What was the Gaspee Affair?

Question

What was the Gaspee Affair?

Answer 1

The Gaspee Affair

A Lieutenant William Duddington, of Her Majesties Ship Gaspee, was charged with patrolling the waters of Narragansett Bay, off Rhode Island. Duddington had earned a reputation as an overzealous enforcer; boarding and detaining vessels and confiscating cargoes, often without charge, and without recourse for merchants who's goods were impounded. Losses were mounting and it was widely believed that these harassments were directed specifically at members of the Sons of Liberty.

On June 9, 1772, a local vessel out of Newport was under way to Providence when its captain baited the HMS Gaspee and lead Duddington into shallow waters near Warwick. The Gaspee ran aground at a place that is now known as Gaspee point. News of the grounding quickly reached Providence and a party of fifty five, lead by a man named John Brown, planned an attack on the ship. The following evening they surrounded and boarded the Gaspee, wounding Duddington and capturing the entire crew. All were hauled ashore and abandoned, to watch as the Gaspee was looted and then burned.

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Answer 2

The Gaspée Affair was an important incident in the course of the American Revolution. HMS Gaspée, a British revenue schooner that had been vigorously enforcing unpopular trade regulations, ran aground in shallow water, on June 9, 1772 near what is now known as Gaspee Point in the city of Warwick, Rhode Island while chasing the packet boat Hannah.[1] In an act of defiance that gained considerable notoriety, the ship was attacked, boarded, stripped of valuables and torched by American patriots led by Abraham Whipple. [2]

Answer 3

Before the American Revolution, when the colonists were protesting taxes imposed on them by the British government, smuggling was a common practice to avoid taxes on imports and exports.

British revenue schooner HMS Gaspee was sailing off the coast of Rhode Island, enforcing import duties, when she ran aground.  Members of the Sons of Liberty in that colony, acting much like their brothers in Boston that had performed the Boston Tea Party, went aboard the ship and burned her.  The Royal Navy and the British government were upset that the colonists had done such a thing to a British ship and tighter regulations were imposed on the Americans.

>"Elizabeth" has a good answer.  However, at the time HMS would have stood for His Majesty's Ship, as George III was the reigning monarch in England.