Part 4 (2/2)
”You shall,” quoth the mother, and reddened with rage, ”For you're my own daughter, you see.
And sure 'tis quite proper the daughter should pay Her mother a tax on her tea, Her mother a tax on her tea.”
And so the old lady her servant called up And packed off a budget of tea, And, eager for three-pence a pound, she put in Enough for a large familee.
She ordered her servant to bring home the tax, Declaring her child should obey, Or old as she was, and almost woman grown, She'd half whip her life away, She'd half whip her life away.
The tea was conveyed to the daughter's door, All down by the ocean side, And the bouncing girl poured out every pound In the dark and boiling tide, And then she called out to the Island Queen, ”Oh! Mother! Dear Mother!” quoth she, ”Your tea you may have when 'tis steeped enough, But never a tax from me, No, never a tax from me!”[11]
The diary has little more to say than Trevelyan. We read ”Twenty-eight chests of tea arrived yesterday, which are to make an infusion in water at seven o'clock this evening.” And the next day: ”Last night twenty-eight chests and a half of tea were drowned.”
It is clear that Mr. Adams knew what was to be done; he never knew the names of the doers, steadfastly refusing to be told. ”You may depend upon it,” he says, writing to a friend in 1819, ”that they were no ordinary Mohawks. The profound secrecy in which they have held their names, and the total abstinence from plunder, are proofs of the characters of the men. I believe they would have tarred and feathered anyone of their number who should have been detected in pocketing a pound of Hyson.”
The following year, 1774, was a momentous one. The destruction of the tea had roused George III and his ministers to frenzy; they bent all their energies to punish the rebellious town of Boston. Edict followed edict. The Five Intolerable Acts, they were called. This is not the place to name them; be it merely said that one of them amounted practically to a repeal of the Charter of Ma.s.sachusetts. Early in May General Gage arrived, with full powers as Civil Governor of the Colony, and as Commander-in-Chief for the whole continent, to see that the edicts were carried out. First came the Boston Port Bill, which closed the harbor of Ma.s.sachusetts and transferred the business of the custom-house to Salem.
On May 26th, 1774, Governor Gage informed the General Court that its sessions would be held at Salem from June first till further orders. The court obeyed, met at Salem, under the leaders.h.i.+p of Samuel Adams, and proceeded to make arrangements for a general congress at Philadelphia.
Gage, hearing of this, sent a messenger post haste to Salem to dissolve the meeting. The messenger found the door locked, nor was it opened till the congress had been determined upon, and the Ma.s.sachusetts committee appointed: James Bowdoin, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Thomas Cus.h.i.+ng, Robert Treat Paine. This was on June 17th, 1774. On the same day, a great meeting was held at Faneuil Hall, with John Adams as moderator to protest against the iniquitous Port Bill.
Jonathan Sewall, John Adams' bosom friend, was a strong Royalist. On hearing of Adams' nomination to the projected Congress, he hastened to protest against his accepting it, with all the eloquence of which he was master. Every school child knows the answer by heart.
”I know,” said John Adams, ”that Great Britain has determined on her system, and that very fact determines me on mine. You know I have been constant and uniform in opposition to her measures; the die is now cast; I have pa.s.sed the Rubicon; to swim or sink, live or die, survive or perish with my country, is my unalterable determination.”
Meantime, on June 1st, the blockade of Boston Harbor was proclaimed, and the ruin and starvation of the city zealously undertaken. ”I'll put Boston seventeen miles from the sea!” Lord North had vowed, and he was better than his word.
”The law was executed with a rigour that went beyond the intentions of its authors. Not a scow could be manned by oars to bring an ox, or a sheep, or a bundle of hay, from the islands. All water carriage from pier to pier, though but of lumber, or bricks, or kine, was forbidden.
The boats that plied between Boston and Charlestown could not ferry a parcel of goods across Charles River. The fishermen of Marblehead, when they bestowed quintals of dried fish on the poor of Boston, were obliged to transport their offerings in wagons by a circuit of thirty miles.”[12]
The British troops, which had been removed after the ”Ma.s.sacre,” came back into the town, ”sore and surly,”[13] and encamped on Boston Common.
The evil days had begun. Small wonder that under such conditions as these, John Adams' heart was heavy at leaving his home, even on so high an errand as that which called him to Philadelphia.
A month before this, he was writing to his wife the first of the famous Familiar Letters. It is dated Boston, 12 May, 1774.
”I am extremely afflicted with the relation your father gave me of the return of your disorder. My own infirmities, the account of the return of yours, and the public news coming all together have put my utmost philosophy to the trial.
”We live, my dear soul, in an age of trial. What will be the consequence, I know not. The town of Boston, for aught I can see, must suffer martyrdom. It must expire. And our princ.i.p.al consolation is, that it dies in a n.o.ble cause--the cause of truth, of virtue, of liberty, and of humanity, and that it will probably have a glorious resurrection to greater wealth, splendor and power, than ever.
”Let me know what is best for us to do. It is expensive keeping a family here, and there is no prospect of any business in my way in this town this whole summer. I don't receive a s.h.i.+lling a week. We must contrive as many ways as we can to save expenses; for we may have calls to contribute very largely, in proportion to our circ.u.mstances, to prevent other very honest worthy people from suffering for want, besides our own loss in point of business and profit.
”Don't imagine from all this that I am in the dumps. Far otherwise. I can truly say that I have felt more spirits and activity since the arrival of this news than I had done before for years. I look upon this as the last effort of Lord North's despair, and he will as surely be defeated in it, as he was in the project of the tea.
”I am, with great anxiety for your health,
”Your JOHN ADAMS.”
Abigail was probably visiting in the country at this time; but shortly after, John moved his family once more to Braintree, ”to prepare myself as well as I could for the storm that was coming on.” He rode his circuit as usual, but for the last time. His letters are full of foreboding; full also of courage, and resolve to meet whatever fate held in store.
”Let us, therefore, my dear partner, from that affection which we feel for our lovely babes, apply ourselves, by every way we can, to the cultivation of our farm. Let frugality and industry be our virtues, if they are not of any others. And above all cares of this life, let our ardent anxiety be to mould the minds and manners of our children. Let us teach them not only to do virtuously, but to excel. To excel, they must be taught to be steady, active, and industrious.”
He is not too anxious to give his usual keen attention to all he sees and hears. From York he writes:
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