who paid for the tea in the boston tea party
Boston Tea Party In Britain, even those politicians considered friends of the colonies were appalled and this act united all parties there against the colonies. The Prime Minister Lord North said, "Whatever may be the consequence, we must risk something; if we do not, all is over".[71] The British government felt this action could not remain unpunished, and responded by closing the port of Boston and putting in place other laws known as the "Intolerable Acts." Benjamin Franklin stated that the destroyed tea must be paid for, all ninety thousand pounds (which, at two shillings per pound, came to £9,000, or £1.05 million [2014, approx. $1.7 million US]).[72] Robert Murray, a New York merchant, went to Lord North with three other merchants and offered to pay for the losses, but the offer was turned down.[73]
American Revolution Members of American colonial society argued the position of "no taxation without representation", starting with the Stamp Act Congress in 1765. They rejected the authority of the British Parliament to tax them because they lacked members in that governing body. Protests steadily escalated to the Boston Massacre in 1770 and the burning of the Gaspee in Rhode Island in 1772, followed by the Boston Tea Party in December 1773, during which Patriots destroyed a consignment of taxed tea. The British responded by closing Boston Harbor, then followed with a series of legislative acts which effectively rescinded Massachusetts Bay Colony's rights of self-government and caused the other colonies to rally behind Massachusetts. In late 1774, the Patriots set up their own alternative government to better coordinate their resistance efforts against Great Britain; other colonists preferred to remain aligned to the Crown and were known as Loyalists or Tories.