they were
neither Sea Poys nor Marattas--Americans were willing to resort to the
use of force in order to maintain their own rights by depriving the East
India Company of its privileges.

When Capt. Curling's ship arrived in Charleston, the people in that
town, assembled to deal with the grave crisis, were somewhat uncertain
what to do with the Company's tea. On the very ship which brought the
Company's tea, there were some chests consigned to private merchants;
and certain enthusiastic patriots attending the meeting of citizens
affirmed that the importation of dutied tea by private merchants
contrary to the non-importation agreement was no less destructive to
liberty than the importation of tea by the East India Company. "All
this," it was said, "evinced a desire of not entering hastily into
measures." In the end, the Company's tea was seized by the Collector and
stored in the vaults under the Exchange. At New York and Philadelphia,
the Company's tea ships were required to return to England without
landing; and it was only at Boston, where Governor Hutchinson, whose
sons had been appointed by the Company as its consignees, refused return
clearance papers, that the tea, some 14,000 pounds worth of it, was
thrown into the harbor.

Throwing the tea into the harbor raised a sharp sense of resentment in
the minds of Britons. The common feeling was that, unless the British
Government was prepared to renounce all pretense of governing the
colonies, something must be done. There were a few, such as Josiah
Tucker, who thought that the thing to do was to give up the colonies;
in their opinion, colonies were in any case more of a burden than an
advantage, the supposed advantages of colonies being bound up with
restrictions on trade, and restrictions on trade being contrary to the
natural law by which commerce should be free. But the natural law was
only a recent discovery not yet widely accepted in England; and it did
not occur to the average Briton that the colonies should be given up.
The colonies, he supposed, were English colonies; and he thought the
time had come to establish that fact. He had heard that the colonies had
grievances. All he knew was that the Government had good-naturedly made
concessions for the last ten years; and as for this new grievance about
tea, the average Briton made out only that the Americans could buy their
tea cheaper than he could himself.

Obviously the time had come for Old England to set th