at
home, merely to support the government in foolish wars. If they could
be taxed, without their consent, in any thing, they could be taxed
without limit; and they would be in danger of becoming mere slaves of
the mother country, and be bound to labor for English aggrandizement.
On one point they insisted with peculiar earnestness--that taxation,
in a free country, without a representation of interests in
parliament, was an outrage. It was on account of this arbitrary
taxation that Charles I. lost his crown, and the second revolution was
effected, which placed the house of Hanover on the throne. The
colonies felt that, if the subjects of the king at home were justified
in resisting unlawful taxes, they surely, on another continent, and
without a representation, had a right to do so also; that, if they
were to be taxed without their consent, they would be in a worse
condition than even the people of Ireland; would be in the condition
of a conquered people, without the protection which even a conquered
country enjoyed. Hence they remonstrated, and prepared themselves for
resistance.

[Sidenote: The Stamp Act.]

The English government was so blinded as not to perceive or feel the
force of the reasoning of the colonists, and obstinately resolved to
resort to measures which, with a free and spirited people, must
necessarily lead to violence and strife. The House of Commons would
not even hear the reports of the colonial agents, but proceeded, with
strange infatuation and obstinate bigotry, to impose the Stamp Act,
(1765.) There were some, however, who perceived its folly and
injustice. General Conway protested against the assumed right of the
government, and Colonel Barre, a speaker of great eminence, exclaimed,
in reply to the speech of Charles Townshend, who styled the colonies
"children planted by our care, and nourished by our indulgence,"--"They
planted by your care!--No! your oppressions planted them in America;
they fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated wilderness, exposed
to all the hardships to which human nature is liable! They nourished
by your indulgence!--No! they grew by your neglect; your _care_ of
them was displayed in sending persons to govern them who were the
deputies of deputies of ministers--men whose behavior, on many
occasions, has caused the blood of those sons of liberty to recoil
within them; men who have been promoted to the highest seats of
justice in a foreign country, in order to esc