Knowles Riot

The Knowles Riot, also known as the Impressment Riot of 1747, was a three-day riot in Boston that began on November 17, 1747, in response to the impressment of 46 Bostonian men by Admiral Charles Knowles of the British navy. Hundreds of mostly working-class rioters rampaged through Boston, paralyzed the provincial government, and captured several naval officers and the sheriff's deputy. After Knowles threatened to bombard the town, Governor William Shirley persuaded him to release the Bostonians in exchange for the hostages.

The Knowles Riot was the largest impressment riot in North America, and the most serious anti-British riot in mainland colonial America prior to the Stamp Act protests of 1765. A few days after the incident, an anonymous writer—probably Samuel Adams—published a pamphlet praising the rioters for defending their natural rights. This was the first time the ideas of John Locke were used to justify resistance to British authority in the American colonies.

During Britain's wars of the 1740s, the Royal Navy expanded its use of impressment: the practice of forcing men, usually merchant seamen, into naval service. A captain who found himself shorthanded would send a "press-gang," armed with cudgels and cutlasses, onto a merchant ship to capture sailors for his own crew, often with the cooperation of local authorities. Those who were impressed remained in the service until they escaped or died, or the current war ended. Naturally they resented this treatment, for the same reasons that made recruiting difficult in the first place: the work was hard and dangerous, and for skilled sailors especially, the wages were low. Sometimes they resisted, and a riot ensued.

In the American colonies, British law governing impressment was subject to dispute. Parliament had exempted the American colonies from impressment in 1708, but later claimed that the exemption had been temporary. In 1746, a ban on impressment in the West Indies caused further confusion and controversy. As a result, Americans who resisted impressment often believed that they were within their legal rights to do so. Boston seamen were particularly insistent on this point, for a number of reasons. Many of them had taken part in the Siege of Louisbourg, and in return for their service had been promised by Commodore Peter Warren of the Royal Navy that they would not be impressed. Furthermore, because Boston depended on its seamen to transport food and fuel to the city, Governor Shirley made a point when issuing impressment warrants of limiting them to non-residents of Massachusetts on inbound vessels. Outbound vessels, fishing vessels, and coasters were strictly off limits.