Gaspee Affair

June 10, 1772

Rhode Island merchants, annoyed by a zealous British customs schooner, rowed out at night and set the Gaspee on fire in Narragansett Bay. Lord North's government appointed a royal commission to investigate, threatening to take colonists to England for trial. The colonies formed Committees of Correspondence in response. No one was ever convicted, and the incident proved that colonial juries would not punish resistance to the Crown.