National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I am here on the floor today to celebrate a significant event in our country's history and in Rhode Island. Every student of American history knows the story of the Boston Tea Party. We all learned about Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty dumping chests of tea into Boston Harbor to protest British taxation without representation.

What many students don't know is that down in Rhode Island, more than a year earlier, a group of Rhode Island patriots made an even harsher challenge to the British Empire one dark night in June of 1772. I am here to tell their story.

The episode began when amid growing tensions with colonists, King George III moved the HMS Gaspee, an armed British customs vessel, into Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay. The Gaspee and its captain, Lieutenant William Dudingston, were known for seizing cargo and flagging down ships only to harass, humiliate, and interrogate the colonials. As Nick Bunker, author of the book ``An Empire on the Edge'' wrote, this harassment did not sit well with Rhode Islanders, who had grown accustomed to a level of freedom unique in that time. ``Even by American standards, Rhode Island was an extreme case of popular government.''

The chapter in his book in which he describes this is entitled `` `This Dark Affair': The Gaspee Incident.'' Bunker went on to say: ``Out of all the colonies, Rhode Island was the one where the ocean entered most deeply into the lives of the people.'' And we wanted it free.

In July of 1663, over 100 years before the Gaspee incident, King Charles II had granted a royal charter establishing the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in New England. And the charter said it was ``to hold forth a lively experiment ..... that a most flourishing civil state may stand and best be maintained with full liberty in religious concernments.''

The ``lively experiment'' in Rhode Island blazed the path for American freedom of religion, a fundamental right of our great Nation. In Rhode Island, what were then considered radical ideologies of freedom ran very deep. A century later, William Dudingston would learn just how deep, as he went about harassing American vessels and confiscating their cargo. ``The British Armed Forces have come to regard almost every local merchant as a smuggler and a cheat,'' Bunker wrote. Rhode Islanders were fed up with the abuse. Something was bound to give.

In March of 1772, local seamen and traders led by John Brown signed a petition against the Gaspee. They brought it to Rhode Island Chief Justice Stephen Hopkins, a political leader in Providence and a relentless advocate for liberty.

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