The Gunpowder Plot and Boston Tea Party - Paper Example

Introduction

One of the causes of Revolution in America was gunpowder plot whose root was the Boston Tea Party. The destructions that were brought by the two events were not merely a spur of moment occurrence on a whim, nonetheless, a plot outburst stemming from the piled up disappointments and frustration. American people were never new to taxation, and for full representation, they accepted obligated themselves as part of their responsibility to their country. Nevertheless, the mandate of the tax was shifted by the perpetrators from trade regulation to raising the income of England at the expense of colonists. This provoked mixed reactions from the public, some supporting the activities of the government to add tax to locally processed tea. However, the majority of the lower class people protects and opposed to the act such as the Townshend Act. Hence, the colonists turned to various forms of media to echo out the disagreements, people such as John Dickson wrote several letters among others while others compose poems that were published in the newspapers. Despite the effort applied by the Americans to minimize the harsh condition, the British government declined, but it promised to amend the act to reduce the tax. Nevertheless, American ended up more frustrated when on 6th September in the year 1773 when the government published in the New York Gazette using obscure words that Tea is to be taxed also. Through the aid of printed letter and poems in the newspapers, it gives ordinary American citizen a clear understanding of the Act, provoked feeling of anger and need to fight for their freedom that led to revolution war in America.

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The final release of the Tea Act was unclear to a majority of the citizen whether tea was taxed good because of the jargon phrases that were used to summarize the Act. For example, that act says that: "Sell, made to any of the British Colonies or plantations in America, were to extend to the total of the said Duties of Levies payable upon the Importation of such as Tea; may if thus please your majesty that is may be enacted; and may it be enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the Advice and Contest and Temporal, and, common... " (Fliegelman, 12). Despite the ambiguous nature of the above-stated law, Americans ultimately were able to simplify it in a manner that showed by it was indirectly suggesting tea product to be taxed. 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 to understand the motives of the colonial government.

The Boston Post -Boy not only enabled the colonist to utter their condemnation but also it 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 made 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. Thus, the notion of rejecting the tea was planted in the thoughts of the colonists before its actual arrival.

The rhetoric rejection of tea became strong the more it became real that the tea would eventually arrive at the port of America. The matter of the tea act became one which colonist considered unjust that it could hardly go unnoticed. For example, one of the colonist claim in a letter to the Boston Evening Post that though he was tired from a long day at work, that cannot make him remain unconcerned with the what is affecting the lives of the liberties of his country people. 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 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). In addition, 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 colonist 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 incessantly be imposed against them which confirms that plotters were proceeding to the worse (Robison, N.d) Furthermore the letter said "you cannot become your own 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 it gave birth to the plot of gunpowder which believed that the taxpayers are not presented accordingly. 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 talked about how the 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 presently paying when buying 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 End Proposed by East India is the prices are not set law.

Newspapers played a significant role in preparing American colonists into revolution war, since it acted as logic, interpreters of legal documents such as the Tea Act, and echo the voice of the weak. Moreover, at some point, the commissioner utilized newspapers with a more logic rationale tone that the opposition to show there 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.

Bruce Robinson, The Gunpowder: (BCC news, 2011)

Fliegelman Jay, Declaring Independence: Jefferson, Natural Language, and the Culture of Performance (Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1993).

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.

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

Thomas, Tea Party to Independence, 21.