ave a right to
take up arms; and when in a town meeting, as I am informed,
a call to arms was received with clapping and general
applause; when a tumultuous assembly of people can, from
time to time, attack the persons and the property of the
king's subjects; and when assemblies are tolerated from
night to night, in the public town hall; to counsel and
determine upon further unlawful measures, and dark proposals
and resolutions are made and agreed to there; when the
infection is industriously spreading and the neighboring
towns not only join their committees with the committee of
Boston, but are assembled in town meetings to approve of the
doings of the town of Boston; and, above all, when upon
repeated summoning of the Council, they put off any advice
to me from time to time, and I am obliged to consent to it,
because all the voices there, as far as they declare their
minds, I have reason to fear, would rather confirm than
discourage the people in their irregular proceedings,--under
all these circumstances, I think it time to deliberate
whether his majesty's service does not call me to retire to
the castle, where I may, with safety to my person, more
freely give my sense of the criminality of these proceedings
than whilst I am in the hands of the people, some of whom,
and those most active, don't scruple to declare their
designs against me."

And he concludes this doleful story with the question, "What am I in
duty bound to do?" His position was certainly a very uncomfortable one.

Frequent conferences with the consignees were held by the selectmen of
Boston. "Though we labored night and day in the affair, all our efforts
could not produce an agreement between them and the town." So wrote
John Scollay,[9] chairman of the Board of Selectmen, who also informs
us, in a letter written December 23, that there was a way by which the
consignees might have avoided trouble. "Had they," writes he, "on the
terms of first application to them, offered to have stored the tea,
subject to the inspection of a committee of gentlemen, till they could
write their principals, and until that time (agreed that) no duty should
be paid,--which no doubt the customs officers would have consented
to,--I am persuaded the town would have closed with them."

The selectmen told the consignees plainly that nothing less than sending
the tea back to Engl