ed on goods exported to those colonies--the one
most obnoxious to the colonists and most jealously maintained by the
Ministers being a duty on tea. The Opposition had now learnt from the
result of the Stamp Act debate that American taxation was an excellent
issue on which to challenge the Ministry, and the Tea Tax became at once
a "Party Question"--that is, a question upon which the rival oligarchs
divided themselves into opposing groups.

Meanwhile in America the new taxes were causing even more exasperation
than the Stamp Act had caused--probably because they were more menacing
in their form, if not much more severe in their effect. At any rate, it
is significant that in the new struggle we find the commercial colony of
Massachusetts very decidedly taking the lead. The taxed tea, on its
arrival in Boston harbour, was seized and flung into the sea. A wise
Government would have withdrawn when it was obvious that the enforcement
of the taxes would cost far more than the taxes themselves were worth,
the more so as they had already been so whittled down by concessions as
to be worth practically nothing, and it is likely enough that the
generally prudent and politic aristocrats who then directed the action
of England would have reverted to the Rockingham policy had not the King
made up his unfortunate German mind to the coercion and humiliation of
the discontented colonists. It is true that the British Crown had long
lost its power of independent action, and that George III. had failed in
his youthful attempts to recapture it. Against the oligarchy combined he
was helpless; but his preference for one group of oligarchs over another
was still an asset, and he let it clearly be understood that such
influence as he possessed would be exercised unreservedly in favour of
any group that would undertake to punish the American rebels. He found
in Lord North a Minister willing, though not without considerable
misgivings, to forward his policy and able to secure for it a majority
in Parliament. And from that moment the battle between the Home
Government and the colonists was joined.

The character and progress of that battle will best be grasped if we
mark down certain decisive incidents which determine its course. The
first of these was the celebrated "Boston Tea Party" referred to above.
It was the first act of overt resistance, and it was followed on the
English side by the first dispatch of an armed force--grossly inadequate
for