Table of Contents
Prologue
1 The Finest Country in the World 3
2 The Old Regime 13
Part 1 The Empire of Speculation
1 The Tiger's Mouth 31
2 "This Dark Affair": The Gaspée Incident 50
3 A Bankrupt Age 70
4 The Unhappiness of Lord North 85
5 Ignorance and Bad Policy 104
Part Two The Sending of the Tea
6 The East India Crisis 127
7 Whigs, West Indians, and Thomas Hutchinson 139
8 Massachusets on the Eve 162
9 The Boston Tea Party: Prelude 187
10 The Boston Tea Party: Climax 206
Part 3 Down the Slope
11 The Cabinet in Winter 239
12 "Boston must be Destroyed" 256
13 The Revolution Begins 281
14 An Election in Arcadia 310
15 The Arming of America 326
16 The Fatal Dispatch 343
Epilogue: The Noble Dead 366
Appendix 1 The Meaning of Treason 373
Appendix 2 The Value of Money in the 1770s 377
Sources and Further Reading 379
Notes 381
Acknowledgments 413
Index 415