It was not
altogether
without signi-
ficance that one of the leading men to urge this view was
Dr.
ficance that one of the leading men to urge this view was
Dr.
Arthur Schlesinger - Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution
hathitrust.
org/access_use#pd-google
? COLONIAL PROSPERITY
271
Governor Tryon, of New York, in a letter to the home
government made reference to the animated discussion over
the question; and added:
If the Tea comes free of every duty, I understand it is then to
be considered as a Monopoly of the East India Company in
America; a monopoly of dangerous tendency, it is said, to
American liberties . . . So that let the Tea appear free or not
free of Duty those who carry on the illicit Trade will raise
objections, if possible, to its being brought on shore and sold. 1
Tryon's analysis of the situation is confirmed by the tone
of newspaper discussion during the weeks of uncertainty.
Even if the tea bears no duty, wrote a New Yorker to his
friend in Philadelphia, " would not the opening of an East-
India House in America encourage all the great Companies
in Great Britain to do the same? If so, have we a single
chance of being any Thing but Hewers of Wood and Draw-
ers of Waters to them? The East Indians are a proof of
this. " * In like spirit, "A Mechanic" declared scornfully
that it made no difference whether the tea was dutied or
not. "Is it not a gross and daring insult, to pilfer the
trade from the Americans, and lodge it in the hands of the
East India Company? " he queried. "It will first most
sensibly affect the Merchants; but it will also very materially
affect . . . every Member of the Community. " *
In the vigorous words of "A Citizen," " Whether the duty
on tea is taken off or not, the East India Company's scheme
has too dangerous an aspect for us to permit an experiment
to be made of it. " In the same letter he said:
The scheme appears too big with mischievous consequences
1 N. Y. Col. Docs. , vol. viii, p. 400.
'Pa. Chron. , Nov. 15, 1773.
*Pa. Gasette, Dec. 8, 1773.
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? 272 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
and dangers to America, [even if we consider it only] . . . as it
may create a monopoly; or, as it may introduce a monster, too
powerful for us to control, or contend with, and too rapacious
and destructive, to be trusted, or even seen without horror, that
may be able to devour every branch of our commerce, drain
us of all our property and substance, and wantonly leave us to
perish by thousands . . -1
All ambiguity as to the true meaning of the statute was
removed by the lucid pen of John Dickinson and others and
finally by a reported opinion of His Majesty's attorney and
solicitor general. It was shown, by careful analysis of the
act, that the East India Company were merely exempted
from the payment of all duties and customs chargeable in
England and that the American import duty remained as
before. 2 \? ven after this time, the New Yorkers were afraid
that Parliament might heed the American protest against
taxation and proceed to repeal the threepenny duty without
rescinding the monopoly rights granted to the East India
Company? / In a remarkable letter written more than two
months after the Boston Tea Party, the New York Commit-
tee of Correspondence asserted frankly:
Should the Revenue Act be repealed this Session of Parliament,
as the East India Company by the Act passed the last Session
have liberty to export their own Tea, which is an advantage
they never had before and which their distress will certainly
induce them to embrace, we consider such an event as dan-
gerous to our Commerce, as the execution of the Revenue Act
would be to our Liberties. For as no Merchant who is ac-
quainted with the certain opperation of a Monopoly on that
1 N. Y. Journal, Nov. 4, 1773.
1 "Y. Z. " (Dickinson) in Pa. Journal, Nov. 3, 1773, also in Dickinson's
Writings (Ford, P. L. , ed. ), vol. i, pp. 457-458; '"Cato" and "A Trades-
man" in N. Y. Gasetteer, Nov. 4, 18, 1773; "A Citizen" in N. Y. Journal,
Nov. 4, 1773; letter in Pa. Journal, Nov. to, 1773.
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? COLONIAL PROSPERITY
273
or this side the Water will send out or order Tea to America
when those who have it at first hand send to the same market,
the Company will have the whole supply in their hands. Hence
it will necessarily follow that we shall ultimately be at their
Mercy to extort from us what price they please for their Tea.
And when they find their success in this Article, they will
obtain liberty to export their Spices, Silk etc. . . . And there-
fore we have had it long in contemplation to endeavor to get
an Agreement signed not to purchase any English tea till so
much of the Act passed the last session of Parliament enabling
the Company to ship their Tea to America be repealed. Noth-
ing short of this will prevent its being sent on their account. 1
In view of the subordinate place which the argument of
violated rights held in the minds of the propagandists. _pro-
"'"gt " |a/ation without representation" were made
for rhetorical effect. 2 This may be shown by a
few examples. In a letter written by a committee of the
Massachusetts Assembly after the Boston Tea Party, the
new act was characterized as "introductive of monopolies
which, besides the train of evils that attend them in a com-
mercial view, are forever dangerous to public liberty," also
as "pregnant with new grievances, paving the way to
further impositions, and in its consequences threatening
the final destruction of liberties. " * "A Consistent Patriot"
1 Letter to Boston Committee of Correspondence, Feb. 28, 1774; Bos.
Com. Cor. Mss. , vol. ix, pp. 742-746. The letter added that the committee
would "feel the pulse" of the Philadelphia Committee and the other
committees to the southward and requested the Boston Committee to
urge the matter on the committees at Rhode Island, Philadelphia and
Charleston, S. C. I have found no replies to the New York proposal.
* The smugglers and dissatisfied merchants "made a notable stalking
horse of the word LIBERTY," declared. "A Tradesman of Philadel-
phia," "and many well meaning persons were duped by the specious
colouring of their sinister zeal. " Pa. Journal, Aug. 17, 1774.
? Letter of Dec. 21, 1773, to Arthur Lee, signed by Thomas Cushing,
Samuel Adams, John Hancock and William Phillips; 4 M. H. S. Colls. ,
vol. iv, p. 377.
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? 274
THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
stigmatized the act as " a plan not only destructive to trade,
in which we are all so deeply interested but . . . designed
to promote and encrease a revenue extorted from us against
our consent. " * The new statute, declared "Causidicus,"
was a case of
taxation without consent and monopoly of trade establishing
itself together. . . . Let the trade be monopolized in particular
hands or companies, and the privileges of these companies lye
totally at the mercy of a British ministry and how soon will
that ministry command all the power and property of the
empire? 2
Even the members of the First Continental Congress treated
the matter from an unchanged viewpoint when they declared,
on October 21, 1774, in their Memorial to the Inhabitants of
the British Colonies that "Administration . . . entered into
a monopolizing combination with the East India Company,
to send to this Continent vast quantities of Tea, an article
on which a Duty was laid. . . . " *
Protests against the tea act as a violation of a theoretical
right caused a tea commissioner at Boston to remark skep-
tically:
But while there is such a vast quantity [of tea] imported every
Year, by so considerable a number of persons who all pay the
duty thereof on its arrival, I do not see why every importer,
nay every consumer thereof, do not as much contribute to en-
force the Tea act as the India Company themselves, or the
persons to whom they may think proper to consign their Tea
for sale. 4
1 Mass. Spy, Oct. 14, 1773.
1 Ibid. , Nov. 4 773. Vide also "Joshua, the son of Nun," ibid. , Oct.
14, 1773, and "i^aevola" in Pa. Chron. , Oct. 11, 1773.
1 Journals of the Continental Congress (L. C. edn. ), vol. i, p. 98.
4 Drake, op. cit. , pp. 261-262.
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? COLONIAL PROSPERITY 275
The people of New York and Philadelphia might, with
clearer conscience, discuss the tea tax as an invasion of
American liberties; but, as " Z " pointed out, all Americans
were guilty of a glaring inconsistency in denouncing that
trifling duty whilst silently passing over "the Articles of
Sugar, Molasses, and Wine, from which more than three
quarter parts of the American Revenue has and always will
arise, and when the Acts of Parliament imposing Duties on
these Articles stand on the same Footing as that respecting
Tea and the Moneys collected from them are applied to the
same Purposes. " *
Of the other arguments used to stir up opposition, the
most interesting was the attempt to discredit the present
undertaking of the East India Company by reason of the
company's notoriously bad record in India. John Dickin-
son was the most forceful exponent of this view in a broad-
side which had wide popularity in both Philadelphia and
New York. Writing under the signature of "Rusticus,"
he declared:
Their conduct in Asia, for some Years past, has given ample
Proof, how little they regard the Laws of Nations, the Rights,
Liberties, or Lives of Men. They have lev1ed War, excited
Rebellions, dethroned Princes, and sacrificed Millions for the
Sake of Gain. The Revenues of mighty Kingdoms have cen-
tered in their Coffers. And these not being sufficient to glut
their Avarice, they have, by the most unparalleled Barbarities,
Extortions and Monopolies, stripped the miserable Inhabitants
of their Property, and reduced whole Provinces to Indigence
and Ruin. Fifteen hundred Thousand, it is said, perished by
Famine in one Year, not because the Earth denied its Fruits,
but this Company and its Servants engrossed all the Necessar-
ies of Life, and set them at so high a Rate, that the Poor could
not purchase them. Thus having drained the Sources of that
1 Bos. Eve. Post, Oct. 25, 1773.
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? 276 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
immense Wealth . . . . they now, it seems, cast their Eyes on
America, as a new Theatre, whereon to exercise their Talents
of Rapine, Oppression and Cruelty. The Monopoly of Tea,
is, I dare say, but a small Part of the Plan they have formed to
strip us of our Property. But thank God, we are not Sea
Poys, nor Marrattas, but British Subjects, who are born to
Liberty, who know its Worth, and who prize it high. 1
The hvgienic objections to tea drinking, much agitated at
the time of the colonial opposition to the Townshend duties,
were again called up.
It was not altogether without signi-
ficance that one of the leading men to urge this view was
Dr. Thomas Young, a physician who spent more time in
the Boston Committee of Correspondence meditating a rigor-
ous physic for the body politic than in prescribing for private
patients. 2 Dr. Young cited Dr. Tissot, professor of physic
at Berne, and other eminent authorities, to prove that the
introduction of tea into Europe had caused the whole face
of disease to change, the prevailing disorders now being
"spasms, vapors, hypochondrias, apoplexies of the serous
kind, palsies, dropsies, rheumatisms, consumptions, low
nervous, miliary and petechial fevers. " 8 "Philo-Alethias"
1 Writings, vol. i, pp. 4S9-463. According to "A Mechanic," "The
Blast-India Company, if once they get Footing . . . , will leave no Stone
unturned to become your Masters. . . . They themselves are well versed
in Tyranny, Plunder, Oppression and Bloodshed" and so on. Pa.
Gasette, Dec. 8, 1773. A town meeting at Windham, Conn. , on June 23,
1774, denounced the East India Company, declaring: "Let the Spanish
barbarities in Mexico and the name of a Cortez be sunk in everlasting
oblivion, while such more recent, superior cruelties bear away the palm,
in the history of their rapine and cruelty. " Mass. Spy, July 7, 1774.
Vide also "A. Z. " in Pa. Journal, Oct. 20, 1773, and "Hampden" in
N. Y. Journal, Oct. 28, 1773.
2 Edes, H. H. , "Dr. Thomas Young," Col. Sac. Mass. Pubs. , vol. xi,
pp. 2-54-
*Bos. Eve. Post, Oct. 25, 1773. Vide also his article in the Mass.
Spy, Dec. 30, 1773.
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? COLONIAL PROSPERITY
277
added " the great Boerhaave " and Dr. Cullen, professor of
medicine at Edinburgh, to the authorities already noted, and
suggested seventeen possible substitutes, beneficial in their
effects, that could be brewed from plants of American
growth. 1 "An old Mechanic" recalled with a sigh
the time when Tea was not used, nor scarcely known amongst
us, and yet people seemed at that time of day to be happier,
and to enjoy more health in general than they do now. [Since
those days, a sad change has occurred] . . . we must be every
day bringing in some new-fangled thing or other from abroad,
till we are really become a luxurious people. No matter how
ugly and deformed a garment is; nor how insipid or tasteless,
or prejudicial to our healths an eatable or drinkable is, we must
have it, if it is the fashion. 2
"A Woman's" intuition suggested the fitting retort to
these alarmist writings when she remarked scornfully that
no one had heard of these "scarecrow stories" until tea
had become a political issue. 8 The little town of Hinsdale,
N. H. , undertook to expose the hypocrisy of the health
advocates in a different way. Assembled in town meeting,
the inhabitants resolved unanimously that "the Conse-
quences attending the use of New England Rum are much
more pernicious to Society than the Consequences attend-
ing the use of Tea," destroying "the Lives and Liberties
of Thousands where Tea hath or ever will One," and that
Hinsdale would banish the use of tea when those towns and
persons who declaimed so loudly against tea should abstain
from the use of rum. 4
1 Pa. Journal, Dec. 22, 1773; also Mass. Spy, Jan. 27, 1774.
* Pa. Journ. , Oct. 20, 1773.
1 Mass. Spy, Dec. 23, 1773.
4 N. H. Gasette, June 17, 1774.
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? 278 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
If the colonists stood ready to back their words with
resolute measures, it began to appear that tea would soon be
added to molasses and wine as among those essential ingre-
dients which the historian of later days, in imitation of
John Adams, might record as entering into American inde-
pendence.
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? CHAPTER VII
THE STRUGGLE WITH THE EAST INDIA COMPANY
(1773-1774)
DUE to the animated discussion, public opinion was well
fertilized by the time that news reached America that the
shipments of the East India Company were on their way
across the Atlantic. The thought of the newspaper writers
was quickly translated into action by mass meetings in the
great trading towns. These meetings spoke the crisp ver-
nacular of popular rights rather than the colorless phrases
of mercantile profit and loss; but their activities were
directed by merchants who believed that their business ex-
istence was jeopardized. In the great trading towns, the
chief object was to form combinations to prevent the land-
ing of the tea, it being well understood that the only way
to prevent consumers from partaking of the forbidden herb
was to remove the temptation. 1
The first public meeting of protest was held at Philadel-
phia, partly because the merchant-aristocracy was excep-
tionally strong there, partly because the workingmen had
recently developed a sense of their collective importance,
and, perhaps, partly also because the city had a direct
acquaintance with the unscrupulous methods of the East
India Company. It was none other than Charles Thomson
who declared afterward that " the merchants led the people
into an opposition to the importation of the East India
1 Annual Register (1774), p. 48; Galloway, Reflections, p. S8.
279
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? 280 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
Company's tea. " * The workingmen had emerged from the
struggle against the Townshend duties conscious for the
first time of their power in the community. At the first
election after the termination of the non-importation, an
article, signed by "A Brother Chip," called upon the me-
chanics and tradesmen to unite in support of one or two
mechanics as members of the assembly. 2 This plan appar-
ently met with success in this and the succeeding annual
election; and the workingmen then effected a formal secret
organization, under the significant name of "Patriotic
Society," for the purpose of voting en bloc at elections. 8
As for the local bitterness toward the East India Company,
only as recently as two years before, the first manufacture
of chinaware had been begun in Pennsylvania; immediately
the price of imported china fell five shillings in the pound,
through the reputed manipulation of that company; and
the new manufacture survived only through appeals for
popular support. 4
1 Stille, Life of Dickinson, p. 345. Vide also Reed, W. B. , Life and
Correspondence of Joseph Reed (Philadelphia, 1847), vol. i, pp. 54-55.
1The writer pointed out that the usual custom was for a coterie of
leading men to nominate a ticket of candidates without consulting the
mechanics, who formed the great mass of the population of the city,
and that "the Assembly of late Years has been chiefly composed of
Merchants, Lawyers and Millers (or Farmers) . . . " The mechanics
were held up as a class with interests which should have representation;
and it was declared "the greatest Imprudence to elect Men of enor-
mous Estates," who thus added political power to the influence of their
wealth. Pa. Gas. , Sept. 27, 1770.
* Ibid. , Aug. 19, 1772.
*" The East-India Company would avail themselves of these Foibles
of Humanity," said this appeal; "if they could demolish one noted
Manufacture, they would certainly clip twenty Years from the Growth
of American Improvements; and what they lost in the present and fol-
lowing Year by lowering their Prices, they would gain in succeeding
Years, with sufficient Interest. " Ibid. , Aug. 1, 1771.
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? STRUGGLE WITH THE EAST INDIA COMPANY 28l
Shortly after news of the new tea statute reached Phila-
delphia, the inhabitants met at the State House and adopted
a set of eight resolutions which became the model for
similar votes in other cities. The tea duty was branded as
taxation without representation, and the shipment of teas
by the East India Company was denominated an open at-
tempt to enforce the ministerial plan. Anyone in any wise
countenancing this plan was denounced as "an enemy to
his country. " Finally, a committee was appointed to wait
on the tea consignees and request them to resign. 1 With
some natural reluctance, these latter acquiesced. A second
public meeting was then held, which gave their undivided
voice against the entry of the tea ship upon its arrival at
the custom house and against the landing of the tea. 8
Sometime later, dire threats in the form of broadsides
issued forth to the Delaware pilots, asking them to prevent
the arrival of the tea ship or, if that were impossible, to
give the merchants timely notice of the event. 8 In this
posture affairs remained for the time.
At Boston the course of opposition assumed a somewhat
different aspect because of the peculiar situation of things
at that port. As the seat of the Customs Board and the
apex of the revenue system of the continent, there were,
from the outset, grave possibilities of friction and violence
at Boston, although an executive bent upon conciliation
might have avoided disaster. Governor Hutchinson was
not now such a man, notwithstanding his moderation
during non-importation times and his yielding to the pop-
ular demand in withdrawing the troops after the Massacre.
No doubt he was led to overestimate the influence of the
1 October 16, 1773. Pa. Packet, Oct. 18, 1773.
* Pa. Chron. , Jan. 3, 1774.
* Pa. Mag. , vol. xv, pp. 390-391; Mass. Gas. & Post-Boy, Dec. 13, 1773.
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? 282 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776 ,
conservative elements in the community by reason of the
tranquillity of recent years; * but he had other reasons for
firmness. Among the beneficiaries of the new law at Bos-
ton were his sons, Thomas and Elisha, and his nephew.
Richard Clarke. He himself, as his correspondence shows,
acted as business mentor to his sons; and it is probable that
he was also financially interested in the firm. At any rate,
he was in the habit of writing long letters to William Pal-
mer, the great tea merchant, inquiring about the tea market
at London, ordering shipments of the herb for the firm, and
dickering about the prices and quality of the teas sent. 2
His personal interest in the treatment of the tea, the landing
of which some people in Boston were determined to pre-
vent, could not have been without effect on the bold unyield-
ing course he adopted toward the opposition.
It is not necessary here to recount the oft-repeated tale
of the tea destruction at Boston. The story need not'be re-
told until some skilled detective of historical research has
brought to light such elusive facts as the transactions of the
radicals at the home of Edes, publisher of the Boston Ga-
aette; the whispered conferences of the more radical mer-
1 Thus, Hutchinson wrote to the Directors of the East India Com-
pany, Dec. 19, 1773: "As double the quantity <<f Tea proposed to be
ship'd by Company had been imported in a year and the duty paid
without any disturbance, I flattered myself for several months after I
first heard of the intentions to ship on account of that Company that I
should find no more difficulties than upon Teas [which] have been
ship'd by private merchants. " Mass. Arch. , vol. xxvii. pp. 597-598.
? COLONIAL PROSPERITY
271
Governor Tryon, of New York, in a letter to the home
government made reference to the animated discussion over
the question; and added:
If the Tea comes free of every duty, I understand it is then to
be considered as a Monopoly of the East India Company in
America; a monopoly of dangerous tendency, it is said, to
American liberties . . . So that let the Tea appear free or not
free of Duty those who carry on the illicit Trade will raise
objections, if possible, to its being brought on shore and sold. 1
Tryon's analysis of the situation is confirmed by the tone
of newspaper discussion during the weeks of uncertainty.
Even if the tea bears no duty, wrote a New Yorker to his
friend in Philadelphia, " would not the opening of an East-
India House in America encourage all the great Companies
in Great Britain to do the same? If so, have we a single
chance of being any Thing but Hewers of Wood and Draw-
ers of Waters to them? The East Indians are a proof of
this. " * In like spirit, "A Mechanic" declared scornfully
that it made no difference whether the tea was dutied or
not. "Is it not a gross and daring insult, to pilfer the
trade from the Americans, and lodge it in the hands of the
East India Company? " he queried. "It will first most
sensibly affect the Merchants; but it will also very materially
affect . . . every Member of the Community. " *
In the vigorous words of "A Citizen," " Whether the duty
on tea is taken off or not, the East India Company's scheme
has too dangerous an aspect for us to permit an experiment
to be made of it. " In the same letter he said:
The scheme appears too big with mischievous consequences
1 N. Y. Col. Docs. , vol. viii, p. 400.
'Pa. Chron. , Nov. 15, 1773.
*Pa. Gasette, Dec. 8, 1773.
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? 272 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
and dangers to America, [even if we consider it only] . . . as it
may create a monopoly; or, as it may introduce a monster, too
powerful for us to control, or contend with, and too rapacious
and destructive, to be trusted, or even seen without horror, that
may be able to devour every branch of our commerce, drain
us of all our property and substance, and wantonly leave us to
perish by thousands . . -1
All ambiguity as to the true meaning of the statute was
removed by the lucid pen of John Dickinson and others and
finally by a reported opinion of His Majesty's attorney and
solicitor general. It was shown, by careful analysis of the
act, that the East India Company were merely exempted
from the payment of all duties and customs chargeable in
England and that the American import duty remained as
before. 2 \? ven after this time, the New Yorkers were afraid
that Parliament might heed the American protest against
taxation and proceed to repeal the threepenny duty without
rescinding the monopoly rights granted to the East India
Company? / In a remarkable letter written more than two
months after the Boston Tea Party, the New York Commit-
tee of Correspondence asserted frankly:
Should the Revenue Act be repealed this Session of Parliament,
as the East India Company by the Act passed the last Session
have liberty to export their own Tea, which is an advantage
they never had before and which their distress will certainly
induce them to embrace, we consider such an event as dan-
gerous to our Commerce, as the execution of the Revenue Act
would be to our Liberties. For as no Merchant who is ac-
quainted with the certain opperation of a Monopoly on that
1 N. Y. Journal, Nov. 4, 1773.
1 "Y. Z. " (Dickinson) in Pa. Journal, Nov. 3, 1773, also in Dickinson's
Writings (Ford, P. L. , ed. ), vol. i, pp. 457-458; '"Cato" and "A Trades-
man" in N. Y. Gasetteer, Nov. 4, 18, 1773; "A Citizen" in N. Y. Journal,
Nov. 4, 1773; letter in Pa. Journal, Nov. to, 1773.
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? COLONIAL PROSPERITY
273
or this side the Water will send out or order Tea to America
when those who have it at first hand send to the same market,
the Company will have the whole supply in their hands. Hence
it will necessarily follow that we shall ultimately be at their
Mercy to extort from us what price they please for their Tea.
And when they find their success in this Article, they will
obtain liberty to export their Spices, Silk etc. . . . And there-
fore we have had it long in contemplation to endeavor to get
an Agreement signed not to purchase any English tea till so
much of the Act passed the last session of Parliament enabling
the Company to ship their Tea to America be repealed. Noth-
ing short of this will prevent its being sent on their account. 1
In view of the subordinate place which the argument of
violated rights held in the minds of the propagandists. _pro-
"'"gt " |a/ation without representation" were made
for rhetorical effect. 2 This may be shown by a
few examples. In a letter written by a committee of the
Massachusetts Assembly after the Boston Tea Party, the
new act was characterized as "introductive of monopolies
which, besides the train of evils that attend them in a com-
mercial view, are forever dangerous to public liberty," also
as "pregnant with new grievances, paving the way to
further impositions, and in its consequences threatening
the final destruction of liberties. " * "A Consistent Patriot"
1 Letter to Boston Committee of Correspondence, Feb. 28, 1774; Bos.
Com. Cor. Mss. , vol. ix, pp. 742-746. The letter added that the committee
would "feel the pulse" of the Philadelphia Committee and the other
committees to the southward and requested the Boston Committee to
urge the matter on the committees at Rhode Island, Philadelphia and
Charleston, S. C. I have found no replies to the New York proposal.
* The smugglers and dissatisfied merchants "made a notable stalking
horse of the word LIBERTY," declared. "A Tradesman of Philadel-
phia," "and many well meaning persons were duped by the specious
colouring of their sinister zeal. " Pa. Journal, Aug. 17, 1774.
? Letter of Dec. 21, 1773, to Arthur Lee, signed by Thomas Cushing,
Samuel Adams, John Hancock and William Phillips; 4 M. H. S. Colls. ,
vol. iv, p. 377.
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? 274
THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
stigmatized the act as " a plan not only destructive to trade,
in which we are all so deeply interested but . . . designed
to promote and encrease a revenue extorted from us against
our consent. " * The new statute, declared "Causidicus,"
was a case of
taxation without consent and monopoly of trade establishing
itself together. . . . Let the trade be monopolized in particular
hands or companies, and the privileges of these companies lye
totally at the mercy of a British ministry and how soon will
that ministry command all the power and property of the
empire? 2
Even the members of the First Continental Congress treated
the matter from an unchanged viewpoint when they declared,
on October 21, 1774, in their Memorial to the Inhabitants of
the British Colonies that "Administration . . . entered into
a monopolizing combination with the East India Company,
to send to this Continent vast quantities of Tea, an article
on which a Duty was laid. . . . " *
Protests against the tea act as a violation of a theoretical
right caused a tea commissioner at Boston to remark skep-
tically:
But while there is such a vast quantity [of tea] imported every
Year, by so considerable a number of persons who all pay the
duty thereof on its arrival, I do not see why every importer,
nay every consumer thereof, do not as much contribute to en-
force the Tea act as the India Company themselves, or the
persons to whom they may think proper to consign their Tea
for sale. 4
1 Mass. Spy, Oct. 14, 1773.
1 Ibid. , Nov. 4 773. Vide also "Joshua, the son of Nun," ibid. , Oct.
14, 1773, and "i^aevola" in Pa. Chron. , Oct. 11, 1773.
1 Journals of the Continental Congress (L. C. edn. ), vol. i, p. 98.
4 Drake, op. cit. , pp. 261-262.
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? COLONIAL PROSPERITY 275
The people of New York and Philadelphia might, with
clearer conscience, discuss the tea tax as an invasion of
American liberties; but, as " Z " pointed out, all Americans
were guilty of a glaring inconsistency in denouncing that
trifling duty whilst silently passing over "the Articles of
Sugar, Molasses, and Wine, from which more than three
quarter parts of the American Revenue has and always will
arise, and when the Acts of Parliament imposing Duties on
these Articles stand on the same Footing as that respecting
Tea and the Moneys collected from them are applied to the
same Purposes. " *
Of the other arguments used to stir up opposition, the
most interesting was the attempt to discredit the present
undertaking of the East India Company by reason of the
company's notoriously bad record in India. John Dickin-
son was the most forceful exponent of this view in a broad-
side which had wide popularity in both Philadelphia and
New York. Writing under the signature of "Rusticus,"
he declared:
Their conduct in Asia, for some Years past, has given ample
Proof, how little they regard the Laws of Nations, the Rights,
Liberties, or Lives of Men. They have lev1ed War, excited
Rebellions, dethroned Princes, and sacrificed Millions for the
Sake of Gain. The Revenues of mighty Kingdoms have cen-
tered in their Coffers. And these not being sufficient to glut
their Avarice, they have, by the most unparalleled Barbarities,
Extortions and Monopolies, stripped the miserable Inhabitants
of their Property, and reduced whole Provinces to Indigence
and Ruin. Fifteen hundred Thousand, it is said, perished by
Famine in one Year, not because the Earth denied its Fruits,
but this Company and its Servants engrossed all the Necessar-
ies of Life, and set them at so high a Rate, that the Poor could
not purchase them. Thus having drained the Sources of that
1 Bos. Eve. Post, Oct. 25, 1773.
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? 276 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
immense Wealth . . . . they now, it seems, cast their Eyes on
America, as a new Theatre, whereon to exercise their Talents
of Rapine, Oppression and Cruelty. The Monopoly of Tea,
is, I dare say, but a small Part of the Plan they have formed to
strip us of our Property. But thank God, we are not Sea
Poys, nor Marrattas, but British Subjects, who are born to
Liberty, who know its Worth, and who prize it high. 1
The hvgienic objections to tea drinking, much agitated at
the time of the colonial opposition to the Townshend duties,
were again called up.
It was not altogether without signi-
ficance that one of the leading men to urge this view was
Dr. Thomas Young, a physician who spent more time in
the Boston Committee of Correspondence meditating a rigor-
ous physic for the body politic than in prescribing for private
patients. 2 Dr. Young cited Dr. Tissot, professor of physic
at Berne, and other eminent authorities, to prove that the
introduction of tea into Europe had caused the whole face
of disease to change, the prevailing disorders now being
"spasms, vapors, hypochondrias, apoplexies of the serous
kind, palsies, dropsies, rheumatisms, consumptions, low
nervous, miliary and petechial fevers. " 8 "Philo-Alethias"
1 Writings, vol. i, pp. 4S9-463. According to "A Mechanic," "The
Blast-India Company, if once they get Footing . . . , will leave no Stone
unturned to become your Masters. . . . They themselves are well versed
in Tyranny, Plunder, Oppression and Bloodshed" and so on. Pa.
Gasette, Dec. 8, 1773. A town meeting at Windham, Conn. , on June 23,
1774, denounced the East India Company, declaring: "Let the Spanish
barbarities in Mexico and the name of a Cortez be sunk in everlasting
oblivion, while such more recent, superior cruelties bear away the palm,
in the history of their rapine and cruelty. " Mass. Spy, July 7, 1774.
Vide also "A. Z. " in Pa. Journal, Oct. 20, 1773, and "Hampden" in
N. Y. Journal, Oct. 28, 1773.
2 Edes, H. H. , "Dr. Thomas Young," Col. Sac. Mass. Pubs. , vol. xi,
pp. 2-54-
*Bos. Eve. Post, Oct. 25, 1773. Vide also his article in the Mass.
Spy, Dec. 30, 1773.
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? COLONIAL PROSPERITY
277
added " the great Boerhaave " and Dr. Cullen, professor of
medicine at Edinburgh, to the authorities already noted, and
suggested seventeen possible substitutes, beneficial in their
effects, that could be brewed from plants of American
growth. 1 "An old Mechanic" recalled with a sigh
the time when Tea was not used, nor scarcely known amongst
us, and yet people seemed at that time of day to be happier,
and to enjoy more health in general than they do now. [Since
those days, a sad change has occurred] . . . we must be every
day bringing in some new-fangled thing or other from abroad,
till we are really become a luxurious people. No matter how
ugly and deformed a garment is; nor how insipid or tasteless,
or prejudicial to our healths an eatable or drinkable is, we must
have it, if it is the fashion. 2
"A Woman's" intuition suggested the fitting retort to
these alarmist writings when she remarked scornfully that
no one had heard of these "scarecrow stories" until tea
had become a political issue. 8 The little town of Hinsdale,
N. H. , undertook to expose the hypocrisy of the health
advocates in a different way. Assembled in town meeting,
the inhabitants resolved unanimously that "the Conse-
quences attending the use of New England Rum are much
more pernicious to Society than the Consequences attend-
ing the use of Tea," destroying "the Lives and Liberties
of Thousands where Tea hath or ever will One," and that
Hinsdale would banish the use of tea when those towns and
persons who declaimed so loudly against tea should abstain
from the use of rum. 4
1 Pa. Journal, Dec. 22, 1773; also Mass. Spy, Jan. 27, 1774.
* Pa. Journ. , Oct. 20, 1773.
1 Mass. Spy, Dec. 23, 1773.
4 N. H. Gasette, June 17, 1774.
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? 278 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
If the colonists stood ready to back their words with
resolute measures, it began to appear that tea would soon be
added to molasses and wine as among those essential ingre-
dients which the historian of later days, in imitation of
John Adams, might record as entering into American inde-
pendence.
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? CHAPTER VII
THE STRUGGLE WITH THE EAST INDIA COMPANY
(1773-1774)
DUE to the animated discussion, public opinion was well
fertilized by the time that news reached America that the
shipments of the East India Company were on their way
across the Atlantic. The thought of the newspaper writers
was quickly translated into action by mass meetings in the
great trading towns. These meetings spoke the crisp ver-
nacular of popular rights rather than the colorless phrases
of mercantile profit and loss; but their activities were
directed by merchants who believed that their business ex-
istence was jeopardized. In the great trading towns, the
chief object was to form combinations to prevent the land-
ing of the tea, it being well understood that the only way
to prevent consumers from partaking of the forbidden herb
was to remove the temptation. 1
The first public meeting of protest was held at Philadel-
phia, partly because the merchant-aristocracy was excep-
tionally strong there, partly because the workingmen had
recently developed a sense of their collective importance,
and, perhaps, partly also because the city had a direct
acquaintance with the unscrupulous methods of the East
India Company. It was none other than Charles Thomson
who declared afterward that " the merchants led the people
into an opposition to the importation of the East India
1 Annual Register (1774), p. 48; Galloway, Reflections, p. S8.
279
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? 280 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
Company's tea. " * The workingmen had emerged from the
struggle against the Townshend duties conscious for the
first time of their power in the community. At the first
election after the termination of the non-importation, an
article, signed by "A Brother Chip," called upon the me-
chanics and tradesmen to unite in support of one or two
mechanics as members of the assembly. 2 This plan appar-
ently met with success in this and the succeeding annual
election; and the workingmen then effected a formal secret
organization, under the significant name of "Patriotic
Society," for the purpose of voting en bloc at elections. 8
As for the local bitterness toward the East India Company,
only as recently as two years before, the first manufacture
of chinaware had been begun in Pennsylvania; immediately
the price of imported china fell five shillings in the pound,
through the reputed manipulation of that company; and
the new manufacture survived only through appeals for
popular support. 4
1 Stille, Life of Dickinson, p. 345. Vide also Reed, W. B. , Life and
Correspondence of Joseph Reed (Philadelphia, 1847), vol. i, pp. 54-55.
1The writer pointed out that the usual custom was for a coterie of
leading men to nominate a ticket of candidates without consulting the
mechanics, who formed the great mass of the population of the city,
and that "the Assembly of late Years has been chiefly composed of
Merchants, Lawyers and Millers (or Farmers) . . . " The mechanics
were held up as a class with interests which should have representation;
and it was declared "the greatest Imprudence to elect Men of enor-
mous Estates," who thus added political power to the influence of their
wealth. Pa. Gas. , Sept. 27, 1770.
* Ibid. , Aug. 19, 1772.
*" The East-India Company would avail themselves of these Foibles
of Humanity," said this appeal; "if they could demolish one noted
Manufacture, they would certainly clip twenty Years from the Growth
of American Improvements; and what they lost in the present and fol-
lowing Year by lowering their Prices, they would gain in succeeding
Years, with sufficient Interest. " Ibid. , Aug. 1, 1771.
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? STRUGGLE WITH THE EAST INDIA COMPANY 28l
Shortly after news of the new tea statute reached Phila-
delphia, the inhabitants met at the State House and adopted
a set of eight resolutions which became the model for
similar votes in other cities. The tea duty was branded as
taxation without representation, and the shipment of teas
by the East India Company was denominated an open at-
tempt to enforce the ministerial plan. Anyone in any wise
countenancing this plan was denounced as "an enemy to
his country. " Finally, a committee was appointed to wait
on the tea consignees and request them to resign. 1 With
some natural reluctance, these latter acquiesced. A second
public meeting was then held, which gave their undivided
voice against the entry of the tea ship upon its arrival at
the custom house and against the landing of the tea. 8
Sometime later, dire threats in the form of broadsides
issued forth to the Delaware pilots, asking them to prevent
the arrival of the tea ship or, if that were impossible, to
give the merchants timely notice of the event. 8 In this
posture affairs remained for the time.
At Boston the course of opposition assumed a somewhat
different aspect because of the peculiar situation of things
at that port. As the seat of the Customs Board and the
apex of the revenue system of the continent, there were,
from the outset, grave possibilities of friction and violence
at Boston, although an executive bent upon conciliation
might have avoided disaster. Governor Hutchinson was
not now such a man, notwithstanding his moderation
during non-importation times and his yielding to the pop-
ular demand in withdrawing the troops after the Massacre.
No doubt he was led to overestimate the influence of the
1 October 16, 1773. Pa. Packet, Oct. 18, 1773.
* Pa. Chron. , Jan. 3, 1774.
* Pa. Mag. , vol. xv, pp. 390-391; Mass. Gas. & Post-Boy, Dec. 13, 1773.
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? 282 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776 ,
conservative elements in the community by reason of the
tranquillity of recent years; * but he had other reasons for
firmness. Among the beneficiaries of the new law at Bos-
ton were his sons, Thomas and Elisha, and his nephew.
Richard Clarke. He himself, as his correspondence shows,
acted as business mentor to his sons; and it is probable that
he was also financially interested in the firm. At any rate,
he was in the habit of writing long letters to William Pal-
mer, the great tea merchant, inquiring about the tea market
at London, ordering shipments of the herb for the firm, and
dickering about the prices and quality of the teas sent. 2
His personal interest in the treatment of the tea, the landing
of which some people in Boston were determined to pre-
vent, could not have been without effect on the bold unyield-
ing course he adopted toward the opposition.
It is not necessary here to recount the oft-repeated tale
of the tea destruction at Boston. The story need not'be re-
told until some skilled detective of historical research has
brought to light such elusive facts as the transactions of the
radicals at the home of Edes, publisher of the Boston Ga-
aette; the whispered conferences of the more radical mer-
1 Thus, Hutchinson wrote to the Directors of the East India Com-
pany, Dec. 19, 1773: "As double the quantity <<f Tea proposed to be
ship'd by Company had been imported in a year and the duty paid
without any disturbance, I flattered myself for several months after I
first heard of the intentions to ship on account of that Company that I
should find no more difficulties than upon Teas [which] have been
ship'd by private merchants. " Mass. Arch. , vol. xxvii. pp. 597-598.
