the governor's order, placed
in the castle. Twenty-eight chests, brought a little later by another
vessel from London, on the joint account of Boston merchants, were
destroyed by a disguised party, on March 7, 1774. The people of
Charlestown destroyed, in the market place, all the tea they could find
in the town, paying the owners its value. Other towns did the same.

An account of the transaction, drawn up by the Boston committee, was
carried by Paul Revere, to New York and Philadelphia. When the news
reached New York, vast numbers of the people collected. They were in
high spirits, one and all declaring that the ships with tea on board,
designed for that port, should on arrival be sent back, or the tea
destroyed. They highly extolled the Bostonians for what the people had
done, and immediately forwarded the news to Philadelphia. When Revere,
on his return, brought word that Governor Tryon had engaged to send the
New York tea-ships back, all the bells in Boston were rung next morning.

Extract from a letter to the Sons of Liberty, in New York, dated Boston,
December 17, 1773:

"The bearer is chosen by the committee from a number of
gentlemen, who volunteered to carry you this intelligence.
We are in a perfect jubilee. Not a Tory in the whole
community can find the least fault with our proceedings....
The spirit of the people throughout the country is to be
described by no terms in my power. Their conduct last night
surprised the admiral and English gentlemen, who observed
that these were not a mob of disorderly rabble, (as they
have been reported,) but men of sense, coolness and
intrepidity."

The tea shipped to South Carolina (two hundred and fifty-seven chests)
arrived on the second of December. So strenuous was the opposition to
its being landed, that the consignees were persuaded to resign. Though
the collector, after the twentieth day, seized the dutiable article, as
no one would sell it or pay the duty, it perished in the damp cellars
where it was stored.

On December 25, news reached Philadelphia that its tea-ship was at
Chester. The Delaware pilots had been warned, by printed handbills, not
to conduct any tea-ships into the harbor, as they were only sent for the
purpose of enslaving and poisoning the Americans. Four miles below the
town it came to anchor. On the 27th, news of what had occurred in Boston
having arrived, five thousand men collected in town meeting at