History
The Gaspee refers to a royal naval ship that was in patrolling the waters of Rhode Island for any smugglers. It described the British revenue schooner that was set on fire in Narragansett Bay in the year 1772 by the people on Rhode Island. The burning of the Gaspee marked an essential event during the introduction of the American Revolution. This event occurred or rather signified the burning of the British revenue cutter through a small ship that guarder the coast. It brought about the Americans putting the ship’s crew ashore in order to avoid anyone getting hurt. This incidence angered the British who considered it as a big crime. The Gaspee had sailed into Rhode Island under the leadership of Lieutenant William Dudingston. They had hoped to assist by enforcing the customs of collecting and inspecting cargo on the Island.
The occurrences before the burning of the Gaspee were that Britain had initiated plans to enact laws as guided by Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend. These laws marked the enactment of Townshend Acts that aimed at raising revenue in the colonies to pay the salaries of governors and judges. This would make them independent of any financial reliance on the local legislatures (Doherty, 2005). It would increase the efficiency of trade regulations and would help in combating the smuggling business. These events brought about incidents where the British imposed heavy taxes on the commodities such as imported tea. It would allow the British tea to lower the prices of the smuggled tea through strong powers of combating smuggling. This was accompanied by hiring more customs officers and the granting of custom officials more authority to conduct searches on houses to seize smuggled goods (Doherty, 2005).
However, despite all the actions to curb smuggling business the smuggling of tea still went up with the East India Company increased the prices to make the business more competitive. This contributed to the people sympathizing with the smugglers while those who informed on them ran in the fear of being tarred (Raven, 2012) Eventually, sometime around July in 1769 the British revenue cutter Liberty got burned. This was followed by the attack of the unpopular revenue cutter Gaspee which ran aground near Providence. The ship was attacked by a rich merchant, a sea captain as well as an unknown mob that set it ablaze. This came about after the Gaspee had tried to stop and search another ship called the Hannah (Raven, 2012). It was a small trader ship on route from Newport and heading to Providence. However, the captain to the ship declined to comply regardless of the warning shots that had been given from the Gaspee. Lindsey, the captain to the Hannah ship managed to manipulate Dudingston to an area that was off the Namquid point where he knew it was shallow. This brought the Gaspee aground while the Hannah ran away.
When the Gaspee arrived in Providence Lindsey made reports to John Brown on what he had experienced. Brown took advantage of this chance to revenge where he called his loyal captain, Abraham Whipple (Raven, 2012) They attacked the Gaspee where the captain was shot. The British officials set sail to the Rhode Island to conduct investigations on the incidence and bring the perpetrators to book. However, they were faced by a challenge where none of the crew members or the people arrested was willing to point out the perpetrators (Raven, 2012.) This angered the British as they could not stand the thought that the involved people would walk without being tried through the colonial justice system. This brought about the establishment of permanent committees of correspondence that aimed at serving the communication between colonies (Gabbard, 2007).
Another incident that occurred as part of the effects of the burning of the Gaspee was that they initiated plans that aimed at learning the British plans that would hinder the rights of the Americans before the empire would act against colonial freedom. It also brought about fear among the colonists from any form of conspiracy from the British against their liberties. Similarly, the legislative plans to ship tea to colonies, and sell it at low prices posed a serious risk to the colonial merchant class, as it allowed them to cut out both British exporters (Doherty, 2005). These were the people who were used to buying tea at wholesale prices and auctions while the American importers bought from the British wholesalers. After the Tea Act was passed, the company remained in position to sell directly to the American retailers through consignees who allowed the American consumers to lower the profits obtained by the two sets of middlemen (Gabbard, 2007).
Lastly, the merchants between the two sides of the Atlantic became aware of the risks they faced where the tea would destabilize fake Dutch tea. It would also remove them from the Indian Tea Trade. This also widened the chances for smuggling among major ports such as New York, Philadelphia and Boston. In turn, it also broadened the basis where popular protest by invoking old arguments against the taxation of authority of Parliament and the invention of new and wild arguments (Gabbard, 2007). The trade between the regions across the Atlantic reduced the merchants by bringing them losses and included the lucrative smuggling trade. It also depicted the East India Company as a gigantic conspiracy.
References
Doherty, C. A., & Doherty, K. M. (2005). Rhode Island. New York: Facts On File.
Raven, R. (2012). Burning the Gaspee: Revolution in Rhode Island. Charleston, SC: History Press. Retrieved from http://www.gaspee.org/DevaroGaspee7-2006.doc
Gabbard, A. (2007). Gaspee. Knoxville, TN: GP Press
