28 TEA AND AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 



arose, saying, " This meeting can do nothing more to 

 save the country'' The utterance of these words was a 

 preconcerted signal ; the response, an Indian war- 

 whoop from the crowd outside. A band of young men, 

 not over fifty, disguised as, and styling themselves, 

 " Mohawks," rushed down to the wharf where the 

 vessels lay; the ships were boarded, the Tea chests 

 broken open and emptied' into the river. From the 

 moment that the first Tea-leaf touched the water the whole 

 atmosphere surrounding the issues involved changed ! In 

 that instant, with the rapidity of thought, the Colonies 

 vanished and America arose / 



When the news of these proceedings reached England, 

 it provoked a storm of anger, not only among the adher- 

 ents of the government, but also among the mercantile 

 and manufacturing classes, they having suffered heavy 

 losses by the stoppage of trade with America. The 

 commercial importance and parliamentary influence of 

 the East India Company swelled the outcry of indigna- 

 tion against which they termed the outrage of destroying 

 its property. All united in the resolve to punish the 

 conduct of Boston for its rejection of the least onerous 

 one of an import duty on tea. What followed has been 

 told in song and story Lexington and Concord, Bunker 

 Hill, Valley Forge and Yorktown. A new nation sprang 

 into existence, taking its stand upon the pedestal of 

 "EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL," under a new government 



"OF THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE." 



