Free Republic

On this date in 1774,* in the British official John Malco(l)m was tarred and feathered and mock-executed by enraged Bostonians during the tense run-up to the American Revolution. Malcom’s militant Loyalism put him sharply at odds with his city’s’s rising Patriot ultras — the sorts of people who, just a month before, had provocatively dumped British East India Company tea into Boston Harbor. Malcom himself hadn’t been proximate to that event but as a customs official he’d made himself obnoxious on the docks before. In October of 1773, he seized a ship in Falmouth,** threatening “to sheath his sword in...

O Lord our Heavenly Father, high and mighty King of kings, and Lord of lords, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers on earth and reignest with power supreme and uncontrolled over all the Kingdoms, Empires and Governments; look down in mercy, we beseech Thee, on these our American States, who have fled to Thee from the rod of the oppressor and thrown themselves on Thy gracious protection, desiring to be henceforth dependent only on Thee. To Thee have they appealed for the righteousness of their cause; to Thee do they now look up for that countenance and...

The King's Message, of Seventh March, 1774 From the Earl of Dartmouth [p. v1:5] MONDAY, March 7th, 1774. The Earl of Dartmouth acquainted the House, "That he had a Message from his Majesty, under his Royal sign manual, which his Majesty had commanded him to deliver to this House." The King's Message And the same was read by the Lord Chancellor, and is as follows; (videlicet,) GEORGE R. His Majesty upon information of the unwarrantable practices which have been lately concerted and carried on in North America, and, particularly, of the violent and outrageous proceedings at the Town and Port...