Failing to get redress for their grievances, the colonists resolved that the source of these same grievances should not be a source of profit to those who imposed them. To bring about this result, they, as one man, entered into what was called the "non-importation agreement,"--or, in other words, an agreement by which they solemnly pledged themselves to abstain from the use of all articles burdened with a tax, until such tax should be removed; and, furthermore, that they would not buy or use any thing that they were forbidden to manufacture themselves; and, still furthermore, that not a ship of theirs should trade with British ports, until the act forbidding them to trade with foreign ports should be repealed. Some of them, I dare say, would have gone so far, had that been possible, as to pledge themselves not to die, until the Stamp Act, compelling them to write their wills on stamp-paper, was also repealed. This agreement was so rigidly observed, that the men took to wearing jeans, and the women linsey-woolseys, which they wove in their own looms; the old ladies drank sassafras-tea, sweetened with maple-sugar; and old gentlemen wrote no wills, but declared them on their death-bed to their weeping families by word of mouth. Whether the people stopped marrying or not, it is not known with certainty; but from my knowledge of human nature, which is extensive, I do not think I should greatly hazard my reputation as a historian, were I to state flatly, roundly, and emphatically, that it had not the least effect in that way.