The Committees of Correspondence

"The colonists did not have e-mail, smart phones, Facebook or blogs, so the Committees of Correspondence served as a means of communication on issues that needed collective attention. The committee in Boston wrote to other colonies to rally united opposition to the Sugar Act and the Currency Act, sparking anti-government protests among the colonists...

Two of the men behind the movement were Samuel Adams and James Otis Jr.

Mr. Otis was an attorney who had gained notoriety for his pro bono representation of colonial merchants challenging the authority of the writs of assistance in 1761. These writs enabled British authorities to enter any colonist’s home with no advance notice, no probable cause and no reason given. (Today these writs are called national security letters and are authorized under the Patriot Act.) John Adams said of Otis’ five-hour oration in the Boston State House that

“the child independence was then and there born, [for] every man of an immense crowded audience appeared to me to go away as I did, ready to take arms against writs of assistance.”

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