A Society of Patriotic Ladies, at Edenton in North Carolina

As reports of American colonial resistance to British taxes reached London, the publishers Sayer and Bennett responded with five mezzotints, produced between October 1774 and March 1775. The unsigned works probably were designed and engraved by the adept satirist Philip Dawe. This final print in the series offers a female counterpoint to "The Alternative to Williamsburg," where Virginian men pledge to withhold tobacco exports. Here, North Carolinian women promise not to buy or use East India Company tea or English-made cloth—as directed by the "Articles of Association," passed by the First Continental Congress and put into effect in December 1774.

When fifty-one North Carolinian women, led by Penelope Barker, signed this pledge, they participated in the first female collective political action in America. A copy of their pledge sent to England must have prompted Dawe’s print. Gathered in a parlor, the group’s leader pens a legible text that begins "We the Ladys" while her companions dump tea leaves from their caddies into hats held by men in the doorway. An enslaved woman proffers pen and ink, the instruments of protest, as a reminder that North Carolina’s enslaved Black population had no political rights.

Throughout this series, Dawe often represented American colonists as ugly, foolish, or uncouth. Here, he gives an unattractive elderly woman a prominent place, and her young companion a blank expression to convey lack of political understanding. Two women near the window, who drink alcoholic punch instead of tea, are dressed as Quakers—the pacifist religious minority forced out of England. In addition, a flirtation taking place between an elegant young lady and gentleman argues that female political activisits could be easily distracted. Such satirical tropes would have appealed to British viewers who thought American protests misguided and dangerous. Inscribed text introduced by Dawe here and elsewhere communicates grudging admiration for colonial political boldness (see 24.90.31–24.90.35 for all the prints in the Sayer and Bennett series).