96 ChApTEr 4 | an atlantiC eMpire | period three 175 4 –18 0 0the transactions of those who made so grotesque an appearance. The Indians
immediately repaired on board Captain Hall’s ship, where they hoisted out the
chests of tea, and when on deck stove the chests and emptied the tea over-
board. Having cleared this ship, they proceeded to Captain Bruce’s, and then to
Captain Coffin’s brig. They applied themselves so dexterously to the destruc-
tion of this commodity, that in the space of three hours they broke up three
hundred and forty-two chests, which was the whole number in these vessels,
and discharged the contents into the dock. When the tide rose it floated the
broken chests and the tea insomuch that the surface of the water was filled
therewith a considerable way from the south part of the town to Dorchester
Neck, and lodged on the shores. There was the greatest care taken to prevent
the tea from being purloined by the populace; one or two being detected in
endeavoring to pocket a small quantity were stripped of their acquisitions and
very roughly handled....Francis S. Drake, Tea Leaves: Being a Collection of Letters and Documents Relating to the
Shipment of Tea to the American Colonies in the Year 1773, by the East India Tea Company
(Boston, MA: A. O. Crane, 1884), lxviii.prACTICIng historical Thinking
Identify: Describe the events of the Boston Tea Party as recounted by the
Massachusetts Gazette.
Analyze: What do you think the rebels intended by dressing as Indians?
Evaluate: A writer’s bias reveals his attitude about an event or a phenomenon.
What is the article’s bias? Is it more sympathetic to the British or to the colonists?
Support your response with references to statements in the document.Document 4.8 “Memory of a British officer Stationed at
Lexington and Concord,” Atlantic Monthly
April 19, 1775Military Governor Thomas Gage (1720–1787), following the requirements of the Coercive
Acts, ordered British regulars into the Massachusetts countryside in April 1775 to retrieve
weapons that he believed were stored by Patriot forces in an arsenal in the town of Con-
cord. The British met stiff resistance from the Massachusetts militia, as recalled by a Brit-
ish officer in this contemporary diary entry, which was published over a hundred years
after the events it describes.We set out upon our return; before the whole had quitted the Town we were fired
on from Houses and behind Trees, and before we had gone ½ a mile we were fired05_STA_2012_ch4_085-114.indd 96 26/03/15 10:11 AM