This arrangement with the East India Company was obnoxious to the colonists for several reasons. It was an act of favoritism for one thing, in the interest of a great monopoly. For another thing, it promised to dump on the American market, suddenly, an immense amount of cheap tea and so cause heavy losses to American merchants who had large stocks on hand. It threatened with ruin the business of all those who were engaged in clandestine trade with the Dutch. It carried with it an irritating tax of three pence on imports. In Charleston, Annapolis, New York, and Boston, captains of ships who brought tea under this act were roughly handled. One night in December, 1773, a band of Boston citizens, disguised as Indians, boarded the hated tea ships and dumped the cargo into the harbor. This was serious business, for it was open, flagrant, determined violation of the law. As such the British government viewed it.
=Reception of the News of the Tea Riot.=--The news of the tea riot in Boston confirmed King George in his conviction that there should be no soft policy in dealing with his American subjects. "The die is cast," he stated with evident satisfaction. "The colonies must either triumph or submit.... If we take the resolute part, they will undoubtedly be very meek." Lord George Germain characterized the tea party as "the proceedings of a tumultuous and riotous rabble who ought, if they had the least prudence, to follow their mercantile employments and not trouble themselves with politics and government, which they do not understand." This expressed, in concise form, exactly the sentiments of Lord North, who had then for three years been the king's chief minister. Even Pitt, Lord Chatham, was prepared to support the government in upholding its authority.
=The Five Intolerable Acts.=--Parliament, beginning on March 31, 1774, passed five stringent measures, known in American history as the five "intolerable acts." They were aimed at curing the unrest in America. The _first_ of them was a bill absolutely shutting the port of Boston to commerce with the outside world. The _second_, following closely, revoked the Massachusetts charter of 1691 and provided furthermore that the councilors should be appointed by the king, that all judges should be named by the royal governor, and that town meetings (except to elect certain officers) could not be held without the governor's consent. A _third_ measure, after denouncing the "utter subversion of all lawful government" in the provinces, authorized royal agents to transfer to Great Britain or to other colonies the trials of officers or other persons accused of murder in connection with the enforcement of the law. The _fourth_ act legalized the quartering of troops in Massachusetts towns. The _fifth_ of the measures was the Quebec Act, which granted religious toleration to the Catholics in Canada, extended the boundaries of Quebec southward to the Ohio River, and established, in this western region, government by a viceroy.