ABSTRACT
Left to themselves, most Americans might have felt that three-pence on a pound of tea was not enough to make a fuss about. But there were still some to whom the principle of the thing mattered as much as it did to King George. The British soldiers were disliked in America. Billeting and feeding them must have been a constant nuisance, and perhaps they did not show much tact. On the day that the Townshend duties were repealed a British sentry in Boston was snowballed so pitilessly that he called friends to his support. It is a very well-known story, but what is less well known is the fact that Samuel Adams’s cousin, John Adams, defended the soldiers at the subsequent trial, and got all but two acquitted. After the “massacre” came an uneasy lull. It was not until 1772 that a British customs boat, the Gaspee ran aground off Rhode Island and was boarded and burned by malcontents..
