In October, 1773 colonists learned that the East India Company was shipping 600,000 pounds of tea to four American ports including Boston. Local “consignees” would receive the tea and a share of the profits.
“The current Talk of the Town that Richard Clarke, Benjamin Faneuil, Esqrs; and the two young Mess-rs Hutchinsons, are appointed to receive the Teas.”
- Boston Gazette, October 18, 1773
”![Ironically Thomas Hutchinson had privately advised removal of the Townsend duty on tea in 1770. “I think that the repeal of it …is necessary to prevent disorders in the colonies [and] those unlawful, riotous meetings…which have almost destroyed all sense of subordination in the peoples of Boston and other commercial towns.” Massachusetts Archives](img/13.png "Ironically Thomas Hutchinson had privately advised removal of the Townsend duty on tea in 1770. “I think that the repeal of it …is necessary to prevent disorders in the colonies [and] those unlawful, riotous meetings…which have almost destroyed all sense of subordination in the peoples of Boston and other commercial towns.” Massachusetts Archives")
- Massachusetts Archives
Friends and Family
Governor Thomas Hutchinson had mixed feelings about the tax on tea, although he dutifully followed instructions from the government in London. If tea was to be shipped, his family would profit from it. As tea merchants he appointed two of his sons, two relatives by marriage, and two close friends. He later complained that the Sons of Liberty “have persecuted my Sons with peculiar pleasure.”
- Yale University Art Gallery
Watson and the Tea Party
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
In this famous painting John Singleton Copley depicts London merchant Brook Watson being attacked by a shark in Havana Harbor. Watson survived the loss of a leg and continued his career. He would later recommend merchants Joshua Winslow and his business partner Benjamin Faneuil, Jr. as consignees in Boston to receive tea from the East India Company.