In an atmosphere of continuing suspicion and distrust, each side looked for the worst from the other.  In 1772 the crown, having earlier declared its right to dismiss colonial judges at its pleasure, stated its intention to pay directly the salaries of governors and judges in Massachusetts.  Samuel Adams, for many years a passionate republican, immediately created the intercolonial Committee of Correspondence.  Instead of rescinding the remaining Townshend tax and exploring inoffensive methods of aiding the financially troubled British East India Company, Parliament enacted the Tea Act of 1773, designed to allow the company to bypass middlemen and sell directly to American retailers. It was hardly a plot to persuade Americans to drink taxed tea at a low price, but the colonists interpreted it in that fashion.

In an attempt to transfer part of the cost of colonial administration to the American colonies, the British Parliament had enacted the Stamp Act in 1765 and the Townshend Acts in 1767. Colonial political opposition and economic boycotts eventually forced repeal of these acts, but Parliament left the import duty on tea as a symbol of its authority.

The situation remained comparatively quiet until May 1773, when the faltering East India Company persuaded Parliament that the company's future and the empire's prosperity depended on the disposal of its tea surplus.  Because the American tea market had nearly been captured by tea smuggled from Holland, Parliament gave the company a drawback (refund) of the entire shilling-per-pound duty, enabling the company to undersell the smugglers.  It was expected that the Americans, faced with a choice between the cheaper company tea and the higher-priced smuggled tea, would buy the cheaper tea, despite the tax.  The company would then be saved from bankruptcy, the smugglers would be ruined, and the principle of parliamentary taxation would be upheld.

In September 1773 the company planned to ship 500,000 pounds (227,000 kg) of tea to groups of merchants in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston.  The plan might have succeeded had not the company been given what amounted to a monopoly over tea distribution in the colonies.  The threat of other monopolies alarmed the conservative colonial mercantile elements and united them with the more radical patriots.  Merchants agreed not to sell the tea, and the designated tea agents in New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston canceled their orders or resigned their commissions.

Revolutionary sentiment mounted . . .

In Boston, however, the tea consignees were friends or relatives of Gov. Thomas Hutchinson, who was determined to uphold the law. The opposition, led by Samuel and John Adams, Josiah Quincy, and John Hancock, was determined to resist Parliamentary supremacy over colonial legislatures.

When the first ship, the Dartmouth, reached Boston with a cargo of tea on Nov. 27, 1773, the Committee of Correspondence and the Sons of Liberty prevented owner Francis Rotch from unloading the tea, but they could not force the consignees to reject it. Rotch and the captains of two newly arrived ships, the Eleanor and the Beaver, agreed to leave without unloading the tea, but they were denied clearance by Governor Hutchinson.

According to the law, if the tea was not unloaded within 20 days (by December 17), it was to be seized and sold to pay custom duties. Convinced that this procedure would still be payment of unconstitutional taxes, the radical patriots resolved to break the deadlock. On December 14, Rotch was called before a mass meeting and ordered to seek clearance again to sail from Boston. But neither the customs collector nor the governor would grant it.

Everywhere there was opposition to landing the dutied brew, and on December 16th, a crowd of several thousand persons assembled in the Faneuil Hall-Old South Church area and shouted encouragement to about 60 men disguised as Mohawk Indians, who boarded the three ships at Griffin's wharf.  With the aid of the ships' crew, the “Indians” tossed 342 chests of tea, valued at £18,000 into Boston Bay. The furious royal government responded to this "Boston Tea Party" by the so-called Intolerable Acts of 1774, practically eliminating self-government in Massachusetts and closing Boston's port.

The news of the destruction of the tea raised the spirit of resistance in the colonies. On April 22, 1774, the London attempted to land tea at New York. It was boarded by a mob, and the tea was destroyed. Similar incidents occurred at Annapolis, Md., on October 19 and at Greenwich, N.J., on December 22, and the tea was boycotted throughout the colonies.

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Authors: Larry R. Gerlach; David Alan Williams (contributing).
Bibliography: Fowler, W., and Coyle, W., eds., The American Revolution (1979); Labaree, Benjamin W., The Boston Tea Party (1964; repr. 1979).