Greetings, Fellow Patriots. In 1772 the American Revolution started with its first significant act of resistance, not at Concord, not in Boston harbor, but in an otherwise nondescript and unmarked stretch of sand and water in Rhode Island.
The scene was in an unpronounceable bay in tiny Rhode Island where the people had been terrorized, abused and subjected to plunder and theft by the H.M.S. Gaspee, a ship sent by the king to impress upon the people of Rhode Island the futility of objecting to British taxation.
The Gaspee and its cruel master and crew wasted no time. Considering their mission punitive rather than for enforcement, they applied imaginary taxes to those who owed none, taking whatever they chose and imposing unsubstantiated "taxes" on anyone unfortunate enough to catch their attention. Sound familiar to anyone?
The locals soon tired of this ill treatment and determined to do something about it, providing the first coordinated act of defiance to unlawful and unjust taxation and to the authority of the crown. They lured the Gaspee into running aground at a place now called Gaspee Point, RI. There they boarded the ship, seized the captain and crew and reclaimed their money and property. Then they put the ship to the torch, burning it to the water line.
Larry Becraft and I had occasion to visit the very site of this, the true place of conception, if not birth, of our great nation. When one stops to think about what has since transpired, of all the sacrifices to obtain our independence and then to defend and secure it, all beginning right there where we now stood, one cannot but pause and reflect reverently:
Or not.
Tom
Let's get the I.R.S. (Internal Revenue Ship) Gaspee