The Boston Port Act was the first of the coercive acts. Parliament passed the Act on 31 March 1774 and King George III gave it Royal Assent on 20 May. The law authorized the Royal Navy to block Boston Harbor because “trade with Her Majesty`s subjects cannot continue safely there.” 1 The blockade began on June 1, 1774, effectively closing Boston Harbor to commercial traffic. In addition, it has banned all exports to foreign ports or provinces. The only imports allowed were supplies for the British army and necessary goods such as fuel and wheat. The law ordered the port to remain closed until the Bostonians made a refund to the East India Company (the owners of the destroyed tea), the king had determined that the colony was capable of obeying British laws and that British goods could again be safely traded in the port. However, if the Bostonians refused to pay the East India Company, or if the king remained dissatisfied, the port would be blocked indefinitely. The Intolerable Acts were five acts passed by the British Parliament against American settlers in 1774: Boston Port Act, Massachusetts Government Act, Administration of Justice Act, Quartering Act and Quebec Act. These acts were intended to punish the settlers for the Boston Tea Party, where a group of settlers threw hundreds of boxes of British tea into Boston Harbor to protest the British Parliament`s tax hike. Even they objected that parliament was enforcing the laws with a sense of revenge against them.
On December 16, 1773, a group of Patriote settlers associated with the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts, destroyed 342 tea chests, an act that became known as the Boston Tea Party. The settlers participated in this action because Parliament had passed the Tea Act, which granted the British East India Company a monopoly on tea sales in the colonies, thus saving the company from bankruptcy. This made British tea cheaper. In addition, there was a small tax. This provoked the anger of the settlers. News of the Boston Tea Party reached England in January 1774. Parliament responded by passing four laws. Three of these laws were intended to directly punish Massachusetts. This was done for the destruction of private property, for the restoration of British authority in Massachusetts, and for the other reform of colonial government in America. Now we have to see what the 5 laws were and how they were imposed on the settlers.
The Intolerable Acts of 1774 – Committees of Correspondence The communication network in the colonies, operated by the Committees of Correspondence, had been established to warn each other against British actions and future plans such as the Intolerable Acts, which harmed colonial America. This system allowed the colonies to plan a plan of action and colonial resistance. The colonies were able to unite against the British government and the provisions of the Intolerable Laws. There has been some opposition in Parliament to these actions from American sympathizers, including fears that the balance of government power in England could be disrupted by the king`s influence on Lord North. One of America`s most prominent sympathizers was Edmund Burke, a statesman and leader of the conservative Whig Party, who warned that such punishment would only evoke a “wild spirit of freedom” in the colonies. Lawmakers who sided with Burke invoked many of the arguments used by patriots, declaring that it was morally wrong to tax America without representation in parliament. The cumulative effect of colonial resistance to British rule during the winter of 1773-74 was to make Parliament more determined than ever to assert its authority in America. The main force of their actions fell on Boston, which seemed to be the center of colonial hostility. First, the British government, angered by the Boston Tea Party (1773), passed the Boston Port Bill, which closed the port of that city until the destroyed tea was compensated. Second, the Massachusetts Government Act repealed the Colonial Charter of 1691, reduced it to the status of a Crown colony, replaced the elected city council with an appointee, expanded the powers of the military governor, General Thomas Gage, and prohibited town hall meetings without permission. Third, the Administration of Justice Act was intended to protect British officials accused of capital crimes during prosecution by allowing them to travel to England or another colony for trial.
The intolerable fourth act included new provisions for the placement of British troops in occupied American homes, reviving outrage over the old Quartering Act, which was allowed to expire in 1770. The new Quartering Act, passed on 2 June 1774, applied to all of British America and gave colonial governors the right to requisition uninhabited buildings to house British troops. In Massachusetts, however, British troops were forced to camp on Boston Common until the following November because the Boston Patriots refused to allow workers to repair vacant buildings that General Feee had received for their quarters. The Impartial Justice Act received the King`s approval on the same day as the Massachusetts Government Act. The purpose of the Act was to further enhance the power of the governor by giving him the opportunity to move a trial to another colony or to Great Britain if it was determined “that an indifferent process cannot be conducted in the said province.” 3 The law abolished the right to a fair trial of peers and abolished an established legal principle dating back to magna carta. The settlers accused Parliament of violating their rights to be English citizens. The actions deprived Massachusetts of the self-government and rights that Massachusetts had enjoyed since its founding, sparking outrage and outrage in the Thirteen Colonies.