In the early part of February, 1770, the women of Boston publicly pledged themselves to abstain from the use of tea, "as a practical execution of the non-importation agreement of their fathers, husbands and brothers." We are credibly informed, writes the editor of the Boston Gazette of February ninth, "that upwards of one hundred ladies at the north part of the town, have, of their own free will and accord, come into and signed an agreement, not to drink any tea till the Revenue Acts are passed." At that date three hundred matrons had become members of the league.

Three days after the above date, the young women followed the example of their mothers, multitudes signing a document which read as follows: "We, the daughters of those patriots who have and do now appear for the public interest, and, in that, principally regard their posterity,—as such do with pleasure engage with them in denying ourselves the drinking of foreign tea, in hopes to frustrate a plan which tends to deprive the whole community of all that is valuable in life."

Multitudes of females in New York and Virginia, and, if we mistake not, some in other states, made similar movements; and it is easy to perceive, in the tone of those early pledges of self-denial for honor, liberty, country's sake, the infancy of that spirit which, quickly reaching its manhood, planned schemes of resistance to oppression on a more magnanimous scale, and flagged not till a work was done which filled half the world with admiration and the whole with astonishment.