ials whose dependence on the
crown made sure that they would be subservient tools.

While this was done, no change was made in the plan to maintain in
America an army at colonial expense. Indeed, New York was punished for
refusing to supply to the troops quartered in the city supplies that had
been illegally demanded. Its assembly was not allowed to proceed with
public business until the supplies should be voted. Thus every other
colony was notified what to expect.

The Revenue Acts were passed in July, 1767. Upon receiving the news the
colonies expressed to each other their discontent. Concerning the
Customs Commissioners Boston felt the greatest uneasiness. "We shall
now," wrote Andrew Eliot, "be obliged to maintain in luxury sycophants,
court parasites, and hungry dependents." The strongest expression upon
the general situation was in Dickinson's "Farmer's Letters."[18]
"This," said he, "is an INNOVATION, and a most dangerous innovation. We
being obliged to take commodities from Great Britain, special duties
upon their exportation to us are as much taxes as those imposed by the
Stamp Act. Great Britain claims and exercises the right to prohibit
manufactures in America. Once admit that she may lay duties upon her
exportations to us, for the purpose of levying money on us only, she
will then have nothing to do but to lay those duties on the articles
which she prohibits us to manufacture, and the tragedy of American
liberty is finished."

There was but one way to meet the situation. In October the town of
Boston resolved, through its town meeting, to import none of the
dutiable articles. The example was followed by other towns until all the
colonies had entered, unofficially, into a non-importation agreement.
The question arose, What further should be done? Otis was beginning his
mental decline. It was now that Samuel Adams, or Sam Adams, as Boston
better loves to call him, came into the leadership which he ever after
exercised.

He was a man of plain Boston ancestry, whose father had interested
himself in public affairs, and who, like his son, was of doubtful
business ability. Sam Adams's interests were evident from his boyhood,
and when in 1743 he took his degree of Master of Arts at Harvard, he
presented a thesis on the subject: "Whether it be Lawful to resist the
Supreme Magistrate, if the Commonwealth cannot otherwise be preserved."
Although he inherited a little property from his father, and although
from the