1. The Intolerable Acts (1774) to the Battles of Lexington and Concord (April, 1775)

2. Reaction to the Tea Party: Lord North
Frederick North,
Lord North
British Prime Minister,
“I would rather all the Hamilcars and Hannibals that Boston ever bred; all the Hancocks. And all the sad-Cocks, and sad dogs of Massachusetts Bay; all the heroes of tar and feathers, and the champions, maimers of unpatriotic horses, mares and mules, were led up to the altar, on the Liberty Tree, there to be exalted and rewarded according to their merit or demerit [he meant hanging] than that Britain should disgrace herself by receding from her just authority.” (Lord North, Speaking in Reaction to the Tea Party of 1773, Quoted in Brogan 1999: 161)
“The Americans have tarred and feathered your subjects, plundered your merchants, burnt your ships, denied all obedience to your laws and authority; yet so clement and so long forbearing has our conduct been that it is incumbent on us now to take a different course. Whatever may be the consequences, we must risk something; if we do not, all is over.” (On April 22, 1774, Prime Minister Lord North defended the program in the House of Commons)

3. The Intolerable Acts
In response to the Boston Tea Party, the British Government responded with a series of measures that came to be known as the Coercive Acts or Intolerable Acts. The Boston Port Act (March 31, 1774) closed the Port of Boston until such time as the East India Company was compensated for the destroyed tea. The Massachusetts Government Act (May 20, 1774) took away self-government from the colonists and placed Massachusetts under the direct control of Britain. Officials were appointed by the King. Only one townhall meeting a year was allowed. To prevent local courts looking too kindly on the transgressions of the colonists, the Administration of Justice Act (May 20, 1774) meant trials could be moved to Britain. The Quartering Act (June 2, 1774) granted the Governor rather than colonial assemblies the power of finding accommodation for British soldiers, thus giving earlier attempts to impose obligations on the colonists more teeth.

4. The Intolerable Acts The Boston Port Act (March 31, 1774)
The Massachusetts Government Act (May 20, 1774)
Administration of Justice Act (May 20, 1774)
The Quartering Act (June 2, 1774)
In response to the Boston Tea Party, the British Government responded with a series of measures that came to be known as the Coercive Acts or Intolerable Acts. The Boston Port Act (March 31, 1774) closed the Port of Boston until such time as the East India Company was compensated for the destroyed tea. The Massachusetts Government Act (May 20, 1774) took away self-government from the colonists and placed Massachusetts under the direct control of Britain. Officials were appointed by the King. Only one townhall meeting a year was allowed. To prevent local courts looking too kindly on the transgressions of the colonists, the Administration of Justice Act (May 20, 1774) meant trials could be moved to Britain. The Quartering Act (June 2, 1774) granted the Governor rather than colonial assemblies the power of finding accommodation for British soldiers, thus giving earlier attempts to impose obligations on the colonists more teeth.

5. Edmund Burke
“Again, and again, revert to your old principles – seek peace and ensure it – leave America, if she has taxable matter in her, to tax herself.  I am not here going into the distinctions of rights, nor attempting to mark their boundaries.  I do not enter into these metaphysical distinctions; I hate the very sound of them.  Leave the Americans as they anciently stood, and these distinctions, born of our unhappy context, will die along with it… The question with me is, not whether you have a right to render your people miserable, but whether it is not your interest to make them happy.  It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do, but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.  Is a politic act the worse for being a generous one?  Is no concession proper but that which is made from your want of right to keep what you grant?” (Edmund Burke, Speech on Taxation of the Colonies, 1774)

6. Edmund Burke MP from 1765 Sympathetic to the Americans
Supported free trade, criticised capital punishment
Critical of French Revolution
Strong influence on Conservative politics
“Again, and again, revert to your old principles – seek peace and ensure it – leave America, if she has taxable matter in her, to tax herself.  I am not here going into the distinctions of rights, nor attempting to mark their boundaries.  I do not enter into these metaphysical distinctions; I hate the very sound of them.  Leave the Americans as they anciently stood, and these distinctions, born of our unhappy context, will die along with it… The question with me is, not whether you have a right to render your people miserable, but whether it is not your interest to make them happy.  It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do, but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.  Is a politic act the worse for being a generous one?  Is no concession proper but that which is made from your want of right to keep what you grant?” (Edmund Burke, Speech on Taxation of the Colonies, 1774)

7. Committees of Correspondence
A Boston Committee of Correspondence had been established in late 1772 by the constantly active radical, Samuel Adams. The committee was designed to keep radicals connected with each other to sustain their morale and help coordinate action. In Adams’ words, its purpose was to protect “the rights of the colonists and of this province in particular, as men and Christians and as subjects and to communicate and publish the same to the several towns and to the world, as the sense of this town, with the infringements and violations thereof that have been, or from time to time may be made.” (Quoted in Freeman, ‘Being a Revolutionary’ 2011) The Boston Committee of Correspondence was replicated across Massachusetts and the thirteen colonies, greatly strengthening the anti-British cause. The role of the Committees can be witnessed in its communications regarding the Intolerable Acts

8. Committees of Correspondence
Boston Committee of Correspondence established in 1772 by Samuel Adams
Increase communication; sustain morale and energy; co-ordinate action
Inspired other committees through Massachusetts and the other colonies
A Boston Committee of Correspondence had been established in late 1772 by the constantly active radical, Samuel Adams. The committee was designed to keep radicals connected with each other to sustain their morale and help coordinate action. In Adams’ words, its purpose was to protect “the rights of the colonists and of this province in particular, as men and Christians and as subjects and to communicate and publish the same to the several towns and to the world, as the sense of this town, with the infringements and violations thereof that have been, or from time to time may be made.” (Quoted in Freeman, ‘Being a Revolutionary’ 2011) The Boston Committee of Correspondence was replicated across Massachusetts and the thirteen colonies, greatly strengthening the anti-British cause. The role of the Committees can be witnessed in its communications regarding the Intolerable Acts

9. Circular Letter Boston Committee of Correspondence; May 13, 1774
“We have just received the copy of an Act of the British Parliament passed in the present session whereby the town of Boston is treated in a manner the most ignominious, cruel, and unjust… They have ordered our port to be entirely shut up, leaving us barely so much of the means of subsistence as to keep us from perishing with cold and hunger; and it is said that [a] fleet of British ships of war is to block up our harbour until we shall make restitution to the East India Company for the loss of their tea, which was destroyed therein the winter past, obedience is paid to the laws and authority of Great Britain, and the revenue is duly collected. This Act fills the inhabitants with indignation. The more thinking part of those who have hitherto been in favour of the measures of the British government look upon it as not to have been expected even from a barbarous state.”

10. The First Continental Congress, September 5, 1774
- September 5, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - Response to the Intolerable Acts - Attended by twelve of the thirteen colonies - The exception was Georgia which wanted British help against Indians - Delegates to the Continental Congress were appointed by each colonial legislature - Resolved to escalate economic boycotts: absolute ban on importation of British goods. - Threat to cease exporting goods to Britain if the Intolerable Acts had not been repealed by September 1775, a year hence. - Also, commissioned the drafting of a petition to King George setting out their complaints. - Agreed to convene a Second Continental Congress in May, 1775

11. The First Continental Congress, September 5, 1774
- Delegates appointed by each colonial legislature - absolute ban on importation of British goods - Threat to cease exporting goods to Britain if the Intolerable Acts were not repealed
- Petitioned King George
- Agreed to convene a Second Continental Congress in May, 1775
- September 5, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - Response to the Intolerable Acts - Attended by twelve of the thirteen colonies - The exception was Georgia which wanted British help against Indians - Delegates to the Continental Congress were appointed by each colonial legislature - Resolved to escalate economic boycotts: absolute ban on importation of British goods. - Threat to cease exporting goods to Britain if the Intolerable Acts had not been repealed by September 1775, a year hence. - Also, commissioned the drafting of a petition to King George setting out their complaints. - Agreed to convene a Second Continental Congress in May, 1775

12. Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress, October 14, 1774
Resolved, That the following acts of parliament are infringements and violations of the rights of the colonists; and that the repeal of them is essentially necessary, in order to restore harmony between Great Britain and the American colonies, viz.
… the three acts passed in the last session of parliament, for stopping the port and blocking up the harbour of Boston, for altering the charter and government of Massachusetts-Bay, and that which is entitled, "An act for the better administration of justice, etc."
Also the act passed in the same session, for the better providing suitable quarters for officers and soldiers in his majesty's service, in North-America.
Also, that the keeping a standing army in several of these colonies, in time of peace, without the consent of the legislature of that colony, in which such army is kept, is against law.
To these grievous acts and measures, Americans cannot submit, but in hopes their fellow subjects in Great Britain will, on a revision of them, restore us to that state, in which both countries found happiness and prosperity, we have for the present, only resolved to pursue the following peaceable measures: 1. To enter into a non-importation, non-consumption, and non-exportation agreement or association. 2. To prepare an address to the people of Great-Britain, and a memorial to the inhabitants of British America: and 3. To prepare a loyal address to his majesty, agreeable to resolutions already entered into.

13. Instructions to petition the King
Resolved unanimously, That a loyal address to his Majesty be prepared, dutifully requesting the royal attention to the grievances that alarm and distress his Majesty's faithful subjects in North-America, and entreating his Majesty's gracious interposition for the removal of such grievances, thereby to restore between Great-Britain and the colonies that harmony so necessary to the happiness of the British empire, and so ardently desired by all America. (First Continental Congress, October 1, 1774)
Resolved, That the Committee appointed to prepare an Address to his Majesty, be instructed to assure his Majesty, that in case the colonies shall be restored to the state they were in, at the close of the late war, by abolishing the system of laws and regulations-for raising a revenue in America-for extending the powers of Courts of Admiralty-for the trial of persons beyond sea for crimes commited in America-for affecting the colony of the Massachusetts-Bay and for altering the government and extending the limits of Canada, the jealousies which have been occasioned by such acts and regulations of Parliament, will be removed and commerce again restored. (First Continental Congress, October 5, 1774)

14. Petition to the King, October 26, 1774
“To a Sovereign, who glories in the name of Briton, the bare recital of these Acts must, we presume, justify the loyal subjects, who fly to the foot of his Throne, and implore his clemency for protection against them.
“… that overwhelm your Majesty's dutiful Colonists with affliction…”
“But, thanks be to his adorable goodness, we were born the heirs of freedom, and ever enjoyed our right under the auspices of your Royal ancestors, whose family was seated on the British Throne to rescue and secure a pious and gallant Nation from the Popery and despotism of a superstitious and inexorable tyrant. Your Majesty, we are confident, justly rejoices that your title to the Crown is thus founded on the title of your people to liberty; and, therefore, we doubt not but your royal wisdom must approve the sensibility that teaches your subjects anxiously to guard the blessing they received from Divine Providence, and thereby to prove the performance of that compact which elevated the illustrious House of Brunswick to the imperial dignity it now possesses.”

15. Provisional Act Fails, February 1, 1775
- February 1, 1775, Chatham tabled proposals to settle the conflict - Repeal of all acts that had antagonised the colonists: the Sugar Act - Continental Congress to become an American Parliament - Vote lost in the House of Lords

16. Provisional Act Fails, February 1, 1775
Chatham (William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham
Pitt the Elder
PM: 1766 – 1768
Dominated House of Commons
Whig
Champion of Empire
- February 1, 1775, Chatham tabled proposals to settle the conflict - Repeal of all acts that had antagonised the colonists: the Sugar Act - Continental Congress to become an American Parliament - Vote lost in the House of Lords

17. 1774/5: Shadow government develops in Massachusetts
“Gage had long been virtually besieged in Boston, while the countryside hummed with drilling militiamen and military stores were piled up. The money for these activities had been voted by a Massachussetts provincial congress, which had in effect completely superseded the old General Court.” (Brogan 1999: 165)

18. Battles of Lexington and Concord, April 19, 1775
British Regulars set out from Boston to capture and destroy military supplies destroyed at Concord - Set out at 9pm on the night of the 18th - Patriot intelligence meant they were aware the Redcoats were coming - alarm and muster: notification and deployment of militia forces - Captain Parker of the Lexington militia: knew they were outnumbered; knew most of the supplies had already been moved from Concord; knew the British had gone on marches liked this before and returned to Boston empty handed. - "Stand your ground; don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here." - Somebody, we don’t know who, fired a shot - Marched onto Concord, a bloody and costly battle - Ralph Waldo Emerson: “a shot heard round the world”