The Petition to the King was a petition sent to King George III by the First Continental Congress in 1774, calling for the repeal of the Intolerable Acts. The King's rejection of the petition was one of the causes of the later United States Declaration of Independence and American Revolutionary War. The Continental Congress had hoped to resolve conflict without a war. The Congress did not send a petition to the British Parliament, a deliberate omission since they did not acknowledge Parliament's authority.Norton, Mary Beth. 1774: The Long Year of Revolution. New York: Alfred A. Knopf 2020, 192
Political background Following the end of the French and Indian War (the North American theater of the Seven Years' War) in 1763, relations between the Thirteen Colonies and Britain had been deteriorating. Because the war had plunged the British government deep into debt, Parliament enacted a series of measures to increase tax revenue from the colonies. These acts, such as the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Acts of 1767, were seen as legitimate means of collecting revenues to pay off the nearly two-fold increase in British debt stemming from the war.Christie and Labaree, Empire or Independence, 31.
Many colonists in the Americas, however, developed a different conception of their role within the British Empire. In particular, because the colonies were not directly represented in Parliament, colonists argued that Parliament had no right to levy taxes upon them.Bailyn, Ideological Origins, 162 After colonists destroyed thousands of pounds of British-taxed tea during the Boston Tea Party, Parliament passed the Coercive Acts in 1774, punishing the colonies for their actions. These punitive Acts were vehemently opposed by the colonists, leading the newly formed Continental Congress to seek redress with King George III, in an attempt to reach a common understanding.
Development of the document
Conception
On 1 October 1774, in response to the deteriorating relationship between the American Colonies and Britain, the First Continental Congress decided to prepare a statement to King George III of Great Britain. The goal of the address was to persuade the King to revoke unpopular policies such as the Coercive Acts, which were imposed on the Colonies by the British Parliament. The committee appointed to prepare the Address consisted of Richard Henry Lee, John Adams, Thomas Johnson, Patrick Henry, and John Rutledge, with Lee designated as the committee chairman.Wolf, Edwin, The Authorship of the 1774 Address to the King Restudied, 190.
On 5 October 1774, Congress once more returned to the subject of the Address, stressing to the committee that the document should assure the King that following the successful repeal of the Coercive Acts, the Colonies would restore favorable relations with Britain.
Approval by Congress
On 25 October 1774, the petition came before Congress in its draft form. After the document was debated over and formally amended, it was then approved to be engrossed and sent to England to be presented to the King.
Annotated text of the petition The petition, when written, was not divided into formal parts. However, the structure of the document allows it to be classified into sections, including an introduction, the list of grievances, reasons for attention, and a conclusion. Introduction States the represented Colonies, as well as the nature of the document.To the King's Most Excellent Majesty:
Most Gracious Sovereign: We, your Majesty's faithful subjects of the Colonies of New-Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, the Counties of New-Castle, Kent, and Sussex, on Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, in behalf of ourselves and the inhabitants of those Colonies who have deputed us to represent them in General Congress, by this our humble Petition, beg leave to lay our Grievances before the Throne. List of Grievances Lists the grievances that the Colonies wish for King George III to redress.A Standing Army has been kept in these Colonies ever since the conclusion of the late war, without the consent of our Assemblies; and this Army, with a considerable Naval armament, has been employed to enforce the collection of Taxes.
The authority of the Commander-in-Chief, and under him of the Brigadiers General has, in time of peace, been rendered supreme in all the Civil Governments in America.
The Commander-in-chief of all your Majesty's Forces in North America, has, in time of peace, been appointed Governour of a Colony.
The charges of usual offices have been greatly increased; and new, expensive, and oppressive offices have been multiplied.
The Judges of Admiralty and Vice Admiralty Courts are empowered to receive their salaries and fees from the effects condemned by themselves.
The Officers of the Customs are empowered to break open and enter houses, without the authority of any Civil Magistrate, founded on legal information.
The Judges of Courts of Common Law have been made entirely dependent on one part of the Legislature for their salaries, as well as for the duration of their commissions.
Counsellors, holding their commissions during pleasure, exercise Legislative authority.
Humble and reasonable Petitions from the Representatives of the People, have been fruitless.
The Agents of the People have been discountenanced, and Governours have been instructed to prevent the payment of their salaries.
Assemblies have been repeatedly and injuriously dissolved.
Commerce has been burthened with many useless and oppressive restrictions.
By several Acts of Parliament made in the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth years of your Majesty's Reign, Duties are imposed on us for the purpose of raising a Revenue; and the powers of Admiralty and Vice Admiralty Courts are extended beyond their ancient limits, whereby our property is taken from us without our consent; the trial by jury, in many civil cases, is abolished; enormous forfeitures are incurred for slight offences; vexatious informers are exempted from paying damages, to which they are justly liable, and oppressive security is required from owners before they are allowed to defend their right.
Both Houses of Parliament have resolved, that Colonists may be tried in England for offences alleged to have been committed in America, by virtue of a Statute passed in the thirty-fifth year of Henry the Eighth, and, in consequence thereof, attempts have been made to enforce that Statute.
A Statute was passed in the twelfth year of your Majesty's Reign, directing that persons charged with committing any offence therein described, in any place out of the Realm, may be indicted and tried for the same in any Shire or County within the Realm, whereby the inhabitants of these Colonies may, in sundry cases, by that Statute made capital, be deprived of a trial by their peers of the vicinage.
In the last sessions of Parliament an Act was passed for blocking up the Harbour of Boston; another empowering the Governour of the Massachusetts Bay to send persons indicted for murder in that Province, to another Colony, or even to Great Britain, for trial, whereby such offenders may escape legal punishment; a third for altering the chartered Constitution of Government in that Province; and a fourth for extending the limits of Quebec, abolishing the English and restoring the French laws, whereby great numbers of British Freemen are subjected to the latter, and establishing an absolute Government and the Roman Catholick Religion throughout those vast regions that border on the Westerly and Northerly boundaries of the free Protestant English settlements; and a fifth, for the better providing suitable Quarters for Officers and Soldiers in his Majesty's service in North America. Reasons for Attention State why the aforementioned grievances are important enough to warrant an address to the monarchy.To a Sovereign, who glories in the name of Briton, the bare recital of these Acts must, we presume, justify the loyal subjects, who fly to the foot of his Throne, and implore his clemency for protection against them.
From this destructive system of Colony Administration, adopted since the conclusion of the last war, have flowed those distresses, dangers, fears, and jealousies, that overwhelm your Majesty's dutiful Colonists with affliction; and we defy our most subtle and inveterate enemies to trace the unhappy differences between Great Britain and these Colonies, from an earlier period, or from other causes than we have assigned. Had they proceeded on our part from a restless levity of temper, unjust impulses of ambition, or artful suggestions of seditious persons, we should merit the opprobrious terms frequently bestowed upon us by those we revere. But so far from promoting innovations, we have only opposed them; and can be charged with no offence, unless it be one to receive injuries and be sensible of them.
Had our Creator been pleased to give us existence in a land of slavery, the sense of our condition might have been mitigated by ignorance and habit. But, thanks be to his adorable goodness, we were born the heirs of freedom, and ever enjoyed our right under the auspices of your Royal ancestors, whose family was seated on the British Throne to rescue and secure a pious and gallant Nation from the Popery and despotism of a superstitious and inexorable tyrant. Your Majesty, we are confident, justly rejoices that your title to the Crown is thus founded on the title of your people to liberty; and, therefore, we doubt not but your royal wisdom must approve the sensibility that teaches your subjects anxiously to guard the blessing they received from Divine Providence, and thereby to prove the performance of that compact which elevated the illustrious House of Brunswick to the imperial dignity it now possesses.
The apprehension of being degraded into a state of servitude, from the pre-eminent rank of English freemen, while our minds retain the strongest love of liberty, and clearly foresee the miseries preparing for us and our posterity, excites emotions in our breasts which, though we cannot describe, we should not wish to conceal. Feeling as men, and thinking as subjects, in the manner we do, silence would be disloyalty. By giving this faithful information, we do all in our power to promote the great objects of your Royal cares, the tranquillity of your Government, and the welfare of your people.
Duty to your Majesty, and regard for the preservation of ourselves and our posterity, the primary obligations of nature and of society, command us to entreat your Royal attention; and, as your Majesty enjoys the signal distinction of reigning over freemen, we apprehend the language of freemen cannot be displeasing. Your Royal indignation, we hope, will rather fall on those designing and dangerous men, who, daringly interposing themselves between your Royal person and your faithful subjects, and for several years past incessantly employed to dissolve the bonds of society, by abusing your Majesty's authority, misrepresenting your American subjects, and prosecuting the most desperate and irritating projects of oppression, have at length compelled us, by the force of accumulated injuries, too severe to be any longer tolerable, to disturb your Majesty's repose by our complaints.