The Connecticut courant and Hartford weekly intelligencer — Hartford, Conn., 1775-01-23 00:00:00, page 1

An Extrafl from a Pamphlet lately published in London,
intituled,American Independence the Interest and
Gloryof Great-Britain, (Dedicated to Sir George
Saville, Baronet) which come in the left Ship.
<' ft Would not have the reader imagine, I mean
to juftify every tarring and feathering rioter
at Boston, and all dilorderly proceedings in America
indiscriminately. Some of the people, I doubt not,
may have been to blame ; for the ccmonality of
that country mutt have had a portion of wisdom and
patience, which hath not any time before been found
in the world, had all their expressions of resentment
for ill usage, been confined within the bounds of
moderation. When governors become tyrants shall
we wonder, that an injured and insulted people be
come riotous and unruly ! Have ambitious and en
croaching rulers ever yet thought of rendering fa„-
faction, of making reparation, for the cruelest injuries
they have so conllantly committed ; and have they
not always thought themselves wonderfully gracious
.and condefeending, when they have merely ceased
zo oppress ? But if a free people finding^their humble
petions; and most dutitiful remonstrances scattered
•10 the juindl ^fh oateropt, being' flung. with a
lenfe of accumulated wrep^^ah^ ,feeling an indig
nation at being treated rik^flav^s and*villains,, do
but affault,th^ jnea,©ft inifcre@itt in the; trai* bf
power/;,- '*i,"rebellion t feltyriy !'frhafon!-t-Goal and .
.gibbets, b^t ,and e bayonet"! Jiult • here be the cor-.
ledurps. Js'this human polity 1 gre these the pro
ceedings bf meh,df fellow creatures, of fellow ehrif-.
• tians ? When merely ceasing to oppress, is all the re
paration required for a long train of injuries and in
sults ; shall authority, with whom wisdom ought ever
to reside, become deaf to that voice which called her
into being, and think it meritorious to persist in do
ing wrong ?
So universally have I heard the Bostonians con
demned for destroying the tea, and the action pro
nounced illegal and rebellious, that I have taken
some pains to examine all the particulars of that af
fair. Now, to my agreeable disappointment, and to
the best of myjudgment, instead of an aft of rebel
lion, I find it one reflecting honour, and damping
the character of good fubjeds, on those who per
formed it ; instead of being illegal, it appears to me
warranted by the law of nature, the great original
of all human laws, when just. Those who would
wish to think justly, and to speak honestly of this
matter, will do well to examine for themselves.
"When they shall have so done, with care and candour,
and admitting on my part, for the fake of taking no
advantage in the argument, the Bostonian character
10 be as black as malignity represented, I should be
glad to propose to them this plain question : " What
*' was possible for the most wife and\virtuous per
"' sons on earth, in the place of the Bostonians, to
«' have done, in order to have performed their duty
<c to the utmost, towards God and their country ?"
To have shewn a passive obedience to an unjust aft
of parliament, in a case of such moment, and of so
critical a nature, would have been treason to their
country, and therefore not acceptable, I imagine, to
God. I have introduced in various conversations,
with sensible men, the fame question I here propose,
but never yet, l ean aver with the ftri&eft veracity,
have I met with a solution of it, which did not con-
Frm me in an opinion, that as wife and virtuous men
as good citizens, and true patriots, they could not pos
sibly have aided otherwise than (is they did. They had
only this one alternative; they were driven to this
dilemma by their magistrates, either to fiffer an infi
duous attempt against their sacred rights and liberties to
take effia, or to destroy the bated 'inflrument. Having
had no other choice, they must necessarily have either
done this, orfafcred that. Which ought to have tyeen
chosen by every brave and honed man, I leave the
reader to determine. ' Tis visionary, even to child
ishness, to fay, they might have.permitted the tea to
nave been landed, ana yet have defeated the tax, by
unanimously refufing to have purcahfed it. The
Containing the Freshest ADVICES,
MONDAY, January 23, 1775.
CONNECTICUT
AND
WEE K L Y
Open to all PARTIES not under the influence of ANY.
conductors of that noble action muff have been pa
triots indeed, and most wonderfully wife, to have
left their country, by going this way to work, at the
diferetion and mercy of the most ignorant and vicious
ofits inhabitants, to have relied upon the prudence
and felf-denial of every tea-drinker in America !
Besides that the wisdom of each well-meaning indi
vidual was not to be depended on for forefeeing all
the ill consequences of purchasing a pound of tea,
nor their resolution in preventing them ; I fear there
might have been some traitors to the publick cause,
some tools of government or the India Company, or
some fufpefted persons at least, in whom to have
confided, for not setting the example, and using all
their cunning to seduce others, would not have ar
gued any extraordinary degree of prudence.---What
teacher of morals or politics, ever was lunatic 'enough
to build all his hopes of ferring his. country, on an
expectation of bringing every individual of it to be of
one mind, and as urianimoufly to acb up to the fame
rigid principles of virtue? and which of us would
care to risk the fafety of the city of London from
some dreadful calamity, on a confidence that every
female, from the fine lady to the washer woman,
?qybfy mtn, ftcim.the minister of state down to the
^black-guard, m^ght be prevailed upon to abstain
from the use of tea, porter,' .origin, except'the tempta
tion was removed out of,their way.
4 To all my 'readers^ except thtfe',unhappy ones;
who have learned, the fatal art of occahon'aliy doling
the mental eye; so as to admit juflrifo much, and no
more of the.light of truth as their passions and pre
judices will bear ; I must needs think, it would be
reflecting upon their understandings and their inge
niousness, to attempt any farther proof of my propo
sition, that the Bostonians did what was ftridly con
sonant to right and justice in destroying the tea ; but
in order to open the felf closed winking eyes of the
prejudiced, i will propose one more comparison,
which, I apprehend, will be admitted as a fair one,
since it is agreed on all hands, except by the calm
advancers of direct falfhocds and lies, and the bold
denyers of demonstration, that with regard to taxa
tion, the colonists, as legitimate shoots from a parent
stock of freedom, have at least an equal right to be
their own tax-masters as the people of Ireland, which
was a conquered, and every one knows, a rebellious
kingdom for many ages.-----Let then the reader on
ly fubfiftute Ireland and Dublin, for Massachusetts-
Bay and Boston, and try the cause over again in his
own mind. If he pleases, we will suppose, that in
stead of a duty on tea, we should attempt to touch
the pockets of the Irish, by a duty on certain damp
ed papers, being publications of gross immoralities
and blasphemies, tending to debauch the minds of
the people, and fit them for slavery ; and that an as
sociation ofhoneft citizens of Dublin, more mind
ful of their duty to God and their country, than of
obedience to an ordinance they held to be subversive
of their liberties, should find this precious cargo pre
cisely in a similar situation with the tea at Boston ;
that the Lord Mayor, the magistrates, and revenue
myrmydons, like the Boston governors and officers
of eudoms, should all absolutely refufe their permis
sion and clearances for its departure from the port,
and the ship fnould be well imprisoned by sur
rounding batteries ;,then, what is to be done ? what
political mouse trap ; and therefore, on the princi
ples of felf-prefervation, and agreeable to the spirit
course is to be^urfued ? Shall those who ought to
be the guides and guardians of the city, admit these
pernicious competitions within their walls ; patient
ly behold them displayed in the fliips, hawked about
the Greets, and dispersed through the country, with
every art of invitation to those inclined to purchase?
a property not only detrimental in itfelf, but in this
case made a venture, with a dired intention of be
traying a brave and genei ous nation into obedience
to a despotic ordinance, containing in it the feeds
of a more complete tyranny, and used as the most
tempting bait to lure the filly multitude into the
TH E
% ft #^ w . ofn ^re and nations, subject to be de-
Itroyed if not removed upon fair warning.
Are the city guardians, I fay, to observe all this
and content themselves all the while with a patri
otic resolve, not to buy or read a tingle paper, and
with preaching to the unliftening people to follow
their example? If this, in the enlightened and vir
tuous city of Dublin, would be an experiment, that'
even the deliverer would hardly dream of making:
how much less fafe would it have been for thetAme
rican patriots to have hazarded their all, on the uni
versal good sense, on the piety and public spirit of
the people in the fapid, the hypocritical, the im
pious, the ungrateful and rebellious town of Bofton'
What then, I once more afle ought the patriots of
Dublin or of Boston to have done? What! but with
indignation to have cast the hated instrument of ty
ranny into the sea! whither its proprietors deserved
to have followed it headlong, hit for this wife
brave, and generous adion; that not only the aft
ors of rt, but the whole people of Boston, are now
smarting under the hpavielt vengeance of Great
"ritain ! , ? f a People who have hitherto justly prid
ed themselves in being undaunted refiners of tyrants !
Fae, boafterMe! Britapia blushes for your degerie
. racy;. Ihc difawns ye for her tons.'. When a pawn
broker knowingly puts arms into the hands of a.
highway man or ruffian, does any law insure to
him payment for the fame, at the hands of any one
who; B^affaulted, seized and destroyed jhem,?
Are not alPdeaty weapons, all faafes, trap's, and
poilons, made me of in violation to the laws of ci
vil society, for injuring any man in limb, life, or
property, a lawful spoil to the injured party? When
the mifereant pick-pocket Jew, in the service of
iniquity, was once driving a trade affiongft the West
minster fchdol boys, with a parcel of TEA, out of
the green cannifer of the celebrated Mrs. Phillips
who, that had a spark of virtuous indignation, but
applauded the illegal proceedings of the spirited
maker, when, disregarding the laws of property he
threw into the fire, all this tea he could lay his hapda
on; and as little considering the penalties of an as
sault, horsed the vile factor, and scourged him to
the quick?
I mull therefore repeat, that tile destroyers of the
tea at Boston, were in my opinion, a band of vir
tuous patriots, whose names, when once made pub
lic, will doubtless be lield in eternal veneration by
their countrymen ; and that the glorious illegality
(if every statute, whether just or unjufl, be property
comprehended in the word law) they atchieved, was
an aft of absolute moral and political neceffiy', and
therefore exempt from even good laws; of lingular
wisdom, of stria justice, and remarkable temper
a."' forbearance, considering their provocations,
since it was done in felf-defences with the greatest
good order and decency, and unaccompanied with
incivility to any one, or the smallest damage to any
thing in the drips besides the treacherous tea. I
must likewise repeat, that this tea, for the ieafons
I have given, and agreeable to the spirit of the law
of nature and nations, was justly forfeited to the
injured Americans; and that the Bast India Com
pany are not intitled to any fatisfadion or payment
for the fame.".
both FOREIGN and DOMESTIC.
NUMBER 526,
C OURAN#
HARTFORD
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