Tea Leaves - Being a Collection of Letters and Documents relating to - the shipment of Tea to the American Colonies in the year - 1773, by the East India Tea Company. (With an introduction, - notes, and biographical notices of the Boston Tea Party)

alla - Francis S. (Francis Samuel) Drake

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Publié par	alla
Publié le	08 décembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	30
Langue	English
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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tea Leaves, by Various
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Title: Tea Leaves
Being a Collection of Letters and Documents relating to
the shipment of Tea to the American Colonies in the year
1773, by the East India Tea Company. (With an introduction,
notes, and biographical notices of the Boston Tea Party)
Author: Various
Commentator: Francis S. Drake
Editor: A.O. Crane
Release Date: January 15, 2008 [EBook #24321]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TEA LEAVES ***
Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Christine D. and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net (This file was made using scans of
public domain works from the University of Michigan Digital
Libraries)[i]
TEA LEAVES:
BEING A COLLECTION OF LETTERS AND
DOCUMENTS
RELATING TO THE SHIPMENT OFTEA
TO THE AMERICAN COLONIES IN THE YEAR 1773, BY THE
East India Tea Company
NOW FIRST PRINTED FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES OF THE BOSTON TEA
PARTY,
BY
FRANCIS S. DRAKE.
BOSTON:
A.O. CRANE.
1884.
[ii]COPYRIGHTED.
Entered according to Act of Congress, at Washington, DC., 1884, By A.O.
Crane, Boston, Mass.
Smith & Porter, Printers, Boston.
[iii]
PREFATORY NOTE.
The collection of letters and documents which has occasioned the preparation
of the present volume, though it has been so long buried in obscurity, appears
to have been originally made with a view to publication. It was for many years,
and until his decease, in the possession of Mr. Abel Bowen, a well-known
engraver and publisher, of Boston, sixty years ago, and was obtained by him
from a person who procured it in Halifax, N.S., whither many valuable papers,
both public and private, relating to New England, were carried, when in March,
1776, the British and Tories evacuated Boston. It contains interesting
information relative to the tea troubles that preceded the American Revolution,
much of it new to students of that eventful period.To the kindness of Mrs. Benjamin Phipps and Mrs. Charles G. Butts, of
Chelsea, daughters of Mr. Bowen, the publisher is indebted for permission to
[iv]make public this valuable contribution to American history.
PUBLISHER'S PREFACE
When contemplating the publication of "Tea Leaves," we issued a circular,
stating our intention, and that, judging from the material then in our possession,
the book would contain about two hundred and fifty pages, with six illustrations,
three of them portraits.
We are happy to announce on the completion of the work, not only fulfillment of
our promises, but much that is additional thereto. Included in its four hundred
pages are twenty portraits, taken from family paintings, (one-half never before
published,) eight other illustrations, fifty autographs, one hundred and twelve
names of members of the Tea Party, (fifty-eight more than have been heretofore
publicly known), and ninety-six biographies of the same.
Our circular called for a subscription book. All our paper-covered copies have
been subscribed for. The balance of the edition is nicely bound in cloth, with
embellished covers. Price, (as before), five dollars.
The publisher will welcome all new matter relating to the Tea question, and will
be especially grateful for any hitherto unpublished portraits. Such material is
desired for possible publication in a companion work to "Tea Leaves."
All who desire the Portraits and Illustrations separate from this volume, to be
used in works on American history, can obtain them from the Publisher.
In conclusion, we thank our friends who have kindly assisted us, and if we have
not given all credit by name, the neglect has been unintentional.
A.O. CRANE,
2169 Washington St.,
Boston, Mass.
[v]
INTRODUCTION.
Among the causes which led to the American Revolution, the one most
prominent in the popular judgment is the "tax on tea," imposed by Great Britain
on her American colonies. The destruction, in Boston harbor, in December,
1773, of the cargoes of tea sent to that port by the East India Company, was
undoubtedly the proximate cause of that memorable event, and in view of this
fact, the occurrence,—"by far the most momentous in the annals of the town,"
says the historian Bancroft,—merits a more thorough and particular
consideration than it has yet received.
The silence necessarily preserved by the actors in this daring exploit,
respecting their connection with it, has rendered this part of the task one of no
little difficulty. Their secret was remarkably well kept; and but for the family
traditions which survive, we should know very little of the men who composedthe famous Boston tea party.
Nevertheless, the attempt to gather up the scattered fragments of personal
reminiscence and biography, in order to give a little more completeness to this
interesting chapter of our revolutionary history, is here made. The fortunate
[vi]recovery, by the publisher of this volume, of the letters of the American
consignees to the East India Company, and other papers shedding light upon
the transaction, affords material aid in the accomplishment of our purpose.
When King Charles II. had finished that first cup of tea ever brewed in England,
—the gift of the newly-created East India Company,—no sibyl was at hand to
peer into the monarch's cup and foretell from its dregs, the dire disaster to his
realm, hidden among those insignificant particles. Could a vision of those
battered tea chests, floating in Boston harbor, with tu doces, in the legible
handwriting of history, inscribed upon them, have been disclosed to him, even
that careless, pleasure-loving prince would have been sobered by the lesson. It
was left for his successor, George III., who failed to read the handwriting on the
wall,—visible to all but the willfully blind,—to realize its meaning in the
dismemberment of an empire.
A survey of the progress of the revolution up to the beginning of the year 1773,
will help us to understand the political situation. Ten years of constant agitation
had educated the people of the colonies to a clear perception of their rights,
and also to a knowledge that it was the fixed purpose of the home government
to deprive them of the one they most valued, namely, that of being taxed with
their own consent, through their local assemblies, as had always been the
custom, and not at the arbitrary will of the British parliament—a body in which
they were not and could not be represented—three thousand miles away. The
strange thing about this is, that the people of Great Britain should not have seen
[vii]in the light of their own past history—what they have since seen clearly enough
—that the Americans were only contending for principles for which their own
ancestors had often fought, and which they had more than once succeeded in
wresting from the grasp of arbitrary and tyrannical sovereigns.
Their difficulty seems to have been that they looked upon the Americans, not as
equals, but as inferiors, as their subjects, and as having no rights that an
Englishman was bound to respect. Even the celebrated moralist, Dr. Johnson,
could say of the Americans, "They are a race of convicts, and ought to be
thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging." King George III., that
obstinate but well-meaning monarch, and his ministers, no doubt honestly
believed that the republican tendencies of the colonists endangered British
supremacy. Perhaps they were right in this, for it was the kind and degree of
supremacy that was really in question. But in entertaining the belief that these
tendencies could be eradicated at a blow, they were, as the event proved,
grievously mistaken.
Another moving cause for the new policy toward the colonies was the heavy
taxation at home,—a result of the late war. Some of this burden they hoped to
transfer from their own shoulders to those of their transatlantic brethren.The stamp act of 1765, repealed in the year following, was in 1767, succeeded
by Charles Townshend's revenue acts, imposing duties on paper, painters'
colors, glass and tea. The Americans opposed this measure with the only
weapon at their command—the policy of non-importation. This policy, while
causing much inconvenience to themselves, yet helped them materially in two
[viii]ways. In the first place it stimulated home manufactures, and accustomed the
people to do without luxuries, and in the second place by distressing British
merchants and manufacturers, it brought the united influence of these two
powerful bodies to bear upon parliament for a change in its policy.
The people of the colonies everywhere seconded the non-importation
movement, entering at once upon a course of rigid self-denial, and their
legislatures commended the scheme. An agreement, presented in the Virginia
House of Burgesses, by Washington, was signed by every m