The by the British Parliament in 1774 in response to the Boston Tea Party. Also called the Coercive Acts, they were a majorfactor contributing to the outbreak of the American Revolution.
Prime Minister Lord North introduced the first measure, the Boston Port Bill, on March 18, 1774; it passed both houses of Parliament without serious opposition and was signed by the King at the end of the month. The port of Boston was ordered closed until restitution for the tea was made and until royal officials were compensated for personal damages; the Massachusetts capital was moved to Salem; and Marblehead was made the customs port of entry.
The North ministry
then sought to redress what it considered to be defects in the administration
of Massachusetts Bay. The Massachusetts Bay Regulating Act (May 20) made
the Council royally appointed rather than elected and made all law officers
subject
to the governor's appointment. The Act increased the governor's patronage
powers, provided that juries be summoned by sheriffs rather than elected,
and banned all town meetings not authorized by law or gubernatorial approval.
To restrain the liberty-minded, no town meetings in the colony could be
held without royal approval, and freemen could no longer elect juries.
To secure fair
trials for British subjects and to prevent rioting, North proposed the
Impartial Administration of Justice Act, permitting the governor to move
trials to other colonies or to England and to call for aid from the British
Army to put down civil disturbances. Both measures were introduced on April
15, 1774. Despite strong opposition to these acts from Edmund Burke,
Isaac Barre,
William Pitt (Lord Chatham), and the Marquis of Rockingham, they passed
Parliament in mid-May and were signed by the King on May 20.
Two acts that were not specifically related to Massachusetts were also deemed "intolerable" by Americans. The Quartering Act (June 2) authorized civil officers to requisition houses and empty buildings to house royal troops where barracks were unavailable or unsuitable. The Qubec Act (June 22) granted civil government and religious liberty to the Roman Catholic inhabitants of the former French colony and extended the Canadian boundary to the Ohio River.
Although intended primarily to prevent disorder in Massachusetts, the Intolerable Acts united Americans in a common cause and led to the First Continental Congress.
Shocked by the defiance of law and the destruction of private property in the Boston Tea Party, most factions in Parliament supported King George III's fighting speech of March 17, 1774, in which he urged coercive action. Either the colonies were subordinate to constituted law and authority as vested in crown and Parliament or the empire was faced with disintegration and anarchy. Further retreat after the repeal of the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Acts of 1767 was deemed impossible. Assertion of authority appeared essential.
~ The Reaction ~.
A fleet blockaded Boston Harbor, and troops under Maj. Gen. Thomas Gage maintained order. But the Bostonians remained firm despite the threat of economic disaster, and surrounding towns and colonies sent in abundant food supplies.
British opponents had predicted that the Coercive Acts (Intolerable Acts) would defeat their purpose by alienating colonists who had previously been unsympathetic with Bostonian rashness. They were proved right. Americans of all classes, political persuasions, and interests, whatever their misgivings about the Boston Tea Party, saw a general threat to their liberty in these four acts.
The colonies united and responded quickly to a call from Virginia for a Continental Congress that was to meet in Philadelphia in September 1774 to seek a redress of the colonists grievances.
