 |
| The
deck over one of the shipsthat transported wine to the United
States |
|
After
1668, and for about one hundred years following the English king's
edict forbidding the importation of any other wine except Madeira
to America, the wines were in the limelight on the continent. They
became the favourites of George Washington, the first President
of the United States, of Jefferson, of Anthony Wayne,
Stuyvesant and the Roosevelt families. But five years
before the "Boston Tea Party" there was a Madeira
Wine Party! The sloop "Liberty" had tried to smuggle
into Boston Harbour a cargo of Madeira wines detained for John
Hancock, who was the first signer of the Declaration of lndependence.
Unfortunately the shipment and the sloop were seized by the, British
warship, "Romney", and that set Hancock into a fury. A conflict
took place, and, as the story goes, Hancock won out and finally received
his precious cargo of smuggled Madeira wines.This successful demonstration
supposedly set a precedent for the monumental Boston Tea Party some
years later. |
