"It was the first arrival of tea since it had become a proscribed article. It was ascertained that it was consigned to T. C. Williams & Co., of Annapolis, that they had imported it, and that Antony Stewart, proprietor of the vessel, had paid the duty on it. This the meeting looked upon as an acknowledgement of the right claimed by King and Parliament to tax the tea brought to the colonies, and it was resolved not to permit the tea to be landed.
"The people of the surrounding country were summoned to a meeting in the city, to be held on the following Wednesday. Mr. Stewart published a handbill of explanation of his connection with the affair, saying that he had no intention of violating the non-importation pledges, and regretted that the article had been placed on board his ship.
"But the people had been deceived on former occasions, and knew that when men got into trouble they were apt to whine and pretend innocence; therefore they were more disposed to punish than forgive Mr. Stewart, and at their Wednesday meeting resolved to destroy the vessel with its packages of tea.
"But Mr. Stewart, by the advice of some of his friends, decided to destroy the vessel and the tea himself, and did so. He ran the ship aground near Windmill Point and set her on fire. That satisfied the people and the crowd dispersed.
"A historian of the time says, 'the destruction of tea at Boston has acquired renown as an act of unexampled daring, but the tea burning of Annapolis, which occurred the ensuing fall, far surpassed it in the apparent deliberation, and utter carelessness of concealment, attending the bold measures which led to its accomplishment.'"
"Did the Americans hold any other such 'tea parties,' Papa?" asked Lulu with a humorous look.
"Yes," he said; "in New York and New Jersey; but I will reserve the stories of those doings for another time, and go on now with what occurred in Maryland,—principally at Annapolis,—in the times now under consideration.
"There was a small tea-burning at Elizabethtown—now called Hagerstown,—the Committee of Vigilance obliging a man named John Parks to go with his hat off and a lighted torch in his hand and set fire to a chest of tea in his possession. The committee also recommended entire non-intercourse with Parks; but that did not seem sufficient to the people, and they added to it the breaking of his doors and windows. It is said too, that tar and feathers were freely used in various places.
"Maryland was not ready quite so soon as some of the other colonies to declare herself free and independent; but Charles Carroll, William Paca, Samuel Chase, and others, called county conventions, and used their influence to persuade their fellow-citizens of the wisdom and necessity of such a course, and on the 28th of June, the Maryland Convention empowered their delegates to concur with the other colonies in a declaration of independence.