TheMassachusetts Circular Letter was a statement written bySamuel Adams andJames Otis Jr., and passed by theMassachusetts House of Representatives in theProvince of Massachusetts Bay in February 1768 in response to theTownshend Acts. Reactions to the letter included mob violence and attacks on customs officials. In response,Parliament sent some troops to maintain order. The presence of troops contributed to the comingAmerican Revolution.
After theStamp Act was repealed in 1766,[1] the British Parliament imposed theTownshend Acts in 1767 as another way of generating revenue. The acts placed an import duty on glass, paint, paper, lead, and tea as well as establishing an American Board of Customs.[2] In response, theMassachusetts General Court issued a circular letter. (A circular letter, also known as a circular, is a letter meant to be widely distributed, or "circulated".) The Massachusetts Circular Letter was sent to the representative bodies of the other colonies. Massachusetts received positive responses fromNew Jersey,Connecticut, and theVirginia House of Burgesses.[3]
In the Circular Letter,Samuel Adams argued that the Townshend Acts wereunconstitutional because the colony of Massachusetts was not represented in Parliament. Adams maintained that Parliament's status as the supreme legislative body of theBritish Empire did not permit it to violate theBritish Constitution and thenatural rights of the colonists. Adams made it clear that he was not advocating colonial representation in Parliament: because theAmerican Colonies were "separated by an ocean of a thousand leagues" from Great Britain, he thought it was impractical for them to be properly represented in Parliament.[4] Instead, Adams argued in favor of the previous arrangement, where the colonies were taxed only by their own provincial assemblies in which they were already represented.
After the Circular Letter had been passed and issued to other colonies,Lord Hillsborough,Secretary of State for the Colonies, ordered the Massachusetts General Court to revoke it. The body voted 92-17 not to do so. In response to the General Court's defiance, GovernorFrancis Bernard dissolved the assembly. This led to an outbreak of mob violence from colonists who no longer had any legal way to deal with their grievances. They attacked customs officials, making it impossible for them to perform their duties. In response to the deteriorating situation, Lord Hillsborough sent four regiments of British soldiers toBoston. Arriving in October 1768, the soldiers only increased the tensions, as recorded in the anonymously penned "Journal of Occurrences", which chronicled the occupation. These tensions culminated on March 5, 1770 with theBoston Massacre.[5]
