A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IIIMcCarthy, Justin H. (Justin Huntly)
History
A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III
McCarthy, Justin H. (Justin Huntly)
Great Britain -- History -- 1714-1837; Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1714-1837
pay the fiddler yet." One of the Mohawk leaders looked up and answered
promptly: "Oh, never mind, squire. Just come out here, if you please,
and we'll settle the bill in two minutes." The admiral considered the
odds were against him, that the joke had gone far enough. He closed
the window, leaving the bill to be settled by whoso thought fit, and
the laughing savages swept on to their respectable wigwams. If some
very reputable citizens found a few leaves of tea in their shoes when
they took them off that night, they said nothing about it, and nobody
was the wiser. So ended the adventure of the Boston Tea-party, which
was but the prologue to adventures more memorable and more momentous.
We learn that at least one of these masquerading Indians survived to so
late a date as the March of 1846. Men now living may have clasped
hands with Henry Purkitt and David Kinnison and heard from their own
lips the story of a deed that enraged a King, offended Chatham, was
disapproved of by George Washington, and was not disapproved of by
Burke.
[Sidenote: 1773--After the Boston "Tea-party"]
The news of the Boston Tea-party reached London on January 19, 1774,
and was public property on the 21st. Other news little less unpleasant
soon followed. At Charleston tea was only landed to lie rotting in
damp cellars, not an ounce of it to be bought or sold. In Philadelphia
a proclamation of December 27, 1773, announced that "THE TEA-SHIP being
arrived, every Inhabitant who wishes to preserve the Liberty of America
is desired to meet at the STATE-HOUSE, This Morning, precisely {162} at
TEN O'clock, to advise what is best to be done on this alarming
Crisis." "What was best to be done" proved to be to compel the
tea-ship to return at once with its cargo to England. New York refused
to allow the tea-ship "Nancy" to enter the harbor, and if some tea was
eventually landed under the cannon of a man-of-war, it was only to be
locked up as in Charleston, and to be left to lie unused. The bad news
was received in England with an unreasoning fury by those whose fault
it was, and by those who knew nothing at all about the matter; with a
grave indignation by those who, like Pitt, were as resolute to support
the supremacy of England as to plead for justice to her colonies; with
despair by those who dreamed of an honorable and abiding union between
the two peoples; and with applause by those who admired any protest
against injustice, however vehement and irregular.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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