The Boston Tea Party

This series has three easy 5 minute installments. This first installment: Plight of th Cargo Ships.

Introduction
During the Obama Administration the Tea Party became a major force in American politics. The founders of that movement selected that name to tie the spirit of their movement to the Boston Tea Party of 1773. That 1773 tea party was not a movement or even a party but an event. This is the story of that event.

This selection is from History of the United States of America, from the Discovery of the American Continent by George Bancroft published in 1878. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

George Bancroft (1800-1891) was an American historian and statesman. He was Secretary of the Navy, an Ambassador to important European countries, and a life-long champion of education

Time: 1773
Place: Boston Harbor

One of the most famous demonstrations of the purpose of the American colonies to resist what they regarded as the unjust taxation laid upon them by Great Britain was this unique occurrence in Boston harbor. Everywhere in the colonies the people had begun to go without articles that were subject to taxes. They ceased to import goods for clothing, and wore homespun. It was not easy to find a substitute for tea, but various plants and leaves were used instead of it, and “store tea” became a popular designation of real tea as distinguished from domestic herbs. At last the English Government abandoned all taxes except that laid on tea; this the Government insisted upon laying as strictly as ever. Ships with cargoes of tea were sent with the expectation that the colonists would pay the tax. What followed upon the arrival of the tea-ships at Boston and Charlestown, and gave to American history the “Boston Tea-party,” is fully told in Bancroft’s pages.

On Sunday, November 28th, the ship Dartmouth appeared in Boston harbor with one hundred fourteen chests of the East India Company’s tea. To keep the Sabbath strictly was the New England usage. But hours were precious; let the tea be entered, and it would be beyond the power of the consignees to send it back. The selectmen held one meeting by day and another in the evening, but they sought in vain for the consignees, who had taken sanctuary in the Castle.

The committee of correspondence was more efficient. They met also on Sunday, and obtained from the Quaker Rotch, who owned the Dartmouth, a promise not to enter his ship till Tuesday; and authorized Samuel Adams to invite the committees of the five surrounding towns, Dorchester, Roxbury, Brookline, Cambridge, and Charlestown, with their own townsmen and those of Boston, to hold a mass meeting the next morning. Faneuil Hall could not contain the people that poured in on Monday. The concourse was the largest ever known. Adjourning to “the Old South” Meeting-house, Jonathan Williams did not fear to act as moderator, nor Samuel Adams, Hancock, Molineux, and Warren to conduct the business of the meeting. On the motion of Samuel Adams, who entered fully into the question, the assembly, composed of upward of five thousand persons, resolved unanimously that “the tea should be sent back to the place from whence it came at all events, and that no duty should be paid on it.” “The only way to get rid of it,” said Young, “is to throw it overboard.” The consignees asked for time to prepare their answer; and “out of great tenderness” the body postponed receiving it to the next morning. Meantime the owner and master of the ship were converted and forced to promise not to land the tea. A watch was also proposed. “I,” said Hancock, “will be one of it, rather than that there should be none,” and a party of twenty-five persons, under the orders of Edward Proctor as its captain, was appointed to guard the tea-ship during the night.

On the same day the council who had been solicited by the Governor and the consignees to assume the guardianship of the tea, coupled their refusal with a reference to the declared opinion of both branches of the General Court that the tax upon it by Parliament was unconstitutional. The next morning the consignees jointly gave as their answer: “It is utterly out of our power to send back the teas; but we now declare to you our readiness to store them until we shall receive further directions from our constituents”; that is, until they could notify the British Government. The wrath of the meeting was kindling, when the sheriff of Suffolk entered with a proclamation from the Governor, “warning, exhorting, and requiring them, and each of them there unlawfully assembled, forthwith to disperse, and to surcease all further unlawful proceedings, at their utmost peril.” The words were received with hisses, derision, and a unanimous vote not to disperse. “Will it be safe for the consignees to appear in the meeting?” asked Copley; and all with one voice responded that they might safely come and return; but they refused to appear. In the afternoon Rotch, the owner, and Hall, the master, of the Dartmouth, yielding to an irresistible impulse, engaged that the tea should return as it came, without touching land or paying a duty. A similar promise was exacted of the owners of the other tea-ships whose arrival was daily expected. In this way “it was thought the matter would have ended.” “I should be willing to spend my fortune and life itself in so good a cause,” said Hancock, and this sentiment was general; they all voted “to carry their resolutions into effect at the risk of their lives and property.”

Every shipowner was forbidden, on pain of being deemed an enemy to the country, to import or bring as freight any tea from Great Britain till the unrighteous act taxing it should be repealed, and this vote was printed and sent to every seaport in the province and to England.

Six persons were chosen as post-riders to give due notice to the country towns of any attempt to land the tea by force, and the committee of correspondence, as the executive organ of the meeting, took care that a military watch was regularly kept up by volunteers armed with muskets and bayonets, who at every half-hour in the night regularly passed the word “All is well,” like sentinels in a garrison. Had they been molested by night, the tolling of the bells would have been the signal for a general uprising. An account of all that had been done was sent into every town in the province.

The ships, after landing the rest of their cargo, could neither be cleared in Boston with the tea on board nor be entered in England, and on the twentieth day from their arrival would be liable to seizure. “They find themselves,” said Hutchinson, “involved in invincible difficulties.” Meantime in private letters he advised to separate Boston from the rest of the province; and to begin criminal prosecutions against its patriot sons.

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