George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 6, 10th edition.

[483] blood and their treasure; for that which they once

Chap. L.} 1773. Dec.

esteemed the Mother Country, had lost the tenderness of a parent, and become their great oppressor.¹ —‘We trust in God,’ wrote the men of Lexington, ‘that should the state of our affairs require it, we shall be ready to sacrifice our estates and every thing dear in life, yea, and life itself, in support of the common cause.’²—Whole towns in Worcester County were on tiptoe to come down.³ ‘Go on, as you have begun,’ wrote the Committee of Leicester on the fourteenth; ‘and do not suffer any of the teas already come or coming to be landed, or pay one farthing of duty. You may depend on our aid and assistance when needed.’⁴

The line of policy adopted was, if possible, to get the tea carried back to London uninjured in the vessel in which it came. A Meeting of the people on Tuesday afternoon directed and as it were ‘compelled’ Rotch, the owner of the Dartmouth, to apply for a clearance. He did so, accompanied by Kent, Samuel Adams, and eight others as witnesses. The Collector was at his lodgings, and refused to answer till the next morning; the Assemblage, on their part, adjourned to Thursday the sixteenth, the last of the twenty days, before it would become legal for the Revenue officers to take possession of the ship, and so land the teas at the Castle. In the evening, the Boston Committee finished their preparatory Meetings. After their consultation on Monday with the Committee of the five towns, they had been together that day and the next, both morning