On this day 250 years ago, George Washington wrote a letter to John West asking for his assistance in contacting veterans of the Virginia militia who had served under Washington in the French and Indian War to let them know that there would be an upcoming distribution of land in the Ohio River valley for veterans. American settlers in the Ohio valley encroaching on Indian lands, and Britain’s subsequent attempt to curtail settlements west of the Appalachians, were among the causes that precipitated the Revolution.

Source: https://www.raabcollection.com/george-washington-autograph/george-washington-signed-sold-washington-seeks-justice-veterans-war-who

On this day (or actually yesterday, since I am writing this well after midnight), 250 years ago, the Providence Gazette published the last of its weekly advertisements for subscribers for a new edition of English Liberties, or, The free-born Subject’s Inheritance. This book had been written in the previous century by a Scottish journalist, but had been edited five times since to include more recent citations for legal arguments in support of liberty under English law. Many of the arguments that American lawyers used to oppose the Tea Act and other British infringements on the liberties of Americans were derived directly from this book. John Carter, the publisher of the Providence Gazette, used his paper to argue vociferously for American freedoms, and he had edited and published the sixth edition of English Liberties specifically to add the most recent precedents to support American arguments against Parliament.

Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1892182  (This 1952 historical journal includes an article that discusses the advertisement. I have been looking, but have not yet found a copy of the September 18, 1773 issue of the Providence Gazette online.)

The Maryland Gazette included on its front page a report from London dated July 3 that the British Ministry was planning to reappoint former Governor Thomas Pownal of Massachusetts because “nothing but discord, confusion, and the greatest dissatisfaction, have taken place in that province, since he resigned the government of it.” Pownal had been a popular governor in contrast to his successor, the widely-disliked Thomas Hutchinson. The British Government instead ended up replacing the unpopular Hutchinson in 1774 with General Thomas Gage and then abolished the civilian government of Massachusetts altogether.

Source: https://archive.org/details/mg09161773/page/n3/mode/2up

Benjamin Franklin published an anonymous letter in the Public Advertiser in London to bring attention to the “Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One” that had been published only three days earlier. Franklin did not need to be worried; his “Rules” were immediately noticed by British officials, and their overreaction to his criticism helped to spark the Revolution.

Source: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-20-02-0216

Couriers carrying the Resolution of the Georgia Assembly creating a Committee of Correspondence, as well as the initial correspondence from Georgia’s Committee would have been traveling by boat, or horse, or both to Williamsburg. Boston and other American cities. Undoubtedly, other correspondence among the seven Committees of Correspondence were also en route. I am sure one of our future Founding Fathers was writing a letter to another discussing plans for resistance to Parliamentary overreach. If I had dug into the primary sources of the records of the multiple Committees of Correspondence or the letters of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams or our other Founding Fathers, I am sure I would have found something specific dated September 12, 1773 that I could cite here.

However, I have not dug out anything from the multiple secondary sources I consulted that I can cite for today’s post, or for September 13 or 14. If anyone reading my blog is aware of something to mention for these dates, please pass along the reference!

Benjamin Franklin published his “Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One” in the The Public Advertiser in London. Although Franklin intended the “Rules” as a satire, the widely-read article proved to be remarkably prescient. The British Government within a year enacted “The Intolerable Acts” which implemented many of the “Rules” Franklin had warned against thus starting the process that ended up reducing the British Empire from a Great Empire to a Small One.

Source: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-20-02-0213

Of course today America is properly focused on remembrance of our recent tragedy of 9/11.

The Georgia Commons House of Assembly passes a resolution creating a Committee of Correspondence. Georgia joins Virginia, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and South Carolina to establish the bodies that would soon take over effective governance of the colonies rebelling against royal authority.

Source: https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/learn/deep-dives/committees-of-correspondence/

Hello Anyone who finds this blog: I have never blogged before but want to make a contribution to the Semiquincentennial of our Nation. WordPress does not seem to think that “Semiquincentennial” is a word and I had to look it up. I remember the celebration and commemoration of the Bicentennial well; that word was catchy and understood by all. In contrast, “Semiquincentennial” just sounds pretentious. So consider this my part in celebrating and commemorating the 250th Anniversary of the United States of America.

Independence Day for far too many Americans is simply a day off work to celebrate the fourth day of the seventh month of the year with sale prices and fireworks. And unfortunately a few Americans today think the founding of our Nation is a source of shame and nothing to celebrate because our Founding Fathers and their successors benefited from slavery and the theft of land from the Native Americans who lived here first. It is critical that we recognize these “original sins” in American history, and that our Nation still has much work to do to correct the legacy of these sins that persist today, but I disagree with the contention that Americans should not celebrate with pride the founding of our Nation.

There is no more noble basis for the founding of a nation than the creed of the United States of America:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Our Founding Fathers were not visionary enough to see it, but thankfully it is self-evident to most Americans today that all people are created equal and that it is not only men who are endowed with unalienable Rights. We can and should celebrate this creed and resubscribe to it every year, really every day, and most especially as we approach a quarter millennium of American Independence. But the purpose of this blog is show that American Independence was not simply an event that was achieved on one day in July 1776 but instead a process that began in 1765 when nine colonies formed the Stamp Act Congress, or in 1770 with the Battle of Golden Hill in New York and the Boston Massacre, or in 1772 with the burning of the Gaspee in Rhode Island. By July 4, 1776 our Independence had been achieved but it wasn’t actually secured until the Treaty of Paris in 1783, or one could argue, the Treaty of Ghent in 1814, or even as I contend, the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. American Independence was imagined, fought for, and realized over the 50-year period from 1765 to 1815. This blog takes up that story in 1773 — 250 years ago today.

When I originally conceived the idea for this blog I intended to start it in March of this year to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the meeting in Williamsburg, Virginia in March 1773 of Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Francis Lightfoot Lee, Dabney Carr and other members of the Virginia House of Burgesses to draft a resolution calling on other British colonies in North America to join Virginia in forming committees of correspondence to coordinate efforts to protect their rights. But I did not get my act together to start my blog then so I am starting it now.