American Tempest (38 page)

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depositor of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions of the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the populations of these States; for that purpose obtaining the Laws of Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

The Declaration of Independence. Engrossed (handwritten) copy of the Declaration of Independence, issued in early 1777. The original document of July 4, 1776, bore but one signature—that of John Hancock—for more than a month until the various state legislatures approved it and authorized their delegates to the Continental Congress to sign it.
(L
IBRARY OF
C
ONGRESS
)

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their acts of pretended legislation.

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States.

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world.

For imposing taxes on us without our consent.

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury.

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses.

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies.

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally, the Forms of our Government.

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever:

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.
A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connection and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Signers of the Declaration of Independence

Connecticut

Samuel Huntington

Roger Sherman

William Williams

Oliver Wolcott

Delaware

Thomas McKean

George Read

Caesar Rodney

Georgia

Button Gwinnett

Lyman Hall

George Walton

Maryland

Charles Carroll

Samuel Chase

William Paca

Thomas Stone

Massachusetts

John Adams

Samuel Adams

Elbridge Gerry

John Hancock

Robert Treat Payne

New Hampshire

Josiah Bartlett

Matthew Thornton

William Whipple

New Jersey

Abraham Clark

John Hart

Francis Hopkinson

Richard Stockton

John Witherspoon

New York

William Floyd

Francis Lewis

Philip Livingston

Lewis Morris

North Carolina

Joseph Hewes

William Hooper

John Penn

Pennsylvania

George Clymer

Benjamin Franklin

Robert Morris

John Morton

George Ross

Benjamin Rush

James Smith

George Taylor

James Wilson

Rhode Island

William Ellery

Stephen Hopkins

South Carolina

Thomas Heyward

Thomas Lynch

Arthur Middleton

Edward Rutledge

Virginia

Carter Braxton

Benjamin Harrison

Thomas Jefferson

Francis Lightfoot Lee

Richard Henry Lee

Thomas Nelson

George Wythe

T
he following names appeared on a list of Boston Tea Party participants said to have been compiled by printer/publisher Benjamin Edes.
¹

(Where a name lacks information, such as age at time of Tea Party, occupation, etc., it was unavailable.)

Thomas Bolter, 38. Housewright (home builder).

James Brewer. Pump and blockmaker [as in block and tackle, pulleys], Freemason and Hancock's Corps of Cadets.

Nicholas Campbell, 56. Native of Malta; served on unspecified ship during war.

Thomas Chase. Distiller, Freemason, Hancock's Corps of Cadets.

Benjamin Clarke, 23. Cooper; served in artillery during Revolutionary War.

Adam Collson, 35. Leather worker, Freemason, Hancock's Corps of Cadets.

S. Coolidge.

John Crane, 19. House carpenter, Freemason, colonel, then brigadier general in Continental Army artillery.

Edward Dolbear. Cooper.

Joseph Eayers.

Nathaniel Frothingham, 27. Coachmaker.

John Gammell, 24. Carpenter; construction department of Continental Army during the war.

Thomas Gerrish.

Samuel Gore, 22. Painter, Freemason. Helped capture cannons from Boston gunhouse.

Moses Grant, 30. Upholsterer. Helped capture cannons from Boston gunhouse.

Nathaniel Green. Register of deeds.

William Hendley, 25. Mason.

George R. T. Hewes, 31. Farmer, fisherman, shoemaker.

John Hooton. Oar maker, wharf manager.

Samuel Howard, 21. Shipwright.

Edward C. Howe, 31. Rope maker.

Jonathan Hunnewell, 14. Mason. Son of Richard Hunnewell (see below), he became a Boston selectman and state legislator after the war.

Richard Hunnewell. Mason.

Daniel Ingoldson.

Joseph Lee, 28. Merchant, Freemason.

Matthew Loring, 23. Shoemaker.

————Martin.

Ebenezer Mackintosh, 31. Shoemaker, street tough, leader of street rioters. No known service in war; died in poverty at 82.

Thomas Melvill, 22. B.A., Princeton College; merchant; captain, then major in artillery during the war; U.S. government inspector; naval officer in War of 1812; state legislator, Boston fire warden. Herman Melville's grandfather.

William Molyneux, 57. Hardware merchant, cofounder “Manufactury House,” to train Boston women to spin and weave textiles.

Thomas Moore, 20. Wharf manager.

Joseph Payson.

Samuel Peck. Cooper, Freemason.

William Pierce, 29. Barber.

Lendall Pitts, 26. Merchant, Corps of Cadets.

Dr. John Prince, Pastor, First Church, Salem, from 1779 to 1836.

Thomas Porter. Merchant.

Edward Proctor, 40. Importer of West Indian goods. Freemason, colonel in artillery during war.

Henry Purkitt, 18. Cooper. Fought at Trenton, Brandywine in Revolutionary War; joined Pulaski's Cavalry as sergeant, rose to colonel.

Paul Revere, 18. Goldsmith, silversmith, Freemason. Fought in French and Indian War, joined militia in Revolutionary War.

Benjamin Rice.

John Russell. Mason.