touching land and without paying duty. The owners of the two other tea ships, which were daily expected, made a like promise. And thus it was thought that the whole trouble would be ended. When the expected tea ships arrived, they were ordered to cast anchor by the side of the first, so that one guard might serve for all; for the people did not put entire confidence in the promises of the ship-owners; and, besides this, the law would not allow the vessels to sail away from Boston with the tea on board. Another meeting was called, and the owner of the first tea ship was persuaded to go to the proper officers and ask for a clearance; but these officers, who owed their appointment to the king, flatly refused to grant a clearance until the cargo of tea should be landed. On the sixteenth of December seven thousand men were present at the town-meeting, and every one voted that the tea should not be landed. "Having put our hands to the plough," said one, "we must not now think of looking back." And there were many men in that meeting who thought that they foresaw in this conflict the beginning of a trying and most terrible struggle with the British government. It had been dark for more than an hour. The church in which the leaders of the movement were sitting was dimly lighted. The owner of the first tea ship entered and announced that not only the revenue officers but the governor had refused to allow his ship to leave the harbor. As soon as he had finished speaking, Samuel Adams rose and gave the word: "This meeting can do nothing more to save the country." At that instant a shout was heard on the porch. A yell like an Indian war-whoop answered it from the street, and a body of men, forty or fifty in number, dressed in the garb of Mohawk Indians, passed by the door. Quickly reaching the wharf, they posted guards to prevent interruption, went on board the three tea ships, and emptied three hundred and forty chests of tea-all that could be found-into the waters of the bay. The people around, as they looked on, were so still that the noise of breaking open the tea chests was plainly heard. "All things,” said John Adams, who became afterward the second President of the United States, "all things were conducted with great order, decency, and perfect submission to government." After the work was done, the town became as still and calm as if it had been a holy day of rest. The men from the country that very night carried back the great news to their villages. This was one of the first acts which led to the war with England that gave this country its independence. Only a little more than a year afterward, the first battle was fought at Lexington, not far from Boston; and in less than ten years the colonies had become free and independent states. George Bancroft. NOTES 1. Look up the events immediately preceding, and those immediately following, the Boston Tea Party. 2. Be sure in your reading to find how this event was interpreted from the English point of view. 3. Be prepared to locate on any good map the places mentioned. 4. Look up the meanings of the following words: celebrated, oppress, manufacture, agreement, guarded, postponed, confidence, represented, Parliament, clearance, wharf, interruption, submission. EXERCISES 1. Just when and where did this incident take place? 2. Why is this incident called a “Tea Party”? 3. What measures did England enforce against the colonies? 4. Why did the colonies resist the tax on tea? 5. How did they first attempt to avoid paying tax on tea? 6. What reception was given to the first ship that brought tea to this country? 7. How anxious was John Hancock, patriot leader, to enforce the desire of the people? 8. What answer did the merchants give the colonists? 9. What was done with the other two ships that came into the harbor? 10. Why did not the revenue officers permit the vessels to depart without unloading the tea? 11. What unanimous decision did the town-meeting of seven thousand men make? 12. What announcement was made by the owners of the tea ships? 13. What was the real point at issue in this controversy? 14. Explain the announcement of Samuel Adams. 15. Describe the "Tea Party." 16. What shows that this resistance was deliberate and definitely planned? 17. What other events figure with this incident as causes of the Revolutionary War? ADDITIONAL READINGS KIPLING: Hymn Before Action. HAWTHORNE: The Gray Champion. PIERPONT: Warren's Address at Bunker Hill. LONGFELLOW: Paul Revere's Ride. PATRICK HENRY: A Call to Arms. EARL OF MANSFIELD: On the Right of England to Tax America. LORD CHATHAM: On the Right of Taxing America. LIFE Life! I know not what thou art, I own to me's a secret yet, But this I know, when thou art fled, As all that then remains of me. Life! we've been long together Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear; Perhaps 't will cost a sigh, a tear; Then steal away, give little warning, Choose thine own time; Say not "Good night," but in some brighter clime Bid me "Good morning!" -Anna Letitia Barbauld. EXCELSIOR LONGFELLOW wrote Excelsior at the age of thirty-four. This poem was written on the back of a note from Charles Sumner and bears this explanation at the close: "September 28, 1841. Half past 3 o'clock, morning. Now to bed." Longfellow got the suggestion for the poem from the heading of a New York Journal, bearing the seal of the State of New York, a shield with a rising sun, and the motto in heraldic Latin, "Excelsior." His imagination eagerly seized the suggestion and the striking story of the youth scaling the Alpine heights resulted. Longfellow declared that his purpose in the poem was "no more than to display in a series of pictures, the life of a man of genius, resisting all temptations, laying aside all fears, heedless of all warnings, and pressing right on to accomplish his purpose." De Quincey de-. clares that the boy hero gives clear evidence of insanity in attempting to scale the Alps under such circumstances, and that he ought to have been shut up in an insane asylum. Langtree insists that the poem is not true to human |