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British East India Company: Tea Act
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In September, 1773, the British East India Company put 500,000 pounds of tea on the market. They did this because they had so much extra tea on hand, and many of the members of Parliament were investors in the tea market. If there was too much tea for sale, tea would be cheaper and the members of Parliament would lose money.
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The East India Company botanic gardens served as foci for activity in all branches of the natural sciences. The research on this area was conducted primarily by Professor Harrison who has concentrated on aspects of the history of botany under the East India Company, with particular reference to the Calcutta Botanical Gardens and its two most famous Directors, William Roxburgh and Nathaniel Wallich. The first part of the work concentrated mainly on Wallich and on the Calcutta Garden's connections with the broader world of naturalists, not only within in the British Empire, but more generally within Europe. Research on this topic was conducted at the Calcutta Botanical Gardens, the British Library, and the University of Wales, Bangor, among other places. This work formed the basis of the paper given by Professor Harrison at the conference in Delhi and, a little later, at a conference on the British Empire at the British Academy. He is currently conducting further research in British archives in order to turn this paper into an article.
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The East India Company flag changed over time. From the period of 1600 to 1707 ( Act of Union between England and Scotland) the flag consisted of a St George's cross in the canton and a number of alternating Red and White stripes. After 1707 the canton contained the original Union Flag consisting of a combined St George's cross and a St Andrew's cross. After the Act of Union 1800, that joined Ireland into the United Kingdom, the canton of the East India Company's flag was altered accordingly to include the new Union Flag with the additional St Patrick's cross. There has been much debate and discussion regarding the number of stripes on the flag and the order of the stripes. Historical documents and paintings show many variations from 9 to 13 stripes, with some images showing the top stripe being red and others showing the top stripe being white.
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After the passage of the Tea Act, the East India Company would have been able to sell tea more cheaply than American importers. American merchants organized protests, lead by Samuel Adams. Some of the protesters boarded three British ships docked in Boston Harbor and scheduled to begin unloading the cheaper tea. The protesters seized the tea and dumped it overboard. Damage estimates ran to over ten thousand pounds. The event became known as the Boston Tea Party, and it inspired several smaller such acts.
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Relationship to the British Government - the Bill clearly differentiated the political functions of the East India Company from its commercial activities. For its political transactions, the Act directly subordinated the East India Company to the British Government. To accomplish this, the Act created a Board of Commissioners for the Affairs of India usually referred to as the Board of Control. The members of the Board of Control were the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a Secretary of State, and four Privy Councillors, nominated by the King. The Act specified that the Secretary of State, "shall preside at, and be President of the said Board".
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An added complication was that at the same time, the East India Company's sphere of activity was fundamentally changing. Charles II's charter to the Company had allowed it to use military force where necessary to establish trading stations, and in the seventeenth and eigthteenth centuries it established many well-fortified trading posts in India. Over the course of the eighteenth century, the control of the Mughal Emperor in Delhi was in decline, with independent regional princes taking power instead. But unhappy with this turn of events, the Company increasingly used its private army to establish governmental control over large territories of India. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, with help from the British army, the Company had conquered about half of India.
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Tea Act