Boston Tea Party

December 5

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Boston Gazette (December 5, 1774).

“James Bruce of Boston … was never in Company with a Captain Lovett.”

James Bruce resorted to an advertisement in the December 5, 1774, edition of the Boston-Gazette in hopes of rehabilitating his reputation.  From London, the mariner sent a sworn statement that addressed a story about him relayed “by a Paragraph in the Boston Journal, dated 28 July, last.”  He referred to an update from a Captain Lovett published in the Massachusetts Spy on that day.  Lovett had recently arrived in Boston from Antigua, by way of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  He delivered news that the “merchants and planters” in Antigua “were in great consternation on learning about proposals to suspend trade with Britain and its Caribbean colonies in response to the Boston Port Act and other Coercive Acts.

Despite anticipating hardships, those merchants and planters supposedly supported the American cause, even to the point of intervening when an “old troubler of Boston, Capt. Bruce, was railing against this town in a large company at a principal tavern.”  According to Lovett’s account, Bruce “expatiated largely on the abuse he had suffered for bringing his blessed cargo of Tea” to Boston aboard the Eleanor, one of the ships involved in the Boston Tea Party, and “hoped the next freight he brought them would be soldiers.”  At that point, a “gentleman” confronted him, noting how ungrateful he sounded toward a town that had contributed to his livelihood for so many years, and “caught Bruce by the nose and led him out of the company, requiring him to keep his distance, as a dirty ingrate, unworthy of any gentleman’s company or countenance.”

That story from July came to Bruce’s attention in September, prompting him to compose the statement that appeared in the Boston-Gazette in December.  Whether or not the incident in the tavern in Antigua occurred, Bruce apparently realized that he “got his bread” from the people of Boston and attempted to undo the damage.  He asserted that he “was never in Company with a Captain Lovett … at a Tavern in Antigua” and “the Contents of the Paragraph” inserted in the Massachusetts Spy “in order to hurt him” were “groundless and void of Truth.”  He “never made use of any such Expressions.”  Furthermore, he claimed that he “did not think or know at the Time he took the East India Company’s Tea on Board the Ship Eleanor, that the same would have been either detrimental, or displeasing to the Town of Boston.”  Had he been more aware of the circumstances, “himself and [the] owners would not have suffered any of the said Tea to have been shipt on Board the said Ship Eleanor.”  Bruce not only backtracked from the story told by Lovett but from his involvement in the events that culminated in the Boston Tea Party.

Just as many colonizers who signed an address to Governor Thomas Hutchinson upon his departure from Massachusetts later ran advertisements apologizing for having done so and claiming that they had not fully considered the contents of that address before affixing their signatures, Bruce paid to have his account of recent events run as an advertisement.  Among the five newspapers published in Boston at the time, he most likely chose to submit it to the Boston-Gazette because of that publication’s reputation for supporting patriots and opposing Parliament, thus placing his message before the eyes of those most offended by the reports of his conduct.  In placing such an advertisement, Bruce contributed to shaping the news that readers encountered, though that did not guarantee that anyone believed his version of events or the sincerity of his regret.

September 12

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Connecticut Courant (September 12, 1774).

“A SERMON preached … after the Report arrived that People at Boston had destroyed a large Quantity of TEA.”

The September 12, 1774, edition of the Connecticut Courant carried relatively few advertisements.  News and editorials, especially concerning the imperial crisis that increasingly consumed public discourse, crowded out most of the notices that appeared the previous week.  Ebenezer Watson, the printer, however, did find space to include an advertisement for “A SERMON preached” by Israel Holly “at Suffield, Dec. 27, 1773, the next Sabbath after the Report arrived that the People at Boston had destroyed a large Quantity of TEA belonging to the East-India Company, rather than submit to Parliament Acts which they looked upon unconstitutional, tyrannical, and tending to enslave America.”  Watson proclaimed that he had “Just Published” the sermon and offered it for sale.

Even though Holly delivered the sermon eight months earlier, it was especially timely in September 1774 as colonizers received word of the Quebec Act.  Watson initially advertised the sermon in the September 6 edition, immediately below the notice for Considerations on the Measures Carrying On with Respect to the British Colonies in North-America.  He devoted most of the second and a portion of the third page to “an authentic Copy OF the ACT OF PARLIAMENT, For making more effectual Provision for the Government of the Province of QUEBEC, in NORTH-AMERICA.”  Colonizers found several aspects of that legislation troubling, including the free practice of Catholicism by the residents of the territory won from the French in the Seven Years War.  As relayed in the Connecticut Courant, the Quebec Act provided that “His Majesty’s Subject’s professing the Religion of the Church of Rome, of an in the said Province of Quebec, may have, hold and enjoy the free Exercise of the Religion of the Church of Rome … and that the Clergy of the said Church may hold, receive, and enjoy their accustomed Dues and Rights,” such as collecting tithes, “with respect to such Persons only as shall, profess the said Religion.”  Protestants in New England and elsewhere in the colonies did not appreciate those provisions.

How was the Quebec Act connected to a minister preaching in support of the Boston Tea Party?  In a review of James P. Byrd’s Sacred Scripture, Sacred War: The Bible and the American Revolution, Mark A. Noll explains that Holly’s “word of warning to New England reflected the deeply engrained anti-Catholic biblicism that had become standard in the British Empire over the course of previous decades.”  According to the minister’s line of reasoning, “[i]f New England did not repent of its own tyrannies … the expansion of British despotism could soon lead to more ‘arbitrary government’ and even ‘popery.’”[1]  The Quebec Act seemed to fulfill the prediction that Holly made in December 1773, helping to explain why the minister and the printer took the sermon to press when they did.

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[1] Mark A. Noll, “The Holy Book in a Holy War,” Reviews in American History 42, no. 2 (December 2014): 612.

April 21

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer (April 21, 1774).

“I will requit their kindness by making a bonfire of [the tea].”

The Boston Tea Party serves as the most memorable destruction of tea during the imperial crisis that eventually resulted in thirteen colonies declaring independence from Great Britain, but greater numbers of colonizers participated in bonfires of tea.  Benjamin Booth suggested that he would hold one of those bonfires if anyone in England had the audacity to designate him as the consignee of tea shipped to New York.

He made that bold declaration in an advertisement in the April 21, 1774, edition of the Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, an advertisement that he felt compelled to place after becoming the subject of vicious rumors.  “[S]ome evil minded persons, with a wicked design no doubt,” he declared, “have reported that I lately received TEA concealed in bales and other packages.”  Booth considered such accusations “trouble enough already” before learning that he had been “appointed … consignee of the tea said to be daily expected, on board the ship London,” an appointment made without his knowledge or permission.  Yet Booth wanted nothing to do with importing tea and all the trouble brewing with it.  That prompted him to make a declaration “once for all” that he “never was, not ever will be knowingly concerned in any contraband goods.”  Furthermore, if anyone had concerns about which commodities he imported and exported, he invited them to examine “the custom-house books, which are PUBLIC RECORDS” to confirm for themselves that Booth “religiously abid[ed] by this determination.”  If that still was not enough to satisfy those who suspected him of operating against the public interest, he stated that “if any person England should treat me so ill, as to consign me any more tea, while the present obstacles remain,” referring to the duties that Parliament imposed, “I will requit their kindness by making a bonfire of it.”  To emphasize the point, he proclaimed that he would do so “in the most public part of the city,” for all to witness, “and with my own hands set fire to the pile.”

Booth was not the first colonizer to resort to an advertisement to communicate his position on tea as the issue reached a boiling point.  Jeremiah Cronin previously did so in the Massachusetts Spy, having a justice of the peace attest to the veracity of his assertions.  Thomas Walley, Peter Boyer, and William Thompson did the same.  Even an associate of John Hancock ran such an advertisement on behalf of the prominent merchant in the New-York Journal even before the Boston Tea Party.  In each of these instances, advertisements provided updates and contributed to the discourse around tea.  Those notices doubled as news items, helping to keep the public informed about developments that did not appear elsewhere in colonial newspapers.

April 19

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (April 19, 1774).

“BOHEA, GREEN, and HYSON TEA.”

Not all colonizers dispensed with advertising, selling, and drinking tea as an immediate response to the Boston Tea Party, especially if the tea in question had not been subject to import duties.  In April 1774, Pott Shaw advertised “BOHEA, GREEN, and HYSON TEA, warranted of the finest Quality,” in the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal.  Shaw did not reveal when the tea arrived in the colony, by what means, or its origins, leaving those details to prospective customers to ask about, if they chose to do so, when they made their purchases.  Buying and selling this particular commodity occurred in the context of conversations about the politics of tea.

The April 19 edition of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal carried some of the same updates about possible reactions to the Boston Tea Party that appeared in the Connecticut Courant a week earlier.  Throughout the colonies, printers reprinted news from one newspaper to another.  In this instance, both newspapers carried an “Extract of a letter from London, January 24,” that originally ran in newspapers in Philadelphia.  It briefly stated, “Three men of war are ordered to be in readiness to sail for Boston, and exact payment for the TEA,” without providing additional information, including who had written the letter.  Readers had to decide for themselves whether the report was accurate or merely rumor.  Another news item, this one having arrived via New York, reported that the “intentions of the British administration, relative to the American duty on tea, are not yet fixed.”  Readers in Charleston and Hartford read both these dispatches from London.  They also encountered advertisements for tea in the same issues that carried that news.

Readers of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal also read about commemorations of events that contributed to the imperial crisis.  From Boston, they learned that “the horrid tragedy of the 5th of March,” the Boston Massacre, “was observed with the usual solemnity” on its fourth anniversary.  That article described “a portrait of that inhuman and cruel massacre” put on display and the ringing of bells throughout the city for an entire hour.  An update from New York followed, describing dinners that celebrated the “anniversary of the repeal of the STAMP-ACT.”  Abuses perpetrated by both British soldiers and Parliament received attention alongside news about tea.

For the moment, however, that did not result in merchants, shopkeepers, and others refraining from advertising and selling tea in South Carolina or Connecticut or other colonies.  The beverage was exceptionally popular, making it difficult to curtail consumption.  Eventually, colonizers did enact boycotts, but some people still devised ways to evade them, at least according to Peter Oliver’s account.  Although some entrepreneurs opted not to sell (or at least not to advertise) tea following the Boston Tea Party, it did not immediately disappear from shelves or newspaper advertisements.

March 20

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago this week?

New-York Journal (March 17, 1774).

“The SONS OF LIBERTY will meet on THURSDAY Night … till the Arrival and Departure of the TEA SHIP.”

It was a call to action.  An advertisement in the March 17, 1774, edition of the New-York Journal proclaimed, “NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, That the SONS OF LIBERTY will meet on THURSDAY Night, at 7 o’Clock, in every Week, at the House of Mr. JASPER DRAKE, till the Arrival and Departure of the TEA SHIP.”  That advertisement ran in the column next to an anonymous address “TO THE PUBLICK” that anticipated “the TEA-SHIP, which has been long expected, is near at hand.”  The address asserted, “Our sister colonies have gloriously defended the common cause of this country,” referring to the destruction of several shipments of tea in Boston the previous December and colonizers in Philadelphia had managed to prevent the Polly from landing its tea there.  In turn, the address called on colonizers in New York “to stand our ground, and as the day of tryal is now come, that we shall convince the whole American world that we are not slack and indolent, nor in the least degree unworthy, of being registered as a genuine sister province.”  It was a call to match the resolve and resistance already demonstrated in Boston and Philadelphia.

The “TEA SHIP” in these advertisements referred to the Nancy.  As James R. Fichter explains in Tea: Consumption, Politics, and Revolution, 1773-1776, the consignees of the tea aboard the Nancy “hoped to land and store this tea (but not sell it), which was initially acceptable to local Patriots.”[1]  But that was in November.  On December 1, 1773, even before the Boston Tea Party, the consignees “gave up their role in the tea and asked Governor Tryon to take over.”  The governor initially intended to land and store the tea, emboldened by support from British troops, but reconsidered that plan when Patriots in New York decided they could no longer endorse that plan and, especially, after the colony received word about the destruction of the tea in Boston.  That news encouraged Patriots in their position while convincing Tryon that “‘the Peace of Society’ and ‘good Order,’ trumped landing the tea, and the best he could hope for was an outcome like at Philadelphia (where the ship was turned around).”  The governor engineered a plan for the Nancy to land at Sandy Hook, outside New York City’s customs area, where it could be resupplied to return to Boston while evading any legal obligation to unload its cargo.  Yes, as Fichter notes, the governor “could not formally condone smuggling around His Majesty’s customs, even if it would maintain order.  So Tryon made no official announcement.”  Instead, he made sure that Patriots overheard conversations about this plan when they gathered at one of the coffeehouses in the city.

In the meantime, the Nancy continued making its way across the Atlantic, sheltering in Antiqua in February 1774 following a storm.  The ship made then its way to British mainland North America, arriving at Sandy Hook on April 18, a month after the Sons of Liberty advertised their weekly meetings at Drake’s house.  Conveniently, the governor was away from the city at the time.  Local Patriots observed the Nancy receiving supplies for its return to London, intervening only to prevent sailors who did not wish to continue on a ship further damaged in another storm from coming ashore.  The Nancy needed a crew to return to London without lingering in the waters near New York or inciting any sort of disorder that the carefully orchestrated plan had avoided so far.  As the Son of Liberty’s advertisement in the New-York Journal demonstrates, tea remained a flashpoint for resistance after the Boston Tea Party.  They achieved their goal of the “Arrival and Departure of the TEA SHIP.”

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[1] For quotations and a more extensive overview of the Nancy, see James R. Fichter, Tea: Consumption, Politics, and Revolution, 1773-1776 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2023), 88-93.

March 10

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Massachusetts Spy (March 10, 1774).

“We neither jointly nor separately had any share, interest or property, directly or indirectly in any part of the Tea that came from London in said vessel.”

Thomas Walley, Peter Boyer, and William Thompson needed to do some damage control and salvage their reputations in the wake the second Boston Tea Party.  That trio owned the Fortune, a brig that recently arrived from London. Among its cargo, the ship carried twenty-eight chests of tea “destined for some independent merchants,” according to the Massachusetts Historical Society’s overview of events.  The brig arrived in port on March 6, 1774.  J.L. Bell explains that Walley, Boyer, and Thompson worked with those merchants to request that the tea be returned, but customs officers refused.  Bostonians did not spend weeks debating what to do like they had a few months earlier.

A news item in the March 10, 1774, edition of the Massachusetts Spy reported that “His Majesty Oknookortunkogog King of the Narragansett tribe of Indians, on receiving information of the arrival of another cargo of the cursed weed Tea, immediately summoned his Council.”  Colonizers once again played Indian in their acts of resistance against imperial authority.  The imaginary leader of the Narragansetts “did advise and consent to the immediate destruction” of the tea, “after resolving that the IMPORTATION of this Herb, by ANY persons whatever, was attended with pernicious and dangerous consequences to the lives and properties of all his subjects throughout America.”  The king and council dispatched “the seizor and destroyer-general, and their deputies … to the place where this noxious herb was.”  They made their way to the Fortune on the evening of March 7, where they “emptied every chest … and effectually destroyed the whole” before they “returned to Narrangasett to make report of their doings to his Majesty.”  The Sons of Liberty and their allies maintained the ruse deployed the previous December.

Walley, Boyer, and Thompson’s advertisement appeared immediately below that description of the destruction of another cargo of tea.  They opened by rehearsing the story of “a certain WILLAIM BOWES, Brazier, on Dock-square” who “industriously propagated … a false and scandalous report, that the owners of the brig … have imported a quantity of Tea in that vessel upon their own account.”  Walley, Boyer, and Thompson suspected that Bowes might have even “invented” the story himself rather than repeating gossip he heard elsewhere.  The merchants did not trust his motives at all, claiming that Bowes “impudently asserted” that he knew all about the tea they supposedly imported from London and told the story “with a malignant design … to injure their reputation, and expose them to public resentment.”  As a result, they found it necessary to run an advertisement “in vindication of themselves from the vile and groundless aspersion of that impertinent medler in other men’s matters.”  Although they had tried to defuse the situation by assisting merchants who shipped cargo on their vessel in receiving permission to return the tea to London, they had not been aware in advance that the Fortune carried tea.  They wished to make that clear.

To that end they published a “deposition” which explicitly stated, “WE the subscribers, owners of the brig Fortune, do solemnly declare that we neither jointly nor separately had any share, interest or property, directly or indirectly in any part of the Tea that came from London in said vessel.”  Just as Jeremiah Cronin had done when facing allegations that he acted against the interests of the patriots, Walley, Boyer, and Thompson enlisted the aid of a justice of the peace to lend credibility to their explanation of what occurred.  Edmund Quincy asserted that the merchants “personally appeared and made oath to the truth of the above declaration.”  As was often the case in early American newspapers, the section devoted to news did not contain all the information about current events.  Instead, readers garnered valuable information from an advertisement as well.

March 8

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Connecticut Courant (March 8, 1774).

“Best Bohea TEA, Such as Fishes never drink!!”

Nearly three months after the destruction of tea now known as the Boston Tea Party, William Beadle of Wethersfield, Connecticut, published an advertisement that alluded to the event.  “Best Bohea TEA, Such as Fishes never drink!!” he proclaimed in a notice in the March 8, 1774, edition of the Connecticut Courant.  Two manicules, one at each end, directed readers to the phrase “Such as Fishes never drink!!”  The double exclamation points gave the comment even more exuberance, especially considering that exclamation points rarely appeared in eighteenth-century newspaper notices.  Beadle’s advertisement certainly differed from those placed by merchants and shopkeepers who assured prospective customers and the public that they did not stock tea and, by extension, opposed Parliament’s attempts to impose duties on the colonies.

What message did Beadle intend for readers of the Connecticut Courant?  What kind of commentary did he offer about consumer politics?  James R. Fichter examines Beadle’s advertisement in his recently published Tea: Consumption, Politics, and Revolution, 1773-1776.  Fichter indicates that Beadle’s neighbors “knew him as a man … who dabbled in dark and ambiguous humor.”  Some of that humor was on display in his previous advertisements.  Perhaps Beadle made a joke “at the expense of the Boston tea partiers or the drinkers deprived of their tea.”  After all, humor about the destruction of the tea already spread.  As Fichter recounts, Peter Oliver, a noted loyalist, reported that “some Bostonians abstained from eating local fish ‘because they had drank of the East India Tea.’”  Was Beadle taking a political position and mocking the excesses of patriots in Boston and other cities and towns who stopped selling tea?  Fichter also suggests that Beadle could have been “drawing attention to Connecticut not having a tea boycott” or he might have meant that he carried Dutch tea smuggled into the colonies.  Consumers could purchase and drink such tea with a clear conscience since it had not been subject to Parliament’s duties.  Yet Beadle may not have been making a political argument at all.  Perhaps he just wanted to publish the boldest advertisement, gain the most attention, and garner the most customers among merchants and shopkeepers who continued to advertise and sell tea in Connecticut.  According to Fichter, “Tea advertising remained common in Connecticut, and Beadle bore little burden for his cheek: he placed generic advertisements for tea throughput the spring and summer of 1774 and early 1775.”[1]

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[1] James R. Fichter, Tea: Consumption, Politics, and Revolution, 1773-1776 (Cornell University Press, 2023).

February 20

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago this week?

Massachusetts Spy (February 17, 1774).

“Pointing out the names of several persons concerned in destroying the Tea.”

Two months after what has become known as the Boston Tea Party, tea continued to occupy the minds of colonizers in that port city and beyond.  In the February 17, 1774, edition of the Massachusetts Spy, Joseph P. Palmer once again ran his advertisement for “GRANADA RUM” with a nota bene that emphatically proclaimed, “NO TEA.”  Immediately above it, Jeremiah Cronin placed a notice in which he attempted to disassociate himself from any sort of political position concerning the recent dumping of tea into the harbor, hoping to reduce unwanted and, he claimed, unwarranted attention.

Cronin reported that on a morning early in February he discovered that “an Advertisement appeared posted up at the North-End of this town, signifying that I the subscriber, have been active in taking minutes, and pointing out the names of several persons concerned in destroying the Tea, and tarring and feathering.”  He likely feared the ire of patriots who believed that he undermined their cause and planned to inform on them to the authorities.  Yet, Cronin declared, he had no such intentions!  “I hereby beg leave to inform the Public,” he pleaded, “that so far from being active and busy on any such occasions, I have neither directly or indirectly concerned myself with public affairs.”  Instead, he promised, “I have always kept myself within doors when any disturbance happened in the town.”  Just as he did not want patriots looking too closely at him, Cronin aimed to avoid trouble with the authorities and the loyalists who supported them.  He ran his advertisement to declare his neutrality.  To buttress his effort to convince the public that was the case, he appended a declaration by a justice of the peace, Joseph Gardner, who affirmed that Cronin “made solemn oath to the whole of the above declaration.”

Massachusetts Spy (February 17, 1774).

The politics of tea also received attention in the upper left corner of the page that carried Cronin’s notice and Palmer’s advertisement.  The “POETS CORNER” for that issue featured “A Lady’s Adieu to her TEA-TABLE.”  Perhaps written by a woman, perhaps not, the poem said “FArewel [to] the tea board and its equipage” and the “many a joyous moment” of “Hearing the girls tattle” and “the old maids talk scandal” while drinking “hyson, congo, and best double fine” tea.  “No more shall I dish out the once lov’d liquor,” the lady asserted, considering tea “now detestable.”  Consuming tea was no longer a diversion or a treat, but instead a vice: “Its use will fasten slavish chains upon my country, / And Liberty’s the goddess I would choose / To reign triumphant in AMERICA.”  The lady’s “Adieu to her TEA-TABLE” suggested, even more forcefully than Palmer’s proclamation of “NO TEA,” that Cronin might not much longer have the luxury of taking a neutral position in “public affairs.”  When it came down to tea or liberty, when decisions about consumption had political meaning, when neighbors and acquaintances observed decisions that fellow colonizers made in the marketplace, Cronin would find it increasingly difficult to avoid taking a side in the trouble that was brewing.

December 28

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Essex Gazette (December 28, 1773).

“At private Sale, Choice Bohea Tea.”

Tea, tea, tea.  Everyone was talking about tea after Parliament passed the Tea Act in 1773.  That legislation allowed the East India Company to sell tea directly in colonies without paying export taxes in London.  This reduced the cost of tea for American consumers, but many colonizers resisted because this arrangement included paying duties when the tea was unloaded from the vessels once they arrived in American ports.  If they paid those duties, colonizers would implicitly recognize Parliament’s right to tax them.  They had rejected such assertions when they protested the Townshend Acts and, as a matter of principle, rejected them once again, even when presented with the prospect of buying tea at lower prices.  Many also worried about greater enforcement to prevent smuggling, realizing that they illicit trade also yielded bargain prices.

The talk about tea continued as colonizers anticipated the arrival of ships carrying tea belonging to the East India Company.  The talk about tea continued when three of ships arrived in Boston and residents prevented them from unloading their cargo.  The talk about tea continued after the destruction of that tea during a protest now known as the Boston Tea Party.  The December 28, 1773, edition of the Essex Gazette, for instance, featured plenty of talk about tea.  Two of the three columns on the first page covered the “Proceedings of the PEOPLE, previous to the Destruction of the Tea at Boston.”  The final column followed up with “the following Particulars respecting that HAPPY EVENT, the Destruction of the East-India Company’s ministerial Tea,” reprinted from the December 23 edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter.  At the bottom of that column, a short item with a dateline from “NEWPORT, December 13,” reported that “[b]y a letter from Boston, it seems as though our brethren there had some fears that we should receive the India Company’s detestable Tea; but we think it may be safely affirmed, that it will not be suffered to be sold here.”  Furthermore, there would be consequences “if landed, which is scare possible.”  The article proclaimed that such tea “will be reshipped on board the LIBERTY, and sent to GASPEE, the first favourable wind or weather,” invoking memories of another significant protest, the burning of the Gaspee in June 1772.  Elsewhere in that issue, news articles of varying lengths summarized talk about tea in New York, Philadelphia, and Portsmouth.

Among all that talk about tea, W.P. Bartlett, an auctioneer, advertised “Choice Bohea Tea” available “At private Sale.”  In Salem as in Boston, advertising, selling, buying, and drinking tea did not cease immediately as a rection to the Boston Tea Party.  Tea remained on the market as colonizers continue to debate what to do about tea and how to continue protesting against the Tea Act.

December 27

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250years ago today?

Boston Evening-Post (December 27, 1773).

“The above Teas were imported before any of the East-India Company’s Tea arrive, or it was known they would send any on their own Account.”

Cyrus Baldwin advertised “Choice Bohea and Souchong Tea” in the December 20, 1773, edition of the Boston Evening-Post, the first issue published following the protest now known as the Boston Tea Party.  In an effort to convince both prospective customers and the general public that he traded in good faith, he appended a nota bene to assert that his teas “were imported before any of the East-India Company’s Tea arrive, or it was known they would send any on their own Account.”  Three days later, he ran a similar advertisement in the Massachusetts Spy.  That notice included new merchandise, but it still listed “CHOICE Bohea and Souchong Teas” and concluded with the same nota bene.  As the politics of tea became a main topic of discussion, in town meetings, in the press, in everyday conversation, did not decide to discontinue his advertisements presenting tea for sale at his shop in Boston.

Boston-Gazette (December 27, 1773).

On December 27, Baldwin once again advertised in the Boston Evening-Post, replacing his advertisement from the previous issue with the one from the Massachusetts Spy.  In addition, that advertisement, complete with the nota bene, also ran in the Boston-Gazette on December 27.  Over the course of several days, Baldwin inserted it in three of the five newspapers published in Boston at the time.  Notably, neither Isaiah Thomas, the printer of the Massachusetts Spy, nor Benjamin Edes and John Gill, the printers of the Boston-Gazette, rejected the advertisement, though they had earned reputations as the printers who most vociferously advocated for the patriot cause and critiqued Parliament and colonial officials.  Did their willingness to publish the advertisement serve as tacit endorsement of the rationale Baldwin offered to justify selling his tea?  Maybe not.  The printers may have been too busy participating in events as they unfolded after the Boston Tea Party and gathering news from near and far that they did not scrutinize the contents of all the advertisements submitted to their printing offices.  After all, other merchants and shopkeepers continued to advertise tea in the Boston-Gazette and the Massachusetts Spy.  The printers may not have examined each advertisement closely to spot tea among the lists of merchandise.  They might have also been satisfied, at least for the moment, because they knew any tea sold by Baldwin and others had not been acquired via the problematic shipments that ended up in the harbor rather than in shops and stores.

As colonizers, including “Venders of Tea,” debated what to do next following the Boston Tea Party, they did not immediately cease advertising, buying, selling, and drinking tea.  Following strategies that they adopted in response to the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts, they eventually devised nonimportation and consumption agreements.  Loyalists like Peter Oliver accused patriots, especially women, of cheating on those agreements.  Such indiscretions would have been a continuation of the flexibility toward tea exhibited in newspaper advertisements published in the days immediately after the Boston Tea Party.