Missed the first posts on the Good Intent incident? Read them here:
And now we continue our story...
The four men who disavowed their own boycott enforcement committee’s pamphlet about the Good Intent episode didn’t have to wait long for responses from those they held responsible for its content. Just a week after the disgruntled members’ complaint appeared in the Maryland Gazette, the April 26, 1770 paper printed replies from both William Paca and Stephen West. West’s letter was brief and dismissive, Paca’s long and lawyerly in construction and tone.
After dismantling his critics’ objections to the pamphlet, William Paca asked them:
“whether it was prudent in you, upon an Occasion so groundless and trifling, to start Differences among the Committees, upon a Point in which the general Welfare is so deeply interested? … [A] Moment’s Reflection might have apprised you of the bad Consequences of a Contrariety of Sentiment among Men, delegated for the essential Service of enforcing an Adherence to this Association.”
Essentially, why raise such a big fuss over such minor issues when unity is needed?
In closing, William Paca warned:
“When Passion, Gentlemen, takes the start of Reason, Folly and Repentance are the sure Consequences.”
His and West’s detractors had let their Passion get the better of their Reason, and Paca was only too happy to point out their Folly. And he wanted to make one final point very clear: he, not Stephen West, was the principal author and “Penman of the Pamphlet,” including “the Paragraph objected to in your Publication.” Anyone who had a problem with that should leave West alone and take it up directly with “Your humble Servant, William Paca.”
Read this Maryland Gazette issue from 250 years ago starting at https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc4800/sc4872/001281/html/m1281-1008.html
Glenn E. Campbell
Senior Historian
#history #annapolis #annapolishistory #news #annapolisnews #1770news #colonialnews #colonialhistory #marylandgazette
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