ment
could not establish it because it was against the British constitution.
This was an assertion resting on slender foundation, but it was quickly
echoed by the people. Then and there James Otis sounded the call to
America to resist the exercise of arbitrary power by royal officers.
"Then and there," wrote John Adams, "the child Independence was born."
Such was the hated writ that Townshend proposed to put into the hands of
customs officers in his grim determination to enforce the law.

=The New York Assembly Suspended.=--In the very month that Townshend's
Acts were signed by the king, Parliament took a still more drastic step.
The assembly of New York, protesting against the "ruinous and
insupportable" expense involved, had failed to make provision for the
care of British troops in accordance with the terms of the Quartering
Act. Parliament therefore suspended the assembly until it promised to
obey the law. It was not until a third election was held that compliance
with the Quartering Act was wrung from the reluctant province. In the
meantime, all the colonies had learned on how frail a foundation their
representative bodies rested.

RENEWED RESISTANCE IN AMERICA

=The Massachusetts Circular (1768).=--Massachusetts, under the
leadership of Samuel Adams, resolved to resist the policy of renewed
intervention in America. At his suggestion the assembly adopted a
Circular Letter addressed to the assemblies of the other colonies
informing them of the state of affairs in Massachusetts and roundly
condemning the whole British program. The Circular Letter declared that
Parliament had no right to lay taxes on Americans without their consent
and that the colonists could not, from the nature of the case, be
represented in Parliament. It went on shrewdly to submit to
consideration the question as to whether any people could be called free
who were subjected to governors and judges appointed by the crown and
paid out of funds raised independently. It invited the other colonies,
in the most temperate tones, to take thought about the common
predicament in which they were all placed.

[Illustration: _From an old print._

SAMUEL ADAMS]

=The Dissolution of Assemblies.=--The governor of Massachusetts, hearing
of the Circular Letter, ordered the assembly to rescind its appeal. On
meeting refusal, he promptly dissolved it. The Maryland, Georgia, and
South Carolina assemblies indorsed the Circular Letter and were also
dissolved