Although Tea may be claimed to be in all its associations eminently peaceful, growing as it does on the hill-sides of one of the most peaceful countries in the world, coming to us through the peace-promoting ways of commerce, until it reaches its ultimate destination, that centre of peace—the family table—and like peaceful sleep, “knitting up the raveled sleeve of care,” yet it has been the occasion of several wars and political problems, the latest of which is the precipitation of the great Chinese exodus, which at present threatens such vital results, not only to our own country, but possibly to the world at large.

It was destined—as in all social and political affairs, the greatest and most important events are curiously linked with the smallest and most insignificant—to be the final crisis of the American Revolutionary movement. Think of it! The birth of the greatest nation of all time due to a three-penny tax on tea! It was the article chosen above all others to emphasize the principles that “all men are born free and equal,” and that “taxation without representation is tyranny,” and for the establishment of which principles a war was fought, that when judged by the law of results, proves to have been the most important and fruitful recorded on history’s pages. Who, in looking back over the long range of events conserving to create our now great country, can fail to have his attention attracted to what has been termed, with a characteristic touch of American humor, “The Boston Tea Party of 1773”? Who could have then predicted the marvelous change that a single century of free government would have wrought? Who could have dreamed that Tea would have proved such an important factor in such a grand result? What a lesson to despotic governments! A dreary November evening; a pier crowded with excited citizens; a few ships in the harbor bearing a hated cargo—hated not of itself, but for the principles involved; on the decks a mere handful of young men—a few leaders in Israel—urged on by the fiery prescience of genius, constituting themselves an advance guard to lead the people from out the labyrinth of Remonstrance into the wilderness of Revolution.

It is true that previously other questions had been factors in the dispute, but a cursory glance at the history of the time will show that heated debates had been followed by periods of rest, and acts of violence by renewed loyalty. The “Navigation laws” had caused much indignation and many protests, but no violence to mention. As early as 1768 the famous “Stamp Act” was passed and repealed. The period intervening between its passage and repeal gave opportunity for public opinion to crystallize and shape itself. It sifted out of the people a modern Demosthenes, gifted with the divine power of draping the graceful garment of language round the firm body of an IDEA! George III. would not profit by the example of Cæsar or of Charles, and while North had avowed his willingness to repeal the tax on all other articles, he promised the king that “he would maintain this one tax on Tea to prove to the Colonists his right to tax.”

The trade in Tea at this time was a monopoly of the English East India Company, which just then had acquired an immense political prestige, but lost heavily by the closing of the American market, the Company’s warehouses in London remaining full of it, causing their revenue to decline. North was induced to offer them a measure of relief by releasing from taxation in England the Tea intended for America, but he still persisted in maintaining the duty of threepence to be paid in American ports, and on the 10th of May this farcical scheme of fiscal readjustment became a law. The Company obtained a license for the free-duty exportation of their Tea to America in disregard of the advice of those who knew that the Colonists would not receive it. Four ships laden with Tea were despatched to the ports of Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Charleston. The Colonists prepared for their expected arrival, public meetings being held in Philadelphia and Boston, at which it was resolved that the Tea should be sent back to England, and so notified the Company’s agents at these ports. The Boston consignees refused to comply with the popular demand, all persuasion failing to move them. The matter was then referred to the Committees, who immediately resolved to use force where reason was not heeded. When the vessels arrived, a meeting was held in the Old South Church, at which it was resolved, “come what will, the Tea should not be landed or the duty paid.” Another appeal was made to the Governor, which was also denied! Upon this announcement Samuel Adams arose, saying, “This meeting can do nothing more to save the country.” The utterance of these words was a preconcerted signal; the response, an Indian war-whoop from the crowd outside. A band of young men, not over fifty, disguised as, and styling themselves, “Mohawks,” rushed down to the wharf where the vessels lay; the ships were boarded, the Tea chests broken open and emptied into the river. From the moment that the first Tea-leaf touched the water the whole atmosphere surrounding the issues involved changed! In that instant, with the rapidity of thought, the Colonies vanished and America arose!

When the news of these proceedings reached England, it provoked a storm of anger, not only among the adherents of the government, but also among the mercantile and manufacturing classes, they having suffered heavy losses by the stoppage of trade with America. The commercial importance and parliamentary influence of the East India Company swelled the outcry of indignation against which they termed the outrage of destroying its property. All united in the resolve to punish the conduct of Boston for its rejection of the least onerous one of an import duty on tea. What followed has been told in song and story—Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, Valley Forge and Yorktown. A new nation sprang into existence, taking its stand upon the pedestal of “EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL,” under a new government “OF THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE.”

CHAPTER II.
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.

Besides the character of the different varieties of tea and other information connected with the plant and its product, we have to notice the different parts of the world in which it is now or may be grown in the future, as many practical questions of considerable importance are dependent on the subject.

For upwards of two centuries and a half the world’s supply of tea was furnished exclusively by China, and it was not until well into the middle of the nineteenth century that China and Japan were the only two tea-producing countries in the world, their product reaching the western markets through the narrowest channels and under the most oppressive restrictions. Its cultivation however, has in that time been extended to other countries, most notably into Java, India and Ceylon.