Political Quotes

“I come here, as I do every year in the Senate, to commemorate the anniversary of a brave blow that Rhode Island struck for liberty and justice--the Gaspee Affair of 1772. On the night of June 9, and into the morning of June 10, 1772, in the waters of Rhode Island, a band of American patriots pushed back against their British overlords and drew the first blood of the struggle that would become the American Revolution. American schoolchildren, the pages here in this room, and all of us no doubt learned in their history books of the Boston revelers who painted their faces and pushed tea into Boston harbor. But those same history books often omit the tale of the Gaspee, a bloodier saga, which occurred more than a year earlier. As tensions with the American colonies grew, King George III stationed revenue cutters, armed customs patrol vessels, along the American coastline to prevent smuggling, enforce the payment of taxes, and impose the authority of the Crown. One of the most notorious of these ships was the HMS Gaspee, stationed in Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay. The Gaspee and its captain, Lieutenant William Dudingston, were known for destroying fishing vessels, unjustly seizing cargo, and flagging down ships that had properly passed customs inspection in Newport only to interrogate and humiliate the colonials. ``The British armed forces had come to regard almost every local merchant as a smuggler and a cheat,'' wrote author Nick Bunker about that era.…”