burned her. The colonial authorities were indifferent: the perpetrators
were not tried; they were not prosecuted; they were not even arrested. On
Dec. 16, 1773, a similar act of violence marked the opposition of the
colonies to the remnant of the Townshend taxation acts. The tea duty had
been purposely reduced, till the price of tea was lower than in England.
Soon after the appointment of the Committees of Correspondence public
sentiment in Massachusetts was again aroused by the publication of letters
written by Hutchinson, then governor of Massachusetts, to a private
correspondent in England. The letters were such as any governor
representing the royal authority might have written. "I wish," said
Hutchinson, "the good of the colony when I wish to see some fresh
restraint of liberty rather than the connection with the parent state
should be broken." The assembly petitioned for the removal of Hutchinson,
and this unfortunate quarrel was one of the causes of a decisive step, the
Boston Tea-party. An effort was made to import a quantity of tea, not for
the sake of the tax, but in order to relieve the East India Company from
financial difficulties. On December 16, the three tea ships in the harbor
were boarded by a body of men in Indian garb, and three hundred and forty-
two chests of tea were emptied into the sea. Next morning the shoes of at
least one reputable citizen of Massachusetts were found by his family
unaccountably full of tea. In other parts of the country, as at Edenton in
North Carolina, and at Charleston in South Carolina, there was similar
violence.


30. COERCIVE ACTS OF 1774.


[Sidenote: Public feeling in England.]