“THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY”
So soon as the British Government determined upon the shipment of tea to the American Colonies, it was arranged that these ships should arrive at each port very nearly on the same date; thus the people in the different Colonies would be unable to unite together in their resistance. Through the organization of the Committees of Correspondence, however, the people had already become fully united in their determination to prevent the landing of the tea.
Boston Committee of Correspondence Notice
On November 5th, 1773, an alarm was raised in the city of New York to the effect that a tea-ship had entered the harbor. A large assembly of the people at once occurred, among whom those in charge of the movement were disguised as Mohawk Indians. This alarm proved a false one, but at a meeting then organized a series of resolutions were adopted which were received by the other Colonies as the initiative step in the plan of resistence already determined upon throughout the country. Our school books are chiefly responsible for the almost universal impression that the destruction of tea, which occurred in Boston Harbor, was an episode confined to that city; while the fact is, that the tea sent to this country was either destroyed or sent back to England from every sea-port in the Colonies. The first tea-ship happened to arrive in Boston and the tea was first destroyed there; for this circumstance full credit should be given the Bostonians. But the fact that the actors in this affair were disguised as Mohawk Indians shows that they were but following the lead of New York, where that particular disguise had been adopted forty-one days before, for the same purpose.
Previous to the arrival of the ships in Boston, concerted action had been agreed upon, as has been already shown, in regard to the destruction of the tea from Charleston, South Carolina, to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The people of Philadelphia had been far more active and outspoken at the outset than they of Boston, and it was this decisiveness which caused the people of Boston to act, after they had freely sought beforehand the advice and moral support of the other Colonies.
The first tea-ship arrived in Boston on November 28th, 1773, and two others shortly after, but it was not until the evening of December 16th, that their contents were thrown overboard at the so-called “Boston Teaparty.” The “broadside” here presented is one of a number in the collection of the author, which show fully the feeling of the people of Philadelphia. The other sheets were issued prior to this one but are without date; hence this is selected to prove that Philadelphia was actively engaged in the same purpose, previous to the destruction of tea in Boston.