American trade led Parliament in 1770 to repeal all of the duties imposed in 1767, except the tax on tea. The tea tax was continued in order to establish the principle that Parliament had the right to tax the people of the colonies. How Keeping British Troops in America Caused Trouble. As we have seen, it was a part of the new British policy toward British the colonies to keep troops in America after the close of the troops in French and Indian War. The most of these soldiers were America stationed in the conquered French province of Canada and at Fort Pitt, Fort Niagara, Detroit and other points on the western frontier. It was expected that their presence at these places would help to protect the border settlements from Indian attacks. It was not long, however, before the red coats of the British soldiers became a familiar sight upon the streets of the city of New York. The commander-in-chief of the British forces in America early established his headquarters in New York because the physical geography of the country made that New York refuses to provide for the troops city its natural military center. From New York, troops could easily be sent to Canada, by way of the Hudson River and Lake Champlain, to the western frontier through the Mohawk Valley and along the Great Lakes, and to the West Indies by sea. These were the places where it was thought they were most likely to be needed. When it was first planned to keep a permanent standing army in America, Parliament required the colony in which troops were stationed to provide barracks for the soldiers, and to supply them with salt, vinegar, rum or beer, and a few other articles. As so many of the troops were in New York, the burden of this expense fell heavily, and as its people thought very unjustly, upon that province, which refused to comply with the law. This action of New York led to a bitter quarrel, lasting several years, between that colony and the British government. But the most serious collision between the colonists and the British troops occurred in Boston. Two regiments were sent The Boston to that city in 1768 to help enforce the Navigation Acts. From Massacre the first these soldiers were a constant source of irritation to the people of Boston, who charged them with racing horses on Sunday, just outside the church doors, and with disturbing the quiet of the streets at night with their drunken shouts. The people, on the other hand, constantly annoyed the soldiers by calling them "bloody-backs," "scoundrels in red," and other insulting names. Matters came to a crisis one night in March, 1770, when a crowd of men and boys threw snowballs at a picket guard of eight men and dared them to fire. At last, irritated beyond endurance, the soldiers fired, killing four men and wounding several others, of whom two afterward died. Its consequences The Boston Massacre, as this affair was called, created intense excitement. The next day a great mass meeting of the citizens of Boston sent a committee to the governor to ask that the troops be removed from the city to an island in the harbor. Samuel Adams, who headed this committee, told the governor "that the voice of three thousand freemen demanded that all soldiery be forthwith removed from the town, and that if he failed to heed their just demand, he did so at his peril." The governor yielded and ordered both regiments to be withdrawn from the city. In due time the soldiers who took part in this affair were tried by a Boston Court and all of them were found not guilty except two, who were convicted of manslaughter and punished by branding in the hand, the penalty for that crime in those days. The story of the Boston Massacre shows the grave danger of trying to keep troops among a free people who neither need nor want them. The Quarrel Over the Tea Tax.-When Parliament repealed the taxes on glass, paper, and painter's colors, it retained the duty on tea, in order to establish its right to tax the colonists. The hated This was a great blunder. The Parliament failed to see that tea tax the principle of its right to tax them, and not the paltry sum of money which they would have to pay, was the very thing against which the colonists were contending. For the next three years, discussion raged over the hated tea tax, and the longer they talked about it the more exasperated the people became. The newspapers were filled with exhortations like this, by a New Hampshire rhymester: "Rouse, every generous, thoughtful mind, The rising danger flee; If you would lasting freedom find, Now then, abandon tea!" Everywhere the people were urged not to buy or sell or drink the "fated plant of India's shore," as another newspaper poet called it. Many agreed not to use it, while others drank tea that was smuggled from Holland. colonists At last, the British government foolishly tried to bribe the colonists to use the English tea and thus recognize the right of taxation. At this time tea was brought to England by the Trying to English East India Company. It was taxed a shilling a pound bribe the in England, and if it was sent to the colonies, it had to pay an additional tax of threepence in America. The East India Company had great quantities of tea stored in London, and Parliament now said that such part of this tea as was sent to America need not pay the English tax at all. This would make the tea cheaper in America than it was in England, and the English authorities thought that the colonists would surely be willing to buy it when they could get it at such a bargain. They little understood the spirit of America. Several ships laden with tea were now sent to the colonies. At Charleston, South Carolina, the tea was landed, but no one Tea sent to would buy it and it was stored in cellars; later, after the war America is began, it was sold for the benefit of the Revolutionary government. A meeting of the citizens of Philadelphia voted that every person who favored unloading, selling, or receiving the tea was an enemy to his country. In both Philadelphia and New York, the tea was sent back to England. seized or returned Called "the Cradle of American Liberty." "The Sons of Liberty" often "rocked the When the tea ships came to Boston the people, led by Samuel Adams, refused to permit the tea to be landed. When The Boston it was seen that the governor would not permit the tea to be Tea Party sent back to England, the people thought that the officers intended to try to land it in Boston by force. Accordingly, a party of about fifty men, disguised as Mohawk Indians, went on board the ships one evening in December, 1773, and threw the tea into the sea. The Boston Tea Party, as this action was called, was not the act of an excited mob, but a carefully planned and deliberate defiance of the authority of England. colonists Parliament Punishes Boston and Massachusetts.-The news of the Boston Tea Party aroused great indignation in England. Even the friends of America condemned it, and the England leading members of Parliament denounced it in the harshest indignant terms. It was the general opinion in that body that Boston must be forced to submit, and one member went so far as to say, "The town of Boston ought to be knocked about their ears and destroyed. You will never meet with proper respect to the laws of this country until you have destroyed that nest of locusts." Lord North, the prime minister, promptly introduced a series of bills to inflict the proposed punishment upon Boston and Massachusetts. The first measure, called the Boston Port Parliament Bill, closed the port of Boston to all ships until that rebellious punishes the town should pay for the tea thrown overboard and promise to obey the laws in the future. A second bill practically destroyed free government in Massachusetts. Hereafter most of the officers in that colony were to be appointed by the king or by the governor and, except for elections, the people could not even hold town meetings without the written consent of the governor. A third bill provided that officers accused of murder or other high crimes committed while they were suppressing riots or enforcing the law could be sent to another colony or to England for trial. A fourth required the people to provide quarters for the soldiers stationed in their midst. Last of all came the Quebec Act, which extended the boundaries of the province of Quebec to the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers, thus depriving several of the colonies of western land which they claimed to own. America These acts, designed to punish the disobedient Americans, were not passed without protest in Parliament. Fox, a great orator and ever a friend of liberty, said that the tea tax ought English to be unconditionally repealed. Edmund Burke, the greatest friends of orator of his time and a firm friend of America, pointed out the folly of trying to coerce the colonies. But Lord North and the king's friends would not listen to these men. The tea tax was not repealed, and the bills to punish Boston and Massachusetts were promptly passed. In the colonies these measures were called the Five Intolerable Acts. The Growth of Union in America. The passage of the Submission Five Intolerable Acts brought the colonies face to face with the or union |