Editing Committees of correspondence (section)

===Massachusetts===
{{Further|Province of Massachusetts Bay}}
In November 1772 in the [[Province of Massachusetts Bay]], [[Samuel Adams]], [[Joseph Warren]], and [[Mercy Otis Warren]] formed a committee in response to the [[Gaspee affair|''Gaspée'' Affair]] and to the recent British decision to have the salaries of the royal governor and judges be paid by the British Crown rather than the colonial assembly, a measure which effectively stripped the colony of its means of holding public officials accountable to their constituents.

In the following months, more than one hundred other committees were formed in towns and villages throughout Massachusetts. The Massachusetts committee's headquarters, based in  Boston and led by Adams, became a model for other Patriot groups. The meeting establishing the committee set its purpose, outlining "the rights of the colonists, and of this province in particular, as men, as [[Christianity|Christians]], and as subjects; to communicate and publish the same to the several towns in this province and to the world as the sense of this town."<ref>[[#Smith|Smith (1976)]], p. 368.</ref>