Independence (9 page)

Given months to prepare, those who opposed parliamentary taxation were ready when the tea ships approached the port cities. Confronted by angry mobs, the captains of the
Nancy
and the
Polly
, the tea ships bound for New York and Philadelphia, respectively, turned for home without attempting a landing. The
London
made for Charleston, but when it docked, the local Sons of Liberty seized the cargo, preventing its sale. In Boston, outrage took a different and more destructive form. Late on a frigid, jet-black Saturday night toward the end of November, the
Dartmouth
, carrying 114 chests of tea, slipped into Boston Harbor and tied up at dockside while the city's residents slept. When the Boston resistance leaders learned the next day that the tea ship was in port, it was too late to seize the dutied cargo, unless they wished to risk a confrontation with customs officials and possibly British soldiers. Things only got worse for the radical leaders in Boston. A week later a second tea ship, the
Eleanor
, arrived and docked, and after another ten days the brig
Beaver
entered Boston Harbor with still more of the East India Company's tea. (A fourth tea ship, the
William
, ran aground at Provincetown on Cape Cod, but its 58 chests of tea were saved and fell into the hands of the Customs Service.)
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Those in Boston who opposed the Tea Act knew that, under a century-old customs regulation, all duties on taxable goods were to be paid within twenty days or customs officials would seize the ship and sell it and its cargo at auction. Whale oil and assorted winter supplies, which were also part of
Dartmouth
's contents, were rapidly brought ashore, but longshoremen refused to touch the chests of tea. The clock was ticking. Come December 17, time would run out. On that day the tea aboard the
Dartmouth
was certain to fall into the hands of the Customs Service. There could be no doubt that thereafter the tea would be sold by the East India Company to Massachusetts consumers. Should that occur, it was feared, not only would the tax on tea be collected, but the triumphant ministry and Parliament would also impose additional duties on the colonists. To prevent this from occurring, Boston's radical leaders pleaded for three weeks with Governor Hutchinson to send the ships with their cargoes of tea back to England. He turned a deaf ear to their entreaties. Hutchinson had taken an oath to enforce British law. Furthermore, after the publication of his private letters, he was anxious to settle old scores.
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Faced with the choice of acting or capitulating, the resistance leaders chose to act. On the bitingly cold, mist-cloaked night of December 16, they took a carefully planned step. Upwards of 200 men, many disguised as Indians, descended on Griffin's Wharf and slipped aboard all three tea ships. While some men held lanterns or stood lookout, others descended into the holds. With block and tackle, the heavy chests of tea—each chest was lead-lined and weighed 80 to 90 pounds when empty and upwards of 450 pounds when filled—were hoisted on deck, where men, sweating despite the raw weather, wielded axes to smash them open. Other “Mohawks,” as these men called themselves, shoveled the loose tea into the swirling, sable waters of Boston Harbor. The work was difficult and time-consuming, requiring nearly three hours. Still, considering the amount of goods that had to be moved—90,000 pounds of tea in 340 unwieldy chests—the job was completed relatively rapidly, which suggests that most of the work was undertaken by dockhands accustomed to this sort of labor. Customs officials and the leaders of Britain's armed forces in Boston had known early on that the vessels had been taken over by hostile elements—they could not help but know, as more than two thousand spectators gathered along the waterfront to watch the festivities—but none wished to act without civilian authorization. Governor Hutchinson, who had fled to his country home in Milton, was not present to give the order to stop the plundering. In the crystalline dawn of the following day, December 17, every resident knew of the Boston Tea Party and, in all likelihood, knew it had been a watershed event, what John Adams that morning called “an Epocha in History.”
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No one recorded Lord North's first response to the news of the Boston Tea Party, but, like Adams, he must have realized straightaway that the incident marked a new level of rebellion. The tea protest had become his American crisis. The prime minister was doubtless angry and shocked, as were some Americans who had thought the Tea Act should be resisted, though by peaceful means. Franklin's initial reaction was that all “considerate Men” must oppose the destruction of private property. Besides, he said, America's dispute was not with the East India Company. On learning what had occurred in Boston Harbor, Franklin appealed to the Massachusetts assembly to indemnify the company.
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Washington, likewise, found the destruction of private property indefensible and proposed that Virginia help Massachusetts make reparations to the East India Company.
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Some 90,000 pounds of East India Company tea was destroyed in the Boston Tea Party, on December 16, 1773. This was America's most violent response to the Tea Act, and led the British government to respond with coercive measures that the colonists labeled the Intolerable Acts.
The Destruction of Tea at Boston Harbor
lithograph by Sarony and Major, 1846. (National Archives)

The outrage expressed by Franklin and Washington paled next to the anger that swept England. More than six months after the passage of the Tea Act, only 3 percent of the tea the East India Company had shipped to America—just that salvaged from the shipwrecked
William
—was in the hands of the Customs Service and ready for sale. Unbridled fury toward the colonists filled the British newspapers, but the lion's share of indignation was directed at Boston, the lone site of violence. Bostonians were branded “bigots of the most dangerous kind” and singled out as the “most turbulent” of all Americans. It was a city, according to a London newspaper, in which “honest Men and Virgins [were] scarce.” One English penman claimed that the American troubles had originated with “crafty” Boston “smugglers,” after which things were “blown into rebellion by the preachers.” Several essayists instantly attributed the Boston Tea Party to the work of the “crafty pettifogger” and “arch rebel” Samuel Adams, who, it was said, “leads a banditti of hypocrites,” and the merchant John Hancock, who was widely portrayed in England as the prince of smugglers and the “
Milch-Cow
” of Boston's extremists.
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Numerous scribblers demanded that Adams and Hancock be arrested and transported to England to stand trial for sedition. One writer suggested that royal authorities in Boston send across the Atlantic “a Cargo of American Scalps, as some Recompense for their Tea,” while another proposed that British officials “Hang, draw, and quarter fifty” of Boston's radicals.

One essayist cast a broader net. Britain, he said, confronted a “many headed Monster” in America that threatened the “Peace and Tranquility of the Nation.” Others charged that the lingering American problem could be traced to the “Timidity of … Tax-repealing” ministries that had capitulated in the face of the Stamp Act protests and largely surrendered again when most of the Townshend Duties were repealed. “Forbearance has long been ineffectual” was the mantra of many who demanded toughness. The time had come, they said, for “an enlarged Fortitude” and “an Exertion of Power.” British “supremacy must be maintained and supported.… This is no period for … temporizing.” There were times—and this was one of them, according to one pamphleteer—when “violent remedies must be … applied to obstinate diseases.” Even the
National Register
, a journal that had opposed American taxation, labeled the Boston Tea Party an “outrage.”
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Franklin, who kept an eye on the British press, notified America of the “great Resentment here” toward the colonists, and he added: “I suppose we never had since we were a People, so few Friends in Britain.”
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The savage mood in Britain was reflected in the cabinet. The ministers were incensed by the American reaction to the Tea Act, but they were particularly irate at what had occurred in Boston. This was due in part to the Yankees' repeated defiance, but even more so it was because the Bostonians had destroyed the tea. Given the near-sacred status of property in Great Britain—where courts were known to hang paupers who stole a loaf of bread—the ministers looked on the Boston Tea Party as worse than a riot.

From its first meeting, the cabinet resolved to take “effectual steps … to secure the dependence of the colonies.” But to its credit, North's government did not hastily settle on its response. North was a mild-mannered man. He had come to power free of enmity toward the Americans, and from first to last he hoped that war might be avoided.
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He presided over calm, unhurried, and thoughtful deliberations concerning the proper response. Over the course of six weeks the ministers met often, sometimes even late into the night, to discuss their options and the likely American response. Each minister understood that if the government stood its ground, refusing any longer to appease the colonists, there was a risk of war. Consequently, at numerous meetings North and his ministers contemplated hostilities. Could Britain win a war? How would it be fought? What was the likelihood of French and Spanish intervention?

From the outset, a majority of ministers believed the colonists would back down if faced with the use of force, a view nourished by General Thomas Gage, the commander of the British army in America, who advised that the Americans would “be lyons whilst we are lambs but if we take the resolute part they will be very meek.” It seemed inconceivable to most in the cabinet that colonists who had neither a national army nor a navy of any sort would dare risk war with a nation that could field a professional army and possessed the greatest navy in the world. Virtually every member of North's ministry believed that Britain would prevail, and easily, should the Americans be foolish enough to resort to arms. Some were convinced that only one or two engagements would be sufficient to bring the colonists to heel. Some even thought that the colonists' will to resist could be broken by a naval blockade and that no pitched battles would be necessary. But if fighting did occur, the prospect was not terribly troubling. Given the performance of callow colonial soldiers in the recent war, many were persuaded that the Americans were a “poor species of fighting men.” Some questioned that premise, though it was incontrovertible that there was a dearth of officers in the colonies with experience in leading large armies. Most also thought it improbable that colonial militiamen would dare stand up to regular soldiers. Furthermore, the colonists were disunited. During the French and Indian War, Franklin had proposed what came to be known as the Albany Plan of Union, a plea for the colonies to unite in a confederation to more effectively wage the war. Not a single province had endorsed his idea. Given these realities, some in Britain were cocksure, such as the general whom Franklin overheard boasting that “with a Thousand British grenadiers he would undertake to go from one end of America to the other, and geld all the Males, partly by force and partly by a little Coaxing.”
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Confronted by the colonists' effrontery, not to mention their willful lawlessness, virtually every member of North's ministry believed that retribution of some sort was called for. Differences existed, however. The Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, and the Earl of Suffolk, secretary of state for the Northern Department (Northern Europe), led those who favored the most punitive measures. Sandwich, a veteran minister who over the years had instituted many useful naval reforms, was the most influential minister, next to North, of course. Walpole thought no other cabinet member was Sandwich's rival when it came to making quick and sound judgments. Suffolk, who was young and good-natured, had been a follower of Grenville and for ten years an outspoken advocate of American taxation. A second faction also wanted the government to be tough, but less so than demanded by the hard-liners, and these ministers were not entirely certain what steps should be taken. This contingent was led by the Earl of Gower, president of the Privy Council; the Earl of Rochford, secretary of state for the Southern Department and an expert on Spain; and Viscount Weymouth, groom of the stole, who was related to North by marriage. Dartmouth, standing nearly alone, was the most vocal against taking especially vindictive measures. He saw himself as manning the bulwarks “to cover America from the present storm.” But Dartmouth was not sanguine. Over the years he had found that Lord North usually gave in to those who were more forceful and acrimonious.
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