of Boston demanded that all the soldiers should be
removed. Fearing more serious trouble if the demand was disregarded, the
officers withdrew the soldiers to an island in the harbor.
Still the feeling did not die down. The new taxes were a constant
irritation. "Only slaves would submit to such an injustice," said Samuel
Adams, and his listeners agreed. In Massachusetts and in other colonies
the English goods were refused, and, as in the case of the Stamp Act, the
English merchants felt the pinch of heavy losses, and begged that the new
tax laws be repealed.
SAMUEL ADAMS AND THE "BOSTON TEA PARTY"
Feeling grew stronger and matters grew worse until at length, after
something like three years, Parliament took off all the new taxes except
the one on tea. "They must pay one tax to know we keep the right to tax,"
said the King. It was as if the King's followers had winked slyly at one
another and said: "We shall see--we shall see! Those colonists must have
their tea to drink, and a little matter of threepence a pound they will
overlook."
It would have been much better for England if she had taken off all the
taxes and made friends with the colonists. Many leaders in that country
said so, but the stubborn King was bent upon having his own way. "I will
be King," he said. "They shall do as I say."
Then he and his followers worked up what seemed to them a clever scheme
for hoodwinking the colonists. "We will make the tea cheaper in America
than in England," they said. "Such a bargain! How can the simple colonists
resist it?" Great faith was put in this foolish plan.
But they were soon to find out that those simple colonists were only
Englishmen across the sea, that they too had strong wills, and that they
did not care half so much about buying cheap tea as they did about giving
up a principle and paying a tax, however small, which they had no part in
levying.
King George went straight ahead to carry out his plan. It was arranged
that the East India Company should ship cargoes of tea to Boston, New
York, Philadelphia, and Charleston.
In due time the tea arrived. Then the King's eyes were opened. What did he
find out about the spirit of these colonists? That they simply would _not_
use this tea. The people in New York and Philadelphia refused to let it
land, and in Charleston they stored it in damp cellars, where it spoiled.
But the most exciting time was in Boston, where the Tory governor,
Hutchinson, was dete
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