Philadelphia Tea Party

As a result, the East India Company appealed for financial relief to the British government, which passed the Tea Act on May 10, 1773.

They adopted eight resolutions, one of which stated: "That the duty imposed by Parliament upon tea landed in America is a tax on the Americans, or levying contributions on them without their consent."

The most important one read: That the resolution lately entered into by the East India Company, to send out their tea to America subject to the payment of duties on its being landed here, is an open attempt to enforce the ministerial plan, and a violent attack upon the liberties of America.Printed in the Pennsylvania Gazette, these declarations comprised the first public protest against the importation of taxed tea from England.

Commanded by one Captain Ayres, the ship carried 697 chests of tea consigned to the Philadelphia Quaker firm of James & Drinker.

Captain Ayres was probably influenced by a broadside issued by the self-constituted "Committee for Tarring and Feathering" that plainly warned him of his fate should he attempt to unload his ship's cargo.

Dated November 27, the handbill read, in part: You are sent out on a diabolical Service; and if you are so foolish and obstinate as to complete your Voyage, by bringing your Ship to Anchor in this Port, you may run such a Gauntlet as will induce you, in your last Moments, most heartily to curse those who have made you the Dupe of their Avarice and Ambition.

What think you, Captain, of a Halter around your Neck—ten Gallons of liquid Tar decanted on your Pate—with the Feathers of a dozen wild Geese laid over that to enliven your Appearance?

It was the first throe of that convulsion which delivered Great Britain of the United States.Both Pennsylvania and Philadelphia were regarded as having been far more conservative before and during the Revolutionary War than the New England colonies and most of the Southern colonies—and this historic reputation persists to this day.