THE DESTRUCTION OF THE TEA.

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length the owner of the vessel returned from his mission CHAP. to the governor, and reported that he would not give the permit for the ships to leave the port. "This meeting,' 1773. announced Samuel Adams, "can do nothing more to save the country."

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Immediately a shout, somewhat like a war-whoop, arose from a band of forty or fifty "very dark complexioned men, dressed like Mohawks," who were around the door. This band moved hastily down to the wharf where lay the tea ships. Placing a guard to protect them from Dec. spies, they went on board and took out three hundred and forty-two chests, broke them open, and poured the tea into the water. In silence the crowd on shore witnessed the affair; when the work was accomplished, they quietly retired to their homes. Paul Revere set out immediately to carry the news to New York and Philadelphia.

At New York, a tea ship was sent back with her cargo; the captain was escorted out of the city by the Committee of Vigilance, with banners flying and a band playing God save the king. Eighteen chests of tea, found concealed on board another vessel, were thrown into the dock. In Charleston tea was permitted to be landed, but was stowed in damp cellars, where it spoiled. The captain of the vessel bound for Philadelphia, when four miles below the city, learned that the citizens would not permit him to land his cargo; he prudently returned to England. At Annapolis, a ship and its cargo were both burned; the owner, to allay the excitement, himself applying the torch.

Meantime the various committees of correspondence were making preparations to hold a congress composed of representatives from all the colonies. Yet they said, and no doubt honestly, that "their old good-will and affection for the parent country were not totally lost." "If she returned to her former moderation and good humor, their affection would revive."

Dec.

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CHAP. When it became known in England that the audacious colonists would not even permit the tea to be landed, 1774. the king and ministry determined to make their power felt; and especially to make an example of Boston. Accordingly a bill was introduced and passed in Parliament, four to one, to close her port to all commerce, and to transfer the seat of government to Salem. Though her June. citizens offered remuneration for the tea destroyed, yet

Massachusetts must be punished; made an example, to deter other outbreaks. Parliament immediately passed a series of laws which violated her charter and took away her privileges. The Port Bill, it was complacently prophesied, will make Boston submit; she will yet come as a penitent, and promise obedience to British laws.

Parliament went still further, and passed other laws; one for quartering soldiers, at the people's expense, on all the colonies, and another in connection with it, by which officers, who, in enforcing this particular law, should commit acts of violence, were to be taken to England, and tried there for the offence. This clause would encourage arbitrary acts, and render military and official insolence still more intolerable. To these was added another law, known as the Quebec act; it granted unusual concessions to the Catholics of Canada-a stroke of policy, if war should occur between the colonies and the mother country. This act revived much of the old Protestant feeling latent in the minds of the people. These laws, opposed by many in Parliament as unnecessary and tyrannical, excited in America a deep feeling of indignation against the English government.

Everywhere Boston met with sympathy. The town of Salem refused to accept the proffered boon of becoming the seat of government at the expense of her neighbor, and Marblehead offered her port, free of charge, to the merchants of Boston. In that city great distress was experienced; multitudes, who depended upon the daily

BOSTON MEETS WITH SYMPATHY.

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labor they obtained from commerce, were out of employ- CHAP. ment, and their families suffered. The different colonies. sent to their aid provisions and money; these were accom- 1774. panied by words of encouragement, to stand firm in the righteous cause. The ordinary necessaries of life came from their neighbors of New England. "The patriotic and generous people" of South Carolina sent them two hundred barrels of rice, and promised eight hundred more,. but urged them not to pay for an ounce of the tea." In North Carolina "two thousand pounds were raised by subscription" and sent. Virginia and Maryland vied with each other in the good work. Washington presided at a meeting of sympathizers, and subscribed himself fifty pounds; and even the farmers on the western frontiers of the Old Dominion sent one hundred and thirty-seven barrels of flour.

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These patriots were determined "that the men of Boston, who were deprived of their daily labor, should not lose their daily bread, nor be compelled to change their residence for want."

Even the citizens of Quebec, French and English, by joint effort sent them more than a thousand bushels of wheat, while in London itself one hundred and fifty thousand dollars were subscribed for their benefit. Notwithstanding all this distress no riot or outbreak occurred among the people.

General Gage was now Commander-in-chief of the British army in America, and had been recently appointed governor, in place of Hutchinson. He was sadly at a loss how to manage the Bostonians. If they would only violate the law, he could exercise his civil as well as his military authority. They held meetings, from time to time, and freely discussed their public affairs. They were under

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CHAP. the control of leaders who never lost their self-possession, nor transcended their constitutional rights. The govern1774. ment, thinking to avoid the evil, forbade them to hold such meetings, after a certain day. They evaded the law "by convoking the meetings before that day, and keeping them alive." "Faneuil Hall was at times unable to hold them, and they swarmed from that revolutionary hive into Old South Church. The Liberty Tree became a rallying place for any popular movement, and a flag hoisted on it was saluted by all processions as the emblem of the popu lar cause."

During this time, the people throughout the colonies held conventions and chose delegates to the General Congress about to meet at Philadelphia. One of these meetings, held in the "Fields" in New York, was addressed by a youth of seventeen. The stripling charmed his hearers by his fervor, as he grappled with the question and presented with clearness the main points at issue. When he closed, a whisper ran through the crowd, "It is a collegian." The youth was Alexander Hamilton, a native of St. Kitts, of Scotch and French descent, his mother a Huguenot. The son combined the caution of the Scot with the vivacity of the Gaul. At an early age he lost his mother, whose memory he cherished with the greatest devotion. "A father's care he seems never to have known." At the age of twelve he was thrown upon the world to depend upon his own resources. He came to Boston, and thence to New York, where he found means to enter King's, since Columbia College. He had been known to the people simply as the West Indian, who walked under the trees in the college green, and unconscious of the observation of others, talked to himself. Henceforth a brilliant mind and untiring energies were to 'be consecrated to the welfare of the land that had adopted the orphan.

'Washington Irving.

THE OLD CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.

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1774.

When the time came for the meeting of the General CHAP. Congress, known as the Old Continental Congress, fiftyfive delegates assembled in the Carpenters' Hall, in the city of Philadelphia. Every colony was represented, except Georgia. Martin, the royalist governor, had prevented delegates from being chosen.

Here for the first time assembled the most eminent men of the colonies. They held in their hands, under the Great Disposer of all things, the destinies of a people numbering nearly three millions. Here were names now sacred in the memories of Americans. George Washington, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Edward and John Rutledge, Gadsden, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Roger Sherman, Philip Livingston, John Jay, William Livingston, Dr. Witherspoon, President of Princeton College, a Scotch Presbyterian minister, who had come over some years before, but was said to be "as high a son of liberty as any man in America," and others of lesser note, but no less patriotism. They had corresponded with each other, and exchanged views on the subject of their country's wrongs; they had sympathized as brethren, though many of them were to each other personally unknown. It was a momentous crisis, and they felt the responsibility of their position.

The House was organized by electing the aged Peyton Randolph, of Virginia, Speaker, and Charles Thomson, of Pennsylvania, Secretary. A native of Ireland, when a youth he came to America. He was principal of the Quaker High School in Philadelphia, and was proverbial for his truth and honesty.

It was suggested that it would be becoming to open their sessions with prayer. This proposition was thought by some to be inexpedient, since perhaps the delegates could not all join in the same form of worship. At length Samuel Adams, who was a strict Congregationalist, arose and said: “I will willingly join in prayer with any gen

Sept.

5.