Peggy Stewart (ship)

The Peggy Stewart was a Maryland cargo vessel burned on October 19, 1774, in Annapolis as a punishment for contravening the boycott on tea imports which had been imposed in retaliation for the British treatment of the people of Boston following the Boston Tea Party. This event became known as the "Annapolis Tea Party".

In February 1770, the brig Good Intent arrived at Annapolis from London, bringing goods ordered by local merchants at various times during 1769. Some of the orders had been placed before the local resolutions in June-July 1769, to boycott goods subject to British tax under the "Townshend Acts" of 1767. The Customs collector at Annapolis would not allow any goods to be landed, even those not subject to tax, until the tax had been paid. The local committee supervising the boycott would not allow tax to be paid on any goods. The various merchants importing the goods, led by James Dick and his son-in-law Anthony Stewart, finally gave up, and sent the Good Intent back to London, still fully loaded. Ironically, while Good Intent was in mid-Atlantic, the British government gave in to the boycott and removed taxes on all goods- except tea. The Tea Act of 1773 allowed one company, the British East India Company, to sell tea in America without paying tax- but such a one-sided deal seemed as unjust to Americans as the original taxes, eventually leading to the famous Boston Tea Party and, following the British over-reaction, to a widespread re-introduction of tea boycotts.

Most ships' captains refused to carry tea, but in the summer of 1774, one merchant, Thomas Charles Williams, the London representative of an Annapolis family firm, thought he had found a cunning way around that problem. He loaded 2,320 pounds (about one ton) of tea, in 17 packages, aboard the brig Peggy Stewart, principally owned by Dick and Stewart (business rivals to the Williams firm), which was about to make the Atlantic crossing. The worried captain, Richard Jackson, was told that the packages contained linen, but to avoid the possibility of being prosecuted for smuggling, Williams correctly identified the consignment as tea on his Customs declaration. Hence, when he was clearing Customs at the mouth of the River Thames (some distance from London) Jackson learned that he had been right to suspect the packages and that part of his cargo was going to cause major trouble in America. However, once declared to Customs officials in Britain, the tea had to be taken to its appointed destination — preferably before the autumn gales began, for Peggy Stewart needed an overhaul and leaked quite badly. That made the voyage most unpleasant for the main cargo: 53 indentured servants.

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