VII 



The Mississippi Flows Through 

 Corn Land 



IN MASSACHUSETTS, Samuel Adams' pen scratched on, 

 covering sheet after sheet of paper. Letters, letters, letters. 

 . . . "Support the Non-Importation Act. . . ." "Elect a Com- 

 mittee of Safety and Inspection. . . ." 



On the wharves of Boston, Salem and Newport, shipowners 

 and captains gathered in knots and cursed the British revenue 

 officers. The rum, molasses and slave trade brought 40,000 

 annually into Newport. Yet Britain threatened this by duties 

 on sugar and molasses. In the West Indies the planters' needs 

 kept British workmen constantly employed. It was estimated 

 that for every Englishman in the sugar islands, four pairs of 

 hands in Great Britain labored, wove and spun. But the 

 islands depended on the American colonies for their food sup- 

 plies. Without American flour, pork, lard, dairy products and 

 oxen for the sugar plantations, the whites there would starve. 

 In the face of this, a British tax on island goods imported into 

 the American colonies, and a cordon of British revenue men 

 armed with writs to enter warehouses, stores and private cellars 

 in search of smuggled goods were affronts not lightly to be 

 borne. 



On the steps of county courthouses and crossroads stores in 

 Virginia, tobacco growers gathered to grumble about prices 

 and the restrictions of the Navigation Act. 



Taxes . . . taxes . . . taxes . . . 



Was the Government in league with Big Business in the 

 form of the East India Company and the Hudson Bay Com- 



114 



