The Cambridge of eighteen hundred and ninety-six: a picture of the city and its industries fifty years after its incorporation
Arthur Gilman, Ed.

[22] of Cambridge, neither more nor less than a tax. The application of the money thus raised in support of the government would tend to render the Assembly useless. Every American should resist this plan of the ministers. The sending of the tea here by the East India Company, subject to the payment of duties, was an open attempt to enforce the ministerial plan, and a violent attack on the liberties of America. Every person who should aid, directly or indirectly, in unloading, receiving, or vending any tea subject to these duties, was declared to be an enemy of America. The factors appointed in Boston by the East India Company, who had been requested to resign this appointment, but who had refused to do so, had by this conduct forfeited all right to the respect of their fellow-countrymen. For this reason the town of Cambridge would not show them respect, but would view them as enemies of their country. Any person who should harbor these factors, unless they should immediately make full satisfaction to a justly incensed people, was declared to be unfriendly to his country. Any person who should import tea, subject to this duty, was said to be an enemy to be treated with the same contempt as the factors of the East India Company. And finally it was resolved ‘That this town can no longer stand idle spectators, but are ready, on the shortest notice, to join with the town of Boston, and other towns, in any measures that may be thought proper, to deliver ourselves and posterity from slavery.’

On the evening of December 10, 1773, occurred the far-famed incident of throwing overboard in Boston harbor the cargoes of tea which had been forwarded to that port by the East India Company. Of the connection of Cambridge men with this event we have no record, but the effects were felt throughout the Province. The Boston Port Bill, through which Parliament sought to punish Boston for the destruction of the tea, received the royal assent March 30, 1774. The act took effect June 1, 1774, and for the time being the commerce of Boston was destroyed. Cambridge of course suffered from this proceeding, but on the 28th of July the town voted that the Committee of Correspondence should be a committee to receive and transmit to their destination gifts for the relief of their distressed brethren in Boston.

The next step resorted to by the British Parliament for bringing the recalcitrant colonists into line was the passage of the