The Bostonians Paying the Excise-Man, or Tarring & Feathering

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. Events in Boston following the Tea Act of 1773 inspired this first image, which includes a glimpse of the Boston Tea Party at left—an event that occurred on December 16, 1773. In what may be the earliest printed image of this seminal act of protest, five men dressed in European garb dump tea into the harbor from chests lettered with faux-Chinese characters. The artist may not have known that the participants disguised themselves as Native Americans.

The action in the foreground centers on the punishment, a few weeks later, of a loyalist tax collector, John Malcom. This American-born servant of the British government had a violent temper and delighted in the abuse of his authority. On January 24, 1774, as Malcolm argued with a shoemaker and Tea-party participant, he opened the man’s head with a blow from his cane. When angry Bostonians surrounded the assailant’s house, he taunted them and injured one with a sword. Malcom was then tarred and feathered, dragged to the Liberty Tree, threatened with hanging, and forced to drink tea until he foreswore his loyalty to the crown. After a long recuperation, he traveled to London to seek remuneration and never returned to Boston.

To bring the disparate scenes together, the artist moved the Liberty Tree—a hundred-year-old elm and patriot rallying spot—from near the Boston Common to the harbor, hung a noose from one branch, and placed an upside-down copy of the 1765 Stamp Act on its trunk as a reminder of the tax that first sparked American protest. While patriot leaders condemned Malcom’s treatment, they could not prevent Parliament from passing the Intolerable Acts, drafted to repress activism and force restitution for the ruined tea. When the British army occupied Boston in 1775, loyalists felled the Liberty Tree and used it for firewood (see 24.90.31–24.90.35 for all the prints in the Sayer and Bennett series). The strong tonal contrasts and faint details in this late impression result from a worn printing plate.