not re-established is due chiefly to Samuel Adams, a member of the
Massachusetts General Court from Boston. His strength lay in his
vehemence, his total inability to see more than one side of any question,
and still more in his subtle influence upon the Boston town meeting, upon
committees, and in private conclaves. He seems to have determined from the
beginning that independence might come, ought to come, and must come. In
November, 1772, he introduced into the Boston town meeting a modest
proposition that "a committee of correspondence be appointed ... to state
the Rights of the Colonists and of this Province in particular as Men, as
Christians, and as Subjects;--and also request of each Town a free
communication of their Sentiments on this subject." The committee blew the
coals by an enumeration of rights and grievances; but its chief service
was its unseen but efficient work of correspondence, from town to town. A
few months later the colony entered into a similar scheme for
communication with the sister colonies. These committees of correspondence
made the Revolution possible. They disseminated arguments from province to
province: they had lists of those ripe for resistance; they sounded
legislatures; they prepared the organization which was necessary for the
final rising of 1774 and 1775.

[Sidenote: "Gaspee" burned.]
[Sidenote: Tea.]
[Sidenote: Hutchinson letters.]
[Sidenote: Boston Tea-party.]

Shortly before the creation of this committee, an act of violence in Rhode
Island showed the hostility to the enforcement of the Acts of Trade. The
"Gaspee," a royal vessel of war, had interfered legally and illegally with
the smuggling trade. On June 9, 1772, while in pursuit a vessel, she ran
aground. That night the ship was attacked by armed men, who captured and