"This Thursday accordingly, by 10 in the morning, in the Old South Meeting-house, Boston is assembled, and country-people to the number of 2,000;--and Rotch never was in such a company of human Friends before. They are not uncivil to him (cautious people, heedful of the verge of the Law); but they are peremptory, to the extent of--Rotch may shudder to think what. "I went to the Custom-house yesterday,' said Rotch, 'your Committee of Ten can bear me witness; and demanded clearance and leave to depart; but they would not; were forbidden, they said!' 'Go, then, sir; get you to the Governor himself; a clearance, and out of harbor this day: had n't you better?' Rotch is well aware that he had; hastens off to the Governor (who has vanished to his Country-house, on purpose); Old South Meeting-house adjourning till 3 P.M., for Rotch's return with clearance. "At 3 no Rotch, nor at 4, nor at 5; miscellaneous plangent intermittent speech instead, mostly plangent, in tone sorrowful rather than indignant:--at a quarter to 6, here at length is Rotch; sun is long since set,--has Rotch a clearance or not? Rotch reports at large, willing to be questioned and cross-questioned: 'Governor absolutely would not! My Christian friends, what could I or can I do?' There are by this time about 7,000 people in Old South Meeting-house, very few tallow-lights in comparison,--almost no lights for the mind either,--and it is difficult to answer. Rotch's report done, the Chairman [one Adams, "American Cato," subsequently so called] dissolves the sorrowful 7,000, with these words: 'This Meeting declares that it can do nothing more to save the Country.' Will merely go home, then, and weep. Hark, however: almost on the instant, in front of Old South Meeting-house, (a terrific War-whoop; and about fifty Mohawk Indians,)--with whom Adams seems to be acquainted; and speaks without Interpreter: Aha?-- "And, sure enough, before the stroke of 7, these fifty painted Mohawks are forward, without noise, to Griffin's Wharf; have put sentries all round there; and, in a great silence of the neighborhood, are busy, in three gangs, upon the dormant Tea Ships; opening their chests, and punctually shaking them out into the sea. 'Listening from the distance, you could hear distinctly the ripping open of the chests, and no other sound.' About 10 P.M. all was finished: 342 chests of tea flung out to infuse in the Atlantic; the fifty Mohawks gone like a dream; and Boston sleeping more silently even than usual." ["Summary of the Advices from America" (in _Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1774, pp. 26, 27); Bancroft, iii. 536 et seq.]