l countryman, assumed that his unfavorable appearances in
the social world were due to a cold affectation of consequence, from
being reserved and stiff. The scorn of Johnson and the sneers of Foote
would not have saved him from oblivion; he owes his unlovely notoriety
to his assault upon Franklin, with all its disastrous consequences.
Many years later, when Wedderburn was Lord Loughborough and Chief
Justice of the Common Pleas, a humorous editor dedicated to him
ironically a new edition of Franklin's "Rules for Reducing a Great
Empire to a Small One."

The English Government was now resolved to show that it would temporize
no longer with the factious colonists. If in a spirit of rash and
ill-repaid good-nature it had repealed certain taxes, at least it would
repeal no more. The tax on tea existed; the tax on tea would be
enforced; the tax on tea should be respected. The East India Company
had a vast quantity of tea which it desired {159} to sell. It obtained
from the Government the permission to export the tea direct to America
instead of being obliged to let it pass through the hands of English
merchants. Under such conditions the tea could be sold very cheaply
indeed in the colonies, and the Government hoped and believed that this
very cheapness would be a temptation too keen for the patriotism of a
tea-drinking city to withstand.

[Sidenote: 1773--The Boston "Tea-party"]

If the King and the East India Company were resolved to force their tea
upon the American colonists, the Americans were no less stubborn in
their resolution to refuse it. The tea-ships sailed the seas,
weathered the winds and waves of the Atlantic, only to be, as it were,
wrecked in port. The colonists in general, and especially the
colonists of Massachusetts, were resolved not to suffer the tea to be
landed, for they knew that once landed it could be sold so cheaply that
it would be hard for many to resist the temptation to buy it. Every
effort was made to prevent the importation. In many cases the
consignees were persuaded, not wholly without menace, to make public
engagement to relinquish their appointments. Pilots were advised as
patriots to lend no aid to the threatened importation; indeed, it was
pretty plainly hinted to some of them that they would best prove their
patriotism by using their especial knowledge in such a way as would
most effectually prevent it. Boston set the example of self-denial and
of resistance. In the Dec