Samuel Adams's Circular Letter

Background. Parliament passed the Townshend Acts in 1767, establishing new duties on goods imported into the colonies. The General Court was not in session when news of the acts reached Boston in October 1767. Opposition was also encouraged by John Dickinson's Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, which began appearing in December 1767, and by January 1768 the Massachusetts House had sent a petition to King George asking for his help.

Issuance of the Circular Letter. Samuel Adams's 1768 Massachusetts Circular Letter called for colonial non-cooperation. By February 1768, towns in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut had joined the boycott of British goods. The letter was issued by the Massachusetts House of Representatives, the lower house of the Massachusetts General Court, which convenes at the Massachusetts State House in Boston.

Political Consequences. The circular letter prompted the occupation of Boston by British troops. HMS Romney, a fifty-gun warship, arrived in Boston Harbor in May 1768, and two regiments disembarked in October 1768, followed by two more in November. Tensions between occupational troops and local colonists eventually resulted in the killing of five Bostonians in the Boston Massacre of March 1770.