they would not; were forbidden, they said!' 'Go, then,
sir; get you to the Governor himself; a clearance, and out of harbor
this day: had n't you better?' Rotch is well aware that he had; hastens
off to the Governor (who has vanished to his Country-house, on purpose);
Old South Meeting-house adjourning till 3 P.M., for Rotch's return with
clearance.

"At 3 no Rotch, nor at 4, nor at 5; miscellaneous plangent intermittent
speech instead, mostly plangent, in tone sorrowful rather than
indignant:--at a quarter to 6, here at length is Rotch; sun is long
since set,--has Rotch a clearance or not? Rotch reports at large,
willing to be questioned and cross-questioned: 'Governor absolutely
would not! My Christian friends, what could I or can I do?' There are
by this time about 7,000 people in Old South Meeting-house, very few
tallow-lights in comparison,--almost no lights for the mind either,--and
it is difficult to answer. Rotch's report done, the Chairman [one Adams,
"American Cato," subsequently so called] dissolves the sorrowful 7,000,
with these words: 'This Meeting declares that it can do nothing more to
save the Country.' Will merely go home, then, and weep. Hark, however:
almost on the instant, in front of Old South Meeting-house, (a terrific
War-whoop; and about fifty Mohawk Indians,)--with whom Adams seems to be
acquainted; and speaks without Interpreter: Aha?--

"And, sure enough, before the stroke of 7, these fifty painted Mohawks
are forward, without noise, to Griffin's Wharf; have put sentries all
round there; and, in a great silence of the neighborhood, are busy,
in three gangs, upon the dormant Tea Ships; opening their chests, and
punctually shaking them out into the sea. 'Listening from the distance,
you could hear distinctly the ripping open of the chests, and no other
sound.' About 10 P.M. all was finished: 342 chests of tea flung out to
infuse in the Atlantic; the fifty Mohawks gone like a dream; and Boston
sleeping more silently even than usual." ["Summary of the Advices from
America" (in _Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1774, pp. 26, 27); Bancroft,
iii. 536 et seq.]

"Seven in the evening:" this, I calculate, allowing for the Earth's
rotation, will be about the time when Friedrich, well tired with the
day's business, is getting to bed; by 10 on the Boston clocks, when the
process finishes there, Friedrich will have had the best of his sleep
over. Here is Montcalm's Prophecy coming to fulfilment;--and a curious