summons was sent to the consignees, to know definitely whether they would or would not resign. Upon their positive refusal to do so, the meeting retired without a word. The evening before, the house of Clarke, one of the consignees, having been mobbed, the consignees petitioned to place themselves and the tea under the protection of the governor and council. The council, led by Bowdoin, declined interfering, and refused to render themselves in any way responsible for the safety of the tea. Meanwhile, the first cargo arrived. A mass meeting was assembled, November 29th, in Faneuil Hall, at which it was resolved, that the ship should be moored at a certain wharf, and a guard of twenty-five volunteers should keep watch upon her. The captain was ordered not to attempt, at his peril, to unlade the ship. A similar assemblage taking place on the morrow, the governor declared it illegal, and required it to disperse; but to no purpose; and the cadets, who were commanded by Hancock, were not to be depended upon for any service adverse to liberty. The consignees promised, if the tea were allowed to be landed, that they would keep it in their cellars until they could receive fresh orders from England, but the people demanded the immediate return of the ships without unlading. The custom officers refused to grant the necessary clearance with out the cargo was landed; and thus the time passed away until the arrival of two other tea ships, early in December. Provoked at the delay, the mass of the people now resolved to act, promptly and effectively. On the 16th of December, a town meeting was held in the old South Meeting-house. The owner of the ships was sent for, and requested to obtain from the collector the necessary clearance for their departure, but that officer refused to comply. He was next sent to the governor, then at his country house, at Milton, a few miles from the city, for the same purpose. Late in the afternoon he returned and announced the governor's refusal. The three ships were moored near each other at Griffin's wharf. Josiah Quincy harangued the crowded and excited assembly with much solemnity of manner, and in his peculiarly fervid style of eloquence. "It is not," he said, "the spirit that vapors within these walls that must stand us in stead. The exertions of this day will call forth events which will make which will make a very different spirit necessary for our salvation. Look to the end. Whoever supposes that shouts and hosannas will terminate the trials of this day, entertains a childish fancy. We must be grossly ignorant of the importance and value of the prize for which we contend;-we must be equally ignorant of the power of those who have combined against us ;-we must be blind to that malice, inveteracy, and insatiable revenge which actuates our enemies public and private, abroad and in our bosoms, to hope that we shall end this controversy without the sharpest-the sharpest conflicts; to flatter ourselves that popular resolves, popular harangues, popular acclamations, and popular vapor will vanquish our foes. Let us consider the issue. Let us look to the CH. XI.] THE BOSTON TEA PARTY. 301 the tea; probably they were not very sorry at being relieved from the necessity of attempting to force the obnoxious article on shore. Admiral Montague, it is related, was, on the evening of the 16th, at the house of a friend, and as the party marched from the wharf, he raised the window, and said, "Well, boys, you've had a fine night for your Indian caper, hav'n't you? But mind, you've got to pay the fiddler yet." "O, never mind," shouted Pitt, one of the leaders, "never mind, squire ! just come out here, if you please, and we'll settle the bill in two minutes!" The admiral wisely shut down the window, while the crowd went on its way, without further demonstration of popular feeling.* end. Let us weigh and consider before we advance to those measures which must bring on the most trying and terrible struggle this country ever saw."* Roused by such an appeal, the question was put to the assembled multitude "Will you abide by your former resolutions with respect to not suffering the tea to be landed?" A unanimous shout was the reply, and the excitement at tained its utmost pitch. It was growing dark, and there was a cry for candles, when a man disguised as a Mohawk Indian raised the war-whoop in the gallery, which was responded to in the street without. Another voice suddenly shouted, "Boston harbor a teapot to-night! Hurra for Griffin's wharf!" The meeting instantly adjourned, and the people hurried down to the harbor to see the result. It was now six o'clock, but a fine still evening. Some fifty men, in the guise of Mohawks, boarded the tea vessels, and while the dense crowd silently watched the pro- three cargoes of Bohea tea were emptied into the ceeding, they drew up from the holds sea. This morning a man-of-war sails. This is the of the vessels three hundred and forty-nity, a majesty, a sublimity, in this last effort of the most magnificent movement of all. There is a digtwo chests of tea, deliberately broke patriots, that I greatly admire. The people should them open, and emptied their contents never rise without doing something to be rememberinto the water. This occupied between ed, something notable and striking. This destruction of the tea is so bold, so daring, so firm, intrepid, and two and three hours. No damage was inflexible, and it must have such important consedone to anything else, and when the quences, and so lasting, that I cannot but consider it tea had been destroyed, the crowd dispersed, without further noise or trouble, to their homes. Singularly enough, the naval and military force was entirely apathetic, and did not at all interfere to prevent the destruction of *“ Memoir of the Life of Josiah Quincy, Jr.,” p. 266, 267. Consult Mr. Bancroft's account of the famous "Boston Tea Party," vol. vi. pp. 465-489. เ In New York, November 25th, the consignees of the expected tea, declined to act in that capacity, having been * "Last night," says John Adams, in his Diary, as an epoch in history. This, bow ever, is but an attack upon property. Another similar exertion of popular power may produce the destruction of lives. Many persons wish that as many dead carcasses were floating in the harbor, as there are chests of tea. A much less number of lives, however, would remove the causes of all our calamities. The malicious pleasure with which Hutchinson, the governor, the consignees of the tea, and the officers of the customs, have stood and looked upon the distresses of the people, and their struggles to get the tea back to London, and at last the destruction of it, is amazing. 'Tis hard to believe persons so hardened and abandoned." 1773. urged to this step by the demand made of them at a popular meeting. Governor Tryon, thereupon issued orders to receive the tea into the barracks. Driven by stress of weather into the West Indies, it was not till April of the next year, that the vessel arrived at Sandy Hook. The pilots, under instructions from a "Committee of Vigilance," refused to bring the ship up, until assured that there was no tea on board. It having been discovered, however, that there were some eighteen chests on board, they were thrown into the river, and the captain was coolly put on board his ship, the anchors were weighed, and he was sent to find his way back again to England. state of morals and manners, soon led to great injustice being done to the Indians; and the consequence was, ere long, a collision between them and the white men. The more daring and reckless portion of the settlers continued to advance, and settle down upon Indian lands, without even the shadow of a right. Against these continual encroachments, sustained as they were by force and outrage, the Indians had repeatedly remonstrated to the local governments, but to little or no purpose. At length, on the 6th of May, 1768, a deputation from the Six 1768. Nations repaired to Fort Pitt, to present a remonstrance, which was forwarded to the Assembly of Virginia. The president of the Council in hist message declared, “that a set of men, regardless of the laws of natural justice, unmindful of the duties they owe to society, and in contempt of the royal proclamations, have dared to settle themselves upon the lands near Redstone Creek and Cheat River, which are the property of the Indians, and, notwithstanding the repeated warnings of the danger of such lawless proceedings, they still remain unmoved, and seem to defy the orders and even the powers of the government." The royal government was at length compelled to interfere, by ordering Sir William Johnson to purchase from the Six Nations the lands already thus occupied, as well as to obtain a further grant; and accordingly, by a treaty at Fort Stanwix, Peace having been concluded with large bodies of land extending to the the Indians in the north-west, a great Ohio, were, as it was said, ceded by the impulse was thereby given to emigra- Indians, but, as they persisted in detion. Cupidity, however, and a lawless claring, were obtained by mingled The ship bound for Philadelphia, was stopped four miles below the city, December 25th. News having 1773. arrived of the destruction of the tea at Boston, the captain judged it most prudent not to attempt to land his obnoxious cargo, and so he set sail for home. The Charleston tea ship reached that city the same day that the New York vessel reached the Hook. The teas were landed, but care was taken to store them in damp cellars, where they were soon spoiled. 1774. It will be convenient at this point, before proceeding farther with the narrative, to give some attention to matters which we have passed over, so as not to interrupt the exciting story of ante-revolutionary days. CH. XI.] INSURRECTION IN NORTH CAROLINA. 303 fraud and cunning, on the part of the treasury for a heavy arrear of public white men. North Carolina, to use the language of Mr. Grahame, had been for some time past convulsed with disorders, which at length broke out in an insurrection so completely disconnected with the general agitation by which America was pervaded, that the insurgents afterwards formed one of the strongest bodies of royalist partisans, who, dissenting from their countrymen in general, adhered to and supported the pretensions of Britain. And yet, in reality, it was the corruption or incapacity of functionaries of the British government that produced the very evils of which those persons now complained. We have formerly remarked the abuses which prevailed in the civil administration of this province, and which the appointment of Tryon to be its governor was expected to cure. This expectation was disappointed. One of the most irritating abuses was the exaction of exorbitant fees by public officers on all legal proceedings, and particularly on all deeds and ceremonies requisite by law to the validity of sales and acquisitions of landed property. Tryon, in conformity with his instructions, issued a proclamation against this abuse; but, as he either negligently or corruptly confined himself to proclaiming, without attempting to execute, a purposed reform, his conduct served only to sanction, without curing or alleviating, the general discontent. In addition to this grievance, a number of the sheriffs and of the receivers of the provincial taxes were suffered to continue long indebted to the provincial moneys which they had collected, but delayed to account for; and it was not unreasonably surmised that the weight of the taxes was aggravated by this misapplication of their produce. An association was gradually formed by a great number of poor colonists, who assumed the title of Regulators, and who entered into a compact, which they ratified by oath, to pay no taxes whatever, till all exorbitant fees were abolished, and official embezzlement punished and prevented. The general ill-humor was increased by a vote of the Assembly of a large sum of money to build a palace for the governor, as an expression of public gratitude for the repeal of the Stamp Act; and also by the imposition for this purpose of a tax, which began to operate at the very time when the parliamentary impost on tea, glass, paper, and painters' colors was promulgated. Tryon with great difficulty pacified the Regulators by promises which were only delusively fulfilled. Fanning, one of the recorders of conveyances of land, was tried on six indictments for extortion, and found guilty in every instance. The royal judges, however, sentenced him to pay only the fine of one penny,-a sentence more insulting to the people than would have been the boldest injustice in openly absolving him. This, and other similar transactions, revived the association of the Regu lators, who, incensed and blinded with indignation and ignorance, easily became the dupes of leaders of whom some were madmen and others knaves. One of those leaders, named Few, whose life was afterwards vindictively short- and respectable inhabitants of North ened by the executioner, instead of being Carolina. This advantage he owed to charitably prolonged in a lunatic asy- the diligence with which he avoided to lum, alleged that he was commissioned provoke or aggravate disputes with the by Heaven to deliver the whole world Assembly, and to the zeal with which he from oppression, and specially directed opposed a proposition of Lord Charles to commence his work in North Ca- Montague, the governor of South Carolina. After various outrages, the rolina, for establishing a boundary Regulators, assembling in the present line very unfavorable to the northern year to the number of two thousand, province. Nevertheless, only a short declared their purpose of abolishing time after he had suppressed the incourts of justice, exterminating all law-surrection of the Regulators, Tryon yers and public officers, and prostrating was removed to the government of the provincial government itself be- New York, and succeeded in North neath some wild and indeterminate Carolina by Josiah Martin, a vain, weak, scheme of democracy, which, doubt- and insolent man, who endeavored to less, its abettors as little comprehended lower the character of his predecessor as they were qualified to accomplish. by defending and countenancing all All the sober and respectable part of who were supposed to have aided or the community perceived the necessity befriended the Regulators; and to reof defending themselves against the commend himself to the British minisfolly and fury of the insurgents, whom try by seizing every opportunity of disTryon was soon enabled to oppose with puting with and complaining of the eleven hundred of the provincial militia. provincial Assembly.* In a battle at Almansee, May 1771. 16th, the Regulators were completely defeated, with the loss of three hundred of their number, who were found dead on the field. Seventy of the militia were killed or wounded. Twelve of the defeated insurgents were afterwards tried and condemned to die for high treason, in June; six of these were executed; the rest of the fugitives, except some of their leaders who escaped from the province, submitted to the government and took the oath of allegiance. Tryon, though he had dissolved an Assembly for imitating the Virginian resolutions in 1769, was yet in the main popular with all the most substantial Notwithstanding the active hostility of the Indians, there were daring men on the frontiers who persisted in exploring farther and farther into the unsettled regions of western districts. Daniel Boone was such a one, and by long residence in the woods, he had become excellently fitted for the toil and privation of a pioneer life. Attracted by the descriptions of John Finley, a trader, who had already caught a glimpse of the land of promise, Boone eagerly joined in an exploring expedition in company with Finley, John Stuart, and three other companions. * Grahame's "History of the United States," vol. ii. pp. 465-7. |