Prior to the American Revolution, the British began taxing American colonies to raise revenue. South Carolina residents were outraged about the 1767 Townshend Acts that taxed tea, paper, wine, glass, and oil. To protest the earlier (1765) Stamp Act, South Carolina sent wealthy rice planter Thomas Lynch, 26-year old lawyer John Rutledge, and Christopher Gadsden to the Stamp Act Congress, held in 1765 New York. Other taxes were removed in 1766, but tea taxes remained. Soon South Carolinians confiscated the tea that arrived at Charleston Harbor and stored it in the Exchange and Customs House. It was later sold to help pay for the Revolution.