Boston popular leaders and the Boston Gazette call for non-importation. They are in control of lower house but the Mass radicals face steep opposition. Merchants fear for their pocketbooks and a revival of mob action. For a year in Boston Town Meeting and the Assembly they delayed any radical action. February, 1768 the Popular Party in an Assembly session with many absentees passed a Circular Letter drafted by Samuel Adams, stating objections to the Townshend duties and asking other colonies to organize a protest. April, 1768, Hillsborough receiving the Mass. Circular Letter, write Gov. Bernard in Boston to demand the Assembly retract it. He  orders colonial governors to stop their own assemblies from endorsing Adams' circular letter. Hillsborough also orders the governor of Massachusetts to dissolve the general court if the Massachusetts assembly does not revoke the letter. By month's end, the assemblies of New Hampshire, Connecticut and New Jersey have endorsed the letter. Commissioners of Customs  radicalize merchants who  approach Otis-Adams faction again and they develop the device of BOYCOTT.
	July, 1768 John Hancock heads a “standing committee” to draft a new agreement prohibiting import of all British goods for a year beginning January 1, 1769. Huge meeting in Faneuil Hall approves it. Most signers were artisans who benefited from lack of British goods.
	Bernard dissolved Assembly and towns, upon request or Boston selectmen, move for a convention in Faneuil Hall – pointing way to extra-legal organization
	Although Boston merchants were the first merchants in America to call for economic moves against Britain,  even in Boston the boycott came mostly from patriot leaders. Merchants were more reluctant
	Obstructionist tactics towards Commissioners led them in late winter,  1768  to  request military support.
	June, 1768 – Riot over seizure or the Liberty
	Oct 1, 1768 Hillsborough orders regiment to Boston because of treatment of Customs Officials.  Town refuses quartering help and officers have to rent  quarters for men with own money.
	Summer, 1769, Bernard ordered home for briefing and Hutchinson becomes governor.
	September, 1769, James Otis gets into brawl with soldiers and is badly injured.  S Adams becomes more central to radical movement.
	During winter, 1769 Adams newspaper propaganda and legal harassment mounted. Sons of Liberty ambush patrols with sticks an stones.
	“Boston Massacre”  March 5, 1770

 

	In NY and Phil merchants were more reluctant.  Not until a year after the law took effect did the Nonimportation Agreement became a reality.  Hillsborough Letter played a part in moving to radicalize the merchants. Finally NY merchants adopt more radical agreement – open-ended until Townshend Acts were repealed. Signers were mostly artisans and small shopkeepers and agreed to boycott non-cooperative merchants as an enforcement mechanism.
	Philadelphia: merchants resisted until March, 1769 and then agreed to exclude abut 20 items.
	Merchants in South were also both frightened and encouraged to cooperate. Virginia: non-importation got linked to planters’ debt issue. May, 1769 Burgesses resolved that Parliament did not have power over Americans and asked the King to intervene.  The Governor. then dissolved Burgesses who reassembled in the Apollo Room of Raleigh Tavern. New radicals joined Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee, i.e. Washington and Jefferson (then 26). They went beyond non-importation agreement and added a list of luxury items.