As you will recall, [Lord North](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_North,_Lord_North)’s government eliminated all the [Townshend Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Townshend_Acts) duties and taxes except the tax on imported tea. In 1773 Parliament added a [Tea Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Act), designed to aid the financially troubled [[East India Company]]. Most of the American ports to which tea was shipped decided to avoid the tax by refusing the shipments and having them sent back to England. Unfortunately, the Boston Massachusetts consignment agents were two of the sons of the royal governor, [Thomas Hutchinson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hutchinson_(governor)),  who were determined to accept the tea. Boston quickly became the epicenter of protest. In December 1773, [[Sons of Liberty]] disguised as [[Mohawk]] Indians boarded British merchant ships and dumped 2,000 chests containing about 600,000 pounds of tea into Boston Harbor. The destruction of the valuable tea escalated the crisis between Great Britain and the American colonies. When the Massachusetts Assembly refused to pay for the tea the protestors had destroyed, Parliament enacted a series of laws called the [Coercive Acts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intolerable_Acts), which colonists renamed the Intolerable Acts. Parliament intended these laws to punish Massachusetts and bring the colony into line. But the new restrictions seemed to many colonists to be a further attack on the constitutional rights guaranteed all Englishmen. Closing the port of Boston, limiting the meetings of the colonial assembly, and especially disbanding all town meetings took away rights of assembly, representation, free speech, and commerce that British subjects on both sides of the Atlantic had come to associate with the new, more modern social contract that had been described by [[Enlightenment]] thinkers and celebrated in the [[Glorious Revolution]]. And once again, despite differences between the colonies, many British Americans in other colonies were troubled and angered by Parliament’s response to Massachusetts. In September and October 1774, all the colonies except Georgia sent delegates to the [[First Continental Congress]] in Philadelphia. The Congress advocated a boycott of all British goods and established the Continental Association to enforce local adherence to the boycott. The fact that the Congress organized this new boycott rather than the [[Sons of Liberty]] is a significant change, and may mark the beginning of a resistance we might call by the name of Patriot. ----- Next: [[7.2 - Suffolk Resolves]]