As we noted yesterday, there were all kinds of abuses of tea going on in the Colonies. It (mostly) started with the Boston Tea Party, but also spread to other areas as well. The Boston Tea Party was notable for being a literal destruction of unsold tea, removing it from the market.

Other tea parties and actions largely involved tea that had already been purchased in the Colonies, either in the form of boycotts (as in the Edenton Tea Party), or in the form of destroying tea from one’s own pantry as a form of protest, as was the case in today’s episode. As noted during yesterday’s show, the Thirteen Colonies didn’t have enough economic clout to make a meaningful impact; they were meant to be symbolic in nature. But the British took these things seriously enough that their actions demonstrated they were looking for a fight rather than trying to avoid it.