Introduction:

News of the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts in America, prompted a flurry of written responses in colonial newspapers. As in this excerpt from a much longer essay in the press, such articles typically detailed the perceived evils committed by Parliament by enacting the legislation and urged solidarity with the residents of Massachusetts most injured by the acts.

For definitions of unfamiliar terms please see our glossary.

Excerpt:

“Letter II. To the INHABITANTS of the British Colonies in America.

Brethren,

It is not my design to travel through all the ministerial manoeuvres respecting us, since the commencement of this reign. It is not necessary. Sufficient, I trust, it will prove, to lay before you such a series of correspondent facts, as will thoroughly convince you, —that a plan has been deliberately framed, and pertinaciously adhered to, unchanged even by frequent changes of Ministers, unchecked by any intervening gleam of humanity, to sacrifice to a passion for arbitrary dominion, the universal property, liberty, safety, honour, happiness and prosperity of us, unoffending, yet devoted Americans—And that every man of us is deeply interested in the fate of our brethren in Boston.

If such a series is not laid before you, the combined force of which shall tear up by the roots, and throw out of your bosoms, every lurking doubt, censure me as an enthusiast too violently warmed by a sense of the injustice practiced against my beloved country….”