test. It marked the rise of a new agency of government to express the will of America. It was the germ of a government which in time was to supersede the government of George III in the colonies. It foreshadowed the Congress of the United States under the Constitution. It was a successful attempt at union. "There ought to be no New England men," declared Christopher Gadsden, in the Stamp Act Congress, "no New Yorkers known on the Continent, but all of us Americans."

-

The Repeal of the Stamp Act and the Sugar Act. The effect of American resistance on opinion in England was telling. Commerce with the colonies had been effectively boycotted by the Americans; ships lay idly swinging at the wharves ; bankruptcy threatened hundreds of merchants in London, Bristol, and Liverpool. Workingmen in the manufacturing towns of England were thrown out of employment. The government had sown folly and was reaping, in place of the coveted revenue, rebellion.

Perplexed by the storm they had raised, the ministers summoned to the bar of the House of Commons, Benjamin Franklin, the agent for Pennsylvania, who was in London. "Do you think it right," asked Grenville, "that America should be protected by this country and pay no part of the expenses?" The answer was brief: "That is not the case; the colonies raised, clothed, and paid during the last war twenty-five thousand men and spent many millions." Then came an inquiry whether the colonists would accept a modified stamp act. "No, never," replied Franklin, "never! They will never submit to it!" It was next suggested that military force might compel obedience to law. Franklin had a ready answer. They cannot force a They may not find a rebellion; they

man to take stamps.
may, indeed, make one."

The repeal of the Stamp Act was moved in the House of Commons a few days later. The sponsor for the repeal spoke of commerce interrupted, debts due British merchants placed in jeopardy, Manchester industries closed, workingmen unemployed, oppression instituted, and the loss of the colonies threat

ened. Pitt and Edmund Burke, the former near the close of his career, the latter just beginning his, argued cogently in favor of retracing the steps taken the year before. Grenville refused. "America must learn," he wailed, "that prayers are not to be brought to Cæsar through riot and sedition." His protests

were idle. The Commons agreed to the repeal on February 22, 1766, amid the cheers of the victorious majority. It was carried through the Lords in the face of strong opposition and, on March 18, reluctantly signed by the king, now restored to his right mind.

In rescinding the Stamp Act, Parliament did not admit the contention of the Americans that it was without power to tax them. On the contrary, it accompanied the repeal with a Declaratory Act. It announced that the colonies were subordinate to the crown and Parliament of Great Britain; that the king and Parliament therefore had undoubted authority to make laws binding the colonies in all cases whatsoever; and that the resolutions and proceedings of the colonists denying such authority were null and void.

The repeal was greeted by the colonists with great popular demonstrations. Bells were rung; toasts to the king were drunk; and trade resumed its normal course. The Declaratory Act, as a mere paper resolution, did not disturb the good humor of those who again cheered the name of King George. Their confidence was soon strengthened by the news that even the Sugar Act had been repealed, thus practically restoring the condition of affairs before Grenville and Townshend inaugurated their policy of "thoroughness."

RESUMPTION OF BRITISH REVENUE AND COMMERCIAL POLICIES

The Townshend Acts (1767). The triumph of the colonists was brief. Though Pitt, the friend of America, was once more prime minister, and seated in the House of Lords as the Earl of Chatham, his severe illness gave to Townshend and the Tory party practical control over Parliament. Unconvinced by the experience with the Stamp Act, Townshend brought forward

and pushed through both Houses of Parliament three measures, which to this day are associated with his name. First among his restrictive laws was that of June 29, 1767, which placed the enforcement of the collection of duties and customs on colonial imports and exports in the hands of British commissioners appointed by the king, resident in the colonies, paid from the British treasury, and independent of all control by the colonists. The second measure of the same date imposed a tax on lead, glass, paint, tea, and a few other articles imported into the colonies, the revenue derived from the duties to be applied toward the payment of the salaries and other expenses of royal colonial officials. A third measure was the Tea Act of July 2, 1767, aimed at the tea trade which the Americans carried on illegally with foreigners. This law abolished the duty which the East India Company had to pay in England on tea exported to America, for it was thought that English tea merchants might thus find it possible to undersell American tea smugglers.

Writs of Assistance Legalized by Parliament. Had Parliament been content with laying duties, just as a manifestation of power and right, and neglected their collection, perhaps little would have been heard of the Townshend Acts. It provided, however, for the strict, even the harsh, enforcement of the law. It ordered customs officers to remain at their posts and put an end to smuggling. In the revenue act of June 29, 1767, it expressly authorized the superior courts of the colonies to issue "writs of assistance," empowering customs officers to enter any house, warehouse, shop, cellar, or other place in the British colonies or plantations in America to search for and seize " prohibited or smuggled goods.

The writ of assistance, which was a general search warrant issued to revenue officers, was an ancient device hateful to a people who cherished the spirit of personal independence and who had made actual gains in the practice of civil liberty. To allow a "minion of the law" to enter a man's house and search his papers and premises, was too much for the emotions of people who had fled to America in a quest for self-government

and free homes, who had braved such hardships to establish them, and who wanted to trade without official interference.

The writ of assistance had been used in Massachusetts in 1755 to prevent illicit trade with Canada and had aroused a violent hostility at that time. In 1761 it was again the subject of a bitter controversy which arose in connection with the application of a customs officer to a Massachusetts court for writs

of assistance " as usual." This application was vainly opposed by James Otis in a speech of five hours' duration - a speech of such fire and eloquence that it sent every man who heard it away" ready to take up arms against writs of assistance." Otis denounced the practice as an exercise of arbitrary power which had cost one king his head and another his throne, a tyrant's device which placed the liberty of every man in jeopardy, enabling any petty officer to work possible malice on any innocent citizen on the merest suspicion, and to spread terror and desolation through the land. "What a scene," he exclaimed, "does this open! Every man, prompted by revenge, ill-humor, or wantonness to inspect the inside of his neighbor's house, may get a writ of assistance. Others will ask it from self-defense; one arbitrary exertion will provoke another until society is involved in tumult and blood." He did more than attack the writ itself. He said that Parliament could not establish it because it was against the British constitution. This was an assertion resting on slender foundation, but it was quickly echoed by the people. Then and there James Otis sounded the call to America to resist the exercise of arbitrary power by royal officers. "Then and there," wrote John Adams, "the child Independence was born." Such was the hated writ that Townshend proposed to put into the hands of customs officers in his grim determination to enforce the law.

The New York Assembly Suspended. In the very month that Townshend's Acts were signed by the king, Parliament took a still more drastic step. The assembly of New York, protesting against the "ruinous and insupportable" expense involved, had failed to make provision for the care of British

troops in accordance with the terms of the Quartering Act. Parliament therefore suspended the assembly until it promised to obey the law. It was not until a third election was held that compliance with the Quartering Act was wrung from the reluctant province. In the meantime, all the colonies had learned on how frail a foundation their representative bodies rested.

RENEWED RESISTANCE IN AMERICA

The Massachusetts Circular (1768).- Massachusetts, under the leadership of Samuel Adams, resolved to resist the policy of renewed intervention in America. At his suggestion the assembly adopted a Circular Letter addressed to the assemblies of the other colonies informing them of the state of affairs in Massachusetts and roundly condemning the whole British program. The Circular Letter declared that Parliament had no right to lay taxes on Americans without their consent and that the colonists could not, from the nature of the case, be represented in Parliament. It went on shrewdly to submit to consideration the question as to whether any people could be called free who were subjected to governors and judges appointed by the crown and paid out of funds raised independently. It invited the other colonies, in the most temperate tones, to take thought about the common predicament in which they were all placed.

SAMUEL ADAMS

The Dissolution of Assemblies.

The governor of Massachusetts, hearing of the Circular Letter, ordered the assembly