.
Prudence, patience, discretion; when the catastrophe arrives, it must be clear to all mankind that the fault is not on our side." [Illustration: Destruction of the Tea----378] The catastrophe was becoming imminent.

Already a riot at Boston had led to throwing into the sea a cargo of tea which had arrived on board two English vessels, and which the governor had refused to send away at once as the populace desired; already, on the summons of the Virginia Convention, a general Congress of all the provinces had met at Philadelphia; at the head of the legal resistance as well as of the later rebellion in arms marched the Puritans of New England and the sons of the Cavaliers settled in Virginia; the opposition, tumultuous and popular in the North, parliamentary and political in the South, was everywhere animated by the same spirit and the same zeal.

"I do not pretend to indicate precisely what line must be drawn between Great Britain and the colonies," wrote Washington to one of his friends, "but it is most decidedly my opinion that one must be drawn, and our rights definitively secured." He had but lately said: "Nobody ought to hesitate a moment to employ arms in defence of interests so precious, so sacred, but arms ought to be our last resource." The day had come when this was the only resource henceforth remaining to the Americans.

Stubborn and irritated, George III.

and his government heaped vexatious measures one upon another, feeling sure of crushing down the resistance of the colonists by the ruin of their commerce as well as of their liberties.