http://www.boston-tea-party.org/unknown-facts.html
"Protesters swept the docks afterwards
The destruction of tea was not a violent protest. The ships’ crews attested that nothing had been damaged or destroyed except the tea - and the protesters swept the decks clean afterwards. The Massachusetts Gazette even reported that when it was realized that a padlock that had been broken was the personal property of one of the ships’ captains, a replacement was procured and sent to him."
