section_path: Origins/1774–1775: Intolerable Acts
section_name: 1774–1775: Intolerable Acts
paragraph_text: 1774–1775: Intolerable Acts
  
  The British government responded by passing four laws that came to be known as the Intolerable Acts, further darkening colonial opinion towards England. The first was the Massachusetts Government Act which altered the Massachusetts charter and restricted town meetings. The second was the Administration of Justice Act which ordered that all British soldiers to be tried were to be arraigned in Britain, not in the colonies. The third was the Boston Port Act, which closed the port of Boston until the British had been compensated for the tea lost in the Boston Tea Party. The fourth was the Quartering Act of 1774, which allowed royal governors to house British troops in the homes of citizens without permission of the owner.
  
  In response, Massachusetts patriots issued the Suffolk Resolves and formed an alternative shadow government known as the Provincial Congress, which began training militia outside British-occupied Boston. In September 1774, the First Continental Congress convened, consisting of representatives from each colony, to serve as a vehicle for deliberation and collective action. During secret debates, conservative Joseph Galloway proposed the creation of a colonial Parliament that would be able to approve or disapprove acts of the British Parliament, but his idea was tabled in a vote of 6 to 5 and was subsequently removed from the record. Congress called for a boycott beginning on December 1, 1774, of all British goods; it was enforced by new local committees authorized by the Congress. It also began coordinating Patriot resistance by militias which existed in every colony and which had gained military experience in the French and Indian War. For the first time, the Patriots were armed and unified against Parliament.