Tea Act of 1773 (13 Geo 3 c 44) was an
Act of the
Parliament of Great Britain. The principal objective was to reduce the massive surplus of tea held by the financially troubled
British East India Company in its
London warehouses and to help the struggling company survive. A related objective was to undercut the price of illegal tea, smuggled into Britain's North American colonies. This was supposed to convince the colonists to purchase Company tea on which the
Townshend duties were paid, thus implicitly agreeing to accept Parliament's right of taxation.