overnment, ventured upon
the policy from which Walpole [his predecessor] had wisely abstained.
Early in March the eventful question was debated, "whether they had a
right to tax America." It was decided in the affirmative. Next
followed a resolution, declaring it proper to charge certain stamp
duties in the colonies and plantations, but no immediate step was
taken to carry it into effect. Mr. Grenville, however, gave notice to
the American agents in London that he should introduce such a measure
on the ensuing session of Parliament. In the meantime Parliament
perpetuated certain duties on sugar and molasses--heretofore subjects
of complaint and opposition--now reduced and modified so as to
discourage smuggling, and thereby to render them more productive.
Duties, also, were imposed on other articles of foreign produce or
manufacture imported into the colonies. To reconcile the latter to
these impositions, it was stated that the revenue thus raised was to
be appropriated to their protection and security; in other words, to
the support of a standing army, intended to be quartered upon them. We
have here briefly stated but a part of what Burke terms an "infinite
variety of paper chains," extending through no less than twenty-nine
acts of Parliament, from 1660 to 1764, by which the colonies had been
held in thraldom.

The New Englanders were the first to take the field against the
project of taxation. They denounced it as a violation of their rights
as freemen; of their chartered rights, by which they were to tax
themselves for their support and defence; of their rights as British
subjects, who ought not to be taxed but by themselves or their
representatives. They sent petitions and remonstrances on the subject
to the king, the lords and the commons, in which they were seconded by
New York and Virginia. All was in vain. In March, 1765, the act was
passed, according to which all instruments in writing were to be
executed on stamped paper, to be purchased from the agents of the
British government. What was more, all offences against the act could
be tried in any royal, marine or admiralty court throughout the
colonies, however distant from the place where the offence had been
committed; thus interfering with that most inestimable right, a trial
by jury.

It was an ominous sign that the first burst of opposition to this act
should take place in Virginia. That colony had hitherto been slow to
accord with the republican spirit