TEA LEAVES:
BEING A COLLECTION OF LETTERS AND
DOCUMENTS
RELATING TO THE SHIPMENT OF
TEA
TO THE AMERICAN COLONIES IN THE YEAR 1773, BY THE
East India Tea Company
NOW FIRST PRINTED FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION, NOTES, ANDBIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES OF THE BOSTON TEA PARTY,
BY
FRANCIS S. DRAKE.
BOSTON:
A.O. CRANE.
1884.
COPYRIGHTED.
Entered according to Act of Congress, at Washington, DC., 1884,By A.O. Crane, Boston, Mass.
Smith & Porter, Printers, Boston.
PREFATORY NOTE.
The collection of letters and documents which has occasioned thepreparation of the present volume, though it has been so long buried inobscurity, appears to have been originally made with a view topublication. It was for many years, and until his decease, in thepossession of Mr. Abel Bowen, a well-known engraver and publisher, ofBoston, sixty years ago, and was obtained by him from a person whoprocured it in Halifax, N.S., whither many valuable papers, both publicand private, relating to New England, were carried, when in March, 1776,the British and Tories evacuated Boston. It contains interestinginformation relative to the tea troubles that preceded the AmericanRevolution, much of it new to students of that eventful period.
To the kindness of Mrs. Benjamin Phipps and Mrs. Charles G. Butts, ofChelsea, daughters of Mr. Bowen, the publisher is indebted forpermission to make public this valuable contribution to Americanhistory.[iv]
PUBLISHER'S PREFACE
When contemplating the publication of "Tea Leaves," we issued acircular, stating our intention, and that, judging from the materialthen in our possession, the book would contain about two hundred andfifty pages, with six illustrations, three of them portraits.
We are happy to announce on the completion of the work, not onlyfulfillment of our promises, but much that is additional thereto.Included in its four hundred pages are twenty portraits, taken fromfamily paintings, (one-half never before published,) eight otherillustrations, fifty autographs, one hundred and twelve names of membersof the Tea Party, (fifty-eight more than have been heretofore publiclyknown), and ninety-six biographies of the same.
Our circular called for a subscription book. All our paper-coveredcopies have been subscribed for. The balance of the edition is nicelyb