Editing Gaspee affair (section)

===Charges and investigative commission===
Previous attacks by the Americans on British naval vessels had gone unpunished. In one case, a customs yacht had been destroyed by fire with no administrative response.<ref>Staples (1845), p. xxxii</ref>  

But in 1772, the Admiralty would not ignore the destruction of one of its military vessels on station. The [[Secretary of State for the Colonies|American Department]] consulted the solicitor and attorneys general, who investigated and advised the Privy Council on the legal and constitutional options available. This included charges of [[arson in royal dockyards]] but the idea was dismissed as not legally credible, as ''Gaspee'' was not in a dockyard when it was burned.<ref>{{multiref| {{cite journal |last1=Morgan |first1=Gwenda |last2=Rushton |first2=Peter |title=Arson, Treason and Plot: Britain, America and the Law, 1770–1777 |journal=History |date=2015 |volume=100 |issue=3 (341) |page=385 |doi=10.1111/1468-229X.12111 |jstor=24809702 |issn=0018-2648 |url=http://sure.sunderland.ac.uk/id/eprint/5773/1/Arson_Treason_and_Plot_2014d_%282%29.pdf |quote=But they also judged that the dockyards act might be difficult to implement, as it extended only to 'such ships as are burnt or otherwise destroyed in some Dockyard and not to Ships upon active Service'.}}| {{cite journal |last1=Leslie |first1=William R. |title=The Gaspee Affair: A Study of Its Constitutional Significance |journal=The Mississippi Valley Historical Review |date=1952 |volume=39 |issue=2 |page=239 |doi=10.2307/1892182 |jstor=1892182 |issn=0161-391X}} }}</ref>  
The Crown turned to a centuries-old institution of investigation: the [[Royal commission|Royal Commission]] of Inquiry, made up of the chiefs of the supreme courts of Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey, the judge of the vice-admiralty of Boston, and Rhode Island Governor Wanton.{{cn|date=June 2022}}

The Dockyard Act passed in April demanded that anyone suspected of burning British ships should be extradited and tried in England; however, the ''Gaspee'' raiders were charged with treason.<ref>Edward Thurlow and Alexander Wedderburn (the attorney and solicitor general) wrote to the Earl of Hillsborough on August 10, 1772, dismissing the Dockyard Act and demanding the charge of high treason instead for levying war against the king.  National Archives (Public Record Office, United Kingdom) CO (Colonial Office Records) 5 159 folder 26.</ref> The task of the commission was to determine which colonists had sufficient evidence against them to warrant shipping them to England for trial.  The commission was unable to obtain sufficient evidence and declared their inability to deal with the case.{{cn|date=June 2022}}