On this day 250 years ago, “The People” of Boston met again at Old South Meeting House to consider the response of the East India Company’s consignees. The meeting was interrupted by the delivery of a proclamation of acting Governor Thomas Hutchinson that ordered the meeting “To disperse and to surcease all further unlawful proceedings at your utmost peril.” “The People” ignored Hutchinson’s order and issued their own declaration that “It was solemnly voted by the body of the people of this and the neighboring towns assembled at the Old South meeting-house on Tuesday, the 30th day of November that the said tea never should be landed in this province.”
Month: November 2023
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On this 250 years ago the Boston Committee of Correspondence and Sons of Liberty called a meeting of Bostonians and citizens from neighboring towns at Faneuil Hall to respond to the arrival of the Dartmouth and its cargo of East India Company tea. Sam Adams estimated the size of the crowd to be 5000 and the meeting was forced to shift to the larger Old South Meeting House. The people assembled demanded that the tea be returned to England and appointed a watch of 25 Sons of Liberty to guard Griffin’s Wharf to make sure the tea would not be unloaded.
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On this day 250 years ago, the Dartmouth, carrying 114 chests of tea, sailed into Boston Harbor.
Today, November 28, 2023, at 11:00 am Eastern, the City of Boston will lay wreaths at the graves of Samuel Adams and John Hancock to commemorate the response of Adams, Hancock and the Sons of Liberty to this event. https://www.downtownboston.org/explore-downtown-boston/downtown-boston-events-calendar/special-boston-tea-party-commemoration-samuel-adams-and-john-hancock/
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On this day 250 years ago, the “Committee for Tarring and Feathering” sent a public letter to river pilots threatening them as the committee’s name implies if they assisted Captain Ayers and the Polly in docking to unload the ship’s cargo of tea in Philadelphia.
Source: https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.14303100/?st=text
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On this day 250 years ago, The Massachusetts Spy published a letter by someone writing under the pseudonym “Locke” addressed to The American Colonies with a clarion call to rebellion:
“YOUR exertions in the great cause of freedom have been noble; and they must be continued with redoubled vigour. The time is now come which requires your united strength and wisdom. Act agreeable to the character of FREEMEN, and you shall continue FREE. You need not be instructed in the rights of mankind; you know them. The principles held up in my treatise on government, which you have approved and highly honoured, are, that whoever invades the liberties of the people, is guilty of treason, and may justly be punished by them, be his character high or low; and if he oppose them by force, he thereby becomes their enemy, and may be opposed by force until he is brought to reason, or to ruin . . .
“Liberty has taken deep root and will reign in America. . . .
“A misguided administration in Great-Britain, has for a number of years, pursued plans calculated to destroy the nation; and it fully appears, that nothing but the stern virtue of this country can resist the depotism which now threatens to involve all in ruin — it is therefore the indispensible duty of the Americans to defend their own rights from every approach of tyranny.”
Source: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83021194/1773-11-26/ed-1/seq-3/
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On this day 250 years ago the Sons of Liberty in New York led by Isaac Sears were expecting the arrival of a ship carrying East India Company. They were prepared to block it from unloading its contents but the ship had been blown off course in a storm and would not arrive until April.
Source: https://brewminate.com/isaac-sears-revolution-and-the-roots-of-america-in-new-york/
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On this day 250 years ago, George Washington dined with Peyton Randolph at Randolph’s home in Williamsburg, Virginia. We do not know what they talked about but at that time Randolph was Speaker of the Virginia House of Burgesses and Washington was a leading Member of the House of Burgesses. Only 17 months later Randolph would be the President of the Continental Congress when the Congress appointed Washington as the Commander of the Continental Army.
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On this day 250 years ago the Boston Committee of Correspondence issued a joint letter with the committees of correspondence of the towns in the vicinity of Boston that proclaimed:
Our rights have been for several years invaded by cruel and remorseless enemies; sometimes they have acted with open violence, at other times they have endeavoured by wicked artifice to undermine our constitution. Our fears are now excited by the expectation of the immediate arrival of the tea shipped for the port of Boston, on account of the East India company, the landing and selling of which must be attended with consequences the most fatal to our liberties.
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On this day 250 years ago, “Junius Brutus” (which may have been a pseudonym used by the publisher), wrote in Peter Timothy’s South Carolina Gazette that “a Tax of the value of one penny levied upon us without our consent, as effectually takes away our liberty, as if the sum were a million.” The Patriots made it clear over and over again that they were not rebelling against taxes, but action by Parliament without their consent.
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On this day 250 years ago Club Forty-Five met in Charleston under the Liberty Tree to swear oaths to oppose British tyranny, and to drink to excess. Club Forty-Five comprised 45 South Carolina Patriots including John and Edward Rutledge. The Club was named for a famous essay “North Briton No. 45” written by the radical English Member of Parliament John Wilkes that attacked King George III for despotism.
On This Day In The Revolution 