only of the king, who was supposed to be still CHAP. IL under the influence of the earl of Bute, but 1767. of a considerable part of the nation.

The temper now discovered in some of the colonies was by no means calculated to assuage the wound which this measure had inflicted on the haughty spirit of the rulers of that country, and is supposed to have contributed, in no small degree, to the revival of a system which had been reluctantly abandoned.

Charles Townshend, chancellor of the exchequer, in an administration formed by lord Chatham, a man of splendid and versatile talents, said boastingly, in the house of commons, that he knew "how to draw a revenue from the colonies, without giving them offence." b Mr. Grenville eagerly caught at the declaration, and instantly urged this minister to pledge himself to bring forward the measure at which he had hinted. A bill had been decided on in the cabinet, during the sickness and absence of lord Chatham, whose infirmities had, for the time, impaired both his talents and his influence, for imposing certain duties on tea, glass, paper and painters' colours imported into the colonies from Great Britain. This bill was now brought into parliament, and passed almost without oppo

June.

b Belsham.

CHAP. II. sition. The taxes it imposed were appropriated, 1767. in the first instance, to the payment of the salaries of the governors, judges, and other officers of government.

The friends of America in England had distinguished between internal and external taxation; and the same distinction had also been made in the colonies. As the power of parliament to impose duties, for the purpose of commercial regulations, had never been doubted, it is possible that if the present measure had been adopted in the first instance, it might, as well as the act laying a duty on sugars, have been submitted to without examination. But the discussions to which the stamp act had given birth, had greatly enlarged the circle of political information in America, and while they rendered more diffusive among the colonists, a knowledge of their rights, had inspired also a much more accurate mode of thinking respecting them."

The present duties were plainly intended, not to regulate commerce, but to raise a revenue, which would be as certainly collected from the colonists, as the duties on stamps could have been. The principle of the two measures was precisely the same. The mode of attack indeed was varied, but the same object was still pursued. Many of the Americans were now too intelligent to be misguided by the distinction between internal and external

taxation, or by the precedents quoted in support CHAP. II. of the right contended for. This, they said, 1767: was plainly an internal tax, as the duties would be unavoidably paid in the country; and if external, yet it was imposed, not for the purpose of regulating or restraining trade, but of raising It was considered as establishing

a revenue.

a precedent of taxation for the mere purpose of revenue, which might afterwards be extended at the discretion of parliament, and was spoken of as the entering wedge, designed to make way for impositions too heavy to be borne. The appropriation of the money did not lessen the odium of the tax. The colonial legislatures considered the dependence of the governors and other officers, on them, for their salaries, as the best security for their attending to the interests, and cultivating the affections of the provinces.

с

duties on tea,

in America.

With these sentiments concerning the act, it Act imposing was not strange that a determination was made &c, resisted to oppose its execution: yet the idea of its unconstitutionality was not taken up so suddenly or so universally as had been witnessed in the case of the stamp act. Many very able political essays appeared in the papers, demonstrating the violation contained in this law, of the principles of the English constitution, and of

Prior documents.

CHAP. II. English liberty; and earnestly exhorting the 1767. people of America to take measures which would defeat its operation. The effect of these essays was gradual, but certain; and the public judgment seemed at length convinced that the same principle which had before been succesfully opposed was again approaching under a different garb.

The general court of Massachussetts met in December, and very early in the session, took 1768. under their consideration several acts of par

January.

The assembly

of Massa

chussetts address

liament, which during the recess, had been transmitted to the colony. They perceived plainly that the claim to tax America was revived, and they determined to oppose it with all the means in their power.

A very elaborate letter was addressed to Dennis de Bert, agent for the house of representatives, in which are detailed, at great the admini length, and with much weight of argument,

letters to several

members of

stration in England.

all the objections to be made to the late acts of parliament. Letters signed by the speaker

were also addressed to the earl of Shelburne and general Conway, secretaries of state; to the marquis of Rockingham, lord Camden, the carl of Chatham, and the lords commisioners of the treasury. These letters, while they breathe a spirit of ardent attachment to the British constitution and the British nation, manifest a perfect conviction that their complaints were just: a conviction founded on an entire under

standing of the soundest political principles, CHAP. II. which ought to have arrested the mad course 1768. now recommenced.

"Conscious of their own disposition," say they to general Conway, "they rely upon that candour which is a distinguished mark of your character. And however they may have been represented to his majesty's ministers as undutiful, turbulent, and factious, your sentiments are too generous to impute expressions of un. easiness under the operation of any particular acts of the British parliament to a peevish, or discontented habit, much less to the want of a due veneration for that august assembly.

"This house is at all times ready to recognise his majesty's high court of parliament, the supreme legislative power over the whole empire. Its superintending authority, in all cases consistent with the fundamental rules of the constitution, is as clearly admitted by his majesty's subjects in this province as by those within the realm. Since the constitution of the state, as it ought to be, is fixed; it is humbly presumed that the subjects in every part of the empire, however remote, have an equitable claim to all the advantages of it." d

To the earl of Shelburne, after stating the hardships encountered by their fathers, and