“An unwarrantable, hostile, and traiterous Combination”

As I’ve been recounting, in June 1774 leaders of the Massachusetts General Court were maneuvering to send delegates to the Continental Congress before Gov. Thomas Gage could learn of their plan and dissolve the assembly.

The Boston town meeting was working through a dispute with a group of influential citizens, mostly merchants, who thought its committee of correspondence was out of control.

That committee had promoted a sweeping boycott of British goods and any shopkeepers who continued to sell such goods, which it called a Solemn League and Covenant. The Worcester committee of correspondence sent out a revised proposal that got more traction in the countryside.

Then Gov. Gage weighed in. On 29 June, from his office in Salem, he issued “A PROCLAMATION For discouraging certain illegal Combinations”:

Whereas certain Persons, calling themselves a Committee of Correspondence for the Town of Boston, have lately presumed to make, or cause to be made, a certain unlawful Instrument, purporting to be A Solemn League and Covenant, intended to be signed by the Inhabitants of this Province; whereby they are most solemnly to covenant and engage, to suspend all commercial Intercourse with the Island of Great Britain, until certain Acts of the British Parliament shall be repealed:

And whereas printed Copies of the said unlawful Instrument have been transmitted, by the aforesaid Committee of Correspondence, so called, to the several Towns in this Province, accompanied with a scandalous, traiterous, and seditious Letter, calculated to inflame the Minds of the People, to disturb them with ill-grounded Fears and Jealousies, and to excite them to enter into an unwarrantable, hostile, and traiterous Combination, to distress the British Nation by interrupting, obstructing, and destroying her Trade with the Colonies, contrary to their Allegiance due to the King; and to the Form and Effect of divers Statutes made for securing, encouraging, protecting, and regulating the said Trade; and destructive of the lawful Authority of the British Parliament, and of the Peace, good Order, and Safety of the Community:

And whereas the Inhabitants of this Province, not duly considering the high Criminality, and dangerous Consequences to themselves of such alarming and unprecedented Combinations, may incautiously be tempted to join in the aforesaid unlawful League and Covenant, and thereby expose themselves to the fatal Consequences of being considered as the declared and open enemies of the King, Parliament, and Kingdom of Great Britain:—

In observance therefore of my duty to the King; in Tenderness to the Inhabitants of this Province; and to the End that none who may hereafter engage in such dangerous Combinations, may plead, in Excuse of their Conduct, that they were ignorant of the Crime in which they were involving themselves; I have thought fit to issue this Proclamation, hereby earnestly cautioning all Persons whatsoever within this Province against signing the aforesaid, or a similar Covenant, or in any Manner entering into, or being concerned in such unlawful, hostile, and traitorous Combinations, as they would avoid the Pains and Penalties due to such aggravated and dangerous Offences.

And I do hereby strictly enjoin and command all Magistrates and other Officers, within the several Counties in this Province, that they take effectual Care to apprehend and secure for Trial, all and every Person who may hereafter presume to publish, or offer to others to be signed, or shall themselves sign the aforesaid, or a similar Covenant, or be in any wise aiding, abetting, advising, or assisting therein.

And the respective Sheriffs of the several Counties within this Province are hereby required to cause this Proclamation forthwith to be posted up, in some public Place, in each Town, within their respective Districts.

Boycotts had been a non-violent way for Americans to show their displeasure with Parliament since the Stamp Act. I’m not convinced “non-importation” had much real effect on British government policy—a new set of ministers with new ideas about the easiest way to raise revenue seems to have been a bigger factor in the repeal of the Stamp Tax and most of the Townshend duties. But colonists certainly viewed those consumer actions as useful.

Now Gen. Gage was declaring such campaigns illegal. He cited imperial trade policy but no Massachusetts law. One could make the argument that because official town committees were organizing this boycott, it had become a legitimate target for the governor’s action.

But Gage wasn’t just telling local officials to stay in their lanes. He was threatening to prosecute anyone who signed the covenant, suggesting they were “enemies of the King, Parliament, and Kingdom of Great Britain.” The general was literally trying to dictate people’s choices about where to shop and what to shop for.

TOMORROW: What effect did that have?