The Long and the Short of It: A Newspaper Exchange on the Massachusetts Charters, 1772

W rrITH that short query, hidden among the advertisements in the Boston News-Letter of January i6, I772, began a little-known exchange of letters contributive to the ideological debate that preceded the War for American Independence. The loyalist "Bob Short" and his patriot adversary "Tom Long" (neither of whom has been identified) were overshadowed by more famous and prolific writers, but their discussion of the nature and meaning of the colonial charters and the word independence is unequaled in the literature of the Revolutionary period. In several ways they were both ahead of their time. Short was bent on proving that Massachusetts was not "independent" (that is, free from parliamentary control), but by being among the first to use the word he helped give a new direction to the controversy. He also adduced several new and ingenious arguments for Parliament's supremacy. Long, for his part, took up the notion of "independence" and developed it into a revolutionary theory of the relationship of king, Parliament, and colony. Before I772 no patriot writer had dared to express so openly as Long the idea of a direct contractual link between monarch and colonies, thus denying the sovereignty of King-in-Parliament; only several years later did this become standard doctrine. The exchange between Long and Short produced a number of new arguments, rephrased some old ones, and revealed the depth of the