tea to the colonies without any conditions except the duty of three pence, which would still be collected in the colonies. Some one suggested that the easiest way to avoid any conflict with the colonists would be for the company to pay the latter tax in England and add the amount to the price of the tea; but the government was immovable on that point. They desired to establish a precedent for the par HE PUBLIC prefent their Compliments to Meffieurs have this Day received your Commission to enslave your native Country; and, as your frivolous Plea of having received no Advice, relative to the scandalous Part you were to act, in the TEA-SCHEME, can no longer serve your Purpose, nor divert our Attention, we expect and defire you will immediately inform the PUBLIC, by a Line or two to be left at the COFFEE HOUSE, Whether you will, or will not, renounce all Pretensions to execute that Commiflion?-----THAT WE MAY GOVERN OURSELVES ACCORDINGLY. Philadelpbid, December 2, 1773. A Tea Handbill liamentary taxation of the colonies, and the present opportunity seemed most favorable. The colonists would obtain their tea at a cheaper rate than the people of England could buy it. Under these circumstances, it was supposed that they would not object to paying the duty; but the very cheapness of the tea at once convinced the colonists that all was not right. They regarded it as an attempt to bribe them into a surrender of the constitutional principle for which they had been contending and refused to have anything to do with it at any price. The vessels. 1773] Resistance to the Tea Tax 161 The Boston Fiske's bearing tea to Philadelphia and New York were allowed by the authorities to leave port without landing their cargoes. At Charleston the tea was stored until 1776, when it was sold by the Carolinians. At Boston the customs authorities, with the support of Governor Hutchinson, refused to permit the tea vessels to clear outwards unless the tea were first landed. The rules of the customs service I, 82-93; prescribed that goods which were not landed, and on which duties were not paid within a certain time, should be seized by the collector and sold to the highest bidder. The Mas- Gen. Ser. sachusetts men were determined that the tea should not be placed on the market, and it was thrown into Boston harbor by a mob. Not only did this attempt to bribe the colonists into a surrender of their rights fail, but six more colonies appointed Committees of Correspondence. Pennsylvania alone held back; with that exception the colonial union was complete. Old South Leaflets, No. 68, I, 93-97; 317-327, 136. Repressive Acts, 1774. — The determined attitude Massaof the colonists greatly incensed the governing classes in chusetts punished, Great Britain, and they decided to punish the turbulent 1774. people of Boston and Massachusetts. With this end in Fiske's view, Parliament passed four acts: (1) closing the port of Boston to commerce; (2) suspending the operation of the *Frothcharter of Massachusetts; (3) providing for the trial outside ingham's of the colony of persons (soldiers and others) who might be Republic, charged with crime committed while quelling riots within 345-358. the colony; and (4) providing for the quartering of British troops within the province. At about the same time Parliament also passed an act, known as the Quebec Act, which 'extended the boundaries of that province to the Ohio River and established an arbitrary form of government within it. The rights of holders of grants from the crown were expressly reserved to them in the act, and it is probable that the claims of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania to lands within the new province would have been recognized. The measure had been long in preparation, and its passage at the present crisis had no relation to the dispute The Quebec Act, 1774. Old Northwest, 141. Hinsdale's Demand Continental Elections to the Congress. Jefferson's with the colonies south of the St. Lawrence. It was inevitable, however, in the excited condition of the colonists' minds, that they should regard the Quebec Act as aimed against themselves; they saw in it a disposition on the part of the British government to limit the further extension westward of the self-governing colonies. This was a matter which appealed to them all, and was the one thing required, if anything were needed, to unite them against the encroachments of the British government. The repressive acts dealt for the moment with Massachusetts alone; but it was clear that if Parliament could overthrow the constitution of one colony, it could of all, and the interests of all the colonists were really involved. Soon their sympathy was aroused by the sufferings of the people of Boston. New York and Rhode Island proposed that a general congress should be held; the Virginia burgesses appointed a day of fasting, and upon being dissolved for this action, they formed themselves into a convention, appointed a revolutionary Committee of Correspondence, advocated the holding of annual intercolonial congresses, and voted that “an attack upon one colony was an attack upon all British America." The actual call for the congress, however, came from Massachusetts (June 17, 1774). 137. The First Continental Congress, 1774. — Delegates to this meeting were chosen by all the colonies save Georgia,— in some cases by the colonial assembly, as in Massachusetts, in others by conventions, as in Virginia; in a few colonies, where no such bodies were in session or could be summoned, the delegates were chosen by the Committees of Correspondence or by the people of the several towns and counties. In New York and Pennsylvania, the moderates and conservatives, or Tories, as they were called, obtained control; in the other colonies, the radicals usually carried the day. The most important document called forth by the contest over these elections was Thomas Jefferson's Summary View of the Rights of British America, which was first drawn up 1774] The First Continental Congress 163 in the form of Instructions to the Virginia Delegates; but it American was too outspoken for the members of the Virginia conven- History tion, and was not adopted. In this essay, Jefferson boldly No. 11. Leaflets, denied the existence of a legislative union between the colonies and Great Britain, and utterly refused to admit the legislative supremacy of the British Parliament, even as to external trade. On the other hand, he declared that the union was simply through the crown, as the union between England and Scotland of the seventeenth century. He enumerated many acts of injustice on the part of the British king and urged the appointment of an American secretary for the colonies. Meeting of 1774, the 359-380. The congress met at Philadelphia on September 5, 1774. Franklin was still in England, and Jefferson was not selected as a delegate by the Virginia convention. With those exceptions, all the ablest men then in political life were present. From Massachusetts came the two Adamses, ingham's Republic, Samuel, the first American politician, and John, the keen constitutional lawyer; mental disease, greatly intensified by blows which he had received from a British official, incapacitated Otis from further service. Rhode Island sent her venerable judge, Stephen Hopkins, and Connecticut was represented by Roger Sherman, whose long services in Congress have given him an honored place in American history. John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States, came from New York, John Dickinson from Pennsylvania, and John Rutledge from South Carolina. Virginia was represented by a remarkable group of men: George Washington, whose sound judgment and solid information made him the foremost member of the congress, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, and Peyton Randolph. 1774. The congress adopted a Declaration of Rights which Declaration was not much more radical in tone than that of the Stamp of Rights, Act Congress, and was much milder than the one ad- *Frothvocated by Jefferson in the Summary View. The more ingham's important work of this congress was the establishment of Republic, the American Association, designed to secure the enforce 371. English government declares Massachusetts in rebellion. ment of a general non-importation and non-consumption agreement. The execution of this policy was no longer to be left to chance: the congress recommended the election of a committee by the county, town, or other local administrative unit in each colony, which should oversee the carrying out of non-intercourse with Great Britain. These local committees were to be supervised by the colonial Committees of Correspondence; the names of all offenders against the agreement should be published; and any colony which declined to enter the association should be regarded as hostile to "the liberties of this country," and denied all intercourse with the members of the association. In this manner, by the union of local and colonial committees under the leadership of continental congresses, a political organization was formed so perfect that it controlled the actions of individuals in all walks of life. Congress adjourned in October, after providing for the assembling of a new congress in May, 1775, unless the grievances of the colonists were redressed before that time. 138. More Repressive Measures, 1774, 1775. A general election for members of a new Parliament was held towards the end of 1774, and the electors, by returning an overwhelming majority for the government, showed that they agreed fully with the king and his ministers in their desire to compel the colonists to obey acts of Parliament. The government at once introduced several bills to carry out their policy of repression. These were rapidly passed by both houses and became law. By them the New England colonists were cut off from all trade except with Great Britain, Ireland, the West Indies, and the continental colonies of New York, North Carolina, and Georgia; for these last seemed to be more submissive than the others. Massachusetts was declared to be in a state of rebellion, and measures were at once taken to put the insurrection down by force. To this policy, the opposition in the House of Commons, led by Burke and Charles James Fox, offered stout resistance, but their espousal of the colonial cause |