"Tea anyone" Topic

On this date in 1773 American colonists dumped cargos of tea into Boston Harbor. And we still can't brew a decent cuppa.

Well, once it's been dipped in Boston Harbor…

And many Americans still believe this was a response to the imposition of the Tea Tax, rather than its reduction to the point that it was undercutting the price of smuggled tea and stopping crime from paying.

I've been to Boston, I certainly wouldn't drink anything that'd been near the Harbor water.

Supercilious – thanks for your post. Just read up on the history. I had only heard the popular version before. Very interesting.

SM, why do you have to spoil a good story with facts?

He's like that you know.

Propaganda won the revolution, not the soldiers – not even the French ones. I, for one, don't let that get in the way of a good war game, however.

Propaganda wins wargames too. Always play the army the game is named after :-)

Brits had the edge in elite infantry, but we had the better spin doctors.

"….rather than its reduction to the point that it was undercutting the price of smuggled tea and stopping crime from paying"

I would like to see the sources for that asttement.

I would argue that while tea was cheaper than before, paying the duty tax on it to get the cheaper tea was an acknowledgement that Parliament could tax the colonists without representation. Hence the Tea Party.

Not that Hancock was a smuggler. Nooooo. :-)

Anthony Aloysius? The very idea!

….rather than its reduction to the point that it was undercutting the price of smuggled tea and stopping crime from paying

I would like to see the sources for that asttement.

He was being supercilious.

Maximally.

I would argue that while tea was cheaper than before, paying the duty tax on it to get the cheaper tea was an acknowledgement that Parliament could tax the colonists without representation.

Yes, the tax was reduced to the minimum of three (old) pence per packet (about a pound weight, I think) in order to maintain the idea that Parliament had the right to levy taxes in the Colonies. There was also the issue that the HEIC needed to sell its huge backlog of tea in order to avoid bankruptcy.

I would like to see the sources for that asttement.

Here is a good place to start for background on the event:-

link

First of all the History channel is not what I call a reliable source especially since the article was unsourced. Then it didn't even support your original claim.

If you look at the Wikipedia page, you will find it also backs up what SM says, though of course the facts are open to interpretation. link

One man's tea smuggler is another man's freedom fighter.

Try link

Sometimes it is about the spin. By 1773 relations between the British government and the North American colonies had deteriorated to the point where any effort by London to impose trade restrictions and taxes was going to cause problems, even when those restrictions and taxes were less onerous than ones previously imposed.

Smuggling is an honest profession.

Quite a few British merchants smuggled. Note the War of Jenkins Ear: a war fought about smuggling slaves to Spanish America. Spanish said Jenkins was a smuggler. In British eyes he was an honest merchant.

And then, the Opium Wars. The chaps selling opium in China were perceived as smugglers of dangerous drugs. Guess who thought they were honest merchants? And went to war about it?

What Americans often don't know is that the same taxation usually applied to home merchants as well. Many British merchants also armed their ships to reply RA intrusion into their business.

HEIC had a lot of important backers. It was perhaps one of the original "too big to fail" businesses.

@historygamers, all of the taxation bills that were imposed by parliament that lead up to the Revolutionary war were exclusive to the colonies.

Yes. The tax on tea in Britain was far higher.

Not germane to this thread,perhaps(what is this thread about,anyway?),but the target was tea only. When it was discovered that a padlock was broken to get at the tea,they paid for a replacement.