The Trouble with Tea by Jane T Merritt

Author:Jane T Merritt [Merritt, Jane T]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781421421520
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 2017-06-15T04:00:00+00:00

Source: Compiled from Great Britain, Board of Customs & Excise, Ledgers of Imports and Exports, 1696–1780, in the Public Records Office, London, reels 39–48 (also known as Customs 3). Great Britain, Public Records Office, Commissioners of Customs in America, Customs 16 America, 1768–1772, in the Public Records Office, London, reel 1, calculated slightly different figures for these regions; however, the general trends in importation of tea were the same.

Note: Figures for 1773 include the EIC tea that was turned away or destroyed in December.

During 1775 and 1776, as fighting broke out in Massachusetts, newly established governing bodies carefully threaded their way between the economic needs of merchant communities (who had products to sell) and the demands of a consuming public. The Second Continental Congress, burdened with the implementation of nonexportation, had great difficulty enforcing commercial regulation as merchants called for open American ports and free trade. Some members of Congress fell back on the familiar rhetoric of restraint born of the luxury debates and earlier attempts at nonimportation. During the summer of 1775, for instance, Benjamin Franklin urged Americans to remain vigilant against importing foreign “Luxuries and Superfluities.” He believed that the extensive boycotts had been beneficial to America’s wartime economy: “By the present Stoppage of our Trade we save between four and five Millions per annum which will do something towards the Expense of the War.”40 However, Congress also began to take into account local economies and habits of consumption as they made commercial decisions for the new nation. In the fall of 1775, John Adams, recently appointed to a committee investigating complaints from New York and Philadelphia merchants about restrictions on the sale of tea inventories, wondered whether an America at war could survive without trade. Although he criticized mercantile self-interest as “mercenary and avaricious,” he was a practical man and worried that commercial embargos would exacerbate unemployment or even food scarcity. “Shall We be able to maintain the War, wholly without Trade?” he asked his fellow delegates. “Can We support the Credit of our Currency, without it?”41

Merchants thought not. Early the next year they pressured Congress, Adams, and his committee to overturn policies restricting the sale and use of tea, indicating a subtle shift in the public’s attitude about tea and its place in America’s commercial markets.42 In February some provincial governments sought direction from Congress about the sale and use of tea. Uncertain about its course of action, the legislative body instructed all local committees of inspection and observation “not to proceed in passing any censures on the venders, and users of Tea, till farther orders from Congress.”43 Congress finally lifted the ban on exportations and opened American ports to trade in April 1776. Extremely unpopular, nonexportation had cut off crucial provisions trade with the West Indies, along with exportation to Great Britain. Yet America at war needed materials as well as European allies, and it could best find both through commercial treaties. Congress continued to ban all goods “of the growth, production, or manufacture of,

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