Political Memes

On 10 June 1768, customs officials seized the Liberty, a sloop owned by leading Boston merchant John Hancock, on allegations that the ship had been involved in smuggling. Bostonians, already angry because the captain of the Romney had been impressing local sailors, began to riot. Customs officials fled to Castle William for protection. With John Adams serving as his lawyer, Hancock was prosecuted in a highly publicized trial by a vice-admiralty court, but the charges were eventually dropped.[92][93]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Townshend_Acts

Now, my first comment did make it sound like all of this happened in short order, but the back and forth over the Townshend acts went on for a very long time.

But due to those taxes and the efficiency of British naval shipping, smugglers just couldn't compete. They could only beat legal prices if they shipped straight to/from America instead of physically routing all goods thru England.

It wasn't just about taxes, it was merchants in England getting their cut. First crack at goods out of America, and a chance to beat prices on what was going into America.

I'm not sure if that's the part you wanted me to source though. I touched on a bunch of things in a summary from memory, it would take a lot of effort to go back and cite a source for every piece of information I just spit out.

So I'm not doubling down and saying I remembered it perfectly, just that it helps to be specific what you want a source for. Otherwise the other person just guesses.

In the "Resisting the Tea Act" section of the Wikipedia article, it notes that the East India Company was allowed to import tea directly into the colonies without first passing it through wholesale markets in England. The tea was then sold at a price of 2/- per pound, undercutting the price of smuggled Dutch tea, then priced at 2/1 per pound. This is secondary to the fact that the tea still was taxed at -/3 per pound, meaning the price was really 1/9 plus thruppence tax, but this tax was included in the sale price and paid quietly by the consignment agents after it was sold.

Mercantile pressure in America tried to force all the consignment agents in America to resign and were partially successful, except in Massachusetts, where the colonial governor urged the agents to stand their ground. The Sons of Liberty, an organisation of such people, attempted to force the first shipment aboard the ship Dartmouth to return to England without unloading its cargo (and thus causing the tax to be paid).

Being unsuccessful, the Sons of Liberty snuck aboard the Dartmouth, which was anchored in Boston Harbour but had not unloaded its cargo yet, and destroyed the tea aboard.