The list of Haven in Thomas (ii. 606) gives the American tracts published in 1770; but the more significant ones of the year appeared in London.[231]
The year 1771 was less eventful. In England, it seemed for a while as if the worst had passed. W. S. Johnson had written at the close of the preceding year (Dec. 29, 1770), "The general American controversy is at present looked upon here as very much at an end."[232] Franklin had been made the agent for Massachusetts;[233] he was still putting tersely to his correspondents the American view of the controversy,[234] and he had a conference with Hillsborough.[235]
Hutchinson in March had succeeded to the governor's chair, with reluctance, as he professed.[236] The American tracts may be gleaned in Haven's list.[237]
The events of 1772 are of more interest. The Boston patriots emphasized their arguments in their instructions to their representatives in May.[238] Later (July 14th) they passed a remonstrance against taxation and sent it to the king.[239]
Note.—The annexed cut is part of a handbill in the library of the Mass. Hist. Society.
There are diverse views as to the originator of the committees of correspondence. Gordon's opinion (i. 312) that James Warren was the instigator was adopted by Marshall, but is held by Bancroft (vi. 428) to be erroneous. John Adams gave the first movement to Samuel Adams.[240] One of the first-fruits of the committee, as a provincial measure, was the report drafted by Samuel Adams (Nov. 2, 1772), which was printed as the Rights of the Colonies.[241] The vote passed by Virginia, March 12, 1773, was the immediate cause of intercolonial activity.[242]
The seizure and destruction of the revenue vessel Gaspee in Narragansett Bay, June 10, 1772, is considered by Rhode Island writers as the earliest aggressive conduct of the patriots. John Russell Bartlett,[243] in the R. I. Colonial Records (vol. vii. pp. 57-192), gathers all the documentary evidence, and this was in 1861 published separately as A History of the Destruction of his Britannic Majesty's Schooner Gaspee ... accompanied by the Correspondence connected therewith; the action of the General Assembly of Rhode Island thereon, and the official journal of the ... Commission of Inquiry appointed by King George III.[244]
Early in 1773 the patriots of Boston produced what is called "the most elaborate state paper of the Revolutionary contest in Massachusetts." This is the reply of the House of Representatives to the governor in the contest then waging with him.[245]