THE TEA-PARTY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
Step by step the mother country and its colonies were advancing to a
rupture. The first step was taken at the test concerning the writs of
assistance, the second at the passage of the Stamp Act and its repeal,
the third resulted in the Massacre and the withdrawal of the troops from
Boston. Each time the colonies gained the practical advantages which
they sought; each time the king's party, while yielding, became more
exasperated, and presently tested the strength of the colonies once
more; and each time it was Boston that stood as the head and front of
opposition. The town was marked for martyrdom.
In the case of the Townshend Acts, the victory of the colonists was
temporarily complete. The movement had come to a head at Boston in an
actual outbreak, the Massacre, which obscured the greater issues;
nevertheless the issues were won. America would not submit to the new
revenue laws. Very calmly it had avoided them by refusing to import from
England. A thorough test of nearly two years showed that from north to
south the colonies were almost a unit in rejecting English and foreign
goods, and in relying on home manufactures. From importations of more
than a million and a quarter pounds, two-thirds fell clean away,[28] and
the merchants of England felt the pinch. There was but one thing to do,
and England grudgingly did it. The withdrawal of the troops from Boston
was acquiesced in, and the revenue acts, the cause of all the trouble,
were repealed, except for a duty still maintained upon tea.
The response was such that England was relieved. New York began to
import those articles which had been made free of duty. The
non-importation agreement was broken, as the colonies perceived. "You
had better send us your old liberty pole," wrote Philadelphia scornfully
to New York, "since you clearly have no further use for it."[29] Whigs
and Tories both saw that, the agreement thus broken, other colonies
would follow the example of New York.
The advantage was now clearly with the king, and he endeavored to make
the most of it, not by abiding in peace, but by taking a further step.
He ordered that colonial judges should in future be paid from the
English treasury. No one in the colonies could fail to see that the blow
was aimed directly at the independence of the judiciary.
Massachusetts was alarmed. Boston sent resolutions to the governor, but
Hutchinson, now at last in the chair, refused to listen to the town
meeting. In this moment of indignation, Samuel Adams conceived a scheme
which was the longest step yet taken toward independence.
This was the idea of Committees of Correspondence, to be permanently
maintained by each town and even by each colony. The idea of such
committees was not novel. It had been suggested years before by Jonathan
Mayhew, and had more than once been used in emergencies. But permanent
committees, watching affairs and at any time ready to act, were new.
Naturally composed of the best men in each town, they would at all times
be ready to speak, and to speak vigorously. The plan, when perfected,
eventually enabled the colonies to act as a unit. From the first it gave
strength to the Americans; in the present instance it spread the news of
the king's action and roused indignation, and before long it brought
about an act which startled the English-speaking world.
This was the Boston Tea-Party. The king had a hand in making the fire
hot. He had been vexed by his unsuccessful tariff, and was now
especially irritated that his concessions had brought about no result in
one important particular.
Until the present every shipmaster had been a smuggler, and all the
Whigs dealt in smuggled goods. This was according to old English
practice, but as a matter of fact illicit trade was more decorous in
America than in England. Whereas in Cornwall the forces of the smugglers
were so strong that they chased the revenue cutters into harbors and
landed their goods by bright moonlight, in America the appearances of
legality were gravely preserved.
Nevertheless the result was the same, and in one quarter was actually
serious. The recent tariff had brought to the royal treasury scarcely
three hundred pounds from tea. The situation was no better now that the
tea-duty was the only one remaining. So completely did America, while
still drinking tea in quantity, avoid the duly imported article, that
the revenue of the East India Company fell off alarmingly. On pathetic
representations of the financial state of the company, the king gave
permission, through a subservient Parliament, for the company to export
tea to America free even of the English duty. The company had lost
hundreds of thousands of pounds since the Townshend Acts went in force;
now by favorable terms it was to be enabled to undersell in the colonial
market even the smuggled teas. Taking advantage of this new ruling, tea
was promptly shipped, in the autumn of 1773, to different consignees in
Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston.
It was confidently expected that the colonies would buy the tea. No one
in the government supposed that the Americans would be blind to their
own interests. This much, indeed, was admitted by the leaders among the
Whigs, that once the tea was on sale Yankee principle might be sorely
tempted by Yankee thrift. Indignant at the insidious temptation,
determined that no such test should be made, and resenting the
establishment of a practical monopoly throughout the colonies, the
leaders resolved that the tea should not be landed.
It is an odd fortune that connected the Chinese herb so closely with
the struggle of principle in America. To this day, while the issues are
obscured in the mind of the average American, he remembers the tax on
tea, and that his ancestors would not pay it. Picturesque tales of
ladies' associations depriving themselves of their favorite beverage, of
men tarring and feathering unpopular tradesmen, have survived the
hundred and thirty odd years which have passed since then; and the
impression is general that the colonists would not pay a tax which bore
heavy on them. But it will be noticed by those who have attentively read
this account that the colonists were refusing to pay less, in order that
they might have the satisfaction of paying more. They balked, not at the
amount of the tax, but at its principle.
In the case of the tea-ships the duty of action fell upon Boston.
Charleston and Philadelphia had taken a positive stand resolving not to
receive the tea; but the ships were due at Boston first. The eyes of
the continent were upon this one town. Boston made ready to act, yet of
the preparations we know nothing. While the story as it is told is
interesting enough, there is no record of the secret meetings in which
the events were prepared. Hints are dropped, and it is asserted that
within the Green Dragon tavern, a favorite meeting-place of the Whigs,
were finally decided the means by which the workmen of the town should
carry out the plans of the leaders. But of these meetings nothing is
positively known; all we can say with certainty is that the plans worked
perfectly, and that Sam Adams must have had a hand in their making.
The Sons of Liberty took the first step toward forcing the consignees of
the tea to resign. "Handbills are stuck up," writes John Andrews,
"calling upon Friends! Citizens! and Countrymen!" To Liberty Tree the
"freemen of Boston and the neighboring towns" were invited, by placard
and advertisement, "to hear the persons, to whom the tea shipped by the
East India Company is consigned, make a public resignation of their
office as consignees, upon oath."[30]
But the consignees did not come, though the freemen did. The
townspeople, forming themselves into a "meeting," sent a committee to
the consignees, demanding that they refuse to receive the tea. But the
consignees believed themselves safe. They were merchants of family and
property, the governor's sons were among them, and it was rumored that
Hutchinson had a pecuniary interest in the success of the venture. They
refused to give the pledge.
The official town meeting now took up the matter. Before the tea
arrived, and again after the appearance of the first ship, the town
called upon the consignees to resign. Each time the consignees refused.
The second town meeting, after thus acting in vain, dissolved without
the customary expression of opinion. Hutchinson himself records that
"this sudden dissolution struck more terror into the consignees than the
most minatory resolves." From that moment the matter was in the hands
of the Boston Committee of Correspondence.
By means of the committee, at whose head was Adams, communication was
held with the towns throughout Massachusetts. The province was greatly
excited, and repeated demands for resignation were made upon the
consignees, but they clung to their offices and the hope of profit.
Delays were skilfully secured, and the first ship was entered at the
customs, after which according to law it must within twenty days either
clear for England or land its cargo. The governor was resolved not to
grant a clearance, and rejoiced over his opponents. "They find
themselves," he said, "in invincible difficulties."
But everything was prepared. To the last minute of the twenty days the
Whigs were patient. Petition after petition, appeal after appeal, went
to the governor or the consignees. There was no success. On the last
day, the 16th of December, 1773, all three of the tea-ships were at
Griffin's Wharf, watched by the patriots. A town meeting, the largest in
the history of Boston, crowded the Old South, and again resolved that
the tea should not be landed. "Who knows," asked John Rowe, "how tea
will mingle with salt water?" The remark was greeted with cheers, yet
one more legal step might be taken, and the meeting, sending Rotch, the
master of the first tea-ship, to the governor at Milton to ask for a
clearance, patiently waited while he should traverse the fifteen miles
of his journey. During the hours of his absence there was no
disturbance; when he returned, the daylight had gone, and the Old South
was lighted with candles. Seven thousand people were silent to hear the
report. It was brief, and its meaning was clear: the governor had
refused; the last legal step had been taken. Then Samuel Adams rose.
"This meeting," he declared, "can do nothing more to save the country."
It was the expected signal. Immediately there was a shout from the
porch, and the warwhoop sounded out of doors. The meeting poured out of
doors and followed some fifty men in the garb of Indians, who suddenly
appeared in the street. They hurried to Griffin's Wharf. There they
posted guards, took possession of the tea-ships, and hoisting the chests
from the holds, knocked them open and emptied the tea into the water.
Under the moon the great crowd watched in silence, there was no
interference from the troops or the war-ships, and in three hours the
last of the tea was overboard. Nothing remained except what had sifted
into the shoes of some of the "Indians," to be preserved as mementoes of
the day.
"They say," wrote John Andrews dryly two days later, "that the actors
were _Indians_ from _Narragansett_. Whether they were or not, to a
transient observer they appear'd as _such_, being cloath'd in Blankets
with the heads muffled, and copper color'd countenances, being each
arm'd with a hatchet or axe, and pair pistols, nor was their _dialect_
different from what I conceive these geniusses to _speak_, as their
jargon was unintelligible to all but themselves. Not the least insult
was offer'd to any person, save one Captain Conner, a letter of horses
in this place, not many years since remov'd from _dear Ireland_, who had
ript up the lining of his coat and waistcoat under the arms, and
watching his opportunity had nearly fill'd 'em with tea, but being
detected, was handled pretty roughly. They not only stripp'd him of his
cloaths, but gave him a coat of mud, with a severe bruising into the
bargain; and nothing but their utter aversion to make _any_ disturbance
prevented his being tar'd and feather'd."
Such was the Boston Tea-Party, "the boldest stroke," said Hutchinson,
"that had yet been struck in America." Much has been written about it.
It has been minimized into a riot and magnified into a deed of glory. As
a matter of fact, it was neither the one nor the other, yet if either it
was nearer the latter. Carried out by Boston mechanics, but doubtless
directed by Boston leaders, it was a cool and deliberate law-breaking,
the penalty for which, could the offenders but have been discovered,
would have been severe. But none of the actors in the affair were
betrayed at the time, though hundreds in the town must have had positive
knowledge of their identity. Names, like those of the burners of the
_Gaspee_ eighteen months before, were not given out until after the
Revolution, and even to-day the list of them is not complete.
The project of the king and the East India Company was a failure. In one
way or other the other three seaports either destroyed or sent back
their tea. But Boston was the first and most violent offender. It was on
her that punishment was to descend.
The news of the Tea-Party came to England at a time when king and
Parliament were less amiably disposed than usual toward Massachusetts.
Some weeks before had happened the affair of the Hutchinson letters.
Benjamin Franklin, then Postmaster-General of England, and agent for
Massachusetts, had secured possession of certain letters written by
Governor Hutchinson and by others in office in the colony. These letters
proved beyond doubt that the Massachusetts officials had been secretly
urging upon the home government repressive measures against the colony.
This was but what Bernard had done, and what had been suspected of his
successor; yet the actual proof was too much for Franklin. He sent the
letters, under pledge of secrecy, home to be read by the leaders among
the Massachusetts Whigs. But the pledge of secrecy could not be kept.
The letters were read in the Assembly and then published. "He had
written," says Bancroft of Hutchinson, "against every part of the
Constitution, the elective character of the Council, the annual choice
of the Assembly, the New England organization of the towns; had advised
and solicited the total dependence of the judiciary on the Crown, had
hinted at making the experiment of declaring Martial Law, and of
abrogating English liberty; had advised to the restraint of the
commerce of Boston and the exclusion of the Province from the
fisheries."[31] Hutchinson's defence was that he "had never wrote any
public or private letter that tends to subvert the Constitution." But he
was thinking of the Constitution rather than the Charter. The province
was thoroughly roused, and sent to England a firm yet respectful
petition demanding his dismissal.
But Hutchinson had been serving the king as the king wished to be
served. The wrath of the government fell upon Franklin. In a crowded
meeting of the Privy Council, with scant respect for the forms of law,
Franklin was subjected to elaborate abuse. There were none to defend him
who could gain a respectful hearing; he stood immovable under the
tongue-lashing of the Solicitor-General, and made no reply. "I have
never," he said afterwards, "been so sensible of the power of a good
conscience, for if I had not considered the thing for which I have been
so much insulted, as one of the best actions of my life, and what I
should certainly do again in the same circumstances, I could not have
supported it."[32] The suit which he wore that day he put carefully
away, and did not wear it again until as Commissioner for the United
States he signed in Paris the treaty of alliance with France.
Franklin was deprived of his office under the crown, and the king who
directed the punishment, the council who condemned him, and the
Parliament which cheered them both on, were not yet satisfied. When the
news of the Tea-Party came, they felt that their chance had come to
strike at the real culprit. The king consulted General Gage, who was
fresh from Boston, and listened eagerly to his fatally mistaken account
of the situation. "He says," wrote the king to Lord North, "'They will
be lions while we are lambs; but if we take the resolute part they will
undoubtedly prove very meek.' Four regiments sent to Boston will, he
thinks, be sufficient to prevent any disturbance."[33] On such a basis
the king and his prime minister planned the laws which should punish the
town of Boston.
The first act was the Boston Port Bill. It closed the port to all
commerce until the East India Company should be paid for its tea, and
the king satisfied that the town was repentant. Nothing except food and
fuel was to be brought to the town in boats; in fact, as Lord North
promised the Commons, Boston was to be removed seventeen miles from the
ocean. For Salem was made the port of entry, and there the governor and
the collector, the surveyor and the comptroller, and all underlings were
to go. It was planned to station war-ships in Boston Harbor to enforce
the law.
The second law was the "Bill for the better Regulating the Government of
the Massachusetts Bay," generally called the Regulating Act. This
virtually swept away the charter of Massachusetts. It provided first
that the Council was to be appointed by the king, and next that without
the consent of the Council the governor might appoint or remove all
officers of justice, from judges to constables. By the provisions of the
law even the jury lists could be controlled by appointive officers.
Finally town meetings were made illegal throughout the province, except
for the election of town officers, and other necessary local business.
The third proposal of the government was a bill "for the Impartial
Administration of Justice," in proposing which "it was observed that
Lord North trembled and faultered at every word of his motion." It
provided that magistrates, officers, or soldiers might be tried for
"murder, or any other capital offence," in Great Britain.
The fourth act made provision for quartering troops in Boston.
The bills went through Parliament without much opposition. Says
Trevelyan, "Even after the lapse of a century and a quarter the debates
are not pleasant reading for an Englishman."[34] It was assumed that
the punishment was just, and that not only Boston but also the whole
continent would take it meekly. A few voices were raised in protest, but
as a rule even the Opposition was silent. One by one the bills became
law. One more step was taken toward separation.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] Trevelyan, "American Revolution," Part I, 104.
[29] "A Card from the Inhabitants of Philadelphia," Bancroft, vi, 366.
[30] "Memorial History of Boston," iii, 45.
[31] Bancroft, vi, 461, 462.
[32] Bancroft, vi, 498.
[33] Avery, "History of the United States," v, 190.
[34] "American Revolution," Part I, 181.