Committees of Correspondence form for intercolonial communication

In 1772, Samuel Adams and the Boston Town Meeting organized a committee of correspondence to exchange letters and political intelligence with other Massachusetts towns and then with other colonies. The Boston committee published its Statement of the Rights of the Colonists and a List of Infringements and Violations of Rights, framing imperial policy as a constitutional assault on local self-government. Virginia leaders including Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, and Dabney Carr promoted a colonywide committee in 1773, extending the network from New England into the South.

The committees gave colonial resistance a permanent structure at a moment when Parliament and royal governors still hoped to isolate each dispute. Instead of allowing Boston, Williamsburg, or Charleston to act alone, the committees moved resolutions, news, and arguments across colonial boundaries in a matter of days or weeks. That communication system helped transform scattered protests against customs enforcement, the Gaspee investigation, and the Tea Act into a coordinated defense of representative government.

The intercolonial network prepared the way for the First Continental Congress in September 1774 and for the Continental Association that Congress later adopted. It also helped provincial leaders turn local grievances into a shared constitutional program that culminated in independence in July 1776.