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| Field name | Value |
|---|---|
| Collection Reference Number | GLC03718 |
| From Archive Folder | Documents Relating to 1765-1774 |
| Title | George Read to Virginia Committee of Correspondence |
| Date | 26 May 1774 |
| Author | Read, George (1733-1798) |
| Recipient | Virginia Committee of Correspondence |
| Document Type | Correspondence |
| Content Description | Countersigned by Thomas McKean and John McKinley. Read, McKean, and McKinley were members of the Delaware Committee of Correspondence. Discusses the Boston Port Bill, nonimportation, and the formation of a continental congress. |
| Subjects | Revolutionary War Non-Importation Agreement Commerce Merchants and Trade Government and Civics Global History and Civics Congress Continental Congress |
| People | Read, George (1733-1798) McKean, Thomas (1734-1817) McKinly, John (1721-1796) |
| Place written | New Castle, Delaware |
| Theme | The American Revolution; Government & Politics; Law |
| Sub-collection | The Gilder Lehrman Collection, 1493-1859 |
| Additional Information | Britain responded to the Boston Tea Party with outrage. Convinced that rebels in Boston had to be taught a lesson, Parliament passed several laws that the colonists called the "Intolerable Acts." One act closed Boston Harbor until Bostonians paid for the destroyed tea. Another measure gave the governor the right to move trials of those who injured customs collectors to another colony or to England. A third act allowed Britain to house troops in unoccupied private houses, so long as the army paid a fair rent. A fourth measure suspended Massachusetts's royal charter, expanded the powers of the royal governor, and declared that town meetings could only be held with the governor's permission. Thomas Hutchinson, the Massachusetts royal governor, asked for a leave of absence and went to England. The crown named Lieutenant General Thomas Gage, the commander in chief of British forces in North America, the new governor. Colonial leaders viewed the "Intolerable Acts" as confirming the worst tendencies of imperial legislation over the past decade. These measures suggested that Britain could disband colonial legislatures, abolish local self-government, interfere with normal judicial procedures, and elevate military authority over civil authority. At the same time, Parliament enacted the Québec Act, which fixed the southwestern boundary of the province at the Ohio River (extending Québec to the modern southern border of Oinio, Indiana, and Illinois) and declared Roman Catholicism to be Québec's established religion. This measure further antagonized militantly anti-Catholic Protestants, who believed that the act transformed the West into a preserve for savages and Papists. In the following letter, three leading Bostonians, serving on the town's Committee of Correspondence, warn other colonists about the dangers that British actions posed to their liberties, demand a cession of British imports and exports, and call for a convention of delegates from the colonies to organize resistance to the Intolerable Acts. This convention, which would later be called the First Continental Congress, assembled in Philadelphia September 5, 1774, and included every colony except Georgia. Signer of the U.S. Constitution. |
| Copyright | The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History |
| Module | Settlement, Commerce, Revolution and Reform: 1493-1859 |
| Transcript | Show/hide |