on any objections to which his schemes might be
liable--proposed to raise a portion of the money which was needed by
taxes on glass, paper, tea, and one or two other articles, to be paid as
import duties in the American Colonies. His colleagues, and especially
the Duke of Grafton himself, the First Lord of the Treasury, and as such
the nominal Prime-minister, having been also, as Secretary of State, a
member of Lord Rockingham's ministry, which had repealed the former
taxes, did not consent to the measure without great and avowed
reluctance; but yielded their own judgment to the strong feeling in its
favor which notoriously existed in the House of Commons.[44] Indeed,
that House passed the clauses imposing these import duties without
hesitation, being, probably, influenced in no small degree by the
evidence given in the preceding year by Dr. Franklin, who, as has been
already seen, had explained that the Colonists drew a distinction
between what he called "internal taxes" and import duties "intended to
regulate commerce," and that to the latter class they were not inclined
to object. And a second consideration was, that these new duties were
accompanied and counterbalanced by a reduction of some other taxes; so
that the ministry contended that the effect of these financial measures,
taken altogether, would be to lower to the Colonists the price of the
articles affected by them rather than to raise it. But one of the
resolutions adopted provided that the whole of the money to be raised
from these taxes should not be spent in America, but that, after making
provision for certain Colonial objects specified, "the residue of such
duties should be paid into the receipt of his Majesty's Exchequer, and
there reserved, to be from time to time disposed of by Parliament toward
defraying the necessary expenses of defending, protecting, and securing
the said Colonies and plantations." And this clause seems to have been
understood as designed to provide means for augmenting the number of
regular troops to be maintained in the Colonies, whose employment in the
recent disturbances had made them more unpopular than formerly.[45]

At all events, the intelligence of these new taxes, though only import
duties, found the Colonists in a humor to resist any addition of any
kind to their financial burdens. The events of the last two years had
taught them their strength. It was undeniable that the repeal of the
Stamp Act had been extorted by the