Page:History of Barrington, Rhode Island (Bicknell).djvu/407

TEA RESOLUTIONS. 325 and economy, of such stock, in such circumstances and with no motive but patriotism, our ancestors of Barrington came upon times which tried men's bodies and souls, and they were not found wanting in the crucial test of heroic manhood. The citizens of Barrington were familiar with the events leading up to the overt acts of the Revolution. The Boston Massacre of 1770, the capture and burning of the Gaspee in 1772, within sight and full knowledge of our townspeople, the tea party in Boston Harbor in 1773 and the Boston Port Bill of 1774 had aroused our " Country folk to be up and to arms." Our grand-dams as well as our grand-sires loved tea as devotedly as do their " Daughters of the American Revo- lution," but between tea and abject dependence on the Mother Country, and independence without tea, they were quick to decide in favor of the latter. " No tea in ours," was the order of the Barrington Town Meeting, assembled March 21, 1774, James Brown, Esq., Moderator. Seven resolutions with a preamble of declaration of facts constitute the indictment against England for the introduction of a spoonful of tea into the town. At a meeting of the town held on the 14th of March, 1774, James Brown the 4th was the first on the committee to draw up resolves to be laid before the meeting respect- ing the infringements made upon Americans by certain " ministerial decrees." These resolves were laid before a town meeting held March 21, 1774, and received by the town as follows : RESOLUTIONS. "The inhabitants of this Town being justly Alarmed at the several acts of Parliment made and passed for the East India Company exporting their tea into America, subject to a duty payable here, on purpose to make a revenue in America, with many more unconstitutional acts, which are taken into consideration by a number of our sister towns in the colony, therefore we think it needless to inlarge upon them but being sensible of the dangerous condition the Col-