STB-AP91
Bro Edward Cair is a member of Southern Calilornia
Research Lodge. He presents the story of "The Boston Tea
Party " in an extremeiy readable format. It is also factual!
So many stories about the "Tea Party'' have been told that
it is sometimes hard to separate fact from fiction. But in
these pages the story is told as accurately as known facts will
allow!
Editor
The Boston Tea Party
by Edward M. Gair
Amazingly, no one knew who dumped the tea!
Two thousand people stood on Griffin's Wharf
and watched the Boston Tea Party. The crowd was
silent as sixty men dumped 340 chests of tea into
the salt water. Some of them put lampblack or paint
on their faces. Some came wrapped in blankets.
They called themselves "Mohawks". (Most of the
participants actually were not disguised.)
The crews of the tea ships were ordered below.
No resistance was made. Some of the crew even
helped unload the tea.
The Governor's Cadet Corps were guarding the
tea ships. They never lifted a musket and stood away
from the crowd because these people had not forgotten the Boston Massacre.
It took three hours and all done in silence and
order. No damage was done to the ships. The decks
were swept clean. No "Mohawk" would keep any
of the tea.
The three tea ships were in range of a 60-gun
British warship. The entire Tea Party could have
been blown out of the water. It would have meant
firing on the crowd as well as the people in buildings
near the wharf. No shot was fired.
The British Admiral watched from the upstairs
window of a house nearby. When the "Mohawks"
had completed their task they marched under his
window. The Admiral opened the window and
shouted, "Tomorrow you'll still have to pay the
piper! ".
No trial of the "Mohawks" was ever made in
Boston. One man in the crowd said he would be a
witness provided they would take him to London
3,000 miles away. He was never taken to London.
Governor Hutchinson said that if he held a trial in
Boston the members of the jury would turn out to
be the "Mohawks" or their friends.
After the Tea Party, Governor Hutchinson
himself was withdrawn to London "for consultation". He never returned. Instead the King and
Ministry sent General Gage as a new military Governor and gave him full discretion to find evidence
for a trial of those responsible for the Boston Tea
Party. Parliament closed down the port of Boston,
cut off the trade, and sent in 10,000 troops to occupy a town of 20,000 people. The new military
Governor with his full discretion never found sufficient evidence in Boston and the Ministers to the
King in London never pressed charges.
Benjamin Franklin, a Grand Master of Masons
in Pennsylvania, was in London at the time. He
called the Boston Tea Party "an act of violent injustice". A group of London merchants wanted to
pay twice the value of the tea in order to keep trade
open. Franklin offered to pay for the tea himself
or raise the money in Boston.
"Though the mischief was the act of persons
unknown, yet as probably they cannot be
found, or brought to answer for it, there
seems to be some reasonable claim on the
society at large in which it happened."
Once Parliament closed down the port of Boston
no one ever paid for the tea. Parliament took the
tax off tea, but the East India Tea Company was
never able to sell tea in America. The Tea Act that
had given them a monopoly could not protect them.
Many years later, Sir Winston Churchill--Prime
Minister, Historian and Freemason--commented
on the Tea Act of Parliament that had given the East
India Company a monopoly on tea. Brother
Churchill called it "a fatal blunder".
The Tea Act put a small tax on the East India Tea.
It was actually cheap tea that had been stored in
warehouses in England. However, the East India Tea
Company was bankrupt, so Parliament gave them
a monopoly. Tea was to be sold by the Consignees
(tea agents) of the one company. This gave the Consignees a tea monopoly in their area. Keeping the
small tax on tea would just prove that Parliament
still had the power to tax. But . . . it didn't work!
In New York, Philadelphia and Charleston, the
Consignees for the tea resigned their Commissions
at the request of the Sons of Liberty. With no Consignees to pay the tax and sign for the tea, the East
India Company tea ships had to turn around and
sail back to England with their cheap tea.
But Boston was different! The Consignees would
not resign. Two sons of the Governor and a son-in-
law were Consignees. When the Governor's family
is in the tea business the ships cannot leave the
harbor.
The Tea Act stated that tea "remaining twenty
days unloaded" was subject to seizure by the
Customs House and sold for nonpayment of duties.
Once the tea was in the Governor's hands, he could
dispose of it secretly to local merchants. When
Governor Hutchinson again refused to let the tea
ships go on the night before December 17th, (the
16th was the end of the 20 day limit for unloading),
the "Mohawks" seated in the balcony at the Old
South Meeting Hall took matters into their own
hands.
There never would have been a Tea Party if the
ships could have left before December 17th. Several
of the Brothers of the St. Andrews Lodge did their
part in trying to turn the tea ships around.
Brother William Molineux acted as spokesman
for the Sons of Liberty. He and Brother Joseph
Warren led a crowd of 300 from the Liberty Tree
to the Customs House to confront the Consignees.
Would these tea agents resign and send the tea ships
back to England? The Governor's sons refused and
moved to Fort William under military protection.
Just three years before Brother Molineux and
Brother James Otis (St. John's Lodge) had led a
crowd of a thousand patriots to confront the Governor's sons who were importing tea and hiding it in
a warehouse against the nonimportation agreements. In that tea business, the Hutchinsons surrendered the tea and the money for the tea they had
already sold. Brother James Otis was the Mason
who gave us the saying "Taxation without representation is Tyranny!".
Brother John Hancock was the Colonel for the
Governor's Cadet Corps who guarded the tea ships.
The night before the Tea Party he was aboard the
tea ships inspecting his troops. Both he and Brother
Joseph Warren had served as Orators at the Commemoration of those who had died at the Boston
Massacre.
Brother John Hancock was the richest merchant
in New England. He served as Moderator for a mass
Town Meeting of 5,000 who voted to turn the tea
ships around. He was a member of the Committee
of Selectmen, who were the leading tradesmen of
Boston, who met with the Governor and the tea
Consignees to try to convince them to let the ships
go.
Brother John Rowe was the owner of one of the
tea ships, the Eleanor. He was also a Selectman anc
promised to use his influence with the Governor tc
return the tea ships and the tea to England. Brothel
Rowe was the Grand Master of the St. John's Grand
Lodge of Massachusetts (Moderns). In his diary he
called the dumping of the tea "a disastrous affair".
On the day before the Tea Party, Brother Joseph
Warren met with Brother John Rowe in a concern
for his "ship and cargo". Brother Warren was the
Grand Master of the Grand Lodge (Ancients)
Brother Warren also went to the Customs House
with the owner of the tea ship, Dartmouth. All exits
to the harbor were blocked. By law the Customs
Officials cannot release the ship unless the Con
signees unloaded the tea and paid the tax. The next
day the Customs Officials were to seize the tea
according to law.
In the final appeal to the Governor by the Selectmen, Covernor Hutchinson offered to give the tea
ship Dartmouth military escort to Castle Island and
Fort William where his sons, as Consignees, would
unload the tea and pay the tax. The owner of the
Dartmouth did not want to move his ship with the
help of a 60-gun warship.
During the 19 days prior to the Tea Party, Brother
Paul Revere served with the North End Caucus
Guard, who prevented the Consignees from unloading the tea, wanting it instead returned to England.
The Consignees blamed the guard for not unloading;
the tea and the guard blamed the Consignees for
not returning the tea to England.
After the Tea Party, Brother Paul Revere mounted
his horse and carried the news to New York. Whe
a tea ship arrived there, the Consignees resigned an
the tea ship returned to England. The news was
taken to Philadelphia and beyond. There were no
more Consignees for the East India Tea Company.
The English said that the Americans lost their
taste for tea because they had a peculiar way of mixing it with salt water.
Order tea and you were a Tory. Order coffee an
you were a Patriot!
America has been drinking coffee ever since.
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