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

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

Cyrus Baldwin hoped to sell the “Choice Bohea and Souchong Teas” that he stocked at his shop in Boston while he still had a chance.  Tea had become a lightning rod for political discourse throughout the fall of 1773, thanks to the Tea Act and the arrival of ships carrying tea on behalf of the East India Company.  That discourse erupted into a protest that involved the destruction of the tea on those ships when colonizers disguised as Indians tossed the tea into the harbor, an event now known as the Boston Tea Party.  That put Baldwin in a difficult position, especially as discussions about boycotting tea occurred at the town meeting.  When he advertised bohea, souchong, and hyson tea in the December 20 edition of the Boston Evening-Post, just four days after the East India Company’s tea went into the harbor, Baldwin appended a nota bene to inform prospective customers and the general public that “[t]he above Teas were imported before any of the East-India Company’s Tea arrived, or it was known they would send any on their own Account.”  Baldwin justified selling the tea he already stocked.  He also sought to give consumers a reasonable justification for purchasing his tea before the situation became any more volatile and they faced condemnation from the community.

Baldwin’s advertisement ran immediately below a “NOTIFICATION” that summarized a meeting “of some of the principal Venders of TEAS in Boston” that took place on Friday, December 17, the day after the protest on the docks.  The same notification ran in all three newspapers published in Boston on Mondays, the Boston Evening-Post, the Boston-Gazette, and the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy.  It reported that “Venders of TEAS” met for the purpose of “consulting and determining in suitable Measures to be adopted, and to cooperate with a great number of respectable Inhabitants of this Province, express’d by a Vote of their late Assembly to suppress the Use of that detested Article.”  They did not, however, reach any conclusions.  Instead, they “agreed that a general and full Meeting should be convened” on December 20 “where it is desired and expected that all the Dealers in, and Venders of Teas will punctually attend.”  That included Baldwin as well as Archibald Cunningham, William Jackson, Samuel Allyne Otis, and Elizabeth Perkins, all of whom advertised tea in the December 20 edition of the Boston Evening-Post, though none of the others included the same sort of disclaimer that Baldwin carefully inserted in his advertisement.  A nota bene warned, “It is earnestly desired, that those concerned would not fail of giving attendance at the Time fix’d.”

The notice in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy included an additional note: “A common Cause is best supported by a common Association.—The Defence and Maintenance of our Rights and Liberties is the common Cause of every American; and therefore all should unite, Hand in Hand, in one common Association in order to support it.”  Answering the abuses perpetrated by Parliament, this note suggested, did not depend on a uniform response by “Venders of TEAS” alone but rather the support and concerted efforts of consumers to abide by whatever measures colonizers in Boston adopted when they voted at town meetings.  Everyone had a duty to defend American liberties via the choices they made about how they participated in the marketplace.  For the moment, however, Cyrus Baldwin just wanted to sell the tea that he claimed he imported before the crisis commenced.