An Act for repealing the several Duties on Tea, and for granting to His Majesty other Duties in Lieu thereof, and also several Duties on inhabited Houses, and upon the Importation of Cocoa-Nuts and Coffee, and for repealing the Inland Duties of Excise thereon.
The Commutation Act 1784, enacted by the British Parliament, reduced the tax on tea from 119% to 12.5%, effectively ending the smuggling trade. William Pitt the Younger, acting on the advice of Richard Twining of the Twinings Tea Company, introduced the Act to increase revenues through legitimate sales of tea by ending 100 years of punitive tea taxes which promoted smuggling.[1]
The Act was created to stimulate trade in China for the British East India Company, which at the time was suffering from mounting debts. Indian opium was exchanged for tea in China which was then shipped to Britain for sale on the domestic market.
The Commutation Act improved trade relations between Britain and one of its primary tea suppliers, China.
Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. More broadly, social scientists define smuggling as the purposeful movement across a border in contravention to the relevant legal frameworks.
The East India Company (EIC) (1600–1874) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies, and later with East Asia. The company gained control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent and Hong Kong. At its peak, the company was the largest corporation in the world by various measures and had its own armed forces in the form of the company's three presidency armies, totalling about 260,000 soldiers, twice the size of the British Army at certain times.
The Opium Wars were two conflicts waged between China and Western powers during the mid-19th century.
Tai-Pan is a 1966 novel written by James Clavell about European and American traders who move into Hong Kong in 1842 following the end of the First Opium War. It is the second book in Clavell's Asian Saga, and the first to feature the fictional Struan family.
The Townshend Acts or Townshend Duties were a series of British acts of Parliament passed during 1767 and 1768 introducing a series of taxes and regulations to enable administration of the British colonies in America. They are named after the Chancellor of the Exchequer who proposed the program. Historians vary slightly as to which acts they include under the heading "Townshend Acts", but five are often listed:
The Tea Act 1773 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain. The principal objective was to reduce the massive amount of tea held by the financially troubled British East India Company in its London warehouses and to help the struggling company survive. A related objective was to undercut the price of illegal tea, smuggled into Britain's North American colonies. This was supposed to convince the colonists to purchase Company tea on which the Townshend duties were paid, thus implicitly agreeing to accept Parliament's right of taxation. Smuggled tea was a large issue for Britain and the East India Company, since approximately 86% of all the tea in America at the time was smuggled Dutch tea.
The history of tea spreads across many cultures throughout thousands of years. The tea plant Camellia sinensis is native probably originated in the borderlands of southwestern China and northern Myanmar. One of the earliest accounts of tea drinking is dated back to China's Shang dynasty, in which tea was consumed in a medicinal concoction. An early credible record of tea drinking dates to the 3rd century AD, in a medical text written by Chinese physician Hua Tuo. It first became known to the western world through Portuguese priests and merchants in China during the early 16th century. Drinking tea became popular in Britain during the 17th century. To compete with the Chinese monopoly on tea, the British East India Company introduced commercial tea production to British India.
Isaac Sears was an American merchant, sailor, Freemason, and political figure who played an important role in the American Revolution.
Twinings is a British marketer of tea and other beverages, including coffee, hot chocolate and malt drinks, based in Andover, Hampshire. The brand is owned by Associated British Foods. It holds the world's oldest continually used company logo, and is London's longest-standing ratepayer, having occupied the same premises on the Strand since 1706. Twinings tea varieties include black tea, green tea and herbal teas, along with fruit-based cold infusions.
Wuyi tea, also known by the trade name Bohea in English, is a category of black and oolong teas grown in the Wuyi Mountains of northern Fujian, China. The Wuyi region produces a number of well-known teas, including Lapsang souchong and Da Hong Pao. It has historically been one of the major centers of tea production in Fujian province and globally. Both black tea and oolong tea were likely invented in the Wuyi region, which continues to produce both styles today.
The Old China Trade refers to the early commerce between the Qing Empire and the United States under the Canton System, spanning from shortly after the end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783 to the Treaty of Wanghia in 1844. The Old China Trade represented the beginning of relations between the United States and East Asia, including eventually U.S.–China relations. The maritime fur trade was a major aspect of the Old China Trade, as was illegal trafficking in opium. The trade era overlapped the First Opium War, which resulted from an attempt by China to enforce its prohibition on opium smuggling by Western traders and blockade-runners.
The Molasses Act 1733 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain that imposed a tax of six pence per gallon on imports of molasses from non-British colonies. Parliament created the act largely at the insistence of large plantation owners in the British West Indies. The Act was passed not to raise revenue but to regulate trade by making British products cheaper than those from the French West Indies. The Act greatly affected the significant colonial molasses trade.
The Boston Tea Party was an American political and mercantile protest on December 16, 1773, by the Sons of Liberty in Boston in colonial Massachusetts. The target was the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, which allowed the East India Company to sell tea from China in American colonies without paying taxes apart from those imposed by the Townshend Acts. The Sons of Liberty strongly opposed the taxes in the Townshend Act as a violation of their rights. In response, the Sons of Liberty, some disguised as Native Americans, destroyed an entire shipment of tea sent by the East India Company.
Since the 17th century, the United Kingdom has been one of the world's largest tea consumers, with an average annual per capita supply of 1.9 kilograms (4.2 lb). Originally an upper-class drink in Europe, tea gradually spread through all classes, eventually becoming a common drink. It is still considered an important part of the British identity and is a prominent feature of British culture and society.
The Philadelphia Tea Party was an incident in late December 1773, shortly after the more famous Boston Tea Party, in which a British tea ship was intercepted by American colonists and forced to return its cargo to Great Britain.
The economy of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) of China was one of the largest in the world during that period. It is regarded as one of China's three major golden ages. The period was marked by the increasing political influence of the merchants, the gradual weakening of imperial rule, and technological advances.
Austrian East India Company is a catchall term referring to a series of Austrian trading companies based in Ostend and Trieste. The Imperial Asiatic Company of Trieste and Antwerp and Asiatic Company of Trieste or the Trieste Company were founded by William Bolts in 1775 and wound up in 1785.
Richard Twining (1749–1824) was an English merchant, a director of the East India Company, and the head of Twinings the tea merchants in the Strand, London.
The history of opium in China began with the use of opium for medicinal purposes during the 7th century. In the 17th century the practice of mixing opium with tobacco for smoking spread from Southeast Asia, creating a far greater demand.
Mary Twining (1726–1804), née Little, led Twinings, the tea company, from 1763 to 1782, after the death of her husband, Daniel Twining. Her sons, Richard Twining and John Twining, eventually took over the company from her. Today, Twinings still exists and is a recognized, global brand.
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