the exercise of judgment on the propriety of
the requisitions made, left to the Assemblies
only the election between dictated submission
and the threatened punishment: A punishment
too, founded on no other act, than such as is
deemed innocent even in slaves -- of agreeing in
petitions for redress of grievances, that equally
affected all.
THE hostile and unjustifiable invasion of the
town of
Boston soon followed these events in
the same year; though that town, the province
in which it is situated, and all the colonies, from
abhorrence of a contest with their parent state,
permitted the execution even of those statutes,
against which they so unanimously were com-
plaining, remonstrating and supplicating.
ADMINISTRATION, determined to subdue a
spirit of freedom, which English Ministers should
have rejoiced to cherish, entered into a monopo-
lising combination with the East-India company,
to send to this continent vast quantities of Tea,
an article on which a duty was laid by a statute,
that, in a particular manner, attacked the liber-
ties of
America, and which therefore the inhabi-
tants of these Colonies had resolved not to im-
port. The cargo sent to
South-Carolina was
stored, and not allowed to be sold. Those sent
to
Philadelphia and
New-York were not per-
mitted to be landed. That sent to
Boston was
destroyed, because Governor
Hutchinson would
not suffer it to be returned.