted them with dirt and some stones. They did escape with only minor bruises, but by this time, a much larger crowd of about 1000 people descended on the area, some convinced that an impressment had occurred against their brethren. The crowd then marched through the town streets in an attempt to find the customs agents, but not seeing them, they went to their houses, and smashed a few windows. This not being satisfactory as a punishment, the crowd returned to the harbor, and removed the small sailboat that belonged to Harrison from the water, dragging it through the streets to the Liberty Tree. At that point, the boat was condemned, and it was burned to ashes on Boston Common. Once the fire was out, the crowd went home, with no further incident.

The next day, the Customs Commissioners and their agents proclaimed that they were no longer safe in town, and decided to go aboard the Romney, and have the Captain take them to the island fortress in the harbor, known as Castle William. Governor Bernard wanted to call out troops to prevent any further rioting, but when he presented his demand to the Council, they disagreed, and were quite sure that since the Commissioners had left town, no further disturbances would occur. James Otis and Samuel Adams needed to calm the people of the town, and try to avoid any pretense being created for the calling out of troops. A town meeting was called for the following day, and the crowd was so large, that the meeting was moved from Faneuil Hall to the larger Old South Church. At the meeting, a petition was approved to be delivered to the governor, with the chief demands being an end to the Townshend Act taxes that the people had not consented to, and the end of impressment and the removal of the Romney from Boston harbor.

Since the governor was at his country house in Roxbury, a group of twenty-one gentlemen, which included Otis, Adams and Hancock, traveled by coach to present the petition to Governor Bernard. In a move likely calculated to catch them off guard, Bernard received the group in a warm, cordial manner, serving them wine, and promising to work out an arrangement with Captain Corner of the Romney. The next day he responded in writing, that he would not order the Romney to leave Boston, but would ask Captain Corner not to impress sailors from the province.

 

The King Demands Massachusetts Rescind the Circular Letter: They Refuse!

In April, Lord Hillsborough, had received the Circular Letter written by the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and had shared it with the King, who ordered that he inform all the other colonies not to endorse it, or they would have their assemblies dissolved indefinitely. The petition for relief from the Townshend Acts was ignored and essentially rejected by this position of the Crown. By April 21st, Hillsborough had written his reply to the governors of all the American colonies, with the King’s demands. The letter was a remarkable over-reaction, that was to ignite a crisis that would strengthen the unity of the colonies against the Crown’s policies. The letter started by saying that, “his Majesty considers this measure to be of a most dangerous and factious tendency, calculated to inflame the minds of his good subjects in the colonies, to promote an unwarrantable combination, and to excite and encourage an open opposition to and denial of the authority of Parliament.”[xii] Continuing on with a  feverish tone, it stated that if “there should appear in the Assembly of your province a disposition to receive or give any countenance to this seditious paper, it will be your duty to prevent any proceeding upon it by an immediate prorogation or dissolution.”

But Lord Hillsborough also had written another letter to General Gage in New York, ordering him to station permanently one or two regiments of troops in Boston, and to arrange for the navy to send several ships to be stationed there. None of this was known yet to the Massachusetts House. On June 21^st, Governor Bernard sent to the House the instructions from Lord Hillsborough’s letter, and the order from the King, to renounce and rescind the Circular Letter, or be dissolved if they refused to do so. The House had learned that this same letter had been sent to all of the sister colonies as well, who now shared the same risk if they adopted the position of Massachusetts. Some colonies had already responded to the Circular Letter, supporting the same position, including New Hampshire, New Jersey, Georgia and Connecticut, before knowing of the threatened punishment. The question now, was which other colonies would stand alongside them, in open defiance of the King’s order?

Samuel Adams wanted to buy more time, to find out what the other colonies response would be, so the House asked Governor Bernard for a recess, to take up the matter with their constituents. Bernard refused to allow it, and said that he must have an answer on the question, and that to not answer in a timely fashion, would be taken as a refusal and he would then dissolve the House of Representatives. For the next week,  Adams, Otis and Hancock kept the House in debate on responding to Lord Hillsborough’s letter and the governor.

When Samuel Adams learned that Virginia had supported their position by writing their own petition to the King, he rejoiced, saying “this is a glorious day!”[xiii] The support of Virginia, the largest colony, ensured that the southern colonies would fall in line behind them. Maryland’s Assembly was challenged by its governor on June 23rd not to petition the Crown, but they responded by saying they “would not be intimidated from doing what we think is right,” and the next day voted to petition the King, causing the governor to dissolve the assembly.[xiv]

On June 30, the House of Representatives met to debate and vote on the letters prepared by a committee led by Samuel Adams. The galleries were cleared in the Town House, and the room was closed so the debate could be held in private. The letters of response were read to the members of the House, and after a few hours, a vote was taken on the question to rescind, with 92 against it, and 17 for it. The House had stood up to the Crown by an overwhelming margin. The Patriot press celebrated “the glorious 92” who had stood for liberty, and it quickly became a number used in slogans similar to “Wilkes No. 45.”

The full letter to the governor was to be printed in the Boston Gazette, including the votes of all of the Representatives. After explaining why they could not rescind the letter and resolutions from February, the House pointed out that “if the votes of the House are to be controlled by the direction of a minister, we have left to us but a vain semblance of liberty.”[xv] As to the charges that their conduct had somehow been “illegal, inflammatory, and tending to promote unjustifiable combinations against his Majesty’s peace, Crown and dignity…we take it to be the native, inherent and indefeasible right of the subject, jointly or severally, to petition the King for the redress of grievances.”[xvi] Knowing that their assembly would be dissolved, the House took one last parting shot at Bernard, and wrote a petition to the King asking for him to be removed as governor of Massachusetts. The next day, the governor dissolved the House, leaving the colony with no publicly elected body until the next year.

Following the news that Massachusetts had refused to back down, more colonies endorsed the Circular Letter and petitions, including Delaware and North Carolina and by the end of the summer, South Carolina and Rhode Island also joined the united opposition. The assembly of New York was unable to respond to the Circular Letter as they had been dissolved by order of the Board of Trade in London in May, due to the dispute over paying for the expenses of the troops in the prior year. The King’s attempt to isolate Massachusetts had failed, and instead the colonies stood united, even against the threat of political dissolution.

Samuel Adams reflected on the Circular Letter in his writings in 1771, explaining that, “It seems of late to have been the policy of the enemies of America to point their artillery against one Province only, and artfully to draw off the attention of the other Colonies, and, if possible, to render that single Province odious to them while it is suffering ministerial vengeance for the sake of the common cause. But it is to be hoped that the Colonies will be aware of this artifice. At this juncture, an attempt to subdue one Province to despotic power is justly to be considered as an attempt to enslave the whole.”[xvii]

 

A Summer of Rumors and Worries

In early June, the Sons of Liberty of Boston, had written to John Wilkes, congratulating him on his victory in the Middlesex election, and expressed their hope that he could return to Parliament, and “at this alarming crisis, your perseverance in the good old cause may still prevent the great System from dashing to pieces.”[xviii] They enclosed the full set of the Letters From A Pennsylvania Farmer, with a note that “his sentiments are ours.” Due to the delay in news and letters crossing the ocean from America to England, they did not know that this hope had already been dashed, as Wilkes was now a prisoner at the King’s Bench Prison, and had been prevented from entering Parliament. In the middle of July, the newspapers in the American colonies started to report on the massacre at St. George’s Fields, and the riots and violence that occurred in London and Westminster afterwards. Letters also arrived from the colonial agents stationed in London, describing the political climate as too gloomy for anyone to even listen to petitions about American affairs.

Governor Bernard was still trying to get troops ordered to Boston, and in early August, was claiming that the Customs Commissioners who had fled to Castle William in the harbor in June still could not return to the town, because it was ruled by a faction that controlled the mobs. Bernard even had an article published in the papers, with wild exaggerated claims of an almost lawless state existing in the colony.

This was quickly answered by Samuel Adams, writing as Determinatus in the Boston Gazette of August 8, in which he compared the peaceful Boston to the riotous condition of London. He wrote that “if these falsehoods make such impressions on the minds of persons so near to Halifax, it cannot be wondered at, if the mother country at the distance of a thousand leagues, should think that we are in a state of confusion, equal to what we hear from the orderly and very polite cities of London and Westminster. There, we are told, is the Weavers mob, the Seamens mob, the Tailors mob, the Coal miners mob, and some say, the Clergys mob; and in short it is to be feared the whole kingdom…will unite in one general scene of tumult.”[xix]

Adams then turns the governor’s argument for using military force to supposedly preserve the law, on its head, saying that the people of this province “know how to distinguish… between the due execution of the laws of the land, and the exercise of new invented, strange, unconstitutional powers, repugnant to the British Constitution and the Charter of the Province—So deep rooted is their abhorrence of such powers as these, that I question whether civil, military or ecclesiastic authority united, will ever be sufficient to induce them to yield the least assistance in support of them.” In a warning to the governor, he says that, “when the people are oppressed, when their rights are infringed, when their property is invaded, when taskmasters are set over them,  when unconstitutional acts are executed by a naval force before their eyes, and they are daily threatened with military troops, when their legislature is dissolved…in such circumstances the people will be discontented, and they are not to be blamed.”[xx]

In the middle of August, progress was again made on getting more merchants to sign on to a more stringent Non Importation Agreement, with a more specific demand that they would halt all new orders for British goods for the fall, and not order any for a year, starting in January of 1769. There were exemptions for medicines, coal and items needed for fishing. The agreement did not interfere with ordering goods from the Caribbean islands, leaving a substantial loophole.

To really have the effect on British manufacturers that the Bostonians were trying to achieve, they had to organize other large trading colonies to sign on to the agreement as well. Since many colonies had already had their assemblies dissolved, including Virginia, New York, South Carolina and Maryland, the work would be handled by the Sons of Liberty and other associations. Of course, many of the men who were members of assemblies that had been closed down were also members of the Sons of Liberty or the Freemasons, offering an excellent network to organize from.

Four more navy ships had come into Boston harbor recently, raising fears that the rumors of troops coming to occupy the town might be true. To help alleviate some of the worries, the Sons of Liberty planned a celebration of August 14, the third anniversary of the beginning of the protests against the Stamp Act. This was described in the Boston Gazette of August 22, as beginning at the Liberty Tree, with “a discharge of 14 cannon…saluted the joyous day. At eleven in the morning, a very large company of the principal gentlemen and respectable inhabitants of the town met at the hall under the tree, while the streets were crowded with a concourse of people of all ranks, as public notice had been given of the intended celebration. The music began at high noon, performed on various instruments, joined with voices, and concluding with the universally admired American Song of Liberty.” After the conclusion of the music, closed by the discharge of cannons, “fourteen toasts were given” which included to “The Farmer, John Wilkes, Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights,”  and “the glorious ninety-two, who defended the rights of America, uninfluenced by the mandates of a minister, and undaunted by the threats of a governor.”[xxi]

At the end of August, General Gage finally received the orders authorizing him to take two regiments of troops from Halifax to Boston. But, another two regiments were to arrive a bit later, as they were sailing from Ireland, bringing the total to about 2000 soldiers. Gage sent one of his aides to meet secretly with Governor Bernard, to ask where he thought the troops could be quartered. It was Bernard who proposed that one regiment must be within the town itself, while the other could be stationed at Castle William. Bernard was quite worried that he would be blamed directly for the introduction of the troops, so he decided to make it appear that all the decisions had been taken by ministers in London. On September 8^th, he told the prominent merchant John Rowe, that he had private advice that troops were coming to Boston, but no official confirmation of it yet. In a ruse, he told Rowe that he had done all he could to prevent it, but the matter was now beyond his control.

The stunning news quickly spread, and a town meeting was called for September 12^th, at Faneuil Hall. James Otis and Samuel Adams met at Joseph Warren’s house before the town meeting to write the resolves and the declaration of the town, as well as plan the peaceful resistance strategy for unifying the Province of Massachusetts first, and then the other colonies.

The meeting opened with hundreds of people in attendance, run by the Boston selectmen, who chose James Otis as moderator. The first order of business was to appoint a committee to go to the governor, find out when and why the troops were coming, and to request that the House of Representatives be immediately called into session. The men tasked with approaching the governor included Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, John Rowe, and Joseph Warren. The meeting adjourned for the day, and would meet the next day to hear the report of what the governor’s response was to their questions.

Governor Bernard still clung to lying to the committee sent from the town meeting, claiming he had no official news to share about the impending landing of the troops, and that he could not call the House of Representatives back into session without orders from the King. Expecting this response from the governor, a declaration of the town was read, and then adopted by the meeting. The declaration “resolved that the inhabitants of Boston, at the utmost peril of their lives and fortunes, maintain and defend their rights, liberties, privileges and immunities.”[xxii] Scattered all around the floor of the room, the town militia’s muskets were stacked in piles. Otis rose and addressed the meeting, and pointing at the arms, he said, “these are the arms–when an attempt is made upon your liberties, they will be delivered. Our declaration wants no explanation.”[xxiii]

The next proposal from the meeting used the historic authority of the 1688 Charter of Massachusetts, to call for an emergency meeting of all of the towns in a convention, since no legislature existed, and the governor had refused to allow a new one to be called into session. The convention of the towns was to begin in Boston, on September 22nd. The last measure adopted at the meeting was a day of prayer and fasting for the town on September 20^th, as the good news was reported that the New York merchants had signed the Non Importation Agreement. The declaration and the call for the convention of the towns were all printed in the newspapers, and when General Gage read the declaration, he reportedly said, “they have delivered their sentiments, in the style of a ruling and sovereign nation, who acknowledge no dependence.”[xxiv]

In this analysis, Gage showed an understanding of the Americans that almost none of his British contemporaries had at that time.

The first day of the Massachusetts convention brought hopeful signs to the Patriot leadership, as representatives of 66 towns and four districts came to Boston from all areas of the province. None of the reviled 17 representatives who had voted for rescinding the Circular Letter appeared, and there were few in attendance who were sympathetic to the governor.

The first action of the convention, was to send a letter to Governor Bernard asking for the House of Representatives to be called into session, just as the Boston town meeting had done earlier. Bernard refused to accept their request, using the excuse that replying would mean he was recognizing the convention as a legal assembly. Hoping to scare the representatives, Bernard wrote a letter saying that they were acting as a reconstituted assembly, in violation of the King’s order, and that they should disperse before taking any actions. He made the veiled threat that “the King is determined to maintain his entire sovereignty over this Province, and whoever shall persist in usurping any of the rights of it shall repent his rashness.”[xxv] This threat backfired, and instead of leaving the convention, by the end of the week, representatives of 98 towns and eight districts had come to participate.

On the sixth day, the final acts of the convention were to adopt the original petition to the King that the House of Representatives had written in January, and add to that their own lengthy letter to the Massachusetts colonial agent in London, which was published in the Boston Gazette on October 10. The reasons for the convention were simply explained in the letter, as a meeting of the people “arising from an apprehension that their charter and constitutional rights and liberties are infringed by the late acts of Parliament for the raising of a revenue without their consent; and also from the immediate prospect of a standing army to enforce these acts.”[xxvi] The convention ended on September 28^th, and that evening eight British ships entered Boston harbor, carrying the first two regiments of troops that would occupy the town.

 

Occupation Increases Colonial Resentment and Resistance

On October 1^st, the British troops marched from the long wharf through the town, with bayonets fixed, flags flying, drums beating and fifes playing, passing by a quiet crowd of residents that lined the streets to watch the spectacle. One of the first American historians who lived through this period was Mercy Otis Warren, sister of James Otis, who wrote a history of the American Revolution. She recalled her own thoughts of that time, stating, “That the American war may be dated from the hostile parade of this day; a day which marks with infamy the councils of Britain.”[xxvii]

The first regiment from Halifax had come prepared with tents, and each soldier was issued gunpowder and 16 rounds of shot, as if they were in a hostile land. They started to make an encampment on Boston Common, while negotiations started as to where the soldiers would stay, that involved the Governor’s Council, the Town Selectmen, the Governor, and the commanding military officers. The Council and the Selectmen were intent on having the troops reside in barracks in Castle William, which was on the small island separated from the town’s residents. It could certainly hold at least two regiments, and likely more. The Quartering Act, which was current British law, required that all available barracks provided by the colony, had to be filled, before an army officer could seek to lodge soldiers in other buildings in a town, and a failure to follow the law, could be punished by that officer being “cashiered” or discharged from the army.

Colonel Dalrymple wanted to put both regiments inside the town, but the Council stood their ground, saying that they would not agree, since the Quartering Act mandated that available barracks had to be filled first, before seeking other housing. They told the Colonel that Castle William housed only the Customs Commissioners who had fled there on their own in June, and could accommodate both regiments.

Governor Bernard then offered his own idea, that one regiment could take over the manufactory building, which the colony had established to make local textiles, but now housed only a handful of weavers. This also was rejected by the manager of the manufactory, who would not clear out the residents and looms, without an order from the House of Representatives, who had established it. As darkness was approaching, and the weather turned colder, the second regiment that had come ashore lacked tents, and Colonel Dalrymple appealed to the Selectmen of the town for temporary shelter for his troops. The Selectmen granted him the use of Faneuil Hall, for three days, and since the number of men was too large to fit, many had to be housed in the Town House (Old State House), in the rooms normally used for the House of Representatives, which remained dissolved.

General Gage arrived in the middle of October, finding that housing of the troops in town was still not resolved. With two more regiments from Ireland about to arrive, Gage insisted that he would station those troops at Castle William, but he would order his officers to rent or take over buildings for two regiments inside the town. Thus, he and Governor Bernard had actually violated the Quartering Act by their actions. Samuel Adams took this opportunity to assail them in an unsigned article in the Boston Gazette on October 17,  this time with the law on the side of the town. He began by ironically quoting from John Locke, writing, “where law ends, tyranny begins, if the law be transgressed to another’s harm.”[xxviii] Going beyond the violation of the Quartering Act, Adams says, “instead of enforcing the execution of law, which by the way is far from being the original intent of soldiers, they may refuse to obey it themselves; Nay, they may even make laws for themselves, and enforce them by the power of the sword!” Continuing his warning of what a military occupation will do, he says that “where military power is introduced, military maxims are propagated and adopted, which are inconsistent with and must soon eradicate every idea of civil government… It is to be observed that military government and civil, are so different from each other, if not opposite, that they cannot long subsist together.”[xxix]

In early October, the Boston Sons of Liberty wrote to John Wilkes in prison, describing the crisis they now found themselves in, saying that the “administration which has filled Great Britain and the Colonies with high and universal discontent—Has almost unhinged their commercial and political connections—Has annihilated the constitutional legislature of this Province—Has turned our Parliament-house into a main guard—Issued orders to evacuate our Province Factory of its inhabitants to convert it into a Barrack for soldiers, after sufficient provision had been made elsewhere.”

Reflecting on the prospect of life under military occupation, they wrote, “Can Britons wish to see us abandon our lives and properties to such rapine and plunder? To become traitors to that Constitution which for ages has been the citadel of their own safety. To acknowledge fellow subjects for absolute sovereigns, that by our example they may be the more readily reduced to absolute slaves.” In the final part of the letter, they ask the most candid questions, saying, “Is our reluctance to oppose Brother to Brother deemed a prospect of our submission? Or a contra is a mere presumption that indignation and despair must hurry us on to violent measures, ground sufficient to treat us with all the parade of a triumph over vanquished Rebels?”[xxx]

Supporters of Wilkes and the Patriot cause in other colonies also wrote to him, but since all of the mail into the prison was certainly read by the authorities, it appeared to the King’s party that perhaps the opposition controlled by Wilkes was coordinated with the Americans. There were several colonial agents in London who visited Wilkes in prison, including William and Arthur Lee of Virginia, and Dennis DeBerdt of Massachusetts, which reinforced this suspicion.

With four regiments now in Boston, the army put armed guards at any building that housed officers or soldiers. The main guard house was chosen directly across the street from the Town House, there the House of Representatives normally met, and two cannons were pointed directly at these doors. Troops paraded daily and did their marching drills on Boston Common. Soon, the soldiers started to abuse the local residents with threats and assaults. Since the soldiers were poorly paid and lived under brutal discipline, many tried to flee into the countryside, hoping for a better life. By the end of the first month of occupation, about 40 soldiers had escaped Boston, and the commanders offered large rewards for information that would lead to the capture of deserted soldiers, but no one betrayed them. One deserter was found, and he was marched out to the Boston Commons and shot in front of the other troops and residents of the town. Whippings and beatings of soldiers by their officers in public, was a sight that horrified most of the Bostonians.

Using the excuse of stopping deserting soldiers, the army built a gate on the thin Boston neck, which was the only land route into the town, stopping and searching carriages and carts coming or going into the city. People were constantly harassed by the soldiers, and sometimes they would simply steal goods from the country merchants coming into the town markets. Soon, assaults on the residents by soldiers became an almost daily event, and robbery and theft became almost normalized, as there was no way to effectively enforce the civil law on the soldiers.

Even local officials suffered assaults from the soldiers. John Ruddock, a judge and a Selectman of the town, had tried to restrain two soldiers who had assaulted a group of sailors, and he called for assistance. Unfortunately, about 30 soldiers came to rescue the two assailants, and they beat Judge Ruddock and his son, who retreated back into their house. Judge Ruddock identified and charged several soldiers in the attack the next day in court, but none of them were ever brought to trial[xxxi]^. In another incident, a Lieutenant of a regiment with several soldiers accompanying him, broke into a man’s house, threatened him and terrorized his family, while destroying his possessions. They were charged with only minor crimes, but if they would plead guilty, they were promised lenient terms, which they accepted. Some soldiers went even further to avoid any penalties at all, including an escape from a courtroom, where twenty soldiers drew swords to prevent the local constables from apprehending another soldier who was convicted of assault.[xxxii]

Even the constables of the night watch of the town were often targets of the soldier’s rage against the inhabitants of Boston. By November, the night watch had listed five incidents in a complaint to the Boston Selectmen, where they were assaulted or threatened by British soldiers. In one telling incident, the Dock Square watchmen, had asked a group of men in the darkness to identify themselves. The group were soldiers with their officer, who then chased the watchmen until they retreated into a small building and shut the door. The officer then threatened them, saying, “damn you, we have four regiments here and we will burn you all to ashes in a moments time! We will send you all to hell and damnation in a minute!” and then he drew his bayonet and stabbed it against the door.[xxxiii]

By December, the situation under occupation was getting worse by the day. Samuel Adams summed up the thoughts of the Boston residents in an article published under the pseudonym Vindex, in the Boston Gazette on December 5^th,, stating that, “the posting of a standing army among us, especially as it is without and against our consent, instead of preventing tumults, which it is said was the professed design of the troops being sent for, and ordered here, it is to be feared, will have a tendency quite the reverse.”

Continuing, he asks, “Are we a garrisoned town or are we not? If we are, let us know by whose authority and by whose influence we are made so: If not, and I take it for granted we are not, let us then assert and maintain the honor, and the dignity of free citizens and place the military where all other men are, and where they always ought and always will be placed in every free country, at the foot of the common law of the land.” Asking the Royal Government to answer, he says, “Is there anyone who dares to say that Americans have not the rights of subjects? Is Boston disenfranchised? When, and for what crime was it done? If not, is it not enough for us to have seen soldiers and mariners forejudged of life and executed within the body of the county by martial law?”[xxxiv]

In January 1769, news of the King’s speech to Parliament in early November, in which he accused Boston of appearing “to be in a state of disobedience to all law and government”[xxxv] was printed in newspapers all over the American colonies. The King and Parliament basically considered the people of Massachusetts to have committed treasonable acts, by simply calling for their own convention of towns to send a petition to the Crown for redress of their grievances. In the fury against America during the debates in Parliament in December, it was resolved to use a treason law, that dated from the reign of Henry VIII, to indict and transport to England for trial, any of the leaders of the ‘seditious faction,’ which could be launched by using secret ‘evidence’ from informers. This was opposed by many of the Whig members in Parliament, who warned of the dangerous consequences this would lead to. Edmund Burke, during the debate, said, “we are called upon to agree to an address advising the King to put in force against the Americans the Act of Henry the Eighth. And why? Because you cannot trust the juries of that country!” Stating that if you could not find trust among two million Americans, “you must either change your plan of government, or renounce the colonies forever.”[xxxvi]

The people of Boston soon found out that there were investigations into those who had participated in the convention of the towns, and that possibly 16 leaders would be charged with treason under this revived Act of Henry VIII. Samuel Adams, once again took up the defense of the people of Boston, writing in the Boston Gazette as Shippen on January 30^th, “that the Ministry seem to believe, that the proceedings of a certain town in America, were not only to the highest degree seditious, but nothing short of treason itself; and that they had full evidence of all this in their hands…Yet truth very  soon so far made its own way, that upon a closer inspection into affairs, the charge appeared to be laid too high: Nor is there a person either in or out of Parliament, who has justly stated or proved, one single act of that town, as a public body, to be…even at all illegal.”[xxxvii] While Samuel Adams and James Otis were aware they had been targets of investigations, they would not know until years later, that phony informant testimony had been sent to England, implicating them and other leaders of the Patriot cause, instigated by Governor Bernard and Lt. Governor Thomas Hutchinson. The proceedings of the convention of the towns were reviewed by the Solicitor and Attorney General in England, but they could not find anything on which to arrest anyone for prosecution of treason.

The work of the past year creating a unified colonial Non Importation Agreement had paid off, as it went into effect in January, and had already attracted the attention of the loyalist papers. In the same article in the Boston Gazette, Adams addresses the criticism of the Non Importation Agreement by the supporters of Governor Bernard, that the “agreement of the merchants not to import goods, was said to be a hostility not practiced by nations at war.” He responded, saying “though neither Boston nor this Province happen to be alone in such an agreement…why did not Governor Bernard send reprehensory letters to the merchants?” Continuing his argument, he writes, “It has universally been regarded as legal, and the most effectual measure for redress: Aye, there’s the stick; it is because it is likely to prove so effectual, that some men, would wheedle or frighten us out of it.”[xxxviii]

Throughout the year of 1768, each time the people of Massachusetts were threatened by the power of the Crown, they resisted, and became stronger in their determination to gain freedom from oppression. They had also organized and appealed to all of the colonies for help, and that had created a more unified opposition to the Crown’s policies that would be crucial in the years to come.

The Non Importation Agreement would also spark a cultural change in America, where the citizens would produce with pride their own manufactured goods, and look toward a future where they would no longer depend on British goods. The military occupation of Boston would change the minds of many colonists about the intentions of the British authorities, who no longer were seen as representing their interest, but instead as part of a corrupt government that was intent on taking away their rights and liberties. John Adams wrote about the occupation later in his autobiography, that his “daily reflections for two years at the sight of those soldiers before my door were serious enough. Their very appearance in Boston was a strong proof to me, that the determination in Great Britain to subjugate us, was too deep and inveterate ever to be altered by us.”[xxxix]

Samuel Adams also was changed by the occupation of Boston, and he admitted to a friend in 1775, that from that moment in 1768, he had come “to the conclusion that American independence was a political and natural necessity.”[xl]

 

 

The people of Boston would see half of the occupation troops depart later in 1769, but the friction between them would not go away, and the Boston Massacre would result in the death of five residents in March of 1770. The decision by the political leaders of Massachusetts and the Sons of Liberty to dump hundreds of chests of East India Company tea into the harbor in Boston in December 1773, changed the tactics of the American revolutionaries from legal passive resistance, into a new phase of open defiance. The reaction of the Crown in 1774 was an even harsher military government and occupation of Boston, than the experience of 1768. Once again, appeals for help from the leaders of Massachusetts were soon answered by the rest of the colonies, who came to their aid and soon joined them in a new Continental Congress, an incipient national government outside of the control of the British authorities, that would provide the structure needed for the success of the American Revolution.

The change in the thinking of the people from identifying themselves as only local subjects of a colony, to citizens of a larger America, was well underway before the armed revolts of 1775. George Washington reflected this change, writing in a letter to his friend William Fairfax, “that the cause of Boston, the despotic Measures in respect to it I mean, now is and ever will be considered as the cause of America.”[xli]

Benjamin Franklin had warned in his testimony to Parliament in 1766, that if a military force were sent to America to enforce the law, “they will not find a rebellion; they may indeed make one.”[xlii]

[i]    George III, speech from the throne, November 8, 1768, in Simmons and Thomas, eds., Proceedings, 3:1. Also found in: Annual Register For the Year 1768, London.

[ii]    Benjamin Franklin Letter to Lord Kames, April 11, 1767. As quoted in: Cook, Don. The Long Fuse: How England Lost the American Colonies, 1760-1785. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1995. p. 123.

[iii]    Dickinson, John. Letters From a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies. Philadelphia, 1767.

[iv]   Adams, Samuel. The Writings of Samuel Adams, Vol 1, Ed. H.A. Cushing, New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1904. p. 162.

[v]    Adams, Samuel. The Writings of Samuel Adams, Vol 1, Ed. H.A. Cushing, New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1904. p. 184.

[vi]   Wells, William. The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams, Vol 1, New York: 1865, Reprinted Books for Libraries Press, 1969. p. 176.

[vii]   Rudẻ, George. Wilkes and Liberty, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962. p. 42.

[viii]  Rudẻ George. Wilkes and Liberty, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962. p. 46.

[ix]   Rudẻ, George. Wilkes and Liberty, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962. p. 53.

[x]    Benjamin Franklin Letter to John Ross, May 1768. As quoted in: Cook, Don. The Long Fuse: How England Lost the American Colonies, 1760-1785. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1995. p. 138.

[xi]   Rudẻ, George. Wilkes and Liberty, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962. p. 55.

[xii]   Wells, William. The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams, Vol 1, New York: 1865, Reprinted Books for Libraries Press, 1969. p.179

[xiii]  Wells, William. The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams, Vol 1, New York: 1865, Reprinted Books for Libraries Press, 1969. p. 193.

[xiv]  Cook, Don. The Long Fuse: How England Lost the American Colonies, 1760-1785. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1995. p. 131.

[xv]  Adams, Samuel. The Writings of Samuel Adams, Vol 1, Ed. H.A. Cushing, New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1904. p. 229.

[xvi]  Adams, Samuel. The Writings of Samuel Adams, Vol 1, Ed. H.A. Cushing, New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1904. p. 233.

[xvii] Wells, William. The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams, Vol 1, New York: 1865, Reprinted Books for Libraries Press, 1969. p.198.

[xviii]      Committee of the Boston Sons of Liberty to John Wilkes, 6 June 1768, Founders Online, National Archives. Original source: The Adams Papers, Papers of John Adams, vol. 1, September 1755 – October 1773, ed. Robert J. Taylor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977, pp. 214–216.

[xix]  Adams, Samuel. The Writings of Samuel Adams, Vol 1, Ed. H.A. Cushing, New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1904. p. 236.

[xx]  Adams, Samuel. The Writings of Samuel Adams, Vol 1, Ed. H.A. Cushing, New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1904. p. 240.

[xxi]  Adams, Samuel. The Writings of Samuel Adams, Vol 1, Ed. H.A. Cushing, New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1904. p. 203.

[xxii] Wells, William. The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams, Vol 1, New York: 1865, Reprinted Books for Libraries Press, 1969. p. 213.

[xxiii]  Wells, William. The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams, Vol 1, New York: 1865, Reprinted Books for Libraries Press, 1969. p. 213.

[xxiv]        Wells, William. The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams, Vol 1, New York: 1865, Reprinted Books for Libraries Press, 1969. p. 215.

[xxv] Wells, William. The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams, Vol 1, New York: 1865, Reprinted Books for Libraries Press, 1969. p. 216.

[xxvi]        Adams, Samuel. The Writings of Samuel Adams, Vol 1, Ed. H.A. Cushing, New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1904. p. 241.

[xxvii]       Warren, Mercy Otis. History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution. Vol.1,  Boston: Manning and Loring, 1805. p. 65.

[xxviii]        Adams, Samuel. The Writings of Samuel Adams, Vol 1, Ed. H.A. Cushing, New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1904. p. 251.

[xxix]        Adams, Samuel. The Writings of Samuel Adams, Vol 1, Ed. H.A. Cushing, New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1904. p. 252.

[xxx] Committee of the Boston Sons of Liberty to John Wilkes, 5 October 1768,” Founders Online, National Archives. Original source: The Adams Papers, Papers of John Adams, vol. 1, September 1755 – October 1773, ed. Robert J. Taylor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977, pp. 220–223.

[xxxi]        Archer, Richard. As if An Enemy’s Country, New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. p. 130.

[xxxii]       Archer, Richard. As if An Enemy’s Country, New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. p. 131.

[xxxiii]     Breault, Nicole, Ed. Reports of the Dock Square watch, Boston, Mass., 1768-1774. Ms. S-858, MHS, Boston, MA.

[xxxiv]       Adams, Samuel. The Writings of Samuel Adams, Vol 1, Ed. H.A. Cushing, New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1904. p. 255.

[xxxv]     George III, speech from the throne, November 8, 1768, in Simmons and Thomas, eds., Proceedings, 3:1. Also found in: Annual Register For the Year 1768, London.

[xxxvi]      Wells, William. The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams, Vol 1, New York: 1865, Reprinted Books for Libraries Press, 1969. p. 236.

[xxxvii]     Adams, Samuel. The Writings of Samuel Adams, Vol 1, Ed. H.A. Cushing, New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1904. p. 298.

[xxxviii]    Adams, Samuel. The Writings of Samuel Adams, Vol 1, Ed. H.A. Cushing, New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1904. p. 303.

[xxxix]      Archer, Richard. As if An Enemy’s Country, New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. p. 130.

[xl]   Wells, William. The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams, Vol 1, New York: 1865, Reprinted Books for Libraries Press, 1969. p. 207.

[xli], “George Washington to George William Fairfax, 10–15 June 1774,” Founders Online, National Archives,  Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Colonial Series, vol. 10, 21 March 1774 – 15 June 1775, ed. W. W. Abbot and Dorothy Twohig. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995, pp. 94–101

[xlii]  Franklin’s Testimony, as cited in:  Cook, Don. The Long Fuse: How England Lost the American Colonies, 1760-1785. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1995. p. 99.

 

The author wishes to acknowledge the research of Professor Pauline Maier, in her book, From Resistance to Revolution. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1972.

Tags: Benjamin Franklin, Boston, British Crown, James Otis, Samuel Adams