A TEMPEST IN A BIG TEA-POT[N]
Reading edition
A TEMPEST IN A BIG TEA-POT[N]
By Samuel Adams Drake
About the Boston Tea-party and the Indians who brewed the tea.
CHANCE has led us to the spot on which the house of Governor Winthrop stands. But by the side of it, in a crowded neighborhood, is a brick church with a fine and lofty steeple pricking the frosty air of a December afternoon. There is a dense crowd of men, with a sprinkling of women, arguing and gesticulating about the door, but the interior is so choked up with people that we can scarcely elbow our way in. The men’s faces, we notice, are flushed and excited, and here is an angry buzz of half-suppressed voices. Evidently something out of the common has brought these people here. What can it be?
Ah! they are all talking about tea.
“You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink,” one says, very significantly, to his neighbor.
“Aye, and they can send us tea but can’t make us drink,” responds his neighbor.
“Let them take it back to England, then, and peddle it out there,” ejaculates a third. “We will not have it forced down our throats,” he adds.
“What sort of a drink would tea and salt water make?” suggests a man who is evidently losing patience; for it has grown dark, and the lamps shed a dim light throughout the unquiet crowd.
“Good for John Rowe!” shout the bystanders approvingly, and as his words pass from mouth to mouth, the people laugh and clap.
Presently a man of middle age speaks. At his first words every voice is hushed. Every eye is turned upon him. In a grave and steady voice he tells the people that their purpose to send the tea-ships home to England, with their cargoes untouched, has been thwarted by Governor Hutchinson, who refuses to give the vessels the pass, without which they cannot sail. “And now,” concludes this same grave and earnest voice, to which all eagerly listen, “this meeting can do nothing more to save the country.”
There is a moment’s silence—a moment of keen disappointment, an ominous silence.
Then some one in the gallery cries out, in a ringing voice, “Boston Harbor a tea-pot to-night! Hurrah for Griffin’s Wharf!”
Instantly, before the people are aware what is intended, an Indian war-whoop pierces the air; and, starting at the signal, no one seems to know whence or how, half a hundred men, having their faces smeared with soot, and disguised as Indian warriors, brandishing hatchets and shouting as they run, pour through Milk Street, followed by the crowd, turn down to Griffin’s Wharf, where the tea-ships lie, clamber on board, take off the hatches in a hurry, and while some pass up the chests from the hold others smash and pitch them overboard. Crash go the hatchets, splash goes the tea. Splash! splash! Every one works for dear life, earnest and determined.
Never were ships more quickly unloaded. The frightened captains and crews were told to go below and stay there if they would not be harmed. They obeyed. No one but the fishes drank that tea.
After finishing their work the lads who had been making a tea-pot of Boston Harbor marched gaily back to town to the music of a fife. While on their way they passed by the residence of Mad Montagu, the British admiral who commanded all the fleet of war-ships then lying at anchor within gunshot of the town. The admiral threw up his window, thrust out his head, and halloed:
“Well, boys, you have had a fine, pleasant evening for your Indian caper, haven’t you? But mind, you’ve got to pay the fiddler yet!”
“Oh, never mind, Squire!” shouted Pitts, the leader. “Just come out here, if you please, and we’ll settle the bill in two minutes.”
The admiral shut his window in a hurry, and the tea-party, with a laugh for the admiral, marched on. He was fond of a fight, but thought it best to decline this invitation.