on policies of Great Britain. It is the culmination of the campaign of opposition that had been accelerating for twenty years and included the vain fight against the Writs of Assistance and the partly successful efforts to frustrate operation of the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts.
The stamp Act and the Townshend Act had been repealed, but the galling tax on tea remained. The damage was compounded in the spring of 1773 when parliament passed a new modified Tea Act. This came at a time when the colonists were beginning to work together, and Samuel Adams was able to get support for his opposition from Pennsylvania, Virginia, South Carolina, and New York. Tea was an important commodity in the British economy and affected the foreign policy of Britain because the East India company had extensive holdings in India which had to be protected by British arms. American merchants had nonimportation agreements and had reduced shipments to the colonies to an unprofitable level, and the colonists now either abstain
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