[Sidenote: "The Boston Tea Party," 1773]
But the colonists would not now yield even the principle of Parliamentary taxation. [Footnote: Despite the fact that the colonists had regularly been paying import duties on molasses and on foreign wine.] They insisted that were they to pay this tax, trifling as it might be, Parliament would assert that they had acknowledged its right to tax them, and would soon lay heavier taxes upon them. They, therefore, refused to buy the tea, and on a cold December night in 1773 a number of Boston citizens dressed up like Indians, boarded a British tea ship, and emptied 342 chests of tea into the harbor.
[Sidenote: The Five "Intolerable Acts," 1774]
Boston's "Tea-Party" brought punishment swift and sure in the famous five "intolerable acts" (1774). Boston harbor was closed; Massachusetts was practically deprived of self-government; royal officers who committed capital offenses were to be tried in England or in other colonies; royal troops were quartered on the colonists; and the province of Quebec was extended south to the Ohio, cutting off vast territories claimed by Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Virginia. This last act, by recognizing and establishing the Roman Catholic Church in French-speaking Quebec, excited the liveliest fear and apprehension on the part of Protestants in the English-speaking colonies.
[Sidenote: First Continental Congress, 1774]
Agitators in the other colonies feared that their turn would come next, and rallied to the aid of Massachusetts. The first Continental Congress of delegations from all the colonies [Footnote: Except Georgia.] met in 1774 in Philadelphia "to deliberate and determine upon wise and proper measures, to be by them recommended to all the colonies, for the recovery and establishment of their just rights and liberties, civil and religious, and the restoration of union and harmony between Great Britain and the colonies." The Congress dispatched a petition to the king and urged the colonists to be faithful to the "American Association" for the non-importation of British goods.
THE WAR OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, 1775-1783
[Sidenote: Revolt of the Thirteen Colonies]
Neither king nor colonies would yield a single point. William Pitt, now earl of Chatham, in vain proposed conciliatory measures. The colonies fast drifted into actual revolt. In May, 1775, the second Continental Congress met at Philadelphia, but already blood had been shed at Lexington (Massachusetts), 19 April, 1775, and New England was a hotbed of rebellion. The Congress accepted facts as they were, declared war, appointed George Washington commander-in-chief, sent agents to France and other foreign countries, and addressed a final petition to the king.
[Sidenote: The Declaration of Independence, 1776]