This aroused the indignation of the Americans, who refused to pay the taxes, and even attacked the English officers who tried to collect them. Meetings were held all over the country, and everywhere the same feeling was shown. In Boston, rather than pay the tax on a shipload of tea, the Bostonians, disguised as Indians, went on board the ship and threw the tea into the harbor. In New York an angry mob burned the effigy of the English Governor, and in every place women refused to buy English goods and said they would rather wear homespun than submit to such injustice. This conduct only angered the king the more. He denied the right of America to resist his laws, and passed measures more irritating still. The Americans began to wonder if he would force them into an open rebellion. The excitement grew stronger each day, and the king's authority was openly questioned. In large meetings the chief Americans discussed the vexed question, and decided that they had been right in resisting the king, and would continue to resist him until he repealed the unjust laws. Patrick Henry, a great orator of Virginia, made an address, in which he denounced George III. as a tyrant, and warned him against further exciting the indignation of the colonists. The king replied by calling the Americans traitors, and sending an armed force to frighten the rebels into submission. Many of the wisest Englishmen tried to persuade King George to acknowledge the rights of the Americans in this matter; among them William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, who in an address to Parliament declared that he rejoiced that America had resisted. But they were unsuccessful, and things grew quickly worse. The presence of English troops in America was the signal for more determined opposition. Companies of militia were formed in all the towns and villages, and the English saw that the Americans were preparing to defend themselves. In Boston, where the anger against the British soldiers was very great, and where some quarrels with them had already happened, the English general saw these preparations on every side. Among other things, he heard that the people had collected ammunition and provisions at Concord, a village some distance away, and he sent a party of soldiers to destroy these stores. As this party passed through Lexington, another village, on the way to Concord, on the morning of April 19, 1775, they found a company of farmers assembled on the village green, to keep them from going further. They fired upon these men, and the Americans fired in return, though they were obliged to give way. Several of the Americans were killed and wounded, and this was the first blood shed in the Revolution.