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(AMERICAN REVOLUTION--PRELUDE.) Issue of the Massachusetts Spy from the date of the Boston Tea Party. 4 pages, 17¾ x 11½ inches, on one folding sheet, with masthead engraved by Paul Revere (see Brigham, Revere's Engravings, page 202 and plate 70); disbound, minor dampstaining, two leaves nearly separated, worn without substantial loss of text. Boston: Isaiah Thomas, 16 December 1773
On 29 November 1773, the ship Dartmouth arrived in Boston Harbor with a controversial cargo of tea. Colonists opposed to the import duties demanded that the ship must leave with their tea by 16 December; the royal governor of Massachusetts ordered them to stay and unload. As the deadline approached, the city grew tense. When this patriot newspaper went to press, nobody knew for sure what would happen, but tea is the central topic.
A long open letter to Governor Hutchinson sets forth the debate: "The tea you say shall not go back; six thousand of your fellow countrymen have resolved at all events that it shall. What must be the consequences of such obstinacy, Mr. Hutchinson, but bloodshed and confusion?"
One report notes archly that another ship was not permitted to land, as it was filled with "not only the Plague (TEA) on board, but also with the small pox." A long letter from the Plymouth Committee of Correspondence opposes "importing teas here, by any person, or persons, especially by the India company, as proposed, subject to a tax upon us without our consent." The Marblehead Committee of Correspondence resolves that "the brave citizens of Boston . . . for opposing the landing this tea, are rational, generous, and just." The people of Lexington "resolved against the use of Bohea tea of all sorts" and "brought together every ounce contained in the town, and committed it to one common bonfire." Reports of an attempted tea landing in Philadelphia are also noted.
Finally, a long 16 December report from Boston describes the final negotiations with the owner of the tea-laden ship Dartmouth, who said that to return to sea without unloading his cargo of tea "must inevitably ruin him."
The rest of the story is well known to history, if not to publisher Isaiah Thomas when he went to press. Hours later, dozens of disguised Bostonians boarded the tea ships and dumped 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor, leading to the imposition of the Intolerable Acts and then the outbreak of the American Revolution.
