Brewster, prudently, chose a like alternative, although here the price was raised to four thousand dollars. An emergency town meeting was held in the church to consider the question, scouts sent out to neighboring towns to sound opinion as to the likelihood of help in resisting the demand, the artillery commander directed to “engage horses to be in readiness for the ordnance; and there being a deficiency in that branch of the service a committee should ascertain how many exempts from forty-five to sixty in each school district could be brought to enlist therein.” The scouts returning with the disheartening news “that the town of Brewster can make no dependence on any of our neighbors for assistance in our alarming and distressed situation,” it was decided to employ arbiters rather than ordnance, and that “the committee of safety who went on board his B.M. Spencer, go again this night and make the best terms possible with Com. Ragget.” Ragget held to his demand, and the committee, though they “used their best endeavors,” “could not obtain the abatement of a dollar,” the sum to be paid in specie in two weeks’ time. The tribute money was borrowed, and to reimburse the lenders a tax levied on “salt-works, buildings of every description, and vessels owned in this town of every description frequenting, or lying on, the shore.” It is interesting that the sixty-five irreconcilable alien residents who had adhered to the jurisdiction of Harwich managed to evade their share of the tax, although their property was thus secured from the British guns. The faithful of Brewster bore the burden none too willingly one may guess: three years later they petitioned the legislature to refund the sum paid “Rd. Ragget, Esq. as a contribution,” but received no redress. And when, as a crowning wrong, they were upbraided by fireside patriots for paying tribute to the enemy, they had the valid excuse that since Government and neighbors had left them to fend for themselves, they were justified in saving the town.