I see by the newspapers the Edenton ladies have signalized themselves by their protest against tea-drinking. The name of Johnston I see among others; are any of my sister’s relations patriotic heroines? Is there a female Congress at Edenton too? I hope not, for we Englishmen are afraid of the male Congress, but if the ladies who have ever, since the Amazonian era, been esteemed the most formidable enemies, if they, I say, should attack us, the most fatal consequence is to be dreaded. So dextrous in the handling of a dart, each wound they give is mortal; whilst we, so unhappily formed by Nature, the more we strive to conquer them the more are conquered! The Edenton ladies, conscious I suppose of this superiority on their side, by former experience, are willing, I imagine, to crush us into atoms by their omnipotency; the only security on our side to prevent the impending ruin that I can perceive is the probability that there are few places in America which possess so much female artillery as in Edenton. Another indication of the fame of the Edenton tea-party is adduced by Dr. Richard Dillard in his interesting magazine paper thereon. It was rendered more public by a caricature, printed in London, a mezzotint, entitled “A Society of Patriotic Ladies at Edenton in North Carolina.” One lady with a gavel is evidently a man in woman’s clothing, and is probably intended for the hated Lord North; other figures are pouring the tea out of caddies, others are writing. This caricature may have been brought forth in derision of an interesting tea-party picture which still exists, and is in North Carolina, after some strange vicissitudes in a foreign land. It is painted on glass, and the various figures are doubtless portraits of the Edenton ladies. It is difficult to-day to be wholly sensible of all that these Liberty Bands meant to the women of the day. There were not, at that time, the associations of women for concerted charitable and philanthropic work which are so universal now. There were few established and organized assemblies of women for church work (there had been some praying-meetings in Whitefield’s day), and the very thought of a woman’s society for any other than religious purposes must have been in itself revolutionary. And we scarcely appreciate all it meant for them to abandon the use of tea; for tea-drinking in that day meant far more to women than it does now. Substitutes for the taxed and abandoned exotic herb were eagerly sought and speedily offered. Liberty Tea, Labrador Tea, and Yeopon were the most universally accepted, though seventeen different herbs and beans were named by one author; and patriotic prophecies were made that their use would wholly outlive that of the Oriental drink, even could the latter be freely obtained. A century has proved the value of these prophecies.