FOOTNOTES:
[15] Four of the spring fleet of merchant ships, designated in the newspapers according to custom, only by the names of their respective commanders, Shayler, Lyde, Maratt, and Scott, had just arrived. They brought accounts of the effect upon the mother country of the destruction of the tea. The ministry had carried through Parliament their system of repressive measures: the Boston Port Bill, the revision of the charts, materially impairing its popular features, and the act to authorize the removal of trials in certain cases to Great Britain. General Gage, the commander-in-chief of his Majesty's forces in America, appointed Governor to execute the new policy,—in the place of Hutchinson, who had asked leave of absence,—was on his way, and arrived in his Majesty's ship Lively, Captain Bishop, in twenty-six days from London, on the 13th, the day after the date of this letter.