Solemn League and Covenant

January 16

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Boston Evening-Post (January 16, 1775).

“Those noble Supporters and Defenders of the Liberties of their Country, who have signed the League and Covenant.”

The decorative border around Cyrus Baldwin’s advertisement in the January 16, 1775, edition of the Boston Evening-Postdrew attention to it … and the shopkeeper wanted the entire community to see what he had to say about the “great Variety of English, India and Scotch Goods” that he offered for sale “at his Shop in Cornhill, Boston.”  It was a message not only for “his good Customers” but “especially those noble Supporters and Defenders of the Liberties of their Country, who have signed the League and Covenant.”  Baldwin could have invoked the Continental Association that went into effect on December 1, 1774, but made an even stronger statement about fidelity to the American cause demonstrated by some of his customers.

As summer approached in 1774, the Boston Committee of Correspondence disseminated the Solemn League and Covenant, a nonimportation agreement drafted by Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren in response to the Boston Port Act.  Colonizers in Boston and throughout Massachusetts debated the measure, some enthusiastically signing and others arguing that they should wait to engage in a coordinated effort that spanned the colonies.  When the First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia in September and October, the delegates devised a nonimportation pact, the Continental Association, to achieve that unified response.  Newspapers carried details in their coverage of the meetings, printers published and sold pamphlets that included the Continental Association along with other “EXTRACTS FROM THE VOTES AND PROCEEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN CONTINENTAL CONGRESS,” some printers published broadside versions of the Continental Association for easy reference in homes and offices, and advertisements documented goods surrendered and sold under the conditions of the tenth article of the Continental Association.

Baldwin could have made an appeal to consumers who adhered to the Continental Association.  Instead, he sought to associate his customers and his goods with the uncompromising spirit of the Solemn League and Covenant drafted as soon as the colonies received word about the Boston Port Act.  The resolve of many colonizers strengthened as news about the other Coercive Acts – the Massachusetts Government Act, the Administration of Justice Act, and the Quartering Act – arrived, yet Baldwin declared that many of his customers had been unwavering in their determination to take action before receiving dispatch after dispatch about new abuses perpetrated by Parliament.  Even those who had not signed the Solemn League and Covenant could ameliorate their regrets, Baldwin suggested, by making purchases alongside others who had been “noble Supporters and Defenders of the Liberties of their Country” months before the Continental Association.  As the imperial crisis intensified, he offered consumers an opportunity to revise how they remembered their participation in resistance efforts.

October 17

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Boston Evening-Post (October 17, 1774).

“May therefore be … sold … without any Breach on the solemn League and Covenant.”

Politics took center stage in William Blair Townsend’s advertisements for “Shop Goods … consisting chiefly of Woollens, well suited for the approaching Season” in the October 17, 1774, edition of the Boston Evening-Post.  He looked to sell his entire inventory “by Wholesale and Retail” and close his shop, a casualty of the blockade of Boston that went into effect with the Boston Port Act that Parliament passed to punish the town for tossing tea into the harbor the previous December.  To that end, he assured prospective customers that “they may depend [the goods] were imported before the oppressive Acts on this Town and Province were laid.”  In addition to the Boston Port Act, Townsend invoked the Massachusetts Government Act and the other Coercive Acts.

Furthermore, he asserted that his wares “may therefore be safely transported, by Land, and sold in any Town of said Province, without any Breach on the solemn League and Covenant our worthy Friends in the Country have justly entered into, in Defence of themselves and their Posterity.”  Townsend referred to a plan outlined in a letter that the Boston Committee of Correspondence circulated on June 8.  After outlining the abuses perpetrated by Parliament, the letter encouraged resistance in the form of “affecting the trade and interest of Great Britain, so deeply as shall induce her to withdraw her oppressive hand.”  The Committee of Correspondence sought to revive nonimportation agreements enacted twice in the past decade, first in response to the Stamp Act and, later, the Townshend duties.  The letter proposed that colonizers “come into a solemn league, not to import goods from Great Britain, and not to buy any goods that shall hereafter be imported from thence, until our grievances shall be redressed.”  Some merchants advocated waiting for more comprehensive measures that enlisted cooperation of other colonies, like the Continental Association that the First Continental Congress was in the process of drawing up in Philadelphia at the time Townsend published his advertisement, yet colonizers in towns throughout Massachusetts supported the Solemn League and Covenant.

Knowing that was the case, Townsend acknowledged the politics of the moment in his advertisement.  He endorsed the pact while also making clear that neither he nor his prospective customers violated it.  They could buy and sell with clear consciences … and without attracting the ire of the public.  Beyond that, Townsend wished to clear out of Boston.  In a nota bene, he encouraged “Those that incline to purchase … to apply speedily” since he “is determined to remove into a clear Air in the Country, very soon.”  The situation had grown so bleak that that he did not intend to remain in Boston much longer.