The Intolerable Acts

The Intolerable Acts were never known by that name in America until the late 19th century.  This from the Journal of the American Revolution:

The label “Coercive Acts” does appear in period sources, including a very prominent one: George III’s speech to Parliament on 26 October 1775. The king insisted: 

"The Resolutions of Parliament breathed a Spirit of Moderation and Forbearance: conciliatory Propositions accompanied the Measures taken to enforce Authority, and the coercive Acts were adapted to Cases of criminal Combinations amongst Subjects not then in Arms." 

Not many American writers used that term, however. They usually referred to specific laws and policies that they disliked, sometimes by official names (“Port Bill”) and sometimes in their own terminology (John Adams, Samuel Adams, Joseph Hawley, and other Massachusetts Patriots referred to the Administration of Justice Act as the “Murder Act”). 

The Intolerable Acts
- The Boston Port Act - 18 March 1774 put before Parliament.  Passed effective 1 June 1774
-  The Massachusetts Government Act - Passed 20 May 1774.  Invoked by Gage in Oct. 1774
- The Administration of Justice Act -  Passed 20 May 1774.
- The Quartering Act of 1774 (and see here)
- The Quebec Act of 1774 (and see here)

Related:  26 Oct. 1774 Letter to Quebec from 1st Continental Congress inviting them to attend

Lord North's government has passed a total of five acts, some already known in the colonies by the title, The Intolerable Acts. The first of these is the Boston Port Act. It is an act of war against Boston, blockading their port until, ostensibly, the East India Company has been paid for the destroyed tea OR the King is satisfied that order has been restored to Boston. Lest anyone think that reasonable, you must focus on the “or.”

Let there be no mistake, more than one merchant has already offered to reimburse the East India Company in full for the tea destroyed in Boston, all offers of which have been refused by Lord North's government. Lord North and his Tory Parliament will not be satisfied with mere payment in specie. They want their pound of colonial flesh. Blockading and closing the port is meant to starve and impoverish every single one of the over fifteen thousand colonists who live in Boston.

Can anyone imagine anything more violative of our rights than this mass punishment. We, each of us, as set forth in the Bill of Rights of 1689, has a right to a fair trial by a jury of our peers. Only one hundred men destroyed the tea in Boston harbor on 16 December last. Yet Lord North is punishing every single person in Boston, almost all innocent, without a chance for any one of them to be heard at trial. This is not the act of a government whose power comes from the people. It is the whip hand of a cruel and heartless tyrant.

But this is not even the worst. More troubling for all of us should be the second of the Intolerable Acts, the Massachusetts Governing Act. With a stroke of the pen, Lord North has laid waste to self government throughout the entire colony of Massachusetts. Now all positions in their colony's government are to be filled by appointees of the Crown. The right of the people in the colony to freely elect their representatives and governing officials has been crushed. And does anyone think for a moment that if the Crown can do this in Massachusetts, that they could not or would not do the same to any other colony?

The third of the Intolerable Acts is the Administration of Justice Act. If anyone in the service to the king commits a crime in the colony of Massachusetts, no longer will they have to face justice there. The Royal Governor can direct that any trial of a servant of the crown be held in Britain. The only recompense to be paid any witness is travel expenses. No person but the richest of us could possibly afford the months that it would take to travel to Britain, wait for a trial, testify as a witness to a crime, then return. This act is virtually a license to murder, rape and plunder for every British official in Massachusetts.

The fourth of the Intolerable Acts is The Quartering Act, whereby Lord North is preparing all the colonies for occupation. Each colony must now be prepared to house soldiers of the King's Army, and in time of war, even in the private homes of its citizens.

The last of the Intolerable Acts is the Quebec Act, nearing passage as we speak. By that Act, our British government is now favoring the French Catholic provence of Quebec to the injury of her British colonies. Most outrageously, Lord North has granted Quebec control over vast terrirories to its south, lands that stand to the West of our colonies and all of which we conquered during French-Indian War. Our people have already begun to colonize those lands. Good British citizens are building new communities there. Yet now they are to be evicted in favor of the French?