merican subjects were not amenable to the
authority of parliament seemed like supposing that a stream could rise
higher than its source. Besides, after 1700 the British empire began
to expand in all parts of the world, and the business of parliament
became more and more imperial. It could make laws for the East India
Company; why not, then, for the Company of Massachusetts Bay?

[Sidenote: Conflict between the British and the American theories was
precipitated by George III.]
Thus the American theory of the situation was irreconcilable with
the British theory, and when parliament in 1765, with no unfriendly
purpose, began laying taxes upon the Americans, thus invading the
province of the colonial legislatures, the Americans refused to
submit. The ensuing quarrel might doubtless have been peacefully
adjusted, had not the king, George III., happened to be entertaining
political schemes which were threatened with ruin if the Americans
should get a fair hearing for their side of the case.[8] Thus
political intrigue came in to make the situation hopeless. When a
state of things arises, with which men's established methods of civil
government are incompetent to deal, men fall back upon the primitive
method which was in vogue before civil government began to exist.
They fight it out; and so we had our Revolutionary War, and became
separated politically from Great Britain. It is worthy of note, in
this connection, that the last act of parliament, which brought
matters to a crisis, was the so-called Regulating Act of April, 1774,
the purpose of which was to change the government of Massachusetts.
This act provided that members of the council should be appointed by
the royal governor, that they should be paid by the crown and thus
be kept subservient to it, that the principal executive and judicial
officers should be likewise paid by the crown, and that town-meetings
should be prohibited except for the sole purpose of electing town
officers. Other unwarrantable acts were passed at the same time, but
this was the worst. Troops were sent over to aid in enforcing this
act, the people of Massachusetts refused to recognize its validity,
and out of this political situation came the battles of Lexington and
Bunker Hill.

[Footnote 8: See my _War of Independence_, pp. 58-64, 69-71
(Riverside Library for Young People).]

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT.

1. Various claims to North America:--

a. Spanish.
b. English.
c. French.

2