Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/310

 patriots and courtiers, king's friends and republicans, Whigs and Tories, treacherous friends and open enemies,—a very curious show, but utterly unsafe to touch, and unsure to stand upon." The contumacy of the colonists greatly annoyed the king and ministry, as well as the people at large, and it became the general impression, fortified by the representations of the colonial governors, that it was necessary to display more determination, in order to bring the refractory colonists to a proper submission. At the very first session of Parliament, after the formation of this new ministry,—January, 1766—Townshend, a man of brilliant parts, but no well-settled principles, Drought forward a new scheme of raising a revenue in America. He had been urged on to this step by the pertinacious attacks of Grenville, who felt tar from comfortable under his defeat m regard to the Stamp Act. "You are cowards!" was his language to the new ministry; "you are afraid of the Americans; you dare not tax America!" Taunts of this kind roused up Townshend's blood: "Fear! fear! cowards! dare not tax America. I dare tax America." "Dare you?" said Grenville; "dare you tax America? I wish to God I could see it." "I will," said Townshend; "I will."

Townshend's scheme was based upon that distinction which Pitt had maintained between a direct tax and commercial imposts for regulating trade. Hence, he proposed to lay a duty upon teas imported into America, together with paints, paper, glass, and lead, which were articles of British produce; its alleged object being to raise a revenue for the support of the civil government, for the expense of a standing army, and for giving permanent salaries to the royal governors, with a view to render them independent of the colonial Assemblies. Pitt was at the time confined by sickness in the country, and the bill passed with very little opposition, and on the 29th of June, received the royal assent. In order to enforce the new act, and those already in existence, which, odious as they were to the Americans, had hitherto been continually evaded by them, a Board of Revenue Commissioners was to be established at Boston. Indignant, moreover, at the recent refusal of the New York Assembly to comply with the provisions of the act for quartering soldiers, notwithstanding their personal remonstrances, the ministers passed an act restraining that body from any further legislative proceedings until they had submitted.

These acts for imposing new taxes were received with no favor in America, and the excitement in all parts of the country was rekindled. Possibly, under other circumstances, this plan of taxation might have been submitted to, but the exasperated state of feeling in the colonies, led them to view with deep suspicion, and to resist, every scheme of taxing them in a way which they declared to be in violation of their rights as British freemen. "When George III. and his Parliament," as M. Guizot says, "rather in a spirit of pride, and to prevent the loss of absolute power by long disuse, than to derive any advantage from its exercise, undertook to tax