Writs, Riots, and Redcoats: Hancock’s Spark of the Revolution
In an early confrontation between the customs officials and John Hancock, the British hoped that flexing their muscles would teach the colonists a lesson and cow them into submission.
They were wrong.
Instead, the crackdown sparked a willingness to physically resist unconstitutional taxation and British assertions of “unlimited” power.
SETTING THE STAGE
In the first act of widespread resistance to British power, colonial opposition to the Stamp Act made it impossible to enforce.
On March 18, 1766, Parliament relented and repealed the hated tax. However, the British government wasn’t backing down. On the same day, it passed the Declaratory Act, asserting that it had the unlimited power to make laws binding the American colonies “in all cases whatsoever.”
This set the stage for additional taxes.
In the summer of 1767, Parliament enacted four laws together known as the Townshend Acts. These laws imposed new levies on the importation of paper, paint, lead, glass, and tea.
The British also established the American Board of Commissioners, empowered with “writs of assistance,” to step up tax collections and crack down on smuggling.
In practice, these writs served as open-ended search warrants that authorized customs officials to search ships, warehouses, and even homes if they even suspected the presence of smuggled goods.
This further antagonized Americans and set the stage for further protests and resistance.
THE LYDIA AFFAIR
Things came to a head in the spring of 1768 when tidesmen (customs agents) boarded the Lydia, a merchant ship owned by John Hancock.
Hancock imported manufactured goods from England and exported a variety of colonial wares, including whale oil, fish, and rum.
When British agents boarded the Lydia, Hancock didn’t just comply. Instead, he demanded to see their authorization to board and search the ship.
Lacking even a broad Writ of Assistance to authorize a search, the agents were barred by Hancock from going below deck. But the British agents persisted. Lydia crewmembers caught one of the tidesmen, Owen Richards, snooping below deck twice, attempting to search the hold anyway.
What followed is a timeless example of how the American Revolutionaries understood a free people should act in the face of arbitrary government power.
Rather than accept the situation and sue for damages later, John Hancock drew a hard line in the sand. He ordered his crew to forcibly remove Richards from below deck and have him brought topside, making clear that he saw the ship’s deck as the limit of their jurisdiction.
The British attempted to prosecute Hancock, but their efforts were thwarted when Massachusetts Attorney General Jonathan Sewall, a close friend of John Adams, determined that Hancock had not committed an offence due to the lack of a writ, and refused to proceed with a case.
If Hancock hadn’t already been on the British radar, he was now. His willingness to physically resist gave him the status of a hero to many in Boston. And given this prominence, he was the perfect target for the British to make a statement.
The Board of Commissioners wrote to London seeking to overrule Sewall; however, a second incident gave them a better opportunity to go after Hancock.
THE LIBERTY SEIZED
On May 9, 1768, another Hancock ship entered Boston Harbor, reportedly carrying 25 casks of wine. The British were suspicious because the Liberty had the capacity to carry four times that cargo.
Customs agents boarded the Liberty (this time with the proper paperwork), but initially claimed they didn’t see anything suspicious. However, officials still suspected smuggling.
Rumors spread everywhere, including one repeated by Royal officials that Hancock was even boasting that he could unload the wine without paying the taxes.
Without hard proof, the British had to settle for rumors.
Weeks later, however, things changed. Thomas Kirk, one of the tidesmen who initially reported that nothing was amiss, suddenly gave a different story in an affidavit.
He claimed that he was forcefully held on the ship while the cargo was offloaded before entering the harbor. He said he was subsequently bribed and threatened with violence by Captain Marshall to tell this story as well. But in the meantime, Marshall died.
No longer fearing retribution, and likely emboldened by the presence of the newly-arrived 50-gun naval vessel HMS Romney, Kirk said he finally felt safe enough to change his story.
He said he “heard a noise as of many people upon deck at work hoisting out goods,” as well as “the Noise of the Tackles.”
Despite finding no additional witnesses to corroborate Kirk’s story, the commissioners determined that Kirk’s affidavit provided sufficient grounds to seize the Liberty for unloading before entry.
On the evening of Saturday, June 10, Collector of the Port Joseph Harrison, Comptroller Benjamin Hallowell and several other customs officials showed up at Hancock’s wharf, where the Liberty was moored. The officer boarded the sloop and executed the legal procedure to seize her.
Hoping to avoid a rescue mission staged by angry Bostonians, the customs officials enlisted the help of the Romney. Once the formal seizure was complete, they signaled the British warship, and two boats filled with sailors rowed to the Liberty and took charge of Hancock’s ship.
Despite assurances from a growing onshore crowd that they would not interfere with the seizure and their efforts to hold the Liberty at the wharf, the sailors cut the ship loose and had it towed into the harbor under the guns of the Romney.
VIOLENT PROTEST
This set off a mass protest that quickly grew to a riot with an estimated 3,000 colonists. They attacked the customs house and pelted customs officials with rocks.
As Massachusetts Bay Governor Thomas Hutchinson described it, “A Mob presently gathered & insulted the Custom H Officers & carried them in triumph up the Wharffe tore their cloaths & bruised & otherways hurt them until one after another they escaped.”
They also seized a personal boat belonging to Collector of the Port Joseph Harrison, hauling the vessel to the Liberty Tree and burning it.
The riot was intense. Customs agents in varying degrees were physically attacked, beaten, had their clothes torn off and were even dragged out or chased away. Four of the British commissioners were forced to flee and take shelter on the Romney, where they stayed for several days before retreating further to Castle William in Boston Harbor.
More violence was expected on the following Monday, but instead, the Sons of Liberty called a meeting at Liberty Hall. The crowd was so large that the meeting moved to Faneuil Hall.
Hutchinson wrote, “It is now the talk among the populace that neither the Commissioners nor the Comptroller shall be suffered to Return to Town & just before noon today (June 16) I saw a printed notification upon the Change Requiring a full meeting tomorrow as the fate of the province & of America depended upon the measures to be then taken.”
Meanwhile, in an early application of nullification, the sheriff refused to take any action against the protestors. Hutchinson explained why.
“It is very natural to ask where the Justices & Sheriffs are upon these occasions. The persons who are to assist the Sheriff in the execution of his Office are Sons of Liberty & determined to oppose him in every thing which shall be contrary to their Schemes. Some of the Justices are great favourers of them & those who are not are afraid of being sacrificed by them & will issue out no warrants to apprehend them.”
AFTERMATH
The Liberty affair didn’t end there. The British wanted a show of force in an attempt to prevent a repeat.
On September 28, 1768, eight more British warships arrived in Boston Harbor, joining six others already anchored there. The following evening, the ships launched skyrockets, lighting up the fleet as crew members sang “Yankee Doodle,” an effort to taunt the people of Boston.
Days later, hundreds of redcoats landed and marched into the hostile city.
This was the beginning of what is now known as the Boston Campaign, or the Occupation of Boston.
Rather than restore order after the riot, this militarization only made things worse. The presence of British regular troops in the streets of Boston enraged the people, who now felt they were being occupied by a foreign standing army.
Over the next two years, tensions heated up and then boiled over in March 1770 with the Boston Massacre, and ultimately, American independence.
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