Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. IV, No. 19, Dec 1851

While the bill for allowing the East India Company to export tea to America on their own account, was under consideration in Parliament, Dr. Franklin, Arthur Lee, and others, apprised the colonists of the movement; and when, a few weeks afterward, several large vessels laden with the plant, were out upon the Atlantic, bound for American ports, the people here were actively preparing to prevent the landing of the cargoes. The Company had appointed consignees in various seaport towns, and these being generally known to the people, were warned to resign their commissions, or hold them at their peril.

In Boston the most active measures were taken to prevent the landing of the tea. The consignees were all friends of government; two of them were Governor Hutchinson's sons, and a third (Richard Clarke, father-in-law of John Singleton Copley, the eminent painter), was his nephew. Their neighbors expostulated with them, but in vain; and as the time for the expected arrival of two or three tea-ships approached, the public mind became feverish. On the first of November several of the leading "Sons of Liberty," as the patriots were called, met at the house of John Hancock, on Beacon-street, facing the Common, to consult upon the public good, touching the expected tea ships. A public meeting was decided upon, and on the morning of the third the following placard was posted in many places within the city:

"TO THE FREEMEN OF THIS AND THE NEIGHBORING TOWNS.

"Gentlemen.– You are desired to meet at the Liberty Tree this day at twelve o'clock at noon, then and there to hear the persons to whom the Tea shipped by the East India Company is consigned, make a public resignation of their offices as consignees, upon oath; and also swear that they will reship any teas that may be consigned to them by the said Company, by the first vessel sailing to London.

O. C. Sec'y.

"Boston, Nov. 3, 1773.

" Show me the man that dare take this down!"

The consignees were summoned at an early hour in the morning, to appear under Liberty Tree (a huge elm, which stood at the present junction of Washington and Essex streets), and resign their commissions. They treated the summons with contempt, and refused to comply. At the appointed hour the town-crier proclaimed the meeting, and the church-bells of the city also gave the annunciation. Timid men remained at home, but about five hundred people assembled near the tree, from the top of which floated the New England flag. No definite action was taken, and at three o'clock the meeting had dispersed.

On the 5th, another meeting was held, over which John Hancock presided. Several short but vehement speeches were made, in which were uttered many seditious sentiments; eight resistance resolutions adopted by the Philadelphians were agreed too; and a committee was appointed to wait upon the consignees, who, it was known, were then at Clarke's store, on King-street, and request them to resign. Again those gentlemen refused compliance, and when the committee reported to the meeting, it was voted that the answer of the consignees was "unsatisfactory and highly affrontive." This meeting also adjourned without deciding upon any definite course for future action.

The excitement in Boston now hourly increased. Grave citizens congregated at the corners of the streets to interchange sentiments, and all seemed to have a presentiment that the sanguinary scenes of the 5th of March, 1770, when blood flowed in the streets of Boston, were about to be reproduced.

The troops introduced by Bernard had been removed from the city, and there was no legal power but that of the civil authorities, to suppress disorder. On the 12th, the captain-general of the province issued an order for the Governor's Guards, of which John Hancock was colonel, to stand in readiness to assist the civil magistrate in preserving order. This corps, being strongly imbued with the sentiments of their commander, utterly disregarded the requisition. Business was, in a measure, suspended, and general uneasiness prevailed.

On the 18th, another meeting was held in Faneuil Hall, and a committee was again appointed to wait upon the consignees and request them to resign. Again they refused, and that evening the house of Richard Clarke, on School-street, was surrounded by an unruly crowd. A pistol was fired from the house, but without serious effect other than exciting the mob to deeds of violence; the windows were demolished, and the family menaced with personal injury. Better counsels than those of anger soon prevailed, and at midnight the town was quiet. The meeting, in the mean while, had received the report of the committee in silence, and adjourned without uttering a word. This silence was ominous of evil to the friends of government. The consignees were alarmed, for it was evident that the people were determined to talk only, no more, but henceforth to act. The governor, also, properly interpreted their silence as a calm before a storm, and he called his council together at the Province House, to consult upon measures for preserving the peace of the city. During their session the frightened consignees presented a petition to the council, asking leave to resign their commissions into the hands of the governor and his advisers, and praying them to adopt measures for the safe landing of the teas. The council, equally fearful of the popular vengeance, refused the prayer of their petition, and the consignees withdrew, for safety, to Castle William, a strong fortress at the entrance of the harbor, then garrisoned by a portion of the troops who had been encamped on Boston Common. The flight of the consignees allayed the excitement for a few days.

On Sunday evening, the 28th of November, the Dartmouth, Captain Hall, one of the East India Company's ships, arrived in the harbor. The next morning the following handbill was posted in every part of the city:

"Friends! Brethren! Countrymen!– That worst of plagues, the detested Tea shipped for this port, by the East India Company, is now arrived in the harbor. The hour of destruction, or manly opposition to the machinations of tyranny, stares you in the face; every friend to his country, to himself, and to posterity, is now called upon to meet at Faneuil Hall, at nine o'clock This Day (at which time the bells will ring), to make united and successful resistance to this last, worst, and most destructive measure of administration.

"Boston, Nov. 29th, 1773."

A large concourse assembled in and around Faneuil Hall at the appointed hour, too large to be admitted within its walls, and they adjourned to the Old South Meeting House, on the corner of the present Washington and Milk streets. Hancock, the Adamses, Warren, Quincy, and other popular leaders and influential citizens were there. Firmness marked all the proceedings, and within that sanctuary of religion they made resolves of gravest import. It was agreed that no tea should be landed within the precincts of Boston; that no duty should be paid; and that it should be sent back in the same bottom. They also voted that Mr. Roch, the owner of the Dartmouth, "be directed not to enter the tea at his peril; and that Captain Hall be informed, and at his peril, not to suffer any of the tea to be landed." They ordered the ship to be moored at Griffin's wharf, near the present Liverpool dock, and appointed a guard of twenty-five men to watch her.

When the meeting was about to adjourn, a letter was received from the consignees, offering to store the tea until they could write to England and obtain instructions from the owners. The people had resolved that not a chest should be landed, and the offer was at once rejected. The sheriff, who was present, then stepped upon the back of a pew, and read a proclamation by the governor, ordering the assembly to disperse. It was received with hisses. Another resolution was then adopted, ordering two other tea vessels, then hourly expected, to be moored at Griffin's wharf; and, after solemnly pledging themselves to carry their several resolutions into effect at all hazards, and thanking the people in attendance from the neighboring towns for their sympathy, they adjourned.

Every thing relating to the tea movement was now in the hands of the Boston Committee of Correspondence. A large volunteer guard was enrolled, and every necessary preparation was made to support the resistance resolutions of the 29th. A fortnight elapsed without any special public occurrence, when, on the afternoon of the 13th of December, intelligence went through the town that the Eleanor, Captain James Bruce, and the Beaver, Captain Hezekiah Coffin, ships of the East India Company, laden with tea, had entered the harbor. They were moored at Griffin's wharf by the volunteer guard, and that night there were many sleepless eyes in Boston. The Sons of Liberty convened at an early hour in the evening, and expresses were sent to the neighboring towns with the intelligence. Early the next morning the following placard appeared:

"Friends! Brethren! Countrymen!– The perfidious arts of your restless enemies to render ineffectual the resolutions of the body of the people, demand your assembling at the Old South Meeting House precisely at two o'clock this day, at which time the bells will ring."

The "Old South" was crowded at the appointed hour, yet perfect order prevailed. It was resolved to order Mr. Roch to apply immediately for a clearance for his ship, and send her to sea. The owner was in a dilemma, for the governor had taken measures, since the arrival of the Dartmouth, to prevent her sailing out of the harbor. Admiral Montague, who happened to be in Boston, was directed to fit out two armed vessels, and station them at the entrance to the harbor, to act in concert with Colonel Leslie, the commander of the garrison at the Castle. Leslie had already received written orders from the governor not to allow any vessel to pass the guns of the fort, outward, without a permit, signed by himself. Of course Mr. Roch could do nothing.

As no effort had yet been made to land the tea, the meeting adjourned, to assemble again on the 16th, at the same place. These several popular assemblies attracted great attention in the other colonies; and from New York and Philadelphia in particular, letters, expressive of the strongest sympathy and encouragement, were received by the Committee of Correspondence. At the appointed hour on the 16th, the "Old South" was again crowded, and the streets near were filled with a multitude, eager to participate in the proceedings. They had flocked in from the neighboring towns by hundreds. So great a gathering of people had never before occurred in Boston. Samuel Phillips Savage, of Weston, was chosen Moderator, or Chairman, and around him sat many men who, two years afterward, were the recognized leaders of the Revolution in Massachusetts. When the preliminary business was closed, and the meeting was about to appoint committees for more vigorous action than had hitherto been directed, the youthful Josiah Quincy arose, and with words almost of prophecy, uttered with impassioned cadence, he harangued the multitude. "It is not, Mr. Moderator," 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 a very different spirit necessary for our salvation. 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 the 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 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 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." This gifted young patriot did not live to see the struggle he so confidently anticipated; for, when blood was flowing, in the first conflicts at Lexington and Concord, eighteen month's afterward, he was dying with consumption, on ship-board, almost within sight of his native land.

The people, in the "Old South," were greatly agitated when Quincy closed his harangue. It was between three and four o'clock in the afternoon. The question was immediately proposed to the meeting, "Will you abide by your former resolutions with respect to not suffering the tea to be landed?" The vast assembly within, as with one voice, replied affirmatively, and when the purport was known without, the multitude there responded in accordance. The meeting now awaited the return of Mr. Roch, who had been to the governor to request a permit for his vessel to leave the harbor. Hutchinson, alarmed at the stormy aspect of affairs, had taken counsel of his fears, and withdrawn from the city to his country-house at Milton, a few miles from Boston. It was sunset when Roch returned and informed the meeting that the governor refused to grant a permit, until a clearance should be exhibited. As a clearance had already been refused by the collector of the port, until the cargo should be landed, it was evident that government officers had concerted to resist the demands of the people. Like a sea lashed by a storm, that meeting swayed with excitement, and eagerly demanded from the leaders some indication for immediate action. Night was fast approaching, and as the twilight deepened, a call was made for candles. At that moment, a person in the gallery, disguised in the garb of a Mohawk Indian, gave a war-whoop, which was answered from without. That signal, like the notes of a trumpet before the battle-charge, fired the assemblage, and as another voice in the gallery shouted, "Boston harbor a tea-pot to-night! Hurrah for Griffin's wharf!" a motion to adjourn was carried, and the multitude rushed to the street. "To Griffin's wharf! to Griffin's wharf!" again shouted several voices, while a dozen men, disguised as Indians, were seen speeding over Fort Hill, in that direction. The populace followed, and in a few minutes the scene of excitement was transferred from the "Old South" to the water side.

No doubt the vigilant patriots had arranged this movement, in anticipation of the refusal of the governor to allow the Dartmouth to depart; for concert of action marked all the operations at the wharf. The number of persons disguised as Indians, was fifteen or twenty, and these, with others who joined them, appeared to recognize Lendall Pitts, a mechanic of Boston, as their leader. Under his directions, about sixty persons boarded the three tea-ships, brought the chests upon deck, broke them open, and cast their contents into the water. The Dartmouth was boarded first; the Eleanor and Beaver were next entered; and within the space of two hours, the contents of three hundred and forty-two chests of tea were cast into the waters of the harbor. During the occurrence very little excitement was manifested among the multitude upon the wharf; and as soon as the work of destruction was completed, the active party marched in perfect order back into the town, preceded by a drum and fife, dispersed to their homes, and Boston, untarnished by actual mob or riot, was never more tranquil than on that bright and frosty December night.

A British squadron was not more than a quarter of a mile from Griffin's wharf, where this event occurred, and British troops were near, yet the whole proceeding was uninterrupted. The newspapers of the day doubtless gave the correct interpretation to this apathy. Something far more serious had been anticipated, if an attempt should be made to land the tea; and the owners of the vessels, as well as the public authorities, civil and military, doubtless thanked the rioters, in their secret thoughts, for thus extricating them from a serious dilemma. They would doubtless have been worsted in an attempt forcibly to land the tea; now, the vessels were saved from destruction; no blood was spilt; the courage of the civil and military officers remained unimpeached; the "national honor" was not compromised, and the Bostonians, having carried their resolutions into effect, were satisfied. The East India Company alone, which was the actual loser, had cause for complaint.

It may be asked, Who were the men actively engaged in this high-handed measure? Were they an ignorant rabble, with no higher motives than the gratification of a mobocratic spirit? By no means. While some of them were doubtless governed, in a measure, by such a motive, the greater portion were young men and lads who belonged to the respectable part of the community, and of the fifty-nine participators whose names have been preserved, some of them held honorable stations in after life; some battled nobly in defense of liberty in the Continental Army of the Revolution which speedily followed, and almost all of them, according to traditionary testimony, were entitled to the respect due to good citizens. Only one, of all that band, as far as is known, is yet among the living, and he has survived almost a half century beyond the allotted period of human life. When the present century dawned, he had almost reached the goal of three score and ten years; and now, at the age of one hundred and fifteen years, David Kinnison, of Chicago, Illinois, holds the eminent position of the last survivor of the Boston Tea Party! When the writer, in 1848, procured the portrait and autograph of the aged patriot, he was living among strangers and ignorant of the earthly existence of one of all his twenty-two children. A daughter survives, and having been made acquainted of the existence of her father, by the publication of this portrait in the "Field-Book," she hastened to him, and is now smoothing the pillow of the patriarch as he is gradually passing into the long and peaceful slumber of the grave.

The life of another actor was spared, until within ten years, and his portrait, also, is preserved. George Robert Twelves Hewes, was supposed to be the latest survivor, until the name of David Kinnison was made public. Soon not one of all that party will be among the living.

Before closing this article let us advert to the effect produced by the destruction of the tea in Boston Harbor, for to effects alone are causes indebted for importance.

The events of the 16th of December produced a deep sensation throughout the British realm. They struck a sympathetic chord in every colony which afterward rebeled; and even Canada, Halifax, and the West Indies, had no serious voice of censure for the Bostonians. But the ministerial party here, and the public in England, amazed at the audacity of the Americans in opposing royal authority, and in destroying private property, called loudly for punishment; and even the friends of the colonists in Parliament were, for a moment, silent, for they could not fully excuse the lawless act. Another and a powerful party was now made a principal in the quarrel; the East India Company whose property had been destroyed, was now directly interested in the question of taxation. That huge monopoly which had controlled the commerce of the Indies for more than a century and a half, was then almost at the zenith of its power. Already it had laid the foundation, broad and deep, of that British-Indian Empire which now comprises the whole of Hindostan, from the Himalaya Mountains to Cape Comorin, with a population of more than one hundred and twenty millions, and its power in the government affairs of Great Britain, was almost vice-regal. Unawed by the fleets and armies of the imperial government, and by the wealth and power of this corporation, the Bostonians justified their acts by the rules of justice and the guarantees of the British constitution; and the next vessel to England, after the event was known there, carried out an honest proposition to the East India Company, from the people of Boston, to pay for the tea destroyed. The whole matter rested at once upon its original basis – the right of Great Britain to tax the colonies – and this fair proposition of the Bostonians disarmed ministers of half their weapons of vituperation. The American party in England saw nothing whereof to be ashamed, and the presses, opposed to the ministry, teemed with grave disquisitions, satires, and lampoons, all favorable to the colonists, while art lent its aid in the production of several caricatures similar to the one here given, in which Lord North is represented as pouring tea down the throat of unwilling America, who is held fast by Lord Mansfield (then employed by government in drawing up the various acts so obnoxious to the colonists), while Britannia stands by, weeping at the distress of her daughter. In America, almost every newspaper of the few printed, was filled with arguments, epigrams, parables, sonnets, dialogues, and every form of expression favorable to the resistance made in Boston to the arbitrary acts of government; and a voice of approval went forth from pulpits, courts of law, and the provincial legislatures.

Great was the exasperation of the king and his ministers when intelligence of the proceedings in Boston reached them. According to Burke, the "House of Lords was like a seething caldron" – the House of Commons was "as hot as Faneuil Hall or the Old South Meeting House at Boston." Ministers and their supporters charged the colonies with open rebellion, while the opposition denounced, in the strongest language which common courtesy would allow, the foolish, unjust, and wicked course of government.

In cabinet council, the king and his ministers deliberately considered the matter, and the result was a determination to use coercive measures against the colonies. The first of these schemes was a bill brought forward in March, 1774, which provided for the closing of the port of Boston, and the removal of customs, courts of justice, and government offices of every kind from Boston to Salem. This was avowedly a retaliatory measure; and the famous Boston Port Bill, which, more than any other act of the British government, was instrumental in driving the colonies to rebellion, became a law within a hundred days after the destruction of the tea. In the debate upon this bill, the most violent language was used toward the Americans. Lord North justified the measure by asserting that Boston was "the centre of rebellious commotion in America; the ring-leader in every riot." Mr. Herbert declared that the Americans deserved no consideration; that they were "never actuated by decency or reason, and that they always chose tarring and feathering as an argument;" while Mr. Van, another ministerial supporter, denounced the people of Boston as totally unworthy of civilized forbearance – declared that "they ought to have their town knocked about their ears, and destroyed;" and concluded his tirade of abuse by quoting the factious cry of the old Roman orators, "Delenda est Carthago!" – Carthage must be destroyed.

Edmund Burke, who now commenced his series of splendid orations in favor of America, denounced the whole scheme as essentially wicked and unjust, because it punished the innocent with the guilty. "You will thus irrevocably alienate the hearts of the colonies from the mother country," he exclaimed. "The bill is unjust, since it bears only upon the city of Boston, while it is notorious that all America is in flames; that the cities of Philadelphia, of New York, and all the maritime towns of the continent, have exhibited the same disobedience. You are contending for a matter which the Bostonians will not give up quietly. They can not, by such means, be made to bow to the authority of ministers; on the contrary, you will find their obstinacy confirmed and their fury exasperated. The acts of resistance in their city have not been confined to the populace alone, but men of the first rank and opulent fortune in the place have openly countenanced them. One city in proscription and the rest in rebellion, can never be a remedial measure for disturbances. Have you considered whether you have troops and ships sufficient to reduce the people of the whole American continent to your devotion?" From denunciation he passed to appeal, and besought ministers to pause ere they should strike a blow that would forever separate the colonies from Great Britain. But the pleadings of Burke and others, were in vain, and "deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity," this, and other rigorous measures, were put in operation by ministers.