Intolerable Acts
Parliament passed four punitive statutes in the spring of 1774, known in Britain as the Coercive Acts and in America as the Intolerable Acts, in response to the destruction of 342 chests of East India Company tea in Boston harbour the previous December. The Boston Port Act closed the harbour to all commerce until the tea was paid for, which threatened to starve a city of some 16,000 people whose economy was entirely maritime. The Massachusetts Government Act rewrote the colony's 1691 charter unilaterally, making the council appointive rather than elected, giving the royal governor the appointment of judges and sheriffs, and restricting town meetings to one a year without written permission. The Administration of Justice Act allowed officials accused of capital crimes in the course of enforcing the law to be tried in Britain — called the Murder Act in Massachusetts. The Quartering Act permitted troops to be billeted in unoccupied buildings. The Quebec Act, passed the same session and lumped in with them, extended Quebec's boundary to the Ohio, recognised Catholicism and French civil law, and blocked western settlement. Lord North's calculation was that isolating Massachusetts would frighten the other colonies into compliance. It did the opposite: the second act in particular showed every colony that its charter could be revoked by a vote in Westminster. Twelve colonies sent delegates to the First Continental Congress at Philadelphia in September 1774, which agreed a trade boycott and undertook to reconvene. Fighting began at Lexington seven months later. Britain had intended to make an example of one colony and succeeded in creating a continental opposition where none had existed.
- Year: 1774 CE
- Category: Political
