OF THE BOSTON TEA PARTY 187 
tea-chest lurked the complete surrender of self-gov- 
ernment, the payment of governors and judges by the 
crown, the arbitrary suppression of legislatures, the 
denial of the principle that freemen can be taxed 
only by their own representatives. So long as they 
were threatened with tea, the colonists would not 
break the non-intercourse agreement. Once the mer- 
chants of New York undertook to order from Eng- 
land various other articles than tea, and the news 
was greeted all over the country with such fury that 
nothing more of the sort was attempted openly. As 
for tea itself shipped from England, one would as soon 
have thought of trying to introduce the Black Death. 
In the summer of 1772 the king tried to enforce 
the order that judges’ salaries should be paid from 
the royal treasury. He was getting no revenue from 
America, but he would pay them out of the British 
revenues. He began with Massachusetts, and at 
once there was fierce excitement, which reverberated 
through all the colonies. The judges were forbidden 
under penalty of impeachment to touch the king’s 
money, and so another year passed by and left 
George III. still baffled. 
It was then that he hit upon his famous device for 
“trying the question” with America. This “trying 
the question” was his own phrase. It was observed 
that the Americans had more or less of tea to drink, 
though not an ounce was brought from England; 
whenever they solaced their nerves with the belliger- 
ent beverage, they smuggled it from Holland or the 
Dutch East Indies. The king, therefore, neatly 
arranged matters with the East India Company, so 
that it could afford to offer tea in American ports at 
