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It was difficult to make much of an argument against the government’s efforts to undercut smugglers, but the American Patriots managed to do just that. They had all summer to work on it, writing articles against the illegal monopoly “given that great chartered company,” and to write poems about the “pestilential herb . . . infused with bane by North’s insidious hand.” The East India Company was now pictured as the merciless exploiter of India, out to seek new worlds to conquer. But, “Thank God,” said John Dickinson, “we are not sepoys, nor Marattas, but British subjects,” and he urged the night watchman to call out in their rounds, “Beware of the East India Company!” But this time, Americans would have been alarmed enough on their own, even without Patriot rhetoric. Most men realized that if the East India Company were allowed to take this approach to colonial commerce, other British companies might well adopt a similar method. Before long, colonial trade would all but disappear and Americans would be reduced to fur trappers and lumberjacks. John Hancock later declared that if the Tea Act had been permitted to go into effect, “we soon should have found our trade in the hands of foreigners,” – significantly, he meant Englishmen – “ . . . nor would it have been strange if, in a few years, a company in London should have purchased an exclusive right of trading in America.”
East India Company directors made matters still worse. Rather than sell their tea on the open market, they chose a group of hand-picked merchants in each port to receive the tea and sell it to colonial dealers; what’s more, they selected safe merchants only, meaning those who were known to have been on the British side in the past, or at least those who were untainted by association with the Sons of Liberty. Once again, Thomas Hutchinson in Massachusetts stumbled badly; while his brother-in-law had already been one of the Stamp officials, his own two sons were now named official tea merchants for the East India Company. The governor, moreover, swore publicly – and falsely – that he had had no hand in this deal. But everywhere along the Atlantic coast, such appointments were met by the now-familiar reaction – as soon as the appointees became known, delegations of Sons of Liberty called upon them, persuading them to resign. Memories of the woes of the Stamp Act officials usually produced eager and immediate compliance.
By September the East India Company was ready to ship the first 500,000 pounds of tea to its select group of merchants in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston, and in each of these ports the Sons of Liberty prepared themselves for the proper reception. When the first ship reached Boston in late November, an impressive assembly of Sons appeared at the docks and prevented the captain from unloading his cargo; meanwhile two more ships arrived, and all three captains finally agreed to leave without unloading the tea. But Governor Hutchinson, always the righteous servant of the people, was determined not to let the matter slide. He refused to grant clearance papers to the ships, whose captains had no choice but to stay where they were, unable to do anything but wait helplessly for the catastrophe to fall over them.
Hutchinson’s stubbornness was an open invitation to the Sons of Liberty, who never needed to be invited twice. Still smarting from the criticism that “Bostonians were better at resolving what to do than doing what they resolved,” the Sons set out to prove otherwise. On the evening of December 16, Samuel Adams summoned a mass meeting at the Old South Meeting House and then sent a message to Governor Hutchinson, demanding that he order the ships to take the tea back to England. The governor, of course, refused, and Adams declared dramatically that “this meeting can do nothing further to save the country.” Within minutes, a mob, thinly disguised as Mohawk Indians and black-faced dock workers, rushed down to the waterfront, chanting “Boston harbor a teapot tonight!” and John Hancock called above the tumult, “Let every man do what is right in his own eyes!” While hundreds of people cheered from the dockside, the mob boarded the ships and flung 342 chests of tea into Boston Bay – altogether 45 tons, valued in excess of £ 10,000. Franklin’s winds had just turned into a full-fledged hurricane.
The news of Boston’s action swept through the colonies like a wildfire, and everywhere the local Sons of Liberty vowed to stand with their colleagues in Massachusetts, whatever the consequences, and they backed it up with action. Only a few days later, on December 25, another ship reached Philadelphia with 697 chests of tea, but a crowd of several thousand people forced her to turn back. On April 22, 1774, a New York mob boarded another East India Company ship and followed Boston’s example by destroying her entire cargo; similar incidents occurred at Annapolis, Maryland and other ports throughout the year. Only Charlestonians took a more peaceful approach; they allowed the tea to be landed, but then kept it locked up under guard for more than three years.
Throughout the colonies, Tories outraged, and many of those who had previously been undecided no longer were. Trying to calm their fears and outrage, the Patriots did their best to put a light-hearted face on the event; despite the fact that more than £ 10,000 in private property had been destroyed, Sons of Liberty called it a party. It was Sam Adams at his best; first had come the harrowing phrase “the Boston Massacre,” and now there was the cozy “Boston Tea Party.” No one was fooled, especially not Thomas Hutchinson; no matter what the label, the governor regarded the entire affair as just one more riot.
