Protest leaders and their followers still avoided British tea, drinking smuggled Dutch tea as a sign of patriotism. In the colonies, tea was the one remaining consumer good subject to the hated Townshend duties. Rather, the act was a straightforward order of economic protectionism for a British tea firm, the East India Company, that was on the verge of bankruptcy. Parliament did not enact the Tea Act of 1773 in order to punish the colonists, assert parliamentary power, or even raise revenues. They later formed the backbone of communication among the colonies in the rebellion against the Tea Act, and eventually in the revolt against the British crown. Sometimes they provided a version of events that differed from royal interpretations, and slowly, the committees began to supplant royal governments as sources of information. These committees, which had between seven and eight thousand members in all, identified enemies of the movement and communicated the news of the day. Soon towns all over Massachusetts had formed their own committees, and many other colonies followed suit. Samuel Adams, along with Joseph Warren and James Otis, re-formed the Boston Committee of Correspondence, which functioned as a form of shadow government, to address the fear of British overreach. Some colonial protestors saw this new ability as another example of the overreach of British power. This Commission had the authority to remove the colonists, who were charged with treason, to Great Britain for trial. Colonists had attacked or burned British customs ships in the past, but after the Gaspée Affair, the British government convened a Royal Commission of Inquiry. Violence continued to break out on occasion, as in 1772, when Rhode Island colonists boarded and burned the British revenue ship Gaspée in Narragansett Bay. The Sons of Liberty issued propaganda ensuring that colonists remained aware when Parliament overreached itself. Philosopher John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government, published almost a century earlier, influenced political thought about the role of government to protect life, liberty, and property. In public houses and squares, people met and discussed politics. This was especially true in port cities like Boston and New York, where British customs agents were a daily irritant and reminder of British power. This attack provoked the British government to convene a Royal Commission of Inquiry some regarded the Commission as an example of excessive British power and control over the colonies.Įven after the partial repeal of the Townshend duties, however, suspicion of Parliament’s intentions remained high. This 1883 engraving, which appeared in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, depicts the burning of the Gaspée. They also deeply resented the East India Company’s monopoly on the sale of tea in the American colonies this resentment sprang from the knowledge that some members of Parliament had invested heavily in the company. They understood that Parliament had again asserted its right to impose taxes without representation, and they feared the Tea Act was designed to seduce them into conceding this important principle by lowering the price of tea to the point that colonists might abandon their scruples. Colonists who had joined in protest against those earlier acts renewed their efforts in 1773. The Tea Act of 1773 triggered a reaction with far more significant consequences than either the 1765 Stamp Act or the 1767 Townshend Acts.
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