port, and reminding them that she could not come to an anchor without their assistance. This was only the forerunner of more decisive measures; the fitful gust of wind that preceded the coming gale. Bodies of men were leagued together, and, adopting the disguise of Indians, called themselves “Mohawks.” They circulated notices, promising any one who should presume to let his store for the reception of the tea,—which they described allegorically as infernal chains and fetters forged by Great Britain to enslave them,—that they should not fail to pay him an unwelcome visit, in which he should be treated as he deserved by “the Mohawks.” At Boston, in December 1773, these Mohawks took 342 chests of tea, valued at 18,000l., and threw them into the sea. The act of the thirty sailors at Pownalborough fell into the soil thus prepared for its reception like seed, which quickly germinated and bore abundant fruit. The Mohawks now appear to have added to their destruction of property, personal violence to individuals; for, threatening notices began to be posted up in conspicuous places, signed “Joyce, jun., Chairman of the Committee for Tarring and Feathering.”
Why the name of Joyce was selected as the nom de guerre of the leader of these rioters, I have been unable to discover. Perhaps there was, or had been, a “Joyce, sen.,” celebrated for a rigid administration of the laws; or perhaps “Joyce’s Grand American Balsam,” much celebrated at that time as a panacea, may have determined the choice of the name. Fictitious signatures of the whole committee were now and then appended, such as Thomas Tarbucket, Peter Pitch, Abraham Wildfowl, David Plaister, Benjamin Brush, Oliver Scarecrow, and Henry Handcart; these, however, speak for themselves.
On the 10th of December, 1773, the committee addressed a letter to Captain Ayres of the ship Polly, which had a cargo of tea, advising him to preserve his person from the pitch and feathers that were prepared for him if he brought his ship to an anchor.
“What think you, Captain,” he is asked with grim facetiousness, “of a halter round your neck, ten gallons of liquid tar decanted on your pate, and the feathers of a dozen wild geese laid over that to enliven your appearance? Dear Captain Ayres, let us advise you to fly without the wild-geese feathers.”
These warnings of King Mob had their due influence on the captain. He attended “a most respectable and numerous meeting” to receive its wishes, and was so much impressed thereby that he bowed to its decision, and the ship Polly, with the tea undisturbed on board, turned her bows towards England. It was not unnatural that, since tea was entirely removed from the market, the shopkeepers should raise the price of coffee. The committee, however, was on the alert; it was not to be tolerated that coffee should be increased in price two or three pence per pound; and public notice was given that the question had been mooted, whether tar and feathers would not be a constitutional encouragement for such eminent patriotism.
About this time a brig laden with tea, commanded by a Captain Loring, was wrecked off Cape Cod; some of the cargo was saved, and was conveyed by a schooner to Castle William. Mr. George Bickford, the skipper of the latter vessel, seems to have taken a fancy to be inoculated, and went on his arrival to the hospital at Marblehead, where he was duly operated upon, and laid up to await the result. Dread of infection, however, did not deter a party of Mohawks from paying him a visit, although they deferred proceeding to extremities in the then condition of his health. It is not unlikely that this visit drew the attention of the populace to this hospital for inoculation, and actuated, as is supposed, by a dread of the smallpox from patients not conforming to the rules, they commenced a series of outrages. Probably the real reason of these outrages was this, that the minds of the American mob had now become thoroughly imbued with a love of tarring and feathering their fellow-men on the smallest provocation, and here was an opportunity not to be resisted. The patients going from the ships to the hospital were obliged to find a different landing-place; the hospital boat was burnt, and several persons tarred and feathered for no particular reason. Four men were suspected of a design, under cover of the darkness, to steal some clothing belonging to the hospital, which was usually spread out to air at a particular spot. If they succeeded in their attempt, the infection would probably be communicated to the inhabitants of the neighbourhood. They were watched, pursued, and taken; but, finding that they were followed, they managed to throw the clothes overboard. The four prisoners were secured until the next day, when a considerable body of the Mobility assembled, and determined by a large majority that their punishment should be—tar and feathers. The scene which followed is described by an eyewitness as “the most extraordinary exhibition of the kind ever seen in North America.” The four objects of resentment were placed in a cart facing each other, having been previously tarred and feathered “in the modern way.” It was estimated that at least a thousand people, chiefly dressed in uniform, among whom were four drummers, formed themselves into a procession at the townhouse in Marblehead. At the heels of this multitude came the cart with its miserable occupants—a fifer and drummer walking in front of it. In this manner they marched from Marblehead to Salem, a distance of four miles and a half, entering the latter town about noon. Here a numerous body of the Salemites joined them and paraded with them through the principal streets, with drumming and fifing, and a large white flag flying from the cart, “which, with the exquisitely droll and grotesque appearance of the four tarred and feathered objects of derision, exhibited a very laughable and truly comic scene.” The procession left Salem at one o’clock, and returned to Marblehead, where it dispersed. After tarring and feathering several other unfortunates, for reasons best known to themselves, the rioters, or some persons instigated by them, set fire to the hospital and burnt it, with its seventy beds, bedding, &c., to the ground.
A feeble and futile effort was now made to enforce the law, and bring the culprits to punish-