e, so there was little sympathy among Virginians for the
destruction of tea in Boston harbor by a "tribe of Indians" on December
16, 1774. Old colonial friends in England including Burke, Chatham,
Rose Fuller, and even Isaac Barre were also shocked.

Parliament saw the issue as order, government by law, protection of
private property, and even treason. The long history of riotous actions
by Bostonians was recalled. The commons decided that the time had come
to stand firm. Repeal of the Stamp Act and Townshend Duties had not
brought respect for and acceptance of authority. Mason's "dutiful
child" now was to be "whipped". Boston must be brought into line for
her obstreperousness. The response of parliament was slow, measured,
and calculated. The Coercive Acts (the English name, not the colonial)
took two months to pass. By these acts: 1) the port of Boston was
closed until the destroyed tea was paid for; 2) the Massachusetts
government was radically restructured, the governor's powers enhanced,
and the town meetings abolished; 3) trials of English officials accused
of felonies could be moved to England; and 4) a new Quartering Act
applicable to all colonies went into effect.

At the same time, and unconnected with the Coercive Act, parliament
rendered its final solution to the western land problems by passing the
Quebec Act of 1774. Most of the provisions of the Proclamation of 1763
respecting government were made permanent. All the land north of the
Ohio was to be in a province governed from Quebec. Lost was the hope of
many Virginia land company speculators and those in other colonies as
well. Not only was the land now in the hands of their former French
enemies in Quebec, but the land would be distributed from London and
fall into the hands of Englishmen, not colonials. Coming as it did just
after Governor Dunmore and Colonel Andrew Lewis and his land-hungry
valley frontiersmen had driven the Shawnees north of the Ohio in the
bloody battle of Point Pleasant (1774) (also called Dunmore's War), the
Quebec Act was seen in Virginia as one more act of an oppressive
government, one more act in which the Americans had suffered at the
expense of another part of the empire. That the act was a reasonable
solution to a knotty problem was overlooked.

When the Virginians talked about the Coercive Acts, they called them
the Intolerable Acts and included not just the four Massachusetts laws
but the Quebec Act as well.

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