Britain, were
impressed, in the first instance, with any idea of the illegality of
taxing the colonists.

Illumination on that subject was gradual. The resolutions in favor of an
American stamp act, which passed in March, 1764, met with no opposition.
In the course of the year which intervened between these resolutions and
the passing of a law grounded upon them, the subject was better
understood, and constitutional objections against the measure were urged
by several, both in Great Britain and America. This astonished and
chagrined the British ministry; but as the principle of taxing America
had been for some time determined upon, they were unwilling to give it
up. Impelled by partiality for a long-cherished idea, Grenville, in
March, 1765, brought into the House of Commons his long-expected bill
for laying a stamp duty in America. By this, after passing through the
usual forms, it was enacted that the instruments of writing in daily use
among a commercial people should be null and void unless they were
executed on stamped paper or parchment, charged with a duty imposed by
the British Parliament.

When the bill was brought in, Charles Townshend concluded a speech in
its favor with words to the following effect: "And now will these
Americans, children planted by our care, nourished up by our indulgence,
till they are grown to a degree of strength and opulence, and protected
by our arms--will they grudge to contribute their mite to relieve us
from the heavy weight of that burden which we lie under?" To which
Colonel Barre replied: "They planted by your care? No, your oppressions
planted them in America! They fled from tyranny to a then uncultivated
and inhospitable country, where they exposed themselves to almost all
the hardships to which human nature is liable; and, among others, to the
cruelty of a savage foe the most subtle, and I will take upon me to say
the most formidable, of any people upon the face of God's earth! And
yet, actuated by principles of true English liberty, they met all
hardships with pleasure, compared with those they suffered in their own
country from the hand of those that should have been their friends.

"They nourished up by your indulgence? They grew by your neglect of
them! As soon as you began to care about them, that care was exercised
in sending persons to rule them, in one department and another, who
were, perhaps, the deputies of deputies to some members in this House,
sent to spy ou