HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. CHAPTER XXX. ATTEMPT TO COLLECT THE TAX ON TEA. BOSTON PORT MASSACHUSETTS. CAN ASSOCIATION. CHUSETTS ASSUMES PROVINCIAL CONGRESS OF MASSA THE GOVERNMENT AND PRE PARES FOR WAR. INDIAN HOSTILITIES ON THE WEST- THE XXX. HE taxation dispute, after a ten years' growth, was CHAPTER now fast coming to a head. The ministers saw with no little vexation that the tax on tea, retained for the 1773. express purpose of vindicating the authority of Parliament, was substantially nullified, partly by smuggling, and partly by the non-importation and non-consumption agreements, observed as yet with considerable fidelity, especially in the middle and southern colonies. Perhaps it would have been the more politic course to have given time for these combinations to die away, leaving the gradual introduction of the use of duty-paid tea to the vigilance of the custom-house officers, to appetite, and commercial cupidity and rivalry. Instead of adopting that temporizing policy, the impatient ministers resolved to force at once upon the reluctant colonies a large quantity of the obnoxious article, well satisfied that, if landed and offered for sale, it would easily find its way into consumption. By an act of the preceding session, the allowance of exported had been reduced to three CHAPTER drawback on teas fifths of the duty. XXX. So far as America was concerned, a 1773. drawback of the whole duty was now revived. The July. existing restraints upon the East India Company, to export teas on their own account, were also repealed, and arrangements were presently entered into with that company for the consignment of several cargoes of teas to the principal American ports. No sooner did this project become known in America than steps were taken to counterwork it. A public Oct. 2. meeting of the people of Philadelphia protested, in eight resolutions, against taxation by Parliament, and denounced as "an enemy to his country" "whosoever shall aid or abet in unloading, receiving, or vending the tea." In accordance with one of the resolutions, a committee was appointed to wait on the reputed consignees in that city, "to request them, from a regard to their own characters, and the public peace and good order of the city and province, immediately to resign their appointments." The Messrs. Wharton gave a satisfactory answer, which was received with shouts of applause. Groans and hisses greeted the refusal of another firm to commit themselves till the tea arrived. The names of three well-known firms in Boston presently began to be noised about as the intended consignees of the East India Company's tea. An anonymous notice was sent to these reputed consignees to be present at noon on a certain day, under Liberty Tree, to resign their appointments, for which day and hour an anonymous hand-bill called a public meeting to hear their resNov. 3. ignation. Several hundred persons assembled accordingly; the consignees not appearing, a committee was sent to wait upon them; but this committee they treated with contempt. XXX. Nov. 5. Two days after, by a call of the selectmen, a legal CHAPTER town meeting was held, at which Hancock presided. After a preamble of their own, this meeting adopted the 1773. eight Philadelphia resolutions, with a supplement, acknowledging some remissness hitherto in the matter of the agreement not to import or consume tea, but insisting for the future upon strict observance. A committee, appointed in the terms of one of the resolutions, waited upon the consignees to request them to resign. After some little delay and evasion, they replied, that, being as yet without definite advices from England, they could give no decisive answer-a reply voted by the meeting "unsatisfactory" and "daringly affrontive." News presently arriving that the tea ships had sailed, and might be daily expected, another town meeting was summoned for the next day, to consult "what further Nov. 17. application shall be made to the consignees, or otherwise to act as the town shall think fit at the present dangerous crisis.” In the evening, the house of Clarke, one of the consignees, was surrounded by a crowd making many offensive noises, and a pistol having been fired at them, they retorted by smashing in the windows. The town meeting, the next day, sent a committee to Nov. 18. the consignees to inquire definitively whether or not they intended to resign. Upon receipt of an answer in the negative, the meeting dissolved without a word. This evidence of a determination to act instead of resolving, struck terror into the consignees. They presented a petition the next day to the governor and council, Nov. 19. asking to resign themselves and the property committed to their care into the hands" of his excellency and their honors," and praying them to take measures for landing and securing the teas.. The council, led by Bowdoin, were very little inclined to interfere. They deprecated XXX. CHAPTER the late riot at Clarke's house, at least in words, and advised that the rioters be prosecuted; but they asked 1773. further time to consider the petition. Several adjournments accordingly took place, and before any decision was reached one of the tea ships arrived. The council havNov. 28. ing met the next day, presented a paper to the governor declining to become parties to an unconstitutional attempt to levy taxes, against which the General Court had so repeatedly protested, or to make themselves chargeable for the tea by interfering to receive it. Meetings in all the neighboring towns had resolved to sustain Boston; and while the council was thus declining to intermeddle with the matter, a mass meeting, or "body," as they called themselves, of the people of Boston and Nov. 29. the neighboring towns, assembled in Faneuil Hall, sent for the owner of the tea ship, ordered her to be moored at a certain wharf, and appointed a guard of twenty-five volunteers to watch her. It was resolved to send her back with her cargo, and the master and the owner were charged not to attempt, at their peril, to unlade her. The consignees, among whom were two of the governor's sons, frightened at these demonstrations, took refuge at the castle, where was a regiment of British regulars. Nov. 30. The "body" having met again the next day, the governor sent the sheriff of the county with a proclamation declaring the meeting illegal, and ordering the people to disperse. They heard the message, hissed it, and voted unanimously not to regard it. The governor was powerless. He had ordered the Cadets, his guard of honor, to be in readiness; but what could he expect of a company commanded by Hancock? The troops at the castle and the ships of war in the harbor had no warrant to interfere in a purely municipal matter; nor was there any ground for the governor to call upon them till |