978-1-4222-3353-5

Seeds of Revolution

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be no taxation without representation. The principle that the colo- nists possessed the same rights as people born in England had been vindicated. Or so it seemed. Few colonists either heard about, or recognized the significance of, an act Parliament passed on the same day it repealed the Stamp Act. The Declaratory Act stated that the king and Parliament had “full power and authority to make laws and statutes . . . to bind the colonies and people of America . . . in all cases whatsoever.” The Townshend Acts In June 1767, Parliament passed a series of measures devised by Charles Townshend. He was Britain’s top minister for financial matters. The centerpiece of the so-called Townshend Acts was the Revenue Act of 1767. It imposed new import duties on glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea brought into the colonies. Another law, the Commissioners of Customs Act, was designed to put teeth into British efforts to collect the Townshend duties. It created a customs board for the American colonies. Headquartered in Boston, the board had sweeping authority to enforce customs regulations. The Vice-Admiralty Court Act was neither conceived by Charles Town- shend nor passed by Parliament. Yet it became an important tool for upholding the Townshend duties. Put forward by British Treasury offi- cials and approved by King George in July 1768, the law set up special courts to try colonists accused of smuggling or other customs violations. In these courts, there were no jury trials. Judges appointed by the Crown decided all cases. And the judges received cash bonuses each time they found a defendant guilty. Townshend didn’t anticipate much colonial opposition to his program. Like other British officials, he believed the Stamp Act had riled colonists so much because it would have imposed a tax inside the colonies. The new taxes, by contrast, were in the form of import duties.