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liament to export their tea free of duty to all places whatever. By this regulation it was expected that tea, though loaded with an exceptionable duty on its importation into America, would yet readily obtain purchasers among the Americans; as the vendors, relieved of the British export duty, could afford to sell it to them even cheaper than before it had been made a source of American revenue. The crisis now drew near when the Americans were to decide whether they would submit to be taxed by the British parliament, or practically support their own principles, and brave the most perilous consequences of their inflexibility. One common sentiment seemed to be awakened throughout the whole continent by the tidings of the ministerial plan, which was universally reprobated as an attempt at once injurious and insulting, to bribe the Americans to surrender their rights and bend their own necks to the yoke of arbitrary power. A violent ferment was every where excited: the corresponding committees and political clubs exerted their utmost activity to rouse and unite the people; and it was generally declared that as every citizen owed to his country the duty at least of refraining from being accessory to her subjugation, every man who should countenance the present dangerous measure of the British government should be deemed an enemy of America. Some of the popular leaders expressed doubts of the prudence of actual resistance to a measure of so

little intrinsic importance; and preferably urged that the people should be restrained from violence till the occurrence of an opportunity of rousing and directing their force against some invasion of American liberty more momentous and alarming. But to this suggestion it was reasonably and successfully replied, that such an opportunity might never occur again; that Britain, warned by the past, would avoid sudden and startling innovations; that her policy would be, - by multiplying posts and offices, and either bestowing them on her partisans, or employing them to corrupt her antagonists, - to increase her force proportionally faster than the force of the patriotic party would increase by the growth of the American population; that she had latterly sent out as her functionaries a number of young men who, marrying into provincial families of influence and consideration, had weakened the force of

American opposition; and that now was the time to profit by the general irritation of the people and the blunders which Britain had committed, in order to precipitate a collision which sooner or later was inevitable, and to prevent a seeming accommodation of the quarrel which would only expose the interests of America to additional disadvantage. The East India Company, confident of finding a market for their tea, reduced as it now was in price, freighted several ships to America with this commodity, and appointed consignees to receive and dispose of it. Some cargoes were sent to New York; some to Philadelphia; some to Charleston, the metropolis of South Carolina; and some to Boston. The inhabitants of New York and Philadelphia prevailed with the consignees to disclaim their functions, and forced the ships to return with their cargoes to London. The inhabitants of Charleston unladed the tea, and deposited it in public cellars where it was guarded from use and finally perished. At Boston the consignees, who were the near kinsmen of Governor Hutchinson, at first refused to resign their appointments; and the vessels containing the tea lay long in the harbour watched by a strong guard of the citizens who, from a numerous town-meeting, despatched the most peremptory commands to the ship-masters not to land their obnoxious cargoes. After much delay, the consignees, alarmed by the increasing violence of the people, solicited leave from the governor to resign, but were encouraged by him to persist. They proposed then to the people that the tea should be landed, and preserved in some public store or magazine; but this compromise was indignantly rejected. At length the popular rage could be contained no longer. From the symptoms of its dangerous fervour, the consignees fled in dismay to the castle; while an assemblage of men dressed and painted like Mohawk Indians, boarded the vessels and threw the tea into the ocean. The conduct of the East India Company in assisting the policy of the British government, strongly excited the displeasure of the Americans. This sentiment was manifested in a singular manner in Rhode Island, where a confederacy of respectable women united in resolutions to abstain from and discourage the use of tea procured from the East India Company. Learning that an inhabitant of the province had imported

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