gave orders to the sheriff to be ready at the call of the
collector, (but not to move without,) with all his officers, to support
the collector, in landing it, and to seize and to bring to justice any
persons who should dare to interrupt him in the execution of his duty.
It being known that some measures were taken, tho' the extent thereof
was carefully concealed, the collector, on the 22^d, seized, landed, and
stored the teas in stores under the Exchange, without one person's
appearing to oppose him. The tea is to remain in store 'till the
collector shall receive further orders relative thereto.

Various were the opinions of men on the subject; some were for drinking
no tea that paid duty, and were confident of a supply of such; others
were for putting every dutied article on the same footing, as wine, &c.;
but others considered wine as a necessary of life. It is my opinion that
if the merchants who viewed this measure of importing tea in a
commercial rather than in a political light, had shewn their
disapprobation of the intended opposition to land it, by action rather
than by a refusal to subscribe to a proposed association, and a contempt
of the public meetings on this occasion, and the agents of the East
India Company had not been so hasty in their declining to accept their
trusts, all might have gone on well, according to the plan of the East
India Company, and to our benefit in purchasing that article, now become
one of the necessaries of life, at a much cheaper rate than at present.

COPY OF A LETTER FROM MR. JOHN MORRIS,

_At Charles Town, South Carolina, to his Brother, at London._

Charles Town, 22^d Dec^r., 1773.

Dear Brother:

Cap^t. Curling arrived here the 2^d inst., with 257 chests of tea. There
were many meetings of the merchants and planters, but by the result they
came to no determination; the gentlemen that the tea was consigned to
refuse receiving it. The tea staid on board 20 days. We then gave the
captain a permit to land it by sunrise. In the morning I went on board,
and called the captain out of his bed, begged he would begin to get the
tea out of his vessel. I expected that he would not have been permitted
to land it, but we immediately got six chests into the warehouse, and
the sailors hard at work hoisting out the rest. We began about 7
o'clock, and had by 12 about half the tea in the warehouse, and the rest
before the door. There was not the l