Lexington, April 25th, 1775. I JOHN PARKER, of lawful age, and commander of the militia in Lexington, do testify and declare, that on the 19th instant, in the morning about one of the Clock, being informed that there were a number of the regular officers riding up and down the road, stopping and insulting people as they passed the road, and also was informed that a number of the regular troops were on their march from Boston, in order to take the province stores at Concord, ordered our militia to meet on the common in said Lexington, to consult what to do, and concluded not to be discovered nor meddle or make with said regular troops (if they should approach) unless they should insult or molest us, and upon their sudden approach, I immediately ordered our militia to disperse and not to fire. Immediately said troops made their appearance and rushing furiously, fired upon and killed eight of our party, without receiving any provocation therefor from us. JOHN PARKER. MIDDLESEX, ss. April 25th, 1775. THE above named John Parker, personally appeared and after being duly cautioned to declare the whole truth, made solemn oath to the truth of the above deposition by him subscribed, before us, William Read, Josiah Johnson, William Stickney, Justices of the Peace.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Sworn April 25, 1775, six days after the fighting at Lexington, as the Massachusetts Provincial Congress took sworn depositions from dozens of militiamen, bystanders, and even captured regulars.
Intended audience
The British public and Parliament. The Congress printed the depositions and rushed them to London aboard the fast schooner Quero, which arrived about two weeks before General Gage's official report.
Purpose
To prove that the regulars fired first on militia who were dispersing, so that Britons would blame the ministry, not the colonists, for the bloodshed.
Point of view
Captain John Parker commanded the Lexington company and had every reason to show his men as innocent. Note what he leaves out: that his company had mustered under arms on the Green as the column approached.
John Parker, deposition sworn April 25, 1775, in Massachusetts Provincial Congress, A Narrative, of the Excursion and Ravages of the King's Troops Under the Command of General Gage, on the Nineteenth of April, 1775: Together with the Depositions Taken by Order of Congress, to Support the Truth of It (Worcester: Isaiah Thomas, 1775), 7–8. Manuscript certified copy: "Deposition of Captain John Parker Concerning the Battle at Lexington," Papers of the Continental Congress, Record Group 360, National Archives (NAID 595246).
The Most Expensive Victory
1763
Speech to the Council at the River Ecorse
Speech · Pontiac (Odawa), as recorded in French · April 27, 1763
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
English translation by R. Clyde Ford (1912 edition)
…as to those who come to trouble your lands,—drive them out, make war upon them. I do not love them … Send them back to the lands which I have created for them and let them stay there.
Sourcing
Intended audience
Odawa, Potawatomi, and Huron leaders at a council, whom Pontiac hoped to unite for war on the British forts.
Purpose
To rally a pan-Indian alliance to drive the British out, invoking a spiritual message (from the Delaware prophet Neolin) to reject British ways.
Point of view
Pontiac, an Odawa war leader defending Native land and sovereignty; his words survive only in a French observer's record, so wording is mediated.
Pontiac (Odawa), speech to the council at the River Ecorse, April 27, 1763, as recorded in French in the anonymous "Journal ou dictation d'une conspiration" (attributed to Robert Navarre); English translation by R. Clyde Ford in C. M. Burton, ed., Journal of Pontiac's Conspiracy, 1763 (Detroit: Michigan Society of Colonial Wars, 1912), 28–30.
The Royal Proclamation of 1763
Act of Parliament · King George III · October 7, 1763
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
And We do further declare it to be Our Royal Will and Pleasure, for the present as aforesaid, to reserve under our Sovereignty, Protection, and Dominion, for the use of the said Indians, all the Lands and Territories … lying to the Westward of the Sources of the Rivers which fall into the Sea from the West and North West as aforesaid.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Issued October 7, 1763, after Britain won the Seven Years' War and as Pontiac's War raged, forcing London to manage vast new lands and Native nations.
Intended audience
Royal governors, colonists, land speculators, and (indirectly) Native nations in the newly won territory.
Purpose
To stop costly frontier wars by reserving lands west of the Appalachians for Native peoples and barring colonial settlement there.
Point of view
King George III's ministry, prioritizing imperial order and cheaper defense over colonists' hopes for western land.
King George III, The Royal Proclamation of 1763 (October 7, 1763).
Letter to William Crawford
Letter · George Washington · September 17, 1767
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
…notwithstanding the Proclamation that restrains it at present and prohibits the Settling of them at all for I can never look upon that Proclamation in any other light (but this I say between ourselves) than as a temporary expedient to quiet the Minds of the Indians and must fall of course in a few years especially when those Indians are consenting to our Occupying the Lands. Any person therefore who neglects the present oppertunity of hunting out good Lands and in some measure marking and distinguishing them for their own (in order to keep others from settling them) will never regain it…
Sourcing
Historical situation
Four years after the Proclamation of 1763 closed land west of the Appalachians to settlement, Washington—a Virginia planter, veteran officer and land speculator—was quietly trying to claim prime Ohio Valley land.
Intended audience
William Crawford, a frontier surveyor and old comrade; a private business letter ("between ourselves"), never meant to be published.
Purpose
To hire Crawford to locate and mark the best western tracts before others did, betting the Proclamation line would soon collapse.
Point of view
A land investor who saw the line as an obstacle to colonial (and personal) ambition, and Native land rights as temporary. Private candor makes it strong evidence of what elites really thought.
George Washington to William Crawford, Mount Vernon, September 1767, in The Writings of George Washington, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick, vol. 2 (1931), 467–69 (Fitzpatrick dates it Sept. 21); The Papers of George Washington, Colonial Series, vol. 8, dates it 17 September 1767 (Founders Online).
Stamp of Disapproval
1764–1766
The Sugar Act (American Revenue Act)
Act of Parliament · Parliament of Great Britain · April 5, 1764
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Whereas it is expedient that new provisions and regulations should be established for improving the revenue of this kingdom … and whereas it is just and necessary, that a revenue be raised, in your Majesty's said dominions in America, for defraying the expences of defending, protecting, and securing the same;…
Sourcing
Historical situation
Passed in April 1764, when Britain's war debt had nearly doubled and Grenville sought American revenue to pay for troops in the colonies.
Intended audience
Customs officials, colonial merchants and shippers, and the vice-admiralty courts that would enforce it.
Purpose
To raise revenue by cutting the molasses duty but actually collecting it, cracking down on smuggling with admiralty courts that had no juries.
Point of view
Parliament and Grenville's ministry, which believed Parliament plainly had the right to tax colonists who benefited from British protection.
Parliament of Great Britain, The Sugar Act (American Revenue Act) (April 5, 1764).
The Stamp Act
Act of Parliament · Parliament of Great Britain · March 22, 1765
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
And for and upon every pack of playing cards, and all dice, which shall be sold or used within the said colonies and plantations, the several stamp duties following (that is to say) For every pack of such cards, the sum of one shilling. And for every pair of such dice, the sum of ten shillings.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Passed in March 1765 as Parliament's first direct tax on the colonies, to help pay for 10,000 British troops stationed in America.
Intended audience
Colonists who used paper every day — printers, lawyers, merchants, students, gamblers — and the stamp distributors who would collect the tax.
Purpose
To raise revenue by requiring stamped paper for newspapers, legal documents, diplomas, playing cards, and dice.
Point of view
Parliament under Grenville, confident of its sovereign power to tax all British subjects; colonists saw taxation without representation.
Parliament of Great Britain, The Stamp Act (March 22, 1765).
The Objections to the Taxation of our American Colonies … Briefly Consider'd
Pamphlet · Soame Jenyns · 1765
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
every Englishman is taxed, and not one in twenty represented … If the Towns of Manchester and Birmingham sending no Representatives to Parliament are notwithstanding there represented, why are not the Cities of Albany and Boston equally represented in that Assembly?
Sourcing
Historical situation
Published in 1765 during the Stamp Act debate, as colonists protested they had no representatives in Parliament.
Intended audience
British readers and members of Parliament, answering colonial complaints.
Purpose
To defend "virtual representation": most Britons could not vote either, yet Parliament represented all subjects, so the colonies had no special grievance.
Point of view
Soame Jenyns, a Member of Parliament and Board of Trade official, speaking for the government's view of imperial authority.
Soame Jenyns, The Objections to the Taxation of Our American Colonies, by the Legislature of Great Britain, Briefly Consider'd (London: J. Wilkie, 1765), 6–8.
The Virginia Resolves
Resolves · Patrick Henry / Virginia House of Burgesses · May 30, 1765
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Resolved, That the Taxation of the People by themselves or by Persons chosen by themselves to represent them who can only know what Taxes the People are able to bear and the easiest Mode of raising them and are equally affected by such Taxes themselves is the distinguishing Characteristick of British Freedom and without which the ancient Constitution cannot subsist.
…
Resolved, Therefore that the General Assembly of this Colony have the only and sole exclusive Right & Power to lay Taxes & Impositions upon the Inhabitants of this Colony and that every Attempt to vest such Power in any Person or Persons whatsoever other than the General Assembly aforesaid has a manifest Tendency to destroy British as well as American Freedom.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Adopted in May 1765 by Virginia's House of Burgesses, the first colonial legislature to respond to the Stamp Act.
Intended audience
Virginia's burgesses, royal officials, and — through widely reprinted newspaper versions — colonists everywhere.
Purpose
To assert that only Virginia's own elected assembly could tax Virginians, rejecting Parliament's authority to do so.
Point of view
Patrick Henry, a young, fiery burgess, speaking as a colonial legislator defending the rights of Englishmen; some stronger resolves were rejected but printed anyway.
Patrick Henry, resolutions against the Stamp Act, autograph manuscript (introduced May 29, 1765; four adopted May 30; fifth expunged May 31), Colonial Williamsburg Foundation; text in Encyclopedia Virginia, "Virginia Resolves on the Stamp Act (1765)." Adopted text: John Pendleton Kennedy, ed., Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, 1761-1765 (Richmond, 1907), p. 360.
Declaration of Rights and Grievances
Resolves · Stamp Act Congress · October 19, 1765
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
That His Majesty's subjects in these colonies, owe the same allegiance to the Crown of Great-Britain, that is owing from his subjects born within the realm, and all due subordination to that august body the Parliament of Great Britain.
That His Majesty's liege subjects in these colonies, are entitled to all the inherent rights and liberties of his natural born subjects within the kingdom of Great-Britain.
That it is inseparably essential to the freedom of a people, and the undoubted right of Englishmen, that no taxes be imposed on them, but with their own consent, given personally, or by their representatives.
That the people of these colonies are not, and from their local circumstances cannot be, represented in the House of Commons in Great-Britain.
That the only representatives of the people of these colonies, are persons chosen therein by themselves, and that no taxes ever have been, or can be constitutionally imposed on them, but by their respective legislatures.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Issued October 1765 by the Stamp Act Congress, where delegates from nine colonies met in New York — an early act of intercolonial unity.
Intended audience
The King and both houses of Parliament, to whom petitions were sent.
Purpose
To argue respectfully but firmly that colonists could only be taxed by their own elected assemblies, and to seek repeal.
Point of view
Moderate colonial elites who still professed loyalty to the Crown while defending their rights as Englishmen.
Stamp Act Congress, "Declaration of Rights and Grievances" (Resolutions of the Congress of 1765), New York, October 19, 1765; text from the Avalon Project, Yale Law School.
The Examination of Doctor Benjamin Franklin, before an August Assembly, relating to the Repeal of the Stamp Act, &c.
Deposition · Benjamin Franklin (examined by the House of Commons, Committee of the Whole) · February 13, 1766 (printed Philadelphia: Hall and Sellers, 1766)
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Q. What is your name, and place of abode? A. Franklin, of Philadelphia. … Q. Do not you think the people of America would submit to pay the stamp duty, if it was moderated? A. No, never, unless compelled by force of arms. … Q. What was the temper of America towards Great-Britain before the year 1763? A. The best in the world. They submitted willingly to the government of the Crown, and paid, in all their courts, obedience to acts of parliament. Numerous as the people are in the several old provinces, they cost you nothing in forts, citadels, garrisons or armies, to keep them in subjection. They were governed by this country at the expence only of a little pen, ink and paper. They were led by a thread. They had not only a respect, but an affection, for Great-Britain, for its laws, its customs and manners, and even a fondness for its fashions, that greatly increased the commerce. Natives of Britain were always treated with particular regard; to be an Old England-man was, of itself, a character of some respect, and gave a kind of rank among us. Q. And what is their temper now? A. O, very much altered. Q. Did you ever hear the authority of parliament to make laws for America questioned till lately? A. The authority of parliament was allowed to be valid in all laws, except such as should lay internal taxes. It was never disputed in laying duties to regulate commerce. … Q. Can any thing less than a military force carry the stamp-act into execution? A. I do not see how a military force can be applied to that purpose. Q. Why may it not? A. Suppose a military force sent into America, they will find nobody in arms; what are they then to do? They cannot force a man to take stamps who chooses to do without them. They will not find a rebellion; they may indeed make one. Q. If the act is not repealed, what do you think will be the consequences? A. A total loss of the respect and affection the people of America bear to this country, and of all the commerce that depends on that respect and affection. … Q. If the stamp-act should be repealed, would it induce the assemblies of America to acknowledge the rights of parliament to tax them, and would they erase their resolutions? A. No, never. Q. Is there no means of obliging them to erase those resolutions? A. None that I know of; they will never do it unless compelled by force of arms. Q. Is there a power on earth that can force them to erase them? A. No power, how great soever, can force men to change their opinions. … Q. What used to be the pride of the Americans? A. To indulge in the fashions and manufactures of Great-Britain. Q. What is now their pride? A. To wear their old cloaths over again, till they can make new ones.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Testimony before the House of Commons sitting as a Committee of the Whole as Parliament weighed repealing the Stamp Act amid colonial riots and a non-importation boycott that was hurting British merchants.
Intended audience
Members of Parliament sitting as a Committee of the Whole House: friendly questioners primed by the Rockingham ministry, and hostile Grenvillites (Franklin later marked 89 of the 174 questions as coming from the Grenville ministry or some other "Adversary"). Once printed in 1766, colonial readers throughout America.
Purpose
To persuade Parliament to repeal the Stamp Act by warning that colonists would never pay it except under force and that their boycott of British goods would continue — framing repeal as good for British commerce.
Point of view
Franklin was Pennsylvania's colonial agent in London, a loyal imperialist stung by having initially accepted the Stamp Act; he stressed the internal/external tax distinction to give Parliament a face-saving path to repeal.
"The Examination of Benjamin Franklin before the House of Commons," February 13, 1766, in The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 13, ed. Leonard W. Labaree (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969), 124–62; Founders Online, National Archives.
The Repeal, or the Funeral of Miss Ame-Stamp
Engraving · Benjamin Wilson · March 1766
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
The Repeal, or the Funeral of Miss Ame-Stamp
The REPEAL, or the Funeral of Miss AME-STAMP. [A mock funeral procession of the Stamp Act's supporters carrying a small coffin to a family vault on the Thames docks, as ships wait to sail for America.]
Sourcing
Historical situation
Printed in March 1766, right after Parliament repealed the Stamp Act under pressure from colonial boycotts and British merchants.
Intended audience
London print-buyers and British merchants eager to see trade with America restored.
Purpose
To mock the Stamp Act's supporters as mourners at a funeral and celebrate repeal as a win for commerce.
Point of view
Benjamin Wilson, a London artist siding with repeal and the merchants — a British, not colonial, view of the crisis.
Benjamin Wilson, The Repeal, or the Funeral of Miss Ame-Stamp (March 1766).
The Declaratory Act (An act for the better securing the dependency of his majesty's dominions in America upon the crown and parliament of Great Britain), 6 Geo. III c. 12
Act of Parliament · Parliament of Great Britain · March 18, 1766
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Whereas several of the houses of representatives in his Majesty's colonies and plantations in America, have of late, against law, claimed to themselves, or to the general assemblies of the same, the sole and exclusive right of imposing duties and taxes upon his Majesty's subjects in the said colonies and plantations; and have, in pursuance of such claim, passed certain votes, resolutions, and orders, derogatory to the legislative authority of parliament, and inconsistent with the dependency of the said colonies and plantations upon the crown of Great Britain: … be it declared … That the said colonies and plantations in America have been, are, and of right ought to be, subordinate unto, and dependent upon the imperial crown and parliament of Great Britain; and that the King's majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons of Great Britain, in parliament assembled, had, hath, and of right ought to have, full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America, subjects of the crown of Great Britain, in all cases whatsoever. II. And be it further declared and enacted by the authority aforesaid, That all resolutions, votes, orders, and proceedings, in any of the said colonies or plantations, whereby the power and authority of the parliament of Great Britain, to make laws and statutes as aforesaid, is denied, or drawn into question, are, and are hereby declared to be, utterly null and void to all intents and purposes whatsoever.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Passed the same day Parliament repealed the Stamp Act, after colonial boycotts, the Stamp Act Congress, and assembly resolves (e.g., Virginia Resolves) denied Parliament's right to tax the colonies.
Intended audience
Colonial assemblies and their constituents, but equally British MPs and merchants who needed repeal to look like a tactical concession rather than a surrender of principle.
Purpose
To save face and reassert parliamentary sovereignty in principle while granting repeal in practice, voiding every colonial resolution that questioned Parliament's authority.
Point of view
The Rockingham ministry and a Parliament that held sovereignty to be indivisible — colonists were 'virtually represented' and there was no line between legislation and taxation.
Great Britain, Parliament, The Declaratory Act, 6 Geo. III c. 12 (March 18, 1766), in Danby Pickering, ed., The Statutes at Large (Cambridge, 1762–1869); transcribed by the Avalon Project, Yale Law School.
Glass, Lead, Paint, Paper, Tea… and Troops
1767–1770
The Townshend Revenue Act (An act for granting certain duties in the British colonies and plantations in America…), 7 Geo. III c. 46
Act of Parliament · Parliament of Great Britain (introduced by Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend) · June 29, 1767 (royal assent); duties effective November 20, 1767
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
WHEREAS it is expedient that a revenue should be raised in your Majesty's dominions in America, for making a more certain and adequate provision for defraying the charge of the administration of justice, and the support of civil government, in such provinces where it shall be found necessary; and towards further defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing, the said dominions; … That from and after the twentieth day of November, one thousand seven hundred and sixty seven, there shall be raised, levied, collected, and paid, unto his Majesty, his heirs, and successors, for and upon the respective goods herein after mentioned, which shall be imported from Great Britain into any colony or plantation in America … the several rates and duties following; that is to say, For every hundred weight avoirdupois of crown, plate, flint, and white glass, four shillings and eight pence. For every hundred weight avoirdupois of green glass, one shilling and two pence. For every hundred weight avoirdupois of red lead, two shillings. For every hundred weight avoirdupois of white lead, two shillings. For every hundred weight avoirdupois of painters colours, two shillings. For every pound weight avoirdupois of tea, three pence. For every ream of paper, usually called or known by the name of Atlas Fine, twelve shillings. … [IV.] … all the monies that shall arise by the said duties … shall be applied, in the first place, … in making a more certain and adequate provision for the charge of the administration of justice, and the support of civil government, in such of the said colonies and plantations where it shall be found necessary …
Sourcing
Historical situation
Passed a year after the Stamp Act's repeal, exploiting colonists' (and Franklin's) distinction between 'internal' taxes and 'external' duties on trade — but its stated aim was revenue, not regulation of commerce.
Intended audience
Colonial customs officers, royal governors and judges, and colonial importers and consumers who would pay duties on British glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea.
Purpose
To raise American revenue that would pay royal governors' and judges' salaries — freeing them from colonial assemblies' power of the purse — and to strengthen enforcement (legalizing writs of assistance issued by colonial superior courts).
Point of view
Townshend and the Chatham ministry, needing money after the land tax was cut at home and asserting the Declaratory Act's principle that Parliament could legislate for the colonies 'in all cases whatsoever.'
Great Britain, Parliament, 7 Geo. III c. 46 (1767), in Danby Pickering, ed., The Statutes at Large (Cambridge, 1762–1869); transcribed by the Avalon Project, Yale Law School, as "The Townshend Act, November 20, 1767."
Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies — Letter II
Newspaper · John Dickinson (writing as "A Farmer") · First printed in the Pennsylvania Chronicle, December 1767 (Ford dates Letter II December 10, 1767); collected as a pamphlet, Philadelphia 1768
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
My dear Countrymen, There is another late act of parliament, which appears to me to be unconstitutional, and as destructive to the liberty of these colonies, as that mentioned in my last letter; that is, the act for granting the duties on paper, glass, etc. The parliament unquestionably possesses a legal authority to regulate the trade of Great-Britain, and all her colonies. Such an authority is essential to the relation between a mother country and her colonies; and necessary for the common good of all. He, who considers these provinces as states distinct from the British Empire, has very slender notions of justice, or of their interests. We are but parts of a whole; and therefore there must exist a power somewhere to preside, and preserve the connection in due order. This power is lodged in the parliament; and we are as much dependent on Great-Britain, as a perfectly free people can be on another. … Here we may observe an authority expressly claimed and exerted to impose duties on these colonies; not for the regulation of trade; not for the preservation or promotion of a mutually beneficial intercourse between the several constituent parts of the empire, heretofore the sole objects of parliamentary institutions; but for the single purpose of levying money upon us. This I call an innovation; and a most dangerous innovation. … That we may legally be bound to pay any general duties on these commodities relative to the regulation of trade, is granted; but we being obliged by the laws to take from Great-Britain, any special duties imposed on their exportation to us only, with intention to raise a revenue from us only, are as much taxes, upon us, as those imposed by the Stamp-Act.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Parliament had just passed the Townshend Revenue Act (1767), taxing imported paper, glass, lead, paint and tea — an 'external' duty designed to sidestep colonial objections to the 'internal' Stamp Act, with revenue earmarked to pay royal officials.
Intended audience
Colonists throughout British North America — the letters were reprinted in nearly every colonial newspaper and as a pamphlet, and also read in Britain.
Purpose
To collapse the external/internal distinction: Parliament may regulate trade, but any duty levied to raise revenue is a tax without consent, as illegitimate as the Stamp Act — and to rally orderly, constitutional resistance (e.g., non-importation).
Point of view
Dickinson, a wealthy Philadelphia lawyer posing as a modest, moderate farmer, still professed loyalty to Britain and accepted parliamentary sovereignty over trade — his reasonable tone made the argument more persuasive, not less.
John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, Letter II (1767–68), in Paul Leicester Ford, ed., The Writings of John Dickinson, vol. 1 (Philadelphia: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1895), 312–320.
Massachusetts Circular Letter to the Colonial Legislatures
Letter · Massachusetts House of Representatives (drafted by Samuel Adams) · February 11, 1768
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
The House have humbly represented to the ministry, their own Sentiments that His Majestys high Court of Parliament is the supreme legislative Power over the whole Empire: That in all free States the Constitution is fixd; & as the supreme Legislative derives its Power & Authority from the Constitution, it cannot overleap the Bounds of it without destroying its own foundation: That the Constitution ascertains & limits both Sovereignty & allegiance, & therefore, his Majestys American Subjects who acknowlege themselves bound by the Ties of Allegiance, have an equitable Claim to the full enjoymt of the fundamental Rules of the British Constitution. That it is an essential unalterable Right in nature, ingrafted into the British Constitution, as a fundamental Law & ever held sacred & irrevocable by the Subjects within the Realm, that what a man has honestly acquird is absolutely his own, which he may freely give, but cannot be taken from him without his consent: That the American Subjects may therefore exclusive of any Consideration of Charter Rights, with a decent firmness adapted to the Character of free men & Subjects assert this natural and constitutional Right.
It is moreover their humble opinion, which they express with the greatest Deferrence to the Wisdom of the Parliament that the Acts made there imposing Duties on the People of this province with the sole & express purpose of raising a Revenue, are Infringments of their natural & constitutional Rights because as they are not represented in the British Parliamt His Majestys Commons in Britain by those Acts grant their Property without their consent.
This House further are of Opinion that their Constituents considering their local Circumstances cannot by any possibility be represented in the Parliament, & that it will forever be impracticable that they should be equally represented there & consequently not at all; being seperated by an Ocean of a thousand leagues: and that his Majestys Royal Predecessors for this reason were graciously pleasd to form a subordinate legislature here that their subjects might enjoy the unalienable Right of a Representation.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Parliament's Townshend Acts (1767) placed revenue duties on glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea, and earmarked the money to pay royal officials in America, cutting colonial assemblies out of the purse.
Intended audience
The speakers and assemblies of the other colonial legislatures, and indirectly the British ministry, to whom the House said it had already 'humbly represented' its views.
Purpose
To coordinate a common, 'harmonized' intercolonial protest arguing that taxation for revenue without representation violated natural and constitutional rights — while conceding Parliament's general supremacy.
Point of view
Samuel Adams and the Massachusetts House wrote as loyal British subjects claiming the rights of Englishmen; when Lord Hillsborough ordered the letter rescinded, the House refused 92–17, and the crisis helped bring troops to Boston.
Massachusetts House of Representatives, Circular Letter to the Colonial Legislatures, 11 Feb. 1768, in The Writings of Samuel Adams, ed. Harry Alonzo Cushing (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904–08), 1:184–86; reprinted in The Founders' Constitution, vol. 1, ch. 17, doc. 13 (University of Chicago Press). Text follows Adams's draft spelling as printed by Cushing (e.g., 'acquird', 'Parliamt').
Report of a Spinning Match ("Daughters of Liberty")
Newspaper · The Essex Gazette (Salem), letter from a gentleman of Newport, R.I. · May 23, 1769
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
A gentleman of New-Port [R.I.] writes: '…being at the Sign of the Pitt's Head in this town, on Tuesday last, [I] was extremely pleased by having Admittance into the Company of eleven of the Daughters of Liberty. Ladies of Character, and Lovers of British Freedom, and industry; each being laudably employed … on … a Spinning Wheel… [They were] determined to convert each Visit into a spinning Match, and to have no Entertainments but what is the Produce of their own Country, and to appear as much as possible clothed with our own Manufactures, and that more especially which is the effects of their own Labour-'
Sourcing
Historical situation
Written in 1769, when colonists were boycotting British goods to protest the Townshend duties (1767), so homespun cloth replaced imported British textiles.
Intended audience
Readers of a Massachusetts patriot newspaper — merchants, farm families, and especially women whose household buying decided whether the boycott held.
Purpose
To praise women's spinning as public, patriotic action and shame or inspire others into making and wearing American-made cloth instead of British imports.
Point of view
A male patriot correspondent who admires the women as "Daughters of Liberty"; he frames their labor through a political lens and reports it for propaganda value, not in the spinners' own words.
The Essex Gazette (Salem, Mass.), May 23, 1769, p. 1 (letter from Newport, R.I.).
A View of Part of the Town of Boston in New-England and Brittish Ships of War: Landing Their Troops! 1768
Engraving · Paul Revere (engraver, printer, and seller); hand-colored by Christian Remick · Engraved and issued in 1770 (advertised April 1770), depicting the landing of September 30–October 1, 1768
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
A View of Part of the Town of Boston in New-England and Brittish Ships of War: Landing Their Troops! 1768
[Ribbon title:] A View of Part of the Town of Boston in New-England and Brittish Ships of War: Landing Their Troops! 1768.
[Caption:] On fryday Septr 30th 1768, the Ships of WAR, armed Schooners, Transports, &c. Came up the Harbour and Anchored round the TOWN; their Cannon loaded, a Spring on their Cables, as for a regular Siege. At noon on Saturday October the 1st the fourteenth & twenty-ninth Regiments, a detachment from the 59th Regt and Train of Artillery, with two peices of Cannon, landed on the Long Wharf; there Formed and Marched with insolent Parade, Drums beating, Fifes playing, and Colours flying, up KING STREET. Each Soldier having received 16 rounds of Powder and Ball.
[Key:] A Long Wharf B Hancock's Wharf C North Battery
[Cartouche, lower right, framed by a Native American figure standing on a fallen British soldier:] To the Earl of Hillsborough, His Majests Sery. of State for America. THIS VIEW of the only well Plan'd EXPEDITION, formed for supporting ye dignity of BRITAIN & chastising ye insolence of AMERICA, is hum'y Inscrib'd.
Engraved, Printed, & Sold by Paul Revere, Boston.
Sourcing
Historical situation
After Boston resisted the Townshend duties, mobbed customs officials in the Liberty riot, and refused to rescind the Circular Letter, Lord Hillsborough sent two regiments; they landed at Long Wharf on October 1, 1768 and began a 17-month occupation that ended with the Massacre.
Intended audience
Bostonians and colonial buyers of prints (sold by Revere, hand-colored by Christian Remick), plus the imperial officials mocked in the dedication.
Purpose
To portray the landing as a hostile military siege of a loyal town — cannon loaded, soldiers with 16 rounds each, marching with 'insolent Parade' — and to ridicule Hillsborough's policy.
Point of view
Revere was a Son of Liberty.
Paul Revere, A View of Part of the Town of Boston in New-England and Brittish Ships of War: Landing Their Troops! 1768 (Boston: Paul Revere, [1770]); impressions at the American Antiquarian Society (Brigham plate) and Library of Congress (restrike, LC-DIG-pga-12361). Cartouche spelling follows the LoC record ('His Majests Sery. of State for Am[erica]') and the print; 'ye' has superscript e on the original.
The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street
Engraving · Paul Revere (after Henry Pelham) · March 1770
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street
The BLOODY MASSACRE perpetrated in King Street BOSTON on March 5th 1770, by a party of the 29th REGT. — Unhappy BOSTON! see thy Sons deplore, / Thy hallow'd Walks besmear'd with guiltless Gore:
Sourcing
Historical situation
Engraved weeks after March 5, 1770, when British soldiers occupying Boston fired into a crowd on King Street, killing five.
Intended audience
Colonists throughout the colonies who bought or saw the print, and potential jurors before the soldiers' trials.
Purpose
To prove British guilt: it shows orderly soldiers firing on command into a peaceful crowd — propaganda, not a faithful record.
Point of view
Paul Revere, a Boston silversmith and Son of Liberty who copied Henry Pelham's design; a patriot partisan shaping public memory.
Paul Revere (after Henry Pelham), The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street (March 1770).
Letter to Paul Revere
Letter · Henry Pelham · March 29, 1770
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Thursday Morng. Boston, March 29, 1770. Sir, When I heard that you was cutting a plate of the late Murder. I thought it impossible, as I knew you was not capable of doing it unless you coppied it from mine and as I thought I had entrusted it in the hands of a person who had more regard to the dictates of Honour and Justice than to take the undue advantage you have done of the confidence and Trust I reposed in you. But I find I was mistaken, and after being at the great Trouble and Expence of making a design paying for paper, printing &c, find myself in the most ungenerous Manner deprived, not only of any proposed Advantage, but even of the expence I have been at, as truly as if you had plundered me on the highway. If you are insensible of the Dishonour you have brought on yourself by this Act, the World will not be so. However, I leave you to reflect upon and consider of one of the most dishonorable Actions you could well be guilty of. H. Pelham. P S. I send by the Bearer the prints I borrowed of you. My Mother desired you would send the hinges and part of the press, that you had from her.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Written March 29, 1770, after Revere's engraving of the Massacre reached the public before Pelham's own print of the same design.
Intended audience
Paul Revere personally — a private letter, not meant for publication.
Purpose
To accuse Revere of copying his drawing and cheating him of profit and credit.
Point of view
Henry Pelham, a Boston artist (and half-brother of John Singleton Copley, later a Loyalist) with a financial grievance; it shows the famous image was a commercial copy.
Henry Pelham to Paul Revere, Boston, March 29, 1770, in Letters & Papers of John Singleton Copley and Henry Pelham, 1739–1776 (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1914), 83; manuscript preserved with the Copley–Pelham papers in the Colonial Office records (C.O. 5/38–39), The National Archives (UK).
Captain Thomas Preston's Account of the Boston Massacre
Deposition · Captain Thomas Preston · March 13, 1770
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
The mob still increased and were more outrageous, striking their clubs or bludgeons one against another, and calling out, come on you rascals, you bloody backs, you lobster scoundrels, fire if you dare, God damn you, fire and be damned, we know you dare not, and much more such language was used. At this time I was between the soldiers and the mob, parleying with, and endeavouring all in my power to persuade them to retire peaceably, but to no purpose. They advanced to the points of the bayonets, struck some of them and even the muzzles of the pieces, and seemed to be endeavouring to close with the soldiers. On which some well behaved persons asked me if the guns were charged. I replied yes. They then asked me if I intended to order the men to fire. I answered no, by no means …
Sourcing
Historical situation
Written in March 1770 while Captain Preston sat in jail awaiting trial for murder after the Boston Massacre.
Intended audience
British officials and the British public, where it was printed; Bostonians read it angrily when it came back to town.
Purpose
To clear himself by insisting he never ordered his men to fire and that they faced a violent mob.
Point of view
Captain Thomas Preston, the British officer in command, whose life depended on proving innocence — a clear motive to shape his story.
Captain Thomas Preston, Captain Thomas Preston's Account of the Boston Massacre (March 13, 1770).
Argument for the Defense in Rex v. Wemms (the Boston Massacre soldiers' trial)
Speech · John Adams · December 3–4, 1770
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
May it please your Honours and you Gentlemen of the Jury, I am for the prisoners at the bar, and shall apologize for it only in the words of the Marquis Beccaria: “If I can but be the instrument of preserving one life, his blessing and tears of transport, shall be a sufficient consolation to me, for the contempt of all mankind.” … We have been entertained with a great variety of phrases, to avoid calling this sort of people a mob.—Some call them shavers, some call them genius's.—The plain English is gentlemen, most probably a motley rabble of saucy boys, negroes and molattoes, Irish teagues and out landish jack tarrs.—And why we should scruple to call such a set of people a mob, I can't conceive, unless the name is too respectable for them: —The sun is not about to stand still or go out, nor the rivers to dry up because there was a mob in Boston on the 5th of March that attacked a party of soldiers. … soldiers quartered in a populous town, will always occasion two mobs, where they prevent one.—They are wretched conservators of the peace! … Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence: nor is the law less stable than the fact; if an assault was made to endanger their lives, the law is clear, they had a right to kill in their own defence; if it was not so severe as to endanger their lives, yet if they were assaulted at all, struck and abused by blows of any sort, by snow-balls, oyster-shells, cinders, clubs, or sticks of any kind; this was a provocation, for which the law reduces the offence of killing, down to manslaughter, in consideration of those passions in our nature, which cannot be eradicated. To your candour and justice I submit the prisoners and their cause.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Delivered at the close of the trial of eight British soldiers (Rex v. Wemms) charged with murder for the March 5, 1770 shootings on King Street; Captain Preston had already been acquitted in a separate trial.
Intended audience
A Massachusetts jury (drawn from outside Boston), the judges, and a tense Boston public reading the published trial record.
Purpose
To win acquittal by arguing the soldiers fired in self-defense against a threatening mob; six were acquitted and two (Montgomery and Kilroy) were convicted only of manslaughter.
Point of view
A Patriot-leaning lawyer defending the enemy to prove Boston respected the rule of law; he disparages the crowd with class and racial slurs (including Crispus Attucks's 'negroes and molattoes') to shift blame from the soldiers — a revealing contrast to the Patriot 'massacre' narrative.
John Adams, “Adams' Argument for the Defense: 3–4 December 1770,” in Legal Papers of John Adams, ed. L. Kinvin Wroth and Hiller B. Zobel, vol. 3 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965), 242–270; Adams Papers Digital Edition, Massachusetts Historical Society (also Founders Online, ADMS-05-03-02-0001-0004-0016). Text derives from the 1770 published shorthand trial record, partly summarized by the reporter.
A Nice Cup of Tea
1772–1773
The Rights of the Colonists (Report of the Committee of Correspondence to the Boston Town Meeting)
Resolves · Samuel Adams (principal author), for the Boston Committee of Correspondence · November 20, 1772
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Among the natural Rights of the Colonists are these First. a Right to Life; Secondly to Liberty; thirdly to Property; together with the Right to support and defend them in the best manner they can - Those are evident Branches of, rather than deductions from the Duty of Self Preservation, commonly called the first Law of Nature - All Men have a Right to remain in a State of Nature as long as they please: And in case of intollerable Oppression, Civil or Religious, to leave the Society they belong to, and enter into another. -- When Men enter into Society, it is by voluntary consent; and they have a right to demand and insist upon the performance of such conditions, And previous limitations as form an equitable original compact. --- Every natural Right not expressly given up or from the nature of a Social Compact necessarily ceded remains. … the right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of Man to alienate this gift, and voluntarily become a slave -- … Thirdly, The supreme power cannot Justly take from any man, any part of his property without his consent, in person or by his Representative. - … It is utterly irreconcileable to these principles, and to many other fundamental maxims of the common law, common sense and reason, that a British house of commons, should have a right, at pleasure, to give and grant the property of the Colonists. … Now what liberty can there be, where property is taken away without consent?
Sourcing
Historical situation
Adopted by the Boston town meeting in November 1772 after news that the Crown would pay Massachusetts judges' and the governor's salaries from customs revenue, removing the assembly's power of the purse; it launched the network of committees of correspondence.
Intended audience
The other towns of Massachusetts (to which it was printed and circulated with a list of grievances and a letter), and more broadly 'the World' and British officials.
Purpose
To state colonial rights 'as Men, as Christians, and as Subjects' and rally towns into coordinated resistance, grounding opposition to Parliamentary taxation in natural rights and consent.
Point of view
A radical Boston Whig organizer steeped in Locke (whom the text cites by name); his natural-rights language — including that no one may 'voluntarily become a slave' — anticipates the Declaration of Independence while leaving the contradiction of colonial slavery unaddressed.
“The Rights of the Colonists, A List of Violations of Rights and a Letter of Correspondence,” adopted by the Town of Boston, November 20, 1772 (Boston Record Commissioners' Report, vol. 18, pp. 94–108), in The Writings of Samuel Adams, ed. Harry Alonzo Cushing, vol. 2 (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1906), transcribed by Project Gutenberg (eBook #2092).
The Tea Act
Act of Parliament · Parliament of Great Britain · May 10, 1773
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
That from and after the passing of this act, it shall and may be lawful for the commissioners of his Majesty's treasury, or any three or more of them, or the high treasurer for the time being, to grant a licence or licences to the said united company, to take out of their warehouses such quantity or quantities of tea as the said commissioners of the treasury, or any three or more of them, or the high treasurer for the time being, shall think proper, without the same having been exposed to sale in this kingdom; and to export such tea to any of the British colonies or plantations in America, or to foreign parts, discharged from the payment of any customs or duties whatsoever;…
Sourcing
Historical situation
Passed May 10, 1773, when the East India Company was near bankruptcy with about 17 million pounds of unsold tea, while the Townshend tax on tea (3 pence per pound) still stood in America.
Intended audience
Treasury officials and the East India Company, who would carry it out — and, indirectly, colonial merchants and consumers whose market it reshaped.
Purpose
To rescue the Company by letting it ship tea straight to America duty-free in Britain, undercutting smugglers; the cheaper tea still carried the Townshend duty, quietly asserting Parliament's right to tax.
Point of view
Parliament and Lord North's ministry, which saw a clever commercial fix; colonists saw a monopoly and a bribe to accept taxation without representation.
Great Britain, Parliament, An Act to allow a drawback of the duties of customs on the exportation of tea to any of his Majesty's colonies or plantations in America … (13 Geo. III c. 44), sec. IV, May 10, 1773.
Friends! Brethren! Countrymen!
Broadside · Boston Sons of Liberty · November 29, 1773
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Friends! Brethren! Countrymen! That worst of Plagues, the detested TEA shipped for this Port by the East-India Company, is now arrived in this Harbour;…
Sourcing
Historical situation
Posted November 29, 1773, the day after the tea ship Dartmouth arrived in Boston Harbor under the Tea Act.
Intended audience
Bostonians and people of nearby towns, summoned to a mass meeting at Faneuil Hall (moved to Old South).
Purpose
To rally the public to stop the tea from landing and prevent payment of the duty.
Point of view
The Boston Sons of Liberty, radical organizers framing the tea as a "plague" that threatened liberty.
Boston Sons of Liberty, Friends! Brethren! Countrymen! (November 29, 1773).
A Retrospect of the Boston Tea-Party, with a Memoir of George R. T. Hewes (Hewes's first-person account)
Pamphlet · George Robert Twelves Hewes, as told to James Hawkes ("A Citizen of New-York") · 1834 (recalling the night of December 16, 1773)
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
It was now evening, and I immediately dressed myself in the costume of an Indian, equipped with a small hatchet, which I and my associates denominated the tomahawk, with which, and a club, after having painted my face and hands with coal dust in the shop of a blacksmith, I repaired to Griffin's wharf, where the ships lay that contained the tea. When I first appeared in the street, after being thus disguised, I fell in with many who were dressed, equipped and painted as I was, and who fell in with me, and marched in order to the place of our destination. … The commander of the division to which I belonged, as soon as we were on board the ship, appointed me boatswain, and ordered me to go to the captain and demand of him the keys to the hatches and a dozen candles. … We then were ordered by our commander to open the hatches, and take out all the chests of tea and throw them overboard, and we immediately proceeded to execute his orders; first cutting and splitting the chests with our tomahawks, so as thoroughly to expose them to the effects of the water. … We were surrounded by British armed ships, but no attempt was made to resist us. … One Captain O'Conner, whom I well knew, came on board for that purpose, and when he supposed he was not noticed, filled his pockets, and also the lining of his coat. But I had detected him, and gave information to the captain of what he was doing. We were ordered to take him into custody, and just as he was stepping from the vessel, I seized him by the skirt of his coat, and in attempting to pull him back, I tore it off; but springing forward, by a rapid effort, he made his escape. He had however to run a gauntlet through the crowd upon the wharf; each one, as he passed, giving him a kick or a stroke.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Published in 1834, some sixty years after the Tea Party, when the Revolution's last survivors were being celebrated as living relics; Hewes, a Boston shoemaker then in his nineties, dictated his memories to author James Hawkes.
Intended audience
Jacksonian-era American readers eager for patriotic, first-hand stories of the Revolutionary generation.
Purpose
To preserve and celebrate an ordinary participant's role in the Tea Party — emphasizing disguise, discipline, secrecy, and that only tea (not other property) was destroyed.
Point of view
A working-class artisan claiming a place in a story usually told about elites; as a LATE recollection filtered through an interviewer ~60 years after the event, details (dialogue, names, the O'Conner episode) may be embellished or shaped by later memory, so it shows how the Revolution was remembered as much as what happened.
[James Hawkes], A Retrospect of the Boston Tea-Party, with a Memoir of George R. T. Hewes, a Survivor of the Little Band of Patriots who Drowned the Tea in Boston Harbour in 1773, by a Citizen of New-York (New York: S. S. Bliss, 1834), pp. 38–41. Late recollection (c. 60 years after the event, Hewes aged ~92).
Diary entry on the destruction of the tea
Diary · John Adams · December 17, 1773
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Last Night 3 Cargoes of Bohea Tea were emptied into the Sea. This Morning a Man of War sails. This is the most magnificent Movement of all. There is a Dignity, a Majesty, a Sublimity, in this last Effort of the Patriots, that I greatly admire. The People should never rise, without doing something to be remembered—something notable And striking. This Destruction of the Tea is so bold, so daring, so firm, intrepid and inflexible, and it must have so important Consequences, and so lasting, that I cant but consider it as an Epocha in History. This however is but an Attack upon Property. Another similar Exertion of popular Power, may produce the destruction of Lives. Many Persons wish, that as many dead Carcasses were floating in the Harbour, as there are Chests of Tea:—a much less Number of Lives however would remove the Causes of all our Calamities. … What Measures will the Ministry take, in Consequence of this?— Will they resent it? will they dare to resent it? will they punish Us? How? By quartering Troops upon Us?—by annulling our Charter?—by laying on more duties? By restraining our Trade? By Sacrifice of Individuals, or how. The Question is whether the Destruction of this Tea was necessary? I apprehend it was absolutely and indispensably so. … To let it be landed, would be giving up the Principle of Taxation by Parliamentary Authority, against which the Continent have struggled for 10 years, it was loosing all our labour for 10 years and subjecting ourselves and our Posterity forever to Egyptian Taskmasters—to Burthens, Indignities, to Ignominy, Reproach and Contempt, to Desolation and Oppression, to Poverty and Servitude.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Written the morning after roughly 340 chests of East India Company tea were dumped into Boston Harbor on December 16, 1773, when Governor Hutchinson refused to let the tea ships leave without unloading.
Intended audience
Adams himself — a private diary not intended for publication, which makes it a candid record of an elite lawyer's reaction.
Purpose
To record and justify the Tea Party: Adams argues destruction was 'absolutely and indispensably' necessary because landing the tea would concede Parliament's right to tax the colonies, while predicting British retaliation (troops, charter changes — i.e., the coming Coercive Acts).
Point of view
A cautious Boston lawyer who had defended the Massacre soldiers three years earlier; his enthusiasm shows how the Tea Party radicalized even moderates, though he still distinguishes an 'Attack upon Property' from violence against lives.
John Adams, Diary, 17 December 1773, in Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, ed. L. H. Butterfield, vol. 2 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961), 85–86; Adams Papers Digital Edition, Massachusetts Historical Society (also Founders Online, ADMS-01-02-02-0003-0008-0001).
Intolerable
1774–1775
The Boston Port Act
Act of Parliament · Parliament of Great Britain (14 Geo. III c. 19) · March 31, 1774
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
An act to discontinue, in such manner, and for such time as are therein mentioned, the landing and discharging, lading or shipping, of goods, wares, and merchandise, at the town, and within the harbour, of Boston, in the province of Massachuset's Bay, in North America. WHEREAS dangerous commotions and insurrections have been fomented and raised in the town of Boston, in the province of Massachuset's Bay, in New England, by divers ill-affected persons, to the subversion of his Majesty's government, and to the utter destruction of the publick peace, and good order of the said town; in which commotions and insurrections certain valuable cargoes of teas, being the property of the East India Company, and on board certain vessels lying within the bay or harbour of Boston, were seized and destroyed: And whereas, in the present condition of the said town and harbour, the commerce of his Majesty's subjects cannot be safely carried on there, nor the customs payable to his Majesty duly collected; and it is therefore expedient that the officers of his Majesty's customs should be forthwith removed from the said town… That from and after the first day of June, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-four, it shall not be lawful for any person or persons whatsoever to lade put, or cause or procure to be laden or put, off or from any quay, wharf, or other place, within the said town of Boston… upon pain of the forfeiture of the said goods, wares, and merchandise, and of the said boat, lighter, ship, or vessel or other bottom into which the same shall be taken… nothing herein contained shall extend, or be construed, to enable his Majesty to appoint such port, harbour, creeks, quays, wharfs, places, or officers in the said town of Boston… until it shall sufficiently appear to his Majesty that full satisfaction hath been made by or on behalf of the inhabitants of the said town of Boston to the united company of merchants of England trading to the East Indies, for the damage sustained by the said company by the destruction of their goods sent to the said town of Boston
Sourcing
Historical situation
Passed three months after the Boston Tea Party (December 16, 1773), this was the first of the Coercive ("Intolerable") Acts; it shut Boston harbor to all trade from June 1, 1774.
Intended audience
Customs officers, the Royal Navy, and Boston's merchants and inhabitants, and by example every other colony watching how Parliament would answer defiance.
Purpose
To punish Boston collectively and force the town to repay the East India Company for the destroyed tea by strangling its seaborne commerce until 'peace and obedience to the laws' were restored.
Point of view
Lord North's ministry and Parliament treated the Tea Party as criminal 'insurrection' by 'ill-affected persons' against lawful sovereignty, not as a protest over rights, so the answer was coercion rather than negotiation.
"The Boston Port Act," March 31, 1774, 14 Geo. III c. 19. The Avalon Project, Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library.
The Massachusetts Government Act
Act of Parliament · Parliament of Great Britain (14 Geo. III c. 45) · May 20, 1774
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
An act for the better regulating the government of the province of the Massachuset's Bay, in New England… an open resistance to the execution of the laws hath actually taken place in the town of Boston, and the neighbourhood thereof, within the said province… that the said method of annually electing the counsellors or assistants of the said province should no longer be suffered to continue… the council, or court of assistants of the said province for the time being, shall be composed of such of the inhabitants or proprietors of lands within the same as shall be thereunto nominated and appointed by his Majesty, his heirs and successors, from time to time, by warrant under his or their signet or sign manual, and with the advice of the privy council… and whereas a great abuse has been made of the power of calling such meetings, and the inhabitants have, contrary to the design of their institution, been misled to treat upon matters of the most general concern, and to pass many dangerous and unwarrantable resolves: for remedy whereof, be it enacted, That from and after the said first day of August, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-four, no meeting shall be called by the select men, or at the request of any number of freeholders of any township, district, or precinct, without the leave of the governor, or, in his absence, of the lieutenant-governor, in writing, expressing the special business of the said meeting, first had and obtained, except the annual meeting in the months of March or May, for the choice of select men, constables, and other officers… and that no other matter shall be treated of at such meetings, except the election of their aforesaid officers or representatives, nor at any other meeting, except the business expressed in the leave given by the governor
Sourcing
Historical situation
The second Coercive Act, passed in May 1774 after the Tea Party; it revoked key parts of the 1691 Massachusetts charter, replacing the elected council with Crown appointees and giving the royal governor (now General Thomas Gage) control over judges, sheriffs, and juries.
Intended audience
The royal governor and officials of Massachusetts, and the province's towns, selectmen, and freeholders whose self-government it curtailed.
Purpose
To dismantle the institutions (town meetings, the elected council, locally chosen juries) that Parliament blamed for 'dangerous and unwarrantable resolves' and open resistance, and to restore the province's 'just dependance' on Crown and Parliament.
Point of view
Parliament treated colonial self-rule as a privilege it could revoke by statute; colonists read the act as proof that no charter or local liberty was safe, which pushed other colonies to rally behind Massachusetts.
"The Massachusetts Government Act," May 20, 1774, 14 Geo. III c. 45. The Avalon Project, Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library.
The Suffolk Resolves
Resolves · Suffolk County Convention, Massachusetts (drafted by Dr. Joseph Warren) · September 9, 1774 (printed September 15; endorsed by the Continental Congress September 17, 1774)
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
If a boundless Extent of Continent, swarming with Millions, will tamely submit to live, move and have their Being at the arbitrary Will of a licentious Minister, they basely yield to voluntary Slavery, and future Generations shall load their Memories with incessant Execrations.—On the other Hand, if we arrest the Hand which would ransack our Pockets, if we disarm the Parricide who points the Dagger to our Bosoms, if we nobly defeat that fatal Edict which proclaims a Power to frame Laws for us in all Cases whatsoever… whereby the Streets of Boston are thronged with military Executioners, whereby our Coasts are lined, and Harbours crowded with Ships of War, whereby the Charter of the Colony, that sacred Barrier against the Encroachments of Tyranny is mutilated, and in effect annihilated… Therefore, WE HAVE RESOLVED, AND DO RESOLVE… That the late Acts of the British Parliament for blocking up the Harbour of Boston, and for altering the established Form of Government in this Colony; and for screening the most flagitious Violators of the Laws of the Province from a legal Trial, are gross Infractions of those Rights to which we are justly entitled by the Laws of Nature, the British Constitution, and the Charter of the Province… That no Obedience is due from this Province to either or any Part of the Acts abovementioned; but that they be rejected as the Attempts of a wicked Administration to enslave America… that the Inhabitants of those Towns and Districts who are qualified do use their utmost Diligence to acquaint themselves with the Art of War as soon as possible, and do for that Purpose appear under Arms at least once every Week… That during the present hostile Appearances on the Part of Great-Britain, notwithstanding the many Insults and Oppressions which we most sensibly resent; yet nevertheless from our Affection to his Majesty which we have at all Times evidenced; we are determined to act merely upon the Defensive, so long as such Conduct may be vindicated by Reason and the Principles of Self-preservation, but no longer.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Drafted by Joseph Warren and adopted by a convention of Suffolk County (Boston-area) towns at Milton on September 9, 1774, as Gen. Gage fortified Boston Neck and seized provincial powder; Paul Revere carried them to Philadelphia, where the Continental Congress endorsed them on September 17.
Intended audience
The people and towns of Suffolk County and Massachusetts, the Continental Congress then sitting in Philadelphia, and implicitly the royal government in Boston.
Purpose
To declare the Coercive Acts void, urge a boycott, withholding of taxes, and non-cooperation with Crown-appointed courts and councillors, and put the militia on a weekly war footing, while still professing allegiance to George III.
Point of view
Radical Massachusetts patriots framed Parliament's acts as a 'wicked Administration' plot 'to enslave America'; their insistence on acting 'merely upon the Defensive… but no longer' shows resistance edging toward armed rebellion, which is why loyalists and Britain read them as near-treason.
Suffolk Resolves, adopted September 9, 1774; Supplement to the Massachusetts-Gazette, September 15, 1774 (Massachusetts Historical Society), transcribed in Encyclopedia Virginia (Virginia Humanities). Also printed in Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 1, September 17, 1774.
Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress
Resolves · First Continental Congress, Philadelphia · October 14, 1774
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Whereas, since the close of the last war, the British parliament, claiming a power, of right, to bind the people of America by statutes in all cases whatsoever, hath, in some acts, expressly imposed taxes on them… All which statutes are impolitic, unjust, and cruel, as well as unconstitutional, and most dangerous and destructive of American rights… The good people of the several colonies… justly alarmed at these arbitrary proceedings of parliament and administration, have severally elected, constituted, and appointed deputies to meet, and sit in general Congress, in the city of Philadelphia, in order to obtain such establishment, as that their religion, laws, and liberties, may not be subverted… do, in the first place, as Englishmen, their ancestors in like cases have usually done, for asserting and vindicating their rights and liberties, DECLARE, That the inhabitants of the English colonies in North-America, by the immutable laws of nature, the principles of the English constitution, and the several charters or compacts, have the following RIGHTS: Resolved, N.C.D. 1. That they are entitled to life, liberty and property: and they have never ceded to any foreign power whatever, a right to dispose of either without their consent… Resolved, 4. That the foundation of English liberty, and of all free government, is a right in the people to participate in their legislative council: and as the English colonists are not represented, and from their local and other circumstances, cannot properly be represented in the British parliament, they are entitled to a free and exclusive power of legislation in their several provincial legislatures… Resolved, N.C.D. 8. That they have a right peaceably to assemble, consider of their grievances, and petition the king… Resolved, N.C.D. 9. That the keeping a standing army in these colonies, in times of peace, without the consent of the legislature of that colony, in which such army is kept, is against law… we pass over for the present, and proceed to state such acts and measures as have been adopted since the last war, which demonstrate a system formed to enslave America.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Delegates from twelve colonies (all but Georgia) met in Philadelphia in September-October 1774 to answer the Coercive Acts; this declaration was adopted October 14, days before the Continental Association.
Intended audience
The king, Parliament, and the British public, and equally the colonists themselves, whose unity the Congress needed to demonstrate.
Purpose
To state in one place the rights colonists claimed, declare the Coercive and Quebec Acts 'impolitic, unjust, and cruel,' and demand their repeal while still professing loyalty to the Crown.
Point of view
Delegates spoke 'as Englishmen,' grounding their claims in natural law, the English constitution, and colonial charters (Enlightenment ideas); they conceded Parliament could regulate trade but not tax or legislate for them internally.
"Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress," October 14, 1774. Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 1; The Avalon Project, Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library.
The Continental Association (Articles of Association)
Resolves · First Continental Congress, Philadelphia · October 20, 1774
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
We, his majesty's most loyal subjects, the delegates of the several colonies… find, that the present unhappy situation of our affairs is occasioned by a ruinous system of colony administration, adopted by the British ministry about the year 1763, evidently calculated for enslaving these colonies, and, with them, the British Empire… To obtain redress of these grievances, which threaten destruction to the lives liberty, and property of his majesty's subjects, in North-America, we are of opinion, that a non-importation, non-consumption, and non-exportation agreement, faithfully adhered to, will prove the most speedy, effectual, and peaceable measure: And, therefore, we do, for ourselves, and the inhabitants of the several colonies, whom we represent, firmly agree and associate, under the sacred ties of virtue, honour and love of our country, as follows: 1. That from and after the first day of December next, we will not import, into British America, from Great-Britain or Ireland, any goods, wares, or merchandise whatsoever… nor will we, after that day, import any East-India tea from any part of the world… 2. We will neither import nor purchase, any slave imported after the first day of December next… 8. We will, in our several stations, encourage frugality, economy, and industry, and promote agriculture, arts and the manufactures of this country, especially that of wool… 11. That a committee be chosen in every county, city, and town, by those who are qualified to vote for representatives in the legislature, whose business it shall be attentively to observe the conduct of all persons touching this association; and when it shall be made to appear, to the satisfaction of a majority of any such committee, that any person within the limits of their appointment has violated this association, that such majority do forthwith cause the truth of the case to be published in the gazette; to the end, that all such foes to the rights of British-America may be publicly known, and universally contemned as the enemies of American liberty; and thenceforth we respectively will break off all dealings with him or her.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Adopted by the First Continental Congress six days after its Declaration and Resolves, as the colonies' economic answer to the Coercive Acts: non-importation from December 1, 1774, non-consumption, and non-exportation from September 10, 1775.
Intended audience
Colonial merchants, shopkeepers, and consumers in every colony, and indirectly British merchants and manufacturers whose losses were meant to pressure Parliament.
Purpose
To force repeal of the Coercive Acts and revenue laws through a unified, continent-wide boycott, enforced locally by elected committees that would publicly shame violators as 'enemies of American liberty.'
Point of view
Delegates still called themselves 'his majesty's most loyal subjects,' but the Association's committee network amounted to a shadow government, turning ordinary buying and selling (and home manufacture, often women's work) into a test of patriotic loyalty.
"The Articles of Association," October 20, 1774. Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 1; The Avalon Project, Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library.
The Edenton Resolves
Resolves · Fifty-one women of Edenton, North Carolina · October 25, 1774
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
As we cannot be indifferent on any Occasion that appears nearly to affect the Peace and Happiness of our Country, and as it has been thought necessary, for the publick Good, to enter into several particular Resolves, by a Meeting of Members deputed from the whole Province, it is a Duty which we owe, not only to our near and dear Connections, who have concurred in them, but to ourselves, who are essentially interested in their Welfare, to do every Thing as far as lies in our Power to testify our sincere Adherence to the same; and we do therefore accordingly subscribe this Paper, as a Witness of our fixed Intention and solemn Determination to do so.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Signed October 25, 1774, after North Carolina's First Provincial Congress (August 1774) resolved to boycott British tea and cloth in answer to the Coercive Acts.
Intended audience
The women's own community and the province's male leaders — and, once printed in London in January 1775, a British public startled that women had signed a political pledge.
Purpose
To publicly bind fifty-one women to the provincial boycott and claim their own stake ("ourselves") in the political crisis.
Point of view
Elite white women of Edenton led by Penelope Barker, speaking in their own collective voice as political actors — rare for the period, which is why London mocked it.
Resolution of the ladies of Edenton, North Carolina, October 25, 1774, first printed in the Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg), Postscript, November 3, 1774; reprinted in the Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser, January 16, 1775.
A Society of Patriotic Ladies at Edenton in North Carolina
Engraving · Philip Dawe (attributed) · March 25, 1775
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
A Society of Patriotic Ladies at Edenton in North Carolina
A SOCIETY of PATRIOTIC LADIES, at EDENTON in NORTH CAROLINA.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Published in London in March 1775, after news of the Edenton women's pledge was printed there in January.
Intended audience
The British public and print buyers who would laugh at colonial pretensions.
Purpose
To ridicule the patriotic women (and the colonial cause) as unfeminine, neglectful of children, and absurd.
Point of view
A London satirist (attributed to Philip Dawe) mocking women in politics; it reveals British attitudes more than events in Edenton.
Philip Dawe (attributed), A Society of Patriotic Ladies at Edenton in North Carolina (March 25, 1775).
Letter to Lord North
Letter · King George III · November 18, 1774
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Lord North, — I am not sorry that the line of conduct seems now chalked out, which the enclosed dispatches thoroughly justify; the New England Governments are in a state of rebellion, blows must decide whether they are to be subject to this country or independent.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Dispatches from General Gage reported that Massachusetts was defying the Coercive Acts: the Suffolk Resolves, an extralegal Provincial Congress, militia drilling and the Powder Alarm; the First Continental Congress had just adjourned.
Intended audience
Lord North, the Prime Minister; a private note from the King, not a public statement.
Purpose
To tell his government that conciliation was over and force would settle the question.
Point of view
George III saw himself defending the lawful supremacy of Parliament over rebellious subjects. Written five months before Lexington, it shows the Crown chose confrontation before the first shot.
George III to Lord North, Queen's House, Nov. 18, 1774 (Letter 263), in The Correspondence of King George the Third with Lord North from 1768 to 1783, ed. W. Bodham Donne (London: John Murray, 1867), vol. 1, pp. 214–15.
Speech to the Second Virginia Convention ("Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death")
Speech · Patrick Henry (text as reconstructed by William Wirt, 1817) · March 23, 1775 (delivered); text first published 1817
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
They tell us, sir, that we are weak—unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed; and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance, by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us, hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations; and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat, but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable—and let it come!! I repeat it, sir, let it come!!!
It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace—but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north, will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains, and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!—I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!
Sourcing
Historical situation
Delegates of the Second Virginia Convention, meeting in St. John's Church, Richmond (away from the royal governor at Williamsburg), debated Henry's resolutions to put Virginia 'into a posture of defence' by raising and arming militia, a month before Lexington and Concord.
Intended audience
Fellow convention delegates, many of them cautious planters still hoping for reconciliation after the First Continental Congress petitioned the King; later, via Wirt, nineteenth-century American readers.
Purpose
To persuade hesitant delegates that petitions had failed, that Britain's fleets and armies were aimed at the colonists, and that armed resistance was the only remaining choice; the resolutions passed narrowly.
Point of view
Henry was a radical Virginia lawyer and planter who had opposed the Stamp Act in 1765. His 'chains and slavery' language comes from a slaveholder. The words we have are a reconstruction: William Wirt published them in 1817, 42 years later, from old men's recollections (notably St. George Tucker's). No contemporary transcript exists, so the text reflects Wirt's patriotic nationalism as much as Henry's own phrasing.
William Wirt, Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry (Philadelphia: James Webster, 1817), 122–23. NOTE: reconstructed by Wirt 42 years after delivery from recollections; no contemporary transcript survives.
One If by Land
April 18–19, 1775
Orders to Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith
Letter · General Thomas Gage · April 18, 1775
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Boston, April 18, 1775. Lieut Coll. Smith, 10 Regiment foot, Sir Having received Intelligence, that a Quantity of Ammunition, Provision, Artillery, Tents and small Arms, have been collected at Concord, for the Avowed Purpose of raising and supporting a Rebellion against His Majesty, you will March with the Corps of Grenadiers and light Infantry, put under your Command, with the utmost expedition and Secrecy to Concord, where you will seize and destroy all the Artillery, Ammunition, Provisions, Tents, Small Arms, and all Military Stores whatever. But you will take care that the Soldiers do not plunder the Inhabitants, or hurt private property. You have a Draught of Concord, on which is marked, the Houses, Barns, &c., which contain the above Military Stores. You will order a Trunion to be knocked off each Gun, but if its found impracticable on any, they must be spiked, and the Carriages distroyed.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Written April 18, 1775, as General Gage, royal governor of Massachusetts, learned the militia had stockpiled weapons at Concord.
Intended audience
Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, leading about 700 regulars on a secret night march.
Purpose
To seize and destroy colonial military stores quickly and quietly, heading off armed rebellion.
Point of view
General Thomas Gage, Britain's commander in America, trying to enforce the Coercive Acts without starting a war.
Thomas Gage to Lt. Col. Francis Smith, Boston, April 18, 1775, Thomas Gage Papers, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan; printed in Allen French, General Gage's Informers: New Material upon Lexington & Concord (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1932), 31–32.
Letter from Paul Revere to Jeremy Belknap (account of the ride of April 18–19, 1775)
Letter · Paul Revere · c. 1798 (printed by Belknap with the date January 1, 1798)
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
In the Fall of 1774 & Winter of 1775 I was one of upwards of thirty, cheifly mechanics, who formed our selves in to a Committee for the purpose of watching the Movements of the British Soldiers, and gaining every intelegence of the movements of the Tories. We held our meetings at the Green-Dragon Tavern. … On Tuesday evening, the 18th, it was observed, that a number of Soldiers were marching towards the bottom of the Common. About 10 o'Clock, Dr. Warren Sent in great haste for me, and beged that I would imediately Set off for Lexington, where Messrs. Hancock & Adams were, and acquaint them of the Movement, and that it was thought they were the objets. … I left Dr. Warrens, called upon a friend, and desired him to make the Signals. I then went Home, took my Boots and Surtout, and went to the North part of the Town, where I had kept a Boat; two friends rowed me across Charles River, a little to the eastward where the Somerset Man of War lay. It was then young flood, the Ship was winding, & the moon was Rising. They landed me on Charlestown side. When I got into Town, I met Col. Conant, & several others; they said they had seen our signals. I told them what was Acting, & went to git me a Horse; I got a Horse of Deacon Larkin. … I set off upon a very good Horse; it was then about 11 o'Clock, & very pleasant. … In Medford, I awaked the Captain of the Minute men; & after that, I alarmed almost every House, till I got to Lexington. … When I got there, out Started Six officers, on Horse back, and orderd me to dismount;-one of them, who appeared to have the command, examined me, where I came from, & what my Name Was? I told him. it was Revere, he asked if it was Paul? I told him yes … one of them, whom I afterwards found to be Major Mitchel, of the 5th Regiment, Clapped his pistol to my head, called me by name, & told me he was going to ask me some questions, & if I did not give him true answers, he would blow my brains out.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Written about 23 years after the event, at the request of Jeremy Belknap of the new Massachusetts Historical Society, which was collecting eyewitness accounts of the Revolution while participants were still alive.
Intended audience
Belknap and the Society, and through their Collections (1798) the reading public and future historians. Revere first wrote 'do not print my name' and then crossed it out.
Purpose
To leave a first-person record of the Patriot intelligence network, the lantern signal, the ride, and his capture, and to secure his place in the story of April 19.
Point of view
Revere was a Boston silversmith and artisan leader in the 'mechanics' network who reported to Dr. Joseph Warren. He wrote as an old man remembering his own heroism. He credits Dawes, Prescott, and others, unlike Longfellow's 1860 poem, but his memory and self-image shape the account. He also wrote two 1775 depositions.
Paul Revere to Jeremy Belknap, [c. 1798], manuscript, Paul Revere Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society; printed in Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1st ser., vol. 5 (1798). Transcription: MHS Collections Online. Words split across manuscript line breaks (e.g., 'di / ficult', 'Gentle / men') are rejoined; original spelling kept.
Paul Revere's Ride
Poem · Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · January 1861
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Listen, my children, and you shall hear / Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, / On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five: / Hardly a man is now alive / Who remembers that famous day and year. // He said to his friend,—“If the British march / By land or sea from the town to-night, / Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch / Of the North-Church-tower, as a signal-light,— / One if by land, and two if by sea; / And I on the opposite shore will be, / Ready to ride and spread the alarm / Through every Middlesex village and farm, / For the country-folk to be up and to arm.”
Sourcing
Historical situation
A poem written in 1860 and published in January 1861—86 years after the ride—as the Union was breaking apart on the eve of the Civil War. It is a secondary, literary source, not an eyewitness account.
Intended audience
Northern magazine readers (The Atlantic Monthly), later schoolchildren; it became the popular memory of the ride.
Purpose
To create a heroic national legend of one lone rider waking a nation, rallying patriotic feeling in 1861.
Point of view
Romantic and nationalist, and wrong on the facts: the lanterns were a signal from Boston to Patriots in Charlestown in case Revere was caught, not a message to Revere; he never reached Concord (captured; Samuel Prescott got through); William Dawes and dozens of other riders vanish from the story.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Paul Revere's Ride," The Atlantic Monthly 7 (January 1861); collected in Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863). Text as given by the Academy of American Poets (poets.org).
Diary of Lieutenant John Barker, King's Own (4th) Regiment, entry for April 19, 1775
Diary · Lt. John Barker, 4th (King's Own) Regiment of Foot · April 19, 1775
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
19th. Last night between 10 and 11 oclock all the Grenadiers and Light Infantry of the Army making about 600 Men (under the command of Lt. Coll. Smith of the 10th and Major Pitcairn of the Marines) embarked and were landed upon the opposite shore on Cambridge Marsh; few but the Commandg. Officers knew what expedition we were going upon. After getting over the Marsh where we were wet up to the knees, we were halted in a dirty road and stood there 'till two oclock in the morning waiting for provisions to be brought from the boats and to be divided, and which most of the Men threw away, having carried some with 'em. At 2 oclock we began our March by wading through a very long ford up to our Middles: after going a few miles we took 3 or 4 People who were going off to give intelligence; about 5 miles on this side of a Town called Lexington which lay in our road, we heard there were some hundreds of People collected together intending to oppose us and stop our going on; at 5 oclock we arrived there and saw a number of People, I believe between 2 and 300, formed on a Common in the middle of the Town; we still continued advancing, keeping prepared against an attack tho' without intending to attack them, but on our coming near them they fired one or two shots, upon which our Men without any orders rushed in upon them, fired and put 'em to flight; several of them were killed, we cou'd not tell how many because they were got behind Walls and into the Woods; We had a Man of the 10th light Infantry wounded, nobody else hurt. We then formed on the Common but with some difficulty, the Men were so wild they cou'd hear no orders; we waited a considerable time there and at length proceeded on our way to Concord, which we then learnt was our destination, in order to destroy a Magazine of Stores collected there. … Captn. Lawrie who commanded these three Companies sent to Coll. Smith begging he would send more Troops to his Assistance and informing him of his situation; the Coll. order'd 2 or 3 Compys. but put himself at their head by which means stopt 'em from being time enough, for being a very fat heavy Man he wou'd not have reached the Bridge in half an hour tho' it was not half a mile to it…
Sourcing
Historical situation
Written by a junior British officer who marched with the light infantry on the Concord expedition. It is a private journal kept during the 1774–76 occupation of Boston.
Intended audience
Himself. It was a private diary, not written for publication. Selections were first printed in the Atlantic Monthly (April and May 1877) as "A British Officer in Boston in 1775," with the diarist unidentified; Elizabeth Ellery Dana later identified him as Lt. John Barker of the King's Own light infantry company through War Office and regimental records, and Harvard University Press published the full diary under his name in 1924.
Purpose
To record the day's events for himself. Unlike official reports and Patriot depositions, it had no propaganda aim, which is why historians find it credible.
Point of view
Barker was a British regular who scorned the 'Yankies' and 'Rebels.' He still claims the colonists fired first, yet he admits the regulars fired 'without any orders' and were 'so wild they cou'd hear no orders.' He also mocks his own commander, Smith, as 'very fat.' A hostile witness conceding British indiscipline is powerful corroboration.
John Barker, The British in Boston: Being the Diary of Lieutenant John Barker of the King's Own Regiment from November 15, 1774 to May 31, 1776, ed. Elizabeth Ellery Dana (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1924), 31–34; first published in The Atlantic Monthly, April 1877. Text from Internet Archive full-text scan; words hyphenated across printed line breaks are rejoined.
Concord Hymn
Poem · Ralph Waldo Emerson · July 4, 1837
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
By the rude bridge that arched the flood, / Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, / Here once the embattled farmers stood, / And fired the shot heard round the world.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Written for the July 4, 1837, dedication of a monument at Concord's North Bridge, 62 years after the battle.
Intended audience
Concord townspeople at the ceremony, and later generations of American readers.
Purpose
To memorialize the minutemen and turn the battle into a founding national myth.
Point of view
Ralph Waldo Emerson, a Concord writer whose grandfather witnessed the fight; a romantic celebration, not an eyewitness account.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Concord Hymn (July 4, 1837).
What Just Happened?
1763–1776
Petition to the King (the Olive Branch Petition)
Letter · Second Continental Congress (drafted by John Dickinson) · July 8, 1775 (adopted July 5)
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
MOST GRACIOUS SOVEREIGN, We, your Majesty's faithful subjects of the colonies new Hampshire, Massachusetts bay, Rhode island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the counties of New Castle, Kent, and Sussex, on Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, in behalf of ourselves, and the inhabitants of these colonies, who have deputed us to represent them in general Congress, entreat your Majesty's gracious attention to this our humble petition. […] that your Majesty be pleased to direct some mode, by which the united applications of your faithful colonists to the throne, in pursuance of their common councils, may be improved into a happy and permanent reconciliation; and that, in the mean time, measures may be taken for preventing the further destruction of the lives of your Majesty's subjects;
Sourcing
Historical situation
Weeks after Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill, with a Continental Army already formed, moderates in the Second Continental Congress made one last appeal to the Crown.
Intended audience
King George III directly—bypassing Parliament and his ministers, whom Congress blamed for the crisis.
Purpose
To profess loyalty to the King and ask him to halt the fighting and open a path to reconciliation.
Point of view
Moderate colonial leaders (Dickinson above all) who still considered themselves loyal British subjects. The King refused to receive it and in August proclaimed the colonies in rebellion.
Journals of the Continental Congress, July 8, 1775, "Petition to the King"; transcription: The Avalon Project, Yale Law School.
Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms
Resolves · Second Continental Congress (Thomas Jefferson and John Dickinson) · July 6, 1775
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. Our internal resources are great, and, if necessary, foreign assistance is undoubtedly attainable. […] being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves. […] Necessity has not yet driven us into that desperate measure, or induced us to excite any other nation to war against them. — We have not raised armies with ambitious designs of separating from Great-Britain, and establishing independent states. We fight not for glory or for conquest.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Issued the day after Congress approved the Olive Branch Petition, as the new Continental Army under Washington besieged British-held Boston.
Intended audience
The American public, British subjects "in any part of the empire," and the wider world; George Washington read it to his troops.
Purpose
To justify armed resistance as self-defense of British liberties while denying any aim of independence.
Point of view
Congress's official position in mid-1775: fight and petition at the same time. Paired with the Olive Branch, it shows colonists still sought rights within the empire, not a break from it.
Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, July 6, 1775, Journals of the Continental Congress; transcription: The Avalon Project, Yale Law School.
Common Sense
Pamphlet · Thomas Paine · January 10, 1776
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one […] We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand, and a race of men, perhaps as numerous as all Europe contains, are to receive their portion of freedom from the event of a few months.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Nine months into the fighting, with the King rejecting the Olive Branch and declaring the colonies in rebellion, most colonists still hoped for reconciliation. The "begin the world over again" passage is from the appendix added to the expanded edition of February 1776.
Intended audience
Ordinary colonists—farmers, artisans, soldiers—written in plain language; it sold tens of thousands of copies and was read aloud in taverns and camps.
Purpose
To attack monarchy and hereditary rule themselves and persuade Americans that independence and a republic were common sense.
Point of view
Paine, a radical English immigrant who had arrived barely a year earlier, used Enlightenment reasoning and biblical language to turn a tax dispute into a revolution.
Thomas Paine, Common Sense; Addressed to the Inhabitants of America (Philadelphia: R. Bell, 1776); appendix from the enlarged edition (Philadelphia: W. and T. Bradford, Feb. 1776). Text: Project Gutenberg eBook #147.
Letter to the Rev. Samson Occom
Letter · Phillis Wheatley · February 11, 1774 (printed in the Connecticut Gazette, March 11, 1774)
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Rev'd and honor'd Sir,
I have this Day received your obliging kind Epistle, and am greatly satisfied with your Reasons respecting the Negroes, and think highly reasonable what you offer in Vindication of their natural Rights: Those that invade them cannot be insensible that the divine Light is chasing away the thick Darkness which broods over the Land of Africa; and the Chaos which has reign'd so long, is converting into beautiful Order, and [r]eveals more and more clearly, the glorious Dispensation of civil and religious Liberty, which are so inseparably [united], that there is little or no Enjoyment of one Without the other: Otherwise, perhaps, the Israelites had been less solicitous for their Freedom from Egyptian slavery; I do not say they would have been contented without it, by no means, for in every human Breast, God has implanted a Principle, which we call Love of Freedom; it is impatient of Oppression, and pants for Deliverance; and by the Leave of our modern Egyptians I will assert, that the same Principle lives in us. God grant Deliverance in his own Way and Time, and get him honour upon all those whose Avarice impels them to countenance and help forward the Calamities of their fellow Creatures. This I desire not for their Hurt, but to convince them of the strange Absurdity of their Conduct whose Words and Actions are so diametrically opposite. How well the Cry for Liberty, and the reverse Disposition for the exercise of oppressive Power over others agree,—I humbly think it does not require the Penetration of a Philosopher to determine.—
Sourcing
Historical situation
Written in Boston in February 1774, a few months after Wheatley was freed and while colonists protested British 'slavery' after the Tea Party. She was answering a letter from Samson Occom, a Mohegan Presbyterian minister, that criticized Christian slaveholders.
Intended audience
Occom was the first addressee, but the letter was quickly printed in New England newspapers (Connecticut Gazette, March 11, 1774, and others), so it reached a broad white Patriot reading public.
Purpose
To condemn slavery using the colonists' own liberty language and the Exodus story. She calls enslavers 'modern Egyptians' and exposes the hypocrisy of Patriots who cried for liberty while holding people in bondage.
Point of view
Wheatley was an African-born woman, kidnapped as a child and enslaved by the Wheatley family of Boston. She was a celebrated published poet and devout Christian who had only recently been freed. She wrote as a Black intellectual claiming that the 'Love of Freedom' is universal and God-given.
Phillis Wheatley to Samson Occom, 11 February 1774, printed in The Connecticut Gazette (New London), 11 March 1774. Transcription from Becoming America, ed. Wendy Kurant (CC-BY-SA), via LibreTexts.
Freedom petition circular letter
Letter · Peter Bestes, Sambo Freeman, Felix Holbrook and Chester Joie · April 20, 1773
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
BOSTON, APRIL 20th, 1773. SIR, THE efforts made by the legislative of this province in their last sessions to free themselves from slavery, gave us, who are in that deplorable state, a high degree of satisfacton. We expect great things from men who have made such a noble stand against the designs of their fellow-men to enslave them. We cannot but wish and hope Sir, that you will have the same grand object, we mean civil and religious liberty, in view in your next session. The divine spirit of freedom, seems to fire every humane breast on this continent, except such as are bribed to assist in executing the execrable plan.
Sourcing
Historical situation
In 1773, as Boston Patriots denounced Parliament for trying to "enslave" them, enslaved Black men in Massachusetts organized a committee and petitioned the colonial legislature for their own freedom.
Intended audience
Each town's representatives in the Massachusetts General Court; printed as a circular letter and sent to the towns.
Purpose
To ask the legislature to act against slavery and to let enslaved people work one day a week to buy their freedom and resettle in Africa.
Point of view
Written by enslaved men who used the Patriots' own language of liberty and natural rights to expose the contradiction at the heart of the Revolution. The legislature did not grant their request.
Peter Bestes, Sambo Freeman, Felix Holbrook, Chester Joie, circular letter, Boston, April 20, 1773, signed "In behalf of our fellow slaves in this province, and by order of their committee"; Massachusetts Historical Society.
Background
Join, or Die.
Engraving · Benjamin Franklin · May 9, 1754
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Join, or Die.
JOIN, or DIE. [A snake cut into eight segments, each labeled for a colony or region: N.E., N.Y., N.J., P., M., V., N.C., S.C.]
Sourcing
Historical situation
Printed during the opening of the French and Indian War, as delegates met at the Albany Congress (1754) to discuss colonial defense against France and its Native allies.
Intended audience
Readers of Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette and colonial newspapers that reprinted it, especially the colonial assemblies weighing the Albany Plan of Union.
Purpose
To urge the separate colonies to unite for common defense — divided, they would die like a cut snake.
Point of view
Benjamin Franklin, Pennsylvania printer and delegate who authored the Albany Plan; a British-American imperial patriot, not yet a revolutionary.
Benjamin Franklin, Join, or Die. (May 9, 1754).
A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law
Newspaper · John Adams (published anonymously) · August–October 1765 (Boston Gazette, four installments beginning August 12, 1765)
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Be it remembered, however, that liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood. And liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers. Rulers are no more than attorneys, agents, and trustees, for the people; and if the cause, the interest and trust, is insidiously betrayed, or wantonly trifled away, the people have a right to revoke the authority that they themselves have deputed, and to constitute abler and better agents, attorneys, and trustees. … This spirit, however, without knowledge, would be little better than a brutal rage. Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write. Let every order and degree among the people rouse their attention and animate their resolution. Let them all become attentive to the grounds and principles of government, ecclesiastical and civil. Let us study the law of nature; search into the spirit of the British constitution; read the histories of ancient ages; contemplate the great examples of Greece and Rome; set before us the conduct of our own British ancestors, who have defended for us the inherent rights of mankind against foreign and domestic tyrants and usurpers, against arbitrary kings and cruel priests, in short, against the gates of earth and hell.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Written in Braintree in the summer of 1765 as news of the Stamp Act spread and months before it took effect, Adams's essay ran unsigned in Edes and Gill's Boston Gazette.
Intended audience
New England newspaper readers — the literate farmers, artisans, merchants and ministers Adams praises as "lawyers, divines, politicians, and philosophers."
Purpose
To rally colonists to defend liberty by casting the Stamp Act as the latest of old-world schemes (canon and feudal law) to keep common people ignorant and dependent, and to urge them to read, speak and write against it.
Point of view
A 29-year-old Puritan-descended Massachusetts lawyer steeped in Enlightenment and English-rights thought, who sees rulers as mere "trustees for the people" — an early statement of popular sovereignty, not yet of independence.
John Adams, "A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law," Boston Gazette, August 12, 19, September 30, and October 21, 1765; text as printed in Charles Francis Adams, ed., The Works of John Adams, vol. 3 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1851); transcription via Teaching American History (Ashbrook Center). Also in Papers of John Adams, vol. 1, ed. Robert J. Taylor (Harvard University Press, 1977), Founders Online.
A New Song, to the Tune of "Hearts of Oak" ("The Liberty Song")
Song · John Dickinson (with eight lines by Arthur Lee) · July 1768 (enclosed to James Otis July 4, 1768; printed in the Pennsylvania papers in early July and the Boston Gazette, July 18, 1768)
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
COME join Hand in Hand, brave AMERICANS all, And rouse your bold Hearts at fair LIBERTY's Call; No tyrannous Acts shall suppress your just Claim, Or stain with Dishonor AMERICA's Name— In FREEDOM we're BORN, and in FREEDOM we'll LIVE, Our Purses are ready, Steady, Friends, Steady, Not as SLAVES, but as FREEMEN our Money we'll give.
Our worthy Forefathers—let's give them a Cheer— To Climates unknown did courageously steer; Thro' Oceans to Deserts for Freedom they came, And dying bequeath'd us their Freedom and Fame. In FREEDOM we're BORN, &c.
Their generous Bosoms all Dangers despis'd, So highly, so wisely, their BIRTH-RIGHTS they priz'd; We'll keep what they gave, we will piously keep, Nor frustrate their Toils on the Land and the Deep. In FREEDOM we're BORN, &c.
The TREE their own Hands had to LIBERTY rear'd, They liv'd to behold growing strong and rever'd; With Transport then cry'd, "Now our Wishes we gain, For our Children shall gather the Fruits of our Pain." In FREEDOM we're BORN, &c.
Swarms of PLACEMEN and PENSIONERS soon will appear Like Locusts deforming the Charms of the Year; Suns vainly will rise, Showers vainly descend, If we are to drudge for what others shall spend. In FREEDOM we're BORN, &c.
Then join Hand in Hand brave AMERICANS all, By uniting We stand, by dividing We fall; IN SO RIGHTEOUS A CAUSE let us hope to succeed, For Heaven approves of each generous Deed— In FREEDOM we're BORN, &c.
All Ages shall speak with Amaze and Applause, Of the Courage we'll shew IN SUPPORT OF OUR LAWS; TO DIE we can bear,—but, to SERVE we disdain— For SHAME is to Freemen more dreadful than PAIN— In FREEDOM we're BORN, &c.
This Bumper I crown for our SOVEREIGN'S Health, And this for BRITANNIA'S Glory and Wealth; That Wealth and that Glory immortal may be, If She is but just—and if We are but Free— In FREEDOM we're BORN, &c.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Written in the summer of 1768, as the colonies organized non-importation against the Townshend duties, by the Pennsylvania lawyer whose 'Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania' had just made him famous.
Intended audience
Ordinary colonists of every rank — sung to the popular British naval tune 'Hearts of Oak' at Sons of Liberty dinners, taverns, and street celebrations from Philadelphia to Boston.
Purpose
To turn the constitutional argument against taxation without consent into a catchy, memorable call for intercolonial unity ('By uniting We stand, by dividing We fall') and economic resistance.
Point of view
Dickinson was a moderate who still toasted the King and 'BRITANNIA'S Glory' in the last verse — the song demands British rights, not independence, while casting taxpayers as 'FREEMEN,' not 'SLAVES.'
John Dickinson, "A New Song, To the Tune of 'Hearts of Oak'" (the "Liberty Song"), Boston Gazette, 18 July 1768; text as reproduced in Paul Leicester Ford, ed., The Writings of John Dickinson, vol. 1, Political Writings 1764–1774 (Memoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, vol. 14; Philadelphia, 1895), pp. 421–432, with Dickinson's July 4, 1768 cover letter to James Otis. in refrains. The Pennsylvania Chronicle printing adds a stanza ('How sweet are the labours that freemen endure…').
A Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre in Boston, Perpetrated in the Evening of the Fifth Day of March, 1770
Pamphlet · Committee of the Town of Boston (James Bowdoin, Joseph Warren, and Samuel Pemberton) · March 1770 (report accepted by the Boston town meeting, March 1770; printed by Edes and Gill)
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
It was not expected however, that such an outrage and massacre, as happened here on the evening of the fifth instant, would have been perpetrated. There were then killed and wounded, by a discharge of musquetry, eleven of his Majesty's subjects, viz. Mr. Samuel Gray, killed on the spot by a ball entering his head. Crispus Attucks, a molatto, killed on the spot, two balls entering his breast. Mr. James Caldwell, killed on the spot, by two balls entering his back. Mr. Samuel Maverick, a youth of seventeen years of age, mortally wounded: he died the next morning. Mr. Patrick Carr mortally wounded: he died the 14th instant. Christopher Monk and John Clark, youths about seventeen years of age, dangerously wounded. It is apprehended they will die. Mr. Edward Payne, merchant, standing at his door: wounded. Messrs John Green, Robert Patterson and David Parker: all dangerously wounded. The actors in this dreadful tragedy were a party of soldiers commanded by Capt. Preston of the 29th regiment … Mr. Knox (between whom and Capt. Preston there was some conversation on the spot) declares, that whilst he was talking with Capt. Preston, the soldiers of his detachment had attacked the people with their bayonets; and that there was not the least provocation given to Capt. Preston, or his party: the backs of the people being towards them when the people were attacked. … The said party was formed into a half circle, and, within a short time after they had been posted at the Custom-House, began to fire upon the people. Capt. Preston is said to have ordered them to fire, and to have repeated that order. One gun was fired first: then others in succession, and with deliberation, till ten or a dozen guns were fired; or till that number of discharges were made from the guns that were fired. By which means eleven persons were killed, and wounded, as above represented.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Written within weeks of the March 5, 1770 shootings on King Street, while Captain Preston and eight soldiers awaited trial and British troops (quartered in Boston since 1768 to enforce the Townshend Acts) were being withdrawn to Castle William.
Intended audience
Primarily British readers and officials — copies were shipped to London to shape opinion before the soldiers' version arrived — as well as colonists throughout America.
Purpose
To frame the event as a deliberate, unprovoked 'massacre' by a standing army, backed by 96 appended depositions, and to argue that quartering troops among civilians endangered colonial liberty.
Point of view
Boston's Whig leadership writing propaganda: it minimizes the crowd's provocation ('snow balls … the only provocation'), stresses order and deliberation in the firing, and hedges on Preston's order ('is said to have'), in contrast to Adams's courtroom portrait of a 'motley rabble.'
A Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre in Boston, Perpetrated in the Evening of the Fifth Day of March, 1770, by Soldiers of the XXIXth Regiment (Boston: Edes and Gill, 1770), pp. 11–12, 27–28; archive.org scan of the 1770 edition. Long s (ſ) modernized to s; spelling otherwise as printed (e.g., 'molatto', 'musquetry').
Depositions appended to A Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre in Boston
Deposition · Boston eyewitnesses (sworn depositions collected by a committee of the Town of Boston) · March 1770
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
[No. 69, Robert Patterson, p. 56] Looking round I saw three men lay dead on the snow; the snow being at that time near a foot deep. · [No. 75, George Robert Twelves Hewes, p. 61] and at the same time the snow was near a foot deep in king-street. · [No. 62, Dimond Morton, p. 48] When I found there were three dead, and a number of others wounded, in about ten or fifteen minutes afterwards, I saw the soldiers march towards the main guard—the snow being at that time near a foot deep · [No. 45, William Tant, p. 31] Whereupon I heard a musket go off, and in the space of 2 or 3 seconds, I heard the word fire given, but by whom I know not, and instantly the soldiers fired one after another. · [No. 46, Thomas Cain, p. 32] I heard and saw the flash of a gun that went off near the corner of the aforementioned lane, and in the space of two seconds I heard the word fire given, but by whom I cannot ascertain, but the soldiers fired regularly one after another, and when discharged, loaded again · [No. 53, Richard Palmes, p. 39] on which the soldier at the officer's right hand stept back and discharged his gun, at the space of some seconds the soldier at his left fired next, and the others one after the other.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Sworn in the days after the King Street shootings of March 5, 1770, before justices of the peace, while Captain Preston and eight soldiers awaited trial. A Boston town committee gathered 96 depositions and printed them as the appendix to A Short Narrative.
Intended audience
Chiefly British readers and officials: the town shipped the pamphlet to London to shape opinion before the soldiers' side arrived, and voted to hold back local distribution so as not to prejudice the Boston jury.
Purpose
To prove, witness by witness, that the soldiers fired deliberately on the townspeople, making the case that troops quartered in Boston were a danger to its people.
Point of view
Townspeople testifying for the Whig case, collected by a committee with a clear agenda. Read closely, though, the depositions also record what the pamphlet plays down: a crowd hurling snowballs and crying "fire, fire and be damn'd" (Tant, the same deposition). Note too that Tant's "2 or 3 seconds" falls between the first musket and the word "fire"; only then did the others fire "one after another."
A Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre in Boston, Perpetrated in the Evening of the Fifth Day of March, 1770, by Soldiers of the XXIXth Regiment (Boston: Edes and Gill, 1770), appendix of depositions: No. 45 (William Tant), p. 31; No. 46 (Thomas Cain), p. 32; No. 53 (Richard Palmes), p. 39; No. 62 (Dimond Morton), p. 48; No. 69 (Robert Patterson), p. 56; No. 75 (George Robert Twelves Hewes), p. 61. Long s modernized to s; italics not reproduced; bracketed labels are editorial.
Report of the Destruction of the Tea, The Massachusetts Gazette; and the Boston Weekly News-Letter
Newspaper · The Massachusetts Gazette; and the Boston Weekly News-Letter (Richard Draper, printer) · December 23, 1773
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
…they applied themselves so dexterously to the Destruction of this Commodity that in the Space of three Hours they broke up 342 Chests, which was the whole Number in those Vessels, and discharged their Contents into the Dock; when the Tide rose it floated the broken Chests and the Tea insomuch that the Surface of the Water was filled therewith a considerable Way from the South Part of the Town to Dorchester-Neck, and lodged on the Shores.—There was the greatest Care taken to prevent the Tea from being purloined by the Populace: One or two being detected in endeavouring to pocket a small Quantity were stripped of their Acquisitions and very roughly handled.—It is worthy of Remark, that although a considerable Quantity of Goods were still remaining on board the Vessels, no Injury was sustained: Such Attention to private Property was observed that a small Padlock belonging to the Captain of one of the Ships being broke, another was procured and sent to him.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Printed a week after the night of December 16, 1773, when men disguised as Mohawks boarded Captain Hall's Dartmouth, Captain Bruce's Eleanor, and Captain Coffin's brig Beaver at Griffin's Wharf and dumped the East India Company's tea rather than let it be landed and the tax paid.
Intended audience
Boston readers of Richard Draper's News-Letter, the town's government printer and most pro-government paper, and officials in Britain: this clipping survives in the Colonial Office papers in London.
Purpose
To report the destruction of the tea while stressing how disciplined it was: every chest destroyed, would-be looters stripped of their pocketed tea, and no other property harmed.
Point of view
Even the government printer's paper told the story as the Whigs wanted it told; its account closely follows a letter signed "An Impartial Observer" in Monday's Whig Boston-Gazette. The padlock is the point: an attack on the tea and the tax, not a riot against private property. Note the numbers: "342 Chests" in "three Hours" here, "about two hours" and "less than four hours" in the Boston-Gazette.
The Massachusetts Gazette; and the Boston Weekly News-Letter (Boston: Richard Draper), December 23, 1773; clipping preserved in The National Archives (UK), CO 5/91, reproduced as "Boston Tea Party, Source 4" (TNA Education). Also printed, with modernized capitals and the number spelled out, in Francis S. Drake, Tea Leaves (Boston: A. O. Crane, 1884), lxviii–lxix.
Oration Delivered at Boston, March 5, 1774
Speech · John Hancock · March 5, 1774
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Some boast of being friends to government; I am a friend to righteous government, to a government founded upon the principles of reason and justice; but I glory in publickly avowing my eternal enmity to tyranny. … I would not excite envy, but manly emulation. We have all one common cause; let it therefore be our only contest, who shall most contribute to the security of the liberties of America.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Delivered in Boston's Old South Meeting House on the fourth anniversary of the Boston Massacre, less than three months after the Boston Tea Party, as Parliament prepared to punish the town.
Intended audience
A packed crowd of Boston townspeople at an annual patriot memorial, and readers of the printed pamphlet across the colonies.
Purpose
To keep the Massacre's memory burning, brand the British troops and ministry as tyranny, and rally colonists to unity and armed readiness (he praises a "well-disciplined militia").
Point of view
John Hancock, Boston's wealthiest merchant and a leading Son of Liberty whose ship Liberty had been seized by customs in 1768 — a man with personal and political stakes against royal officials.
John Hancock, An Oration; Delivered March 5, 1774, at the Request of the Inhabitants of the Town of Boston: To Commemorate the Bloody Tragedy of the Fifth of March 1770 (Boston: Edes and Gill, 1774).
Abigail Adams to Mercy Otis Warren
Letter · Abigail Adams · c. February 3, 1775 (draft), Braintree, Massachusetts
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
My Dear Mrs. Warren
The die is cast. Yesterday brought us such a Speach from the Throne as will stain with everlasting infamy the reign of George the 3 determined to carry into Execution “the acts passd by the late parliment, and to Mantain the authority of the Legislature over all his dominions.” The reply of the house of commons and the house of Lords shew us the most wicked and hostile measures will be persued against us—even without giving us an opportunity to be heard in our defence. Infatuated Brittain! poor distressed America. Heaven only knows what is next to take place but it seems to me the Sword is now our only, yet dreadful alternative, and the fate of Rome will be renued in Brittain. … When this happens the Friends of Liberty, should any such remain will have one option still left, and will rather chuse no doubt to die the last British freemen, than bear to live the first of British Slaves …
Mr. Adams is in Boston. I have not seen him since the news royal mandate arrived. … Those who have most to loose have most to fear. The Natural timidity of our sex always seeks for a releif in the encouragement and protection of the other.
Thus far I wrote with a Heart tremblingly anxious, and was prevented from persuing my Subject by companys comeing in. Upon Mr. Adams'es return I experienced the truth of your observation. He laughed at my fears and in some Measure dispelld them—made me see that we were not called either rebels or Trators … I would not have my Friend immagine that with all my fears and apprehension, I would give up one Iota of our rights and privilages. I think upon the Maturest deliberation I can say, dreadful as the day would be I had rather see the Sword drawn. Let these truths says the admired Farmer be indelibly impressed on our Minds that we cannot be happy without being free, that we cannot be free without being secure in our property, that we cannot be secure in our property if without our consent others may as by right take it away.—We know too well the blessings of freedom, to tamely resign it— …
… a keen Satire well applied, has some times found its way when persuasions, admonitions, and Lectures of morality have failed— …
Sourcing
Historical situation
Written in Braintree in early February 1775, the day after news arrived of George III's speech to Parliament vowing to enforce the Coercive Acts. Boston was occupied by Gage's troops and John Adams was away in Boston.
Intended audience
Mercy Otis Warren, a close friend in Plymouth and a Patriot satirist whose play 'The Group' mocked the Crown-appointed councillors. This was a private letter between two politically engaged women; the surviving text is Abigail's draft.
Purpose
To share her alarm and think through the crisis with a trusted friend. Abigail concludes that armed resistance may be unavoidable, and she encourages Warren's political satire as 'meritorious' rather than unfeminine.
Point of view
Abigail was an elite Patriot wife, largely self-educated, managing a farm and household while her husband did politics. She describes 'the Natural timidity of our sex' yet shows deep political knowledge, quoting Dickinson's 'Farmer' letters. Letters like this were one of the few political spaces open to women.
Abigail Adams to Mercy Otis Warren, [3? February 1775], Dft, in Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 1, December 1761 – May 1776, ed. Lyman H. Butterfield (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963), 183–186. Adams Papers Digital Edition, Massachusetts Historical Society; also Founders Online, Adams/04-01-02-0122.
Deposition of Nathaniel Mulliken, Philip Russell, and Others
Deposition · Nathaniel Mulliken, Philip Russell, and 32 other Lexington militiamen · April 25, 1775
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
WE NATHANIEL MULLIKEN, PHILLIP RUSSELL, … [31 more Lexington men named] … and THOMAS HEADLY, jun. all of lawful age, and inhabitants of Lexington, in the county of Middlesex, and Colony of the Massachusetts-Bay, in New-England, do testify and declare, that on the nineteenth of April instant, about one or two o'clock in the morning, being informed that several officers of the regulars, had the evening before been riding up and down the road, and had detained and insulted the inhabitants passing the same, and also understanding that a body of regulars were marching from Boston, towards Concord, with intent (as it was supposed) to take the stores belonging to the colony in that town, we were alarmed and having met at the place of our Company's parade, were dismissed by our Captain, John Parker, for the present, with orders to be ready to attend at the beat of the drum, we further testify and declare, that about five o'clock in the morning, hearing our drum beat, we proceeded towards the parade, and soon found that a large body of troops were marching towards us, some of our company were coming up to the parade and others had reached it, at which time the company began to disperse, whilst our backs were turned on the troops, we were fired on by them, and a number of our men were instantly killed and wounded, not a gun was fired by any person in our company on the regulars to our knowledge before they fired on us, and they continued firing until we had all made our escape. Lexington, April 25th, 1775.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Sworn April 25, 1775, by rank-and-file men of Captain Parker's Lexington company, one of the depositions the Massachusetts Provincial Congress collected in the week after the fighting.
Intended audience
Parliament and the British public. The Congress printed the depositions and shipped them to London to win the race against General Gage's official report.
Purpose
To swear that the company was dispersing and had fired no shot before the regulars fired on them, placing the blame for the first blood on the king's troops.
Point of view
Ordinary militiamen of Parker's company, testifying together for the Patriot case. Note the careful hedge "to our knowledge": men running away with their backs to the troops could not see everything that happened behind them.
Deposition of Nathaniel Mulliken, Phillip Russell, and 32 others, sworn April 25, 1775, in Massachusetts Provincial Congress, A Narrative, of the Excursion and Ravages of the King's Troops Under the Command of General Gage, on the Nineteenth of April, 1775: Together with the Depositions Taken by Order of Congress, to Support the Truth of It (Worcester: Isaiah Thomas, 1775), 9–10; also printed (re-punctuated, "Mullekin") in Peter Force, ed., American Archives, 4th ser., vol. 2 (Washington, 1839).
Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith to General Thomas Gage, Boston, April 22, 1775
Letter · Lt. Col. Francis Smith, 10th Regiment of Foot · April 22, 1775
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
… On these companies' arrival at Lexington, I understand, from the report of Major Pitcairn, who was with them, and from many officers, that they found on a green close to the road a body of the country people drawn up in military order, with arms and accoutrements, and, as appeared after, loaded; and that they had posted some men in a dwelling and Meeting-house. Our troops advanced towards them, without any intention of injuring them, further than to inquire the reason of their being thus assembled, and, if not satisfactory, to have secured their arms; but they in confusion went off, principally to the left, only one of them fired before he went off, and three or four more jumped over a wall and fired from behind it among the soldiers; on which the troops returned it, and killed several of them. They likewise fired on the soldiers from the Meeting and dwelling-house. We had one man wounded, and Major Pitcairn's horse shot in two places. Rather earlier than this, on the road, a countryman from behind a wall had snapped his piece at Lieutenants Adair and Sutherland, but it flashed and did not go off. After this we saw some in the woods, but marched on to Concord without any thing further happening. …
Sourcing
Historical situation
Written three days after the fighting by the commander of the Concord expedition, who had been wounded in the leg on the retreat to Boston.
Intended audience
General Thomas Gage, governor and commander in chief, who forwarded officers' reports to the ministry in London.
Purpose
To justify the expedition and the troops' conduct: the country people were armed, loaded, and fired first, and the troops only "returned it."
Point of view
Smith was not on Lexington Green. He had sent the light infantry ahead and arrived after the firing, so his account is second-hand: "I understand, from the report of Major Pitcairn … and from many officers." An official report from the officer responsible for the day.
Francis Smith to Thomas Gage, Boston, April 22, 1775, printed in "Public Records," Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 14 (1875–76): 350–51 (from the State Paper Office copy, as reprinted in the appendix to Lord Mahon's History of England); also in K. G. Davies, ed., Documents of the American Revolution, 1770–1783, vol. 9 (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1975), 103–4 (repunctuated).
Major John Pitcairn to General Thomas Gage, Boston Camp, April 26, 1775
Letter · Maj. John Pitcairn, Royal Marines · April 26, 1775
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
… On this I gave directions to the Troops to move forward, but on no account to Fire, or even attempt it without orders; when I arrived at the end of the Villiage, I observed drawn up upon a Green near 200 of the Rebels; when I came within about One Hundred Yards of them, they began to File off towards some stone Walls on our Right Flank—The Light Infantry observing this, ran after them—I instantly called to the Soldiers not to Fire, but to surround and disarm them, and after several repetitions of those positive Orders to the men, not to Fire &c—some of the Rebels who had jumped over the Wall, Fired Four or Five Shott at the Soldiers, which wounded a man of the Tenth, and my Horse was Wounded in two places, from some quarter or other, and at the same time several Shott were fired from a Meeting House on our Left—upon this, without any order or Regularity, the Light Infantry began a scattered Fire, and continued in that situation for some little time, contrary to the repeated orders both of me and the officers that were present— …
Sourcing
Historical situation
Written a week after Lexington by the Royal Marines major who rode at the head of the light infantry companies onto Lexington Green, after the expedition had turned into a bloody retreat to Boston.
Intended audience
General Thomas Gage, his commander, who needed officers' accounts for his own report to London. It was a private military report, not published at the time.
Purpose
To explain the first shots to his commander: Pitcairn insists he ordered his men not to fire and blames rebels behind a wall and in the meetinghouse.
Point of view
A British officer whose men fired without orders under his command, so he had every reason to blame the colonists. Yet he admits his own light infantry fired "without any order or Regularity" and ignored repeated orders to stop, a damaging admission against his own interest.
John Pitcairn to Thomas Gage, April 26, 1775, Thomas Gage Papers, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan; printed in Allen French, General Gage's Informers: New Material upon Lexington & Concord (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1932), 52–54.