On this day 250 years ago, the North Carolina Committee of Correspondence forwarded the letter and package from the Boston Committee that it received from the Virginia Committee to the South Carolina and Georgia Committees of Correspondence. The North Carolina Committee stated that they considered “the cause of the town of Boston as the cause of America in general” and
That in order that there may be a conformity and unanimity in the Councils of America, it is absolutely necessary and expedient that deputies be appointed by the several Colonies to meet and deliberate on all measures that may be deemed necessary to the support of the general interest.
That in case the Governors of the different Colonies should refuse or decline to call an Assembly of the Representatives of the people that they should in pursuance of the laudable example of the respectable members of the late House of Burgesses of Virginia meet and form associations to consider the most probable means of defeating and counteracting every attack on the rights of the Colonies in general, or any of them,
On this day 250 years ago, the first issue of the Virginia Gazette or, Norfolk Intelligencer was published in Norfolk, Virginia. The front page article was a letter on the “Liberties of America and the danger which threatens them” but was a long-winded legal argument that both condemned “the conduct of the Bostonians in destroying the India Company’s Tea,” and declared that “the Boston port-bill is the highest act of despotism that [t]his or any former age can produce,” before running out of space and forcing the reader to wait until the next issue to see if the author reached any conclusion. But page 3 contains a hard-hitting letter by “A YOUNG BROTHER” that pulled no punches in its attack on the British Government:
This dreadful extent of power is claimed by the British Parliament on whom we have not the least check, and whose natural prejudices will ever induce them to oppress us,—they are not of our appointment, they do not hope for our votes, or fear the loss of them at future elections, they have no natural affection for us, they don’t feel for us, they never expect to see us, and therefore do not court our smiles, or dread meeting our angry countenances.—When they vote away our money, the dont at the same time give that of their own and their best friends with it, but on the contrary they ease themselves and their friends of the whole burden they lay on us, and therefore will always have strong inducements to make our burdens as heavy as possible, that they may lighten their own. Indeed in every view of this Act, it appears replete with horror, ruin and woe: to all America, it matters not where it begins to operate, no colony on the continent is exempt from its dreadful principle, nor can any one that has a seaport avoid its execution.—But however ghostly, grinning and death-like, this awful threatening power lowers over us, I doubt not there are means left to America to avoid its effects and virtue enough to induce every individual to throw aside every little consideration, and unite with unmoveable firmness in the important business of self preservation. We have reason to think this is the last effort of the power that would oppress us; if it takes place, we are undone, undone, with our posterity. If we oppose and avoid it, we may still continue to enjoy our liberties, and posterity will look back to this alarming period, and will admire and boast the virtue of their ancestors that saved them from slavery and ruin.
On this date 250 years ago in Winchester, Virginia, a large crowd gathered at the Frederick County Courthouse but had to move to the larger Church of England in town to adopt resolutions in support of the Patriots in Boston. The Frederick Resolves read:
Voted 1st. That we will always cheerfully pay due submission to such acts of government as his majesty has a right, by law, to exercise over his subjects, as sovereign to the British dominions, and to such only.
2nd. That it is the inherent right of British subjects to be governed and taxed by representatives chosen by themselves only, and that every act of the British parliament respecting the internal policy of North America is a dangerous and unconstitutional invasion of our rights and privileges.
3rd. That the act of parliament above mentioned is not only itself repugnant to the fundamental laws of natural justice in condemning persons for a supposed crime unheard, but also a despotic exertion of unconstitutional power, calculated to enslave a free and loyal people.
4th. That the enforcing the execution of the said act of parliament by a military power will have a necessary tendency to raise a civil war, thereby dissolving that union which has so long happily subsisted between the mother country and her colonies, and that we will most heartily and unanimously concur with our suffering brethren of Boston, and every other port of North America, that may be the immediate victims of tyranny, in promoting all proper measures to avert such dreadful calamities, to procure a redress of our grievances, and to secure our common liberties.
5th.It is the unanimous opinion of this meeting, that a joint resolution of all the colonies to stop all importations from Great Britain, and exportations to it, till the said act be repealed, will prove the salvation of North America and her liberties; on the other hand, if they continue their imports and exports, there is the greatest reason to fear that power and the most odious oppression will rise triumphant over right, justice, social happiness, and freedom.
6th. That the East India Company, those servile tools of arbitrary power, have justly forfeited the esteem and regard of all honest men, and that the better to manifest our abhorrence of such abject compliances with the will of a venal ministry, in ministering all in their power an encrease of the fund of peculation, we will not purchase tea, or any other kind of East India commodities, either imported now, or hereafter to be imported, except saltpetre, spices, and medicinal drugs.
7th. That it is the opinion of this meeting, that committees ought to be appointed for the purpose of effecting a general association, that the same measures may be pursued through the whole continent, that committees ought to correspond with each other, and to meet at places and times as shall be agreed on, in order to form such association, and that when the same shall be formed and agreed to by the several committees, we will strictly adhere to, and till the general sense of the continent shall be known, we do pledge ourselves to each other, and to our country, that will inviolably adhere to the votes of this day.
8th. That Charles M Thurston, Isaac Zane, Angus McDonald, Samuel Beall, 3d, Alexander White, and George Rootes, be appointed a Committee for the purposes aforesaid; and that they, or any three of them are hereby fully empowered to act. Which being read, were unaminously assented to and ascribed.
I emphasized the threat of war in the 4th Resolve.
Also on this date in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Royal Governor John Wentworth dissolved the New Hampshire Assembly. Wentworth was attempting to prevent the Assembly from sending delegates to a continental congress but was unsuccessful.
On this day 250 years ago, the Massachusetts Assembly convened in Salem, Massachusetts instead of in the capital of Boston. Governor Gage had ordered the Massachusetts legislature to convene in Salem to remove the legislature from the pressure of Boston mobs. However, the Assembly’s first order of business was to complain about the removal from Boston and to demand that that it be returned to its normal meeting place.
On this day 250 years ago, the Prince William Resolves were adopted in “a Meeting of the Freeholders, Merchants, and other Inhabit-ants of the County of Prince William, and town of Dumfries, . . . at the Court House” in Dumfries, Virginia. George Mason drafted the Resolves which declared:
Resolved, And it is the unanimous opinion of this meeting, that no person ought to be taxed but by his own consent, expressed either by himself or his Representatives; and that, therefore, any Act of Parliament levying a tax to be collected in America, depriving the people of their property or prohibiting them from trading with one another, is subversive of our natural rights, and contrary to the first principles of the Constitution.
Resolved, That the city of Boston, in the Massachusetts Bay, is now suffering in the common cause of American liberty, and on account of its opposition to an Act of the British Legislature, for imposing a duty upon tea, to be collected in America.
Resolved, That as our late Representatives have not fallen upon means sufficiently efficacious to secure to us the enjoyment of our civil rights and liberties, that it is the undoubted privilege of each respective county, (as the fountain of power from whence their delegation arises,) to take such proper and salutary measures as will essentially conduce to a repeal of those Acts, which the general sense of mankind, and the greatest characters in the nation, have pronounced to be unjust.
Resolved, And it is the opinion of this meeting, that until the said Acts are repealed, all importation to, and exportation from, this Colony ought to be stopped, except with such Colonies or Islands in North America as shall adopt this measure.
Resolved, And it is the opinion of this meeting, that the courts of justice in this Colony ought to decline trying any civil causes until said Acts are repealed.
Resolved, That the Clerk of this Committee transmit copies of these Resolves to both the printers in Annapolis and Philadelphia, to be published in their Gazettes.
On this day 250 years ago in Boston, Dr. Joseph Warren presented a draft of the Solemn League and Covenant to the Boston Committee of Correspondence. Warren and Sam Adams probably drafted the document. The Solemn League and Covenant was a proposed pledge to be circulated to committees of correspondence of towns in Massachusetts and in other colonies that would commit them to
suspend all commercial intercourse with . . . Great Britain, until the said act for blocking up the said harbour be repealed, and a full restoration of our charter rights be obtained
On this day 250 years ago, the inhabitants of Hanover Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania assembled and adopted the following Resolves (I have emphasized the 4th Resolve):
1st. That the recent action of the Parliament of Great Britain is iniquitous and oppressive.
2d. That it is the bounded duty of the people to oppose every measure which tends to deprive them of their just prerogatives.
3d. That in a closer union of the Colonies lies the safeguard of the people.
4th. That in the event of Great Britain attempting to force unjust laws upon us by the strength of arms, our cause we leave to Heaven and our rifles.
5th. That a committee of nine be appointed who shall act for us and in our behalf as emergencies may require.
The Hanover meeting and the Committee of Nine were chaired by Timothy Green, and the Committee’s other members were James Carothers, Josiah Espy, Robert Dixon, Thomas Copenheffer, William Clark, James Stewart, and John Rogers. Two years later, Colonel Timothy Green recruited the Hanover Rifle Battalion, with Major John Rogers and Captain Thomas Copenheffer serving as officers in the Battalion, and then led them to join the Continental Army where they served throughout the War.
On this day 250 years ago, the Connecticut House of Representatives elected Roger Sherman, Silas Deane and Eliphalet Dyer as Delegates to the First Continental Congress, making Connecticut the first colony to select its delegates. Sherman, Deane and Dyer would subsequently serve in the Second Continental Congress. Deane would go on to spend much of the Revolution representing the United States as a diplomat in Europe. Roger Sherman was the only Founding Father who would sign all four documents that established the United States of America: the Articles of Association in 1774; the Declaration of Independence in 1776; the Articles of Confederation in 1778; and the Constitution in 1787.
On this day 250 years ago in London, Parliament passed the fourth of the Intolerable Acts as punishment for the Boston Tea Party. The Quartering Act, unlike the previous three acts, was not limited to Massachusetts but instead applied to all thirteen American colonies. The Quartering Act allowed the British Army to quarter soldiers in private homes in all the Colonies, even over the objections of the homeowner.
On this day 250 years ago, the Royal Navy and Governor Gage closed the Port of Boston to essentially all shipping.
In Philadelphia most citizens attended church services, closed shops, and lowered their flags to half-mast in sympathy with Boston. Norton, Mary Beth,
Source: 1774 the Long Year of Revolution at 95.
The Patriots in Virginia attended church services at Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg and at other churches around the Commonwealth in observance of a Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer. You can visit the Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg today to sit in the pews where George Washington and other Patriots participated in the Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer. https://www.brutonparish.org/
And the Town of Fredericksburg adopted Resolutions in support of Boston. They were the first local Resolutions adopted in Virginia in response to the Intolerable Acts but many more would soon follow.
On This Day In The Revolution 