Chapter XVI
Events of 1770.—An eventful epoch.—Expectations of reconciliation and union
disappointed. 364-373
Collisions between the soldiers and inhabitants in Boston 365
The soldiers insulted and abused 365
The Boston Massacre; the soldiers acquitted by a Boston jury 365
The payment of official salaries independent of the Colonies another cause of dissatisfaction 366
What had been claimed by the old American Colonies contended for in Canada, and granted,
to the satisfaction and progress of the country 367
Lord North’s Bill to repeal the Colonial Revenue Acts, except the duty on tea, which he refused to
repeal until “America should be prostrate at his feet” 368
Governor Pownall’s speech and amendment to repeal the duty on tea, rejected by a majority of 242
to 204 369
Associations in the Colonies against the use of tea imported from England 370
The tea duty Act of Parliament virtually defeated in America 370
The controversy revived and intensified by the agreement between Lord North and the East India
Company, to remit the duty of a shilling in the pound on all teas exported by it to America, where the
threepence duty on the pound was to be collected 371
Combined opposition of English and American merchants, and the Colonists from New Hampshire to
Georgia, against this scheme 372