goods imported into the provinces," remittances which during
the last eighteen months, it was said, "had been made in specie to the
amount of 150,000 pounds besides 90,000 pounds in Treasurer's bills for
the reimbursement money." Any man must thus see, since even Governor
Bernard was convinced of it, that the new duties would drain the colony
of all its hard money, and so, as the Governor said, "There will be an
end of the specie currency in Massachusetts." And with her trade half
gone and her hard money entirely so, the old Bay colony would have to
manufacture for herself those very commodities which English merchants
were so desirous of selling in America.

The Sugar Act was thus made out to be, even from the point of view of
English merchants, an economic blunder; but in the eyes of vigilant
Bostonians it was something more, and much worse than an economic
blunder. Vigilant Bostonians assembled in Town Meeting in May, 1764, in
order to instruct their representatives how they ought to act in these
serious times; and knowing that they ought to protest but perhaps not
knowing precisely on what grounds, they committed the drafting of their
instructions to Samuel Adams, a middle-aged man who had given much time
to the consideration of political questions, and above all to this very
question of taxation, upon which he had wonderfully clarified his ideas
by much meditation and the writing of effective political pieces for the
newspapers.

Through the eyes of Samuel Adams, therefore, vigilant Bostonians saw
clearly that the Sugar Act, to say nothing of the Stamp Act, was not
only an economic blunder but a menace to political liberty as well. "If
our trade may be taxed," so the instructions ran, "why not our lands?
Why not the produce of our lands, and everything we possess or make use
of? This we apprehend annihilates our charter right to govern and tax
ourselves. It strikes at our British privileges which, as we have never
forfeited them, we hold in common with our fellow-subjects who are
natives of Great Britain. If taxes are laid upon us in any shape without
our having a legal representative where they are laid, are we not
reduced from the character of free subjects to the miserable state of
tributary slaves?" Very formidable questions, couched in high-sounding
phrases, and representing well enough in form and in substance the state
of mind of colonial assemblies in the summer of 1764 in respect to the
Sugar Act and the