As for the Indians, fearing an attack from the near-by garrison, they hastened away with the booty they had collected, and left General Schuyler and his family unharmed. THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY BY JOHN ANDREWS (ADAPTED) [5] [Footnote 5: From a letter written to a friend in 1773.] On November 29, 1773, there arrived in Boston Harbor a ship carrying an hundred and odd chests of the detested tea. The people in the country roundabout, as well as the town's folk, were unanimous against allowing the landing of it; but the agents in charge of the consignment persisted in their refusal to take the tea back to London. The town bells were rung, for a general muster of the citizens. Handbills were stuck up calling on “Friends! Citizens! Countrymen!” Mr. Rotch, the owner of the ship, found himself exposed not only to the loss of his ship, but to the loss of the money-value of the tea itself, if he should attempt to send her back without clearance papers from the custom-house; for the admiral kept a vessel in readiness to seize any ship which might leave without those papers. Therefore, Mr. Rotch declared that his ship should not carry back the tea without either the proper clearance or the promise of full indemnity for any losses he might incur. Matters continued thus for some days, when a general muster was called of the people of Boston and of all the neighboring towns. They met, to the number of five or six thousand, at ten o'clock in the morning, in the Old South Meeting-House; where they passed a unanimous vote THAT THE TEA SHOULD GO OUT OF THE HARBOR THAT AFTERNOON! A committee, with Mr. Rotch, was sent to the custom-house to demand a clearance. This the collector said he could not give without the duties first being paid. Mr. Rotch was then sent to ask for a pass from the governor, who returned answer that “consistent with the rules of government and his duty to the king he could not grant one without they produced a previous clearance from the office.” By the time Mr. Rotch returned to the Old South Meeting-House with this message, the candles were lighted and the house still crowded with people. When the governor's message was read a prodigious shout was raised, and soon afterward the moderator declared the meeting dissolved. This caused another general shout, outdoors and in, and what with the noise of breaking up the meeting, one might have thought that the inhabitants of the infernal regions had been let loose. That night there mustered upon Fort Hill about two hundred strange figures, SAID TO BE INDIANS FROM NARRAGANSETT. They were clothed in blankets, with heads muffled, and had copper-colored countenances. Each was armed with a hatchet or axe, and a pair of pistols. They spoke a strange, unintelligible jargon.