"Sons of Liberty", source thereof

[Joel S. Berson]

Further digging in my mailbag turned up the
following [slightly edited].  Clearly Ingersoll's
claim of having been "the Author of this Title
(Sons of Liberty)" is suspect, since the phrase
was in use in the preceding 27 years (at least, twice!).
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I now have a slightly earlier report of Barré's speech than May 1765.

Letter, from Jared Ingersoll to [Thomas] Fitch,
1765 Feb. 11, London.  In _Mr. Ingersoll's
Letters Relating to The Stamp-Act_ (New Haven; Samuel Green, 1766), p. 16.

"Men, whose Behavior, on many Occasions, has
caused the Blood of those Sons of Liberty, to recoil within them".

[Ingersoll has put quotation marks around the words he attributes to Barré.]

In a footnote, Ingersoll writes "I believe I may
claim the Honour of having been the Author of
this Title (Sons of Liberty) however little
personal Good I have got by it, having been the
only Person, by what I can discover, who
transmitted Mr. Barré's Speech to
America."  Perhaps the earliest if not the only
transmitter, since the Boston Post-Boy report is 3 1/2 months later.

---------
Joel

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