Episode 16: The Tea

British Americans' unquenchable thirst for tea and a looming financial disaster for the East India Company leads to a new crisis in North America when seven tea-laden ships are sent to the colonies in 1773, inspiring Bostonians to dump much of the cargo in Boston Harbor. 

Featuring: Benjamin Carp, James Fichter, Deepthi Murali, and Mary Beth Norton.

Voice Actors: Craig Gallagher, Margaret Hughes, Grace Mallon, Norman Rodger, Annabelle Spencer, and John Turner.

Narrated by Dr. Jim Ambuske.

Music by Artlist.io

This episode was made possible with support from a 2024 grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities. 

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Worlds Turned Upside Down is a production of R2 Studios at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.

Episode Transcript

Jim Ambuske (00:00):
This episode of Worlds Turned Upside Down is

(00:02):
made possible with support froma 2024 grant from the National
Endowment for the Humanities.
Captain Benjamin Lockyer's shipwas lost somewhere in the
Atlantic. God knew where. Inearly October 1773 his ship, the

(00:27):
Nancy, had cleared out of thePort of London and headed down
the River Thames, the beginningof a weeks long voyage to New
York, laden with a heavy cargo.The North Atlantic could be
unforgiving with the onset ofwinter and the journey out of
London slow the Nancy lumberedits way down the Thames to

(00:51):
Gravesend on October 6, not farfrom where the river meets the
North Sea, before calling a dealon England's southeast coast.
There, the ship remained forseveral days, with the winds
blowing hard out of theSouthwest. By late October, the
weather turned more favorable.The Nancy headed west, hugging

(01:12):
England's southern coast, untilOctober 22 when it reached
Portsmouth, long the home of theRoyal Navy. But as any good
sailor knew, the winds aroundPortsmouth respected neither
commoner nor king. Nearly 230years earlier, King Henry the
Eighth watched in horror fromthe shore as a violent gust of

(01:33):
wind tipped over his prizedwarship, the Mary Rose during a
battle with the French. Qaterpoured into our open gun ports,
sending the proud King's shipand her crew to the bottom of
the English Channel. If theNancy began its trek across the
Atlantic within a day or two ofits arrival in Portsmouth, it

(01:54):
didn't get very far. The Oceanhad other ideas, and the winds
blew harder still in earlyNovember, London newspapers
reported the ship off the coastof the Isle of Wight. By then,
six other ships, like the Nancy,were already well underway to
Charleston, Philadelphia andBoston. They carried a combined

(02:16):
1353 chests of East IndiaCompany tea. Over the course of
more than a century, the EastIndia Company had grown from a
lucrative trading venture in theIndian Ocean to a nearly
sovereign power in its ownright, and the de facto ruler
over much of subcontinent India,however much some members of

(02:38):
Parliament bristled at thecompany's power, charged it with
corruption and lamented theblurred lines between its
shareholders and the Britishstate. Through it, the
government could rule itsdistant Indian empire and
exploit its riches. From India,the company sent home spices,
textiles and curiosities fromChina, the company sent tea. But

(03:03):
by the early 1770s the EastIndia Company was teetering on
the edge of collapse. The costsof running an empire and an
enterprise were very great. Warin Madras and famine in Bengal
weighed on Indian communitiesand the company's finances.
Protests in British America overthe Townshend Acts turned into

(03:25):
non importation movements,crippling the company's ability
to sell tea in the colonies,smuggled tea only made manners
worse. In early 1773 thecompany's warehouses were
bursting with 18 million poundsof unsold tea. Parliament could
not afford to let the companyfail, nor could it ignore the

(03:47):
solution, British Americapresented either by 1773 with
most of the Townshend taxesalready repealed, British
Americans proved more thanwilling to purchase and drink
legal duty tea if Parliamentallowed the company to sell its
unwanted leaves directly toPennsylvanians, South

(04:08):
Carolinians and other colonialconsumers that might help bring
the company back from the brinkof bankruptcy and have an even
happier effect, cheaper tea forthe King's subjects. The tea in
the Nancy and in the other sixships sailing for British
America were part of this grandexperiment. In 1773 Parliament

(04:30):
passed the Tea Act to begin thiswork, but rough waters lay
ahead. By mid November 1773 theNancy was finally under sale for
North America with 698 chests ofCompany tea in her cargo hold
weighing an astonishing 106tons. Captain Lockyer had given

(04:52):
bond to deliver the tea safelyinto the hands of its New York
consignees. The voyage shouldhave taken at most nine weeks,
but foul winds and foul weatherblew the Nancy far off course,
damaging the ship and testingthe crew's faith in the
almighty. Weeks later, thebattered Nancy managed to find

(05:13):
safe haven at the sugar islandof Antigua, nearly 2000 miles
south of where the ship and hercrew were supposed to be. Since
the 17th century, Antigua hadbeen a critical waypoint for
ships and information passingbetween Great Britain and North
America. When the Nancy arrivedat Antigua in mid February, 1774

(05:35):
Captain Lockyer learned ofincidents in Charleston,
Philadelphia and Boston. Whatprecisely Lockyer learned as he
lingered in Antigua we do notknow. Was he told that
Charlestonians stored their teain the town's merchant exchange
while they debated what courseto set? Did he learn that

(05:56):
Philadelphians had turned backtheir ship and returned its tea
to England? Did he catch wind ofthe wreck of a tea ship off Cape
Cod leaving its tea open for thetaking? Did someone whisper that
a mob of men, some dressed asMohawk warriors, had boarded
three tea ships in BostonHarbor, broke into their cargo

(06:17):
holds, smashed open the chests,and spent hours jumping 46 tons
of tea into the waves? Lockyermay have learned from fellow
Captains or from newspapers thatwhen the Nancy eventually
arrived in New York, he will bemade acquainted with the
sentiments of the inhabitantsrespecting the tea. His ship

(06:38):
would be resupplied, and hewould be strongly encouraged to
sail for England. Immediatelyfollowing these "discrete
intentions" would prevent "everyfatality, both to this colony
and the honorable company."Buchare might have chosen to
unload his tea in Antigua, paidthe required customs duties and

(07:00):
sailed home, washing his handsof all of it. The tea would have
found its way into the pots ofBritish Americans, but he had a
contract to deliver his cargo toNew York. Still, the captain was
no fool. He sent word by anothership that he was willing to
cooperate with the New Yorker'sdemands, hoping that by the time

(07:21):
the Nancy arrived, all would bewell and the tea could be landed
with the ship repaired and reprovisioned. Captain Lockyer and
his crew set sail for New York,leaving the warm waters of the
Caribbean behind, carrying thetea at the heart of a tempest.
It had been a rough crossingalready, and now in the early

(07:44):
spring, as the Nancy approachedthe mainland, buchare and his
crew could feel the ship pitchand roll as the waves grew
higher, the winds blowingharder, dark clouds gathered in
the distance. A storm was on thehorizon. I'm Jim Ambuske, and

(08:07):
this is Worlds Turned UpsideDown, a podcast about the
history of the AmericanRevolution. Episode 16: The Tea.
Nn March 5, 1770, hours beforethe Boston Massacre, Parliament
took its first steps to repealsome of the Townsend duties. The

(08:27):
taxes on imported paper, paint,lead, glass and tea, were
introduced three years earlier,a key element of Charles
Townshend strategy to reformBritish America the late
Chancellor of the Exchequerintended for the revenue raised
from his scheme to stay in NorthAmerica to fund the salaries of
colonial governors and judges, aplan to make them less beholden

(08:50):
to the whims of provinciallegislatures and more
accountable to Parliament andthe king. But many British
Americans in Boston, New York,Charleston, Philadelphia and
beyond decried Townshend'sduties as unconstitutional
infringements on their rightsand liberties as British
subjects. In their view, it wastaxation without representation,

(09:12):
and to some a diabolical plot toerode legislative oversight of
provincial officials. BritishAmericans responded with
petitions, protests, rioting,intimidation of customs
officials and local boycotts ofBritish goods. These
non-importation agreementsrattled British merchants, who
watched as their exports andtheir income sank with each

(09:34):
passing month, they pressuredMembers of Parliament to change
course. In the spring of 1770Parliament relented, but only
just.

James Fichter (09:47):
Parliament did partially repeal the Revenue Act
in April of 1770 and this was inthe midst of the North American
boycotts and protests againstthis act. My name is James
Fichter. I'm an historian. Atthe University of Hong Kong,
where I'm an associate professorof global and Area Studies.
Parliament took the tax off onlead paint, glass and paper, not

(10:09):
the tax on tea, which it left inplace simply to prove the point
that it could and shouldmaintain some sort of tax. And
the Customs AdministrationTownshend had put in stayed in
place as well.

Jim Ambuske (10:20):
Parliament left in place the three pence per pound
duty on tea, a token measure ofParliament's sovereignty and
power. British Americans who ledthe boycott movements like the
Sons of Liberty believed thatsustaining them required a
patriotic spirit, if notoccasional threats and
intimidation of fellow colonistsand customs officials.

James Fichter (10:41):
But the non-importation movement was
really leaky. Colonists stockedup on goods before the
non-importation movement began,and they continued to import
goods from Britain, even thoughthey promised each other that
they wouldn't. So at the heightof the non importation movement
in the early to mid 1770s somecolonists are still importing
tea and other goods. In Boston,for example, patriots find it so

(11:05):
difficult to stop tea importsthat for merchants who refuse to
abide by the non importationmovement, including Thomas and
Elijah Hutchinson, they simplyhave to lock their tea up. So
patriots take the Hutchinson'stea and lock it up to prevent it
from being sold.

Jim Ambuske (11:19):
Although British Americans celebrated the repeal
of the taxes on paper, paint,lead and glass.

James Fichter (11:24):
Colonists were supposed to continue boycotting
British tea even after theyresumed trade with Britain for
other goods. But strikingly inalmost every colony, including
major market colonies likeVirginia, South Carolina,
Massachusetts, colonists resumeimporting duty tea from England
after the Revenue Act ispartially repealed and they do

(11:46):
not faithfully adhere to thecontinued boycott on tea. Only
in two major market colonies isthe boycott on duty tea
continued, and that's in NewYork and Pennsylvania. It's
effective there becausemerchants there have trade
networks with continental Europeallowed them to get tea and
other goods from Europeansources. How do you make sense
of this protest movement?Patriots and Parliament can both

(12:10):
see themselves as winners out ofthis that it's only partially
repealed and that the tea taxremains and is paid after 1770
looks like a victory toParliament that the other taxes
are repealed and that thePatriots have managed to
continue not importing duty teain some colonies, looks like a
victory to the Patriots. Bothsides look at this and tell

(12:33):
themselves that they won, eventhough in many ways they're also
both losers.

Jim Ambuske (12:37):
British Americans willingness to resume importing
tax tea in 1770 gave Parliamentand the king's ministers a false
sense of confidence thatcolonists were beginning to
accept what Parliament had longclaimed, that it could legislate
for the colonies in all caseswhatsoever. In a very real
sense, buying and drinking thetea was an acknowledgement of

(13:00):
that claimed right? But anothertea crisis was quickly coming to
a boil. The boycotts in BritishAmerica over the Townshend
duties reverberated on the farside of the world, compounding
the British East India Company'smounting financial problems,
pushing it ever closer todisaster. So why did Parliament

(13:24):
pass the Tea Act of 1773 and whydid some British Americans
believe that East India Companytea was a tool of tyranny? To
begin answering these questions,we'll first sail east to explore
the East India Company's reignover Britain's distant empire.
We'll then begin the long voyageback to London, back to

(13:45):
Parliament to consider Britishplans for resolving a crisis in
one part of the empire withoutprovoking one in the other,
before sailing west with thedoomed tea to British America to
steep in the rhetoric and therealities that led to its
destruction. In the early 17thcentury, just as the Virginia

(14:06):
Company of London was drawing upplans to settle Jamestown in
Virginia, the British East IndiaCompany began making inroads in
Southeast Asia and mostespecially the subcontinent of
India.

Deepthi Murali (14:17):
The British East India Company was established in
1600 as a joint stock companythat the Queen Elizabeth the
first gave them a royal monopolyto go and trade in the quote
East Indies. And this companywas given a really wide open
charter to do whatever theywanted in the East Indies in

(14:38):
terms of trade. And as theystarted in 1600s there were
still competitors for them interms of the Portuguese, the
French, the Dutch, butessentially, they were still
supposed to be a trade entity inIndia. I'm Deepti Murali,
Assistant Professor in theDepartment of History and Art
History at George MasonUniversity. In the early part of

(14:58):
the 18th century, the BritishEast India Company is basically
about four factories, andfactories essentially mean
trading posts. They have Suratin the West, a little south of
Surat, they have Bombay. Thenfurther south, they have Madras.
And in the east, they haveCalcutta. And essentially they
have very limited rulingauthority in these trading

(15:21):
posts. The French have the sameruling authority in the areas
that they control. The Dutchhave their own areas. There are
Danish traders with the Danishtrading company there as well,
even the Swedish at some point.So there are a lot of Europeans
and European trading companies,and they have these areas over
which they had absolute control,but these are very small areas.

Jim Ambuske (15:46):
These trading posts were minor footholds on a
crowded subcontinent.

Unknown (15:51):
Unlike in the North American context, in the Indian
context, the British are oneamong many. Even in the 18th
century, they're one among many.And India's rulers are used to,
quote, unquote, foreignerscoming and becoming part of the
system. In many cases, this ideaof India as a whole is still not

(16:11):
present in the subcontinent.They're still different groups,
and they've always been sort ofmulti ethnic, multicultural
groups, or at least had been forcenturies. If you think about
the Mughals, the Mughals are theCentral Asian dynasty that then
comes and becomes Indian. If youlook at the Mughal world, the
Mughals then integrate all theseother people who come from

(16:33):
Central Asia, from other partsof India into their system. They
are all very multicultural. Soin many ways, the British, the
French, the Dutch and thePortuguese are sort of the new
ones into an existing system oftrade.

Jim Ambuske (16:49):
To participate in that trade, the East India
Company and its Europeancompetitors had to work with
local rulers in Indiancommunities.

Unknown (16:57):
It is happening in collaboration with Indians. But
it depends from region to regionon how that is carried out. But
across the East India Companyworld, most of the people who,
at least in the early stages,work with East India Company are
what they were called thedubashis, or literally, the
people who can speak twolanguages, so the scribes, and

(17:19):
they are the peons and theclerks, and they are the Indians
who run that administrativeunit, because there are not that
many British people to goaround. There's a lot of Indians
working with the British. Inthat sense, you have the
soldiers who are Indian, thesepoys. You have a lot of
middlemen that comes fromdifferent caste and occupational

(17:39):
groups for different kinds ofIndustry and Trade. They're also
working with rulers as well.They're in partnership with many
Indian rulers, and so they dohave friendly trade agreements
and treatises with variousrulers.

Jim Ambuske (17:55):
By the second half of the 18th century, the
development of that tradeentangled British America and
British India.

Unknown (18:02):
Cotton goods are the biggest part of that trade. They
are exported to Britain, andthey're exported directly to the
Caribbean. And in the Caribbeanthey're being used to clothe
enslaved people. There is theIndigo, which is the dye that's
shipped from India to theAmericas to be used as a dye.
There is also trade in the otherdirection. They take Caribbean

(18:24):
sugar rum through North America,sell it in Britain, and then
take that money to go to Indiato buy goods. A lot of these
ships are going to India andChina are made out of North
American timber. And thentowards the end of the 18th
century, you see them growingopium, and then they're taking

(18:45):
opium to China to buy tea fromChina and bring them to the
North American markets.

Jim Ambuske (18:51):
The company's expanding presence soon brought
the British into conflict withlocal rulers and their European
adversaries in the late 1750swhile British forces suffered
repeated humiliations at thehands of the French and their
indigenous allies in NorthAmerica, the British East India
Company recovered from an earlydefeat to win a decisive victory

(19:13):
in 1756

Unknown (19:15):
Siraj-ud-Daulah, who was the Nawab of The Bengal
Province, which is whereCalcutta is, attacks the British
Trading Post, the factory inCalcutta,

Jim Ambuske (19:26):
in response to Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah's attack,
the company mobilized an army ofBritish soldiers, hired
Europeans, Sepoy Indian soldiersand company men to retaliate.

Unknown (19:36):
In 1757, there's a battle, which is called the
Battle of Plassey or Palashi,where Robert Clive defeats
Siraj-ud-Daulah very decisivelyand takes over the Bengal
province. Now, Bengal is therichest Mughal province at the
time, so suddenly the British isnear. Company has a lot of money

(19:58):
and a lot of land and. Anew fromthese lands, even though they
are administering these lands inname for the Mughal emperor, and
they just take over this nawabisystem and the diwani system
that the Mughals practice.

Jim Ambuske (20:12):
In 1765, the Mughal emperor, Shah Alam the Second,
granted the diwani rights to theBritish East India Company,
empowering it to collect revenuefrom lands in Bengal and two
other territories in easternIndia.

Unknown (20:27):
And once again, they are now swimming in cash. They
are really wealthy, and thatstarts their territorial
conquest of the rest of thesubcontinent.

Jim Ambuske (20:37):
By the early 1770s the company's successes in India
and elsewhere in Asia left it incontrol of vast territories,
trade networks and wealth. Butthose successes came at a price.

Unknown (20:50):
Well, they grew too big for their boots. There are many
different factors. One is theterritorial expansion itself. If
you're expanding and if you'reconquering new territories, it
costs money if you'reestablishing new administrative
units and creating this vastadministrative network that's
going to cost you money. Towardsthe end of the 18th century,

(21:13):
Bengal, which is the richestprovince, goes through a famine
that really restricts how muchmoney they can make off the
land, and then the Seven YearsWar, the British and French are
fighting the proxy wars in theAmericas as well as in South
Asia. And one of the proxy warsthey had is with the state of
Mysore. And those were somevery, very expensive wars. And

(21:35):
most important thing,corruption, the term nabobism
comes from this Britishofficials start living like
Indian Nawabs, living the lifeof princes trading a lot of
wealth and lot of the company'smoney into their personal
coffers, becoming really, reallyrich, especially in that mid to
late 18th century period. Socorruption is also draining the

(21:57):
British East India Company.

Jim Ambuske (22:00):
The vast distances between Great Britain and India
meant that reports on thecompany's activities in South
Asia took six to eight months toreach London, even as they
celebrated the success ofBritish arms on the subcontinent
and the wealth that came withit, the king's ministers as well
as members of parliamentquestioned what role the
government should play inregulating the company and

(22:23):
whether it was growing toopowerful. Benjamin Carp, the
Daniel M. Lyons Professor ofAmerican history at Brooklyn
College, explains,

Benjamin Carp (22:32):
aA lot of them were invested in the East India
Company directly. They also feltthat they represented
shareholders who expected theirdividends to keep rolling in.
They also knew that theterritorial gains that the East
India Company had made hadencroached upon British
diplomatic relations with othercountries, and that it was
obvious that the Britishgovernment was going to have to

(22:55):
get directly involved. And sothe East India Company's
extension into all these variousplaces east of the Cape of Good
Hope had made it unavoidablethat Parliament would have to be
involved one way or another inthe doings of the East India
Company.

Jim Ambuske (23:09):
In the mid 1760s, Prime Minister William Pitt,
Earl of Chatham argued that someof the company's revenue ought
to be made available for thepublic benefit. Chatham believed
it could help reduce the debtthat Britain had incurred to win
the Seven Years War. King Georgethe Third concurred. In 1767the

(23:30):
company committed tocontributing £400,000 pounds to
the government annually, a valueof over £56 million pounds in
our own time, in exchange formaintaining its nearly
autonomous control over IndianTerritory. Ironically, George
Grenville, the architect of thedisastrous Stamp Act, argued

(23:50):
against chatham's plans, callingthem a violation of the
company's Charter rights. TheAnglo-Irish MP Edmund Burke
feared that intervening in thecompany's administration would
entangle the British governmentin an enterprise that would
bring about the nation's ruin.Some members did not like the
idea of ruling over peoples theysaw only in aggregate, who they

(24:12):
believed had no concept ofBritish liberty and would
require a despotic hand togovern them. Nor did they have
prove of the ways some Britishsubjects adopted South Asian
customs and culture. In theirview, these British nabobs were
degenerating from civility tosavagery. But in London, the
king's ministers and Parliamentcould see the totality of

(24:35):
Britain's empire in ways thatBritish Americans often never
could. British America andBritish India were two key
pillars of an interconnectedsystem of global trade in orbit
around the mothercountry.

Benjamin Carp (24:49):
The East India Company was supposed to pay some
portion of its revenue toParliament in taxes, in the same
way that Parliament is concernedwith tobacco growers in
Virginia, because they gottaxes. From the tobacco trade.
They're also interested inwhat's happening with the East
India Company, because theyexpect the tap of money to the
British Empire to support theNavy and troops and all the
other things that Britain wantsto spend money on. They expected

(25:11):
that money to keep flowing.

Jim Ambuske (25:13):
In November 1772, one member of Parliament stated
the paradox plainly. He lamentedthat Britons ever had cause to
utter the words "our IndianEmpire," and that the wealth of
Bengal had never been "wrungfrom the hands of its innocent
possessors". But:

Member of Parliament (25:32):
“When we recollect the riches brought
from the East Indies, the dutiesand excises on the imports, and
what will be the fatalconsequence of the annihilation
of them, let every creditor ofthe public think and tremble…Let
every one recollect, howintimately his fortune and
estate, his comfort, and if Imay so call them, his innocent

(25:53):
luxuries, are connected withthis vast object of trade.”

Jim Ambuske (25:57):
And that vast object of trade was in danger of
faltering. In the early 1770s,the company's directors received
a series of troubling reports,even as it continued to pay out
generous dividends to itsshareholders, the company faced
bills totaling more than £1.5million pounds in 1772

(26:21):
bankruptcy loomed. A Scottishbanker named Alexander Fordyce
suffered serious losses when heshorted the company's stock,
triggering a wider financialcrisis in Britain that led to
several bank failures with acascading effect on the Atlantic
economy. To stay afloat, thecompany requested a loan of 1.4
million pounds from the Britishgovernment. The 9000 tons of

(26:45):
unsold tea valued at £2 millionpounds sitting in the company's
London warehouses waiting to rotdidn't help matters, either. The
protests and non importationmovements in North America over
the towns and acts cratered thecompany's tea sales in the
colonies. In 1768, the companyexported nearly 150 tons of tea

(27:06):
to the New England colonies. Twoyears later, it exported only
about 43 tons. During theboycotts, merchants sold legal
tea they had stockpiled beforethey took effect, lessening
their need to purchase newstocks of tea, even when British
Americans in most coloniesresumed purchasing legal duty
tea in the early 1770s NewYorkers and Pennsylvanians

(27:28):
continued the boycott Londonwholesalers cut into the
company's profits, and:

Benjamin Carp (27:34):
It had competitors via smuggling. Some
of this competition fromsmugglers meant that tea was
piling up in its warehouses. Itwasn't able to take the kinds of
profits that it potentiallycould have realized on tea,
which is a particularlyimportant commodity.

Jim Ambuske (27:49):
In 1773 then the British faced a series of
questions with globalconsequences, how far should the
government intervene in the EastIndia Company's operations? How
could it ensure better rule inBritish India, and what role
could British America play inthis puzzle? To address some of
the problems, Parliament passedthe regulating act of 1773 the

(28:14):
Act created a crown appointedGovernor General of Bengal and
reorganized Madras and Bombaybeneath the wealthier province,
it also established a SupremeCourt based in Calcutta, with
British judges appointed tooversee the British legal system
in place there. Parliamentlimited the company's dividends
until it repaid its loan to thegovernment, forbade company

(28:37):
employees from conductingprivate trade on the side, and
limited the company's directorsto four year terms. It was the
first step in a very longhistory of more direct British
rule in India. But what to doabout all that bloody Company
tea festering in Londonwarehouses as the end of 1772

(28:59):
neared, many British Americanscontinued importing legal duty
tea under the last survivingprovision of Charles Townshend's
Revenue Act.

Benjamin Carp (29:07):
The 1767 Revenue Act, popularly called the
Townsend Act, is actually theact that imposes the three penny
per pound duty on tea. All ofthe Townsend acts, except for
the duty on tea, were repealedin 1770 Parliament wanted to

James Fichter (29:25):
One other thing worth noting, the initial
maintain the principle ofcontinuing to tax Americans.
Revenue Act have a five yearsunset clause. They're going to
end in 1772 anyway. So there's aneed for a new act. Either they
revert to the old super hightariffs and the smuggling
network continues, or the threepence a pound tax needs to be
renewed.

Jim Ambuske (29:42):
Dumping company tea on the North American market
would not by itself, resolve thecompany's immediate financial
woes, but a new Tea Act passedalongside the Regulating Act
could be an important part of aglobal solution.

James Fichter (29:56):
Previously, the company had been required to
sell all of its tea at all.Auctions in London. This
introduced this new trance ofmiddlemen London wholesalers,
who would add the cost for theirservices to buying the tea at
auction, putting it in with theother goods that they shipped to
North America on their seasonalshipments across the Atlantic.

Benjamin Carp (30:15):
Then British says, All right, well, our East
India Company is in trouble.What if we continue to maintain
this duty on the Americans thatthe Americans are paying, but
simultaneously make it easierfor the East India Company to
ship its tea to the Americancolonies by eliminating the
middlemen, setting up asituation where they can
handpick certain consignees toreceive tea shipments, pretty

(30:36):
much directly from the EastIndia Company and sell it to the
American colonists.

James Fichter (30:40):
So the main innovation of the Tea Act is it
allows the English East IndiaCompany to directly ship its tea
to North America. By allowingthe company to ship tea directly
to North America withoutauctioning, it could either cut
out those wholesalers or putthem in competition with other
wholesalers. So now the companywas empowered to sell tea

(31:02):
directly in North America. Ithired merchants in North America
to do this. We call these menthe consignees. They were the
men to whom the company's teawas sent in 1773 and the company
instructed them to wholesalethis tea at a fixed price, and
it gave them a fixed percentagecommission rate that they could
charge. They couldn't reallyhave any incentive to hold on to

(31:23):
the tea and for prices to go up,they just had to get it out
there, and they were positionedto be in competition with the
London wholesalers. The Tea Actis like the earlier Townsend
act. Supposed to be a reform, abenevolent, if marginal
improvement, which is supposedto be a win win, it would
marginally benefit the crown byincreasing tax revenue,

(31:43):
marginally benefit the EastIndia Company by increasing some
tea sales, perhaps, and benefitNorth American colonists by
keeping tea costs down and teasupplies up.

Benjamin Carp (31:51):
Why would the colonists object? This is going
to make tea cheaper for them.

Jim Ambuske (31:58):
Parliament might be forgiven for believing that
British Americans wouldbegrudgingly not happily accept
the new Tea Act, despite theirdismay at earlier British
reforms. Once the trade boycottscollapsed, colonists resumed
importing legal tea, even asthey continued smuggling in
leaves from cheaper Dutchsources, the Act would lower the

(32:18):
cost of tea for all colonists,and while British America wasn't
the Empire's largest tea market:

James Fichter (32:25):
Tea was a part of everyday consumer life. By the
1770s most North Americancolonists were in the economic
range where they could afford todrink tea. Most estimates of per
capita tea consumption NorthAmerica suggests North Americans
drank between a half to threequarters of a pound of tea per
person per year. Now that's lessthan in Britain. In Britain, per

(32:47):
capita consumption levels atthis time are about 1.4 pounds
of tea per person per year.These are estimates because so
much tea was smuggled into bothlocations. But nevertheless,
what this indicates is thatNorth Americans didn't drink as
much tea as their Britishcousins.

Jim Ambuske (33:02):
But the tea they did drink was an important part
of tea culture. Tea

Benjamin Carp (33:06):
had become an amazingly popular commodity
among English speaking peoples,both in Britain and in colonial
America. It's not just about thebeverage itself, but all the
ecopage or equipment that goesalong with it, the cups you
drink out of the tea pot thatyou pour out of the Sugar Bowl,
the sugar tongs, beautifulsilver or ceramic sets. And

(33:28):
then, in terms of woodenfurniture, the tea tables that
you would drink on the chairsthat you would use to sit around
it.

Jim Ambuske (33:34):
One Boston merchant listed for sale, a fine

Boston Merchant (33:36):
“A fine assortment of Tea-pots,
Coffee-pots, Sugar-pots, Cups,and saucers[,] several compleat
Tea-table Sets of Childrenscream-coloured Toys[,] English
Loaf Sugar…Spices of all sorts,fine Hyson and Souchong Tea.”

James Fichter (33:48):
And for North Americans and for Britain's tea
came in all sorts of grades fromlow end Bohea, which was a black
tea to high end Hyson, which wasa fine green tea.

Benjamin Carp (33:58):
I want to stress that tea was not the kind of
commodity by the 18th centurythat was only available to the
very elite. It was inexpensiveenough that it was accessible to
middle class and working classpeople. They might not have all
of the same fancy things to gowith it that wealthy people
would have, but it was still away to aspire towards being a
member of a more upper classthan the one that you actually

(34:18):
inhabited.

James Fichter (34:19):
Hyson was extremely pricey, for example,
and would be something that'd bedifficult for average consumers
to get. Pricing indicates thatyou could get tea for 3-4-5,
shillings a pound, and there's alot of range there as well,
because you can get differentqualities of tea. You can even
just get older tea that might becheaper. I was surprised to

(34:40):
learn that in the poor houses inNew York and Philadelphia, where
people were given lodging inexchange for work by the town
inmates, as they were referredto, were served tea as part of
their board and lodging in thepoor house,

Benjamin Carp (34:53):
Men and women both drank tea, but the tea
table was classically thought tobe ladies domain. This was a
source of criticism and satiresometimes, but it was also a
chance for people to be sociablein ways that they really
appreciated. And so all of thismaterial culture and all of
these rituals have come tosurround the tea table in a way
that becomes really important.

Jim Ambuske (35:14):
One colonist advised his sister that when she
married, serving tea wouldallowher to keep up with the
latest news.

Brother (35:20):
“If you have tea you will have visitors enough, you
will see every old wife in theneighbourhood each week, you
will hear all the news that isstirring.”

Benjamin Carp (35:29):
Tea becomes this really exciting and aspirational
beverage for people in Americaand in Britain itself.

Jim Ambuske (35:37):
Aspirational as tea might be, Parliament missed its
guess. British Americans didobject to the new Tea Act.
Colonists learned of itbeginning in September 1773 when
the statute was published innewspapers, though their initial
reactions were muted, the Act'sbefuddling language wasn't the
easiest to parse, but as itsmeaning became clear, would be

(36:01):
protesters faced a rhetoricalproblem.

Benjamin Carp (36:03):
If you were going to object to the Tea Act, you
had to do so on the basis ofprinciple, because people could
see that the cost of tea mightwell go down. But it was the
principle of thing that reallyseemed to matter.

James Fichter (36:13):
There were fears. Many patriots expressed their
fears that this was going toencourage the East India Company
to have a monopoly on tea inNorth America. And of course,
they talked a lot about taxationwithout representation. These
are serious, and this issomething that had been brewing
for some time, implying theywould establish the precedent of
raising a revenue in NorthAmerica without any
representation or any mechanismfor colonists to consent to it.

(36:37):
This isn't really true. Inreality, that precedent had been
established in 1770 when the teaboycott collapsed and colonists
continued to pay for tea withoutprotest throughout 1771 and 1772

(36:58):
and into 1773 in 1772 NorthAmerican colonists imported and
consumed over a quarter millionpounds of taxed tea into North
America. That's a quartermillion pounds of precedent
that's already been set

Jim Ambuske (37:05):
Nevertheless, in October 1773 when British
Americans learned that shipswith cargos of company t would
be sent to Boston, New York,Philadelphia and Charleston,
some began drawing up strategiesof protest and resistance to
them. Parliament's latest reformfit into a growing pattern of
ministerial conspiracy andcorruption, first the Sugar Act,

(37:28):
then the Stamp Act, followed bythe Quartering Act, the
Townshend Acts, and now the TeaAct. In Philadelphia, the Quaker
merchant Thomas Mifflin drewinspiration from the Stamp Act
crisis. In a publishedbroadside, he advised consignees
to refuse their appointments, orperhaps face the wrath of angry

(37:49):
mobs, much as stampdistributorsonce had. The Scottish immigrant
Alexander McDougall, a member ofthe New York Sons of Liberty,
raged in a series of broadsides

Alexander McDougall (38:00):
“That the East-India Company obtained
their exclusive Privilege ofTrade to that Country, by

Bribery and Corruption (38:05):
Wonder not then, that Power thus
obtained, at the Expence of thenational Commerce, should be
used to the most tyrannical andcruel Purposes.”

Jim Ambuske (38:17):
The Edinburgh trained Philadelphia physician
Benjamin Rush believed thatlanding the tea would openly
admit Parliament's right to taxthe colonies. If that happened,
he wrote, "We are undoneforever." It would mark the end
of British American liberty.Philadelphians took the lead in
organizing public resistance tothe Tea Act and to the inbound

(38:39):
tea ships on October 16, membersof the city's elite gathered at
the state house to debateParliament'sactions. They passed
a series of resolutions laterpublished in newspapers that
condemned the act

Philadelphians (38:52):
“That the duty imposed by Parliament upon tea
landed in America is a tax onthe Americans, or levying
contributions on them withouttheir consent.” That a virtuous
and steady opposition to thisministerial plan of governing
America is absolutely necessaryto preserve even the shadow of
liberty and is a duty whichevery freeman in America owes to

(39:16):
his country, to himself, and tohis posterity.”

Jim Ambuske (39:19):
The Philadelphians deeds galvanized Boston Sons of
Liberty into action.

Benjamin Carp (39:25):
They smell a rat. Samuel Adams is like this is
going to seduce us into paying aduty on a commodity that's being
sold by this monopoly companythat if we accept this, then
what's going to follow is evenmore taxes and even more
monopolistic arrangements. Thisis going to squeeze American
traders. This is going toextract pound sterling after

(39:46):
pound sterling out of thepockets of colonial Americans.
So the Americans see it as ameasure that is directed at
them, that violates theprinciple of no taxation without
representation, that offendscolonial Americans in a couple
of other ways. Is and so theAmericans react badly to it,
even though really whatParliament was intending to do
was use the measure as a way ofbailing out the East India

(40:08):
Company,

Jim Ambuske (40:11):
As British Americans, concocted a variety
of arguments and strategies toresist the Tea Act. The tea
ships were approaching.

Benjamin Carp (40:19):
When parliament passes the Tea Act, the East
India Company decides to takeadvantage of this new
arrangement by sending fourgroups of ships to the colonies.
Four are intended for Boston andthen one each are intended for
New York City, Philadelphia andCharleston.

Jim Ambuske (40:35):
The seven ships sailed from England in late
September and early October,1773. With the New York bound
ship Nancy lost somewhere in theAtlantic, the remaining ships
headed west toward theirintended destinations. Colonial
newspapers reported theirpassage, but no one knew when or
where the first ship wouldarrive, nor what would happen

(40:56):
once it got there. In Boston,Ann Holton, the sister of
Customs Commissioner HenryHolten, waited with bated breath
for the first ship's arrival onNovember 25 Holton wrote of a
standoff between Richard Clarke,one of the East India Company's
consignees, and angryBostonians.

Unknown (41:15):
“The Ships Laden with Tea from the East India House
are hourly expected, the Peoplewill not suffer it to be landed
at Boston, they demand theConsignes to promise to send it
back. Mr. Clark resolutelyrefuses to comply, will submit
to no other terms, than to putit into warehouse till they can

(41:36):
hear from England. They threatento tear him to pieces if its
Landed. He says he will be toreto pieces before he will desert
the Trust reposed in him by theConsignees.”

Jim Ambuske (41:50):
The Dartmouth, captained by James Hall, arrived
in Boston Harbor three dayslater on, November 28. Once in
port, the clock began ticking

James Fichter (42:01):
In Boston, four ships are sent with the
company's tea. These shipsarrive in a staggered formation.
The first vessel arrives in lateNovember. If after 20 days the
vessel's cargo has not beenunloaded, the customs officer
can impound the tea andpotentially later sell it. The
complicating factor is, whilethe first vessel, the Dartmouth,

(42:21):
has arrived with this tea fivedays later, the second vessel,
the Eleanor, arrives with thenext piece of the Boston Tea
shipment. And so everyone knowsthat whatever happens with the
Dartmouth will set the precedentfor what happens with the
Eleanor, and then whateverhappens with the Dartmouth and
the Eleanor will lock in whatyou can do with the beaver and

(42:42):
the William, which will be thelast two ships.

Jim Ambuske (42:43):
Unbeknownst to Bostonians,

Mary Beth Norton (42:45):
the tea ship was in Charleston at exactly the
same time that tea ships were inBoston. I'm Mary Beth Norton.
I'm the Mary Donlon AlgerProfessor Emerita at Cornell
University. The customs laws atthe time said that if the duty
wasn't paid in 20 days, theproduct would be confiscated by
the customs officers.

Jim Ambuske (43:06):
The London arrived in Charleston on December 2. The
distance between Boston andCharleston was too great for
colonists in the one to know howcolonists in the other were
dealing with the tea. In Boston.

James Fichter (43:19):
If patriots concede and allow customs
officers to impound the tea,they'll probably have to allow
that. With all of the vessels,they have all the more reason to
hold the line on the first onecustoms officers. Likewise, the
tea has been brought into thecustoms area in Boston, and they
say, Look, we're going to forcethis tea to be landed and the
tax paid. Even if you do want tore ship it back to reship it

(43:48):
back to England, we don't care,you're still going to pay the
darn tax, and we're going tohold the line here, because we
know there's another shipcoming. In fact, after five
days, the two vessels aresitting next to each other on
the wharf. Each side has areason not to concede.

Jim Ambuske (43:55):
Meanwhile, in Charleston:

James Fichter (43:57):
The London arrives on December 2, 1773 and
the Sons of Liberty immediatelyorganized against it. The Sons
of Liberty organized for ameeting, what they call a
general meeting to happen thenext day. Charleston has this
big new building, the exchangewhich has been built on the
Charleston waterfront just acouple years earlier, at the

(44:17):
beginning of the 1770s and onthe ground floor were the
customs facilities. The customsofficers operated there. You
would land your cargos there,pay duties there, and the ground
floor and underground basementalso provided warehousing space.
As a customs warehouse, theycalled a general meeting. A
bunch of people showed up. Theycame to the exchange. They

(44:39):
debated what to do about thetea, and eventually started to
pass some resolves againstimporting our consuming duty
tea. And then the meetingsummoned the consignees that had
been tasked with landing thecompany's tea. The consignees
faced what they referred to as agreat majority of people opposed
to the tea's landing there.However, they stood fast. They

(45:00):
did not resign their role indealing with East India
companies tea. And they alsonoted that while South
Carolinians seem to be againstthe East India Company's tea,
seemed to also be in favor ofcontinuing the importation of
smuggle tea in large amounts.And they did not take kindly to
this, and the South Carolinamerchants community as a whole
seemed to have been quitedivided about how to respond to

(45:21):
it.

Jim Ambuske (45:22):
The other tea on board the London contributed to
the divide. The ship carried teafrom other London wholesalers,
giving some Charleston merchantsan incentive to keep tea prices
high by keeping Company tea offthe market. So while the Sons of
Liberty declaimed against theTea Act upstairs in the exchange
downstairs

James Fichter (45:42):
People were actually doing things while
politicians talked.Downstairs,merchants landed tea
from the London, landed it, paidthe duties at the exchange and
carried it right past themeeting to the individual
merchant shops, because all thepeople that would watch out for
that sort of thing. Were busy inthe meeting room upstairs, not

(46:03):
looking out the windows, and sothey missed what was going on.

Mary Beth Norton (46:06):
The big difference between Charleston
and Boston was that Boston putup a watch on the wharfs so that
nobody could unload the tea.Charleston didn't do that. They
just had this meeting and theysaid, well, we don't want the
tea to be landed. The localgovernment in Charleston tried
to stay out of it. TheLieutenant Governor of South
Carolina tried to stay out ofthe whole thing, and he let the

(46:28):
merchants and the planters tryto figure out what to do. In the
end, they did a negotiatedsettlement.

James Fichter (46:34):
They have to call a new meeting on December 17.
This meeting eventually decidesthat East India Company's tea
will not be landed. Theconsignees do agree to no longer
have anything to do with it.However, the ship captain,
Captain curling, he has Devinbond in England to land the tea
in North America and return toEngland with a certificate of

(46:55):
its proper landing. And if hedoesn't, he's out a substantial
amount of money, and so he's notwilling to return to England
with this cargo. As a result,even though the consignees had
promised not to do anything withit, it's a little bit of a
question what's going to happenthen, on December 22 ultimately,
the customs collectors decide toimpound the tea from the London

(47:17):
and store it in the customswarehouse under the exchange.

Jim Ambuske (47:19):
Officials spent hours unloading more than 250
chests of tea, landing the teameant that it could be sold. But
Charleston merchants, now withother stocks of tea and wanting
to keep prices high, had noincentive to buy it.

Mary Beth Norton (47:33):
The customs officers wrote to England to
say, what should we do with allthis tea? And of course, it took
months and months and months toget an answer from the East
India Company, and by then,events had moved on, and it was
irrelevant.

Jim Ambuske (47:46):
Boston's Sons of Liberty did not know how
Charlestonians had dealt withtheir tea, but by then, it
didn't matter. They had alreadymade a profoundly different
choice with profoundlyunforeseen consequences. The
Dartmouth put into Boston Harborand docked at Griffin's wharf on
November 28. The next day, theSons of Liberty called for a

(48:09):
meeting at Faneuil Hall todiscuss its arrival. So many
people came, they had toreconvene at the Old South
Meeting House. When theDartmouth entered the customs
zone on the 28th the captain andcrew had 20 days to land the tea
and pay the duty before customsofficials could impound and sell

(48:29):
it.

James Fichter (48:30):
Boston is the city that had imported more duty
tea than any other city in NorthAmerica. 40% of all the duty tea
imported into North America inthe five years for the Boston
Tea Party went intoMassachusetts, there's a very
real, plausible belief that ifyou can land this tea, there'll
be a market for it. This wasboth why Boston patriots needed

(48:52):
to push harder, because theyneeded to stop this previous
sale of duty tea, and why theconsignees and the customs
officers felt that they couldcontinue to try to land this
cargo, because they had landedthese other ones for the
previous several years.

Jim Ambuske (49:07):
20 days to make choices

James Fichter (49:09):
The Dartmouth, the only vessel for which the
countdown is expiring, they haveto land the tea for the Eleanor
and the Beaver. There are manydays left on their countdown.
It's possible that you couldjust destroy the tea on the
Dartmouth. If you really dorespect property, leave the tea
on the Eleanor alone, and hopethat encourages the importing
merchants to think twice andsend the tea back to England

Jim Ambuske (49:31):
20 days to fear different fates.

James Fichter (49:33):
The wharf where those ships are docked is
guarded by a paramilitary groupunder control of the Sons of
Liberty to prevent the tea beinglanded. What's going to happen
is the soldiers that are inBoston, the naval vessels and
men that are in Boston, aregoing to secure the tea on the
remaining ships. So that willinevitably create a
confrontation between these twoarmed groups, which would likely

(49:56):
result in bloodshed that wouldmake the Boston Massacre pale.
By comparison, and is to beavoided. It also might end in
victory of Parliament's cause bygetting the tea impounded and
landed, knowing that this is arepeated game that whatever
happens with the first vesselwill have to be reenacted with
the next one. Patriots think,well, we want to shortcut the

(50:17):
repeated game. Just get all thevessels at once.

Jim Ambuske (50:19):
20 days to avoid confrontation.

Benjamin Carp (50:22):
In Boston, they feel that if the tea is landed,
that it will somehow be sold.Theyare under immense pressure
from the Sons of Liberty in NewYork and Philadelphia. They
don't feel that they can landthe tea. They don't want to pay
the duties on it. But thegovernor of Massachusetts,
Thomas Hutchinson, is stubbornand will not allow the tea ships
that were headed to Boston tojust turn around and bring the

(50:45):
tea back to London, because thatwas illegal, and Hutchinson felt
that he had to do his duty.Bostonians are pretty much
between a rock and a hard place,with officialdom on one hand and
peer pressure from their fellowSons of Liberty on the other.

Jim Ambuske (50:58):
On December 16, a Thursday, more than 5000
Bostonians, more than a quarterof the town's population,
gathered at the Old SouthMeeting House under a very
"heavy, dull weather" to discussthe crisis. Samuel Adams and
John Hancock led the meeting.The clock for the Dartmouth
expired that night.

Benjamin Carp (51:19):
This is a last resort. On December 16, the body
of the people in Boston triesone more time to avoid the
problem of the tea landing. Theysend Francis Roach, part owner
of one of the tea ships. Theysend him to walk seven miles to
Milton, Massachusetts, to meetwith Governor Thomas Hutchinson
at his country house and say,Governor Hutchinson, can I
please have special permissionto leave the harbor with the tea

(51:42):
on board. If I don't, then, in aday or two, customs officers
will have the right to seize myship for non payment of a duty
on tea, because the ships hadbeen in the harbor for 20 days
at that point. If you don't letme go, I'm going to lose my
shirt because the ship and allof the goods aboard, I will be
held liable for that. I'd reallylike to avoid that problem,
Governor Hutchinson says, No,I'm sorry, I can't help you. So

(52:05):
Roche walks back to the OldSouth Meeting House where the
body of the people were meeting.Roche walks up and says, Here's
my report. And this is when,supposedly, Samuel Adams says,
well, there's nothing more thatwe can do to save our country.

Jim Ambuske (52:16):
And in the opinion of some of the people in
attendance that night.

Benjamin Carp (52:20):
We can't land the tea and we can't send the tea
back, so the only properdestination for it is to dump it
into Boston Harbor.

Jim Ambuske (52:26):
Shortly after Adams finished speaking, about 100
men, some dressed as Mohawkwarriors, with their faces
darkened to conceal theiridentities, let out fake
indigenous war cries, and then:

Benjamin Carp (52:38):
Marches down from the Old South Meeting House to
Griffin's Wharf to hoist the teaoff of these three ships that

Jim Ambuske (52:42):
The tea destroyers dragged the wooden chests lined
had docked at Griffin's Wharf,throw the tea over the side and
destroy it.
with lead weighing as much as400 pounds out of the cargo
holds, carried them onto thedecks of each of the three
ships, broke them open anddumped their contents into the
water, 46 tons. In all, it tookhours. The tide was out that

(53:09):
night, as the men dumped chestafter chest into the harbor, the
mountains of tea began to riseabove the waves.

Benjamin Carp (53:21):
Who was involved in the Boston Tea Party? Our
ability to know the names of themen for certain is a little bit
difficult. Nobody really cameforward and said they were part
of the Boston Tea Party foralmost 50 years. It was a
closely held secret. But of the100 names that I find most
reliable, I tried to puttogether a social and political
profile of these men, and theyranged from a couple of guys who

(53:43):
were Harvard educated, a coupleof guys who were pretty wealthy,
all the way to teenagedapprentices who were just
starting out in life. There werea lot of artisans and retailers,
a lot of people who had beenpolitically involved in previous
acts, four guys that the bulletshad just missed at the Boston
Massacre in 1770 it's thisreally interesting mix of what

(54:03):
seems to have been politicallyinvolved Bostonians, although
there were also rumors that theyused men from out of town so
that they wouldn't berecognized. That's a little bit
unclear. But it seems clear thatthey were politically connected,
not necessarily the mostpowerful people in town, and in
fact, the most powerful peoplein town, like Samuel Adams and
John Hancock ostentatiouslystayed behind at the Old South

(54:24):
Meeting House while thedestroying was happening on
Griffin's Wharf, so that themost powerful Boston leaders
wouldn't necessarily be blamed.But Thomas Melville is there.
Paul Revere is there. WilliamMolineux is there. There was a
guy named James Swan who hadauthored an anti slavery
pamphlet as well. So it's aninteresting mix of people who
are said to have participated inthe Boston Tea Party, but I see

(54:46):
them as a relativelyrepresentative cross section of
the kinds of people that wereobjecting to the Acts of
Parliament in the years leadingup to 1773 historians have long
puzzled over why some of the teadestroyers dressed as Mohawk.
Warriors, though we do haveseveral theories. Boston is a
town of 16,000 people. You knewhow your cousin walked or how

(55:07):
his neighbor carried himself,even if everybody had smudged
faces and it was a little bitdark, I think everybody knew who
all of these people were, butthe disguise was meant to send a
message. You'd better not tellthat is the message that's being
put out. But still, that doesn'tquite answer the question. Why
Native Americans? We know thatthere was a history of people in
Boston dressing up as priests orwomen or black people or Native

(55:29):
Americans in order to protest.That might be one reason.
Another reason is that there wasa sort of fascination with
Native American iconography.There was a Native American that
was part of the colony ofMassachusetts's seal America was
often represented as a NativeAmerican man or woman in
political cartoons. AndBostonians had actual respect
for real Mohawks as being fierceand independent and brave. And

(55:53):
so in a weird way, adopting amohawk identity or a Native
American identity, had all thesereally interesting meanings of
we are showing our independence.We are showing our Americanness,
and therefore our separationfrom Europe. But at the same
time, it's also a way of saying,hey, but you know that these
aren't real Native Americans.You understand that these are

(56:13):
white people underneath a whiteAmerican was supposed to be the
best of both worlds, morecivilized in their minds than
Native Americans, but also notas corrupt as Europeans, a sort
of happy medium in between thatcould draw upon the civilizing
influences of Europe, but alsoretain the independence from
Europe that colonists halfadmired in the indigenous people

(56:35):
of America.

Jim Ambuske (56:36):
With the tea destroyed, the men vanished into
the night, some of them intohistory in the leaves, washed
out into the sea.

James Fichter (56:45):
But they don't get the tea on the fourth
vessel, and we've completelymissed this fourth vessel. The
William is wrecked in a stormoff Cape Cod in early December,
and the consignees send out ason to go and rescue this cargo.
So he rides out on horsebackfrom Boston out to Wellfleet,
assesses the situation, hiressome men to rescue the cargo,

(57:06):
which is extremely dangerouswork to get cargo from rocks in
stormy weather and to bring iton shore.

Jim Ambuske (57:12):
Here's Mary Beth Norton.

Mary Beth Norton (57:14):
There were lots of things bound for Boston
on that ship, including streetlamps that they've been waiting
for. There were 50 some oddchests of tea on it. Most of
them were undamaged, but threeof them were sufficiently
damaged that they kept them onthe cape. They just couldn't
send those up to Boston easily.There was this big debate then

(57:37):
on the Cape, what to do aboutthis tea? Some people want to
buy it and drink it because,hey, after all, it hasn't paid
any duty because it's ashipwreck on our shores. Other
people said no. Now it's fromthe East India Company, so we
can't buy it at all. We can'tpay any attention to it. Two
local grandees took over two ofthe cases. One of the chests was

(57:59):
used to pay the guys whounloaded the ship, they then got
attacked by other people forhaving earned this tea, and
indeed, we have stories of thembeing forced to apologize in the
Truro town meeting for havingdone this, and others having the
tea that was in their housestaken away by people who came

(58:20):
and raided the houses lookingfor this tea.

Jim Ambuske (58:22):
The consignee sent the remaining rescue chests to
Boston for safe keeping. Theyrestored in Castle William in
the harbor, then home to the64th Regiment of Foot and the
Royal Navy vessels anchoredaround it. The Sons of Liberty
dispatched Paul Revere to carrythe news of what Bostonians had

(58:42):
done to New York. He left onDecember 17 and reached New York
City five days later. The NewYork ship, the Nancy, was still
nowhere to be found. He carriedthe news further south to
Philadelphia, where the Pollywas expected at any moment.
Revere's mission was as muchabout constructing a narrative
as it was deliveringinformation.

James Fichter (59:05):
The Boston Tea Party was both excessive and
inadequate. It was seen by manypatriots as an overreach and
created much division, evenamongst patriots, as well as
between other colonists. Butalso, it didn't get all the tea,
and Boston patriots uniquely hadto destroy all the tea, because
Boston cargos were the mostlikely ones to be used, to have

(59:25):
that last cargo of teasurviving, and to have it
threatening a future landing,could threaten to undermine the
Boston patriot movement. Thismeans that if the tea gets
landed and sold, it would makeit look like everything Boston
Patriots are saying iscompletely false that they don't
speak for the public, becausethe public buys duties India
Company tea. So this tea has tobe kept out as a result lost and

(59:49):
patriots both downplay talk ofthis fourth cargo and obscure it
in the letter that Paul Reveretakes to Philadelphia, they let
Philadelphians get theimpression that the tea was.
Destroyed even when it wasn't.And other newspapers will report
news that it was destroyed eventhough it survived, because news
that it survived could be verycorrosive to any commonality,
any common cause, between thecolonies.

Jim Ambuske (01:00:11):
The Polly arrived on Christmas Day. Over a month
earlier, a group ofPhiladelphians calling
themselves the committee fortarring and feathering published
a broadside warning all DelawareRiver pilots that if one of
their number chose to help thepoly navigate up the river to
the city's docks, "then tar andfeathers will be his portion."

(01:00:31):
To the Polly's captain, Tteymenaced

Committee (01:00:34):
“You are sent out on a diabolical Service; and if you
are so foolish and obstinate asto compleat your Voyage; by
bringing your Ship to Anchor inthis Port; you may run such a
Gauntlet, as will induce you, inyour last Moments, most heartily

(01:00:56):
to curse those who have made youthe Dupe of their Avarice and
Ambition. What think youCaptain, of a Halter around your
Neck—ten Gallons of liquid Tardecanted on your Pate—with the
Feathers of a dozen wild Geeselaid over that to enliven your

(01:01:18):
Appearance? Only think seriouslyof this—and fly to the Place
from whence you came—fly withoutHesitation—without the Formality
of a Protest—and above all,Captain Ayres let us advise you
to fly without the wild GeeseFeathers.”

Jim Ambuske (01:01:39):
Whether the committee would have gone
through with their threats, wecannot know. Knowledge of the
violence in Boston inspiredPhiladelphians to make a
different choice.

Mary Beth Norton (01:01:48):
In Philadelphia, they knew what had
happened, and so they said, Ah,the best thing to do is not let
the tea ship get here at all. Sothey intercepted the tea ship as
it came up the river, andpersuaded, shall we say the
captain that it would be wise toturn around and leave.

James Fichter (01:02:04):
That ship arrived at the mouth of the Delaware
River. The ship captainexitedhis vessel, went up to the
city of Philadelphia. There, hewas greeted with an 8000 person
crowd opposing the tea wasconvinced by the consignees in
Philadelphia that it wasn'tgoing to work to land the tea
and therefore they said to him,Look, we'll help you resupply
your ship. You keep it out ofthe customs area, which is easy

(01:02:27):
to do in Philadelphia, becausethere's a very long river
separating the city from theocean, and then you go back to
England. No one will hurt you.You'll be left alone, and
everyone will be happy.

Jim Ambuske (01:02:37):
With his ship resupplied, Captain Ayers and
the Polly sailed back down theDelaware River and headed back
across the sea. Ayers may haveescaped histar and feathering,
but British America would notescape the consequences of the
destruction of the tea inBoston.

James Fichter (01:02:55):
The Boston Tea Party was widely disliked by
many after it happened becauseof its violence. It was
extremely divisive. Many peoplefelt the Tea Party was an
excessive act. It was anoverreach. Many other colonists
supported the Boston Tea Partyand thought it was wonderful.
The result of the Boston TeaParty was colonial division, not

(01:03:17):
just among colonists, but withinthe patriot movement itself and
within the Patriot leadershipabout what had happened, it
seemed to many like it was anoverreach, and they didn't need
to be so destructive andviolent. Even John Adams is
often quoted for talking aboutit was this sublime event and
such a wonderful epoch inhistory. But after that, he goes
on to say, I really hope thisdoesn't happen again, though,

(01:03:40):
because when you have a crowdthis big and it gathers to do
something like this, it's reallyeasy next time for somebody to
get killed, and we're just luckythat no one got killed this
time. That is the real fear,that even though the kind of
crowd you need to gather to getthis done, things can go south
really fast, and things dothat's kind of how revolutions

(01:04:01):
happen.

Jim Ambuske (01:04:07):
The Nancy limped into New York on April 19, 1774.
Captain Benjamin Lockyer'svessel was a broken ship, an apt
metaphor for all that was soonto come. The tea ship left
Antigua in late February,heading for NewYork, months
after it was already supposed tobe there. It had been a rough

(01:04:30):
crossing, and now they sailedinto another storm. As the winds
and the currents carried theNancy north along the mainland,
another gale sprung up,thrashing the ship. She lost an
anchor. Her mizzen mast snappedand fell overboard. Her top mast
sprung loose and the ship was"thrown on her beam ends still."

(01:04:53):
Captain Lockyer was determinedto see his cargo of 698 chests
of tea safely delivered to NewYork. York, hoping that
temperatures had cooled and thetea could be landed, but the
choice had already been made forhim. When the Nancy dropped its
remaining anchor off Sandy Hookoutside the customs area,

(01:05:15):
Lockyer received a letter fromthe tea's consignees dated
December 27 apprising him of thefate of the tea ships in Boston,
Philadelphi and Charleston. Theybelieved the tea should not be
landed and that he should sailfor home. That advice was now
months old. Lockyer requested ariver pilot to bring him into

(01:05:38):
the city to lodge a protest andinquire about landing the tea, a
request the pilot initiallyrefused until he gained
permission from the vigilancecommittee. Once on shore,
Lockyer learned he would not belanding his tea. Before Boston,
the city's Sons of Liberty,merchants, consignees, members

(01:06:00):
of the Provincial Council andthe colony's new governor,
William Tryon, all disagreed onwhat to do when the Nancy
arrived.But after Boston, astrange unity. Most all agreed
it was in the interest ofeveryone to send the tea back to
England, as they had promised todo. New Yorkers repaired and
resupplied the Nancy for hervoyage home. The ship gained a

(01:06:24):
passenger in the process.Captain Chambers and his vessel
arrived in New York on April 21.Despite Chambers' early denials,
he finally admitted to theVigilance Committee that he had
on board 18 chests of tea. Thenext night, a mob appeared,
boarded the ship, broke open thechest and dumped the tea into

(01:06:46):
the river. When the Nancy sailedfor England, Soon thereafter,
Chambers was aboard, as theNancy headed east to bring its
rough crossing, finally to anend, other ships were heading
west from London. They bore newsof Parliament's reaction to
Boston's crimes. New Acts ofParliament meant to be coercive,

(01:07:10):
new Acts of Parliament BritishAmericans would find
intolerable.
Thanks for listening to WorldsTurned Upside Down. Worlds is a
production of our two studios,part of the Roy Rosenzweig
center for history and new mediaat George Mason University. I'm

(01:07:33):
your host. Dr. Jim Ambuske. Thisepisode is made possible with
support from a 2024 grant fromthe National Endowment for the
Humanities. Head tor2studios.org, where you'll find
a complete transcript of today'sepisode and suggestions for
further reading. Worlds isresearched and written by me,
with additional research writingand script editing by Jeanette

(01:07:55):
Patrick. Jeanette Patrick and Iare the executive producers.
Grace Mallon is our Britishcorrespondent. Our lead audio
editor for this episode is CurtDahl of cdSquared. Annabelle
Spencer is ourGraduateAssistant. Special
thanks to Bridget Bukovic andHannah Knox Tucker. Our thanks
to Benjamin Carp, James Fichter,Deepthi Murali and Mary Beth

(01:08:18):
Norton for sharing theirexpertise with us in this
episode. Thanks also to ourvoice actors, Craig Gallagher,
Margaret Hughes, Grace Mallon,Norman Roger Annabelle Spencer
and John Turner. Subscribe toWorlds on your favorite podcast
app. Thanks, and we'll see younext time you.