aying for speedy relief from the ruin,
which has an uncomfortable fashion of staring at great mercantile
companies, and was now staring them full in the face.

So, putting their heads together, the king and parliament hit upon an
ingenious plan, by which they, the East-India Company, could sell
their tea, and the government collect the duty thereon. It was this:
The price of the article should be so far reduced, that it would be
lower, even with the duty on it, than, at the usual rate of sale,
without any duty at all. This was a brilliant scheme indeed, and would
have succeeded to admiration, had the good people of America been a
nation of bats and geese; but, as they were not, the scheme failed
disgracefully, as you shall presently see.

By way of giving this plan a trial, a few ships loaded with tea were
sent over to Boston, where they lay for some time in the harbor,
without being permitted by the people to land their cargoes. One day,
as if to show the king and ministers and parliament, the East-India
Company, and the whole British nation, that they, the Americans, were,
and had been from the very beginning, desperately in earnest in all
that they had said and done for years past, a party, composed of about
fifty of the most sober and respectable citizens of Boston and the
country around, disguised themselves as Indians, and went aboard these
ships. Not a word was to be heard among them; but, keeping a grim and
ominous silence, they ranged the vessel from stem to stern, ransacked
their cargoes, broke open the tea-chests, and, pouring their contents
into the sea, made the fishes a dish of tea, which is said to have had
the same effect on them as on the rats and mice. This done with
perfect coolness and sobriety, the party returned to their homes as
orderly and silent as they had come; not the first movement towards a
mob or tumult having been made by the people during the whole
proceeding.

This affair, commonly known in history as the Boston Tea-party, and
which took place in 1774, overwhelmed his majesty with stupid
astonishment, threw his ministers into fits of foaming rage, fell like
a thunder-clap upon the House of Parliament, and effectually
demolished the last forlorn hope of the East-India Company. The spirit
of resistance on the part of the Colonies had now been carried to such
a length, that the home-government determined to send over the
military to awe them by the terror of its presence into obedience