Welcome aboard the World Express, our musical journey through Europe and beyond.
Our train, the World Express, which can travel through time, takes us to the cities of Boston and Philadelphia to experience some of the events that occurred prior to the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
After the Boston Tea Party's act of sabotage on December 16, 1773 protesting the British government's repeal of a three pence per pound duty that the East India Company paid to import its tea to Britain, Parliament passed a series of punitive laws critically affecting commerce in the Thirteen Colonies on March 28, 1774.
One of these four laws, which were pejoratively called the Coercive Acts by the Colonists, closed the Port of Boston to all shipping until compensation for the destroyed 342 chests of blended Darjeeling and Ceylon tea worth 9,659 pounds and six shillings plus the duty on it was paid in full.
In response, the leading men of the Thirteen Colonies convened the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia on September 5, 1774 in the city's new Carpenter's Hall. The Continental Congress passed a resolution to create a Continental Association which, after Virginia had sold its tobacco crop, would boycott all imports from England beginning in December 1774 and prohibit all exports of goods from the Thirteen Colonies to Britain starting in the fall of 1775.
In the months that followed the meeting of the First Continental Congress, relations between the Colonies and the British Government deteriorated. The distrust and animosity culminated in the bloodshed that occurred at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775 which gave birth to a new nation.
Fish and Tea is a Colonist song calling for American independence and the defense of American liberty.
“Some say there's No Cure but a Capital CHOP!”
Fish and Tea (1775)--Lyrics: This a truncated version of the song without all the satirical criticisms of various public figures of British society and politics.
WHAT a court, hath old England, of folly and sin,
Spite of Chatham and Camden, Barre, Burke, Wilkes and Glynn ! *1
Not content with the game act, they tax fish and sea,
And America drench with hot water and tea.
Derry down, down, hey derry down.
Lord Sandwich, he swears they are terrible cowards, Who can't be made brave by the blood of the Howards; And to prove there is truth in America's fears,
He conjures Sir Peter's ghost 'fore the peers.
Now, indeed, if these poor people's nerves are so weak,
How cruel it is their destruction to seek !
Dr. Johnson's a proof, in the highest degree,
His soul and his system were changèd by tea.
But if the wise council of England doth think,
They may be enslaved by the power of drink,
They're right to enforce it; but then, do you see ?
The Colonies, too, may refuse and be free.
There's no knowing where this oppression will stop; Some say - there's no cure but a capital chop;
And that I believe's each American's wish,
Since you've drench'd them with tea, and depriv'd 'em of fish.
The birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
By the gods, for poor Dan Adam's use were made free, Till a man with more power, than old Moses would wish, Said, "Ye wretches, ye shan't touch a fowl or a fish !"
Three Generals' these mandates have borne 'cross the sea,
To deprive 'em of fish and to make 'em drink tea;
In turn, sure, these freemen will boldly agree,
To give 'em a dance upon Liberty Tree.
Then freedom's the word, both at home and abroad, And - out every scabbard that hides a good sword !
Our forefathers gave us this freedom in hand,
And we'll die in defence of the rights of the land.
Derry down, down, hey derry down.
1 William Pitt the Elder, the 1st Earl of Chatham; Lord Camden; Edmund Burke, Half Anglo-Norman / “Old English” and half native Irish Member of Parliament for Bristol and commonly regarded as the founder of Conservatism (after the later French Revolution in 1779); John Wilkes and Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Barre (who coined the name “Sons of Liberty”) and Serjeant-at-Law (an Order of Barristers at the English and Irish bar) John Glynn, were all Members of Parliament.
Join us again next time on the World Express!
Photo of the Minuteman Monument designed by American sculptor Daniel Chester French (1850-1931) is in the public domain in the United States because it was published or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office before January 1, 1925.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Copyright 2020 Josiah Wales USA
