"Sons of Liberty", source thereof

[Victor Steinbok]

Earlier--maybe, but not by much. My suggestion of the May date for the
transmission of the speech to the colonies was based on someone in the
delegation committing it to writing and sending it home by letter--or,
alternatively, showing up and delivering the report in person. Either
way, the delivery time would have been between 6 and 12 weeks. I don't
recall the exact timeline of when the delegates or their correspondence
made it back.  The earliest date would have been the very end of March.
The latest date would have put it in the first week of May--when the
continentals are known to have been discussing the results. We also know
that several messages were sent before the passage of the bill,
essentially resigned to its passage. So, if Barre's speech indeed was
the inspiration, several letters would have gone out either just before
or coincident with Ingersoll's. (The ships did not leave every day, so
if the earlier correspondents missed the mailbag, their letters would
have ended up on the same ship with Ingersoll's.) Either way, we are
talking about the difference of days, at most, in either direction
(Barre's speech predates Ingersoll's letter by about a week).

There is yet a third possibility--in addition to Barre inspiring the
name and to Barre borrowing the phrase from the colonies when he was
stationed there. Barre could have composed his speech in advance with
the aid of one of the colonist present in London, as he was in contact
with them during this period. Why is this significant? Consider the
possibility that someone like Franklin might have dropped the
possibility of this reference into Barre's ear the night before the
debate in Parliament. There was no association back home yet to take up
the name, so Barre's speech might have inspired it. Yet, the actual
source would have been not Barre, but the colonist who suggested it at
that particular moment, creating a feedback loop. How would historians
react if it turned out that the speech was jointly composed by Barre and
Franklin? Would this not change at least some interpretations of that
period? (I'm picking Franklin out of a hat, not suggesting that he was
actually the author.) It's unfortunate that 99.99% of this is
speculation. I certainly would like to have know what a paradigm shift
in American history feels like... ;-)

     VS-)


On 8/6/2012 9:36 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> 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!).
> ----------
>
> 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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