The famous "Boston Tea Party" occurred in December, 1773. This was not a riotous, or, from the colonial standpoint, a lawless act, for the colonists were already administering their own affairs to a certain extent independently of royal authority, with the view to the preservation and defence of their liberties. The English East India Company had been anxious to regain the American trade and offered to pay an export duty more than equivalent to the import duty imposed in America, if the government would permit tea to be delivered at colonial ports free of duty. To this the British government would not consent, on the ground that it would be a surrender of the principle which the import duty represented. The government permitted the East India Company, however, to export tea to America free from export duty, thus allowing the Americans to buy tea as cheaply as if no import duty had been levied. The British authorities assumed that Americans would be satisfied to sell the principle for which they were contending for threepence on a pound of tea. They learned the American character better when two ships laden with tea arrived in Boston. The citizens gathered in the old South Meeting-house, and in the evening about sixty men, disguised as Indians, boarded the ships and cast the tea into the harbor. Upon news of this event reaching England, King George and his ministers decided to make an example of Boston. A bill was introduced by Lord North and passed almost unanimously closing the port of Boston and making Salem the seat of government. Another act annulled the charter of Massachusetts, and a military governor, General Thomas Gage, was appointed, with absolute authority over the province. * * *