Origins_Revolution

by Mark Henrikson

  “We should know soon enough, today we are supposed to get the verdict.”

  “And when that happens you will see that justice will have been served,” the man concluded before taking a stride forward to continue on his way. He traveled a few paces away from Valnor before the courthouse double doors burst open with a crash and stopped the man in his tracks.

  Five soldiers wearing red military uniforms were the first to exit the building looking exceptionally pleased with themselves. Next came a wave of sobbing widows clinging to their children, the only physical reminders left of their dead husbands. Along with them followed friends and family members attempting to comfort them. Their hysterics descended the courthouse steps and gave an unmistakable hint as to what the last man to exit the courthouse would have to say.

  John Adams, the lawyer tasked with defending the soldiers, stood atop the steps and read from a piece of paper detailing the legal ruling. “Five of the soldiers have been found not guilty for the crime of manslaughter.”

  Boos and jeers erupted from those listening and drew a renewed set of hysterical screams from the widows below. Mr. Adams waited patiently for the volume of protests to subside before further informing the crowd. “Two of the soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter.”

  That information drew some mild applause and nods of approval until he announced the punishments. “Owing to the extenuating circumstances of being under threat by the mob, they have been given a reduced sentence and will have their thumbs branded.”

  “What? That’s outrageous!” the crowd erupted.

  “The sentence for manslaughter is death!” another in the crowd shouted, and the scene quickly degraded from there.

  Valnor spotted the man he was arguing with before the announcement walking away from the scene shaking his head. He ran over to him and got his attention by grabbing his arm. “Do you still think justice was served?”

  “Branding their thumbs for killing five unarmed people?” the man managed to say through his state of shock and barely contained rage.

  “May as well be a slap on the wrist,” Valnor said as the man shrugged off his grasp to continue walking down the street in a state of disbelief. It was exactly the reaction he had hoped to see from those present, and soon from everyone else in the colonies.

  Chapter 22: Time for a Party

  “All Right, everybody settle down, it’s time to call this meeting to order. Please quiet down and respect your fellow man by not shouting over one another. I know this is an emotional issue for all of us. Please keep in mind that we are not here to complain about the situation, but rather to decide what to do about it,” a middle-aged man who organized the town hall meeting shouted.

  “Of course it’s emotional,” a particularly angry Bostonian yelled to no one in particular in the room. “First they shoot us dead in the streets without consequence, then they pass this blasted Tea Act that will put us all out of business.”

  “To be fair, two of the soldiers were branded for the grave crime they committed,” the organizer pointed out with obvious sarcasm in his tone.

  “All thanks to Sam, your cousin, who defended them,” the angry man shouted back. “Why should any of us listen to what you have to say here tonight, you and your family are with them.”

  “I’m not here to talk, I’m here to listen and help organize a plan of action. This Tea Act is going to ruin everyone if we don’t do something,” the leader, Samuel Adams, stated.

  “How is that?” another man asked. “Since the Tea Act passed, the price I pay for my tea has gone down, quite a lot actually.”

  “That’s because the act grants the East India Trading Company the right to ship tea directly to the colonies, bypassing our local merchant traders,” Mr. Adams instructed.

  “So? You are telling me that there are fewer middlemen now as a result of their Tea Act. That is a good thing resulting in a lower price to the consumer, right? You merchants can go and find something else to ship and quit adding your markup to my tea.”

  “That is what the EITC wants you to believe,” Sam Adams countered. “Look, every member of parliament owns a piece of that behemoth of a company and they are setting things up to make a killing in the colonies. The real reason the price of tea is lower is twofold. The EITC is selling their tea at a loss right now to squeeze everyone else out of the market. To help them do that, the EITC had parliament grant them an exemption from paying the shipping taxes all the rest of us must still pay. Nobody can compete with them, and what do you suppose will happen to the price of your tea when every other competitor goes bankrupt.”

  “It’ll go up?” the man asked with an uncertain look on his face and a shrug of his shoulders.

  “You’re damned right it will, and using that example they will do the same with every other tradable good they can contemplate. We need to end this now!” Mr. Adams declared and drew a deafening round of applause in the process.

  Samuel Adams waited for the crowd noise to die down before he continued. “Some friends of mine who work on the docks tell me that they expect the first tea shipment under the new law to arrive tomorrow aboard a vessel named the Dartmouth. What do we, as a community, want to do about that?”

  “Burn the boat when it reaches the docks,” someone shouted.

  “Sink it before the ship even reaches Boston Harbor,” another suggested.

  Both ideas drew cheers, but Mr. Adams put his hands up to calm the crowd. “No, no. That is far too drastic, dangerous, and also illegal I might add. It may eventually come to that, but our first course of action needs to be within the bounds of the law. With that in mind, does anyone have any ideas?”

  Valnor took that as his cue to speak his mind. “We could stop them from unloading their cargo unless they pay a shipping duty like everyone else.”

  “How would we do that,” Samuel Adams asked.

  “First we talk with your dock worker friends and get their agreement to not unload the ship. I’m betting you could pull that off, Mr. Adams. It shouldn’t take too much convincing,” Valnor answered and continued with his thought process. “Then we could appoint a watch group of twenty or thirty men to keep an eye on the boat around the clock so that the crew cannot unload the ship themselves either.”

  “That won’t work,” a man standing near Valnor challenged. “All they need to do is wait us out. A few days, maybe weeks, and the watchmen will find something better to do with their time.”

  “The law states that a ship has to be unloaded within twenty days of docking. After that, the ship must return to its port of origin with the cargo still aboard. That is the law. If we can’t stick to our principles for three weeks, then we have no business plotting anything here today. Let’s use the law to our advantage by preventing them from unloading the tea.”

  “I like it,” Mr. Adams declared, and a sea of heads nodding up and down let him know the crowd did as well. “We need volunteers then, and a man to lead and keep the effort organized.”

  “I nominate young Paul Revere to lead the effort,” Valnor said, eager to give the youth under his care more responsibility to build his confidence. “It was his engraving that got this protest movement going. I say we let him finish the job.”

  “All those in favor?” Samuel Adams asked.

  “Aye,” came a resounding reply.

  “All right. Please talk to Mr. Revere and have him draw up a watch schedule. If anyone wishes to volunteer as a watchman over the Dartmouth, contact him and get on the schedule. We will reconvene when the twenty days is up to see if further action is needed. Meeting adjourned.”

  **********

  “It’s been twenty days, and the Dartmouth still sits moored to the docks with her cargo aboard,” Paul bellowed from the church pews inside the Old South Meeting House with an angered voice. Valnor was well pleased to see such passion and decisive action from him. He was like a new man compared to three weeks earlier.

  The second community meeting to address the Tea Act was ori
ginally supposed to take place at the much smaller Faneuil Hall. However, nearly seven thousand concerned colonials showed up and required the largest building in Boston to hold them all. That fact alone brought a self-satisfied grin to Valnor’s face as he listened to Paul flourish in his leadership role.

  “They show no signs of leaving today either. The ship hasn’t even taken on any additional supplies for the return voyage,” Paul went on. “Not only that, two more ships carrying East India Company tea have arrived in the last few days. None of them have been unloaded yet, but the watchmen can’t keep doing this forever. Something must be done, and soon.”

  “Agreed,” Samuel Adams acknowledged from the lectern up front. “Governor Hutchinson seems intent on breaking the law. If the law no longer applies to his actions, then it shall no longer limit ours either. This meeting can do nothing further to save the country. Our actions will speak louder than our words ever could.”

  “That’s the signal,” Valnor whispered to Paul and gave him a gentle slap on the leg before rising to his feet. Paul followed his lead, as did a hundred other men in the crowd scattered throughout the hall. As Valnor and his fellow Sons of Liberty progressed across their respective pews toward the center aisle, more angry individuals stood and followed their example.

  The sight was like watching a wave in the ocean approach shore. The volume gathered and rose until it reached a cresting point and spilled over in a frothy maelstrom of kinetic energy. The wave of protesters burst out the front door and into the streets of Boston with rage in their hearts and a need to vent that anger in a tangible way.

  Thousands meandered the city streets vandalizing any government building they could find. Windows were broken, public servants and soldiers harassed, but nothing more profound happened than the random actions of an angry mob. That held true for all of them except a very organized hundred men. They had something far more deliberate in mind.

  “Paul, you need to go home now,” Valnor ordered as they approached the pre-arranged meeting spot for the Sons of Liberty near the docks. John Hancock, the Adams cousins, and a hundred others were busy smearing their faces with paint and soot to mask their identities.

  “No, I want to be a part of this,” Paul insisted. “I need to be.”

  “You are. Your artwork sparked this anger, and you helped me and the others send the town hall meeting into the streets for protest. Your part is done,” Valnor responded, testing Paul’s resolve. If the going got tough and he ran away scared again, it would undo all the personal growth he had seen in the lad.

  “It looks like you’re just getting started.”

  That caused Valnor to stop in his tracks to stare Paul down. “Things are about to get dangerous and illegal. It’s no place for you to be.”

  “I’m not twelve anymore,” Paul insisted. “I am a grown man able to make my own choices. I want in.”

  “Yes, you are a young man, one with his whole life ahead of him. Old goats like me and these others don’t risk nearly so much,” Valnor offered as one last protest, while inside he was suppressing a resounding cheer for Paul holding his ground so firmly.

  “This is history in the making; right here, right now. I will be a part of it,” Paul insisted, and the determined look in his eyes ended any further debate.

  “Very well. You stay by me, and do as I do. Understood?” An affirmative nod gave Valnor leave to issue one last instruction before they joined the others. “If any trouble does come up, promise me you will stay with me and not try to be a hero.”

  “You have my word,” Paul assured his mentor with a bright glint of excitement in his eyes. Valnor knew and understood that look all too well. It was the reckless energy of youth wrapped around a feeling of invincibility, and it would bear watching.

  “Here, put these on,” Valnor instructed as he tossed Paul two bundles of leather garments rolled around a mess of eagle feathers in the middle.

  Valnor immediately set to work getting dressed, but Paul paused to take stock of his disguise. “Indians? We are dressing up like Indians?”

  “Native Americans,” Valnor corrected. “It is a symbolic gesture that we now identify ourselves as Americans rather than our official status as British citizens.”

  “Plus it masks our identities,” John Hancock added as he smeared several streaks of multicolored war paint across their cheeks, foreheads, and noses. When the long feathered headdresses were on, nobody looked anything like themselves.

  “Perfect,” Samuel Adams declared once everyone in their group was disguised. “Shall we go help the Dartmouth become compliant with the law then?”

  “Aye,” the hundred plus disguised Sons of Liberty responded in unison and began marching toward the peer.

  To the dockworkers, it must have looked like a flock of giant chickens were turned loose on the harbor timbers until the gaggle drew near. Most workers slinked their way past the feathery bunch without a word. They either knew what was happening, or had enough sense of self-preservation not to get involved. A lonely few tried to stand their ground in front of the gangplanks leading up to the Dartmouth and her fellow tea ships the Eleanor and the Beaver.

  “Stop right there,” one of the workers declared with an air of confidence he had no business conveying.

  “Evening Govna’,” John Hancock announced in an obviously mocking British accent. “We’re here to unload that cargo for you. I’d step aside and let us if I were you.”

  Two disguised Sons of Liberty grabbing the man by his arms and lifting him out of the way to complete the threat. When the worker’s feet touched the dock boards again, he had a new outlook on the situation. “We are due for a break I believe. We’ll just be right over there enjoying our evening tea.”

  “I think we’re all going to enjoy our evening tea tonight,” John Hancock declared to raucous cheers from his fellow conspirators as they stormed aboard the three boats.

  Valnor boarded the Dartmouth carrying a torch with Paul close behind him. They followed the others around the deck until reaching a set of stairs that led down into the cargo hold. The room was nearly pitch black at first, but soon came into illuminated focus as Valnor walked around lighting six lamps mounted on support beams. There in the middle of the room sat at least a hundred chests of tea stacked from floor to ceiling.

  “Let’s get this party started,” John Hancock declared before enlisting an assistant to carry one of the three-foot long and one-foot wide wooden crates. Valnor and Paul did the same, as did the rest, and carried their bounty up to the weather deck.

  Along the railing, five men stood with crowbars ready to pry open the lids. One by one, the chests had the lids opened to reveal a row of one-inch thick bricks of dark brown tea. Valnor steadied his hold with one hand while he used the other to pull one of the bricks up to lay it flat atop of the rest. It measured one-foot square and was stamped with the East India Trading Company logo on the front.

  “Such a pity,” Valnor observed. “This one brick could keep a household enjoying tea three times a day for several years.”

  “Let’s see if the fish get as much enjoyment out of it,” a crowbar wielding man said before grabbing the brick and chucking it overboard in a flat-spin toss.

  The quiet splash below may as well been a cannon blast signaling the start of a race. Crate after crate was lifted up over the railing and overturned to let the contents spill into the Boston Harbor. The empty crates were then carried back down into the cargo hold and tossed haphazardly into a corner before fetching another.

  Three hours ticked by as the Sons of Liberty deposited three-hundred and forty two chests of tea into the frigid waters of Boston Harbor from the three ships. The Adams cousins had the honor of lifting the last chest onto the railing. Before overturning the contents, John Adams stopped. He seemed to sense the enormity of what they all just did.

  After a few quiet moments, he looked up from his contemplation and announced his ponderings. “This is a most magnificent moment. There is a dignity,
a majesty, a sublimity in this effort of us patriots that I greatly admire. The People should never rise without doing something to be remembered – something notable and striking. This destruction of the tea is so bold, so daring, so firm, intrepid and inflexible. It will have important consequences and so lasting that I can’t but consider it as an Epochal in history.”

  The man has a way with words, Valnor thought as he watched John and Samuel Adams together dump the final crate full of tea into the harbor. Soon after, the hundred plus men who took part in the principled protest dispersed into the city. They cleaned their faces, disposed of their Mohawk Indian disguises, and blended back into the citizenry. They had done enough for one evening as the waters of the Boston Harbor slowly turned red in their wake.

  Chapter 23: Facing the Schoolmaster

  henry clinton sat outside the king’s chamber without moving a muscle. He recalled that the last time he occupied this same spot he was so nervous he could hardly sit still. The prospect of meeting the king and the other great men around him was overwhelming to his twenty-two year old self. Now that Henry was in his forties, had been around the world and was a general in command of a hundred thousand troops, he was rather less intimidated by his surroundings.

  Back then he believed in the king’s infallibility. How could King George and his advisors command such a far-flung empire without being the most brilliant, informed and connected men alive? A couple of decades more experience taught him that was not at all the case. These empowered men made their decrees from atop their ivory tower, which were often ludicrous and without basis in reality, and expected them implemented with ease simply because they ordered it so.

  A loud thump from the other side of the oak door caused Henry to draw a deep breath. He commanded the British forces in the American colonies. Events leading to the destruction of the Boston tea were his to explain. He was tempted to stride into that room and declare the hard line policy they ordered him to take with the colonials was only succeeding in rallying more revolutionaries to their cause.