<Li> Consignees receiving the Company's tea were required to pay a deposit upon receipt of tea . </Li> <P> Proposals were made that the Townshend tax also be waived, but North opposed this idea, citing the fact that those revenues were used to pay the salaries of crown officials in the colonies . </P> <P> The Company was granted license by the North administration to ship tea to major American ports, including Charleston, Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston . Consignees who were to receive the tea and arrange for its local resale were generally favorites of the local governor (who was royally appointed in South Carolina, New York, and Massachusetts, and appointed by the proprietors in Pennsylvania). In Massachusetts, Governor Thomas Hutchinson was a part - owner of the business hired by the Company to receive tea shipped to Boston . </P> <P> Many colonists opposed the Act, not so much because it rescued the East India Company, but more because it seemed to validate the Townshend Tax on tea . Merchants who had been acting as the middlemen in legally importing tea stood to lose their business, as did those whose illegal Dutch trade would be undercut by the Company's lowered prices . These interests combined forces, citing the taxes and the Company's monopoly status as reasons to oppose the Act . </P>

How much was the british tax on tea