The 1772 incident in which Rhode Island residents burned a British customs ship was the Gaspee Affair.
On June 9, 1772, the British revenue schooner HMS Gaspee ran aground near Warwick, Rhode Island, while pursuing a local merchant vessel. During the night, an armed group led by Abraham Whipple and John Brown boarded the ship. They wounded its commander, Lieutenant William Dudingston, removed the crew, and burned the Gaspee.
The vessel had enforced British customs regulations and was unpopular among Rhode Island merchants. The attack was one of the earliest violent acts of resistance to British authority in the colonies, occurring before the Boston Tea Party of December 1773. British officials offered a reward for information and attempted to bring the attackers to England for trial, but no one was successfully prosecuted.
The affair intensified colonial distrust of imperial courts and enforcement. Rhode Island later became the first colony to renounce allegiance to the British Crown, on May 4, 1776.