The Tea Act Crisis 107wholesalers, who distributed it to local merchants for
sale to the consumer. A substantial British tax was
levied on the tea as well as the threepenny Townshend
duty. Now Lord North, the new prime minister,
decided to remit the British tax and to allow the com-
pany to sell directly in America through its own
agents. The savings would permit a sharp reduction of
the retail price and at the same time yield a nice profit
to the company. The Townshend tax was retained,
however, to preserve (as Lord North said when the
East India Company directors suggested its repeal) the
principle of Parliament’s right to tax the colonies.
The company then shipped 1,700
chests of tea to colonial ports. Though
the idea of high-quality tea offered at
bargain prices was tempting, after a little
thought nearly everyone in America
appreciated the dangers involved in buy-
ing it. If Parliament could grant the East
India Company a monopoly of the tea
trade, it could parcel out all or any part
of American commerce to whomever it
pleased. More important, the act
appeared utterly diabolical, a dastardly
trick to trap them into paying the tea
tax. The plot seemed obvious: The real
price of Lord North’s tea was American
submission to parliamentary taxation.
Public indignation was so great in
New York and Philadelphia that when
the tea ships arrived, the authorities
ordered them back to England without
attempting to unload. The tea could be
landed only “under the Protection of
the Point of the Bayonet and Muzzle of
the Cannon,” the governor of New
York reported. “Even then,” he added,
“I do not see how the Sales or
Consumption could be effected.”
The situation in Boston was differ-
ent. The tea shipDartmoutharrived on
November 27. The radicals, marshaled
by Sam Adams, were determined to pre-
vent it from landing its cargo; Governor
Hutchinson (who had managed to have
two of his sons appointed to receive and
sell the tea) was equally determined to
collect the tax and enforce the law. For
days the town seethed. Crowds milled in
the streets, harangued by Adams and his
friends, while the Dartmouth and two
later arrivals swung with the tides on
their moorings. Then, on the night
of December 16, as Hutchinson was
preparing to seize the tea for nonpay-
ment of the duty, a band of colonists disguised as
Indians rowed out to the ships and dumped the hated
tea chests into the harbor.
The destruction of the tea was a serious crime and
it was obvious that a solid majority of the people of
Boston approved of it. The painted “Patriots” who
jettisoned the chests were a cross-section of society,
and a huge crowd gathered at wharfside and cheered
them on. The British burned with indignation when
news of the “Tea Party” reached London. People
talked (fortunately it was only talk) of flattening
Boston with heavy artillery. Nearly everyone, evenA noose hanging from a “Liberty Tree” reveals this artist’s bias: The “tar-and-feathering” of a
British official would doubtlessly culminate in greater violence. As historian Gordon Wood
points out, however, the mob actions of the colonists often “grew out of folk festivals and
traditional popular rites.” Tarring and feathering, though painful and occasionally
dangerous, was mostly a humiliation. By the early 1770s, though, the mockery was
becoming tinged with violence.