Abraham Whipple John Brown William Duddingston The Gaspee affair was a significant event in the lead-up to the American Revolution.

Along with similar events in Narragansett Bay, the affair marked the first acts of violent uprising against Crown authority in British North America, preceding the Boston Tea Party by more than a year and moving the Thirteen Colonies as a whole toward the coming war for independence.

The British Parliament argued that revenue was necessary to bolster military and naval defensive positions along the borders of their distant colonies and also to pay the debt which Britain had incurred in pursuing the war against France.

[6] In early 1772, Lieutenant William Duddingston sailed HMS Gaspee into Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island to enforce customs collection and mandatory inspection of cargo.

[7] Soon after he began patrolling Narragansett Bay, Gaspee stopped and inspected the sloop Fortune on February 17 and seized 12 hogsheads of undeclared rum.

In the letter, Sessions includes the opinion of Chief Justice Stephen Hopkins, who argues that "no commander of any vessel has any right to use any authority in the Body of the Colony without previously applying to the Governor and showing his warrant for so doing.

"[12] Duddingston returned a rude reply to the Governor, refusing to leave his ship or to acknowledge Wanton's elected authority within Rhode Island.

Before that could happen, however, a band of Providence men led by John Brown I decided to act on the "opportunity offered of putting an end to the trouble and vexation she daily caused.

The American Department consulted the solicitor and attorneys general, who investigated and advised the Privy Council on the legal and constitutional options available.

[19] The Crown turned to a centuries-old institution of investigation: the Royal Commission of Inquiry, made up of the chiefs of the supreme courts of Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey, the judge of the vice-admiralty of Boston, and Rhode Island Governor Wanton.

[citation needed] The Dockyard Act passed in April demanded that anyone suspected of burning British ships should be extradited and tried in England; however, the Gaspee raiders were charged with treason.

[citation needed] Colonial Whigs were alarmed at the prospect of Americans being sent to England for trial, and a committee of correspondence was formed in Boston to consult on the crisis.

The Reverend John Allen preached a sermon at the Second Baptist Church in Boston which utilized the Gaspee affair to warn listeners about greedy monarchs, corrupt judges, and conspiracies in the London government.

[citation needed] The British authorities called for the apprehension and trial of the people responsible for shooting Duddingston and destroying the Gaspee.