The 33 Strategies of War

by Robert Greene

Having gained momentum, the relentless Adams would not stop. He organized a statewide work stoppage for the day the act was to become law: shops would close, the courts would be empty. Since no business would be conducted in Massachusetts, no stamps would be purchased. The boycott was massively successful. Adams’s articles, demonstrations, and boycott made a splash in England, and there were members of Parliament who sympathized with the colonists and spoke out against the Stamp Act. Finally King George III had had enough, and in April 1766 the act was repealed. Americans rejoiced at their first show of power. The British were smarting from their defeat, however, and the following year they sneaked in another series of indirect taxes known as the Townshend System. Clearly they had underestimated their enemy: Adams went to war. As he had with the Stamp Act, he wrote countless articles on the nature of the taxes the English had tried to disguise, once again stirring up anger. He also organized further demonstrations by the Sons of Liberty, now more menacing and violent than ever—in fact, the English were forced to send troops to Boston to keep the peace. This had been Adams’s goal all along; he had ratcheted up the tension. Belligerent encounters between the Sons of Liberty and the English troops put the soldiers on edge, and finally a nervous group of them fired into a crowd, killing several Bostonians. Adams called this the Boston Massacre and spread fiery word of it throu...