Episode 17: The Tyranny

In the wake of the Boston Tea Party, Parliament passes a series of coercive and intolerable acts to punish the tea destroyers and bring order to British America.

Episode Transcript

Jim Ambuske (00:00):
This episode of Worlds Turned Upside Down is
made possible with support froma 2024 grant from the National
Endowment for the Humanities.
On January 25, 1774, customsofficial John Malcom trudged
home through two-feet of snow inthe streets of Boston. It had

(00:23):
been just over a month since agroup of Boston men, some
dressed as Mohawk warriors, hadsallied forth from the Old South
Meeting House down to Griffin’sWharf, boarded three ships
carrying 46 tons of East IndiaCompany tea, and dumped it all
into Boston Harbor.
No one yet knew how Parliamentwould react to the choices made

(00:47):
in those few hours. All theycould do was wait.
Bostonians had little affectionfor customs officials like
Malcom. In their eyes, such menwere agents of an increasingly
oppressive Parliamentinexplicably insistent on taxing
British Americans without theirconsent.

(01:08):
Malcom wasn’t well loved by hisBoston neighbors. Or even
well-liked for that matter. Hispersonality and questionable
past probably didn’t help. TheBoston-born Malcom had served in
the Seven Years’ War, fightingwith his regiment across North
America against the French andtheir Indigenous allies. When
the war ended, he gained anappointment as a customs

(01:29):
official, but also a convictionfor counterfeiting and debt.
He also had a penchant forviolence. In the spring of 1771,
Malcom volunteered to fightalongside Governor William Tryon
in his brutal suppression ofNorth Carolina backcountry
farmers calling themselves“Regulators,” who had long
complained about the corruptrule of the few over the many.

(01:52):
Nor did Bostonians appreciateMalcom’s zealous fidelity to
duty and Parliament’s laws. InNovember 1773, two months before
his cold walk home, Malcomseized a ship in New Hampshire
on such tenuous grounds thateven his superiors were puzzled.
In retaliation thirty sailorsseized him, poured hot tar over

(02:15):
his body, and doused him infeathers.
It was a polite warning. Afterall, they had allowed Malcom to
remain clothed, preventing mostof the scalding tar from
sticking to his body. Yet, anyhopes that Malcom had learned
his lesson vanished when he madehis way home on foot from Boston
harbor to Cross Street on the25th of January.

(02:37):
Somewhere between the harbor andhome, a young boy on a sled came
barreling toward him. The childstruck Malcom in the legs, who
in turn unleashed a flurry ofangry words at him. Just then, a
shoemaker named George RobertTwelves Hewes was passing by,
and hearing the commotion, triedto intervene. In the argument

(03:00):
that ensued, Hewes allegedlytaunted Malcom’s tar and
feathering, and then felt thecrack of Malcom’s cane on his
skull, before all faded to blackand he fell unconscious into the
snow.
By the time Hewes regained hissenses, Malcom had gone home,
probably thinking little of theincident, but the Bostonians who

(03:21):
had witnessed the assault werenot about to let it go.
As the light faded, a crowdgathered outside Malcom’s house
demanding that he come out. Heanswered by shoving a sword
through his window, striking oneman in the chest, and
threatening to shoot anyone withthe pistols he had just nearby.
Now there could be nocompromise. Unmoved by the pleas

(03:43):
of Malcom’s wife, Sarah, thecrowd began forcing its way into
the house. After barricading thedoors and windows, the Malcoms
fled upstairs to the secondstory.
But the crowd had ladders.
They managed to break in, seizehold of John Malcom, and drag
him downstairs to a waitingcart. He could probably smell

(04:04):
the hot tar that awaited him.Unlike his last feathering, the
Boston mob had no intention ofbeing polite. They stripped
Malcom to his waist clothes,loaded him into the cart, and
poured the burning tar all overhim. The pain was excruciating.
The smell of burning flesh waspungent in the cold air.

(04:26):
Feathers stuck to his body andswirled around him.
And yet it was not over.
The crowd carted him toward theTown House, the seat of imperial
power in Massachusetts Bay,whipping him as they went. The
mob ordered Malcom to damn thename of Governor Thomas
Hutchinson, the widely loathedgovernor who like Malcom was

(04:47):
keen to enforce Parliament’swill. And when he refused, they
headed for the Liberty Tree.
Nine years earlier, the LibertyTree had been the site of a mock
execution for Stamp DistributorAndrew Oliver, who now happened
to be the colony’s lieutenantgovernor. The Sons of Liberty
had hung Oliver in effigy; thislatest mob placed a real noose

(05:08):
around Malcom’s neck. Everdefiant, if not laboring through
the pain, Malcom dared them tokill him now and get it over
with.
The mob did not afford Malcomthat relief, but it did order
him again to damn the governor,and this time, to damn the king.
Still, he refused until finally,the pain and the cold became too

(05:31):
great. He swore against GovernorHutchinson and King George III,
and as a reward, they poured thehated tea down his throat until
his stomach could hold it nomore.
Malcom survived his assault, buthis days in Boston were
numbered. As he recovered fromhis ordeal in the weeks that
followed, he made arrangementsto sail for Great Britain.

(05:54):
Before his departure, AndrewOliver suddenly died. Perhaps
some of the men who hadassaulted Malcom were among the
mourners who gleefully shouted“huzzah” when Oliver was lowered
into the ground. They thenwarned Governor Hutchinson that
he would be next.
Finally, in early May 1774,Malcom left for the Mother

(06:16):
Country. He put to sea just asships were nearing North
American ports carrying news ofhow Parliament intended to deal
with radicals who had destroyedthe tea and left officials like
Malcom covered in tar andfeathers.
One act to close the port ofBoston until the town paid for
the destroyed tea, another tochange the colony’s government

(06:39):
and imbue its governor with newpowers, a third to allow royal
officials accused of crimes inone colony to stand trial
elsewhere in the empire.
Some Britons on both sides ofthe Atlantic believed that
Bostonians had broughtParliament’s response on
themselves. More than a fewargued that these coercive acts

(07:00):
were justified. But some Britonsbelieved that Parliament had
gone too far, that its actionswere an intolerable
miscalculation, if not thetriumph of tyranny over British
liberty.
I’m Jim Ambuske, and this isWorlds Turned Upside Down, a

(07:21):
podcast about the history of theAmerican Revolution.

Episode 17 (07:24):
The Tyranny.
In the months immediately afterthe destruction of the tea in
Boston, Britons throughout theempire came to grips with what a
small number of Bostonians haddone.
Some British Americanscelebrated the ruined tea as a
defense of their rights andliberties in the face of
Parliament’s seeminglyunrelenting overreach. None were

(07:47):
more effusive than Boston’s Sonsof Liberty and their allies.
Boston author Mercy Otis Warrenpraised the “Late Glorious
Event” in Homeric verse. Warrenwas the sister of lawyer James
Otis, Jr., with a pen no lesspowerful than her brother’s. In
February 1774, Warren composedan epic poem about Amphitrite,

(08:11):
the wife of the sea godPoseidon, in whose dominion the
drowned tea now resided.Warren’s goddess had no patience
for Titans and their minionsfrom distant shores who forced
the tea upon British America.She would not allow East India
Company tea to pass her “rosyLip,” and so:

Mercy Otis Warren (08:30):
"Flaming Torch she took in Either Hand,
And as fell Discord Reign’dthroughout the Land, Was well
appriz’d, the Centaurs wouldConspire, Resolv’d to set the
No’thern World on Fire, Byscatering the Weeds of Indian
shores, Or Else to lodge them inPigmalions stores, But if the

(08:52):
Artifice shou’d not succeed,Then in Revenge Attempt some
Bolder deed. For while oldOceans mighty Billows roar, Or
Foaming surges lash the distantshore, Shall Godeses Regale like
Woodland dames, First letChinesean Herbage Feed the
Flames."

Jim Ambuske (09:12):
In Wilmington, North Carolina, a Scottish
visitor named Janet Shawrecorded a conflagration in
solidarity by some of the town’swomen:

Janet Shaw (09:21):
"the ladies have burnt their tea in a solemn
procession. But they haddelayed, however, till the
sacrifice was not veryconsiderable, as I do not think
anyone offered above a quarterof a pound.”

Jim Ambuske (09:32):
But instead of unity, the 46 tons of tea dumped
into Boston Harbor only breweddivision. While many British
Americans believed Parliamenthad no right to tax them without
their consent, few thought thatBostonians had charted a wise
course.

Mary Beth Norton (09:51):
The problem is that everybody focuses on the
Boston Tea Party and says,hurray, Boston threw the tea in
the harbor. In fact, there was alot of criticism of Bostonians
for throwing the tea in theharbor. Much criticism, saying
the Bostonians are really crazy,these New Englanders are getting
us into trouble. We shouldn't bedoing this. This is not the way

(10:11):
to deal with the British. MaryBeth Norton, I'm the Mary Donlon
Alger Professor Emeritus atCornell University. There were
very, very few local groups inNew England or in Virginia. And
those are the local statementsthat survive, that actually
explicitly said, hurray, boss,and you did the right thing,

(10:31):
throwing the tea in the harbor,many others, in each area either
didn't say anything, or saidBoston, you made a mistake, you
shouldn't have done that.

Jim Ambuske (10:39):
The people of Freetown, Massachusetts Bay
didn’t mince words. At a townmeeting, the people resolved
that the destruction of the teawas:

Freetown (10:47):
“Contrary to Law, and we fear will bring upon us the
Vengeance of an affrontedMajesty, and also plunge us in
Debt and Misery, when theinjured Owners of said Tea shall
make their Demand for the Valueof the same.”

Jim Ambuske (11:00):
Even as local communities and leading
colonists in Massachusetts Bayand elsewhere protested the Tea
Act and Parliament’s claimedright to tax the colonies:

Mary Beth Norton (11:09):
They didn't say we support the Bostonians.
They said we support Americanrights. And they mostly stayed
mum on the subject of whetherthe Bostonians had made a
mistake or not. They justbasically finessed that issue of
whether they were going tosupport Boston explicitly.

Benjamin Carp (11:27):
A lot of people assume like, oh, after the
Boston Tea Party, people were soinspired by this dramatic act of
civil disobedience that hadgalvanized every American
against parliament. And I alwayssay no, no, actually, a lot of
people, including GeorgeWashington, and Benjamin
Franklin looked at the BostonTea Party like was that the best
tactic to use this now, gets usin trouble. Maybe Boston really
ought to pay these Indiancompany back for what it's done.

(11:49):
This kind of behavior only makesus look bad in the eyes of the
British public. So there weresome mixed feelings.My name is
Benjamin Carp. I am the DanielM. Lyons, Professor of American
history at Brooklyn College, andI also teach at the Graduate
Center of the City University ofNew York. I mean, look, it's not
even called the Boston Tea Partyuntil the 1820s. At the

(12:09):
earliest, it's just called thedestruction of the tea in Boston
Harbor. And although everybodyunderstands that it was a
relatively significant event, itis not necessarily considered an
inspiring event. It's acontroversial event among many
people in New England andbeyond.

Jim Ambuske (12:35):
nor British Americans might have wanted.
So, how did Parliament respondto the destruction of the tea in
Boston? And what steps didcolonists take to more
aggressively defend their placein the British Empire?
To begin answering thesequestions, we’ll head first to
London, to Whitehall andParliament, to draw up plans for

(12:55):
bringing a rebellious provinceto heel. We’ll then sail west to
Boston, to negotiate a responseto Parliament’s demands, before
heading for Philadelphia toconvene a continental congress,
where some British Americanscall for unity, bred division.
Word that a mob of Boston menhad destroyed the cargo of three

(13:18):
tea ships in mid-December 1773sped across the Atlantic,
reaching London in January.

Benjamin Carp (13:21):
A lot of British elites and members of the
British public are reallyoutraged by the destruction of
the tea. They say, enough isenough. We repealed the Stamp
Act. We repealed some of theTownsend act. If we keep backing
down from the Americans, we'regoing to become colony of our
own colonies. Somebody actuallysays that Parliament is really

(13:42):
like enough is enough. We passedthe Declaratory Act, reiterating
the fact that Parliament had theright to make laws over the
colonies in all caseswhatsoever. And it's time to
take this seriously. If Bostonis really going to be this
stubborn, then they need to betaught a lesson

Jim Ambuske (13:57):
Almost immediately, the prime minister, Frederick,
Lord North, and the Secretary ofState for the Colonies, William
Legge, Earl of Dartmouth beganformulating a response.
At the command of King GeorgeIII, Lord Dartmouth sought
advice from England’s attorneygeneral and the solicitor
general on whether theperpetrators, or at least the
men who deluded them intoaction, could be charged with

(14:20):
While the names of the men whohad dumped the tea remained
high treason.
elusive, Dartmouth knew thatBoston politician Samuel Adams
and merchant John Hancock hadorganized the meeting where the
perpetrators had rallied beforesetting off for Griffin’s Wharf.
One report claimed that Adamsand Hancock had “encouraged” a

(14:40):
“body of men disguised likeIndians” to destroy the tea.
In the opinions of the attorneyand solicitor generals, such
actions did constitute hightreason. The tea destroyers and
their leaders had levied waragainst His Majesty by
obstructing the lawful executionof the Tea Act.
Fortunately for the allegedconspirators, under English law

(15:02):
treason charges required morethan one witness, but no
additional witnesses werereadily available. By late
February, Dartmouth let thematter drop. Two or three men
were not the problem. For manyBritons, it was Boston itself.
Lord North began drawing upplans to compensate the East
India Company for their losses,and implement strong measures to

(15:25):
punish Boston and restoreBritish authority in
Massachusetts Bay.
In London, Benjamin Franklincould see which way the winds
were blowing.
For years, Franklin had lived inLondon, acting as an agent on
behalf of several colonies, butby February, his influence with

(15:45):
the king’s ministers was at alow ebb. Just days after reports
of the tea’s destruction arrivedin the capital, the solicitor
general Alexander Wedderburngave Franklin a verbal thrashing
in front of the king’s privycouncil. He accused the
Boston-born Philadelphian ofleaking private letters written
by Massachusetts governor ThomasHutchinson. Wedderburn’s torrent

(16:08):
of words lasted for over anhour. When it was over, Franklin
left the chamber, stripped ofhis position as postmaster
general of North America.
Three days later, on February2nd, Franklin dashed off a
letter to the Committee ofCorrespondence in the
Massachusetts House ofRepresentatives, urging the

(16:30):
colony’s legislature to pay forthe damaged tea. He did not yet
know how Parliament intended torespond, but warned that the
“Clamour” against what theBostonians had done was “high
and General.”
The clamour in Parliamentincluded calls for a series of
new coercive acts to compelcolonial obedience and secure

(16:50):
British America’s dependence onthe Crown. Here’s Mary Beth
Norton.

Mary Beth Norton (16:55):
We tend to think of the Coercive Acts all
being adopted simultaneously,and they weren't. We need to
think of them separately. TheBoston Port Act came stunningly
quickly.

Jim Ambuske (17:07):
On March 14th, the prime minister rose in the House
of Commons to introduce thefirst of these Coercive Acts. As
he told the House:

Lord North (17:15):
“Boston [has] been the ringleader in all riots, and
[has] at all times shewn adesire of seeing the laws of
Great Britain attempted in vain,in the colony of Massachusetts

Jim Ambuske (17:26):
North believed that had the Boston mob not acted so
Bay.”
destructively, the Company’s teawould have been safely landed in
New York, instead of returned toEngland. In his view, the
Bostonians’ actions hadfrightened New Yorkers and other
colonists onto a different path.

Lord North (17:43):
“Boston alone [is] to blame for having set this
example, therefore Boston oughtto be the principal object of
our attention for punishment.”

Jim Ambuske (17:53):
That punishment took shape in late March when
Parliament passed the BostonPort Act.

Benjamin Carp (17:58):
The most direct response to the Boston Tea Party
is the Boston Port Act. We areactually going to close the port
of Boston to almost all overseascommerce, and the port is going
to remain closed and throweverybody out of work, pretty
much, until Boston repays theEast India Company for its
losses.

Mary Beth Norton (18:18):
Boston was allowed to have local trade in
food and fuel under the BostonPort Act, but the Brits made it
very difficult to do that. Theyactually insisted that the goods
had to move from Salem, whichwas the only port that was
legally open in the area, a lotof goods, even in this local
trade, should have been allowedto go to Boston by sea, were

(18:40):
taken and forced to be movedthrough Salem.

Jim Ambuske (18:44):
The aim of the act, however, was more than just
about forcing Boston to repaythe East India Company for the
destroyed tea.

James Fichter (18:52):
The purpose of the Port Act is to single out
Boston for punishment in orderto make the other colonies fall
in line. They think it's themost recalcitrant colony if they
bring Boston to heal, everyone'sless recalcitrant will be
sufficiently cowed intobehaving. My name is James
Fichter. I'm an historian at theUniversity of Hong Kong, where
I'm an associate professor ofGlobal and Area Studies. The

(19:15):
Port Act closes Boston Harboruntil tea is paid for, and also
till a few other things that payfor till other damages and other
attacks on customs officials arepaid for as well. The Port Act
is deliberately vague, though,about exactly how much money
that is, and it's also vagueabout the method of payment,
because what they want is theywant to use this as a way to get

(19:36):
obedience.

Jim Ambuske (19:38):
For Lord North, this was also a moment to press
on with the work of reformingthe empire. Since the 1750s,
successive Parliaments, primeministers, cabinet secretaries,
and provincial officials hadlabored to secure Great
Britain’s prosperity andindependence by ensuring British
America’s dependence on themother country. That work

(20:01):
involved new trade regulations,treaties with Indigenous
nations, prohibitions onwestward expansion, the
incorporation of new colonies,and measures of administrative
efficiency.
The tea incident in Bostonprovided Lord North with the
impetus to modernize thegovernment of Massachusetts Bay
and offer greater protections tocrown-appointed officials. In

(20:23):
April, the House of Commonsbegan debate on two intertwined
pieces of legislation. TheAdministration of Justice Act,
empowered the governor to removethe trials of crown officials to
another colony or to England ifhe believed the accused could
not receive a fair hearing inMassachusetts Bay. The other was
the Massachusetts GovernmentAct.

Mary Beth Norton (20:44):
It really did, from the standpoint of the Brits
and from the standpoint ofpeople in other colonies, was to
change the Massachusettsgovernment so that it paralleled
the government of the otherroyal colonies. Massachusetts,
in its 17th century charter hada situation where the governor's
council was elected by the lowerhouse of the legislature all the

(21:04):
other colonies with latercharters, the governor's council
was appointed by the Brits, andthis had been a major complaint
of Massachusetts governors, thatthey could not rely on the
Lord North and the governmentbelieved that the colony’s lower
council, which was also theupper house of the upper house
of the Massachusettslegislature, they couldn't
really rely on them for support,because they were beholden to

(21:24):
the lower house of thelegislature. So all that the
Massachusetts government actreally did was to make the
government of Massachusetts lookmore like the government of the
other colonies.

(21:56):
house had infected thegovernor’s council with a
democratic spirit that made someof its leading men complicit in
the colony’s lawlessness,depriving the governor of any
real power.
Parliament had declared itsright to legislate for the
colonies “in all caseswhatsoever,” and even then, it
had been accommodating toBritish Americans in recent

(22:16):
years, if not overly lenient. InLord North’s mind, Parliament’s
power and authority were atstake, just as it had been years
earlier during the Stamp Actcrisis. Either Parliament was
the supreme legislature of theempire, or it was not. As he
argued forcefully in the Houseof Commons on April 22nd:

Lord North (22:37):
“The Americans have tarred and feathered your
subjects, plundered yourmerchants, burnt your ships,
denied all obedience to yourlaws and authority; yet so
clement and so long forbearinghas our conduct been that it is
incumbent on us now to take adifferent course. Whatever may

(22:59):
be the consequences, we mustrisk something; if we do not,
all is over.”

Jim Ambuske (23:10):
News of the risks that Parliament had taken began
arriving in North America inmid-May 1774. Unlike their
response to simply the idea of astamp act nearly a decade
earlier, this time:

Mary Beth Norton (23:23):
The colonists didn't want to respond to Acts
until they had direct knowledgeof the text,

Jim Ambuske (23:31):
First, word of the Boston Port Act, then, in the
weeks that followed, the rest ofthe Coercive Acts trickled in.
The language of the new lawsappeared in provincial
newspapers. One ship alsocarried Governor Thomas
Hutchinson’s replacement in theform of Major General Thomas
Gage, the commander-in-chief ofBritish forces in North America,

(23:51):
and now also the chiefmagistrate of Massachusetts Bay.
Before Gage sailed for his newpost, Lord Dartmouth instructed
him to enforce Parliament’s willwith firmness, yet exercise
patience and moderation whenprudent. Should the new governor
believe that he could persuadelocal officials to bring charges

(24:11):
against the tea destroyers andtheir leaders, he should do it,
though not at the risk ofemboldening radical factions
like the Sons of Liberty. And ifBostonians rioted in response to
the Port Act, Gage hadpermission to deploy troops if
necessary, although Dartmouthdidn’t think colonists would
resist it.
The latest reports from Boston,however, inspired little hope

(24:34):
that “order and obedience” wouldquickly replace “anarchy and
usurpation.” Lord North’s gamblein Parliament did little to make
Gage’s life any easier.
The Boston Port Act threatenedthe town’s livelihood and the
colony’s economy. Food and fuelcould still be imported, but the
goods on which the basic economyand polite society thrived would

(24:55):
be harder to come by. Economichardship might lead to
widespread civil unrest.
Shuttering the port wouldprevent Elizabeth Greenleaf from
importing the goods she sold inher shop on Union Street, or
frustrate authors like PhillisWheatley from receiving crates
filled with her own bookspublished in London. The first

(25:16):
print run of Wheatley’s book ofpoetry, Poems on Various
Subjects Religious and Moral,had been on the first tea ship
to arrive in Boston, though thecopies had survived the attack.
A second shipment arrived in thespring of 1774, promising to
bolster her income. As she toldthe Reverend Samuel Hopkins in
Rhode Island:

Phillis Wheatley (25:36):
“I have received in some of the last
ships from London 300 morecopies of my Poems, and wish to
dispose of them as soon asPossible. If you know of any
being wanted I flatter myselfyou will be pleased to let me
know it”

Jim Ambuske (25:50):
But beyond damaging the local economy, Parliament’s
decision ceded the politicalhigh ground to the colonists.
James Fichter explains:

James Fichter (25:58):
The Port Act is the big mistake by parliament
before the Port Act, patriotslooked like they were the ones
overreaching, and with the PortAct, suddenly it's parliament
that, again, goes into theposition of overreaching, and it
lets patriots do the mostAmerican of things they get, to
play victim politics and to say,Oh, the evil British Parliament

(26:19):
and ministry is oppressing us.Oh, whoa, are we? They had been
the ones victimizing others afew months ago, and that was
part of what was so divisiveabout the Boston Tea Party. But
now they get to be the victims,which is by far their strongest
rhetorical position.

Jim Ambuske (26:33):
Even if many British Americans didn’t agree
with the destruction of the tea,they now understood that if
Parliament could shut upBoston’s port, there was little
reason to think the same couldnot be done to other ports like
New York or Charleston.
In Virginia, the planter GeorgeWashington, a veteran of the
Seven Years’ War and now amember of the colony’s House of

(26:54):
Burgesses, condemned the Bostonmob’s actions, while declaiming
that the Port Act had made the“cause of Boston” the “cause of
America.”
The Port Act went into effect onJune 1, 1774

James Fichter (27:09):
but it had no time limit. The Tea Party
created a limited amount ofdamage. And after several weeks,
if you'd opened the harboragain, then Parliament could
have said, well, we've punishedyou. And it could have then
declared victory and gone homeand said, Well, we won. We
punish you. Now it's over. Buthere there's no middle ground.
By keeping the port of Bostonclosed until patriots pay for

(27:30):
the tea, it concedes thedecision making power to the
Patriots about what's going tohappen next,

Jim Ambuske (27:36):
That there was no middle ground became clear as
colonists debated who shouldcompensate the East India
Company for its damaged propertyand how that might be done. By
the Company’s own estimate, thevalue of the destroyed tea stood
at £9,659 6s 4d, or more than£1.2 million in our own time.

(27:59):
In mid-May 1774, some moderateand conservative Boston
merchants circulated proposalsto pay for the tea, with one
offering £2,000 toward the causeif others agreed to contribute.
Some Philadelphians were of asimilar mindset. With no love
lost for the Tea Act, or for anyof Parliament’s other reforms,

(28:21):
one implored his fellowcolonists that “While we contend
for liberty let us not destroythe idea of justice.” In other
words, destroying the Company’sprivate property was an
unwarranted reaction to the law.It did more harm than good.
In July, local elites in FairfaxCounty, Virginia, including

(28:41):
planters George Mason and GeorgeWashington, gathered to protest
the Port Act, and resolved tohelp pay for the tea, but only
after a redress of theirgrievances.
Yet, such proposals were alreadydead in the water. The king’s
ministers and Parliament wouldnot accept gifts of private
charity, they wanted public actsof contrition and submission.

James Fichter (29:03):
They want the city of Boston or the colony of
Massachusetts to pay in itsofficial capacity for the tea.
And they even want the city orthe colony to ask in its
official capacity about themethod of payment, about how
much it should be and all ofthat. And until Governor Gage is
asked by an official body, bythe colonial legislature or by

(29:25):
the town, he refuses to tell anyprivate deputation of merchants
or citizens how much money itis, because unless there's an
official body behind paying forit, there's no official body
that you can hold accountablemaking sure there's peaceable
conduct in the port and in thetown in the future. So there are
lots of private movements toraise money to pay for the tea

(29:46):
but then, after you've paid forit and reimbursed the company,
what's to stop the same thingfrom happening again next time.

Jim Ambuske (29:51):
This helps to explain why more radical
colonists like Samuel Adams andmembers of the Sons of Liberty
in Boston and other communitiesvowed to hold the line. If
Boston or Massachusetts Bay paidfor the tea, as Benjamin
Franklin and others hadcounseled, then not only would
it be an acknowledgement thatthe Boston mob had been wrong to

(30:12):
destroy private property, butmore dangerously, that
Parliament had the right to taxBritish Americans in the first
place.
That colonists willinglyimported and bought legal,
dutied tea before thatdestructive night in December
1773 – and that more than a fewcontinued to do so quietly ever

(30:32):
since – could be convenientlyignored. By closing the port of
Boston, Parliament gave moderateand more radical colonists good
ground to once again pick at afestering imperial wound: Either
the British Americans had thesame rights and liberties as
their fellow subjects inBritain, or they did not.

(30:53):
Holding out for as long as theycould bought time for the
radicals to rally moremoderates, perhaps a few
conservatives, and maybe evensympathetic members of
Parliament to their standard.
The changes made to thegovernor’s council to bring
Massachusetts Bay in line withthe other colonies, and the
limits imposed on town meetingsby the Massachusetts Government

(31:13):
Act, provided some additionalleverage, though as Mary Beth
Norton notes, not as much as wemight think:

Mary Beth Norton (31:19):
People in New York and South Carolina and
Virginia said, Wait a minute.What's the problem? We've been
dealing with governments justlike this for years. Why are you
complaining Massachusetts? Youdeserve it because of what you
did with the tea and so we'renot going to support you.

Jim Ambuske (31:34):
The Administration of Justice Act, though, received
widespread condemnation amongcolonists of all political
persuasions. They called it:

Mary Beth Norton (31:43):
The Murder Act. They felt it meant that
people who were accused ofhurting or attacking British
officers would be tried inEngland.

Jim Ambuske (31:54):
They doubted that a colonist accused of assaulting a
crown-appointed official couldreceive a fair trial in England,
imagining that English judgesand juries would be all too
eager to convict. And somefeared that the act would give
British officials license tocommit crimes in the colonies,
but never face true justice.

Mary Beth Norton (32:13):
Some people said, This is terrible. This
means that our homes andfamilies are at risk from
marauding Brits. No one woulddefend that.

Jim Ambuske (32:25):
If British Americans could broadly agree
that the new acts of Parliamentwere intolerable, there was less
consensus on how the coloniesshould oppose them.
In the weeks before Bostonianslearned of the Port Act, the
merchant John Hancock called fora congress to convene so that
representatives from variouscolonies could lay the
groundwork for a collectiveresponse. Such meetings were not

(32:48):
unheard of. Representatives fromsome colonies met in Albany, New
York in 1754 to negotiate withthe Haudenosaunee and coordinate
defenses against the French andtheir Indigenous allies. Nine
colonies met in New York city inOctober 1765 to push back
against the Stamp Act. And yet:

Mary Beth Norton (33:09):
There are precedents in 1754 and 1765, I
looked for explicit referencesto those in the discussions in
1774 and I didn't see anything.I didn't see anybody saying, oh,
we can do this, just like we didthe Stamp Act Congress or
something like that. I didn'tsee that. Perhaps they thought
the Stamp Act Congress was notcomprehensive enough. Surely,

(33:31):
the Albany Congress was notcomprehensive enough. It only
had a few colonies represented,and neither of them had achieved
their goals.

Jim Ambuske (33:38):
Nevertheless, after learning of the Port Act, some
colonists began calling for anew congress, except:

Mary Beth Norton (33:45):
It's not the Bostonians. The Bostonians were
not in favor of a colonial wideCongress. They wanted the other
colonies immediately to jump totheir aid, as indeed they did
with goods and things to supportthem with the Boston Port being
closed. But the Boston leadersreally wanted the other colonies
to say, okay, an immediate tradeboycott with Britain and Samuel

(34:09):
Adams really did not want adelay. Did not want there to be
time for people to think thingsthrough. He wanted everyone to
come to the aid of New England.And as the news spread south the
only colony that was willing tosay, yes, we will support an
immediate boycott of Britain interms of goods is Maryland. All

(34:31):
the other colonies say,officially, wait a minute. Let's
talk about it. It was themoderates in the other colonies,
in New York and Pennsylvania inparticular, who said, Yeah,
Boston, you're being hurt, butlet's sit down and talk about
everything. They're the ones whocome up with the idea of meeting
in Philadelphia in earlySeptember.

Jim Ambuske (34:52):
Though sympathetic to Boston’s plight, even if they
thought Bostonians had broughtit on themselves, moderates in
Philadelphia, New York, andother colonies had no desire to
see the same fate befall theirport towns nor allow rash
actions by Samual Adams andothers to earn them Parliament’s
attention.
Nor did moderates necessarilytrust everything the Sons of

(35:15):
Liberty said or published. Justas Paul Revere had allowed
Philadelphians to believe thatthe cargoes of all four tea
ships sent to Boston had beendestroyed, instead of only
three, like-minded printerssometimes misled readers to
achieve certain political ends.
Peter Timothy’s reporting in theSouth Carolina Gazette on

(35:35):
debates about the arrival of teain Charleston harbor illuminates
how.

Mary Beth Norton (35:40):
He is the most radical of the three newspaper
editors in Charleston, and Ithink he's trying to promote
unity. He's trying to convincepeople who are not physically
present in Charleston and notattended these meetings that
things are going much moresmoothly than they actually were
in the opposition to the tea andBritain in general, he doesn't

(36:03):
lie, but he omits stories. Heomits the account of how long
the debates were, what theissues were, and then there's
meetings that are unexplained,because when they can't reach a
consensus of the community, itturns out that the planters have
a meeting and the mechanics havea meeting and the merchants have

(36:24):
a meeting. We know thosehappened, because he tells us
those happen. But does he tellus what happened in any of those
meetings? No, it convinced othercolonies that the Charlestonians
were going to send the tea back.And then, of course, when that
didn't happen, when the customsofficers instead confiscated the
tea, they really felt betrayed,and they wrote these angry

(36:48):
editorials, as it were, whathappened in Charleston? Why did
they lose their nerve? Becausethey didn't really understand
what was going on, because PeterTimothy had literally misled
other colonies and even otherpeople in Charleston about what
was happening on the ground.

Jim Ambuske (37:06):
Convening a congress was a chance to debate
a collective response toParliament without having to
parse reporting in newspapers ordivine truths in letters from
committees of correspondence.Arriving at a common strategy,
though, wasn’t necessarily goingto be easy. Prospective
delegates might have sharedcommon grievances as subjects of
the same king, but they werestill Virginians, South

(37:28):
Carolinians, and New Yorkersfirst, with views ranging from
the conservative to the moreradical.

Mary Beth Norton (37:34):
Now the next thing that happens, though, is
that the Brits make a bigmistake, and the big mistake is
that Lord Dartmouth forbids thegovernors from allowing the
legislatures to elect delegatesto this Congress. Sometimes the
governors did it on their ownbefore they got the order from
Dartmouth. One of them who didthat was William Franklin, who

(37:57):
was the governor of New Jersey,and of course, was Benjamin's
son, and he saw the danger, buthe thought that all I have to do
is to prevent the legislaturefrom meeting, and they can't
elect anybody. It didn't occurto him that people in New Jersey
would say, okay, we'll justelect people in a different way.
And therefore, the only way thatdelegates can be selected is

(38:19):
through extra legal bodies,either local bodies or colony
wide, extra legal bodies thatvarious colonies managed to get
elected in a variety ofdifferent ways.

Jim Ambuske (38:31):
Ironically, Massachusetts Bay managed to
elect delegates before GovernorGage dissolved the assembly.
Virginia’s elections, however,reveal other long, extra legal
roads taken.
Soon after Virginians learned ofthe Port Act in May 1774, the
colony’s House of Burgessesvoted to appoint June 1st – the

(38:54):
day the act was to take effect –as a day for fasting and prayer
in solidarity with Bostonians.Royal Governor John Murray, Earl
of Dunmore promptly dissolvedthe assembly. Undeterred, nearly
90 members of the Housereconvened in nearby Raleigh
Tavern in Williamsburg, wherethey called for a boycott of
East India Company goods andadvocated for a continental

(39:18):
meeting.
A few days later, therepresentatives who remained in
town called for a convention tomeet on August 1st to discuss
Virginia’s response to theCoercive Acts. In June and July,
freeholders in nearly allVirginia’s counties gathered to
appoint delegates to theconvention. None were as
consequential as the meeting inFairfax County.

(39:40):
On July 14, Fairfax Countyfreeholders met in Alexandria, a
major port along the PotomacRiver, and selected George
Washington and CharlesBroadwater as their convention
delegates. Four days later, theydelivered Washington and
Broadwater their instructions inthe form of 26 resolutions.

(40:01):
Probably written by GeorgeMason, with editorial assistance
from Washington, the resolutionswere careful to acknowledge
their loyalty to the crown andtheir wish for continued
dependence on Great Britain,but:

Fairfax Resolves (40:13):
“there is a premeditated Design and System,
formed and pursued by theBritish Ministry, to introduce
an arbitrary Government into hisMajesty’s American Dominions; to
which End they are artfullyprejudicing our Sovereign, and
inflaming the Minds of ourfellow-Subjects in Great
Britain, by propagating the mostmalevolent Falsehoods”

Jim Ambuske (40:33):
They rejected Parliament’s claimed right to
tax British Americans withouttheir consent, called for a
boycott of certain British goodssoon, and threatened an export
ban if Parliament did notretreat. The freeholders also
called for a continentalcongress:

Fairfax Resolves (40:48):
“to concert a general and uniform Plan for the
Defence and Preservation of ourcommon Rights, and continueing
the Connection and Dependance ofthe said Colonies upon Great
Britain, under a just, lenient,permanent, and constitutional
Form of Government.”

Jim Ambuske (41:03):
Perhaps most importantly, the Fairfax
Resolves revealed a willingnesson the part of southern
slaveowners, who imaginedthemselves as landed English
aristocrats, to ally themselveswith more
democratically-inclined northernsettlers, many of whom made
their living from the sea.
The Virginia Convention met inearly August 1774, with

(41:25):
Washington and Broadwater inattendance.
Like similar conventions inother colonies, the Virginia
meeting had no legal authority,nor did it expressly claim any.
To do otherwise could invitecharges of treason. That helps
to explain why the boycott ofBritish goods adopted by the
convention was voluntary only,and would require other forms of

(41:48):
persuasion to enforce it.Likewise, the seven delegates
chosen to attend the congress inPhiladelphia had no formal legal
powers.
Yet, the political processesthat colonists followed to elect
delegates to their conventionsand to the congress gave both an
air of legitimacy and thespecter of legality. That did

(42:09):
not bode well for Britishofficials and colonists who
believed such actions wereunconstitutional.

Mary Beth Norton (42:15):
The election of these extra legal bodies was
really important, reallyimportant, in circumventing the
British authority.

Jim Ambuske (42:24):
Twelve of the twenty-six colonies sent
delegates to Philadelphia. TheCaribbean colonies, the two
Floridas, the Canadianprovinces, and Georgia declined
to send representatives. ManyGeorgians agreed that Parliament
had gone too far, but for themoment they wanted to avoid
alienating British authorities,and especially the military, on

(42:46):
whom they relied for defenseagainst attacks by powerful
Indigenous nations in thesouthern borderlands.
The delegates who did arrivewere men of varying political
persuasions. Among them were theradical Samual Adams from
Massachusetts Bay, along withhis learned cousin, John. The
more moderate Philip Livingston,a member of New York’s powerful

(43:07):
landed family, came. As did theconservative Pennsylvanians John
Dickinson and Joseph Galloway.The firebrand Virginian Patrick
Henry gained a seat, as did themore temperate George
Washington. Richard Caswell, whohad fought alongside Governor
William Tryon against theRegulator rebels in North
Carolina, represented hiscolony. And the wealthy and

(43:27):
conflicted Henry Middletonventured north from South
Carolina.
The delegates had barely beguntheir work in Carpenter’s Hall
on Chestnut Street when on theafternoon of September 6th, an
express rider galloped intoPhiladelphia bearing a letter
from Israel Putnam ofConnecticut, dated three days
earlier, filled with the mostdreadful news.

Israel Putnam (43:50):
“Mr. Keys this moment brought us the news that
the men-of-war and troops beganto fire upon the people last
night at sunset at Boston….Heinforms, that the artillery
played all night; that thepeople were universally rallying
from Boston as far as here, anddesire all the assistance
possible.”

Jim Ambuske (44:07):
The Royal Navy began bombarding the town in the
days after Governor Gage orderedthe removal of the colony’s
supply of gunpowder from thenearby town of Charlestown to
Castle William in Boston Harborfor safekeeping.
Rumors swirled that GovernorGage had sent Redcoats to
Charlestown to seize the supplyof gunpowder belonging to other
towns as well. When a largenumber of people gathered to

(44:29):
protest the removal, breaking afew windows along the way, six
people were killed aftersoldiers fired into the crowd.
The king’s ships opened fire onBoston hours later.
Word of the attack spreadquickly like a plague to western
Massachusetts Bay and then southtoward Philadelphia. Some twenty
thousand men began mobilizing toavenge Boston’s ruins.

(44:52):
John Adams didn’t know whetherhis wife Abigail or their
children were alive or dead.Whether Boston had been shot to
hell with cannon fire and burnedto ashes. Whether after all the
protests and boycotts, after allthe resistance to Parliament,
the horrors of civil war hadfinally come.
On the morning of September 8th,John wrote to Abigail, not

(45:15):
knowing what had become of his“dearest friend”:

John Adams (45:17):
“My Dear. When or where this Letter will find you,
I know not. In what Scenes ofDistress and Terror, I cannot
foresee.—We have received aconfused Account from Boston, of
a dreadfull Catastrophy. TheParticulars, We have not heard.
We are waiting with the UtmostAnxiety and Impatience, for
further Intelligence.”

Jim Ambuske (45:36):
Adams waited for news from the north. It would do
little good to strike out forBoston now if the “confused
Account” was true, that Bostonwas destroyed and its people
scattered. Philadelphia wassimply too far away. All he
could do was attend to hisduties and wait.
That afternoon, as Adams and hisfellow delegates debated the

(46:00):
origins of British Americanrights, the circumstances of
their ancestors’ emigration tothe colonies, and the
foundations of their allegianceto the king, another rider
galloped into Philadelphia. Hecarried news of the “dreadfull
Catastrophy” that broughtimmediate relief to Adams’
anxiety.
“The confused Account” wasconfused indeed, for it was

(46:22):
false. Governor Gage had orderedthe colony’s gunpowder removed
to Castle William, there hadbeen a protest, but there had
been no attack, no navalbombardment. No one had even
been killed. Abigail and thechildren were alive and
unharmed. Boston stood, still.
By the time Adams heard theinitial reports of the attack,

(46:45):
what had never happened, wasalready over.
Boston’s Committee ofCorrespondence chastised Israel
Putnam for his role inmetastasizing the false
narrative. The aging veteran ofthe Seven Years’ War should have
waited for “authentickintelligence” from the committee
before acting on information ofthis kind. In the future, he

(47:07):
should hold his tongue untilreceiving word from the
committee’s own express riders.
The rumors that Putnampropagated had spread like
wildfire, twisting andcontorting as they went,
inflaming the minds of women andmen who were ready to rally to
Boston’s cause until they toolearned that the story was
unfounded.

(47:28):
Abigail Adams feared “animmediate rupture” was imminent.
That willingness to mobilize wasnot lost on Britons on both
sides of the argument or thosejust caught in the middle. It
revealed just how perilous thestate of imperial politics had
become.
For British officials like Gage,this fictive powder alarm

(47:48):
demonstrated that a militaryconfrontation was possible,
perhaps even likely. For thedelegates in Philadelphia, it
was both heartening andhorrifying. In one sense, it
represented a patriotic spiritin defense of British American
rights, but in another sense, itshowed how little ability the
elite men in Carpentar’s Hallhad to control the masses or

(48:12):
information.
For people on the ground whowitnessed the hysteria, like
Customs Commission BenjaminHowell, the picture was bleaker.
To crown-appointed officialslike him, radical colonists had
choked off a middle path. “Thosewho are not for them, they say
are against them.” He fearedthat “justice and all civil

(48:35):
power” would soon be at an end.
The Continental Association onlyfueled such suspicions. In one
Congressmen held out hope that“justice and all civil power” in
British America would endureunder the British constitution,
with the colonies dependent onthe crown, and their rights as
British subjects intact. Likemost colonists, they wanted
reconciliation with the MotherCountry and the bright future

(48:58):
they had imagined at the end ofthe Seven Years’ War.
But at the same time, congresscould not ignore Parliament’s
latest actions, nor reformsgoing back a decade that now
seemed more like a long train ofabuses. To assert British
of the congress’ final actionsbefore the meeting closed in
American rights, they adoptedprincipled statements, and
turned to an old economicweapon.

(49:19):
In mid-September, congressadopted a series of resolutions
authored by a convention inSuffolk County, Massachusetts
Bay, which had met in the wakeof the powder alarm. These
Suffolk Resolves condemned theCoercive Acts as “gross
infractions” of their rightsaccording to “the laws of
nature, the BritishConstitution, and the charter of

(49:40):
the province.” They also calledfor a boycott of British goods
late October, it embraced callsfrom local communities and
and a ban on provincial exports,and urged colonists to disobey
all of the Coercive Acts.
By adopting the SuffolkResolves, congress made the
plight of Massachusetts Bay itsown. It also made a strong claim
to speak with authority onbehalf of all British Americans.

(50:01):
The resolves quickly appeared inPhiladelphia newspapers before
spreading to other communities.Mere days after John Adams
learned that his wife andchildren were unharmed, he
called congress’s decision oneof the “happiest” days of his
life.
Others were less sanguine. InLondon, customs official Charles
provincial conventions toadvocate for colonial-wide
Steuart opened a letter from hisdeputy Nathaniel Coffin in

(50:23):
Boston only to find a drearyobservation. In adopting the
Suffolk Resolves, Coffin wrote,Congress had all but issued a
declaration of war.
Coffin’s alarm smacked ofhyperbole, yet with some
elements of truth. Forcrown-appointed officials like
him, and for more moderate andconservative colonists who

(50:43):
boycotts of British goods andbans on future colonial exports.
feared a breach with GreatBritain, the radicals were
pushing congress in a dangerousdirection, with pretension to
legal powers it did not have,risking the irreparable. If
Parliament left no room forcompromise over the Port Act,
congress seemed to be closingthe door as well.

James Fichter (51:03):
Congress meets and passes the Continental
Association, which bans allimports from Britain after
December 11, 1774 consumption ofBritish goods and tea after
Here’s James Fichter.

(51:25):
March 11, 1775 and exports toBritain after September 10, 1775

Jim Ambuske (51:44):
There was logic in the congress’s plan and lessons
from the past. Colonists hadvoluntarily implemented trade
boycotts and non-consumptionagreements in the past to
protest the Stamp Act and theTownshend duties, but those
efforts had been disjointed anddifficult to enforce. When
Parliament repealed most of theTownshend taxes in early 1770,

(52:07):
the boycotts collapsed fairlyquickly. British Americans even
resumed importing and drinkingtaxed tea.
In the congress’s view, a moreunited effort was now needed.
Mary Beth Norton explains:

Mary Beth Norton (52:20):
The Americans thought that this is the way we
can get the Brits to agree withus. We don't have a vote in
Parliament, but the merchantsthat we deal with have brands in
Parliament, and some of them arein Parliament themselves. So
what we need to do is to put alot of economic pressure on the
merchants. The merchants willput pressure on Parliament, and
parliament will then rescindthese acts that we don't want.

(52:41):
That was their logic.

Jim Ambuske (52:43):
The staggered plan would allow colonists to stock
up on goods before the measurestook effect, and afford time for
Parliament to consider theconsequences of its actions.

James Fichter (52:52):
We know colonists stocked up on all sorts of goods
in 1774 import from Britainincreased by 30% in anticipation
of the boycott of 1775 so peopleare stocking up. So of course,
they're going to stock up ontea.

Jim Ambuske (53:08):
As the congress had no legal authority, it had no
legal means to enforce theContinental Association. It left
that task to extra legalconventions and local
committees. And enforcing thosevoluntary bans required
coercion.

Mary Beth Norton (53:23):
The most important thing that the
Continental Congress did was toadopt the Continental
Association and to direct intheir language every city,
county and town, to set up alocal committee to enforce the
rules of the association. Manylocal areas did indeed elect
these committees. They includedboth old leaders and new leaders

(53:47):
in these particular colonies, inthese particular areas, and the
local committees then, with moreor less vigor, start to enforce
the association. And the way youdo that is you start by coercing
the merchants you want to makesure that the merchants are not
importing or exporting stuffagainst the rules of the
association, and so they dothings like direct merchants to

(54:09):
give them their books so theycan inspect them and find out

James Fichter (54:13):
We know this from two pieces of evidence. One, I
what's happening.
went through several hundredmerchant ledgers and their
paperwork, and it shows,surprisingly, a lot of tea
sales. This is funny because youwould think it would be a black

(54:34):
market good that you should sellunder the table. You shouldn't
announce that you're selling teaon paper. And presumably for all
the tea sales that I did find,there are probably a lot more
that were simply not recorded orhidden. But merchants needed to
record this sometimes becausethey bought and sold goods on
credit. Now, I think somemerchants are smarter than
others, and they don't writedown that they're selling tea.

(54:56):
Suddenly, after the boycottmovement starts, they just sell
and they're like. Ledger a lotof merchandise, and by calling
it merchandise in their ledger,they're able to hide what it is
they're selling, but still keeptrack of how much money they're
owed. And so their practicalsolution to this problem,

Jim Ambuske (55:13):
These local committees inspected more than
just merchants’ ledgers.

Mary Beth Norton (55:17):
They start coercing people who are doing
things like slaughtering sheep.The association says you
shouldn't kill sheep because weneed the wool, so don't kill
your sheep. There's other partsof the association that say
don't do frivolous things, don'tdo horse races, don't go to
plays, don't do things likethat. And so in Virginia,

(55:37):
there's coercion to stop horseracing. Now a lot of these
committees then move beyond justdoing that, and they start
coercing speech. And I amreminded explicitly of one poor
Scottish school teacher whowrote a letter home to Scotland
about what was going on,critical of what was happening

(55:58):
in the colonies. It waspublished in Scotland. That
letter made its way back toVirginia, and so he was hauled
up before the local committeeand forced to literally get down
on his hands and knees and tosay, no, no, please forgive me.
I'm sorry, and don't throw meout of the colony, because my
life is now here.

James Fichter (56:19):
Patriots tended to announce that the boycott
movement was widespread, waswidely popular and thoroughly
adhered to. But of course,there's a difference between
saying what you're going to doand what you actually do.
They're not announcing the truththat the boycott was widespread.
They're trying to lead coloniststoward a boycott movement. We

(56:39):
shouldn't take what they'resaying at face value in these
cases.

Jim Ambuske (56:43):
These pronouncements were convincing
enough, however

James Fichter (56:46):
The result in the association and after was that
colonists decided that theywould agree that patriots were
in charge, and they would acceptPatriot authority and
leadership, and patriots wouldagree not to look too closely
into whether colonists actuallyadhered to the association
because it mattered more thatcolonists supported them in

(57:06):
their leadership than it reallydid whether they drank a little
bit of tea.

Jim Ambuske (57:10):
Yet, there were those who could not abide by the
leadership of more radicalcolonists calling themselves
true patriots. The adoption ofthe Suffolk Resolves and then
the Continental Associationalienated many moderate and
conservative colonists –especially in commercial centers
like New York city – who hadbeen willing to give the
congress the benefit of thedoubt in hopes of a peaceful

(57:33):
resolution. But in the wake ofthese events, they believed
their fellow colonists wereabandoning their natural
loyalties and moving down anunnatural path they could not
follow.

Mary Beth Norton (57:46):
People started to say that various things were
unconstitutional. The wordunconstitutional was used as a
weapon by both sides. Byconstitutional, what they meant
was not something that we wouldunderstand today, because there
is no document like theconstitution that did not exist
at that time. It simply meantthe current system of
government. The radicalAmericans said that the Coercive

(58:11):
Acts were unconstitutional, thatthe British had no right to do
what they were doing. They saidthat the Tea Act was
unconstitutional. These policiesthe British are adopting are
unconstitutional because they'renot the way things have always
worked. The conservativeAmericans said that the extra
legal bodies wereunconstitutional because they
have no basis in regulargovernment.

Jim Ambuske (58:34):
These moderate and conservative colonists urged the
king’s ministers to deal withthe radicals using a firm hand
to settle matters once and forall. In December 1774, Jonathan
Sewell, the attorney general forMassachusetts Bay, wrote to
former governor ThomasHutchinson, who was now living
in exile in England, to outlinethe stakes for the British

(58:57):
Empire. For many BritishAmericans like him who began
identifying themselves as“loyalists,” leniency was
intolerable.

Jonathan Sewell (59:08):
“Temporizing Measures will be fatal to all
American Loyalists immediately,and to all America finally.”

Mary Beth Norton (59:16):
The word loyalist is very important
because it shows the divisionsin the community. The term
wasn't used until late in theyear 1774 and it was first used
by a loyalist himself. What itmeant was there are now people
who are not seen as loyal.There's a group of people who

(59:37):
are now recognized as beingrevolutionaries. And then once
the term loyalist appears, it'sclear that the reverse is there.
The opposite is there. And tome, that's very important. By
the end of the calendar year1774 divisions have gotten so
serious that at that point, ifrevolution is not inevitable,

(59:58):
it's damn close to beinginevitable.

Jim Ambuske (01:00:10):
When the Continental Congress closed on
October 26, 1774, the delegatespledged to meet again the
following year if Parliament hadnot redressed their grievances.
They invited the colonies whohad not come to this first
congress to join them inPhiladelphia for the second as
well.
And none were more important toBritish Americans at this moment

(01:00:34):
than Quebec.
Twenty years earlier, Quebec hadbeen the heart of New France, a
bastion of Roman Catholicism,and a powerful ally of the
formidable Indigenous nationswho inhabited the Ohio Country.
When Montreal fell to Britishforces in 1760, and the Seven
Years’ War came to end threeyears later, Quebec became a

(01:00:56):
colony of Great Britain.
Some Britons on both sides ofthe Atlantic grumbled at the
thought of adding a Catholiccolony to their Protestant
British Empire of Liberty. Morethan a few colonists complained
when the king’s ministers andnative diplomats negotiated a
boundary between Indigenous andBritish America.

(01:01:17):
Time alleviated some of thoseconcerns. Catholicism seemed
contained in the north, and theboundary line began eroding
almost as soon as surveyors drewit on maps, opening the rich
fertile lands of the OhioCountry for the taking.
But in the summer of 1774, asBritish Americans debated how

(01:01:38):
best to respond to the BostonPort Act, the Massachusetts
Government Act, and the MurderAct, word arrived that
Parliament was pressing on withits imperial reforms. For in a
new act, no less intolerable, itseemed that New France had been
reborn.
Thanks for listening to WorldsTurned Upside Down. Worlds is a

(01:02:10):
production of R2 Studios, partof the Roy Rosenzweig Center for
History and New Media at GeorgeMason University.
I'm your host, Dr. Jim Ambuske.
This episode of Worlds is madepossible with support from a
2024 grant from the NationalEndowment for the Humanities.
Head to r2studios.org, for acomplete transcript of today's

(01:02:31):
episodes and suggestions forfurther reading.
Worlds is researched and writtenby me, with additional research
writing and script editing byJeanette Patrick.
Jeanette Patrick and I are theexecutive producers. Grace
Mallon is our Britishcorrespondent.
Our lead audio editor for thisepisode is Curt Dahl of CD
squared.
Annabelle Spencer is ourgraduate assistant.

(01:02:54):
Our thanks to Benjamin Carp,James Fichter, and Mary Beth
Norton for sharing theirexpertise with us in this
episode.

Thanks to our voice actors: Kristin Jacobsen, Gillian (01:03:02):
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MacDonald, Amber Pelham, AdamSmith, Anne Fertig, Issac
Loftus, Patrick Long, and JordanSlome.
Subscribe to Worlds on yourfavorite podcast app. Thanks,
and we'll see you next time you.