Published in London on October 31, 1774, The Bostonians Paying the Excise-Man, or Tarring and Feathering offered British audiences a disturbing vision of colonial resistance. Issued by Robert Sayer and John Bennett and attributed to Philip Dawe, the mezzotint depicts a tarred-and-feathered customs official being forced to drink tea beneath Boston’s Liberty Tree. Appearing as relations between Great Britain and its American colonies deteriorated, the print presented protest not as a principled defense of liberty, but as an act of intimidation and mob violence.
The scene depicts the January 1774 assault on John Malcolm, a customs official and supporter of British authority. Five men surround him, pouring tea into his mouth while a noose hangs overhead. An upside-down notice bearing the words “Stamp Act” is attached to the Liberty Tree, and figures in the background dump tea into Boston Harbor. By combining Malcolm’s punishment with the earlier Boston Tea Party, the artist linked separate episodes of resistance in a single, politically charged composition.
The print’s significance lies both in what it depicts and in how it frames those events. Its menacing portrayal of the Bostonians invited viewers to question the methods of men claiming to defend colonial liberty. The background scene may also be the earliest printed depiction of the Boston Tea Party. Published less than six months before the fighting at Lexington and Concord, the image captures how the imperial crisis was being fought through visual persuasion as well as political confrontation. It survives not as a neutral record of protest, but as a revealing British interpretation of the violence accompanying America’s resistance to imperial authority.
