Aid to the Sister Colony
It was a clear and frosty night—that night, when the moonbeams fell on the tea thrown overboard by the Boston Tea Party. Paul Revere, all booted and spurred, was ready for a famous ride—not the one to Lexington, but to Philadelphia this time. Soon he was off and away, galloping southward, spreading, as he rode along, the astonishing news that Boston Town had at last defied King George. There were public rejoicings everywhere, as the news was passed along.
“This,” said John Adams exultingly, “is the most magnificent movement of all!... This destruction of the tea is so bold, so daring, so firm, intrepid and inflexible!... What measures will the Ministry take in consequence of this? Will they resent it?—Will they dare to resent it?—Will they punish us?—How?”
John Adams did not have to wait long to find out—how. For King George decided to punish the people of brave Boston Town, by starving them into submission. The Boston Port Bill was passed in England. A British Fleet blockaded Boston Harbour. No ship could go in or out; all supplies of food and fuel were cut off. The Boston folk suffered starvation, disease, and death; but they would not submit. Their misery became almost unendurable.
Then it was that Massachusetts’ sister Colonies roused themselves.
Samuel Adams of Boston sent a circular letter to each of the Colonies asking for help. Food, fuel, and money came pouring in.
All that Summer, Boston, suffering, impoverished Boston, lay upon every loyal American heart. Each province, county, city, town, neighbourhood, sent its contribution.
Windham, Connecticut, began the work of relief, and sent in, with a cordial letter of applause and sympathy, “a small flock of sheep.” Two hundred and fifty-eight sheep was Windham’s notion of a small flock!
New Jersey soon wrote that she would be glad to know which would be more acceptable to a suffering sister, cash or produce. “Cash,” replied Boston, “if perfectly convenient.”
Massachusetts farmers supplied grain by the barrel and bushel. The Marblehead fishermen forwarded “two hundred and twenty-four quintels of good eating-fish, one barrel and three-quarters of good olive oil”—with money to boot.
North Carolina promptly sent two sloop-loads of provisions. South Carolina’s first gift was one hundred casks of rice.
And Baltimore Town contributed three thousand bushels of corn, twenty barrels of rye-flour, two barrels of pork, and twenty barrels of bread.
Virginia!—there seemed to be no end to Virginia’s gifts!
And as the cool season approached, the farmers could be more liberal. Flocks of fat sheep and droves of oxen, together with hundreds of cords of wood, grain, and money in plenty, helped to relieve the suffering town. From New York they came, and from Maryland, Maine, Connecticut, Rhode Island, from the three counties on the Delaware, and from every little mountain-town in New Hampshire and Vermont.
As for Canada, from cold and remote Quebec came some wheat, and from Montreal a hundred pounds sterling.
The letters that accompanied the gifts, and the grateful answers from the Boston Committee, would fill a large volume.
“Boston is suffering in the common cause,” said her sister Colonies.
“If need be,” said George Washington of Virginia, “I will raise one thousand men, subsist them at my own expense, and march myself at their head, for the relief of Boston.”
James Parton, and Other Sources (Retold)