John Cole (judge)

In this role he was on a committee to draft instructions to Providence citizens in regards to protesting the egregious Stamp Act passed by the British parliament to tax the American colonists.

During the lead up to the American Revolutionary War Cole was privy to the plan and execution of the burning of the British revenue schooner Gaspee that ran aground near Pawtuxet, Rhode Island.

He was deeply complicit with Stephen Hopkins and other leading Providence citizens in withholding evidence from the British commission of inquiry that was established to find the instigators of the Gaspee Affair.

[6] The biggest issue with which he was involved as the Chief Justice was the Stamp Act, which was a form of tax thrust upon the American colonies by the British parliament.

Though Cole stepped down as the Chief Justice in May 1765,[5] he immediately became a colonial legislator representing Providence, and in this capacity responded to the Stamp Act.

Sessions expressed alarm that the British schooner Gaspee had been cruising the Narragansett Bay, disrupting the traffic by stopping and searching commercial ships.

Cole was among a large group of Providence citizens that assembled at James Sabin's Inn that evening to plan an attack on the stranded vessel.

During the night, a large party of these men boarded eight long boats, rowed out to the Gaspee, captured its crew, and set the vessel on fire, burning it to the waterline.

To ameliorate retribution by the British authorities, Rhode Island officials took visible steps to find the culprits who burned the ship.

[8] With his solid legal background, Cole was brought into the Rhode Island Committee of Correspondence, and conferred with Sessions, Chief Justice Hopkins and Moses Brown on a course of action.

The four men drafted a letter to Massachusetts' statesman Samuel Adams, who replied, urging Rhode Island to remain defiant, or at least to stall matters by appealing the creation of the royal commission.

[8] As the threat of war became imminent, Cole was appointed in 1775 as the Advocate General of the newly formed Vice Admiralty Court, and held this position until his death.