Another plan was now devised for getting money from the colonies.
Parliament enacted a law (1767) compelling the Americans to pay taxes
on a number of imports, such as glass, paper, and tea. In opposition
to this law, the colonists formed leagues refusing to use these taxed
articles, while at the same time they encouraged smugglers to land
them secretly, and the regular trade suffered accordingly.
Parliament, finding that this was bad both for the government and for
commerce, now abolished all of these duties except that on tea
(1770). That duty was retained for a double purpose: first, and
chiefly, to maintain the principle of the right of Great Britain to
tax the colonies; and, next, to aid the East India Company, which was
pleading piteeously for help.
In consequence mainly of the refusal of the American colonies to buy
tea, the London warehouses of the East India Company were full to
overflowing with surplus stock, and the company itself was in a
half-bankrupt condition. The custom had been for the company to bring
the tea to England, pay a tax on it, and then sell it to be reshipped
to America. To aid the company in its embarrassment, the Government
now agreed to remit this first duty altogether, and to impose a tax of
only threepence (six cents) a pound on the consumers in America.
In itself the threepenny tax was a trifle, as the ship-money tax of
twenty shillnigs was to John Hampden (S436); but underlying it was a
principle which seemed to the Americans, as it had seemed to Hampden,
no trifle; for such principles revolutions had been fought in the
past; for such they would be fought in the future.
The colonists resolved not to have the tea at any price. A number of
ships laden with the taxed herb arrived at the port of Boston. The
tea was seized by a band of men disguised as Indians, and thrown into
the harbor, 1773. The news of that action made the King and his
ministry furious. Parliament sympathized with the Government, and in
retaliation passed four laws of such severity that the colonists
nicknamed them the "Intolerable Acts."
The first law was the "Boston Port Act," which closed the harbor to
all trade; the second was the "Regulating Act," which virtually
annulled the charter of Massachusetts, took the government away from
the people, and gave it to the King; the third was the "Administration
of Justice Act," which ordered that Americans who committed murder in
resistance to oppression should be sent to England for trial; the
fourth was the "Quebec Act," which declared the country north of the
Ohio and east of the Mississippi a part of Canada.[1] The object of
this last act was to conciliate the French Canadians, and secure their
help against the colonists in case of rebellion.
[1] Embracing territory now divided into the five states of Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, with eastern Minnesota.
Even after Parliament had enacted these four drastic measures a
compromise might have been effected, and peace maintained, if the
counsels of the best men had been followed; but George III would
listen to no policy short of coercion. He meant well, but his brain
was not well balanced, he was subject to attacks of mental
derangement, and his one idea of BEING KING at all hazards had become
a kind of monomania (S548). Pitt condemned such oppression as morally
wrong, Burke denounced it as inexpedient, and Fox, another prominent
member of Parliament, wrote, "It is intolerable to think that it
should be in the power of one blockhead to do so much mischief."
For the time, at least, the King was as unreasonable as any of the
Stuarts. The obstinacy of Charles I cost him his head, that of James
II his kingdom, that of George III resulted in a war which saddled the
English taxpayer with an additional debt of 120,000,000 pounds, and
forever detached from Great Britain the fairest and richest dominions
that she ever possessed.