] They insisted that were they to pay this tax, trifling as it
might be, Parliament would assert that they had acknowledged its right
to tax them, and would soon lay heavier taxes upon them. They,
therefore, refused to buy the tea, and on a cold December night in 1773
a number of Boston citizens dressed up like Indians, boarded a British
tea ship, and emptied 342 chests of tea into the harbor.
[Sidenote: The Five "Intolerable Acts," 1774]
Boston's "Tea-Party" brought punishment swift and sure in the famous
five "intolerable acts" (1774). Boston harbor was closed; Massachusetts
was practically deprived of self-government; royal officers who
committed capital offenses were to be tried in England or in other
colonies; royal troops were quartered on the colonists; and the
province of Quebec was extended south to the Ohio, cutting off vast
territories claimed by Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Virginia. This
last act, by recognizing and establishing the Roman Catholic Church in
French-speaking Quebec, excited the liveliest fear and apprehension on
the part of Protestants in the English-speaking colonies.
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