inst the
invaders of their homes.

During the war two women of Concord dressed in men's clothing,
captured a spy bearing papers which proved of the utmost importance to
the patriot forces.

During these early days, the women of various Colonies--Virginia, New
York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts--formed Anti-Tea Leagues. In
Providence, R. I., young ladies took the initiative; twenty-nine
daughters of prominent families, meeting under the shade of the
sycamore trees at Roger Williams' spring, there resolving to drink no
more tea until the duty upon it was repealed. The name of one of these
young ladies, Miss Coddington, has been preserved, to whose house they
all adjourned to partake of a frugal repast; hyperion[26] taking the
place of the hated bohea. In Newport, at a gathering of ladies, where
both hyperion and bohea were offered, every lady present refused the
hated bohea, emblem of political slavery. In Boston, early in 1769,
the matrons of three hundred families bound themselves to use no more
tea until the tax upon it was taken off. The young ladies also entered
into a similar covenant, declaring they took this step, not from
personal motives, but from a sense of patriotism and a regard for
posterity.[27] Liberty, as alone making life of value, looked as sweet
to them as to their fathers. The Women's Anti-Tea Leagues of Boston
were formed nearly five years previous to the historic "Boston Tea
Party," when men disguised as Indians, threw the East India Company's
tea overboard, and six years before the declaration of war.

American historians ignoring woman after man's usual custom, have
neglected to mention the fact that every paper in Boston was suspended
during its invasion by the British, except the chief rebel newspapers
of New England, _The Massachusetts Gazette_ and _North Boston
News-Letter_, owned and edited by a woman, Margaret Draper.

They make small note of Women's Anti-Tea Leagues, and the many
instances of their heroism during the Revolutionary period, equaling,
as they did, any deeds of self-sacrifice and bravery that man himself
can boast.

The men of Boston, in 1773, could with little loss to themselves,
throw overboard a cargo of foreign tea, well knowing that for the last
five years this drink had not been allowed in their houses by the
women of their own families. Their reputation for patriotism was thus
cheaply earned in destroying what did not belong to them and what was
of no use to them.