Proclamation by the King for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition

Context

Since 1763 British colonists in North America had become increasing convinced of a conspiracy based in the mother country to constrain their traditional rights and privileges. In the minds of North Americans this translated into the maintenance of the status quo. Following the Peace of Paris and the abdication of French holdings on the North American continent, the British government found itself with a huge war debt and the enormous cost of controlling its vast empire. It appeared logical to those in the higher ranks of the British ruling circles that North American colonists help pay the price for their new security and prosperity. The colonists did not agree, and the more rebellious and discontent took action to counter changes in British policies. Actions such as the Proclamation of 1763, the Currency Act, the Sugar Act, and the posting of ships of the British Admiralty off North American coasts made colonists suspicious. They met the Stamp Act of 1765 with active resistance in the forms of constitutional protests, media campaigns, and mob actions.

Simultaneously, parties on both sides of the ocean grew increasingly out of touch with the realities of their opposition. Subsequent crises occurred when Parliament tried to enforce legislation such as the Townshend Revenue Act and Tea Act in 1768 and 1773, respectively. With each crisis, the tactics and the costs dramatically escalated. Nonimportation and extralegal embargoes on taxed goods joined earlier methods of resistance. When the Massachusetts faction led by Samuel and John Adams dumped 342 chests of tea into the harbor on the night of December 16, 1773, they not only defeated their chief rival Thomas Hutchinson, the colonial governor, but also brought down the wrath of the king and Parliament.

The next year, 1774, saw a further escalation in the tensions between the colonies and the mother country and between various colonial factions. Miscalculations and misunderstandings continued to grow on both sides of the Atlantic. The British possessed somewhat contradictory images of their colonial subjects. In one vision, they perceived all colonists in the light of ungrateful children balking at assuming the responsibilities of mature adults within the empire. Others persisted in believing that the problems in the colonies were localized in New England—in Massachusetts specifically—and could be solved by making an example of that colony and its leaders.

The colonists, too, suffered from several misapprehensions. While nearly all colonial politicians shared a belief that a conspiracy existed to deprive them of their rights and privileges, they were far from agreement on how to regain them; they agreed on the cause and its origins but not on the remedy. The spectrum ran from the liberal Joseph Galloway of Pennsylvania, an accommodationist who felt the breach could be mended through compromise and negotiation, to the radical Samuel Adams of Massachusetts and Patrick Henry of Virginia, who felt that armed resistance was the solution to regaining their lost privileges. Additionally, the repeal of the Stamp Act and the majority of the Townshend duties gave colonial leaders a false sense of their importance and power within the empire. For example, political leaders in Great Britain felt that the implementation of the Coercive Acts (or Intolerable Acts) in the spring of 1774 would punish wrongdoers and send a strong warning to like-minded or sympathetic colonials.

In North America, however, those acts, along with the Quebec Act, an unrelated body of legislation to reorganize former French territories into a more manageable holding, discredited conservatives, alienated moderates, and vindicated radicals. When the Continental Congress, an extralegal body of delegates from all colonies except Georgia, met in September of that year, the accommodationists found their position a difficult one. Their only major contribution to the discussion, Thomas Galloway's Plan of Union, narrowly went down in defeat, while the body endorsed the radicals' Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress, the Suffolk Resolves, and the development of the Continental Association to enforce nonimportation and nonconsumption of British goods.

The Continental Congress's last action before dissolving proved ominous; it declared a second meeting to convene May 25, 1775, if relations with the mother country continued to deteriorate. By the deadline, covert hostilities and constitutional protests had given way to armed rebellion. In the aftermath of the initial encounters at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, the Second Continental Congress had to declare a rationale for the rebellion. Reconciliationists proposed the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms as an olive branch. Discussions about independence on the part of the radicals were at least temporarily stymied. While the delegates debated the purpose of the conflict, the fighting continued. On June 17, 1775, the British, commanded by General Thomas Gage and led by General William Howe, broke the siege of British troops in Boston by dislodging rebel forces from their strongholds on Bunker Hill and Breed's Hill. The British won the day but at an enormous cost of over 40 percent of their troops; 1,054 were killed or wounded. George III and Parliament faced the same dilemma as the colonists—What was the purpose of their war?