# Boston Tea Party: unpaid bill? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 4, 2002, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boston-tea-party-unpaid-bill/135158 "2002-11-04T01:01:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![SC\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@SC\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SC_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2002, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boston-tea-party-unpaid-bill/135158/1 "2002-11-04T01:01:32Z")
Somewhere I heard that the corporate descendant of the shipping company whose ship it was that the tea was tossed overboard during the Boston Tea Party sends the US Governement a bill each year, for the cost of the tea and compounded interest on the deliquent account. Of course, the US Government ignores the bill every year, as a matter of principle. Any truth to this? ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2002, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boston-tea-party-unpaid-bill/135158/2 "2002-11-04T03:07:48Z")
I don’t know but: 1 The US wan’t around back then (they should send the bill to England). 2 It was a bunch of indians that did it anyway (they sure looked like indians) 3 the statute of limitations was up a loooooong time ago. ---
**Author:** ![Peregrine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a6a055/32.png) [@Peregrine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peregrine)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2002, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boston-tea-party-unpaid-bill/135158/3 "2002-11-04T03:24:03Z")
The three ships that were raided belonged to the British East India Company. It seems unlikely that they would send a bill to the U.S., which was not in existence at the time of the incident, and I see no mention of a bill to anybody in _The East India Company_ by Brian Gardner. You might be interested in [Boston Harbour Tea](http://www.marktwendell.com/BostonHarbour.htm), however, produced by Davison, Newman & Company, LTD. On each tin is reproduced their petition to King George III, claiming compensation for the tea that was destroyed by “persons disguised as Indians”. It’s a bit of a stretch, really—the text on the tin explains about how there was a second, little known tea-dumping about three months after the famous one, and _that’s_ when their tea was lost. I haven’t been able to find anything else about that alleged second incident. ---
**Author:** ![Melandry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Melandry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melandry)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2002, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boston-tea-party-unpaid-bill/135158/4 "2002-11-04T03:39:09Z")
The second dumping is mentioned on [ulr=http://www.pennyparker2.com/revolution.html]this not-so-academic page. (Beware the bad midi!) It’s also mentioned [here](http://timelines.ws/days/03_07.HTML) on a timeline page, where it seems to coincide with the closing of the harbor. There was also a dumping at New York, as refernced very briefly [here](http://www.sonsoftherevolution.org/revolution.html). ---
**Author:** ![Melandry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Melandry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melandry)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2002, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boston-tea-party-unpaid-bill/135158/5 "2002-11-04T03:41:03Z")
Ugh. [Let’s try this again](http://www.pennyparker2.com/revolution.html).