in Boston. Fresh disturbances
followed. The governor quarrelled with the legislature, and a complete
anarchy began to prevail. The public mind was inflamed by effigies,
paintings, and incendiary articles in the newspapers. The parliament
was represented as corrupt, the ministry as venal, the king as a
tyrant, and England itself as a rotten, old, aristocratic structure,
crumbling to pieces. The tide was so overwhelming in favor of
resistance, that even moderate men were borne along in the current;
and those who kept aloof from the excitement were stigmatized as timid
and selfish, and the enemies of their country. The courts of justice
were virtually silenced, since juries disregarded the charges of the
judges. Libels were unnoticed, and the rioters were unpunished.
Smuggling was carried on to a great extent, and revenue officers were
insulted in the discharge of their duties. Obnoxious persons were
tarred and feathered, and exposed to public derision and scorn. In
Providence, they burnt the revenue cutter, and committees were formed
in the principal towns who fanned the flame of sedition. The committee
in Boston, in 1773, framed a celebrated document, called the _Bill of
Rights_, in which the authority of parliament to legislate for the
colonies, in any respect, was denied, and in which the salaries
decreed by the crown to the governor and judges were considered as a
systematic attempt to enslave the land.

The public discontents were further inflamed by the information which
Dr. Franklin, then in London, afforded the colonies, and the advice he
gave them to persevere, assuring them that, if they were firm, they
had nothing to apprehend. Moreover, he got into his possession a copy
of the letters of Governor Hutchinson to the ministry, which he
transmitted to the colonies, and which by them were made public. These
letters were considered by the legislature of Massachusetts as unjust
and libellous, and his recall was demanded. Resolutions, of an
offensive character to the English, were every where passed, and all
things indicated an approaching storm. The crisis was at hand. The
outrage, in Boston harbor, of throwing overboard three hundred and
forty-two chests of tea, which the East India Company had sent to
America, consummated the difficulties, and induced the government to
resort to more coercive measures.

[Sidenote: Duty on Tea.]

It was in the power of Lord North to terminate the difficulties with
the colonies w