On this day 250 years ago, the Philadelphia Committee of Correspondence provided Paul Revere (or perhaps a different rider — scholars differ whether Revere personally rode from New York to Philadelphia or dispatched another rider from New York to carry the Boston Committee’s correspondence) with their response to the Boston Committee’s request that other colonies join Massachusetts in pledging not to import any goods from Britain as the response to the closure of the Port of Boston by the Boston Port Act. The Philadelphia Committee’s response was written by the committed, but moderate, Patriot John Dickinson at the suggestion of Joseph Reed, Thomas Mifflin and Charles Thomson, the leading radical Patriots in Philadelphia.

Reed, Mifflin and Thomson were aware that there would be much opposition by Loyalists and by merchants in Philadelphia to the Boston Committee’s request that other colonies join Massachusetts in a non-importation pact. They had approached Dickinson because they knew he was respected by both the Patriots and conservatives for his unwavering commitment since the Stamp Act in 1765 to the defense of Colonial rights coupled with his opposition to radical actions that would inflame the British Government. They explained to Dickinson that they would argue to the mass meeting planned for the evening of May 20 in Philadelphia for full support of the non-importation pact proposed by Boston, but that they wanted him to present a compromise proposal that would offer support to Boston without committing to a non-importation pact in case their proposal was defeated. The plan suggested by Reed, Mifflin and Thomson worked exactly as they had hoped. Dickinson agreed to present his compromise proposal at the mass meeting in Philadelphia, their radical proposal for agreement to non-importation was indeed rejected, and the mass meeting unanimously adopted Dickinson’s moderate proposal.

The letter issued by the Philadelphia Committee of Correspondence on May 21 was considered by many to be only lukewarm in support of Boston. Although the letter offered Bostonians “sincere fellow feelings for your Sufferings”, it declined to endorse non-importation without consultation with the rest of the Province of Pennsylvania. Instead, the Philadelphia Committee’s reply stated that they would request that the Royal Governor of Pennsylvania convene a special session of the Pennsylvania Assembly to consider the “weighty Question” of whether to join a boycott of British goods. As an alternative to a non-importation agreement, the Philadelphia Committee suggested that they could support the convening of a congress of all the Colonies to declare American rights and petition the King.

The Philadelphia Committee’s moderate proposal for an intercolonial congress would, in the long run, turn out to be the more radical proposal. It would lead to the creation of the First Continental Congress — the first government of the United States independent of British control.

Source: Norton, Mary Beth, 1774 the Long Year of Revolution at pp. 93-94.