nor to load guns at the Castle,
so that no vessel, except coasters, might go to sea without a permit. He
had no thought of what was to happen; the wealth of Hancock, Phillips,
Rowe, Dennie, and so many other men of property seemed to him a security
against violence; and he flattered himself that he had increased the
perplexities of the committee.

The decisive day draws nearer and nearer; on the morning of Monday, the
13th, the committees of the five towns are at Faneuil Hall, with that of
Boston. Now that danger was really at hand, the men of the little town
of Malden offered their blood and their treasure; for that which they
once esteemed the mother-country had lost the tenderness of a parent and
become their great oppressor. "We trust in God," wrote the men of
Lexington, "that should the state of our affairs require it, we shall be
ready to sacrifice our estates and everything dear in life, yea, and
life itself, in support of the common cause." Whole towns in Worcester
County were on tiptoe to come down. "Go on as you have begun," wrote the
committee of Leicester on the 14th; "and do not suffer any of the teas
already come or coming to be landed or pay one farthing of duty. You may
depend on our aid and assistance when needed."

The line of policy adopted was, if possible, to get the tea carried back
to London uninjured in the vessel in which it came. A meeting of the
people on Tuesday afternoon directed and, as it were, "compelled" Rotch,
the owner of the Dartmouth, to apply for a clearance. He did so,
accompanied by Kent, Samuel Adams, and eight others as witnesses. The
collector was at his lodgings, and refused to answer till the next
morning; the assemblage, on their part, adjourned to Thursday, the 16th,
the last of the twenty days before it would become legal for the revenue
officers to take possession of the ship and so land the teas at the
Castle. In the evening the Boston committee finished their preparatory
meetings. After their consultation on Monday with the committees of the
five towns, they had been together that day and the next, both morning
and evening; but during the long and anxious period their journal has
only this entry: "No business transacted; matter of record."

At ten o'clock on the 15th, Rotch was escorted by his witnesses to the
custom-house, where the collector and comptroller unequivocally and
finally refused to grant his ship a clearance till it should be
discharged of the teas.

H