Transcription
As we discussed in our last lecture, the cost of the French and Indian War had been considerable—uh—for the British Crown. In fact, it had doubled the size of the national debt. And on top of that, the Crown also now had to worry about the further expense of having to defend Britain's North American colonies against possible attacks from other international powers. And so, money was going to be an important question for the Crown, and the bigger question, of course, is how to raise the revenue necessary to pay off, um, the expenses both of the war and and of protection. So we want to explore, um, that question, and this is now going to take us into the realm of various tax measures which are going to become the basis for protest among Britain's North American colonists.
Now, before I go any further, I need to stress that in 1760, even as the French and Indian War, um, was still going on, um, George III ascended to the throne and became the King of England. George II, his grandfather, died during the war, and so George III came to the throne. Now, George the Third, in 1760, was only 22 years old, and not only was he 22 years old, he was also a young man who didn't particularly care much for education. He wasn't particularly knowledgeable about the world; he wasn't particularly knowledgeable about the British Empire. And so, the net result was that he was going to end up relinquishing control of many of the financial arrangements to the other man who's pictured in this slide, and his name was George Grenville.
George Granville occupied the office of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the court of, uh, George III was basically, um, the equivalent of the Secretary of Treasury and the Secretary of State rolled up into one. And the reason I say that is because, uh, Secretary of State is is, um, involved with foreign policy. Well, in this case, he wasn't responsible for foreign policy as much as overseeing the colonies, and the colonies were part of the empire; the colonies were also the generators of much revenue. And so, the Chancellor of the Exchequer not only dealt with colonial relations but also managed all of the money that came into the treasury as a result of colonization, taxes, and fees, and so forth. So George Grenville, um, though he looks like a younger man, he was actually 48 years old, um, by 19 or excuse me, by 1760. He had been in the court for many years, and he was quite experienced. And so, George III, um, relied very heavily on George Granville.
Now, George the Third, over time, he would become a very capable, um, king, and he would certainly be one of England's longer longest-serving kings, but the point is that early on, um, he was rather young, rather inexperienced, and so it was George Grenville who was largely responsible now for raising the revenue necessary to, um, you know, pay down the national debt, uh, and to also, um, defend the colonies. And so, in 1763, after the Seven Year War, Seven Years War ended, or the French and Indian War ended, Grenville developed an economic plan that came to be known as the Grenville Plan. The Grenville Plan was especially designed to provide defense for the colonies. Okay, Grenville estimated that the North American colonies collectively would require an army of 10,000 men; the cost would be 250,000 pounds per year. All right, this 10,000-man army, um, would then, uh, be in place should those colonies be invaded, um, from anybody else, or should there be, um, Indian wars and and that kind of thing. So this ten-thousand-man standing army would cost 250,000 a year. So how then would he raise the money? Well, he basically, as part of this plan, had three principal strategies for raising the money.
The first of these was the establishment of a royal proclamation line that would promote profitable trade. Okay, and I'll try and explain exactly what I mean by that. The Granville Plan drew a line along the crest of the Appalachian Mountains all the way from New England, um, down through, um, you know, in into Georgia and in the southern colonies. All right, that line was a boundary across which English colonists could not cross unless they had a license to trade. All right, the idea was to keep the Ohio River country, okay, the western territories free of settlement so that profitable trade could take place with the Indians, and where there was profitable trade, of course, there was the possibility to tax that trade, and by taxing that trade, that is by selling licenses, um, to would-be traders, ultimately that money could go into the treasury and help pay for the cost of the army. All right, so the royal proclamation line was designed to isolate and protect profitable Indian trade, but it actually also served a second very important purpose, and it is this: Grenville estimated that he needed ten thousand men in his army based on a geographic area that would have to be protected. Right, if Americans, American I should say British Americans started crossing over the proclamation line and into the Ohio River country, then the possibility for conflict grew, and the size of the army would also have to grow. So by confining British colonists to the area east of the royal proclamation line, he was able to estimate that a 10,000-man army would be sufficient. So confining the population was part of the proclamation line, and then assuring profitable taxable trade with Indians was a second important aspect of the royal proclamation line; both would contribute to offsetting the cost of the army.
The second piece of legislation, the second action by Grenville as part of the Grenville Plan, was the 1764 enactment of the Sugar Act. Okay, the Sugar Act is sometimes called, and more accurately it's called the Revenue Act of 1764. In this country, it came to be known as the Sugar Act, and basically what it was was a duty, an import duty that was imposed on molasses. Okay, now in truth, the Sugar Act of 1764, um, actually lowered the tax on molasses. Okay, actually lowered the tax; there had been an earlier tax, some 33, uh, 30 years earlier; it was in 1733; an earlier act had already established a tax on molasses, but the tax on molasses was high, and it was never really collected. Okay, so in this particular instance now, Grenville is going to lower the tax on molasses, but he is now going to impose that duty; he's going to collect it rigorously. Okay, in other words, the colonists are now going to have to pay, you know, a regular tax on all molasses coming into the colonies. Now, molasses came into the colonies primarily from the West Indies. What was it used for? Well, molasses is used in a variety of different cooking, baking operations, but in the case of the colonies, molasses was especially valued because it is the primary ingredients ingredient in the distilling of rum. Okay, rum is especially distilled from molasses, and rum was one of the major exports of the New England colonies; the the wood that was used in barrels of rum, you know, in the transport of room, um, was especially—well, it added a flavor to the room that to the rum, excuse me, that was highly highly priced. And so, New England rum sold very profitably in Europe more generally, and it was the major export of the New England colonies. So the idea that they were now going to have to pay a tax on the molasses that they used to produce rum is something that did not go over well. All right, there were, um, protests; there were, uh, there was opposition, um, to the to this to the Sugar Act. On the other hand, it is important to understand that, um, the tariff, import duties, and that's what we call the tariff, um, was a common means of taxing goods within the British Empire, and so it was not unusual for colonists to have to pay this kind of tax. It was not an unusual kind of tax; they didn't like the idea that it was being levied in England upon them and that they had no voice in that decision-making process. So there was protest, but generally speaking, the protest against the Revenue Act of 1764, that is the Sugar Act, was relatively mild.
Okay, now I say relatively mild because the following year, it was actually the third of George Grenville's revenue measures that actually sparked the most outrage, okay, and that was a a a tax that was called the Stamp Tax or the Stamp Act. Okay, it's a little bit confusing, so I'll try and explain exactly what happened. In the spring of 1765, the colonists began to hear rumors of new legislation that was being passed out of Parliament and was to be enacted called the Stamp Act. Under this legislation, the colonists would be required to pay the cost of a royal stamp or a royal seal that had to be embossed on all official and even print documents. Okay, if you look in this slide, hopefully you can see in the lower right-hand corner that was the royal seal; that's what the royal seal looked like, and of course, in order to secure the royal steel, the royal seal, excuse me, you had to pay a fee. Okay, and that fee then could be used by the Crown to help pay down the cost of the army. Okay, and all documents had to have this royal seal; they included, of course, official documents like wedding, uh, certificates, birth certificates, death certificates, land, um, deeds; all kinds of official documents had to have the official seal, but affected not only official public documents but it also impacted even private documents like newspapers, um, and and posters, or what are called handbills, uh, all of these all of these, um, print documents had to have the royal seal or they were, uh, would be considered illegal. And if you posted a a a handbill on a wall or a post someplace and it did not have the royal seal, well, it would definitely be taken down, but you might be fined, uh, for posting something, um, without the official royal seal.
Okay, well, as the colonists learned more and more about the Stamp Act, they became increasingly upset, increasingly angry, not only because of the the fact that they didn't have representation but the fact that this was a very unusual kind of of tax. All right, they had never had to pay this kind of a tax before, and it would ultimately reach directly into their pockets. Okay, a tariff was something that they ended up paying indirectly. All right, they ended up paying indirectly in the form especially of higher prices on rum, right, but it was not something that affected all colonists equally. The Stamp Act affected all of them; everybody would have to reach into their pockets and pay for the royal seal, so it was going to be wide-reaching. They resented that; they also, of course, resented the fact that this was legislation that was enacted, and they had no voice in that enactment. Okay, in Virginia, a young lawyer by the name of Patrick Henry is now going to rise as a member of the Assembly; he's going to introduce a series of resolutions called the Virginia Resolves. Now, Patrick Henry would go on to become one of the most, um, outspoken, most fiery critics of the Crown and of Parliament during this period, and these Virginia Resolves are going to be official statements by the Virginia Assembly that say that Parliament does not have the right to pass an enact taxes on the colonists. They're going to claim, or Henry's going to claim under the Virginia Resolves, that only the Virginians through their Assembly, through their colonial Assembly, have the power to levy taxes on themselves. The Crown, excuse me, Parliament, the representative body in London, does not have that right. Okay, now what that is is effectively a denial of the governing right of Parliament. Okay, it's effectively—well, it's bordering on treason, and and this kind of trees this language ultimately could, um, land somebody like, uh, Patrick Henry in jail and and maybe even, uh, execution. All right, so this was a very, um, extreme kind of statement, but it was a reflection of how much anger there was welling up now in the colonies over the, uh, over the Stamp Act.
Okay, during the summer months, protests began to grow; um, rioting, um, started to occur, and as the stamp collectors, those that ran the stamp the printing or the presses themselves, as they began arriving in the colonies and as they began preparing to set up their stamp offices, well, protesters began to threaten them, and there was there were all kinds of, uh, concerns for the not only the safety of people but the the the, um, security in in, uh, and prevention of destruction of property. So it was a real, um, riotous kind of situation. Finally, in October of 1765, this was about two months before the stamp collection was supposed to start; it was supposed to start like on December 1st of 1765. Representatives from nine colonies, uh, met in New York City, and they organized what's called the Stamp Act Congress, and they petitioned directly to the King, arguing that Parliament should not have the right to tax them because they don't have a voice in Parliament; that this was a an unconstitutional kind of tax, and they appealed directly to the Crown, to the King, um, to try and effectively prevent, um, the enforcement or the enactment of—Parliament can pass it, but it would be up to the King to enforce it—and so they petitioned the King directly, um, not to, uh, enforce, um, the the Stamp Act.
Well, as this was all going on in the colonies here back in London, um, there was a grave there was much concern. Okay, um, the rioting and and the anger that existed in the colonies was creating division among the political parties, uh, in London. Grenville himself was becoming increasingly, um, unpopular, and there was, um, the, um, the Whig Party was beginning to oppose, um, uh, Grenville in London. Okay, and in in the aftermath of the Stamp Act Congress, by the way, the Stamp Act Congress did not, um, um, successfully petition the King, although, as we'll see, there is going to be an outcome. In the meantime, um, in the colonies and especially in Massachusetts, a man by the name of Samuel Adams, the cousin of John Adams, who would later be President of the United States, Samuel Adams began to organize the working men, uh, in the docks. Okay, there were rope makers and shipped; there were shipbuilders, and there were all kinds of working men, um, in the, um, docks and and harbor of Boston, and they were a rowdy, rough group, and Samuel Adams, um, had become kind of their their organizer. Sam Adams was was actually the son of a malter; you may have heard of Sam Adams beer, um, Sam Adams beer is named after Sam Adams because Samuel Adams' father, um, had a malting operation, and he basically produced, uh, beer. Sam Adams chose not to go into his family business; he wanted to go into politics instead, and so he basically used his influence down at the docks to kind of organize, um, the working men, and he's now going to use this Stamp Act as an opportunity to really build up his following. All right, his supporters and the workers, the opponents of the Stamp Act, they come to be known as the Sons of Liberty, and they again begin, um, threatening the stamp collectors. You can see this wood print here; this is actually a riot that took place in New Hampshire, but these kinds of riots took place in Massachusetts and throughout the colonies. The Stamp Act, excuse me, the stamp collector here is being hanged in effigy, and they will they will eventually burn him, and you can see in the lower left-hand corner there's a a coffin, um, that he's going to be, um, hauled off in. Okay, these kinds of demonstrations were meant to send a sign to the stamp collector, and that is: set up your office and try to start collecting money for the stamps, and you will pay the price; you will die. And so that message was loud and clear. In the case of, of Boston, the stamp collector's office was broken into, and, um, the stamp itself was smashed; so the the stamp press, I should say, um, was smashed. So the point is that, um, you know, the the Sons of Liberty had become very serious in and threatening where stamp collection was concerned.
Well, finally, in the spring of 1766, um, Parliament elected to repeal the Stamp Act. The Stamp Act was never really enforced; um, the protests, uh, in the colonies, uh, and the division that this caused back in England were enough to convince Parliament to repeal the Stamp Act, and in fact, George Grenville is now going to effectively resign from office, uh, in shame. All right, so yes, the Stamp Act was repealed, but even as the Stamp Act was repealed, Parliament was simultaneously passing the Declaratory Act. The Declaratory Act was a simple statement that, you know, while the Stamp Act may have been repealed, Parliament absolutely does have this authority, uh, to levy taxes on the colonies. All right, so it was a declaratory statement: yes, Parliament does have the power to levy taxes. Well, in the colonies, the celebration over repeal of the Stamp Act was so great that it really, um, was in some ways, um, that the Declaratory Act was in some ways overlooked. Okay, but later that same year, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, a man by the name of Charles Townshend, now is going to, um, implement his own revenue plan. Okay, it's called the Townshend Plan, and his strategy for raising revenue, like his predecessor, like Grenville, um, is going to be designed towards helping to offset the cost of troops, uh, in North America, but he is going to focus more on traditional taxes, importance. Okay, an import duty. Okay, the so-called tariff; it's going to pass what are called the Townshend Duties, and the Townshend Duties are a series of taxes on all sorts of different goods that are coming into, um, the colonies. Okay, there was a tax on, um, lead, which was used for, um, not just ammunition but for pipes and paint and paper and glass; all kinds of construction materials and all kinds of basic things that the colonists need to build their buildings and to conduct business, even all kinds of things. Now they were going to have to pay a small duty on as it came in. Okay, Townshend did not see these duties as particularly punitive, but they did affect a wide range of different goods, and for that reason, all the colonists on some level were impacted, and because they were passed without representation from the colonists themselves, the same cry, "taxation without representation," um, went out; there was opposition, um, to the Townshend Duties, and certainly the Crown anticipated that there would be, uh, protests, that there would be anger over these Townshend Duties, and there was. And in order to assure the peace, then the year after the Townshend Duties took effect, the Crown sent troops to Boston; 4,000 troops arrived in the city of Boston. There they were designed to basically, um, keep the peace and make sure, um, that the customs house continued to operate, and the customs house continued to collect the money, um, the the imports, uh, or the taxes on imports generated. All right, so the point is now there were troops in Boston; Bostonians were angry about the the taxes; the troops were there to keep the peace, but their presence only served to heighten the anger of the of Bostonians themselves. All right, the Sons of Liberty became increasingly agitated; they became, um, increasingly malicious, uh, in their actions, especially those which were directed at the troops, and it culminated in 1770 then, uh, in an event that be in an event that became known as, um, the Boston Massacre.
Okay, by spring of 1770, um, there was considerable protest, not again, not only against the taxes but against the presence of so many troops in Boston, and the customs house itself had become kind of the gathering point for protesters. When protesters wanted to oppose, um, both the military and, um, the Townshend Duties, they would go to the customs house where the taxes were being collected, and they would regularly even threaten to intimidate and try and try to intimidate, um, the soldiers there. So it was a contentious, very contentious situation. Well, in March of 1770, on a cold late winter night, a group of colonists began to congregate outside of the customs house, and they began to taunt the lone sentry who was on duty there. After a short while, this sentry began to feel intimidated by the growing mob, and he summoned, uh, his commanding officer, uh, for backup, and so more soldiers arrived, arrived, and, um, Captain, um, James Preston, the the commanding officer for the British, basically at one point, uh, instructed his men to begin readying, uh, their arms; in other words, to place their bayonets or fix their bayonets and to even load their their weapons. Well, the action of readying their arms only served to further incite the the mob; by now they were beginning to throw rocks and bottles and other things at the British soldiers, and at some point, one of the soldiers' arms discharged. Now, whether it was accidental or exactly what happened has always been widely debated, and it's never been quite certain what happened to bring about one of the the soldiers discharging. Nevertheless, once one once the the, uh, shot was fired, um, the British quickly, uh, fired, uh, on all of the the mob, and as a result, um, five of the colonists, um, were killed, and the first of those was a former slave by the name of Crispus Attucks. Um, it's kind of important and, um, noteworthy that the first man in in many ways, the first man to die in the cause of the American Revolution was a former slave, a man by the name of of Crispus Attucks.
Okay, in the aftermath now of this exchange outside the customs house, house pamphleteers quickly dubbed the event the Boston Massacre. Okay, the Brit the British never saw this, um, as a massacre; it was certainly not something they, um, planned, uh, and, um, they argued that the, um, discharging of the first weapon, um, was completely accidental, and this was, um, it was not something, um, that, um, that the soldiers should be, uh, even tried for. Nevertheless, um, the eight soldiers, um, were placed on trial. Okay, their defense was, um, provided by John Adams. John Adams would lo later go on to become the second President of the United States, and he would be a member of the Philadelphia Convention, and he'll sign the Declaration of Independence, but at this date in 1770, he was a lawyer from South Braintree, Massachusetts, right outside Boston, uh, and he was very much a loyal supporter of the Crown, and, um, he very proudly, uh, defended, um, the eight soldiers who were charged with the Boston with the killing of the five Bostonians. Okay, as a result of the trial, um, six of the soldiers, uh, were acquitted, meaning they were determined to be innocent of any wrongdoing; they were not guilty of of murder, and two others had their sentence reduced to manslaughter, meaning that they had killed, but it was not something that they had planned on doing. Okay, and these two who were convicted of manslaughter basically appealed for, um, intervention by the clergy, which was grounded granted, meaning that it was actually going to be church ministers who determined their sentence, and their sentence entailed being branded on the thumbs. Okay, and that as far as the Bostonians were concerned was an absolute insult; the idea that, um, that five Bostonians were dead, six of them were innocent, and the other two, um, were, you know, reduced sentence, and their only, um, um, sentence or their only punishment was to be branded on the thumbs was was absolutely, uh, preposterous. Right, so the Boston Massacre, um, continued to fester, um, as far as the, uh, Bostonians were concerned.
Finally, um, the, uh, in in, uh, later in 1770, as a result of the, um, the, you know, the uproar, the the anger, the the problems that existed in the colonies, uh, Parliament did repeal, um, the Townshend Duties. The Townshend Duties were repealed, um, with the exception of tea, which remained on the list. Okay, now the fact that tea remained on the list is important because for the next roughly three years, uh, after the Boston Massacre, Boston and the colonies were relatively calm—not completely, but relatively calm—and then it was in 1773 that it all came back, and it's all going to boil over and now begin setting the stage for revolution, and of course, the big issue, um, was tea. Okay, what's called what's often called the Tea Crisis. So let's talk a little bit about the Tea Crisis. Now, the first thing I need to tell you is this: this was not about making money to pay down the cost of the war or to pay for colonial defense. Okay, the Tea Act, which was levied in 1773, was not at all about raising revenue for colonial defense; not at all. All right, it was, um, it was actually much more complicated than that. So in order to understand this Tea Crisis, let's start with the company that had a monopoly on tea, the tea trade in all of the colonies. Okay, the East India Company was an English company that was granted the exclusive right to sell tea in the British colonies. Okay, it's called the East India Company because East India Company ships would sail off to the East Indies, okay, in the South Pacific; they would load up their, um, ships with chests of tea, and then they would sail, um, to the Western world, and in this case, specifically to the British colonies, and because they had a monopoly, um, they could set prices however they saw fit, and ultimately, there was no competition from anybody else. So the East India Company was guaranteed to make handsome profits, and that was a very good arrangement for the Governor of Massachusetts. The Governor of Massachusetts was a man by the name of Thomas Hutchinson. Now, Thomas Hutchinson had two sons, and both of those sons had, um, ties to the East India Company; in fact, they ran they ran tea distributing houses in Boston for the East India Company, which meant that the Hutchinson family made a lot of money off of the tea trade. Okay, the Hutchinson family stood to make money as long as tea prices or high. Okay, and so when tea prices go up, people are angry, especially, um, and that anger is directed at the Governor's family, right, in in Boston. All right, so tea, very important to the to the colonists. Okay, and I often, um, make this comparison for students, and I'll go ahead and make it now. Okay, some people think it might be a little bit silly, trifling even, that, um, that this whole, um, this whole, um, conflict kind of has its origin in in tea. Well, the reality is tea is very important, um, even to this present day, of course, um, in England. Okay, historically, the British have been consumers of tea in the same way that Americans consume large quantities of coffee; the British consume large quantities of tea, and if you're a coffee drinker, hopefully you understand coffee is a drug; it has a drug; caffeine is a drug; it's addictive. Okay, tea is the same way; tea is addictive, and if you don't get your fix, so to speak, you can suffer all kinds of withdrawal and have all kinds of problems. So point being that these colonists were quite literally addicted to this tea; they needed tea; it was part of their way of life, and it was part of their in some ways their physical dependency. Okay, so tea was very important.
Okay, now here's what happens: in theory, if you want tea, you have to buy it from the East India Company, but in practice, there's ways to get around it, because you see there's always a black market. The Dutch especially were very active in the black market; Dutch ships would also go to the East Indies, and they would come to North America, and these Dutch ships, rather than coming into the main ports and harbors, would unload their product, um, elsewhere along the coast. Okay, and then they'd bring it in under the radar; they didn't have to pay the tax on the tea, and since they didn't have to pay the tax on the tea, they could sell it for much less money. The black market was undermining and destroying the East India Company's profit margins. Okay, so that's the situation that existed in 1773. Okay, the East India Company had a monopoly, but the black market was undermining it, and the East India Company was determined that something must be done to undermine and and even get rid of the black market, the Dutch traders. So here's what happens in 1773: um, Parliament passes the Tea Act. The Tea Act has the effect of actually lowering the tax on tea. Okay, now you may ask yourself, "Wait a minute, if the Tea Act is going to lower the tax on tea, shouldn't the colonists have been happy about that?" And the answer is no; they were not. Okay, the reason they were not happy about that is because they could see what was going on; the tea tax was being lowered as a way of basically driving away the black market. Okay, eliminating the competition, and the consumers of tea knew full well that as soon as the black market, um, went away, was driven away, well, basically, um, the Tea Act is going to allow for, um, the East India Company to then raise the tax back up, okay, and and make more money. Okay, so the net result of this Tea Act then is that the colonists are going to organize a colonial boycott; they're going to refuse to buy East India Company tea. Okay, if you want to consume tea, buy it on the black market or don't consume tea at all; that's what the, um, boycott is basically all about. Now that was something that Governor Hutchinson was not going to tolerate. Okay, and so when a, uh, when an East India Company ship arrived, um, in Boston Harbor in the summer of 1773, Thomas Hutchinson sent word down to the dock, down to the port where the workers were unloading and loading ships, and he gave very strict instructions: Okay, you will unload that ship; okay, it will not sit on the ship; uh, it will be unloaded, and it will be placed on the market; it will be sold. Okay, well, a group of dock workers under the leadership of of Sam Adams, members of the the Sons of Liberty, now are basically going to—well, they're going to follow the Governor's instructions; the Governor, uh, instructed them to unload the tea, and that's what they did. A small group of men, um, dressed up as as Indians, boarded of the East India Company ship, and they proceeded to dump 340 test chests of tea, worth an estimated 10,000 pounds, which at that time was a tremendous amount of money, okay, into Boston Harbor. Okay, the question: who did it? Okay, who did it? There was no question that it wasn't, you know, it wasn't Indians, but who did it? Who perpetrated this act? Right? Nobody knew; nobody knew who did it. All the East India Company knew is that it had been done by Bostonians; all the Crown, all the Crown knew is that that lost money had to be paid for, and so in the aftermath of this Boston Tea Party now, um, the Crown is going to, um, pass a series of la of laws called the Coercive Acts, and they are designed to basically force the repayment of the of the tea money. Okay, so until the money is repaid, the Crown is going to use its navy to close down the port of Boston, and it's going to use its troops—there's 4,000 men there—to basically close down and restructure the colonial assembly; that representative body, uh, representative body of the the colonists has now been closed down. Okay, in in England, in Parliament, um, these laws were called the Coercive Acts; they were designed to coerce the people of Boston to repay the money that was lost. Okay, in the colonies, they became known as the Intolerable Acts, and these Intolerable Acts, um, quite simply, um, were unfair. Okay, they were completely unfair, and the reason was was quite it was quite simple. Okay, first of all, yes, a law had been broken, but to penalize and punish the entire city of Boston and the entire colony of Boston for the actions of a handful of men was utterly outrageous; it was impossible to believe that this whole colony would be penalized because of the actions of of the men who orchestrated this Boston Tea Party. Okay, so these acts were intolerable; this was an attempt to effectively strangle the entire colony, and it was incredibly unfair. Nevertheless, the Crown insisted on enforcing these laws, and in order to make it more clear, um, General Thomas Gage around arrived in Boston basically to oversee, to make sure that the colonial assembly was closed down and completely restructured in a way that was friendly to the Crown. Okay, and the navy arrived basically to close down the port of Boston. Okay, Sam Adams, Sam Adams is going to start writing letters now and reminding men in other colonies that what happened in Massachusetts could happen in other colonies as well. Okay, I'm going to leave it here; when we come back in our next lecture, then we're going to start talking about the events that precipitated the American Revolution.