The Olive Branch Petition had still served an important purpose in American independence.

The King’s rejection has given Adams and others the opportunity to push for independence.

The rejection of the “olive branch” has polarized the issue in the minds of many colonists, who realize that, from this point forward, the choice is between complete independence or complete submission to British rule, a realization that will be crystallized a few months later in Thomas Paine's widely read pamphlet Common Sense.

The Continental Congress passes a resolution creating the Continental Marines to serve as landing troops for the recently created Continental Navy (the Marines will be disbanded at end of the war in April 1783 but will be reformed on July 11, 1798, as the United States Marine Corps).