Now, the East-India Company, to whom had been granted the sole privilege of trading in tea for the space of a hundred years, if I remember rightly, were greatly alarmed at the consequences of the tea-tax. Enormous quantities of the article had begun to accumulate in their London warehouses, now that there was no market for it in America, which hitherto had fed the purse in their left-hand pocket, as did that in Great Britain the larger one in their right-hand pocket. "Something must be done," said they to themselves (they certainly said it to nobody else),--"something must be done, or these high-spirited women of America will drink their wishy-washy sassafras till their blood be no thicker than whey, and the purse in our left-hand pocket become as light and lean and lank as when we sent our first ship-load thither years ago." This "something to be done" was a loud petition to parliament, praying for speedy relief from the ruin, which has an uncomfortable fashion of staring at great mercantile companies, and was now staring them full in the face. So, putting their heads together, the king and parliament hit upon an ingenious plan, by which they, the East-India Company, could sell their tea, and the government collect the duty thereon. It was this: The price of the article should be so far reduced, that it would be lower, even with the duty on it, than, at the usual rate of sale, without any duty at all. This was a brilliant scheme indeed, and would have succeeded to admiration, had the good people of America been a nation of bats and geese; but, as they were not, the scheme failed disgracefully, as you shall presently see. By way of giving this plan a trial, a few ships loaded with tea were sent over to Boston, where they lay for some time in the harbor, without being permitted by the people to land their cargoes. One day, as if to show the king and ministers and parliament, the East-India Company, and the whole British nation, that they, the Americans, were, and had been from the very beginning, desperately in earnest in all that they had said and done for years past, a party, composed of about fifty of the most sober and respectable citizens of Boston and the country around, disguised themselves as Indians, and went aboard these ships. Not a word was to be heard among them; but, keeping a grim and ominous silence, they ranged the vessel from stem to stern, ransacked their cargoes, broke open the tea-chests, and, pouring their contents into the sea, made the fishes a dish of tea, which is said to have had the same effect on them as on the rats and mice. This done with perfect coolness and sobriety, the party returned to their homes as orderly and silent as they had come; not the first movement towards a mob or tumult having been made by the people during the whole proceeding.