The colonists resolved not to have the tea at any price.  A number of ships laden with the taxed herb arrived at the port of Boston.  The tea was seized by a band of men disguised as Indians, and thrown into the harbor, 1773.  The news of that action made the King and his ministry furious.  Parliament sympathized with the Government, and in retaliation passed four laws of such severity that the colonists nicknamed them the “Intolerable Acts.”

The first law was the “Boston Port Act,” which closed the harbor to all trade; the second was the “Regulating Act,” which virtually annulled the charter of Massachusetts, took the government away from the people, and gave it to the King; the third was the “Administration of Justice Act,” which ordered that Americans who committed murder in resistance to oppression should be sent to England for trial; the fourth was the “Quebec Act,” which declared the country north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi a part of Canada.[1] The object of this last act was to conciliate the French Canadians, and secure their help against the colonists in case of rebellion.

[1] Embracing territory now divided into the five states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, with eastern Minnesota.

Even after Parliament had enacted these four drastic measures a compromise might have been effected, and peace maintained, if the counsels of the best men had been followed; but George III would listen to no policy short of coercion.  He meant well, but his brain was not well balanced, he was subject to attacks of mental derangement, and his one idea of BEING KING at all hazards had become a kind of monomania (S548).  Pitt condemned such oppression as morally wrong, Burke denounced it as inexpedient, and Fox, another prominent member of Parliament, wrote, “It is intolerable to think that it should be in the power of one blockhead to do so much mischief.”

For the time, at least, the King was as unreasonable as any of the Stuarts.  The obstinacy of Charles I cost him his head, that of James II his kingdom, that of George III resulted in a war which saddled the English taxpayer with an additional debt of 120,000,000 pounds, and forever detached from Great Britain the fairest and richest dominions that she ever possessed.

552.  The American Revolution; Independence declared, 1776.

In 1775 war began, and the stand made by the patriots at Lexington and the fighting which followed at Concord and Bunker Hill showed that the Americans were in earnest.  The cry of the colonists had been, “No taxation without representation”; now they had got beyond that, and demanded, “No legislation without representation.”  But events moved so fast that even this did not long suffice, and on July 4, 1776, the colonies, in Congress assembled, solemnly declared themselves free and independent.

As far back as the French war there was at least one man who foresaw this declaration.  After the English had taken Quebec (S545), an eminent French statesman said of the American colonies with respect to Great Britain, “They stand no longer in need of her protection; she will call on them to contribute toward supporting the burdens they have helped to bring on her; and they will answer by striking off all dependence."[2]