ersal offence, not only as the enforcement of taxation, but as
an odious monopoly of trade. To the warning of Americans that their
adventure would end in loss, and to the scruples of the company, Lord
North answered peremptorily, "It is to no purpose making objections, the
king will have it so. The king means to try the question with America."
How absurd was this assertion of prerogative, and how weak the
government, was seen when on the first forcible resistance to his plans,
the king was compelled to apply to the petty German states for soldiers.
Lord North believed that no difficulty could arise, as America, under
the new regulation, would be able to buy tea[1] from the company at a
lower price than from any other European nation, and that buyers would
always go to the cheapest market.

Before receiving intelligence of the passage of the new act, in the summer
of 1773, political agitation in the colonies had in great measure
subsided. The ministry had abandoned its design of transporting Americans
to England for trial; the people were prosperous; loyal to the king;
considered themselves as fellow subjects with Britons, and indignantly
repelled the idea of severing their political connection. The king,
however, was obstinately bent upon maintaining the supreme authority of
parliament to make laws binding on the colonies "in all cases whatsoever."
He was unfortunate in having for his chief adviser, Lord North, who sought
to please the king even against his own better judgment. He was still more
unfortunate in North's colleagues,--Mansfield, Sandwich, Germaine,
Wedderburne and Thurlow,--violent or corrupt men, wholly unfit for the
grave responsibilities they had assumed.

Governor Hutchinson[2] asserts that "when the intelligence first came to
Boston it caused no alarm. The threepenny duty had been paid the last
two years without any stir, and some of the great friends to liberty had
been importers of tea. The body of the people were pleased with the
prospect of drinking tea at less expense than ever. The only apparent
discontent was among the importers of tea, as well those who had been
legal importers from England, as others who had illegally imported from
Holland, and the complaint was against the East India Company for
monopolizing a branch of commerce which had been beneficial to a great
number of merchants."

The circular-letter of the Massachusetts Committee of Correspondence of
October 21, 1773,--by which time