have a right to
impose the other; the distinction is ridiculous in the sight of
everybody, except the Americans."

"Everybody, except the Americans!" The phrase, from an important speech
at a critical moment, marks the fact that a world of thought divided
the two parts of the Empire more truly than did the Atlantic. But not as
yet so evidently. It is only in unconscious acknowledgments such as
these that we find the English admitting the new classification. In
studying the years before and after this event we find the Americans
often called Puritans and Oliverians, while the possible rise of a
Cromwell among them is admitted. Yet the parallel, though unmistakably
apt, and containing a serious warning, was never taken to heart, even in
America.

Americans were very slow in approaching the conclusion that colonists
had irrefragable rights. Caution and habit and pride in the name of
Englishman kept them from it; the colonist, visiting England for the
first time, still proudly said that he was going "home." There was no
reason why this feeling should ever change, if only the spirit of
compromise, the basis of the British Constitution, had been kept in mind
by Parliament. But the times were wrong. Hesitate as the colonists might
before the syllogism which lay ready for completion, its minor and
major premises were already accepted. That they were Englishmen, and
that Englishmen had inalienable rights, were articles of faith among
them. The conclusion would be drawn as soon as they were forced to it.
And Townshend was preparing to force them.

Townshend proposed small duties on lead, paints, glass, and paper.
Besides this, he withdrew the previous export duty, one shilling per
pound, on tea taken from England to America, and instead of this he laid
an import duty of threepence per pound. This was ingeniously new, being
internal taxation in a form different from that of the Stamp Act. At the
same time was abandoned the ancient contention that customs duties were
but trade regulations. The new taxes were obviously to raise an English
revenue. For the execution of the new laws provision was made in each
colony for collectors to be paid directly by the king, but indirectly by
the colonies. The head of these collectors was a board of Commissioners
of the Customs, stationed at Boston. It will be seen that thus were
begun new irritations for the colonies, in the shape of duties for the
benefit of England, and of a corps of offic