[50], The most influential colonial response to the Townshend Acts was a series of twelve essays by John Dickinson entitled "Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania", which began appearing in December 1767. Commodore Samuel Hood complied by sending the fifty-gun warship HMS Romney, which arrived in Boston Harbor in May 1768. The answer came a year later. Merchants in other colonial ports, including New York City and Philadelphia, eventually joined the boycott. 46; Knollenberg. The Townshend Act. The second part comes from Terry Riley, an experimental, minimalist composer Townshend admired - many of the keyboard riffs and sound effects on Who's Next were a result of Riley's influence. To keep these agitators in line, it was decided that a large force of British troops would be sent to occupy the city and “keep the peace.”. The Revenue Act 1767 was 7 Geo. [22], The colonists' objection to "internal" taxes did not mean that they would accept "external" taxes; the colonial position was that any tax laid by Parliament for the purpose of raising revenue was unconstitutional. Throughout the early 1770s, colonists would continue to protest laws passed by Parliament in increasingly dramatic ways until they couldn’t take it anymore and declared independence, bringing about the American Revolution. As tensions grew, the board asked for naval and military assistance, which arrived in 1768. This was the act, which provided the customs officials’ broad authority to punish the smugglers and search private property and … Building off these ideas, the Massachusetts legislature, under the direction of revolutionary leaders Sam Adams and James Otis Jr., wrote the “Massachusetts Circular,” which was circulated (duh) to the other colonial assemblies and urged the colonies to resist the Townshend Acts in the name of their natural rights as citizens of Great Britain. [72] Samuel Adams organized an emergency, extralegal convention of towns and passed resolutions against the imminent occupation of Boston, but on 1 October 1768, the first of four regiments of the British Army began disembarking in Boston, and the Customs Commissioners returned to town. The Townshend Duties were still in place, however, and the radical leaders in America found reason to believe that this act was a maneuver to buy popular support for the taxes already in force. [18] This act represented the Chatham ministry's new approach to generating tax revenue in the American colonies after the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766. Further, New York and the other colonies did not believe British soldiers were any longer necessary in the colonies, since the French and Indian War had come to an end. The use of search warrants allowed officers to enter buildings and find smuggled goods that colonists may have hidden (Dickinson, 30). After the Townshend Duties, the Crown and Parliament would continue to attempt to exert more control over the colonies, but this just led to more and more rebellion, creating the conditions needed for the colonists to declare independence and initiate the American Revolution. In a subsequent letter, he examines the constitutionality of the Townshend Acts and declares the new import duties "a dangerous innovation." Answer Expert Verified. American resentment, corrupt British officials, and abusive enforcement spurred colonial attacks on British ships, including the burning of the Gaspee in 1772. Merchants and traders in Boston came up with the Boston Non-Importation Agreement. [70] Hillsborough suggested that Gage might send one regiment to Boston, but the Liberty incident convinced officials that more than one regiment would be needed. [24], The Revenue Act was passed in conjunction with the Indemnity Act 1767,[25] which was intended to make the tea of the British East India Company more competitive with smuggled Dutch tea. They placed an indirect tax on glass, lead, paints, paper, and tea, all of which had to be imported from Britain. Patriots like Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry spoke out against the act believing that it violated the principles of the Magna Carta. Political scientist Peter Andreas argues: Another measure to enforce the trade laws was the Vice Admiralty Court Act 1768. [64] The acts were so unpopular in Boston that the Customs Board requested naval and military assistance. Repealing these acts was just them deciding to be nice. Later on in the letters, Dickinson introduces the idea that force may be needed to respond to such injustices properly and stop the British government from gaining too much authority, demonstrating the state of the revolutionary spirit a full ten years before fighting began. Charles Townshend believed himself a genius because he really thought the laws he proposed would not be met with the same resistance in the colonies that the Stamp Act was. These courts were run by judges appointed by the Crown and who were awarded 5% of any fine the judge levied[16] when they found someone guilty. [20] "Townshend's mistaken belief that Americans regarded internal taxes as unconstitutional and external taxes constitutional", wrote historian John Phillip Reid, "was of vital importance in the history of events leading to the Revolution. Henry Townshend is the protagonist of Silent Hill 4: The Room. It placed taxes on glass, lead, painters' colors, paper, and tea. Who are the … "The Townshend Acts of 1767.". The Stamp Act also broached questions about the British Parliament’s authority in the Colonies. [19] The British government had gotten the impression that because the colonists had objected to the Stamp Act on the grounds that it was a direct (or "internal") tax, colonists would therefore accept indirect (or "external") taxes, such as taxes on imports. Parliament decided to keep the tax on tea partially to continue its protection of the East India Company, but also to maintain the precedent that Parliament did, in fact, actually have the right to tax the colonists… you know, if it wanted. Townshend Acts. After the repeal of the stamp act, the Declaratory Act proclaimed that Parliament’s power was absolute. [52] Dickinson warned colonists not to concede to the taxes just because the rates were low, since this would set a dangerous precedent. Their actions forced King George to repeal the Stamp Act. He died suddenly in September 1767, just months after the first four laws were enacted and several before the last one was. They had repealed an earlier tax called the Stamp Act because of colonial protests, but thought that taxes on imports would be okay. The Townshend Acts are an agglomeration of five laws: the Indemnity Act, the Revenue Act of 1767, the Vice-Admiralty Court Act, the New York Restraining Act, and the Commissioners of Customs Act. Unhappy with this situation, King George III did as all good British kings do: he ordered Parliament to fix it. Definition of Sugar Act. [13], The British East India Company was one of England's largest companies, but was on the verge of collapse due to much cheaper smuggled Dutch tea. The Townshend Acts' taxation on imported tea was enforced once again by the Tea Act of 1773, and this led to the Boston Tea Party in 1773 in which Bostonians destroyed a shipment of taxed tea. Secondly, Townshend re-enforced the navigation acts, trade acts, and the use of search warrants more strictly upon the colonists (Dickinson, 30). But with the Sugar Act of 1764, Parliament sought, for the first time, to tax the colonies for the specific purpose of raising revenue. [36] Five commissioners were appointed to the board, which was headquartered in Boston.
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