Tea Crisis, 1773

  The Second Boston Tea Party: Part I Detail of Philip Dawe's mezzotint "The Bostonians Paying the Excise-Man or Tarring and Feathering" (October 1774). This corner detail is the first known depiction of the destruction of tea in Boston Harbor. Who's to say if Dawe is depicting the first or the second, or both? On March 7, 1774 a cargo of tea was destroyed in Boston Harbor. The event—now known as the Second Boston Tea Party—is often relegated to no more than a footnote in American history (if even that). Even Joseph Cummins' book "Ten Tea Parties: Patriotic Protests that History Forgot" gives it no more than two paragraphs in the appendix. [1] While the Second Boston Tea Party certainly lacked the scale and notoriety of its namesake on December 16, 1773, it was nonetheless an important moment in the increasing tensions between Great Britain and the American Colonies. I'd like to offer here what I believe to be the most thorough telling of the story ...

Last time I introduced the memorial the East India Company submitted to the Earl of Dartmouth, Secretary of State for American Affairs, following the destruction of their tea in Boston Harbor. Today I'd like to offer a transcription of it. Then we can examine what it reveals for us about the Boston Tea Party. A grainy copy of the last two pages of the memorial and invoice. This is from Benjamin Labaree's "Catalyst for Revolution: the Boston Tea Party 1773" (Massachusetts Bicentennial Commission Publication, 1973. It is available here on the Internet Archive.) "Copy of Memorial of the East India Company to the Earl of Dartmouth. Dated Febr'y 16th 1774. In Mr. Michell's letter to Mr. Pownall of 16th Febr'y 1774. To the Right Honorable The Earl of Dartmouth His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for American Affairs. The humble Memorial of the Court of Directors for the Affairs of the United Company of Merchants of England trading to the East I...

Let's start off with a look at one of the most important documents related to the Boston Tea Party. After receiving news of the destruction of their cargo of tea in Boston Harbor, the directors of the East India Company asked the Earl of Dartmouth, Secretary of State for American Affairs, to petition King George III to pursue measures for securing compensation for the lost cargos. The memorial they submitted was dated February 16, 1774—two months after the destruction of the tea—and contained a detailed invoice of the lost cargos. This invoice provides crucial data for understanding what took place. A handwritten contemporary copy of the memorial survives and is held by the Parliamentary Archives in London. The reference is: "Parliamentary Archives, London, HL/PO/JO/10/7/408. Memorial of the East India Company to the Earl of Dartmouth, 16 February 1774." I wish I could share the image of the memorial, but I do not have permission to do so. A very grainy version of it can ...