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tlie (lutj on teas being still reserved. This exception was 

 made hy Great Britain to show the colonies that she did not 

 relinquish the 'principle^ that she possessed the right to tax 

 them. This scheme so far from appeasing the colonists served 

 onlj to keep alive their jealousy. Throughout the country the 

 use of tea was not only strictly prohibited, but destroyed wher- 

 ever found or exposed for sale. In Salem a quantity was, on 

 one occasion, taken from a store, strewed about the streets, and 

 the package, which had contained it, ignominiously consigned to 

 the public whipping post. Bonfires, to the no small amuse- 

 ment of the children, were also not unfrequently made of it. 

 An octogenarian, now living, relates that he can vividly remem- 

 ber the burning of a quantity in Court street, in which the late 

 Walter Price Bartlett took a leading part. He was passing a 

 store, in front of Avhich he observed a collection of combustibles, 

 when he saw a gentleman handsomely dressed, with a determin- 

 ed look and face the color of crimson, brino- out in his arms a 

 package of the odious tea, place it upon the pile and ignite the 

 mass with his own hands. This he afterwards learned was 

 Mr. Bartlett. Three hundred and sixty of her citizens, mostly 

 heads of families, immediately signed an agreement to abstain 

 from the use of this herb, and these were afterwards joined by 

 several others.* Finally, the destruction of a quantity of this 

 article in Boston harbor, in December, 1773, was followed by 

 an act of Parliament to close the Port of Boston and remove 

 the Custom House and its dependencies to Salem. This was 

 known as the Boston Port Bill. It was supported by the 

 Lords Mansfield, Gower, Littleton, Weymouth and Sufiblk ; 

 and Avas opposed by the Dukes of Richmond and Manchester, 

 the Marquis of Rockingham, Lord Campden, and the Earls of 

 Shelburne, Temple and Stairs. The debates were long and 

 warm. A measure of such deep aggression towards Boston, 

 the principal seaport of Massachusetts, called forth the indigna- 

 tion of all the other colonies who sympathised deeply with her 

 on the occasion. Salem, on whose interests this measure was 

 calculated to have a favorable influence by directing the course 

 of trade to her port, possessed too much magnanimity to raise 

 her fortune on the ruin of her suffering neighbors, and at a 

 town meeting in May, 1774, she voted that in her opinion, " if 

 the colonies would stop all exports to, and imports from Great 



Essex Gazette files, May 8, 1770. 



