Essay on Public Responses to The Gunpowder Plot and Boston Tea Party

Introduction

A group of colonists from Massachusetts boarded three British ships while camouflaged as Mohawk Indians and threw 342 tea strongboxes into the harbor. This move widely referred to as the Boston tea party was done to picket 1773 British which was passed in the aim of saving a faltering East India company and enabling the company to have implicit control of the tea trade. To achieve this, the bill was designed to lower the company tax significantly. The taxation tyranny allowed the Indian company to dominate the tea trade by even undercutting Dutch trader's smuggled tea into America (William et al., 50). The three ships Dartmouth, Eleanor and Beaver, disembarked in Boston harbor. Here, the colonists press for the tea to be sent back to England. The patriot leader with about 60 member's liberty members organized the tea party after the governor refused to return the tea. As a result, Adams with his resistance group dumped tea worth $18000 in Boston harbor on December 16th. Consequently, the parliament was outraged by the destruction of British property blatantly and subsequently went ahead to enact coercive acts "intolerable acts of 1774" which established a military rule after closing down Boston harbor from merchant shipping. Consequently, the British policy changed towards American policy as it set the stage for America resistant movement to independence. The movement led to separation from the British hence declaration of independence in July 1776 (Thomas 40).

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In the gunpowder plot, it was established that the English Roman Catholics conspire to kill King James 1 by blowing up parliament. Also, the queen and his firstborn son were targeted. The organizer of the scheme was Robert Catesby together with four conspirators including Guy Fawkes. Notably, they were infuriated by the king's decision of refusing to grant more religious tolerance to Catholics. Hence the plot to murder the king was hatched hoping to provide an opportunity for a Catholic to take over. However, in the midnight of November 4, 1605, Guy Fawkes was discovered with a barrel of gunpowder inside the parliament building. Consequently, Fawkes and the other individual involved in the plot were judged and executed for treason. As a result, every November 5th the British celebrate Fawkes day by burning Fawkes effigy. The man behind the mask is a famous symbol used in protest today. His arrest and the events that preceded the capture to execution has been demonstrated in various novels and school books today (James, N.d).

In other words, with the aid of magazines such as The Boston Post -Boy that described the act using words such as 'the mischievous Tea Act' and 'the yoke of the slave' made the ordinary American citizen understand the motives of the colonial government.

The Boston Post -Boy not only enabled the colonists to utter their condemnation but also presented the teas as a polluted item named as the Pernicious drug and baneful weed which is of a corrosive quality strong enough to harm the hand farmworkers (Thomas 21). Such a notion spread enabling the letters from overseas to spread the news as well. For example, an Extract of a letter from London, published in the Boston Post- Boy, sent a warning that The East Indian Company have the resolution to send 600 chests of tea to Philadelphia a quantity to New- York and Boston. The perspective espoused in the letter established a scenario that it would be unthinkable for Americans to buy tea while this act is in place. The notion of rejecting the tea was planted in the thoughts of the colonists before its actual arrival.

The rhetoric rejection of tea became stronger the more it became real that the tea would eventually arrive at the port in America. The matter of the tea act became one which colonists considered unjust that it could hardly go unnoticed. For example, one of the colonists claimed in a letter to the Boston Evening Post that though he was tired from a long day at work, tiredness could not make him unconcerned with the happenings that are affecting the lives of the liberties of his country people. A Social History of the Nation's Favourite Drink (par 1) asserts that tea formed an essential part of the majority of Britain community. Moreover, poems were being published in newspapers to point out how the Tea Act is changing American Liberty. For instance one of the lyrics that were condemning the Tea Act reads:

Defend your country while you may,

Destruction hovers in the skies.

And will pour down in floods of TEA

If not prevented, guard your coast

And act yourselves as heretofore:

If once this poisonous weed be hous'd

Lost liberty you may deplore

(Neville-Shepard, N,d)

Similarly, ordinary newspapers were used to represent public response through the printing of their anticipation. The Boston Gazette is a perfect example that printed predictions such as "should the Tea now shipping for Boston be returned to England, as it undoubtedly will,... Lord North will meet with a new rebuff which will put his utmost firmness to trial" (Bernard, 1). Besides, The Boston Gazette published a letter from London that comprises harsher and uncivilized possible consequences, according to Bernard (1), the message acted as a warning to the Yorkers, whom the author prepares them to withstand the burning of the ships and tea. From this prediction from the letter, which was published in October 1773, it uncovers the plan of the colonists to do more harm to the commissioners who were in charging of implementing the tax. Further, Robert and Pearce (25-33) argue that in the same letter, it warned the commissioners that if they select to sanction the Tea Act by collecting the taxes, then they are responsible for the destruction that will come their way.

The colonists also used letters to explicit in their threats against the representatives. The letters urge the officials how it was almost impossible for them to protect themselves from gunpowder that will regularly be imposed against them which confirms that plotters were proceeding to the worst (Robinson, N.d) Furthermore the letter stated "you cannot become your cooks, butler, bakers nor butchers. You will, therefore, be liable to be suddenly, and unexpected taken off, in the midst of your confidence and supposed security." (McGee, 283) Such publications demonstrated how colonists were irritated by the situation and their readiness to revolt in some violent manners months before the massive destruction took place. Hence, gave birth to the gunpowder plot, which believed that the taxpayers are not presented accordingly. Also, several letters were sent to warn the government of the upcoming destructions, one of the letters of such nature was the one that Monteagle received from an unknown person (Sharpe, par3). Scheme of gunpowder heightened the dichotomy between the technical legal documents implemented by the British and the interpretation of these documents by the Americans as the dedication for uncivil insubordination.

On the other side, the commissioners reacted to the threats by using The Boston Evening Post that described how merchants were attempting to kill the Liberty tree of the American country. This article introduced the fight between the merchants and the government over who has the genuine interest in the liberty of America. Not all the colonists supported the battle against the commission particularly for economic reasons since it was anticipated that eventually, Americans would pay a lower price on tea than were presently paying for when brought from smugglers. Fear among the opposition arouse of the East India Company would become monopoly, however, those colonists that support the government invalidate the view that prices will heighten further, for instance, one of the supporters of the government wrote that America would not answer the standards set by East India if the prices are not set law.

Conclusion

Conclusively, newspapers played a significant role in preparing American colonists for the Revolutionary War, since it acted as logic, interpreters of legal documents such as the Tea Act, and echoed the voice of the weak. Moreover, the Gunpowder Plot and Boston Tea Party shaped the America politics and economic policies. Moreover, at some point, the commissioner utilized newspapers with a more logic rationale tone than the opposition to show who has the interest of the liberty of America at heart. Conversely, instead of people seeing the strength in a stable, centered economic employment; the majority maintained on reading the Tea Act legal document through a political lens, which, provoked the push and pulls that eventually launched the Revolutionary War.

Works Cited

Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution: Enlarged Edition (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard UP, 1992) 1.

Michael Calvin McGee, "Text, Context, and the Fragmentation of Contemporary Culture," Western Journal of Speech Communication 54 (1990): 283.

Neville-Shepard, Meredith Diane. Balancing the Scale of Rationality: The Public Memory of the Boston Tea Party and the Transformation of Dissent. Diss. University of Kansas, 2010;21

Robert J. Branham and W. Barnett Pearce, "Between Text and Context: Toward a Rhetoric of Contextual Reconstruction," Quarterly Journal of Speech 71 (1985): 19

Robinson, Bruce. "The Gunpowder Plot." 29 03 2011. BCC. 19 09 2018

Sharpe, James. "The Explosive Legacy of Guy Fawkes, the Man Behind the Mask." 3 NOVEMBER, 2017. HISTORY MAGAZINE. 19 October 2018

Thomas, Peter David Garner. Tea party to independence: the third phase of the American Revolution, 1773-1776. Oxford University Press, 1991.

Williamson, Vanessa, Theda Skocpol, and John Coggin. "The Tea Party and the remaking of Republican conservatism." Perspectives on Politics 9.1 (2011): 25-43.