CHAPTER V:

“A Chain of Freedom Has Been Formed”: The First Continental Congress Develops into the Hub of an Intercolonial Network

The Whig political mobilization described in the previous chapter, which were widely reported in the newspapers, created authority for the Congress even before it had met. Few underestimated the difficulty of its two explicit tasks: supporting Boston during its trial and framing a trade embargo to coerce Britain to rescind the Coercive Acts. This chapter describes the delicate balance needed to do both of these in such a way that it might restore harmony to the empire. While the First Congress authorized the formation of committees in every town and county to enforce a trade embargo against Britain, it also framed a series of conciliatory addresses to justify this action. By exercising effective authority over Whigs throughout the colonies, Congress emerged as the de facto hub of a distributed American Whig network. The authority and power that the First Congress had won dismayed British officials on both sides of the Atlantic.