In 1773, Britain's East India Company was sitting on large stocks of tea that it could not sell in England. It was on the verge of bankruptcy. In an effort to save it, the government passed the Tea Act of 1773, which gave the company the right to export its merchandise directly to the colonies without paying any of the regular taxes that were imposed on the colonial merchants, who had traditionally served as the middlemen in …showed first 75 words of 503 total…

…showed last 75 words of 503 total…policy of coercion, to be applied only against Massachusetts, the socalled Coercive Acts. In these four acts of 1774, Parliament closed the port of Boston, drastically reduced the powers of selfgovernment in the colony, permitted royal officers to be trailed in other colonies or in England when accused of crimes, and provided for the quartering of troops in the colonists' barns and empty houses. The acts spraked new resistance up and down the coast. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**