CHAP. VIII.

PREPARATIONS FOR GENERAL RESISTANCE.

699

question. It was answered in the affirmative, and it was resolved that tea, whatever its price, should not be landed in America until that duty was taken off. The committees of correspondence soon produced unity of sentiment on that point throughout the colonies. Public meetings were held. Mutual support was pledged; the agents or consignees were requested to resign, and when the tea-ships arrived, they were not allowed in some places to discharge their cargoes. The spirit of the stamp-act days was aroused. The earliest public

meeting to consider the reception that should be given to the tea-ships on their arrival, was held in the city of New York, on the 15th of October, 1773. Intimations had reached the city on the 11th, that a tea-ship had been ordered to that port; and at the meeting held at the coffee-house, in Wall street, grateful thanks. were voted to the patriotic American merchants and ship-masters in London who had refused to receive tea as freight from the East India Company. On the following day (October 16) a large meeting was held in the State-house yard, in Philadelphia, for the same purpose. When word reached the city that a tea-ship had been ordered to that port, the newspapers denounced the whole scheme as a ministerial trick to ensnare and enslave the Americans. The people were much excited, and the meeting in the State-house yard was a "monster" gathering for that day. Eight spirited resolutions were adopted, the most vital of which was one that declared "That the resolution lately entered into by the East India Company, to send out their tea to America subject to the payment of duties on its being landed here, is an open attempt to enforce the ministerial plan, and a violent attack upon the liberties of America." They also resolved that it was the duty of every American to oppose the attempt to force the tea and taxes upon them. The consignees

LORD NORTH.

of the proscribed herb, in Philadelphia, were, by another resolution, requested, "from a regard to their character and the good order of the city and province, immediately to resign." Already a self-constituted “committee for tarring and feathering” had issued a manifest to the pilots on the Delaware, telling them to do their duty in case they should meet the teaship Polly, Captain Ayres. They were to warn him not to go to Philadelphia, and to promise him, in case he persisted in doing so, that he would have "a halter around his neck, ten gallons of liquid tar scattered over his pate, with the feathers of a dozen wild geese laid over that to enliven his appearance." The same committee threatened the consignees; and when, on Christmas day, the news reached Philadelphia that the long-expected Polly was "below," several gentlemen proceeded to meet her. She was intercepted a few miles below the city. When her captain was told about public sentiment in Philadelphia, he left his ship and accompanied the gentlemen to the city. The next day an immense public meeting was held at the State-house, to "consider what was best to be done in that alarming crisis." It was resolved that the tea should not be landed, nor the tea-ship be allowed to enter the port, or be registered at the Custom-house. It was also resolved that the tea should be sent back, and that the vessel should make her way out of the river and bay as soon as possible.

News that a similar spirit had been manifested in Charleston, New York and Boston, drew hearty thanks from the meeting in Philadelphia. The Captain (Ayres) of the Polly pledged himself to conform to the wishes of the people, and so the latter triumphed. A contemporary writer said: "The foundations of American liberty are more deeply laid than ever."

When the tea-ship Nancy, Captain Lockyier, arrived at Sandy Hook, below New York, her master wisely heeded the advice of the pilot, and went to the city without his vessel. Already a notice had appeared in Holt's Journal of that city, for the "Mohawks" to be in readiness when a tea-ship should arrive; and the captain found public sentiment so strong against receiving the tea, that he resolved to return to England with his cargo. While he was in the city, a circumstance occurred which justified him in making his decision. A merchant vessel arrived with eighteen chests of tea hidden away in her cargo. The wide-awake Sons of Liberty, suspecting smuggling, searched the vessel, and on finding the tea, cast the whole of it into the waters of the harbor. The captain was advised to leave New York as quickly as possible. As he and Lockyier put off in a boat for their respective vessels, at Whitehall (foot of Broad street), a multitude who had gathered there shouted a farewell; and while cannon-peals from the Fields shook the city, the people hoisted a British flag on the LibertyPole in token of triumph.

CHAP. VIII.

CONSIGNEES OF TEA IN BOSTON.

701

At Boston, yet the focus of resistance to British oppression, the greatest demonstrations concerning the tea-ships occurred. When the people heard of the sailing of these ships, they resolved to resist the landing of their cargoes at all hazards. The subject was discussed at the clubs and coffeehouses, with great warmth. The consignees were two of Governor Hutchinson's sons and his nephew, Richard Clarke, the father-in-law of John Singleton Copley, the artist. Their near relationship to the detested governor made them more obnoxious in the eyes of the Sons of Liberty. They were invited to appear before a meeting of citizens to be held under LibertyTree, on the 3d of November, where about five hundred citizens assembled, some of them leaders of popular opinion. A flag floated over the consecrated tree. The consignees did not appear, and a committee was appointed to wait upon them. They repelled the committee with discourtesy, and refused to agree, as was demanded of them, to return the tea to London in the same ships in which it should arrive. When the committee reported to the meeting, there was a cry-"Out with our enemies! Out with them!" The excited people were persuaded to disperse, and two days afterward a regular town-meeting was held. The next day another committee called upon the consignees with a request that they should resign. Their answer was: "It is out of our power to comply with the request of the town." On receiving this reply, the meeting broke up without the utterance of a single word; and that night a crowd gathered in front of Clarke's house, when a pistol-ball was fired among them from a window of the dwelling. Nobody was hurt, and the affair ended in the smashing of Clarke's windows.

The silence of the town-meeting, on its dissolution, was ominous. The consignees felt it to be so. It plainly indicated that talking was over, and henceforth there would be action. They saw that they were now to be dealt with by the able committee of correspondence and the populace, and they were alarmed. The governor called a meeting of his council to consult about measures for preserving the public peace. The consignees, thoroughly frightened, petitioned leave to resign their appointments into the hands of the governor and council, but their prayer was refused. Believing themselves to be in personal peril, they fled from the city and took refuge in Castle William.

CHAPTER IX.

THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY -ITS EFFECTS AT HOME AND ABROAD-WRATH OF THE ROYALISTS

THE BOSTON PORT BILL-OPPOSITION OF BURKE AND OTHERS-CHARLES JAMES FOX

IGNORANCE CONCERNING AMERICANS-OTHER MEASURES FOR PUNISHING THE BOSTONIANS ADOPTED-APPREHENSIONS OF THE MINISTRY--THE PETITION FOR THE REMOVAL OF HUTCHINSON-FRANKLIN BEFORE THE PRIVY COUNCIL-BAD MANNERS OF THE LORDS-FRANKLIN IS DISMISSED FROM OFFICE.

O

N Monday morning, the 29th of November, 1773, a handbill was posted all over Boston, containing the following words:

"Friends! Brethren! Countrymen !—That worst of plagues, the detested tea, shipped for this port by the East India Company, is now arrived in the harbor; the hour of destruction, or manly opposition to the machinations of tyranny, stares you in the face. Every friend to his country, to himself and to posterity, is now called upon to meet at Faneuil Hall, at nine o'clock THIS DAY (at which time the bells will ring), to make united and successful resistance to this last, worst, and most destructive measure of administration."

The ship Dartmouth, from London, with a cargo of tea, had anchored off the castle the day before. By invitation of the Boston Committee of Correspondence those of Roxbury, Cambridge, Dorchester and Brookline assembled in the room of the selectmen, while crowds of citizens were pouring into Faneuil Hall, and resolved, by unanimous vote, to use their joint influence to prevent the landing of the tea. It was also resolved to invite all the town-committees in the province to co-operate with them. The crowd soon became so great that the Hall could not contain them, and the meeting was adjourned to the Old South Meeting-house. There the people resolved that the tea should not be landed; that no duty should be paid ; and that it should be sent back in the same bottom. They also voted that Francis Rotch, the owner of the vessel, should be directed not to enter the tea, at his peril, and that the captain of the Dartmouth should also be warned not to suffer the tea to be landed. Orders were given for the ship to be moored at Griffin's Wharf, and twenty citizens were appointed a guard to watch her.

CHAP. IX.

FIRMNESS OF THE PEOPLE OF BOSTON.

703

A letter came to the meeting from the consignees, offering to store the tea until they could write to England and receive instructions. "Not a pound of it shall be landed," said the meeting. They also resolved that two other tea-ships, then hourly expected, should, on their arrival, be moored alongside the Dartmouth, in charge of the same volunteer guard. The meeting quietly adjourned, and the movements of the people were governed by the Committee of Correspondence. They appointed a number of postriders to carry news to the other towns, in case there should be an attempt to land the tea by force.

On the 14th of December, another meeting was held in the Old South, when it was resolved to order Mr. Rotch to immediately apply for a clearance for his ship and send her to sea, for his cargo had all been landed excepting the chests of tea. In the meantime, the governor had taken measures to prevent her sailing out of the harbor before the tea should be landed; and he wrote to the ministry, advising the prosecution of some of the leaders of the Sons of Liberty in Boston, for high crimes and misdemeanors. He ordered Admiral Montagu to place two armed ships at the entrance to Boston harbor, to prevent the egress of vessels; and he directed Colonel Leslie, who was in command of the Castle, not to allow any vessel to pass out from the range of his great guns, without a permit signed by himself.

The excitement of the people was now at fever heat. The issues of every future hour were looked for with great anxiety. The air was full of rumors—some true, some false-and on the 16th of December (1773), the day to which the meeting was adjourned, the largest assembly then ever seen in Boston were gathered in the Old South Meeting-house, and its vicinity. Samuel P. Savage, of Weston, presided. Full two thousand men from the neighboring towns were there. Seven thousand men soon filled the great fane and overflowed into the street. It was reported that the Custom-house officers had refused to give Mr. Rotch a clearance for his vessel before the tea-the whole cargo-should be landed. "No vessel can pass the Castle without my permission, and I will not give it," thought the governor, as he rode out to his country-seat at Milton; and he believed he had secured a victory. Not so thought the people. When the great assembly heard of the refusal of the Custom-house officers to grant a clearance, they said to Mr. Rotch: "Go to the governor; protest against their action, and ask him for a permit for your vessel to sail." He hastened to the governor in the country, and the meeting adjourned until three o'clock. When they reassembled the merchant had not returned, and the question was put to the meeting: "In case the governor shall refuse his permission, will you