[10] In the Declaration of Independence the king is charged with giving his assent to acts of Parliament "For suspending our own legislatures," and "For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us," and "For imposing taxes on us without our consent." [11] For refusing to obey, the legislature of Massachusetts was dissolved, as were the assemblies of Maryland and Georgia for having approved it, and that of New York for refusing supplies to the royal troops, and that of Virginia for complaining of the treatment of New York. Read Fiske's _American Revolution_, Vol. I, pp. 28-36, 39-52. [12] The two regiments of British troops in Boston were now removed, on demand of the people, to a fort in the harbor. The soldiers who fired the shots were tried for murder and acquitted, save two who received light sentences. [13] One of the vessels sent to stop smuggling was the schooner _Gaspee_. Having run aground in Narragansett Bay (June, 1772), she was boarded by a party of men in eight boats and burned. The Virginia legislature appointed a "committee of correspondence," to find out the facts regarding the destruction of the _Gaspee_ and "to maintain a correspondence with our sister colonies." This plan of a committee to inform the other colonies what was happening in Virginia, and obtain from them accurate information as to what they were doing, was at once taken up by Massachusetts and other colonies, each of which appointed a similar committee. Such committees afterward proved to be the means of revolutionary organization. Read Fiske's _American Revolution_, Vol. I, pp. 76-80. [14] Parliament had given the company permission to do this. The company had long possessed the monopoly of trade with the East Indies, and the sole right to bring tea from China to Great Britain. Before 1773, however, it was obliged to sell the tea in Great Britain, and the business of exporting tea to the colonies had been carried on by merchants who bought from the company. [15] Read "The Tea Party" in Hawthorne's _Grandfather's Chair_. [16] All the Intolerable Acts are referred to in the Declaration of Independence. See if you can find the references. CHAPTER XIII THE FIGHT FOR INDEPENDENCE BEGUN LEXINGTON, 1775.--When the second Continental Congress met (May 10, 1775), the mother country and her colonies had come to blows.