et their
tea cheaper than the people of England. But the colonists were not to be
bribed into paying the tax in any such way. The East India Company sent
over ship-loads of tea. The tea ships were either sent back again or the
tea was stored in some safe place where no one could get it.

[Sidenote: Boston Tea Party, 1773. _Higginson_, 171-173; _Eggleston_,
165; _Source-Book_, 137.]

123. The Boston Tea Party, 1773.--In Boston things did not go so
smoothly. The agents of the East India Company refused to resign. The
collector of the customs refused to give the ships permission to sail
away before the tea was landed. Governor Hutchinson refused to give the
ship captains a pass to sail by the fort until the collector gave his
permission. The commander at the fort refused to allow the ships to sail
out of the harbor until they had the necessary papers. The only way to
get rid of the tea was to destroy it. A party of patriots, dressed as
Indians, went on board of the ships as they lay at the wharf, broke open
the tea boxes, and threw the tea into the harbor.

[Sidenote: Repressive acts, 1774. _McMaster_, 120.]

124. Punishment of Massachusetts, 1774.--The British king, the
British government, and the mass of the British people were furious when
they found that the Boston people had made "tea with salt water."
Parliament at once went to work passing acts to punish the colonists.
One act put an end to the constitution of Massachusetts. Another act
closed the port of Boston so tightly that the people could not bring hay
from Charlestown to give to their starving horses. A third act provided
that soldiers who fired on the people should be tried in England. And a
fourth act compelled the colonists to feed and shelter the soldiers
employed to punish them.

[Sidenote: The colonists aid Massachusetts. _Higginson_, 174-177.]

[Sidenote: George Washington.]

125. Sympathy with the Bostonians.--King George thought he could
punish the Massachusetts people as much as he wished without the people
of the other colonies objecting. It soon appeared that the people of the
other colonies sympathized most heartily with the Bostonians. They sent
them sheep and rice. They sent them clothes. George Washington was now a
rich man. He offered to raise a thousand men with his own money, march
with them to Boston, and rescue the oppressed people from their
oppressors. But the time for war had not yet come although it was
not far off.

[Sideno