[Sidenote:  The Chatham Ministry.]

[Sidenote:  The Townshend Acts, 1767. McMaster, 117-118.]

114.  The Townshend Acts, 1767.—­The Rockingham ministers did what Mr. Pitt advised them to do.  He then turned them out and made a ministry of his own.  He was now Earl of Chatham, and his ministry was the Chatham Ministry.  The most active of the Chatham ministers was Charles Townshend.  He had the management of the finances and found them very hard to manage.  So he hit upon a scheme of laying duties on wine, oil, glass, lead, painter’s colors, and tea imported into the colonies.  Mr. Pitt had said that Parliament could regulate colonial trade.  The best way to regulate trade was to tax it.  At the same time that Townshend brought in this bill, he brought in others to reorganize the colonial customs service and make it possible to collect the duties.  He even provided that offences against the revenue laws should be tried by judges appointed directly by the king, without being submitted to a jury of any kind.

[Sidenote:  The Sugar Act.]

[Sidenote:  Enforcement of the Navigation Acts.]

115.  Colonial Opposition, 1768.—­Many years before this, Parliament had made a law taxing all sugar brought into the continental colonies, except sugar that had been made in the British West Indies.  Had this law been carried out, the trade of Massachusetts and other New England colonies would have been ruined.  But the law was not enforced.  No one tried to enforce it, except during the few months of vigor at the time of the arguments about writs of assistance.  As the taxes were not collected, no one cared whether they were legal or not.  Now it was plain that this tax and the Townshend duties were to be collected.  The Massachusetts House of Representatives drew up a circular letter to the other colonial assemblies asking them to join in opposing the new taxes.  The British government ordered the House to recall the letter.  It refused and was dissolved.  The other colonial assemblies were directed to take no notice of the circular letter.  They replied at the first possible moment and were dissolved.

[Sidenote:  Seizure of the sloop Liberty, 1768.]

116.  The New Customs Officers at Boston, 1768.—­The chief office of the new customs organization was fixed at Boston.  Soon John Hancock’s sloop, Liberty, sailed into the harbor with a cargo of Madeira wine.  As Hancock had no idea of paying the duty, the customs officers seized the sloop and towed her under the guns of a warship which was in the harbor.  Crowds of people now collected.  They could not recapture the Liberty.  They seized one of the war-ship’s boats, carried it to the Common, and had a famous bonfire.  All this confusion frightened the chief customs officers.  They fled to the castle in the harbor and wrote to the government for soldiers to protect them.

[Illustration:  ONE OF JOHN HANCOCK’S BILL-HEADS.]