[Footnote 15: Four of the spring fleet of merchant ships, designated in
the newspapers according to custom, only by the names of their
respective commanders, Shayler, Lyde, Maratt, and Scott, had just
arrived. They brought accounts of the effect upon the mother country of
the destruction of the tea. The ministry had carried through Parliament
their system of repressive measures: the Boston Port Bill, the revision
of the charts, materially impairing its popular features, and the act to
authorize the removal of trials in certain cases to Great Britain.
General Gage, the commander-in-chief of his Majesty's forces in America,
appointed Governor to execute the new policy,--in the place of
Hutchinson, who had asked leave of absence,--was on his way, and arrived
in his Majesty's ship _Lively_, Captain Bishop, in twenty-six days from
London, on the 13th, the day after the date of this letter.]