Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

Men scanned the blue line of Boston Harbor, to see the white sails rise from the sea, and rushed to the wharves to receive the first intelligence from London. At length, on May 16, a lovely vernal day, a brigantine flying the English flag was seen beyond the green islands of the bay, and

soon entered the inner harbor. She was met at the wharf by a crowd, restless and impatient with anxiety.

An hour later the bells of the

town began to

ring; the longidle ships in the harbor shot their ensigns into the warm May air; the booming of cannon startled the people of the neighboring towns, and, as

[graphic]

CHRIST CHURCH, THE OLD NORTH MEETING-HOUSE. evening came on,

Beacon Hill blazed upon the sea. the single expression of joy and is repealed!"

great bonfires on From lip to lip passed relief, "The Stamp Act

[ocr errors]

A few days later witnessed a more remarkable scene, a public holiday to give expression to the joy. At one o'clock in the morning the bell of Doctor Byles's church, standing near the Liberty Tree, where the colonists used to

1770.

Ladies Deny Themselves Tea.

233

meet, gave the signal for the beginning of the festival. It was followed by the melodious chimes of Christ Church, at the North End, and then by all the bells of the town.

The first shimmering light and rosy tinges of the May morning found Hollis Street steeple fluttering with gay banners, and the Liberty Tree displaying among its new leaves an unexampled glory of bunting and flags.

The festivities lasted until midnight. At night an obelisk which had been erected on the Common in honor of the occasion was illuminated with two hundred and eighty lamps, and displayed upon its top a revolving wheel of fire, as the crowning triumph of pyrotechny. The Hancock House was a blaze of light, and Province House was in its vice-regal glory.

But though the Stamp Act was repealed, the British Government continued to tax the colonies, and the sudden sunshine of joy soon was overcast, and the storm gathered again.

The article upon which the Crown made the most persistent attempt to raise a revenue was tea. The tax was a small matter, of itself; but if the right to tax one article was admitted, the right to tax all articles was acknowledged.

As the excise officers of Great Britain held control of the ports, and in some cities were supported by soldiery, no tea could be obtained without paying the tax. The people therefore resolved that they would neither use, sell, nor buy an ounce of tea upon which this unjust tax had been paid.

In February, 1770, the mistresses of three hundred families in Boston signed their names to a league, by which they bound themselves not to drink any tea until the obnoxious revenue act was repealed.

Of course the young ladies were as ready to deny themselves the use of this fashionable beverage as were their

mothers; and only a few days later a great multitude of misses, pretty and patriotic, signed a document headed with these words:

[ocr errors]

"We, the daughters of those patriots who have and do now appear for the public interest, and in that principally regard their posterity, as such do with pleasure engage with them in denying ourselves the drinking of foreign tea, in hopes to frustrate the plan which tends to deprive a whole community of all that is valuable in life."

Yet in Boston were five traders who refused to be controlled by the non-importation agreements of their fellowcountrymen, but continued to import and sell taxed tea. Among them was one Theophilus Lillie.

66

The patriotic spirit was shared by the boys as well as by the misses. On the 22d of February, 1770, 'some boys and children," says an old record, "set up a large wooden head, with a board faced with paper, on which were painted the figures of four of the importers who had violated the merchants' agreement, in the middle of the street, before Theophilus Lillie's door."

The figure was so placed that its dexter finger pointed at Lillie's store. The merchant must have been greatly annoyed. One of his friends, an officer of the king, termed an "informer," soon saw the figure; and he, too, was quite in a rage.

Seeing a farmer passing in the street, he tried to persuade him to drive his cart against the image, but the shrewd old patriot was too well pleased with its purpose to meddle with it. A man with a charcoal-cart was next importuned to break down this effigy, but he, too, refused.

A crowd of people soon gathered at the point, and the informer, seeing that they were becoming incensed at his attempts to destroy the image, retreated in great vexation to his own house, followed by numerous men and boys.

1766.

The German Boy's Funeral.

235

On the way he cried, "Perjury! perjury!" in a significant manner to several citizens whom he passed, meaning that they violated their oaths to support the Crown. Such insulting address produced vituperation in return.

Some of the boys, excited by the violent language, very wrongly threw sticks, stones, and other missiles at the informer, until he shut himself up in his house.

Enraged beyond the control of prudence, he was not satisfied with personal safety, but foolishly determined to be revenged. He came to the window with a gun, and without waiting for the people to go away, discharged it, point blank, into the crowd.

Two boys were hit, one being wounded slightly, the other mortally.

Little Christopher Snyder, a German boy, eleven years of age, was in this crowd. He had lingered to laugh at the image, and when the informer retired, he followed with the rest to see what might happen.

He was struck by one of the random shots, and was mortally wounded. Yet we have no evidence that he took any part in the disturbance other than being present and looking on.

The funeral of the lad was made the occasion of a great popular demonstration, in marked contrast with that which had followed the reception of the news of the repeal of the Stamp Act.

The colonists were accustomed to hold nearly all patriotic assemblies under that giant relic of the old-time forests called the Liberty Tree.

Here, after the passage of the Stamp Act, Lord Bute and other obnoxious statesmen had been hung in effigy. Here the patriots consulted when the British troops in their gay uniforms came marching into the town, and held it by the glitter of the bayonet in the streets.

It was here that the principal ceremonies of young Snyder's funeral were appointed to take place.

It was the 26th of February. The religious services of the funeral were said at the house of Madame Apthorp on Frog Lane, as the boy Snyder was in the service of Madame Apthorp at the time of his death.

The corpse was then taken to the Liberty Tree, amid tolling bells, where the immense procession began. Fifty school-boys led, and were followed by about two thousand citizens. The pall was supported by six boys; the coffin bore a Latin inscription, "Innocence itself is not safe." Business was suspended. The whole population of the town was in the streets, and the bells of the neighboring towns were heard echoing the solemn funeral bells of Boston.

[graphic][merged small]
« ÎnapoiContinuă »