Contemporaries were well aware of the absurdity of the ostensible reason for the protest. ‘Will not posterity be amazed’, wrote one sceptic, ‘when they are told that the present distraction took its rise from the parliament’s taking off a shilling duty on a pound of tea, and imposing three pence, and call it a more unaccountable phrenzy, and more disgraceful to the annals of America, than that of the witchcraft?’
– Niall Ferguson
