ed fourteen chests of the East India Company's tea. To
keep the Sabbath strictly was the New England usage. But hours were
precious; let the tea be entered, and it would be beyond the power of
the consignees to send it back. The selectmen held one meeting by day
and another in the evening, but they sought in vain for the consignees,
who had taken sanctuary in the Castle.

The committee of correspondence was more efficient. They met also on
Sunday, and obtained from the Quaker Rotch, who owned the Dartmouth, a
promise not to enter his ship till Tuesday; and authorized Samuel Adams
to invite the committees of the five surrounding towns, Dorchester,
Roxbury, Brookline, Cambridge, and Charlestown, with their own townsmen
and those of Boston, to hold a mass meeting the next morning. Faneuil
Hall could not contain the people that poured in on Monday. The
concourse was the largest ever known. Adjourning to "the Old South"
Meeting-house, Jonathan Williams did not fear to act as moderator, nor
Samuel Adams, Hancock, Molineux, and Warren to conduct the business of
the meeting. On the motion of Samuel Adams, who entered fully into the
question, the assembly, composed of upward of five thousand persons,
resolved unanimously that "the tea should be sent back to the place from
whence it came at all events, and that no duty should be paid on it."
"The only way to get rid of it," said Young, "is to throw it overboard."
The consignees asked for time to prepare their answer; and "out of great
tenderness" the body postponed receiving it to the next morning.
Meantime the owner and master of the ship were converted and forced to
promise not to land the tea. A watch was also proposed. "I," said
Hancock, "will be one of it, rather than that there should be none," and
a party of twenty-five persons, under the orders of Edward Proctor as
its captain, was appointed to guard the tea-ship during the night.

On the same day the council who had been solicited by the Governor and
the consignees to assume the guardianship of the tea, coupled their
refusal with a reference to the declared opinion of both branches of the
General Court that the tax upon it by Parliament was unconstitutional.
The next morning the consignees jointly gave as their answer: "It is
utterly out of our power to send back the teas; but we now declare to
you our readiness to store them until we shall receive further
directions from our constituents"; that is, until they could noti