On the 18th, another meeting was held in Faneuil Hall, and a committee was again appointed to wait upon the consignees and request them to resign. Again they refused, and that evening the house of Richard Clarke, on School-street, was surrounded by an unruly crowd. A pistol was fired from the house, but without serious effect other than exciting the mob to deeds of violence; the windows were demolished, and the family menaced with personal injury. Better counsels than those of anger soon prevailed, and at midnight the town was quiet. The meeting, in the mean while, had received the report of the committee in silence, and adjourned without uttering a word. This silence was ominous of evil to the friends of government. The consignees were alarmed, for it was evident that the people were determined to _talk_ only, no more, but henceforth to _act_. The governor, also, properly interpreted their silence as a calm before a storm, and he called his council together at the Province House, to consult upon measures for preserving the peace of the city. During their session the frightened consignees presented a petition to the council, asking leave to resign their commissions into the hands of the governor and his advisers, and praying them to adopt measures for the safe landing of the teas. The council, equally fearful of the popular vengeance, refused the prayer of their petition, and the consignees withdrew, for safety, to Castle William, a strong fortress at the entrance of the harbor, then garrisoned by a portion of the troops who had been encamped on Boston Common. The flight of the consignees allayed the excitement for a few days. On Sunday evening, the 28th of November, the _Dartmouth_, Captain Hall, one of the East India Company's ships, arrived in the harbor. The next morning the following handbill was posted in every part of the city: "_Friends! Brethren! Countrymen!_--That worst of plagues, the detested TEA shipped for this port, by the East India Company, is now arrived in the harbor. The hour of destruction, or manly opposition to the machinations of tyranny, stares you in the face; every friend to his country, to himself, and to posterity, is now called upon to meet at _Faneuil Hall_, at nine o'clock THIS DAY (at which time the bells will ring), to make united and successful resistance to this last, worst, and most destructive measure of administration. "Boston, Nov. 29th, 1773." [Illustration: THE "OLD SOUTH."]