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In the time of King George III, Parliament forgot that its job was not to regulate the people, but to represent them.
… Ever since the days of King James Ii, the East India Company had enjoyed a very cosy relationship with the Crown … The prevailing opinion in Westminster was that the nation’s wealth lay in maximising commercial tax revenue, and to achieve this Parliament insisted that the colonies trade through the Government’s exclusive trading partner, the East India Company … By the 1770s, some 86% of American tea was smuggled, and the East India Company’s warehouses in London were full of unsaleable tea …