In the 18th century, tea was a popular drink in America. Yet the East India Company struggled to sell their produce which prompted the British government to pass the Tea Duty Act. Dr Robin Eagles, editor of the Lords 1660-1832 project, explores the less than enthusiastic response in America…
250 years ago, tea was very much an American drink. Everyone in the colonies consumed it, even the very poor. One contemporary foreshadowing a later advertising campaign for a brand of lager remarked that the Americans were ‘probably the greatest tea drinkers in the universe’. From the point of view of the British, though, there was a problem. The tea sold in American shops and tea parlours ought to have been supplied by the East India Company. Despite that, it has been estimated that something between 75 and 90 per cent of tea consumed in America in the period may have been smuggled. ‘Dutch’ tea as it was known – in reality tea imported from any number of places, including Germany and Sweden – was able to be sold on much more cheaply. This was not least because the EIC was required to store its tea in bonded warehouses in England, paying a duty to import it, and then paying another when exporting it out to America.
By the beginning of 1773 the EIC was in financial trouble and desperately needed a boost. It had a huge stockpile of tea in its English warehouses, so approached the government to find a way of helping it shift the excess. On 2 March the Company petitioned Parliament to allow it to export its tea to America duty-free enabling it to undercut the smuggled ‘Dutch’ tea.
On 26 April a compromise scheme was presented to the Commons by Prime Minister, Lord North. He was criticized over the government’s insistence on the retention of the existing Townshend duties, which meant that the Company would still need to levy 3d. on every lb of tea. Critics argued that this would scupper the Company’s plans, but North did not believe that the Townshend duties were having that much impact and pointed out that 300,000 lb of Company tea was sold in the colonies already. Meanwhile, the scale of the smuggling problem was highlighted conveniently at the same time that North was selling his new bill to Parliament as the London Evening Post reported the seizure of a smuggler, who had been brought into Plymouth with a cargo of tea and brandy, with a reputed value of £600 (more than £75,000 in modern terms).
by Nathaniel Dance, 1773-1774. NPG
On 6 May the Commons sent the proposed bill up to the Lords for their concurrence. It was entitled rather unglamorously:
‘An Act to allow a Drawback of the Duties of Customs on the Exportation of Tea to any of His Majesty’s Colonies or Plantations in America; to increase the Deposit on Bohea Tea to be sold at the India Company’s Sales; and to empower the Commissioners of the Treasury to grant Licences to the East India Company to export Tea Duty-free.’
It received its first and second readings at once and was committed to a Committee of the Whole House to sit on the bill the next day. On 7 May the House adjourned accordingly. Having completed their deliberations, the earl of Westmorland reported the Lords’ agreement to the measure without amendment. It was passed promptly after third reading and received royal assent three days later.
The bill may have sounded innocuous but in America it prompted serious unrest. The arrival of EIC ships laden with tea proved the catalyst for several members of the ‘Sons of Liberty’ in Boston to board the vessels and throw the cargo overboard. Combined with earlier provocations, the so-called Boston Tea Party resulted in the government passing punitive measures against the colonists, including the Boston Port bill (1774), which closed the port and required the Bostonians to pay compensation. Lord North was utterly convinced that the Americans needed to be shown a firm hand. Charles James Fox, who had been dismissed from government in 1774, supported the bill but warned that any package of measures had to include repeal of the Tea Duty Act, arguing ‘A tax laid merely to maintain a right is very improper’. Edmund Burke, on the other hand, argued warmly against the Boston Port bill, emphasizing it was unjust to punish the whole city for the crimes of those involved:
‘It’s a devilish doctrine that every person is punishable where a riot is committed, even though it should be out of his power to prevent it’
Other MPs came at the problem from rather different angles. Sir George Savile, for example, the man who would later promote the Catholic Relief Bill (1778) was passionately against tea altogether. He thought the beverage injurious to health and wanted to see an end to its consumption. He also regarded the EIC as little better than a bunch of gangsters, robbing lands overseas.
Calls for repealing the Tea Duty Act were taken up by Rose Fuller, who regarded it as ‘the genuine foundation of our evils’. He also thought the subsequent government initiatives ill-thought-out and liable to make matters much worse. An expert on American affairs, in one of his 1773 speeches Fuller argued that too many young British men were wasting their time undertaking tours of Europe, when they might better acquaint themselves with life in America. [East Sussex and Brighton and Hove Record Office, SAS-RF/18/154]. He had first-hand experience of life across the Atlantic himself having married the daughter of a Jamaican plantation owner. The extent of his ‘interests’ there were indicated at the time of his death when his ‘property’ was noted to have included 290 enslaved people, jointly valued at £17,985 (Jamaican), comprising over 80 per cent of the total value of his estate.
On 19 Apr. 1774 Fuller rose in the Commons to move the repeal of the Tea Duty Act and was seconded by Richard Pennant, another Jamaican plantation-owner. Burke then gave a lengthy oration, before Fox in turn got to his feet in support of Fuller’s motion, warning of the risks of open rebellion if the government continued to pursue its current path. After the remaining speakers had had their say, the debate was brought to a close at 11.20 pm. Just 49 divided in favour of Fuller’s motion, with the government securing 182 against.
The Boston Port Act was just the first of a series of coercive measures designed by the government to bring the colonists to heel. Many MPs supported the first bill but became increasingly concerned by the subsequent measures as the government showed no sign of offering even the flimsiest of olive branches to the Americans. North, though, was convinced he was on the right track. He concluded, utterly mistakenly as it turned out, ‘they can hurt nobody but themselves’.
RDEE
Further Reading:
Cobbett, Parliamentary History, vol. XVII (1813)
Mary Beth Norton, 1774 the Long Year of Revolution (2020)
Conor Cruise O’Brien, The Great Melody: A Thematic Biography and Commented Anthology of Edmund Burke (1992)
P.D.G. Thomas, Lord North (1976)
