An immense amount of tea remained in storage, estimated in value at seventeen millions sterling. The law had hitherto exacted that the tea should be sold in England to merchants, and by them exported to America. The company was now permitted to export directly from its own warehouses. The sole tax payable being the port tax of three pence in the pound collected in America, the company's tea was obtainable nine pence cheaper than hitherto, and was freed from the profit which went into the pocket of the trader; at the same time tea of genuine quality was furnished. Viewed from economic considerations, the measure was one of undeniable benefit to the provinces. Politically, a tax of three pence in the pound remained. Notwithstanding this saving in money, in many of the cities this tax was represented as an odious act of tyranny, and was so continually paraded before the people. The tea trade, coming into operation in this profitable form, seriously interfered with the systematic smuggling which for years had been prosperously followed. According to all accounts it was in smuggling tea from Saint Eustatia that the fortune inherited by John Hancock was obtained, a man rising into prominence as one of the leaders of the extreme party. He was now about thirty-six years of age, with more vanity and ambition than ability. His father and grandfather had been ministers in one of the non-episcopal churches. The uncle, by whose wealth he had been enriched, had been a government contractor; one of the firm which had furnished the vessels for the deportation of the Acadians in 1755. The younger Hancock, in search of distinction, became entirely under the control of Samuel Adams, a character by no means rare; of great strength of will and with an unflinching adherence to the purpose formed. Such persons seldom leave behind them any monument of ability beyond their selfsustained energy; but in their lives they acquire position and influence, especially over younger men. Samuel Adams, for he must be distinguished from John Adams, had few of the accomplishments and graces of culture, 1773] SAMUEL ADAMS. 327 and, being little fit to shine in society, avoided it. His life had been one continual failure; possibly to some extent owing to his ungenial manners, for he hated everything in the form. of authority; especially the representatives of the mother country, and the church of England. It was from his agitation that the desire to be independent of Great Britain principally had its source; and as no fear was to be entertained of attacks from France, he could find willing auditors to his declaration, that the enterprise and energy of the New Englander should be unfettered by the trade regulations framed in London. In this view he had just grounds for complaint; but unfortunately, at that date, the remedy was not seen by better men than Adams, who does not appear to have possessed the slightest idea of political economy. He could only discover in the connection with the mother country the weight of the restrictions enforced. The tone of his mind made him incapable of approaching the historical character of the relationship, and the extent to which the connection might have been affirmed by statesmanship, so to have been indissolubly established. He entirely banished from his thought the relief extended to the colonies, by the removal of French rule from the continent by force of arms. Even the service, which Bouquet had rendered a few months previously at the forks of the Muskingum, had passed from his memory. It was his one effort to form a party to act with him, to be freed from all imperial control. * Adams lived simply. In 1772 he was about forty-three. When the stamp act came into operation, as he was one of the earliest, so he became one of the most virulent writers of that time. He was more or less connected with every form of agitation against the government. In spite of the respect with which United States writers speak of his memory, not a page of his writing has been preserved to bear witness to his ability as a man of letters. His manner was cold, he was without enthusiasm, without sympathy with the higher education, which throws a grace over manners and social intercourse. What Balzac calls "l'age de l'aplomb et de la scélératesse." With the imperfectly educated community in which he lived, he passed as one having a high order of character; the main doctrine enforced by him was hostility to the British government. He was an austere supporter of the independent form of worship at Boston, then so narrow and illiberal; and there are traces in his opinions, communicated to those he endeavoured to impress, of his hatred in common of Anglican bishops and Roman catholics. Had he been listened to, recourse would have been had to arms at an early period of the dispute. During the revolutionary war he was an opponent of Washington, and an enemy to all consideration being shewn to the officers of the army in the field. His impracticable character would have done much to break up the union, which wiser men effected, and wiser men preserved. He was now in the zenith of his power, unceasing in urging an agitation against the colonial government, in the hope of realizing his aspirations; the establishment in New England of a religious republic, the laws for the government of which he was incapable of framing. He hoped to see every soldier of the crown driven into the sea. He would have attacked them and destroyed them as they landed, and would have taken his part in the front line of the enterprise. Politicians of the stamp of Adams saw that if the tea was landed, the tax would be paid by the consignees who had generally been selected as men favourable to Great Britain, and that the tea, from its good quality and its cheapness, would find purchasers; that once introduced it would become a necessity, and that it would not be possible to oppose its permanent introduction. Thus the tax would be paid, and the principle for which they were contending would be violated. There was one line of policy to be followed, to prevent the tea being landed. There was the greater reason for this forcible proceeding, as, in the southern provinces during the last two years, things had much quieted down, and the prohibition against importation had become relaxed. The news arrived of the tea-ships being freighted for the colonies; the consignees were known, and were attacked and 1773] THE BOSTON TEA OUTRAGE. 329 driven to find refuge in fort William. Hutchinson appealed to the council to take measures to prevent riot on the arrival of the ships. The council refused to interfere. There were troops in Boston, and any attempt at riot could easily have been suppressed. Their aid could have been obtained only by authority of the civil power. The governor could not, without the council, call for their help or even obtain that of the militia; and for the governor to act on his own responsibility alone, was a pretension to an authority, no one would have assumed. The city was left, therefore, entirely at the mercy of the agitators. The consequence was, on the arrival of the three tea-ships in December, 1773, some fifty men, disguised as Indians, boarded the ships and threw the cargo, three hundred and forty two chests overboard, the value of which was £18,000. As might be expected the news spread like wildfire. The powerless condition of the authorities in other cities suggested the same proceedings. In New York and Philadelphia the ships were refused permission to land their cargoes. In Charlestown a ship arrived in April; the tea was landed, but it was stored in warehouses from which it never emerged. The tea outrage at Boston caused great irritation in England. It was plain that it was sustained by the public feeling of the place, for the fifty rioters could have been scattered in a few moments by a company of soldiers, yet no one was to be found, who would give the weight of the civil power to the suppression of the tumult. It seemed as if all authority was paralyzed, and that the act was an entire repudiation of imperial authority. Never was a greater occasion for wise and judicious statesmanship; if power had to be exercised, it required to be enforced with calmness and determination. The ability of the colonists to resist any military force sent against them never entered into the consideration of ministers, nor did they conceive that any special provision was necessary to make good the right of control over the trade of the colonies, which parliament persevered in affirming. One essential requirement was to separate the cause of Massachusetts from that of the other provinces, and, not by harsh legislation, to obtain sympathy and support for those engaged in violent outrages against the law, and the destruction of private property. One of two courses was necessary, either to concede the demands of the provinces on the subject of taxation, or to enforce the tax with firmness, without vindictive retribution. There was a large number strongly opposed to the policy of Adams and Hancock, and it was essential that such as these should be actively supported in their adherence to the government. The population of Boston was about 20,000 souls, and it would have been by no means difficult by judicious measures to subdue the agitation. The first duty was to enforce the observance of law, and resolutely suppress every attempt at its violation: a result which should have been attained without the slightest colour of passion or vindictiveness. The measures introduced should have been characterized by forbearance and moderation. Ministers should have made. the principle apparent that they had only in view the furtherance of the public good; and that if severity was exercised, it had been called forth in the cause of peace and order. Especially, if grievances did exist, that the worst mode of obtaining their recognition was defiance of the government, and the persecution of those sustaining it. The policy of the imperial ministers was directly the contrary, and the fact, I believe, may be affiliated to the influence of the king. George III. had thrown his personal feeling into the American contest, as if the violence it had called forth in the provinces had been an attack against his crown and dignity. The proceedings taken in parliament remain a proof how this sentiment operated on legislation. It is, however, proper to state that all classes in the mother country were outraged by the destruction of the tea by the Boston rioters; even the professed friends of the colonies were unable to defend it. The consequence was the introduction of the act known as the Boston port bill. On the ground that commerce could not be safely carried on, and the customs |