%123.  Tea sent to America and not received.%—­While these things were taking place in America—­indeed, on the very day of the Boston riot—­a motion was made in Parliament for the repeal of all the taxes laid by the Townshend Acts except that on tea.  The tea tax of 3d. a pound, payable in the colonies, was retained in order that the right of Parliament to tax America might be vindicated.  But the people held fast to their agreements not to consume articles taxed by Great Britain.  No tea was drunk, save such as was smuggled from Holland, and at the end of three years’ time the East India Company had 17,000,000 pounds of tea stored in its warehouses (1773).  This was because the company was not permitted to send tea out of England.  It might only bring tea to London and there sell it at public sale to merchants and shippers, who exported it to America.  But now when the merchants could not find anybody to buy tea in the colonies, they bought less from the company, and the tea lay stored in its warehouses.  To relieve the company, and if possible tempt the people to use the tea, the exportation tax was taken off and the company was given leave to export tea to America consigned to commissioners chosen by itself.  Taking off the shilling a pound export tax in England, and charging but 3d. import tax in America, made it possible for the company to sell tea cheaper than could the merchants who smuggled it.  Yet even this failed.  The people forced the tea commissioners to resign or send the tea ships back to England.  In Charleston, S.C., the tea was landed and stored for three years, when it was sold by South Carolina.  In Philadelphia the people met, and having voted that the tea should not be landed, they stopped the ship as it came up the Delaware, and sent it back to London.

%124.  The Boston Tea Party.%—­At Boston also the people tried to send the tea ships to England, but the authorities would not allow them to leave, whereupon a band of young men disguised as Indians boarded the vessels, broke open the boxes, and threw the tea into the water.

%125.  The Five Intolerable Acts.%—­When Parliament heard of these events, it at once determined to punish Massachusetts, and in order to do this passed five laws which were so severe that the colonists called them the “Intolerable Acts.”  They are generally known as

1.  The Boston Port Bill, which shut the port of Boston to trade and commerce, forbade ships to come in or go out, and moved the customhouse to Marblehead.

2.  The Transportation Bill, which gave the governor power to send anybody accused of murder in resisting the laws, to another colony or to England for trial.

3.  The Massachusetts Bill, which changed the old charter of Massachusetts, provided for a military governor, and forbade the people to hold public meetings for any other purpose than the election of town officers, without permission from the governor.

4.  The Quartering Act, which legalized the quartering of troops on the people.