Boston, in the province of Massachusetts Bay, in North America," [14
G.3.] which was passed at the last session of the British Parliament,
a large and populous town, whose trade was their sole subsistence, was
deprived of that trade, and involved in utter ruin. Let us for a while,
suppose the question of right suspended, in order to examine this act
on principles of justice. An act of Parliament had been passed, imposing
duties on teas, to be paid in America, against which act the Americans
had protested, as inauthoritative. The East India Company, who till that
time had never sent a pound of tea to America on their own account, step
forth on that occasion, the asserters of Parliamentary right, and send
hither many ship-loads of that obnoxious commodity. The masters of their
several vessels, however, on their arrival in America, wisely attended
to admonition, and returned with their cargoes. In the province of New
England alone, the remonstrances of the people were disregarded, and
a compliance, after being many days waited for, was flatly refused.
Whether in this, the master of the vessel was governed by his obstinacy,
or his instructions, let those who know, say. There are extraordinary
situations which require extraordinary interposition. An exasperated
people, who feel that they possess power, are not easily restrained
within limits strictly regular. A number of them assembled in the town
of Boston, threw the tea into the ocean, and dispersed without doing any
other act of violence. If in this they did wrong, they were known, and
were amenable to the laws of the land; against which, it could not
be objected that they had ever, in any instance, been obstructed or
diverted from their regular course, in favor of popular offenders. They
should, therefore, not have been distrusted on this occasion. But that
ill-fated colony had formerly been bold in their enmities against the
House of Stuart, and were now devoted to ruin, by that unseen hand
which governs the momentous affairs of this great empire. On the
partial representations of a few worthless ministerial dependants, whose
constant office it has been to keep that government embroiled, and who,
by their treacheries, hope to obtain the dignity of British knighthood,
without calling for a party accused, without asking a proof, without
attempting a distinction between the guilty and the innocent, the whole
of that ancient and wealthy town, is in a moment reduced from opule