Joseph Wanton - Governorship

Governorship

There is no evidence that Wanton held any important office in the colony prior to his election as governor in May 1769. Once elected, his first act was to send a letter to Lord Hillsborough, the Colonial Secretary of State, with whom his predecessor, Josias Lyndon, had corresponded. In the letter he boldly stated that it was not possible for him as Governor to obey the instructions of the crown "without acting diametrically opposite to the constitution of the colony...; we cannot but humbly express our opinion that the power exercised by the Parliament of Great Britain (in which we are not represented), of raising monies upon us without our consent (which it is possible under a bad administration, may be extended to our last penny), is a real grievance; we are not without hopes that his Majesty's rejecting our petition, is entirely owing to the false information he hath received from America, of the state and temper of his subjects here."

Disquiet among the American colonists caused by irritants such as the Stamp Act mounted during the 1760s, and the decade drew to a close with the most serious event yet. In July 1769 the British revenue ship Liberty brought into the Newport harbor two Connecticut vessels, a brig and a sloop, suspected of smuggling. When some difficulty arose between the officers of the Liberty and those of the brig, the captain of the brig was fired upon from the Liberty. That evening some Newport citizens, who considered the seizure of the two vessels to be an outrage, boarded the Liberty and scuttled it, while the two captured vessels sailed away. This was the first overt act of violence of the colonies against Great Britain, and showed the temperament of the people towards the British customs officers. Wanton issued a proclamation for the arrest of the guilty parties, but no arrests were ever made.