'Tis true we paid a shilling in the pound
at home, and asked only threepence from Boston or Charleston; but as a
question of principle, the impost was refused by the provinces, which
indeed ever showed a most spirited determination to pay as little as
they could help. In Charleston the tea-ships were unloaded, and the
cargoes stored in cellars. From New York and Philadelphia, the vessels
were turned back to London. In Boston (where there was an armed force,
whom the inhabitants were perpetually mobbing), certain patriots,
painted and disguised as Indians, boarded the ships, and flung the
obnoxious cargoes into the water. The wrath of our white Father was
kindled against this city of Mohocks in masquerade. The notable Boston
Port Bill was brought forward in the British House of Commons; the port
was closed, and the Custom House removed to Salem. The Massachusetts
Charter was annulled; and,--in just apprehension that riots might ensue,
in dealing with the perpetrators of which the colonial courts might be
led to act partially,--Parliament decreed that persons indicted for
acts of violence and armed resistance, might be sent home, or to
another colony, for trial. If such acts set all America in a flame, they
certainly drove all wellwisbers of our country into a fury. I might have
sentenced Master Miles Warrington, at five years old, to a whipping, and
he would have cried, taken down his little small-clothes and submitted:
but suppose I offered (and he richly deserving it) to chastise Captain
Miles of the Prince's Dragoons? He would whirl my paternal cane out of
my hand, box my hair-powder out of my ears. Lord a-mercy! I tremble at
the very idea of the controversy? He would assert his independence in
a word; and if, I say, I think the home Parliament had a right to levy
taxes in the colonies, I own that we took means most captious, most
insolent, most irritating, and, above all, most impotent, to assert our
claim.

My Lord Dunmore, our Governor of Virginia, upon Lord Bottetourt's death,
received me into some intimacy soon after my arrival in the colony,
being willing to live on good terms with all our gentry. My mother's
severe loyalty was no secret to him; indeed, she waved the king's banner
in all companies, and talked so loudly and resolutely, that Randolph and
Patrick Henry himself were struck dumb before her. It was Madam Esmond's
celebrated reputation for loyalty (his Excellency laughingly told me)
which induced him