The American Revolution and the Press: The Promise of Independence

Five. No Hope of a Solution

83 The Boston Tea Party and its aftermath probably marked the point of no return in the conflict between Great Britain and the American colonies. The British Parliament passed the Coercive Acts to punish the colony of Massachusetts, and particularly the city of Boston, which saw its port closed by the legislation. The acts also gave the colonial government of Massachusetts more power by restricting the number of town meetings to one a year and allowing the governor to quarter troops more easily in private facilities.Leaders throughout the American colonies perceived the Coercive Acts as further proof of British plans to deny the rights of the colonials. Americans called the Coercive Acts the Intolerable Acts because they believed they were a totally unacceptable reaction on the part of the British government.Furthermore, Americans responded to the legislation by supporting Boston in particular and Massachusetts in general by passing numerous resolutions of support and providing needed supplies for the people in Boston,who faced starvation because of the closing of the port. Newspapers throughout the colonies joined in the protests against the Coercive Acts.On June 13,1774,Peter Timothy,printer NO HOPE OF A SOLUTION FIVE 84 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AND THE PRESS of the South Carolina Gazette, printed his paper with a black border, “in mourning,” as some printers had during the Stamp Act controversy .1 In July, an anonymous writer from Georgia complained in the pages of the Georgia Gazette that the British could tax anything if the tea tax was allowed to stand: “Why not on my breath, why not on my daylight and smoak, why not on everything.”2 In August, an anonymous writer in the Virginia Gazette published by Alexander Purdie and John Dixon described the Coercive Acts as “pregnant with great Evils.”3 And, in September, James Davis, the printer of the North Carolina Gazette in the colonial capital of New Bern, adopted a new motto for the newspaper to reflect public reaction to the British legislation: “SEMPER PRO LIBERTATE , ET BONO PUBLICO” (“always for liberty, and the public good”).4 Other anonymous newspaper writers throughout America worried that the British government would spread the restrictions to the rest of the colonies if Boston and Massachusetts submitted without a fight. They thus urged all Americans to support the people of Massachusetts in their efforts to stand up to the British government so that British authorities,both in the colonies and across the Atlantic in London, would realize that they could not force the colonies into submission. Although most newspapers supported Boston and Massachusetts in the face of the tough British legislation,some writers called on the people in the colonies to calm down and obey the law. An anonymous essayist in the New-York Gazette,andWeekly Mercury in May suggested that paying for the destroyed tea could have solved the problem: A British American, who is a Lover of Peace, as well as a Hater of every Species of Tyranny, whether Monarchial or Parliamentary, proposes to the Consideration of the Publick of Boston, whether NO HOPE OF A SOLUTION 85 it would not be their wisest Course in the present critical Situation of Affairs,to raise immediately,by Subscription,a Sum equal to the estimated Value of the drowned Teas, and deposit it in some publick Office, ready to be tendered to his Excellency General Gage, immediately on his first Requisition for Restitution of the India Company’s Loss,with a solemn Declaration . . .that they make the Reimbursement with sincere Pleasure,as they thereby have at once an Opportunity of testifying their Readiness to repair every private Loss that Individuals may sustain in the present unhappy Struggle for the Maintenance of their just Rights. . . .The Querist presumes that by adopting some such Mode of Management as this, “Good may be brought out of Evil,”and that hasty Act of Violence which moderate Men now look on with high Disapprobation,be thereby rendered a Circumstance honourable to the Bostonians in particular , and advantageous to the Colonies in general, who doubtless would chearfully bear their Proportions in the Sum to be raised.5 A piece originally published in London and reprinted in the Boston News-Letter in November declared that breaking the law was no solution to a disagreement:“Whenever a factious set of People rise to such a Pitch of Insolence, as to prevent the Execution of the Laws, or destroy the...