the social world were due to a cold affectation of consequence, from being reserved and stiff. The scorn of Johnson and the sneers of Foote would not have saved him from oblivion; he owes his unlovely notoriety to his assault upon Franklin, with all its disastrous consequences. Many years later, when Wedderburn was Lord Loughborough and Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, a humorous editor dedicated to him ironically a new edition of Franklin's "Rules for Reducing a Great Empire to a Small One." The English Government was now resolved to show that it would temporize no longer with the factious colonists. If in a spirit of rash and ill-repaid good-nature it had repealed certain taxes, at least it would repeal no more. The tax on tea existed; the tax on tea would be enforced; the tax on tea should be respected. The East India Company had a vast quantity of tea which it desired {159} to sell. It obtained from the Government the permission to export the tea direct to America instead of being obliged to let it pass through the hands of English merchants. Under such conditions the tea could be sold very cheaply indeed in the colonies, and the Government hoped and believed that this very cheapness would be a temptation too keen for the patriotism of a tea-drinking city to withstand. [Sidenote: 1773--The Boston "Tea-party"] If the King and the East India Company were resolved to force their tea upon the American colonists, the Americans were no less stubborn in their resolution to refuse it. The tea-ships sailed the seas, weathered the winds and waves of the Atlantic, only to be, as it were, wrecked in port. The colonists in general, and especially the colonists of Massachusetts, were resolved not to suffer the tea to be landed, for they knew that once landed it could be sold so cheaply that it would be hard for many to resist the temptation to buy it. Every effort was made to prevent the importation. In many cases the consignees were persuaded, not wholly without menace, to make public engagement to relinquish their appointments. Pilots were advised as patriots to lend no aid to the threatened importation; indeed, it was pretty plainly hinted to some of them that they would best prove their patriotism by using their especial knowledge in such a way as would most effectually prevent it. Boston set the example of self-denial and of resistance. In the December of 1773 three ships laden with tea arrived in her port. Their captains soon heard of the hostility to their mission, were soon warned of the dangers that awaited them. Alarmed at their perils, the captains declared their perfect willingness to return with their cargoes to England if they were permitted to do so by the Board of Customs and the persons to whom the tea had been consigned. But the willingness of the captains was of no avail. The consignees insisted that the tea should be delivered to them, and neither the Custom House nor the Governor would grant the