"To temporize would be to yield, and the authority of the mother country, if now unsupported, would be relinquished forever." And he avowed his idea of the policy proper to be pursued to be "to retain the right of taxing America, but to give it every relief that might be consistent with the welfare of the mother country." He carried his resolution, though the minority--which on this occasion was led by Mr.Pownall, who had himself been Governor of Massachusetts, and who moved an amendment to include tea in the list of taxes proposed to be repealed--was stronger than usual.[48] But the concession failed to conciliate a single Colonist; it had become, as Burke said four years afterward, a matter of feeling,[49] and the irritation fed on itself, till, in 1773, a fresh act, empowering the East India Company to export tea to the Colonies direct from their own warehouses without its being subject to any duty in England--which Lord North undoubtedly intended as a boon to the Colonists--only increased the exasperation.

The ships which brought the tea to Boston were boarded and seized by a formidable body of rioters disguised as native savages, and the tea was thrown into the sea.

The intelligence was received in England with very different feelings by the different parties in the state.

The ministers conceived themselves forced to assert the dignity of the crown, and proposed bills to inflict severe punishment on both the City of Boston and the whole Province of Massachusetts.

The Opposition insisted on removing the cause of these disturbances by a total repeal of the tea-duty.