Thecommittees of correspondence were a collection of American political organizations that sought to coordinate opposition toBritish Parliament and, later, support for American independence during theAmerican Revolution. The brainchild ofSamuel Adams, aPatriot fromBoston, the committees sought to establish, through the writing of letters, an underground network of communication among Patriot leaders in theThirteen Colonies. The committees were instrumental in setting up theFirst Continental Congress, which convened inPhiladelphia in September and October 1774.
The function of the committees was to alert the residents of a given colony of the actions taken by theBritish Crown, and to disseminate information from cities to the countryside. The news was typically spread via hand-written letters or printed pamphlets, which would be carried by couriers on horseback or aboard ships. The committees were responsible for ensuring that this news accurately reflected the views ofPatriots, and was dispatched to the proper receiving groups. Many correspondents were members of colonial legislative assemblies, and others were also active in theSons of Liberty andStamp Act Congress.[1]
A total of about 7,000 to 8,000 Patriots served on these committees at the colonial and local levels, comprising most of the leadership in their communities;Loyalists were naturally excluded. The committees became the leaders of the American resistance toGreat Britain, and largely directed theRevolutionary War effort at the state and local level.
The committees promoted patriotism and home manufacturing, advising Americans to avoid luxuries, and lead a more simple life. The committees gradually extended their power over many aspects of American public life. In late 1774 and early 1775, they supervised the elections of provincial conventions, which began the operation of a truecolonial government.[2]
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The first committees of correspondence were established inBoston in 1764 to rally opposition to theCurrency Act and unpopular reforms imposed on the customs service.[3]
During theStamp Act crisis the following year, theProvince of New York formed a committee to urge common resistance among its neighbors to the new taxes. TheProvince of Massachusetts Bay's correspondents responded by urging other colonies to send delegates to theStamp Act Congress that fall. The resulting committees disbanded after the crisis was over.
After theBoston Massacre skirmish on March 5, 1770, pro-revolutionaryPatriot leaders in Boston ―Loyal Nine ― substantiated an increasingly hostile dilemma in theBritish redcoats stern occupancy sanctioned by theGeorgian royal crown. The Massachusetts colonists established the first long-standing committee with the approval of a town meeting in October of 1772. By spring 1773, Patriots decided to follow the Massachusetts system and began to set up their own committees in each colony. TheColony of Virginia appointed an eleven-member committee in March, quickly followed by the colonies ofRhode Island,Connecticut, theProvince of New Hampshire, and theProvince of South Carolina. By February 1774, 11 colonies had set up their own committees; of the thirteen colonies that eventually rebelled, only the provinces ofNorth Carolina andPennsylvania did not.
InDelaware Colony, a committee of correspondence was established byThomas McKean after ten years of agitation centered inNew Castle County. In neighboringKent County,Caesar Rodney set up a second committee, followed bySussex County. Following the recommendation of theFirst Continental Congress in 1774, the committees were replaced by elected "committees of inspection" with a subcommittee of correspondence. The new committees specialized in intelligence work, especially the identification of men opposed to thePatriot cause. The committees were a driving force in popularizing the demand for independence.
The correspondence committees exchanged information with others in Boston,Philadelphia, and elsewhere. Their leadership was often drawn upon to provide Delaware with executive leaders. The committees of inspection used publicity as weapons to suppress disaffection and encourage patriotism. With imports from Britain cut off, the committees sought to make America self-sufficient, so they encouraged the cultivation of flax and the raising of sheep for wool. The committees helped organize local militia in the hundreds and later in the counties and all of Delaware. With their encouragement, the Delaware Assembly elected delegates toContinental Congress favorable to independence.[4]
The Georgia provincial settlement was established by acolonial charter awarded byGeorge II of Great Britain on April 21, 1732.[5] The Georgia provincial colony distinguished as agarrison province —Buffer State — secured the thirteen colonies as an omission ofSpanish Florida. The 1732 Colony Charter of Georgia was a distinctive contract of authority and governing privileges scripting a trustee governance known asTrustee Georgia which was differentiated from the preliminaryBritish America charters asProprietary charters andRoyal charters.
On February 8, 1733, theTrustees for the Establishment of the Colony of Georgia in America assembled the first Committee of Correspondence for reviewing the draught of letters to the board of trustees, meeting of Georgia trustees, and summoning the trustees Common Council.[6] The Georgia General Assembly passed an ordinance appointing William Knox as acolonial agent for soliciting and transactions with Great Britain on February 19, 1762.[7] Georgia colonial agent William Knox was discharged as the province parliamentary representative in November 1765 for his concession of the Stamp Act.
The Georgia Commons House of Assembly deliberated considerations ofCharles Garth being competently suitable for sustaining the Georgia Esquire Agent role in place of William Knox. On March 15, 1768, Georgia Commons House declared an ordinance nominatingBenjamin Franklin to solicit the affairs of the Georgia Province with Great Britain.[8] After the Georgia Commons House referendum, Franklin was appointed as the Esquire Agent for the Province of Georgia on April 11, 1768.[9] Franklin represented the colony of Georgia in theParliament of Great Britain tenaciously yielding therectitude until 1774 at the threshold of theAmerican Revolution.[10]
In November 1772 in theProvince of Massachusetts Bay,Samuel Adams,Joseph Warren, andMercy Otis Warren formed a committee in response to theGaspée Affair and to the recent British decision to have the salaries of the royal governor and judges be paid by the British Crown rather than the colonial assembly, a measure which effectively stripped the colony of its means of holding public officials accountable to their constituents.
In the following months, more than one hundred other committees were formed in towns and villages throughout Massachusetts. The Massachusetts committee's headquarters, based in Boston and led by Adams, became a model for other Patriot groups. The meeting establishing the committee set its purpose, outlining "the rights of the colonists, and of this province in particular, as men, asChristians, and as subjects; to communicate and publish the same to the several towns in this province and to the world as the sense of this town."[11]
The Province of Maryland became the eighth of the thirteen colonies to appoint a committee of correspondence on October 15, 1773.[12] The Maryland committee stated that there was an "absolute necessity of a general and firm union of sister colonies to preserve common liberties", and called for a meeting of this union to be held in Philadelphia.[13]
New Jersey formed a Committee of Correspondence on February 8, 1774.[14] The New Jersey Committee of Correspondence consisted of a nine-member panel and met inNew Brunswick, New Jersey on May 31, 1774 to respond to the emergency message of the Boston Committee of Correspondence regarding the Port Act.
On January 20, 1774, New York formed their Committee of Correspondence.[14]
In response to the news that thePort of Boston would be closed under theBoston Port Act, an advertisement was posted at the coffee house onWall Street inNew York City, a noted place of resort for shipmasters and merchants, inviting merchants to meet on May 16, 1774, at theFraunces Tavern "in order to consult on measures proper to be pursued on the present critical and important situation."[15] At the meeting, chaired byIsaac Low, the committee resolved to nominate a 50-member committee of correspondence to be submitted to the public. On May 17, 1774, they published a notice calling on the public to meet at the coffee house on May 19 at 1 p.m. to approve the committee and appoint others as they may see fit.[16] At the meeting on May 19,Francis Lewis was also nominated and the entire Committee of Fifty-one was confirmed.[17]
On May 23, 1774, the committee met at the coffee house and appointed Isaac Low as permanent chairman andJohn Alsop as deputy chairman.[18] The committee then formed a subcommittee, which produced a letter in response to the letters from Boston, calling for a "Congress of Deputies from the Colonies" to be assembled, which became known as theFirst Continental Congress and was approved by the committee.[19]
On May 30, 1774, the Committee formed a subcommittee to write a letter to the supervisors of New York's counties to exhort them to also form similar committees of correspondence, which was adopted in a meeting of the Committee on May 31.[20]
On July 4, 1774, a resolution was approved to appoint five delegates contingent upon their confirmation by the freeholders of the City and County of New York, and to request that the other counties also send delegates.[21] Isaac Low, John Alsop,James Duane,Philip Livingston, andJohn Jay were then appointed, and the public of the City and County was invited to attend City Hall and approve the appointments on July 7.[22] This caused friction with the more radicalSons of Liberty, known as the Committee of Mechanics faction, who held a meeting in the fields on July 6.[23] Three counties,Westchester,Duchess, andAlbany acquiesced to the five delegates, while three counties,Kings,Suffolk, andOrange, sent delegates of their own.[24]
By 1773, the political situation had deteriorated. There was concern about the courts. Massachusetts' young and ardent Boston patriot,Josiah Quincy Jr.,[25] visited North Carolina for five days. He spent the night of March 26, 1773, atCornelius Harnett's home nearWilmington, North Carolina. The two discussed and drew up plans for a Committee of Correspondence. The committee's purpose: communicate circumstances and revolutionary sentiment among the colonies. It was after this meeting that Quincy dubbed Harnett the "Samuel Adams of North Carolina."[26][27]
In December 1773, the North Carolina Committee of Correspondence formed in Wilmington. Although Harnett was absent, he was made chairman of the committee. Other members includedJohn Harvey,Robert Howe,Richard Caswell,Edward Vail,John Ashe,Joseph Hewes,Samuel Johnston, andWilliam Hooper.[28][29]
Pennsylvania Assembly deliberated the purposes of the colony committee of correspondence in 1764 to 1765. TheRoyal Crown endowing progressiveparliamentary taxationdecrees with thethirteen colonies —No taxation without representation — prompt the Pennsylvania Assembly to convene a disclosure committee. The committee was voted upon appointingJoseph Galloway, Giles Knight, Thomas Livezey, Isaac Pearson, and Joseph Richardson as a jointcolonial agent conveying the internal proceedings of British America. The correspondence committee was officially agreed upon by the Pennsylvania Assembly on October 16, 1765.[30]
In December 1773, the Boston colonists orchestrated an act ofpolitical dissent at Boston'sDock Square specifically as the establishment of theGreen Dragon Tavern frequented by proclaimed prerevolutionaryPatriots.[31][32]
TheBoston Caucus developed a pungence of theduties pressed by theParliament of Great Britain with regards to British imports ormerchant trade. The obscure conspirators commandeering the maritime property ofEast India Company who perceived byIsaac Barré termed the assailants asSons of Liberty valiantly substantiatingParliamentary opposition as consequential declaration atBoston Harbor in December of 1773.TheTea Act of 1773 coerced theBoston Harbor insurrection reciprocating the Parliament of Great Britain to imposeauthoritarian hardship reforms through Britishabsolutism endured by the Massachusetts colonists.[33] Theautocracy proceedings surmised as grievances and retaliatory resolutions emerged as theIntolerable Acts often referred to as the Coercive Acts or Punitive Acts.
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On May 20, 1774, theProvince of Pennsylvania convened a multicolonial meeting atCity Tavern inPhiladelphia to deliberate the taxation proceedings of the Parliament of Great Britain. The Boston Harbor closure sanctioned by theBoston Port Act of 1774 was densely fathomed by the British America colonists at the prerevolutionarytête-à-tête.[34]
In May 1774, Paul Revere delivered a circular letter —Massachusetts Circular Letter — from the Boston Committee of Correspondence petitioning the boycott of maritime imports from Great Britain.[35] The Boston Committee of Correspondence letter arrived prior to the May 20, 1774 colonial meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with an attendance of two hundred British America colonists.
Among the last to form a committee of correspondence, the Province of Pennsylvania did so at the meeting inPhiladelphia on May 20, 1774. In a compromise between the more radical and more conservative factions of political activists, the committee was formed by combining the lists each faction proposed. That committee of 19 diversified and grew to 43, then to 66, and finally to two different groups of 100 between May 1774 and its dissolution in September 1776. Ultimately, 160 men from Pennsylvania participated in one or more of the committees, though only four were regularly elected to all of them:Thomas Barclay, John Cox Jr.,John Dickinson, andJoseph Reed.[36]
In the seventeenth century,South Carolina colony was grantedCarolina Charter of 1663 vested byKing Charles II on March 24, 1663.[37] Theroyal charter established theSouthern Colonies territory as aproprietary colony governed by alord proprietor who served primarily with distinction as aroyalist.[38]
By 1717, the Carolina Charter Colonists acquired a dissatisfaction with the absolute lords and proprietors governing the colonial province bidding the General Assembly to enact the Carolina Charter Conscription Act of 1717.[39] In the early eighteenth century, the South Carolina colonists contrived a militia resolution to abolish theproprietary rule beseeching acrown colony for an ordained rule of governance.[40] The southern provinceinsurrection incited byArthur Middleton subsequently became known as theRevolution of 1719 in the colony of South Carolina.[41]
In 1721, the southern colony General Assembly enacted an ordinance endorsed byJames Moore Jr. to establish a Committee of Correspondence. The disclosure committee would cultivate an acquaintance with thethirteen colonies and the Carolina's civil and provincial dilemmas. The ordinance declaration would necessitate aprinting press for the dissemination of pamphlets as authorized byFrancis Nicholson on September 21, 1721.[42] During theAmerican Revolution, the Carolina correspondence committee served as the principalauthorship forinformation exchange throughout theEnglish colonies andprovince of South Carolina.[43][44]
In 1732,Thomas Whitmarsh published the first issue of theSouth Carolina Gazette on January 8, 1732.[45][46] The Carolina Gazette publication satisfactorily commemorated the civil responsibilities and enlightenment regardingcolonial governance andconstitutional information during theGeorgian era.
In early March 1773,Dabney Carr proposed the formation of a permanent Committee of Correspondence before theVirginiaHouse of Burgesses. Virginia's own committee was formed on March 12, 1773. Its members werePeyton Randolph,Robert Carter Nicholas,Richard Bland,Richard Henry Lee,Benjamin Harrison,Edmund Pendleton,Patrick Henry,Dudley Digges,Dabney Carr,Archibald Cary, andThomas Jefferson.[47]
By July 1773,Rhode Island,Connecticut, andNew Hampshire had also formed committees.
With Pennsylvania's action in May 1774, all of the colonies that eventually rebelled had established such committees.[48]
The colonial committees successfully organized common resistance to theTea Act and even recruited physicians who would write that drinking tea would make Americans "weak, effeminate, andvaletudinarian for life."
These permanent committees performed the important planning necessary for theFirst Continental Congress, which convened in September 1774. The Second Congress created its own committee of correspondence to communicate the American interpretation of events to foreign nations.
These committees were replaced during the revolution withProvincial Congresses.
By 1780, committees of correspondence had also been formed inGreat Britain andIreland.[49]
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