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Troops were
dispatched to overawe Boston, but the angry Bostonians hooted and
hissed the "lobsterbacks," as the redcoats were derisively styled, and
in 1770 provoked them to actual bloodshed--the so-called "Boston
Massacre."
[Sidenote: Lord North, Prime Minister, 1770]
At this crucial moment, King George III chose a new prime minister,
Lord North, a gentleman of wit, ability, and affability, unfailingly
humorous, and unswervingly faithful to the king. Among his first
measures was the repeal (1770) of the hated Townshend duties. Merely a
tax of threepence a pound on tea was retained, in order that the
colonies might not think that Parliament had surrendered its right to
tax them. Lord North even made an arrangement with the East India
Company whereby tea was sold so cheaply that it would not pay to
smuggle tea from the Dutch.
[Sidenote: "The Boston Tea Party," 1773]
But the colonists would not now yield even the principle of
Parliamentary taxation. [Footnote: Despite the fact that the colonists
had regularly been paying import duties on molasses and on foreign
wine.


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