This arrangement with the East India Company was obnoxious to the colonists for several reasons. It was an act of favoritism for one thing, in the interest of a great monopoly. For another thing, it promised to dump on the American market, suddenly, an immense amount of cheap tea and so cause heavy losses to American merchants who had large stocks on hand. It threatened with ruin the business of all those who were engaged in clandestine trade with the Dutch. It carried with it an irritating tax of three pence on imports. In Charleston, Annapolis, New York, and Boston, captains of ships who brought tea under this act were roughly handled. One night in December, 1773, a band of Boston citizens, disguised as Indians, boarded the hated tea ships and dumped the cargo into the harbor. This was serious business, for it was open, flagrant, determined violation of the law. As such the British government viewed it. RETALIATION BY THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT =Reception of the News of the Tea Riot.=--The news of the tea riot in Boston confirmed King George in his conviction that there should be no soft policy in dealing with his American subjects. "The die is cast," he stated with evident satisfaction. "The colonies must either triumph or submit.... If we take the resolute part, they will undoubtedly be very meek." Lord George Germain characterized the tea party as "the proceedings of a tumultuous and riotous rabble who ought, if they had the least prudence, to follow their mercantile employments and not trouble themselves with politics and government, which they do not understand." This expressed, in concise form, exactly the sentiments of Lord North, who had then for three years been the king's chief minister. Even Pitt, Lord Chatham, was prepared to support the government in upholding its authority.