England and the Netherlands were at war. The oligarchies of both nations had pooled their resources to create immense operations to capture monopolies on trade. The Dutch had recently created the first republic in Europe, and thus drawn the intense ire of the intermingled European royal families. The purpose of the Enlightenment was to topple royalty and religion, but wouldn’t you know it, the secret agents of royalty and religion penetrated deep into the Enlightenment. The English created Freemasonry out of the ruins of the Templars, and the Jesuits created the Illuminati as a secret take-over of Freemasonry.
The Dutch had captured a virtual monopoly on tea because they were able to move it from harvest to market faster than anyone, and the fresher the tea, the more desirable it was. Meanwhile, the English East India Company had been sending all its merchant ships back to England, where tax was collected on the cargo, and then distributing the cargo to its final destination. The English sought to capture the Dutch monopoly on tea by buying an enormous amount of tea. But the Dutch had outfoxed the English and had plenty of tea to satiate the market. The East India company was on the brink of financial ruin, and had this happened, the Dutch would have won the trade war.
In order to compete, the English decided to ship tea direct to the Colonies. They put a very low price on the tea, and added a justifiable and legal tax to cover the costs of maintaining a fleet of warships to protect their merchant fleet while in transit. The tax was insignificant. But even so, they had trouble getting merchants to buy the tea because the illegal Dutch tea was preferred by smugglers who profited from the trade, and by the consumers.
What could be done? Late one night, a group of Freemasons dressed as natives emerged from the St. Andrews Lodge in Boston, boarded the East India Company ships, and tossed the tea overboard.
This was not some disaster, but actually saved the East India Company from financial ruin, as the insurance company back in London was forced to cover the loss. Even after the revolution, that insurance company had investigators and lawyers in Boston working on the case, but they never were able to unravel the truth of what had happened.
John Hancock was a smuggler and richest man in New England, although still young. He largely instigated the Revolution, and his operations flowed largely through Freemason lodges. You will notice his signature dominants the Declaration of Independence indicating his self-importance in fomenting the split.
By dumping all the tea, the East India Company was able to collect the full value from Lloyds of London and Hancock collected the full value of his store of Dutch tea.
Obviously, it was Hancock who dumped the tea, but his agents in Boston remained loyal and no one ever dropped a dime, although significant rewards may have been offered.
One of the greatest ceremonies of my youth was going to Memorial stadium in Champaign, IL on Saturdays, not to see football (the team was terrible and didn’t start winning until Jim Grabowski and Dick Butkus showed up a few years later) but to see Chief Illiniwek. The Chief had first appeared at a football game against Penn State, Oct. 30, 1926, standing next to the Penn State mascot, ‘William Penn.’
The band crowded into a mass inside the endzone, and the Chief slipped into that mass and disappeared. 
He then crossed his arms and walked resolutely back to mid-field, where he stood like a statue with open arms in a benediction while the entire stadium sang “Hail to the Orange” with great fervor, swaying with arms across each other’s shoulders.
