The Olive Branch Petition was adopted by the

Second Continental Congress The Second Continental Congress was a late-18th-century meeting of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that united in support of the American Revolutionary War. The Congress was creating a new country it first named "United Colonies" and in 1 ...

on July 5, 1775, and signed on July 8 in a final attempt to avoid war between Great Britain and the

Thirteen Colonies The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies, the Thirteen American Colonies, or later as the United Colonies, were a group of Kingdom of Great Britain, British Colony, colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Fo ...

in America. The Congress had already authorized the invasion of Canada more than a week earlier, but the petition affirmed American loyalty to Great Britain and entreated

King George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...

to prevent further conflict. It was followed by the July 6

Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms The Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms was a Resolution adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 6, 1775, which explains why the Thirteen Colonies had taken up arms in what had become the American Revolutionary War ...

, however, which made its success unlikely in London. In August 1775, the colonies were formally declared to be in rebellion by the

Proclamation of Rebellion The Proclamation of Rebellion, officially titled A Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition, was the response of George III to the news of the Battle of Bunker Hill at the outset of the American Revolution. Issued on 23 August 1775, ...

, and the petition was rejected by the British government; King George had refused to read it before declaring the colonists traitors.

Drafting

The Second Continental Congress convened in May 1775, and most delegates followed

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in his quest to reconcile with King George. However, a rather small group of delegates led by

John Adams John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Befor ...

believed that war was inevitable, and they decided that the wisest course of action was to remain quiet and wait for the opportune time to rally the people. This allowed Dickinson and his followers to pursue their own course for reconciliation. Dickinson was the primary author of the petition, though

Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...

John Jay John Jay (December 12, 1745 – May 17, 1829) was an American statesman, patriot, diplomat, abolitionist, signatory of the Treaty of Paris, and a Founding Father of the United States. He served as the second governor of New York and the first ...

John Rutledge John Rutledge (September 17, 1739 – June 21, 1800) was an American Founding Father, politician, and jurist who served as one of the original associate justices of the Supreme Court and the second chief justice of the United States. Additiona ...

, and Thomas Johnson also served on the drafting committee. Dickinson claimed that the colonies did not want independence but wanted more equitable trade and tax regulations. He asked that the King establish a lasting settlement between the Mother Country and the colonies "upon so firm a basis as to perpetuate its blessings, uninterrupted by any future dissensions, to succeeding generations in both countries", beginning with the repeal of the

Intolerable Acts The Intolerable Acts were a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party. The laws aimed to punish Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in the Tea Party protest of the Tea Act, a tax measure ...

. The introductory paragraph of the letter named twelve of the thirteen colonies, all except

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. The letter was approved on July 5 and signed by

John Hancock John Hancock ( – October 8, 1793) was an American Founding Father, merchant, statesman, and prominent Patriot of the American Revolution. He served as president of the Second Continental Congress and was the first and third Governor of the ...

, President of the Second Congress, and by representatives of the named twelve colonies. It was sent to London on July 8, 1775, in the care of Richard Penn and Arthur Lee. Dickinson hoped that news of the

Battles of Lexington and Concord The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. The battles were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord ...

combined with the "humble petition" would persuade the King to respond with a counter-proposal or open negotiations.

Reception and rejection

Adams wrote to a friend that the petition served no purpose, that war was inevitable, and that the colonies should have already raised a navy and taken British officials prisoner. The letter was intercepted by British officials and news of its contents reached Great Britain at about the same time as the petition itself. British advocates of a military response used Adams' letter to claim that the petition itself was insincere. Penn and Lee provided a copy of the petition to colonial secretary

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on August 21, followed with the original on September 1. They reported back on September 2: "we were told that as his Majesty did not receive it on the throne, no answer would be given." The King had already issued the

on August 23 in response to news of the

Battle of Bunker Hill The Battle of Bunker Hill was fought on June 17, 1775, during the Siege of Boston in the first stage of the American Revolutionary War. The battle is named after Bunker Hill in Charlestown, Massachusetts, which was peripherally involved in ...

, declaring the American colonies to be in a state of rebellion and ordering "all Our officers… and all Our obedient and loyal subjects, to use their utmost endeavours to withstand and suppress such rebellion". The hostilities which Adams had foreseen undercut the petition, and the King had answered it before it even reached him.

Consequences

The King's refusal to consider the petition gave Adams and others the opportunity to push for independence, viewing the King as intransigent and uninterested in addressing the colonists' grievances. It polarized the issue in the minds of many colonists, who realized that the choice from that point forward was between complete independence and complete submission to British rule, a realization crystallized a few months later in

Thomas Paine Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain; – In the contemporary record as noted by Conway, Paine's birth date is given as January 29, 1736–37. Common practice was to use a dash or a slash to separate the old-style year from the new-style year. In th ...

's widely read pamphlet ''

Common Sense ''Common Sense'' is a 47-page pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–1776 advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. Writing in clear and persuasive prose, Paine collected various moral and political argu ...

''.

References

External links

{{Authority control 1775 in international relations 1775 in the Thirteen Colonies Collection of The National Archives (United Kingdom) Ordinances of the Continental Congress Diplomacy during the American Revolutionary War Documents of the American Revolution Petitions 1775 documents George III of the United Kingdom

Drafting

Reception and rejection

Consequences

See also

References

External links