This is a continuation from page 2 of this article.

In Rhode Island and Connecticut, thanks to their charters and politics, vice admiralty court proceedings were stayed by Whig judges of the common pleas court. The local courts assumed the same jurisdiction that England vested with King=s Bench courts. This was a constitutional tradition made sacred to English lawyers by Lord Coke=s great struggle against admiralty at the beginning of the 17th Century.

In Rhode Island it became commonplace that a Whig local civil judge would side with a merchant against the enforcement of the Trade and Customs Acts and employ English Constitutional Law to prevent vice admiralty proceedings for the collection of import duties or the seizing of contraband or to libel carriers of illegal goods.

  including a theory of the attack on the Gaspee being a legal proceeding!

Suggested  Books and Materials to Read

An Act Enabling Sheriffs, Constables Etc, to Require Aid and Assistance in the Execution of Their Respective Offices Referring to Criminals. 1698.

Boston Evening Post, reporter. "Letters from the Commissioners of the American Customs to the Lords of Trade, 16 June 1768,." Boston Evening Post, 18 Sep.1769, 1.

Carter, Clarence Edwin, ed. The Correspondence of Gen. Thomas Gage with the Secretaries of State 1763 - 1775. New Haven, CT, 1931.

Kidder, Frederick. History of the Boston Massacre. 1870.

Oliver, Peter. Origin and Progress of the American Revolution. Edited by Douglas Adair and John A. Schutz. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1961.

Reid, John Phillip. In a Defiant Stance. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State Univ. Press, 1977.

Wilkins, George G. "Daniel Malcolm and Writs of Assistance." Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings 58 (1924): 5.

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