Rejecting Parliament’s authority to tax them, revolutionary leaders cast the decision to drink EIC tea in stark terms: to do so was to accept tyranny. It was clear that the EIC had sent tea to North America. But how much tea? How many ships? Where would they arrive? These questions were subject to rumor and speculation.

Since tea would not arrive in any of their ports, Virginia colonists closely followed news from Charleston, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. The Virginia Gazettes shared news from those cities in their weekly issues, published on Thursdays.

Reports from Boston typically appeared in Williamsburg newspapers two or three weeks after their first appearance. Those from Charleston, New York, and Philadelphia took more than a week, and usually two, to arrive. Virginia Gazette readers often found these delays frustrating. So much happened in a given week that circumstances had changed by the time they were reported.

As Williamsburg residents were reading these reports during the last week of November, events in Boston and Charleston took a dramatic turn. The first ships carrying tea arrived in their harbors. But Virginians would not learn of these developments for weeks.

In Virginia, Alexander Purdie, John Dixon, and Clementina Rind were still tracking late-summer reports from London about the East India Company and the tea. London news dominated the pages of colonial newspapers. Though several months old, it usually took up more than a full page of a typical four-page issue.

During the summer of 1773, both versions of the Virginia Gazette tracked debates in Parliament about how to support the East India Company. Teetering on the brink of collapse, the EIC could not sustain its business without what we would today call a bailout. From Virginia, readers could track the public discussion about the EIC, its finances, and how to rescue it. In early September, for instance, Clementina Rind posted an accounting of Company investors:

This report is an excellent example of how time lags worked. On November 18, the New York paper was correct in reporting that no tea had arrived in Boston. But in the three weeks it took for the news to appear in the Virginia Gazette, all three ships—the Dartmouth, Beaver, and Eleanor—docked at Griffin’s Wharf in Boston. And Virginians wouldn’t learn that news for another week.

News came first to busy port cities like Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and Charleston. But Williamsburg was located miles from the Atlantic coast. Since the postal service was unreliable and bad weather could cause long delays, news was sometimes slow to arrive in Williamsburg. Nevertheless, printers had to produce an issue every week with four pages of news, essays, and advertisements.

In this case, the lack of news about tea did not reflect an overall absence of news from London. Purdie and Dixon included a full page of reports ranging from late July to late September on the front page of the December 9, 1773, issue of their Virginia Gazette. The topics were eclectic, as usual. Purdie and Dixon reprinted news about war in Poland, protests in Dublin, an epidemic outbreak in Baghdad, and the Pope’s suppression of the Jesuit order.

But this particular issue lacked news from North America. In a week when there wasn’t news to publish, printers compensated in a variety of ways. With some of the space available, Purdie and Dixon published a poem entitled “The Bachelor’s Maid,” in which a man imagines that his maid, whom he has employed for seven years, must desire to be his wife. It is . . . probably satirical.

Fortunately for Purdie and Dixon, they had developed a deep and broad base of advertisers. Their December 9 Virginia Gazette included nearly two-and-a-half pages of advertisements of various kinds. Merchants offered their goods—many recently arrived from Europe. Individuals sought to sell land, animals, furniture, and other property.

Many of the ads related to slavery. Virginia’s economy depended on enslaved labor. Each issue of the Virginia Gazettes included numerous offers of enslaved people for sale, and rewards for the capture of runaways, often using the same language as nearby calls for the return of missing horses.³

To the modern eye, these advertisements are jarring. To a Virginian in 1773, they were commonplace, and likely aroused more interest in the reward than they did disgust at the descriptions of people as property. Tea, tobacco, enslaved people: to many colonists, these were on the same level and required similar attention.

Go deeper: Human bondage touched every aspect of life in eighteenth-century Virginia. Explore how slavery shaped the production and content of the Virginia Gazettes.

Boston news from November 18 in Purdie & Dixon’s Virginia Gazette identified the ship captains as “Bruce, Hall, and Coffin, . . . having each of them, as we hear, a Number of Chests of Tea from the East India Company” and headed for the town.

From New York under a November 28 dateline came additional word of ships, though with wildly inflated totals for how much tea each was carrying (600 chests on one ship, when in total Bostonians destroyed 340 across three ships). On November 29 a Philadelphia paper reported that it awaited the arrival of the Polly “with the detested tea on board.” With the ships identified, residents of Williamsburg and surrounding areas in Virginia could only wait to find out what would happen when dockworkers tried to unload the tea.

In New York, which was more loyal to the crown than New England, Governor William Tryon defused the crisis by storing the shipped tea at a fort. Nevertheless, there was opposition to the tea in New York. The two Gazettes reprinted the same paragraph from early December, which identified the three agents for East India Company tea as Henry White, Abraham Lott, Benjamin Booth. However, the paragraph also noted that all three declined, citing “general Opposition” to the tea.

Boston, meanwhile, had few updates. In early December, the various sides were at a standoff. The Sons of Liberty would not let the tea land. Customs officials would not allow the ship owners to unload any cargo unless they brought the tea with it. And the governor would not allow the ships to leave without clearing customs. The crisis had already come to a head in Boston. But Virginians would only learn about it slowly.

“Why do the Americans refuse the Importation of English Tea at this Time?” read the first question. “Because it is saddled with a Duty,” came the response, “which is a Tax for the Purpose of raising a Revenue from us, without our Consent; and such Tax, or Duty, is therefore unconstitutional, cruel, and unjust.” After years of protesting various taxes imposed by Parliament—on goods from sugar to paint—colonists were quite familiar with this argument.

The dialogue led readers through the reasons why the tea was unjust (“Because it is forcing our Property from us”) and why they should resist. “Is it not incumbent upon us,” one question posed, “to defend our common Property from all such Impositions,” referring to laws that were deemed “unconstitutional, cruel, and unjust.”

“Yes,” was the expected reply, “because it is as much the Duty of the whole People to defend and preserve their common Property as it is that of an individual to defend and preserve his private Property.” That opinion was not shared universally in the colonies, but it drove many of the protestors to act.

Just one week into 1774, Virginians received news that would come to define the entire year in North America. With the arrival of a post rider, colonists finally learned the fate of the tea in Boston. Nestled under the Williamsburg heading on page three of the January 6 issue was the first report of what would eventually be known as the Boston Tea Party.

All that Purdie and Dixon could report at that point was a one-paragraph statement issued by the Boston Committee of Correspondence. After negotiations failed, “a Number of People huzzaed in the Street, and in a little Time every Ounce of the Teas on Board the Captains Hall, Bruce, and Coffin, was immersed in the Bay, without the least injury to private Property.”

That notice was just one document that traveled in the satchel of Paul Revere. A frequent messenger for the Committee of Correspondence, he left Boston on the morning of December 17 to bring news of the events of the previous night to the south and west. He arrived in New York on December 22, and either he or another rider reached Philadelphia on December 24. More detailed reports would follow shortly. For now, Virginians knew the fate of the tea.

Purdie & Dixon drew their reports from the pro-revolutionary Pennsylvania Journal. Under a heading of “Philadelphia, Dec. 24,” they included several reports from Boston. First, they republished an account of the town meeting and dumping of the tea on December 16, largely taken from the Massachusetts Spy. They also included news about a group of colonists who had burned a shipment of tea in Lexington, a town about fifteen miles from Boston. Finally, they brought the story of Philadelphia’s protests up to the 24th: residents knew the tea ship would arrive any day and the protesting colonists had called a town meeting for December 27.

Purdie and Dixon also included one original note from Williamsburg, indicating that “a correspondent” wrote to them “That he hopes the Virginians, celebrated for their Patriotism, will immediately follow the illustrious Example of the People to the Northward, and totally decline the Use of all East India Tea, which is pregnant with Mischief to the Health and Liberties of the People of America.”

Clementina Rind was a bit more circumspect. She did not include an account of the Tea Party in her issue that day. She did, however, publish some material that originated with Patriots, including a long essay written by someone using the pseudonym “HONONCHROTONTHOLOGOS.” Among the alarming allegations in the piece, the author suggested that British army units were preparing to enforce the law in Boston: “the Ladies are apprehensive,” he wrote, “that the musty Teas kindly conveyed to them from London, will be crammed down their throats with all expedition.” As the winter wore on, both Virginia Gazettes would return to the perspective of women, a crucial audience for publications and for tea consumption.

The dialogue led readers through the reasons why the tea was unjust (“Because it is forcing our Property from us”) and why they should resist. “Is it not incumbent upon us,” one question posed, “to defend our common Property from all such Impositions,” referring to laws that were deemed “unconstitutional, cruel, and unjust.”

“Yes,” was the expected reply, “because it is as much the Duty of the whole People to defend and preserve their common Property as it is that of an individual to defend and preserve his private Property.” That opinion was not shared universally in the colonies, but it drove many of the protestors to act.

Such was the case on January 20, when both issues of the Virginia Gazette reported that a “no mail from the northward” had been delivered in the past week.

Purdie & Dixon did have a bit of news from Philadelphia, at least. In that city, news of the Boston Tea Party arrived literally hours before the tea ship headed for Philadelphia, named the Polly, appeared in Delaware Bay. Patriots stopped the ship from proceeding to the wharves and brought the captain into town for a meeting on December 27. At the meeting, colonists acted “with Unanimity, Spirit, & Zeal” to announce their opposition to the tea and their desire that Captain Ayres should not attempt to land it. Armed with the news from Boston, they were persuasive. Ayres agreed to return to London with the ship. In addition to congratulations, Philadelphians agreed to help him restock the ship for the return voyage.

Purdie & Dixon also featured more poetry about the tea crisis. First, they published a piece entitled “A Lady’s Adieu to her TEA TABLE.” In the poem, the unnamed female narrator described how she put away all the familiar pieces of a tea setting: cups, saucers, utensils, a “pretty Tea Chest.” She thought back fondly to talking with other women at the table, “Hearing the Girls’ Tattle, the Old Maids talk Scandal.” But she refused to serve tea anymore, taking to heart the lesson of protests:

Its Use will fasten slavish Chains upon my Country,
And LIBERTY’s the Goddess I would choose
To reign triumphant in AMERICA.

Purdie & Dixon also included another piece of verse in the form of lyrics to a song, depicting the Boston rebels as heroes. The song was written to be sung “to the plaintive Tune of Hosier’s Ghost.” Most Americans knew a small handful of melodies, and poets would write their verses to be sung to one of them. (Think today about how “the ABC’s” and “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” have the same melody.)

The activities in Charleston show the possibility of how to resolve a standoff in a much different political environment. As both Williamsburg newspapers reported in their January 27, 1774, issues, the tea merchants in Charleston, “finding that their receiving the said Consignment would be generally disagreeable to the Inhabitants, declined having any Thing to do with it.” Customs officials refused to let the ship depart, but protesting colonists did not prevent the tea from reaching dry land. Therefore, “when the Time limited by Act of Parliament for paying the Duty expired, the Collector of his Majesty’s Customs, agreeable to the Laws in that Case made, landed the said Tea, and lodged the same in his Majesty’s Warehouse, where it now remains, the Duty there on not having been paid.”

Purdie and Dixon added one more paragraph, this one from New York, about the customs officials who were enforcing this law. They suggested that Americans should “consider the Authority” that created the customs laws because that officials were starting to “appear as Instruments of Tyranny, to deprive the Colonies of their Rights.” This argument would grow louder over the course of 1774 as more Americans began to call into question the basis of all British authority in North America.

A few mysteries remained through the spring. The ship that sailed for New York in the fall didn’t arrive until late spring. Knocked off course by a storm in the Atlantic, Virginians only learned in late March from the Gazettes that the Lockyer had detoured to Antigua . . . over 1,700 miles south and east of New York City. In early May, news coverage began to boomerang as Virginians read about the London reaction to Boston’s dumping of the tea. The reports were dated from early February, which means that it took about six weeks for the news to reach London, and then another twelve or so to end up in Virginia.

In mid-May, Williamsburg residents learned along with their colonial brethren about the punishments for Boston. On May 19 Purdie & Dixon reprinted several paragraphs from London newspapers with details on “the American bill” that would punish Boston. Within a few weeks Virginians learned the full story: Parliament had closed the port of Boston, restricted the government of the entire colony of Massachusetts, and imposed military rule. The House of Burgesses, the Virginia colonial assembly that met in town, called for a congress to convene and respond jointly.

Then in August, finally, a tea ship arrived in Virginia. Purdie and Dixon announced in their August 18, 1774, issue that they expected that it would not be made available for sale. Instead, they expected the tea would be returned to London, at which point they didn’t care what happened to it.