Consequences of the Boston Tea Party: "The Royal American Magazine" Reports the Imminent Boston Blockade

The May 1774 issue of "The Royal American Magazine, or Universal Repository of Instruction and Amusement," published in Boston, Massachusetts by Isaiah Thomas. The pamphlet spans about 40 pages (pp. 163-200) and includes nearly 30 articles of miscellany: political news, philosophical reflections, historical curiosities, home remedies, and meteorological data. Featuring a masthead cover depicting a reclining Indian attributed to Paul Revere. Expected wear including toning, scattered foxing and stains, and edge darkening, else very good to near fine. Part of a former owner's name is inscribed at the top of the front cover. Bound. 5.25" x 8.125."

"The Royal American Magazine" was published between January 1774 and March 1775, during a 14-month-long period of increasingly worsening relations between Great Britain and the Massachusetts Bay Colony. A subscription-based monthly periodical, "The Royal American Magazine" reprinted standard articles from the British press, but it also advanced a pronounced pro-Patriot agenda. This issue addressed two current events that carried significant political and economic consequences: the imminent blockade of Boston; and the replacement of Thomas Hutchinson as Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony with British General Thomas Gage.

The first item found in the May 1774 issue reported on a bill recently passed by British Parliament announcing the impending blockade of Boston imposed in response to the Boston Tea Party. The punitive law prohibited the loading or unloading of any goods in the port of Boston (with a few exceptions for military supplies, food, and fuel) until the East India Company, as well as royal customs collectors, were compensated for damages.

In part:

"The following is the much talked of Boston Port-Bill, which on Thursday last received the Royal Assent, and after the first of June becomes a law…An Act to discontinue, in such manner, and for such time as are therein mentioned, the landing and discharging, lading or shipping of goods, ware, and merchandize, at the town, and within the harbour of Boston, in the Province of Massachusetts-Bay, in North America… [these terms remaining in effect until]… it shall sufficiently appear to his Majesty that full satisfaction hath been made by or on behalf of the inhabitants of the said town of Boston to the united company of merchants of England trading to the East-Indies, for the damage sustained by the said company by the destruction of their goods…on board certain ships or vessels as aforesaid; and until it shall be certified to his Majesty, in Council, by the Governor, or Lieutenant Governor, of the said province, that reasonable satisfaction hath been made to the officers of his Majesty's revenue, and others, who suffered by the riots and insurrections above-mentioned, in the months of November and December, in the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy three…" (p. 163; p. 167)

In a back section of the pamphlet entitled "Historical Chronicle, May 1774," the publisher provides his readers with a scathing editorial of this punitive law, writing in part, "The conduct of the British Parliament has sat [sic] all America in commotion…Nothing can equal the distress of the inhabitants of Boston and the adjacent towns are thrown into by the shutting up the port; all the colonies think themselves interested in this alarming event, and all seem determined to aid and assist their brethren in Boston. How matters will end God only knows, but it is thought that, by the blessing of heaven, if the colonies unite and stand firm, that they will preserve their liberties and cast off the iron yoke of bondage…" (p. 193)

The Boston blockade--long with the change of provincial leadership--signaled a hardening of attitudes towards the colonies, and the first step towards imposing martial law.

On November 29, 1773, patriot firebrand Samuel Adams called a general meeting in Boston (first at Faneuil Hall, and then at Old South Meeting House) to discuss the despised Tea Act of May 1773. This act, one of the first of the so-called Intolerable Acts, exempted the British Tea Company from taxes on the sale of their Chinese tea in the American colonies. Members of the Sons of Liberty, the leading Patriot organization in colonial Boston, boarded three vessels belonging to the East India Company on the night of December 16, 1773. There, they dumped over 300 chests of tea valued at $1.7 million in 2021 currency into Boston Harbor in a gesture of defiance. The Patriots targeted the tea because it was a symbol of British monopoly and imperial abuse of power.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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