US History/US History (Bureau Development Inc.)(1991).ISO/dp/0013/00133.txt

Text File | 1990-12-23 | 30.9 KB | 470 lines

$Unique_ID{USH00133}
$Pretitle{11}
$Title{Our Country:  Volume 3
Chapter LIII}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Lossing, Benson J., LL.D.}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{boston
soldiers
troops
citizens
adams
preston
three
tea
upon
america}
$Volume{Vol. 3}
$Date{1905}
$Log{}
Book:        Our Country:  Volume 3
Author:      Lossing, Benson J., LL.D.
Volume:      Vol. 3
Date:        1905

Chapter LIII

     American Affairs in Europe - The British Ministry - The Parliament and
the Americans - James Otis Disabled - Troops in Boston - Interference with
Popular Rights Resented - Disturbance in New York - Violation of
Non-Importation Agreements and Its Consequences - Affray with Rope-Makers -
Boston Massacre - After-Action of the People - Funeral of the Victims -
Effects of the Massacre - A Triumph - Unwise Action of the British Ministry -
Feelings of the Americans - Importations Renewed.

     AT the beginning of 1770, the quarrel between Great Britain and her
American colonies was a chief topic for discussion and speculation in European
court-circles.  The French were watching the course of events with intense
interest.  Du Chatelet, in London, was keeping Choiseul well-informed of every
political movement bearing upon American affairs and the sentiment of wise men
on the continent, as well as the middle-classes of Great Britain, was rapidly
drifting in favor of the really persecuted colonists.  The British cabinet had
not been in perfect unity for some time on the American question, and had just
been recast.  The Duke of Grafton, at whom Junius was then hurling his keenest
shafts, had retired from the premiership, and Lord North had become prime
minister of England, with a good working majority in Parliament.  The
Opposition in Parliament were bold, bitter, and defiant. Sir George Saville,
in debate, charged the House of Commons with an invasion of the rights of the
people when a ministerial member said In times of less licentiousness, members
have been sent to the Tower for words of less offence."  Saville instantly
replied: "The mean consideration of my own safety shall never be put in the
balance against my duty to my constituents.  I will own no superior but the
laws; nor bend the knee to any but to Him who made me."  Lord North well knew
the strength of the popular will behind these brave words, and bore the
reproach quietly.  By adroit management he stilled the rising tempest of
indignation that was agitating the majority.  In the House of Lords, Chatham,
whose voice had been silent a long time, spoke warmly in favor of being just
toward the Americans.  "Let us save the constitution, dangerously invaded at
home," he said, "and let us extend its benefits to the remotest corners of the
empire.  Let slavery exist nowhere among us for whether it be in America, or
in Ireland, or here at home, you will find it a disease which spreads by
contact, and soon reaches from the extremity to the heart."  These words from
both houses of Parliament went over the sea as pledges of hope for the
Americans, for lately they had received only frowns from the national
legislature.  The colonists were irritated but calm, because they were
conscious of their innate strength and the righteousness of their cause.
Their just anger was controlled by wise judgment and marvellous sagacity.  The
bond of their union was growing stronger every hour because of common danger.

     Boston was then the focus of rebellious thought and action in America.
Samuel Adams and his compatriots were longing for independence, and boldly
prophesying the birth of a new nation in America; but his brave and fiery
coadjutor, James Otis, had lately been disabled by the violence of a crown-
officer, to which allusion has already been made.  Mr. Robinson, one of the
commissioners of customs, had misrepresented Otis in England.  The latter made
a severe attack upon Robinson in a Boston newspaper.  For this the
commissioner attempted to pull Otis's nose in a coffee-house.  A fracas
ensued, when Otis was so severely beaten that he never fairly recovered.  His
brain was disturbed by a blow on the head from a heavy cane.  His great
usefulness at that crisis was hopelessly impaired.  John Adams, in his diary
for January, 1770, gives a melancholy account of the patriot's mental
condition: Otis," he wrote, is in confusion yet he loses himself; he rambles
and wanders like a ship without a helm attempted to tell a story which took up
almost all the evening; the story may, at any time, be told in three minutes
with all the graces it is capable of but he took an hour.  I fear he is not in
his perfect mind.  The nervous, the concise and pithy were his character till
lately; now the verbose, the roundabout, and rambling and long-winded. . . .
In one word, Otis will spoil the club.  He talks so much and takes up so much
of our time, and fills it with trash, obsceneness, profaneness, nonsense and
distraction, that we have none left for rational amusements and inquiries.  He
mentioned his wife; said she was a good wife, too good for him; but she was a
tory [she had married her daughter to a British officer], a high tory; she
gave him such curtain-lectures, etc.  In short, I never saw such an object of
admiration, reverence, contempt, and compassion, all at once, as this.  I
fear, I tremble, I mourn, for the man and his country; many others mourn over
him, with tears in their eyes."  Poor Otis He lived, disabled, until the great
Revolution (in the earlier stages of which he had borne the most conspicuous
part) was almost ended in the independence of his country.  Late in May, 1782,
while he was standing in the door of a friend at Andover during a
thunder-shower, he was instantly killed by a stroke of lightning - a method of
dying for which he had often expressed an earnest desire.

     The troops in Boston were a source of constant irritation.  "They must be
removed to the Castle," said the good citizens.  They shall remain," said the
crown-officers and Hutchinson, in obedience to an order from Hillsborough,
prorogued the Massachusetts Assembly till the middle of March, while some of
them were on their way from a distance to hold a session in Boston.  This
arbitrary act inflamed the indignation of the people, and stirred the ire of
all the colonies.  It was immediately followed by violations of the
nonimportation agreement by a few covetous Boston merchants, who coalesced
with the crown-officers.  Among them were Hutchinson's sons, who Mere his
agents.  They secretly sold tea.  A meeting of patriotic merchants was held,
and in a body they went to the lieutenant-governor's house to treat with his
sons, who had violated the agreement.  He treated them as incipient
insurgents, and would not allow them to enter.  He sent the sheriff into an
adjourned meeting of merchants to order them to disperse.  The troops were
furnished with ball-cartridges, and Colonel Dalrymple was ready to shed blood
in defence of the royal prerogative.  The meeting sent a respectful letter to
the governor, written by John Hancock, telling him plainly that their
assemblage was lawful, and they should not disperse.  Hutchinson, made wiser
by past experience with an exasperated people, submitted to circumstances, and
was quiet.

     Meanwhile the insolence and aggressive acts of the soldiery in New York
had aroused the people there to resistance.  Although it was winter, the Sons
of Liberty frequently gathered around the Liberty-Pole, which had stood
defiantly since it was iron-bound in 1767.  At midnight in January (1770),
some armed men went stealthily from the barracks with chisels and axes, cut
down the pole, sawed it in pieces, and piled the fragments in front of
Montague's, the rendezvous of the Sons of Liberty.  The perpetrators of the
act were discovered at dawn.  The bell of St. George's Chapel, in Beekman
street, was rung as if there were a great conflagration, and at an early hour
on the 17th of January, full three thousand people stood around the stump of
the consecrated pole.  By resolutions they declared their rights, and contempt
of the soldiers as enemies to the Constitution.  The soldiers posted an
insulting placard about the town.  For about three days the most intense
excitement prevailed.  In affrays with the citizens, the soldiers were
generally defeated, and on one occasion several of them were disarmed.  Quiet
was restored at length.  The people erected another Liberty-Pole upon private
ground purchased for the purpose upon Broadway, near the present Warren street
and not long afterward the soldiers departed for Boston, where bloodshed had
occurred.

     In spite of the threatening attitude of the citizens, four or five Boston
merchants continued to import and sell tea, the specially proscribed article.
The women of Boston protested against this violation of a sacred pledge.  The
mistresses of three hundred families subscribed their names to a league,
binding themselves not to drink any tea until the revenue act was repealed
Three days afterward the maidens of Boston were gathered in convention in the
home of an opulent merchant, and there signed their names to the following
pledge: We, the daughters of those patriots who have and do now appear for the
public interest, and in that principally regard their posterity - as such, do
with pleasure engage with them in denying ourselves the drinking of foreign
tea, in hopes to frustrate a plan which tends to deprive a whole community of
all that is valuable in life."

     The recusant merchants were unmoved, and Theophilus Lillie announced his
intention to import and sell tea in spite of public opinion.  That opinion
soon appeared embodied in a little mob, composed chiefly of half-grown boys,
who set up a wooden post in front of Lillie's store, with a rudely carved head
upon it, and a hand pointing to the merchant's door as a place to be avoided.
Lillie was exasperated, but dared not interfere.  A neighboring merchant of
his stripe, named Richardson, a rough, stout man, having more courage, tried
to get a farmer, who was passing in his cart, to knock down the post with his
hub.  The man was a patriot and refused, when Richardson rushed out and
attempted to pull it down with his own hands.  He was pelted with dirt and
stones.  In violent anger, he came out of Lillie's house, into which he had
been driven by the mob, with a shotgun, and discharged its contents, without
aim, into the little mob.  A lad named Samuel Gore was slightly wounded, and
another, named Christopher Snyder, was killed.  He was the son of a poor
German widow.  The mob seized Richardson and an associate and hurried them to
Faneuil Hall, where the citizens speedily assembled to the number of two or
three hundred.  Richardson was tried and found guilty of murder, but
Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson refused to sign the death-warrant.  After he
had lain in prison two years, the king pardoned the offender.  The murder of
Snyder produced a profound sensation in the public mind throughout the
colonies, as a prophecy of coming war.  In Boston his funeral was m)de the
occasion of a solemn pageant.  His coffin was covered with inscription.  One
of these was:  "Innocence itself is not safe."  It was borne to Liberty Tree,
where a very large concourse of citizens of every class assembled, and
followed the remains to the grave.  In that procession nearly five hundred
children took part.  The pall was carried by six of the victim's school-mates.
Relatives and friends and almost fifteen hundred citizens followed.  The bells
of the city and of the neighboring towns tolled while the procession was
moving; and in the newspapers, and by the lips of grave speakers in the pulpit
and on the rostrum, little Christopher Snyder was spoken of as the first
martyr to the cause of liberty in America.  Dalrymple and his vicious
Twenty-ninth regiment were impatient in the presence of such a popular
demonstration.  He wanted to be set at murderous work among the Bostonians,
whom he thoroughly hated, but was restrained by the civil magistrates.

     This event was a forerunner of a more serious one a few days after ward.
John Gray had an extensive rope-walk in Boston, where a number of patriotic
men were employed.  They often bandied coarse taunts with the soldiers as they
passed by.  On Friday, the 2nd of March (1770), a soldier who applied for work
at the rope-walk was rudely ordered away.  He challenged the men to a
boxing-match, when he was severely beaten.  Full of wrath he hastened to the
barracks, and soon returned with several companions, when they beat the
rope-makers and chased them through the streets.  The citizens naturally
espoused the cause of the rope-makers, and many of them assembled in the
afternoon with a determination to avenge the wrongs of the workmen.  Mr. Gray
and the military authorities interfered, and prevented any further disturbance
then.  But vengeance only slumbered.  It was resolved, by some of the more
excitable of the inhabitants, to renew the contest and at the barracks the
soldiers inflamed each other's passions, and prepared bludgeons. They warned
their particular friends in the city not to be abroad on Monday night, for
there would be serious trouble.

     Fresh wet snow had fallen, and on Monday evening, the 5th of March, frost
had covered the streets of Boston with a coat of ice.  The moon was in its
first quarter and shed a pale light over the town, when, at twilight, both
citizens and soldiers began to assemble in the streets.  By seven o'clock full
seven hundred persons, armed with clubs and other weapons, were on King (now
State) street, and, provoked by the insolence and brutality of the lawless
soldiery, shouted Let us drive out these rascals!  They have no business here!
Drive them out!  At the same time parties of soldiers (whom Dalrymple had
doubtless released from the barracks for the purpose of provoking the people
to commit some act of violence, and so give an excuse for letting loose the
dogs of war) were going about the streets boasting of their valor, insulting
citizens with coarse words, and striking many of them with sticks and sheathed
swords. Meanwhile the populace in the street were increasing in numbers every
moment, and at about nine o'clock in the evening, they attacked some soldiers
in Dock Square, and shouted: "Town-born, turn out Down with the bloody-backs!"
They tore up the stalls of a market, and used the timber for bludgeons.  The
soldiers scattered and ran about the streets, knocking people down and raising
the fearful cry of Fire!  At the barracks on Brattle street, a subaltern at
the gate cried out, as the populace gathered there, Turn out!  I will stand by
you.  Knock them down!  kill them!  run your bayonets through them!  The
soldiers rushed out, and, leveling their muskets, threatened to make a lane
paved with dead men through the crowd.  Just then an officer was crossing the
street, when a barber's boy cried out: There goes a mean fellow, who will not
pay my master for shaving him." A sentinel standing near the corner of the
Custom-house ran out and knocked the boy down with his musket.

     The cry of fire and the riotous behavior of the soldiers caused an alarm-
bell to be rung.  The whole city was aroused.  Many men came out with canes
and clubs for self-defence, to learn the occasion of the uproar.  Many of the
more excitable citizens formed a mob.  Some of the leading citizens present
tried to persuade them to disperse, and had in a degree gained their
respectful attention, when a tall man, covered with a long scarlet cloak and
wearing a white wig, suddenly appeared among them, and began a violent
harangue against the government officers and the troops.  He concluded his
inflammatory speech by boldly shouting:  "To the main-guard!  to the main-
guard!  There is the nest!  It is believed that the orator in the scarlet
cloak was Samuel Adams.

     The populace immediately echoed the shout - "To the main-guard!" - with
fearful vehemence, and separating into three ranks, took different routes
toward the quarters of the main-guard.  While one division was passing the
Custom-house, the barber's boy cried out: There's the scoundrel who knocked me
down!  A score of voices shouted, "Let us knock him down!  Down with the
bloody-backs Kill him!  kill him!" The crowd instantly began pelting him with
snow-balls and bits of ice, and pressed toward him.  He raised his musket and
pulled the trigger.  Fortunately for him it missed fire, when the crowd tried
to seize him.  He ran up the Custom-house steps, but, unable to enter the
building, he called to the indian-guard for help.  Captain Preston, the
officer of the day, sent eight men, with unloaded muskets but with ball-
cartridges in their cartouch boxes, to help their beleaguered comrade.  At
that moment the stout Boston bookseller, Henry Knox (who married the daughter
of General Gage's secretary and was a major-general of artillery in the army
of the Revolution), holding Preston by the coat, begged him to call the
soldiers back.  If they fire," said Knox, "your life must answer for the
consequences."  Preston nervously answered: I know what I am about," and
followed his men.

     When this detachment approached, they, too, were pelted with snowballs
and ice; and Crispus Attucks, a brawny Indian from Nantucket, at the head of
some sailors, like himself (who had led the mob in the attack on the soldiers
in Dock Square), gave a loud war-hoop and shouted, "Let us fall upon the nest!
the main-guard!  the main-guard!" The soldiers instantly loaded their guns.
Then some of the multitude pressed on them with clubs, struck their muskets
and cried out, You are cowardly rascals for bringing arms against naked men."
Attuck shouted: "You dare not fire!" and called upon the mob behind him: "Come
on! Don't be afraid!  They daren't fire!  Knock them down!  Kill 'em!" Captain
Preston came up at that moment and tried to appease the multitude. Attucks
aimed a blow at his head with a club, which Preston parried with his arm.  It
fell upon the musket of one of the soldiers and knocked it to the ground.
Attucks seized the bayonet, and a struggle between the Indian and the soldier
for the possession of the gun ensued.  Voices behind Preston cried out, "Why
don't you fire!  why don't you fire?" The struggling soldier hearing the word
fire, just as he gained possession of his musket, drew up his piece and shot
Attucks dead.  Five other soldiers fired at short intervals, without being
restrained by Preston.  Three of the populace were killed, five were severely
wounded (two of them mortally), and three were slightly hurt.  Of the eleven,
only one (Attucks) had actually taken part in the disturbance.  The crowd
dispersed; and when citizens came to pick up the dead, the infuriated soldiers
would have shot them, if the captain had not restrained them.

     News of the tragedy spread over the town in a few minutes.  It was now
near midnight.  There was a light in every house, for few besides children had
retired on that fearful night in Boston.  The alarm-bells were rung.  Drums
beat to arms.  A cry went through the streets - " The soldiers are murdering
the people!  To arms!  to arms!  Turn out with your guns!" Preston also
ordered his drums to beat to arms.  Colonel Dalrymple, with the lieutenant-
governor, were soon on the spot and promised the orderly citizens, who had
taken the place of the dispersed mob, that justice should be vindicated in the
morning.  Order was restored, and before the dawn the streets of Boston were
quiet.  Meanwhile Preston had been arrested and put into prison and the next
morning the eight soldiers were committed - ill charged with the crime of
murder.

     Such is the sad story of the famous "Boston Massacre," gleaned from the
conflicting evidence of witnesses at the trial of Preston and his men, and of
contemporary writers.  The 5th of March was celebrated as a solemn anniversary
in the history of the colonies, until after the Declaration of Independence
became a national holiday.  The killing of citizens was undoubtedly a
massacre, for the outrageous conduct of the soldiers created the mob.  Their
offensive acts on that night were undoubtedly approved by Dalrymple, their
commander.  It was his duty to keep them in the barracks at a time of popular
excitement only, not an insurrection.  He must have foreseen the result of
their doings, and hoped for an excuse to "begin work in Boston," as he had
said before.  Such is the verdict of history after a lapse of more than a
century.

     The event produced a profound impression everywhere.  The cause of Boston
became the cause of the continent.  The story, embellished in its course from
lip to lip, became a tale of horrors that stirred the blood of patriots
everywhere.  It was a crisis in the history of the colonies.  Some were
disposed to consider the events on that night as forming the principal cause
of the Revolution which soon afterward broke out.  John Adams said long years
afterward: "On that night the foundation of American independence was laid;"
and Daniel Webster, when speaking of the event, said:

     "From that moment we may date the severance of the British empire."  The
"foundation for the independence of America" was laid long before, when the
early colonists began to yearn for the privileges of local self-government and
the severance of the British empire was decreed when Andros was driven from
New England.

     On the morning after the massacre, the Sons of Liberty gathered in great
numbers in Faneuil Hall.  The lieutenant-governor convened his council, and
that afternoon a town-meeting was held in the South Meeting-house (yet
standing), then the largest building in the city.  The people there resolved
that nothing could be expected to restore peace and prevent carnage, but an
immediate removal of the troops." A committee of fifteen, with Samuel Adams as
their chairman, were sent the next morning, with that resolution, to
Hutchinson and Dalrymple.  The people," said Royal Tyler, one of the
committee, are determined to remove the troops out of the town by force, if
they will not go voluntarily.  They are not such people as formerly pulled
down your house, that conduct these measures, but men of estate - men of
religion.  The people 'will come in to us from all the neighboring towns we
shall have ten thousand men at our backs, and your troops will probably be
destroyed by the people, be it called rebellion or what it may." Hutchinson
replied: An attack on the king's troops would be high-treason, and every man
concerned in it would forfeit his life and estate." The committee renewed the
demand for the removal of the troop's.  The officials would only promise to
send one regiment away.  This unsatisfactory answer the committee reported to
an adjourned town-meeting that afternoon, when it was immediately resolved
that it was the unanimous opinion of the meeting that the reply made to the
vote of the inhabitants, presented to his honor this morning, is by no means
satisfactory, and that nothing else will satisfy them but a total and
immediate removal of all the troops." Samuel Adams, John Hancock, William
Molineux, William Phillips, Joseph Warren, Joshua Henshaw and Samuel Pemberton
were appointed to carry this resolution to the civil and military authorities.
Adams presented the resolutions.  Again the lieutenant-governor and the
colonel temporized.  Hutchinson said he had no power to remove the troops.
Adams proved that he had, by the provisions of the charter.  Still the
crown-officers hesitated.  Adams resolved that there should be no more
trifling with the will of the people.  Stretching forth his hand toward
Hutchinson, and in a voice not loud but clear, he said: "If you have power to
remove one regiment, you have power to remove both.  It is at your peril if
you do not.  The meeting is composed of three thousand people.  They are
become very impatient.  A thousand men are already arrived from the
neighborhood, and the country is in general motion.  Night is approaching; an
immediate answer is expected."

     This was the voice of the province - of the continent - and the
crown-officers knew it.  Fear of the angry people and dread of the frowns of
the ministry agitated them with conflicting emotions.  Hutchinson grew pale
his knees trembled, and Adams afterward said, "I enjoyed the sight."  The
lieutenant-governor's council had unanimously recommended the removal of the
troops the people demanded it, and after conferring together in a whisper,
Hutchinson and Dalrymple agreed to send the troops to Castle William.  The
committee returned to the meeting with the good news, and the Old South
Meeting-house rang with acclamations of joy.  The humbled troops were speedily
sent out of the town.  It was a signal triumph for the people and the rights
of man. These troops had been sent to overawe the people; the people had
overawed the troops.  The inhabitants kept a strict guard over the prisoners
and a vigilant oversight of the troops while they remained, many of the most
respectable citizens appearing as common soldiers" in this duty.

     The funeral of the victims of the massacre occurred on the 8th of March.
It was made an occasion of a great popular demonstration.  Four hearses that
bore the bodies of Crispus Attucks, Samuel Maverick, Samuel Gray and James
Caldwell, who were murdered on the 5th, met at the spot, in King street, where
the tragedy was enacted.  Thence they moved to the Middle Burial-ground,
followed by an immense concourse of people of all classes and conditions, on
foot; and then by a long line of carriages of the gentry of the town," who
occupied them.  The bodies were placed in one vault.  The newspapers of the
country were shrouded in broad black lines.  The Boston Gazette, printed on
Monday, the 12th of March, was heavily striped with black lines, and contained
pictures of four coffins, bearing the initials of the slain and the skull and
cross-bones.  Long afterward John Adams wrote: Not the battle of Lexington or
Bunker Hill, not the surrender of Burgoyne or Cornwallis, were more important
events in American history than the battle of King street, on the 5th of
March, 1770.  The death of four or five persons, the most obscure and
inconsiderable that could have been found upon the continent, has never yet
been forgiven in any part of America."

     Late in the autumn of the same year, when public excitement had subsided,
Captain Preston and his soldiers were tried for murder before a court in
Boston.  Josiah Quincy, Jr., and John Adams were counsel for the prisoners).
They were known as ardent patriots, yet their acceptance of the task of
defending these prisoners offended many of their compatriots, and severely
tried the strength of their popularity.  They entered upon their duties as
counsellors with humane motives, and they discharged them with fidelity to
their clients, the law, and the testimony.  Robert Treat Paine, afterward a
signer of the Declaration of Independence, was the counsel for the crown.
Preston and six of the soldiers were declared not guilty by a Boston jury. The
other two - the soldier who killed Attucks, and another who shot Maverick -
were convicted of manslaughter only, and for that offence they were each
branded in the hand with a hot iron, in open court, and discharged.

          This trial was another triumph for the Americans.  The advocates in
Parliament for the revival of the long-slumbering statute of Henry the Eighth,
providing for the trial in England of persons accused of crimes in the
colonies, gave as a reason for such revival, that American juries could not be
trusted in the case of a crown-officer being on trial.  This verdict of a
Boston jury, under the circumstances, set that slander at rest forever, and
amazed the judges of the English courts.  The jury had simply triumphed over
prejudice and strong emotion, and given a verdict in accordance with the
dictates of conscience and perceptions of truth.

     On the evening when the Boston massacre occurred, Lord North asked leave
of the British House of Commons to bring in a bill for repealing the duties on
certain articles mentioned in Hillsborough's circular, but retaining a duty of
three per cent on tea.  This was a small tax - a very small burden - a mere
pepper-corn rent," avowedly to save the national honor.  The proposition found
very little favor from either party.  The friends of the Americans demanded a
repeal of the whole revenue act the friends of the crown regarded a partial
repeal as utterly useless, for they began to comprehend the deep-seated
principle on which the Americans had planted themselves.  Lord North, in his
heart, wished to have a full repeal, and thereby insure a full reconciliation
but the stubborn king would not relinquish an iota of his prerogative on
compulsion, and the duty on tea was retained by the votes of a small majority
in Parliament.  The bill received the royal assent on the 17th of April.  The
monarch had already received intelligence of the massacre.  When it was
revealed to Parliament, it created a very great sensation.  Had that body
received the news sooner, the duty on tea would not have been retained.

     When intelligence of this act reached America, the colonists saw that the
contest was not quite over.  In the three per cent duty on tea lay the kernel
of future oppressions - materials for chains of slavery.  But the people, late
in 1770, began to relax their loyalty to the non-importation leagues.  The
merchants of New York proposed to import everything but tea.  Send us your
Liberty-Pole, as you can have no further use for it," wrote the
Philadelphians.  The letter of the New York merchants was burnt by the
students at Princeton, with James Madison at their head.  In Boston it was
torn in pieces, and in other colonies it was read with indignation.  But
Philadelphia and Boston merchants soon acquiesced and before the close of 1770
the colonists were importing everything from Great Britain excepting tea.  The
associations had exerted salutary influence on society in America. Many
extravagant customs had been abolished; personal expenses had been curtailed,
and some manufactures had been encouraged.  Home-made articles were
fashionable.  The graduating class at Cambridge took their degrees in home-
spun clothes in 1770.

     The spinning-wheel, which had been introduced into the colonies by the
Scotch-Irish early in the last century, played an important part in the
politics of the time.  It had been introduced into England from India in the
reign of Henry the Eighth, and it was such an improvement upon the ancient
distaff in the process of spinning, that, according to a legend that prevailed
in Great Britain and Ireland, it was a special gift from heaven. This gift the
patriotic women of America used most effectually in helping their fathers,
brothers, husbands and sons in successful resistance to oppression.  How much
the hearts, heads and busy fingers of the women of the Revolution contributed
to the achievement of the great result may never be known.  The service was
very great.