British military and commercial aggression, not ideology, converted colonists to independence.

Evidence

Thereafter, with Parliament increasingly asserting its claimed authority over the colonies “in all case whatsoever,” it seemed that (as Samuel Adams put it), “one Event has brot another on” until most leading patriots favored separation. The Battle of Bunker Hill and the concurrent bombardment of Charlestown in June 1775 combined as one such event, the burning of Falmouth in October became another, Dunmore’s proclamation in November added a third, and the burning of Norfolk in January 1776 yet another. When news reached Congress in February 1776 that Parliament had passed the Prohibitory Act, which authorized the seizure in any situation of American merchant ships, Congress’s ship-owning president, John Hancock, who had not previously declared for independence, wryly noted, “The making all our Vessells lawful Prize don’t look like a Reconciliation” to me. Also in February, that news led the pro-reconciliation delegate Robert Morris, a Philadelphia merchant, to send a stern message to one of his British trading partners. “The burning of Towns, seizing our Ships, with numerous acts of wanton barbarity & Cruelty perpetrated by the British Forces has prepared Men’s minds for an Independency, that were shock’d at the idea a few weeks ago,” he warned. By March in North Carolina, the royal governor’s belligerence had driven the colony’s Provincial Congress to the cusp of formally endorsing separation. — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 157

Categorization

• XREF: Directly bears on the reader’s course interest in what first principles (rights, grievances against the Crown) grounded the Declaration; the escalation chain from Bunker Hill through the Prohibitory Act shows how facts, not theory, drove the break. — connects to: Military events directly shifted colonial political momentum toward independence — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 185; British attacks on the South converted moderates to independence by June 1776; Ideas and bloodshed together, not either alone, moved colonists to revolution (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Lived British abuses, not abstract declarations, drove New Jersey civilians to embrace independence. #exemplifies (0.95) — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 316
• British attacks on the South converted moderates to independence by June 1776 #exemplifies (0.90)
• Military events directly shifted colonial political momentum toward independence #expands (0.85) — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 185
• Ideas and bloodshed together, not either alone, moved colonists to revolution #qualifies (0.80)