The inscription reads: “Here formerly stood Griffin’s wharf, at which lay moored on December 16, 1773, three British ships with cargoes of tea. To defeat King George’s trivial but tyrannical tax of three pence a pound, about ninety citizens of Boston, partly disguised as Indians, boarded the ships, threw the cargoes, three hundred and forty-two chests in all, into the sea, and made the world ring with the patriotic exploit of the Boston Tea Party.”] _English Liberty_ Against this gloomy background rose the wondrous structure of English liberty. At first the English people under their Norman kings were no freer than other peoples: England contained serfs and even slaves. The only people that had a share in the government were the Norman nobles who were sometimes consulted on the making of laws, and they were not different from the nobles that tried to divide power with the sovereigns of France and Sweden and the Germanic countries. The difference was that the dukes and counts and barons in most parts of Europe lost ground before the growth of an arbitrary royal power, while the English lords banded together successfully to secure pledges from their kings. In 1215 they wrung from King John the magnificent Magna Charta, including the glorious privileges that: “No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or disseised, or outlawed, or banished, or any way destroyed, nor will we pass upon him, nor will we send upon him, unless by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or delay to any man, either justice or right.” [Illustration: Original painting by Peter Frederick Rothermel (born 1817) PATRICK HENRY ADDRESSING THE VIRGINIA ASSEMBLY IN 1765 Henry, supporting the resolutions to resist the Stamp Act, at one point exclaimed, “Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third--” “Treason! treason!” shouted the Speaker of the Assembly. “Treason! treason!” shouted the members--“and,” Henry continued, “George the Third may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it!”] Here we have at last a cradle of liberty; for the personal rights exacted by the nobles passed over to freemen, and in course of time all Englishmen became freemen. It was centuries before the kings at last gave way to the principle that the people through their representatives in Parliament ruled even the Crown; and in the process King Charles I lost his head, and King James II lost his throne. In the end, all the men and women of the realm were recognized as having the personal rights expressed in royal charters and acts of Parliament, which set them free from arbitrary taxes, arbitrary arrests, and arbitrary punishments.