Read Online Bunker Hill by Nathaniel Philbrick - Free Book Online
Authors: Nathaniel Philbrick
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on the violation of them. . . . Many of our women have been used to handle the cartridge, and load the musket, and the swords which we whet and brightened for our enemies are not yet grown rusty.”
In town after town, colonists took Boston’s statement of natural rights and made it their own. And as the citizens of Gorham had made unmistakably clear, they were more than willing to fight for those freedoms.
Governor Hutchinson was so alarmed by the committee’s inroads throughout the province that he responded with a tutorial of his own. On January 1773 he delivered a lecture to both chambers of the General Court in which he pointed out the fallacies behind the committee’s assertions in the Boston Declaration. Instead of convincing the patriots of the errors of their ways, however, Hutchinson’s response only added to the growing momentum. Much to the governor’s apparent surprise, the Massachusetts House of Representatives quickly replied with a detailed treatise (written by members of the Committee of Correspondence) that laid the philosophical and legal groundwork for future thoughts about independence.
In the months ahead, Hutchinson watched helplessly as the once lackadaisical pace of events in the colony seemed to accelerate into a disastrous rush. Soon after suffering through the storm ignited by his ill-conceived response to the Boston Declaration, Hutchinson found himself engulfed in the controversy surrounding the packet of letters leaked by Benjamin Franklin. Even before that began to die down in the fall of 1773, he was embroiled in the maneuverings that culminated in the Boston Tea Party. Through it all, the Boston Committee of Correspondence had been sending out letters that gave each controversy an impact and resonance it otherwise never would have had.
The turnaround was remarkable. In the fall of 1772, Hutchinson had been congratulating himself on the contented calm that had settled over the colony. Then came the Committee of Correspondence, and within a year and a half, the governor’s reign was over—a downfall that had been hastened, if not scripted, by Samuel Adams and his junta of unelected committee members.
—
On the afternoon of May 13, 1774, in Faneuil Hall, the town meeting elected an eleven-man committee “to write a circular letter to the several towns of this province and to the several colonies, acquainting them with the present state of our affairs.” In addition to Samuel Adams, the committee included many members of the Committee of Correspondence, such as John Adams, Dr. Joseph Warren, Josiah Quincy Jr., and the mercurial and outspoken merchant William Molineux. But there were some surprising additions to the committee, most notably the politically amibiguous John Rowe, whose ties to the loyalists were as strong as, if not stronger than, his allegiance to the patriot cause.
By naming Rowe and the others, Samuel Adams shrewdly addressed a potentially thorny problem. Boston had divided over the proper response to the Port Act. Many merchants were convinced that there was a simple and sensible solution to the crisis, so sensible, in fact, that Benjamin Franklin had thought of it back in London soon after learning about the Tea Party. Why not simply pay for the tea? Rather than sit there and watch as commerce withered to nothing and the city filled up with British soldiers, why not swallow their collective pride and come up with the 9,660 pounds sterling (about $850,000 in today’s U.S. currency) required to put this whole sad affair behind them and move on with their lives?
This was not what Samuel Adams and his compatriots wanted to hear. Rather than approaching the act as a problem to be solved, they saw it as an opportunity to be exploited. They argued that to capitulate now would only encourage even harsher measures in the future. And besides, given the haziness of the act’s wording, it was difficult to determine whether reimbursing the East India Company would be
In town after town, colonists took Boston’s statement of natural rights and made it their own. And as the citizens of Gorham had made unmistakably clear, they were more than willing to fight for those freedoms.
Governor Hutchinson was so alarmed by the committee’s inroads throughout the province that he responded with a tutorial of his own. On January 1773 he delivered a lecture to both chambers of the General Court in which he pointed out the fallacies behind the committee’s assertions in the Boston Declaration. Instead of convincing the patriots of the errors of their ways, however, Hutchinson’s response only added to the growing momentum. Much to the governor’s apparent surprise, the Massachusetts House of Representatives quickly replied with a detailed treatise (written by members of the Committee of Correspondence) that laid the philosophical and legal groundwork for future thoughts about independence.
In the months ahead, Hutchinson watched helplessly as the once lackadaisical pace of events in the colony seemed to accelerate into a disastrous rush. Soon after suffering through the storm ignited by his ill-conceived response to the Boston Declaration, Hutchinson found himself engulfed in the controversy surrounding the packet of letters leaked by Benjamin Franklin. Even before that began to die down in the fall of 1773, he was embroiled in the maneuverings that culminated in the Boston Tea Party. Through it all, the Boston Committee of Correspondence had been sending out letters that gave each controversy an impact and resonance it otherwise never would have had.
The turnaround was remarkable. In the fall of 1772, Hutchinson had been congratulating himself on the contented calm that had settled over the colony. Then came the Committee of Correspondence, and within a year and a half, the governor’s reign was over—a downfall that had been hastened, if not scripted, by Samuel Adams and his junta of unelected committee members.
—
On the afternoon of May 13, 1774, in Faneuil Hall, the town meeting elected an eleven-man committee “to write a circular letter to the several towns of this province and to the several colonies, acquainting them with the present state of our affairs.” In addition to Samuel Adams, the committee included many members of the Committee of Correspondence, such as John Adams, Dr. Joseph Warren, Josiah Quincy Jr., and the mercurial and outspoken merchant William Molineux. But there were some surprising additions to the committee, most notably the politically amibiguous John Rowe, whose ties to the loyalists were as strong as, if not stronger than, his allegiance to the patriot cause.
By naming Rowe and the others, Samuel Adams shrewdly addressed a potentially thorny problem. Boston had divided over the proper response to the Port Act. Many merchants were convinced that there was a simple and sensible solution to the crisis, so sensible, in fact, that Benjamin Franklin had thought of it back in London soon after learning about the Tea Party. Why not simply pay for the tea? Rather than sit there and watch as commerce withered to nothing and the city filled up with British soldiers, why not swallow their collective pride and come up with the 9,660 pounds sterling (about $850,000 in today’s U.S. currency) required to put this whole sad affair behind them and move on with their lives?
This was not what Samuel Adams and his compatriots wanted to hear. Rather than approaching the act as a problem to be solved, they saw it as an opportunity to be exploited. They argued that to capitulate now would only encourage even harsher measures in the future. And besides, given the haziness of the act’s wording, it was difficult to determine whether reimbursing the East India Company would be
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