Seats for these rotten boroughs, as they were called, were simply bought and sold. Political life in England was exceedingly corrupt; some of the best statesmen indulged in wholesale bribery as if it were the most innocent thing in the world. The country was really governed by a few great families, some of whose members sat in the House of Lords and others in the House of Commons. Their measures were often n.o.ble and patriotic in the highest degree, but when bribery and corruption seemed necessary for carrying them, such means were employed without scruple.
[Sidenote: George III. and his political schemes.]
When George III. came to the throne in 1760, the great families which had thus governed England for half a century belonged to the party known as Old Whigs. Under their rule the power of the crown had been reduced to insignificance, and the modern system of cabinet government by a responsible ministry had begun to grow up. The Tory families during this period had been very unpopular, because of their sympathy with the Stuart pretenders who had twice attempted to seize the crown and given the country a brief taste of civil war. By 1760 the Tories saw that the cause of the Stuarts was hopeless, and so they were inclined to transfer their affections to the new king. George III. was a young man of narrow intelligence and poor education, but he entertained very strong opinions as to the importance of his kingly office. He meant to make himself a real king, like the king of France or the king of Spain. He was determined to break down the power of the Old Whigs and the system of cabinet government, and as the Old Whigs had been growing unpopular, it seemed quite possible, with the aid of the Tories, to accomplish this.
George was quite decorous in behaviour, and, although subject to fits of insanity which became more troublesome in his later years, he had a fairly good head for business. Industrious as a beaver and obstinate as a mule, he was an adept in political trickery. In the corrupt use of patronage he showed himself able to beat the Old Whigs at their own game, and with the aid of the Tories he might well believe himself capable of reviving for his own benefit the lost power of the crown.
[Sidenote: The "New Whigs" and parliamentary reform.]
Beside these two parties a third had been for some time growing up which was in some essential points opposed to both of them. This third party was that of the New Whigs. They wished to reform the representation in Parliament in such wise as to disfranchise the rotten boroughs and give representatives to great towns like Leeds and Manchester. They held that it was contrary to the principles of English liberty that the inhabitants of such great towns should be obliged to pay taxes in pursuance of laws which they had no share in making. The leader of the New Whigs was the greatest Englishman of the eighteenth century, the elder William Pitt, now about to pa.s.s into the House of Lords as Earl of Chatham. Their leader next in importance, William Petty, Earl of Shelburne, was in 1765 a young man of eight-and-twenty, and afterward came to be known as one of the most learned and sagacious statesmen of his time. These men were the forerunners of the great liberal leaders of the nineteenth century, such men as Russell and Cobden and Gladstone.
Their first decisive and overwhelming victory was the pa.s.sage of Lord John Russell"s Reform Bill in 1832, but the agitation for reform was begun by William Pitt in 1745, and his famous son came very near winning the victory on that question in 1782.
Now this question of parliamentary reform was intimately related to the question of taxing the American colonies. From some points of view they might be considered one and the same question. At a meeting of Presbyterian ministers in Philadelphia, it was pertinently asked, "Have two men chosen to represent a poor English borough that has sold its votes to the highest bidder any pretence to say that they represent Virginia or Pennsylvania? And have four hundred such fellows a right to take our liberties?" In Parliament, on the other hand, as well as at London dinner tables, and in newspapers and pamphlets, it was repeatedly urged that the Americans need not make so much fuss about being taxed without being represented, for in that respect they were no worse off than the people of Sheffield or Birmingham. To this James Otis replied, "Don"t talk to us any more about those towns, for we are tired of such a flimsy argument. If they are not represented, they ought to be;" and by the New Whigs this retort was greeted with applause.
The opinions and aims of the three different parties were reflected in the long debate over the repeal of the Stamp Act. The Tories wanted to have the act continued and enforced, and such was the wish of the king.
Both sections of Whigs were in favour of repeal, but for very different reasons. Pitt and the New Whigs, being advocates of parliamentary reform, came out flatly in support of the principle that there should be no taxation without representation. Edmund Burke and the Old Whigs, being opposed to parliamentary reform and in favour of keeping things just as they were, could not adopt such an argument; and accordingly they based their condemnation of the Stamp Act upon grounds of pure expediency. They argued that it was not worth while, for the sake of a little increase of revenue, to irritate three million people and run the risk of getting drawn into a situation from which there would be no escape except in either retreating or fighting. There was much practical wisdom in this Old Whig argument, and it was the one which prevailed when Parliament repealed the Stamp Act and expressly stated that it did so only on grounds of expediency.
[Sidenote: Why George III. was ready to pick a quarrel with the Americans.]
There was one person, however, who was far from satisfied with this result, and that was George III. He was opposed to parliamentary reform for much the same reason that the Old Whigs were opposed to it, because he felt that it threatened him with political ruin. The Old Whigs needed the rotten boroughs in order to maintain their own control over Parliament and the country. The king needed them because he felt himself able to wrest them from the Old Whigs by intrigue and corruption, and thus hoped to build up his own power. He believed, with good reason, that the suppression of the rotten boroughs and the granting of fair and equal representation would soon put a stronger curb upon the crown than ever. Accordingly there were no men whom he dreaded and wished to put down so much as the New Whigs; and he felt that in the repeal of the Stamp Act, no matter on what ground, they had come altogether too near winning a victory. He felt that this outrageous doctrine that people must not be taxed except by their representatives needed to be sternly rebuked, and thus he found himself in the right sort of temper for picking a fresh quarrel with the Americans.
[Sidenote: Charles Townshend and his revenue acts, 1767.]
[Sidenote: Lord North.]
An occasion soon presented itself. One of the king"s devices for breaking down the system of cabinet government was to select his ministers from different parties, so that they might be unable to work harmoniously together. Owing to the peculiar divisions of parties in Parliament he was for some years able to carry out this policy, and while his cabinets were thus weak and divided, he was able to use his control of patronage with telling effect. In July, 1766, he got rid of Lord Rockingham and his Old Whigs, and formed a new ministry made up from all parties. It contained Pitt, who had now, as Earl of Chatham, gone into the House of Lords, and at the same time Charles Townshend, as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Townshend, a brilliant young man, without any political principles worth mentioning, was the most conspicuous among a group of wire-pullers who were coming to be known as "the king"s friends." Serious illness soon kept Chatham at home, and left Townshend all-powerful in the cabinet, because he was bold and utterly unscrupulous and had the king to back him. His audacity knew no limits, and he made up his mind that the time had come for gathering all the disputed American questions, as far as possible, into one bundle, and disposing of them once for all. So in May, 1767, he brought forward in Parliament a series of acts for raising and applying a revenue in America. The colonists, he said, had objected to a direct tax, but they had often submitted to port duties, and could not reasonably refuse to do so again. Duties were accordingly to be laid on gla.s.s, paper, lead, and painter"s colours; on wine, oil, and fruits, if carried directly to America from Spain and Portugal; and especially on tea. A board of commissioners was to be established at Boston, to superintend the collection of revenue throughout the colonies, and writs of a.s.sistance were to be expressly legalized. The salaries of these commissioners were to be paid out of the revenue thus collected. Governors, judges, and crown-attorneys were to be made independent of the colonial legislatures by having their salaries paid by the crown out of this same fund. A small army was also to be kept up; and if after providing for these various expenses, any surplus remained, it could be used by the crown in giving pensions to Americans and thus be made to serve as a corruption-fund. These measures were adopted on the 29th of June, and as if to refute anybody who might be inclined to think that rashness could no further go, Townshend accompanied them with a special act directed against the New York legislature, which had refused to obey an order concerning the quartering of troops. By way of punishment, Townshend now suspended the legislature. A few weeks after carrying these measures Townshend died of a fever, and his place was taken by Lord North, eldest son of the Earl of Guilford. North was thirty-five years of age. He was amiable and witty, and an excellent debater, but without force of will.
He let the king rule him, and was at the same time able to show a strong hand in the House of Commons, so that the king soon came to regard him as a real treasure. Soon after North"s appointment, Lord Chatham and other friends of America in the cabinet resigned their places and were succeeded by friends of the king. From 1768 to 1782 George III. was to all intents and purposes his own prime minister, and contrived to keep a majority in Parliament. During those fourteen years the American question was uppermost, and his policy was at all hazards to force the colonists to abandon their position that taxation must go hand in hand with representation.
[Sidenote: What the Townshend acts really meant.]
This purpose was already apparent in Charles Townshend"s acts. They were not at all like previous acts imposing port duties to which the Americans had submitted. British historians sometimes speak of the American Revolution as an affair which grew out of a mere dispute about money; and even among Americans, in ordinary conversation and sometimes in current literature, the unwillingness of our forefathers to pay a tax of threepence a pound on tea is mentioned without due reference to the attendant circ.u.mstances which made them refuse to pay such a tax. We cannot hope to understand the fierce wrath by which they were animated unless we bear in mind not only the simple fact of the tax, but also the spirit in which it was levied and the purpose for which the revenue was to be used. The Mola.s.ses Act threatening the ruin of New England commerce was still on the statute-book, and commissioners, armed with odious search-warrants for enforcing this and other tyrannical laws, were on their way to America. For more than half a century the people had jealously guarded against the abuse of power by the royal governors by making them dependent upon the legislatures for their salaries. Now they were all at once to be made independent, so that they might even dismiss the legislatures, and if need be call for troops to help them.
The judges, moreover, with their power over men"s lives and property, were no longer to be responsible to the people. If these changes were to be effected, it would be nothing less than a revolution by which the Americans would be deprived of their liberty. And, to crown all, the money by which this revolution was to be brought about was to be contributed in the shape of port duties by the Americans themselves! To expect our forefathers to submit to such legislation as this was about as sensible as it would have been to expect them to obey an order to buy halters and hang themselves.
When the news of the Townshend acts reached Ma.s.sachusetts, the a.s.sembly at its next session took a decided stand. Besides a pet.i.tion to the king and letters to several leading British statesmen, it issued a circular letter addressed to the other twelve colonies, asking for their friendly advice and cooperation with reference to the Townshend measures. These papers were written by Samuel Adams. The circular letter was really an invitation to the other colonies to concert measures of resistance if it should be found necessary. It enraged the king, and presently an order came across the ocean to Francis Bernard, royal governor of Ma.s.sachusetts, to demand of the a.s.sembly that it rescind its circular letter, under penalty of instant dissolution. Otis exclaimed that Great Britain had better rescind the Townshend acts if she did not wish to lose her colonies. The a.s.sembly decided, by a vote of 92 to 17, that it would not rescind. This flat defiance was everywhere applauded. The a.s.semblies of the other colonies were ordered to take no notice of the Ma.s.sachusetts circular, but the order was generally disobeyed, and in several cases the governors turned the a.s.semblies out of doors. The atmosphere of America now became alive with politics; more meetings were held, more speeches made, and more pamphlets printed, than ever before.
[Sidenote: The quarrel was not between England and America, but between George III. and the principles which the Americans maintained.]
In England the dignified and manly course of the Americans was generally greeted with applause by Whigs of whatever sort, except those who had come into the somewhat widening circle of "the king"s friends." The Old Whigs,--Burke, Fox, Conway, Savile, Lord John Cavendish, and the Duke of Richmond; and the New Whigs,--Chatham, Shelburne, Camden, Dunning, Barre, and Beckford; steadily defended the Americans throughout the whole of the Revolutionary crisis, and the weight of the best intelligence in the country was certainly on their side. Could they have acted as a united body, could Burke and Fox have joined forces in harmony with Chatham and Shelburne, they might have thwarted the king and prevented the rupture with America. But George III. profited by the hopeless division between these two Whig parties; and as the quarrel with America grew fiercer, he succeeded in arraying the national pride to some extent upon his side and against the Whigs. This made him feel stronger and stimulated his zeal against the Americans. He felt that if he could first crush Whig principles in America, he could then turn and crush them in England. In this he was correct, except that he miscalculated the strength of the Americans. It was the defeat of his schemes in America that ensured their defeat in England. It is quite wrong and misleading, therefore, to remember the Revolutionary War as a struggle between the British people and the American people. It was a struggle between two hostile principles, each of which was represented in both countries. In winning the good fight, our forefathers won a victory for England as well as for America. What was crushed was George III. and the kind of despotism which he wished to fasten upon America in order that he might fasten it upon England. If the memory of George III.
deserves to be execrated, it is especially because he succeeded in giving to his own selfish struggle for power the appearance of a struggle between the people of England and the people of America; and in so doing, he sowed seeds of enmity and distrust between two glorious nations that, for their own sakes and for the welfare of mankind, ought never for one moment to be allowed to forget their brotherhood. Time, however, is rapidly repairing the damage which George III."s policy wrought, and it need in nowise disturb our narrative. In this brief sketch we must omit hundreds of interesting details; but, if we would look at things from the right point of view, we must bear in mind that every act of George III., from 1768 onward, which brought on and carried on the Revolutionary War, was done in spite of the earnest protest of many of the best people in England; and that the king"s wrong-headed policy prevailed only because he was able, through corrupt methods, to command a parliament which did not really represent the people. Had the principles in support of which Lord Chatham joined hands with Samuel Adams for one moment prevailed, the king"s schemes would have collapsed like a soap-bubble.
As it was, in 1768 the king succeeded, in spite of strong opposition, in carrying his point. He saw that the American colonies were disposed to resist the Townshend acts, and that in this defiant att.i.tude Ma.s.sachusetts was the ringleader. The Ma.s.sachusetts circular pointed toward united action on the part of the colonies. Above all things it was desirable to prevent any such union, and accordingly the king decided to make his princ.i.p.al attack upon Ma.s.sachusetts, while dealing more kindly with the other colonies. Thus he hoped Ma.s.sachusetts might be isolated and humbled, and in this belief he proceeded faster and more rashly than if he had supposed himself to be dealing with a united America. In order to catch Samuel Adams and James Otis, and get them sent over to England for trial, he attempted to revive an old statute of Henry VIII. about treason committed abroad; and in order to enforce the revenue laws in spite of all opposition, he ordered troops to be sent to Boston.
[Sidenote: Troops sent to Boston.]
This was a very harsh measure, and some excuse was needed to justify it before Parliament. It was urged that Boston was a disorderly town, and the sacking of Hutchinson"s house could be cited in support of this view. Then in June, 1768, there was a slight conflict between townspeople and revenue officers, in which no one was hurt, but which led to a great town-meeting in the Old South Meeting-House, and gave Governor Bernard an opportunity for saying that he was intimidated and hindered in the execution of the laws. The king"s real purpose, however, in sending troops was not so much to keep the peace as to enforce the Townshend acts, and so the people of Boston understood it. Except for these odious and tyrannical laws, there was nothing that threatened disturbance in Boston. The arrival of British troops at Long Wharf, in the autumn of 1768, simply increased the danger of disturbance, and in a certain sense it may be said to have been the beginning of the Revolutionary War. Very few people realized this at the time, but Samuel Adams now made up his mind that the only way in which the American colonies could preserve their liberties was to unite in some sort of federation and declare themselves independent of Great Britain. It was with regret that he had come to this conclusion, and he was very slow in proclaiming it, but after 1768 he kept it distinctly before his mind. He saw clearly the end toward which public opinion was gradually drifting, and because of his great influence over the Boston town-meeting and the Ma.s.sachusetts a.s.sembly, this clearness of purpose made him for the next seven years the most formidable of the king"s antagonists in America.
The people of Boston were all the more indignant at the arrival of troops in their town because the king in his hurry to send them had even disregarded the act of Parliament which provided for such cases.
According to that act the soldiers ought to have been lodged in Castle William on one of the little islands in the harbour. Even according to British-made law they had no business to be quartered in Boston so long as there was room for them, in the Castle. During the next seventeen months the people made several formal protests against their presence in town, and asked for their removal. But these protests were all fruitless until innocent blood had been shed. The soldiers generally behaved no worse than rough troopers on such occasions are apt to do, and the townspeople for the most part preserved decorum, but quarrels now and then occurred, and after a while became frequent. In September, 1769, James Otis was brutally a.s.saulted at the British Coffee House by one of the commissioners of customs aided and abetted by two or three army officers. His health was already feeble and in this affray he was struck on the head with a sword and so badly injured that he afterward became insane. After this the feeling of the people toward the soldiers was more bitter than ever. In February, 1770, there was much disturbance.
Toward the end of the month an informer named Richardson fired from his window into a crowd and killed a little boy about eleven years of age, named Christopher Snyder. The funeral of this poor boy, the first victim of the Revolution, was attended on Monday, the 26th, by a great procession of citizens, including those foremost in wealth and influence.
[Sidenote: The "Boston Ma.s.sacre."]
The rest of that week was full of collisions which on Friday almost amounted to a riot and led the governor"s council to consider seriously whether the troops ought not to be removed. But before they had settled the question the crisis came on Monday evening, March 5, in an affray before the Custom House on King street, when seven of Captain Preston"s company fired into the crowd, killing five men and wounding several others. Two of the victims were innocent bystanders. Two were sailors from ships lying in the harbour, and they, together with the remaining victim, a ropemaker, had been actively engaged in the affray. One of the sailors, a mulatto or half-breed Indian of gigantic stature, named Crispus Attucks, had been especially conspicuous. The slaughter of these five men secured in a moment what so many months of decorous protest had failed to accomplish. Much more serious bloodshed was imminent when Lieutenant-governor Hutchinson arrived upon the scene and promptly arrested the offending soldiers. The next day there was an immense meeting at the Old South, and Samuel Adams, at the head of a committee, came into the council chamber at the Town House, and in the name of three thousand freemen sternly commanded Hutchinson to remove the soldiers from the town. Before sunset they had all been withdrawn to the Castle. When the news reached the ears of Parliament there was some talk of reinstating them in the town, but Colonel Barre cut short the discussion with the pithy question, "if the officers agreed in removing the soldiers to Castle William, what minister will dare to send them back to Boston?"
[Sidenote: Lord North, as prime minister removes all duties except on tea, 1770.]
Thus the so-called "Boston Ma.s.sacre" wrought for the king a rebuff which he felt perhaps even more keenly than the repeal of the Stamp Act. Not only had his troops been peremptorily turned out of Boston, but his policy had for the moment weakened in its hold upon Parliament. In the summer of 1769 the a.s.sembly of Virginia adopted a very important series of resolutions condemning the policy of Great Britain and recommending united action on the part of the colonies in defence of their liberties.
The governor then dissolved the a.s.sembly, whereupon its members met in convention at the Raleigh tavern and adopted a set of resolves prepared by Washington, strictly forbidding importations from England until the Townshend acts should be repealed. These resolves were generally adopted by the colonies, and presently the merchants of London, finding their trade falling off, pet.i.tioned Parliament to reconsider its policy. In January, 1770, Lord North became prime minister. In April all the duties were taken off, except the duty on tea, which the king insisted upon retaining, in order to avoid surrendering the principle at issue. The effect of even this partial concession was to weaken the spirit of opposition in America, and to create a division among the colonies. In July the merchants of New York refused to adhere any longer to the non-importation agreement except with regard to tea, and they began sending orders to England for various sorts of merchandise. Rhode Island and New Hampshire also broke the agreement. This aroused general indignation, and ships from the three delinquent colonies were driven from such ports as Boston and Charleston.
[Sidenote: Want of union.]
Union among the colonies was indeed only skin deep. The only thing which kept it alive was British aggression. Almost every colony had some bone of contention with its neighbours. At this moment New York and New Hampshire were wrangling over the possession of the Green Mountains, and guerrilla warfare was going on between Connecticut and Pennsylvania in the valley of Wyoming. It was hard to secure concerted action about anything. For two years after the withdrawal of troops from Boston there was a good deal of disturbance in different parts of the country; quarrels between governors and their a.s.semblies were kept up with increasing bitterness; in North Carolina there was an insurrection against the governor which was suppressed only after a b.l.o.o.d.y battle near the Cape Fear river; in Rhode Island the revenue schooner Gaspee was seized and burned, and when an order came from the ministry requiring the offenders to be sent to England for trial, the chief-justice of Rhode Island, Stephen Hopkins, refused to obey the order. But amid all these disturbances there appeared nothing like concerted action on the part of the colonies. In June, 1772, Hutchinson said that the union of the colonies seemed to be broken, and he hoped it would not be renewed, for he believed it meant separation from the mother-country, and that he regarded as the worst of calamities.
CHAPTER V.
THE CRISIS.
[Sidenote: Salaries of the judges.]
The surest way to renew and cement the union was to show that the ministry had not relaxed in its determination to enforce the principle of the Townshend acts. This was made clear in August, 1772, when it was ordered that in Ma.s.sachusetts the judges should henceforth be paid by the crown. Popular excitement rose to fever heat, and the judges were threatened with impeachment should they dare accept a penny from the royal treasury. The turmoil was increased next year by the discovery in London of the package of letters which were made to support the unjust charge against Hutchinson and some of his friends that they had instigated and aided the most extreme measures of the ministry.
[Sidenote: Committees of Correspondence.]
In the autumn of 1772 Hutchinson refused to call an extra session of the a.s.sembly to consider what should be done about the judges. Samuel Adams then devised a scheme by which the towns of Ma.s.sachusetts could consult with each other and agree upon some common course of action in case of emergencies. For this purpose each town was to appoint a standing committee, and as a great part of their work was necessarily done by letter they were called "committees of correspondence." This was the step that fairly organized the Revolution. It was by far the most important of all the steps that preceded the Declaration of Independence. The committees did their work with great efficiency and the governor had no means of stopping it. They were like an invisible legislature that was always in session and could never be dissolved; and when the old government fell they were able to administer affairs until a new government could be set up. In the spring of 1773 Virginia carried this work of organization a long step further, when Dabney Carr suggested and carried a motion calling for committees of correspondence between the several colonies. From this point it was a comparatively short step to a permanent Continental Congress.
It happened that these preparations were made just in time to meet the final act of aggression which brought on the Revolutionary War. The Americans had thus far successfully resisted the Townshend acts and secured the repeal of all the duties except on tea. As for tea they had plenty, but not from England; they smuggled it from Holland in spite of custom-houses and search-warrants. Clearly unless the Americans could be made to buy tea from England and pay the duty on it, the king must own himself defeated.
[Sidenote: Tea ships sent by the king, as a challenge.]
Since it appeared that they could not be forced into doing this, it remained to be seen if they could be tricked into doing it. A truly ingenious scheme was devised. Tea sent by the East India Company to America had formerly paid a duty in some British port on the way. This duty was now taken off, so that the price of the tea for America might be lowered. The company"s tea thus became so cheap that the American merchant could buy a pound of it and pay the threepence duty beside for less than it cost him to smuggle a pound of tea from Holland. It was supposed that the Americans would of course buy the tea which they could get most cheaply, and would thus be beguiled into submission to that principle of taxation which they had hitherto resisted. Ships laden with tea were accordingly sent in the autumn of 1773 to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston; and consignees were appointed to receive the tea in each of these towns.
Under the guise of a commercial operation, this was purely a political trick. It was an insulting challenge to the American people, and merited the reception which they gave it. They would have shown themselves unworthy of their rich political heritage had they given it any other.
In New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston ma.s.s-meetings of the people voted that the consignees should be ordered to resign their offices, and they did so. At Philadelphia the tea-ship was met and sent back to England before it had come within the jurisdiction of the custom-house.
At Charleston the tea was landed, and as there was no one to receive it or pay the duty, it was thrown into a damp cellar and left there to spoil.
[Sidenote: How the challenge was received; the "Boston Tea Party,"
Dec. 16, 1773.]
In Boston things took a different turn. The stubborn courage of Governor Hutchinson prevented the consignees, two of whom were his own sons, from resigning; the ships arrived and were anch.o.r.ed under guard of a committee of citizens; if they were not unloaded within twenty days, the custom-house officers were empowered by law to seize them and unload them by force; and having once come within the jurisdiction of the custom-house, they could not go out to sea without a clearance from the collector or a pa.s.s from the governor. The situation was a difficult one, but it was most n.o.bly met by the men of Ma.s.sachusetts. The excitement was intense, but the proceedings were characterized from first to last by perfect quiet and decorum. In an earnest and solemn, almost prayerful spirit, the advice of all the towns in the commonwealth was sought, and the response was unanimous that the tea must on no account whatever be landed. Similar expressions of opinion came from other colonies, and the action of Ma.s.sachusetts was awaited with breathless interest. Many town-meetings were held in Boston, and the owner of the ships was ordered to take them away without unloading; but the collector contrived to fritter away the time until the nineteenth day, and then refused a clearance. On the next day, the 16th of December, 1773, seven thousand people were a.s.sembled in town-meeting in and around the Old South Meeting-House, while the owner of the ships was sent out to the governor"s house at Milton to ask for a pa.s.s. It was nightfall when he returned without it, and there was then but one thing to be done. By sunrise next morning the revenue officers would board the ships and unload their cargoes, the consignees would go to the custom-house and pay the duty, and the king"s scheme would have been crowned with success. The only way to prevent this was to rip open the tea-chests and spill their contents into the sea, and this was done, according to a preconcerted plan and without the slightest uproar or disorder, by a small party of men disguised as Indians. Among them were some of the best of the townsfolk, and the chief manager of the proceedings was Samuel Adams. The destruction of the tea has often been spoken of, especially by British historians, as a "riot," but nothing could have been less like a riot. It was really the deliberate action of the commonwealth of Ma.s.sachusetts, and the only fitting reply to the king"s insulting trick. It was hailed with delight throughout the thirteen colonies, and there is nothing in our whole history of which an educated American should feel more proud.
[Sidenote: The Retaliatory Acts, April, 1774.]
The effect upon the king and his friends was maddening, and events were quickly brought to a crisis. In spite of earnest opposition retaliatory acts were pa.s.sed through Parliament in April, 1774. One of these was the Port Bill, for shutting up the port of Boston and stopping its trade until the people should be starved and frightened into paying for the tea that had been thrown overboard. Another was the Regulating Act, by which the charter of Ma.s.sachusetts was annulled, its free government swept away, and a military governor appointed with despotic power like Andros. These acts were to go into operation on the 1st of June, and on that day Governor Hutchinson sailed for England, in the vain hope of persuading the king to adopt a milder policy. It was not long before his property was confiscated, like that of other Tories, and after six years of exile he died in London. The new governor, Thomas Gage, who had long been commander of the military forces in America, was a mild and pleasant man without much strength of character. His presence was endured but his authority was not recognized in Ma.s.sachusetts. Troops were now quartered again in Boston, but they could not prevent the people from treating the Regulating Act with open contempt. Courts organized under that act were prevented from sitting, and councillors were compelled to resign their places. The king"s authority was everywhere quietly but doggedly defied. At the same time the stoppage of business in Boston was the cause of much distress which all the colonies sought to relieve by voluntary contributions of food and other needed articles.
[Sidenote: Continental Congress meets, Sept. 1774.]