eventually the consumers of it, to the payment of the duty. When the leaders of those who were opposed to this measure of British taxation, and at that time called whigs, found it impracticable to procure the tea to be sent back, they secretly resolved on its destruction.

To cover their design, a meeting of the people of the whole county was convened on the day appointed, and went into a grave consultation on the question, What should be done to prevent its being landed and sold? It had already been guarded for twenty nights, by voluntary parties of the whigs, to prevent its being clandestinely brought ashore. At a moment when one of the most zealous of the whig orators was declaiming against all violent measures, an end was suddenly put to the debate, by the arrival of a party of young men, dressed, and armed, and painted like Indians; though it was said that many a ruffled shirt, and laced vest, appeared under their blankets. They proceeded immediately to the vessel containing the tea, boarded it, and in the short space of two hours, broke open and threw into the sea the whole three hundred and forty-two chests. All was silence and dismay, and no opposition was made, though surrounded by the king's ships. The Indians returned through the same orderly procession and solemnity as observed in the outset of their attempt. No other disorder took place, and it was observed, the stillest night ensued that Boston had enjoyed for several months.

Governor Hutchinson being alarmed at the county meeting, retired privately in the morning to his country seat at Milton; soon after he arrived at that place he received information, ei her through mistake or design, that the mob was coming to

pull down his house, and escaped in the utmost haste across the fields. The story of the day was, that the alarm was given him when he sat half.shaved under the hands of the barber.

For obvious reasons of policy, it was intended that the names of this little band of patriots, who drowned the tea in Boston harbour, should never be known to any but those of their associates who were immediately concerned; and it is not known that their secret has ever been divulged. Their number has been variously computed; one historian of that event says, the number was not less than sixty, nor more than eighty; while others, who suppose the number was about two hundred, might have been deceived by the numerous and tumultuous crowd which assembled on the wharf to witness the scene. Among those who were actually engaged in this extraordinary enterprise, the subject of the following memoir is supposed to be the only survivor. The obscurity of his condition, and his humble occupation, has concealed from all, except the little circle of his domestic friends and relations, not only the knowledge of his chivalrous achievement in destroying the British tea, but even of his very exist. ence. By an accidental concurrence of events, the author of the following pages has recently discovered, that the wasting influence of a hundred years had not yet subdued the spirit, nor unnerved the arm which sixty years age had been outstretched to arrest the progress of lawless power, and fix the inviolable seal of physical force to the great decree, that the people of the then British colonies, but now united independent states of North America, would not be taxed by the British Parliament, or any other power on earth, without their consent.

This decree was not destined in its effects merely to generate

a new party, or create a new nation of independent freemen, but to reform the political condition of the world, and exhibit the rights of man in a new blaze of glory.

To introduce the commencement of an era so pregnant with the future destinies of the civil state, the powers of reason had been exhausted, and the claims of equal justice had been urged in vain. The principles of a government of laws, created and administered solely by the people, and exclusively for their benefit and happiness, had been abandoned as an inexplicable enigma; freedom had been hunted round the globe; man's capacity for self-government had been exploded as a political heresy; revolutions had only changed persons and measures, but achieved nothing in which the general mass of mankind had any interest. America seemed destined to be the only spot where the principles of universal reformation could commence their progress; it was there the first blow was to be struck, which, to tyrants through the world, should echo as the knell of their departing hour.

The single event of destroying a few thousand pounds of tea, by throwing it into the water, was of itself of inconsiderable importance in American history; but in its consequences, it was, doubtless, one in the series of events, destined to change, and probably improve the condition, not only of our posterity, but of mankind in all ages to come.

When the conspirators in Persia, against the Magi, were consulting about a succession to the empire, it came into the mind of one of them to propose, that he whose horse neighed first, when they came together the next morning, should be king. Such a thing coming into his mind, although as it related to

him, seemed to be accidental, and doubtless depended on innu. merable incidents, wherein the volitions of mankind, in preceding ages, had been concerned; yet, in consequence of this accident, Darius, the son of Hystaspes, was king. And if this had not been, probably his successor would not have been the same, and all the circumstances of the Persian empire might have been far otherwise; then, perhaps, Alexander might never have conquered that empire: and then, probably, the circumstances of the world, in all past ages, might have been vastly different.

It was not, however, the wisdom of him who first suggested the idea of resting the title of succession on so trifling an incident as the accidental neighing of a horse, that rendered that expedient efficient in directing the future destinies of the Persian empire, or of the world in after ages, but to the peculiar sagacity of Darius in so managing the humour of his horse, as to secure to himself the title of sovereignty.

Neither could the wisdom of a reputed great statesman, in suggesting the extraordinary project of drowning the tea, have had any efficiency in arresting the lawless progress of British imposition, at that portentous crisis, had it not been for those signal adventurers, whose desperate courage, on the impulse of the moment, so directed their physical energies as to achieve that memorable enterprise; yet the names of those heroes of unrivalled fame, have been permitted to rest in oblivion, while deeds of insect importance, compared with theirs, have consign、 ed their authors to the deathless page of biographic history.

It is easy to conceive an All-creating Power has bestowed on

each individual qualities suited to the part he is destined to act on the stage of human life. We may, therefore, well suppose the subject of the following memoir will excite in the reader a more than ordinary interest.

But aside from this consideration, it is believed that a life rarely passes of which a judicious and faithful narrative may afford not only amusement but profit.

It is true, that eminence of station, splendour of achievement, and the distinctions of rank and fortune, are sought as the sure passports to preferment; while the whole train of social virtues, when divested of their decorations and disguises, their pomp and show, are permitted to glide through the crowd of life, without notice, and without praise.

There is more uniformity in the condition of men than we are apt to imagine. In the great mass of the world every man may find great numbers, between whose circumstances and his own, there is a striking similitude; and to whom a knowledge of the diversified incidents of their lives might be of apparent and immediate use. In short, there is scarcely any possibility of good or ill but what is common to human kind.

Biography, to combine instruction with amusement, should present true pictures of life in all its forms.

Not only have the distinctions created by political preferment, by heroic achievement, by rank and fortune, claims on the perpetuity of the monumental record, but so also have the dis. tinctions created in the order of nature.