'Most magnificent movement'.

• Position: PAIRING A PRIMARY & SECONDARY SOURCE - Boston Tea Party of 1773 - Excerpt

Our long history of protest movements dates to Colonial America and the Boston Tea Party of Dec. 16, 1773. Lacking a representative in Parliament, American colonists were fed up with taxation from the mother country, such as the hefty tax on imported tea. To show their anger, colonists rallied and dumped three shiploads of British tea into Boston Harbor. Below is an excerpt from a diary entry about the famous protest penned by John Adams, who soon became one of America's Founding Fathers. Read it along with the Upfront article on the history of protests in America, then answer the questions at the bottom of the page.

From the Diary of John Adams

December 17, 1773

Last Night 3 Cargoes of Bohea Tea were emptied into the Sea. This Morning a Man of War sails.

This is the most magnificent Movement of all. There is a Dignity, a Majesty, a Sublimity, in this last Effort of the 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, and it must have so important Consequences, and so lasting, that I cant but consider it as an Epocha in History....

The malicious Pleasure with which Hutchinson the Governor, the Consignees of the Tea, and the officers of the Customs, have stood and looked upon the distresses of the People, and their Struggles to get the Tea back to London, and at last the destruction of it, is amazing. Tis hard to believe Persons so hardened and abandoned.

What Measures will the Ministry take, in Consequence of this? Will they resent it? will they dare to resent it? will they punish Us? How? By quartering Troops upon Us? By annulling our Charter? By laying on more duties? By restraining our Trade? By Sacrifice of Individuals, or how.

The Question is whether the Destruction of this Tea was necessary? I apprehend it was absolutely and indispensably so. They could not send it back, the Governor, Admiral and Collector and...