{"id":166,"date":"2015-08-21T17:59:32","date_gmt":"2015-08-21T17:59:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.candelalearning.com\/ushistory1os2xmaster\/?post_type=chapter&#038;p=166"},"modified":"2022-07-25T19:16:30","modified_gmt":"2022-07-25T19:16:30","slug":"the-townshend-acts-and-colonial-protest","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory1\/chapter\/the-townshend-acts-and-colonial-protest\/","title":{"raw":"The Townshend Acts of 1767","rendered":"The Townshend Acts of 1767"},"content":{"raw":"<div class=\"bcc-box bcc-highlight\">\r\n<h3>Learning Objectives<\/h3>\r\n<ul class=\"im_orderedlist\">\r\n \t<li>Explain why many colonists protested the 1767 Townshend Acts<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp30856480\">Colonists\u2019 joy over the repeal of the Stamp Act and what they saw as their defense of liberty did not last long. The Declaratory Act of 1766 had articulated Great Britain\u2019s supreme authority over the colonies, and Parliament soon began exercising that authority. In 1767, with the passage of the <strong>Townshend Acts<\/strong>, a tax on consumer goods in British North America, colonists believed their liberty as loyal British subjects had come under assault for a second time.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<section id=\"fs-idp71460144\">\r\n<h2>The Townshend Acts<\/h2>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp54395536\">Lord Rockingham\u2019s tenure as prime minister was not long (1765\u20131766). Rich landowners feared that if he were not taxing the colonies, Parliament would raise their taxes instead, sacrificing them to the interests of merchants and colonists. King George III duly dismissed Rockingham. William Pitt, also sympathetic to the colonists, succeeded him. However, Pitt was old and ill with gout. His chancellor of the exchequer, <strong>Charles <span class=\"no-emphasis\">Townshend<\/span><\/strong>, whose job was to manage the Empire\u2019s finances, took on many of his duties. First among these was raising the needed revenue from the colonies to pay off Britain's ballooning war debt and interest.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<figure id=\"CNX_US_History_05_03_Townshend\">\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"390\"]<img src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images-archive-read-only\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/883\/2015\/08\/23202224\/CNX_US_History_05_03_Townshend.jpg\" alt=\"A painting of Charles Townshend.\" width=\"390\" height=\"468\" \/> <strong>Figure 1<\/strong>. Charles Townshend, chancellor of the exchequer, shown here in a 1765 painting by Joshua Reynolds, instituted the Townshend Revenue Act of 1767 in order to raise money to support the British military presence in the colonies.[\/caption]<\/figure>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp94778752\">Townshend\u2019s first act was to deal with the unruly New York Assembly, which had voted not to comply with the Quartering Act. In response, Townshend proposed the Restraining Act of 1767, which disbanded the New York Assembly until it agreed to pay for the garrison\u2019s supplies, which it eventually did.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp34967056\">The Townshend <strong>Revenue Act of 1767<\/strong> placed duties on various consumer items like paper, paint, lead, tea, and glass. These British goods had to be imported since the colonies did not have the manufacturing base to produce them. Townshend hoped the new duties would not anger the colonists since they were external taxes, not internal ones like the Stamp Act. In 1766, in arguing before Parliament for the repeal of the Stamp Act, Benjamin Franklin had stated, \u201cI never heard any objection to the right of laying duties to regulate commerce; but a right to lay internal taxes was never supposed to be in parliament, as we are not represented there.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idm9742048\">The Indemnity Act of 1767 exempted tea produced by the British East India Company from taxation when it was imported into Great Britain. When the tea was re-exported to the colonies, however, the colonists had to pay taxes on it because of the Revenue Act. Some critics of Parliament on both sides of the Atlantic saw this tax policy as an example of corrupt politicians giving preferable treatment to specific corporate interests, creating a monopoly. The sense that corruption had become entrenched in Parliament only increased colonists\u2019 alarm.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp32921728\">As if to justify their alarm, the money raised from the Revenue Act was intended to support the British army in America, but in reality, it paid the salaries of some Crown-appointed judges, governors, and other officials whom the colonial assemblies had traditionally paid. Now, these officials no longer relied on colonial leadership for income, which allowed them to implement Parliamentary acts without fear of financial retaliation by colonial assemblies. The Revenue Act severed the relationship between colonial officials and assemblies, drawing those officials closer to the British government and further away from the colonial legislatures.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp47636720\">The Revenue Act also gave the customs board greater powers to counteract smuggling. It granted <strong>writs of assistance<\/strong>, essentially search warrants, to customs officials who even <em>suspected<\/em> the presence of contraband goods, which also opened the door to a new level of bribery in colonial harbors. Furthermore, to ensure compliance, Townshend introduced the Commissioners of Customs Act of 1767, which created an American Board of Customs to enforce trade laws. Customs enforcement had been based in Great Britain, but rules were difficult to implement at such a distance, and smuggling was rampant. The new customs board was based in Boston and would severely curtail smuggling in this large colonial seaport.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp95803424\">Townshend orchestrated the Vice-Admiralty Court Act, which established three more vice-admiralty courts, in Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston, to try violators of customs regulations without a jury. Before this, the only colonial vice-admiralty court had been in far-off Halifax, Nova Scotia, but with three local courts, smugglers could be tried more efficiently. Since the judges of these courts were paid a percentage of the worth of the goods they recovered, leniency was rare. All told, the Townshend Acts resulted in higher taxes and stronger British enforcement. Four years after the end of the French and Indian War, the Empire continued to search for solutions to its debt problem and the pressing need to bring the colonies to heel.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/section><section id=\"fs-idp46078256\">\r\n<h2>The Non-Importation Movement<\/h2>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp45725824\">Like the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts produced controversy and protest in the American colonies. For a second time, many colonists resented what they perceived as an effort to tax them without representation and thus to deprive them of their liberty. The fact that the revenue the Townshend Acts raised would pay royal governors only made the situation worse, because it took control away from colonial legislatures that otherwise had the power to set and withhold a royal governor\u2019s salary. The Restraining Act, which had been intended to isolate New York without angering the other colonies, had the opposite effect, demonstrating to the rest of the colonies how far some members of Parliament were willing to go.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp65017056\">The Townshend Acts generated a number of protest writings, including <em>Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer<\/em> by John Dickinson. In this influential pamphlet, which circulated widely in the colonies, Dickinson conceded that the Empire could regulate trade but argued that Parliament could not impose either internal taxes, like stamps, or external taxes, like customs duties.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div class=\"textbox key-takeaways\">\r\n<h3>\u201cAddress to the Ladies\u201d Verse from <em>The Boston Post-Boy and Advertiser<\/em><\/h3>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp34141664\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">This verse, which ran in a Boston newspaper in November 1767, highlights how women were encouraged to take political action by boycotting British goods. Notice that the writer especially encourages women to avoid British tea (Bohea and Green Hyson) and linen, and to manufacture their own homespun cloth. Building on the protest of the 1765 Stamp Act by the Daughters of Liberty, the non-importation movement of 1767\u20131768 mobilized women as political actors.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\r\n<pre style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Young ladies in town, and those that live round,<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">Let a friend at this season advise you:<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">Since money\u2019s so scarce, and times growing worse<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">Strange things may soon hap and surprize you:<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">First then, throw aside your high top knots of pride<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">Wear none but your own country linnen;<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">of economy boast, let your pride be the most<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">What, if homespun they say is not quite so gay<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">As brocades, yet be not in a passion,<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">For when once it is known this is much wore in town,<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">One and all will cry out, \u2019tis the fashion!<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">And as one, all agree that you\u2019ll not married be<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">To such as will wear London Fact\u2019ry:<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">But at first sight refuse, tell\u2019em such you do chuse<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">As encourage our own Manufact\u2019ry.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">No more Ribbons wear, nor in rich dress appear,<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">Love your country much better than fine things,<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">Begin without passion, \u2019twill soon be the fashion<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">To grace your smooth locks with a twine string.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">Throw aside your Bohea, and your Green Hyson Tea,<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">And all things with a new fashion duty;<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">Procure a good store of the choice Labradore,<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">For there\u2019ll soon be enough here to suit ye;<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">These do without fear and to all you\u2019ll appear<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">Fair, charming, true, lovely, and cleaver;<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">Tho\u2019 the times remain darkish, young men may be sparkish.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">And love you much stronger than ever. !O!<\/span><\/pre>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<span style=\"color: #333333;\">In Massachusetts in 1768, Samuel Adams wrote a letter that became known as the <strong>Massachusetts Circular<\/strong>. Sent by the Massachusetts House of Representatives to the other colonial legislatures, the letter laid out the unconstitutionality of taxation without representation and encouraged the other colonies to again protest the taxes by boycotting British goods. Adams wrote:<\/span>\r\n\r\n<\/section><section><\/section><section><span style=\"color: #333333; font-size: 1rem; orphans: 1; text-align: initial;\">\"It is, moreover, [the Massachusetts House of Representatives] humble opinion, which they express with the greatest deference to the wisdom of the Parliament, that the acts made there, imposing duties on the people of this province, with the sole and express purpose of raising a revenue, are infringements of their natural and constitutional rights; because, as they are not represented in the Parliament, his Majesty\u2019s Commons in Britain, by those acts, grant their property without their consent.\"<\/span><\/section><section><\/section><span style=\"font-size: 1rem; orphans: 1; text-align: initial; color: #333333;\">Note that even in this letter of protest, the humble and submissive tone shows the Massachusetts Assembly\u2019s continued deference to parliamentary authority. Even in the throes of political protest, it is a clear expression of allegiance and the hope for a restoration of \u201cnatural and constitutional rights.\u201d<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-size: 1rem; orphans: 1; text-align: initial; color: #333333;\">Great Britain\u2019s response to this threat of disobedience served only to unite the colonies further. The colonies\u2019 initial response to the Massachusetts Circular was lukewarm at best. However, back in Great Britain, the secretary of state for the colonies\u2014Lord Hillsborough\u2014demanded that Massachusetts retract the letter, promising that any colonial assemblies that endorsed it would be dissolved. This threat had the effect of pushing the other colonies to Massachusetts\u2019s side. Even the city of Philadelphia, which had originally opposed the Circular, came around.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<section><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><span style=\"font-size: 1rem; orphans: 1; text-align: initial;\">The Daughters of Liberty once again supported and promoted the boycott of British goods. Women resumed spinning bees and again found substitutes for British tea and other goods. Many colonial merchants signed non-importation agreements, and the Daughters of Liberty urged colonial women to shop only with those merchants. The Sons of Liberty used newspapers and circulars to call out by name those merchants who refused to sign the agreements and sometimes they were threatened with violence. For instance, a <\/span><strong style=\"font-size: 1rem; orphans: 1; text-align: initial;\">broadside<\/strong><span style=\"font-size: 1rem; orphans: 1; text-align: initial;\"> from 1769\u20131770 reads:<\/span><\/span>\r\n<div style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">WILLIAM JACKSON,\r\n<span style=\"font-size: 1rem; text-align: initial;\">an IMPORTER;\r\n<\/span>at the BRAZEN HEAD,<\/span>\r\n<span style=\"color: #333333;\">North Side of the TOWN-HOUSE,<\/span>\r\n<span style=\"color: #333333;\">and Opposite the Town-Pump, [in]<\/span>\r\n<span style=\"color: #333333;\">Corn-hill, BOSTON<\/span>\r\n<span style=\"color: #333333;\">It is desired that the SONS<\/span>\r\n<span style=\"color: #333333;\">and DAUGHTERS of LIBERTY,<\/span>\r\n<span style=\"color: #333333;\">would not buy any one thing of<\/span>\r\n<span style=\"color: #333333;\">him, for in so doing they will bring<\/span>\r\n<span style=\"color: #333333;\">disgrace upon themselves, and their<\/span>\r\n<span style=\"color: #333333;\">Posterity, for ever and ever, AMEN.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idm20866528\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">The boycott in 1768\u20131769 turned the purchase of consumer goods into a political gesture. It mattered what you consumed. Indeed, the very clothes you wore indicated whether you were a defender of liberty in homespun or a protector of parliamentary rights in British attire.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<div class=\"textbox exercises\">\r\n<h3>Link to Learning<\/h3>\r\nFor examples of the types of luxury items that many American colonists favored, visit the <a href=\"http:\/\/nationalhumanitiescenter.org\/pds\/becomingamer\/economies\/text4\/text4read.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">National Humanities Center <\/a>to see pictures and documents relating to home interiors of the wealthy.\r\n\r\nFor more information about the Townshend Acts, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=FKGSda3sEVU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">watch this History Channel synopsis<\/a>.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/section>\r\n<div class=\"textbox tryit\" style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\r\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Try It<\/h3>\r\nhttps:\/\/assess.lumenlearning.com\/practice\/128337d5-6317-4c34-a0ed-1ff756f969f1\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div class=\"textbox learning-objectives\">\r\n<h3>Glossary<\/h3>\r\n<strong>broadside:\u00a0<\/strong>a type of pamphlet printed by colonial protestors and dissenters; they were usually printed on cheap paper with cheap ink and meant to be distributed as quickly and widely as possible\r\n\r\n<strong>Charles Townshend:\u00a0<\/strong>the Chancellor of the Exchequer of Britain from 1766-1767 under Prime Minister William Pitt. Townshend took control from the elderly Pitt and influenced the passage of the Townshend Acts in colonial America, which were one of the key triggers of the American Revolution\r\n\r\n<strong>Massachusetts Circular:\u00a0<\/strong>a letter penned by Son of Liberty Samuel Adams that laid out the unconstitutionality of taxation without representation and encouraged the other colonies to boycott British goods\r\n\r\n<strong>Revenue Act of 1767:\u00a0<\/strong><span style=\"color: #333333;\">one of the Townshend Acts which placed an import duty on\u00a0glass, lead, painters' colors, paper, and tea and authorized the use of writs of assistance for finding contraband goods<\/span>\r\n\r\n<strong>writ of assistance:\u00a0<\/strong>a search and seizure warrant granted to customs officials under the Revenue Act, which gave them <em>carte blanche<\/em> to search any merchant vessel they suspected of transporting untaxed goods, without any probably cause\r\n\r\n<\/div>","rendered":"<div class=\"bcc-box bcc-highlight\">\n<h3>Learning Objectives<\/h3>\n<ul class=\"im_orderedlist\">\n<li>Explain why many colonists protested the 1767 Townshend Acts<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"fs-idp30856480\">Colonists\u2019 joy over the repeal of the Stamp Act and what they saw as their defense of liberty did not last long. The Declaratory Act of 1766 had articulated Great Britain\u2019s supreme authority over the colonies, and Parliament soon began exercising that authority. In 1767, with the passage of the <strong>Townshend Acts<\/strong>, a tax on consumer goods in British North America, colonists believed their liberty as loyal British subjects had come under assault for a second time.<\/p>\n<section id=\"fs-idp71460144\">\n<h2>The Townshend Acts<\/h2>\n<p id=\"fs-idp54395536\">Lord Rockingham\u2019s tenure as prime minister was not long (1765\u20131766). Rich landowners feared that if he were not taxing the colonies, Parliament would raise their taxes instead, sacrificing them to the interests of merchants and colonists. King George III duly dismissed Rockingham. William Pitt, also sympathetic to the colonists, succeeded him. However, Pitt was old and ill with gout. His chancellor of the exchequer, <strong>Charles <span class=\"no-emphasis\">Townshend<\/span><\/strong>, whose job was to manage the Empire\u2019s finances, took on many of his duties. First among these was raising the needed revenue from the colonies to pay off Britain&#8217;s ballooning war debt and interest.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"CNX_US_History_05_03_Townshend\">\n<div style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images-archive-read-only\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/883\/2015\/08\/23202224\/CNX_US_History_05_03_Townshend.jpg\" alt=\"A painting of Charles Townshend.\" width=\"390\" height=\"468\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Figure 1<\/strong>. Charles Townshend, chancellor of the exchequer, shown here in a 1765 painting by Joshua Reynolds, instituted the Townshend Revenue Act of 1767 in order to raise money to support the British military presence in the colonies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p id=\"fs-idp94778752\">Townshend\u2019s first act was to deal with the unruly New York Assembly, which had voted not to comply with the Quartering Act. In response, Townshend proposed the Restraining Act of 1767, which disbanded the New York Assembly until it agreed to pay for the garrison\u2019s supplies, which it eventually did.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-idp34967056\">The Townshend <strong>Revenue Act of 1767<\/strong> placed duties on various consumer items like paper, paint, lead, tea, and glass. These British goods had to be imported since the colonies did not have the manufacturing base to produce them. Townshend hoped the new duties would not anger the colonists since they were external taxes, not internal ones like the Stamp Act. In 1766, in arguing before Parliament for the repeal of the Stamp Act, Benjamin Franklin had stated, \u201cI never heard any objection to the right of laying duties to regulate commerce; but a right to lay internal taxes was never supposed to be in parliament, as we are not represented there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-idm9742048\">The Indemnity Act of 1767 exempted tea produced by the British East India Company from taxation when it was imported into Great Britain. When the tea was re-exported to the colonies, however, the colonists had to pay taxes on it because of the Revenue Act. Some critics of Parliament on both sides of the Atlantic saw this tax policy as an example of corrupt politicians giving preferable treatment to specific corporate interests, creating a monopoly. The sense that corruption had become entrenched in Parliament only increased colonists\u2019 alarm.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-idp32921728\">As if to justify their alarm, the money raised from the Revenue Act was intended to support the British army in America, but in reality, it paid the salaries of some Crown-appointed judges, governors, and other officials whom the colonial assemblies had traditionally paid. Now, these officials no longer relied on colonial leadership for income, which allowed them to implement Parliamentary acts without fear of financial retaliation by colonial assemblies. The Revenue Act severed the relationship between colonial officials and assemblies, drawing those officials closer to the British government and further away from the colonial legislatures.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-idp47636720\">The Revenue Act also gave the customs board greater powers to counteract smuggling. It granted <strong>writs of assistance<\/strong>, essentially search warrants, to customs officials who even <em>suspected<\/em> the presence of contraband goods, which also opened the door to a new level of bribery in colonial harbors. Furthermore, to ensure compliance, Townshend introduced the Commissioners of Customs Act of 1767, which created an American Board of Customs to enforce trade laws. Customs enforcement had been based in Great Britain, but rules were difficult to implement at such a distance, and smuggling was rampant. The new customs board was based in Boston and would severely curtail smuggling in this large colonial seaport.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-idp95803424\">Townshend orchestrated the Vice-Admiralty Court Act, which established three more vice-admiralty courts, in Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston, to try violators of customs regulations without a jury. Before this, the only colonial vice-admiralty court had been in far-off Halifax, Nova Scotia, but with three local courts, smugglers could be tried more efficiently. Since the judges of these courts were paid a percentage of the worth of the goods they recovered, leniency was rare. All told, the Townshend Acts resulted in higher taxes and stronger British enforcement. Four years after the end of the French and Indian War, the Empire continued to search for solutions to its debt problem and the pressing need to bring the colonies to heel.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"fs-idp46078256\">\n<h2>The Non-Importation Movement<\/h2>\n<p id=\"fs-idp45725824\">Like the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts produced controversy and protest in the American colonies. For a second time, many colonists resented what they perceived as an effort to tax them without representation and thus to deprive them of their liberty. The fact that the revenue the Townshend Acts raised would pay royal governors only made the situation worse, because it took control away from colonial legislatures that otherwise had the power to set and withhold a royal governor\u2019s salary. The Restraining Act, which had been intended to isolate New York without angering the other colonies, had the opposite effect, demonstrating to the rest of the colonies how far some members of Parliament were willing to go.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-idp65017056\">The Townshend Acts generated a number of protest writings, including <em>Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer<\/em> by John Dickinson. In this influential pamphlet, which circulated widely in the colonies, Dickinson conceded that the Empire could regulate trade but argued that Parliament could not impose either internal taxes, like stamps, or external taxes, like customs duties.<\/p>\n<div class=\"textbox key-takeaways\">\n<h3>\u201cAddress to the Ladies\u201d Verse from <em>The Boston Post-Boy and Advertiser<\/em><\/h3>\n<p id=\"fs-idp34141664\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">This verse, which ran in a Boston newspaper in November 1767, highlights how women were encouraged to take political action by boycotting British goods. Notice that the writer especially encourages women to avoid British tea (Bohea and Green Hyson) and linen, and to manufacture their own homespun cloth. Building on the protest of the 1765 Stamp Act by the Daughters of Liberty, the non-importation movement of 1767\u20131768 mobilized women as political actors.<\/span><\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\n<pre style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Young ladies in town, and those that live round,<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">Let a friend at this season advise you:<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">Since money\u2019s so scarce, and times growing worse<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">Strange things may soon hap and surprize you:<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">First then, throw aside your high top knots of pride<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">Wear none but your own country linnen;<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">of economy boast, let your pride be the most<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">What, if homespun they say is not quite so gay<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">As brocades, yet be not in a passion,<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">For when once it is known this is much wore in town,<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">One and all will cry out, \u2019tis the fashion!<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">And as one, all agree that you\u2019ll not married be<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">To such as will wear London Fact\u2019ry:<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">But at first sight refuse, tell\u2019em such you do chuse<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">As encourage our own Manufact\u2019ry.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">No more Ribbons wear, nor in rich dress appear,<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">Love your country much better than fine things,<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">Begin without passion, \u2019twill soon be the fashion<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">To grace your smooth locks with a twine string.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">Throw aside your Bohea, and your Green Hyson Tea,<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">And all things with a new fashion duty;<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">Procure a good store of the choice Labradore,<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">For there\u2019ll soon be enough here to suit ye;<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">These do without fear and to all you\u2019ll appear<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">Fair, charming, true, lovely, and cleaver;<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">Tho\u2019 the times remain darkish, young men may be sparkish.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">And love you much stronger than ever. !O!<\/span><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">In Massachusetts in 1768, Samuel Adams wrote a letter that became known as the <strong>Massachusetts Circular<\/strong>. Sent by the Massachusetts House of Representatives to the other colonial legislatures, the letter laid out the unconstitutionality of taxation without representation and encouraged the other colonies to again protest the taxes by boycotting British goods. Adams wrote:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section><\/section>\n<section><span style=\"color: #333333; font-size: 1rem; orphans: 1; text-align: initial;\">&#8220;It is, moreover, [the Massachusetts House of Representatives] humble opinion, which they express with the greatest deference to the wisdom of the Parliament, that the acts made there, imposing duties on the people of this province, with the sole and express purpose of raising a revenue, are infringements of their natural and constitutional rights; because, as they are not represented in the Parliament, his Majesty\u2019s Commons in Britain, by those acts, grant their property without their consent.&#8221;<\/span><\/section>\n<section><\/section>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 1rem; orphans: 1; text-align: initial; color: #333333;\">Note that even in this letter of protest, the humble and submissive tone shows the Massachusetts Assembly\u2019s continued deference to parliamentary authority. Even in the throes of political protest, it is a clear expression of allegiance and the hope for a restoration of \u201cnatural and constitutional rights.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 1rem; orphans: 1; text-align: initial; color: #333333;\">Great Britain\u2019s response to this threat of disobedience served only to unite the colonies further. The colonies\u2019 initial response to the Massachusetts Circular was lukewarm at best. However, back in Great Britain, the secretary of state for the colonies\u2014Lord Hillsborough\u2014demanded that Massachusetts retract the letter, promising that any colonial assemblies that endorsed it would be dissolved. This threat had the effect of pushing the other colonies to Massachusetts\u2019s side. Even the city of Philadelphia, which had originally opposed the Circular, came around.<\/span><\/p>\n<section><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><span style=\"font-size: 1rem; orphans: 1; text-align: initial;\">The Daughters of Liberty once again supported and promoted the boycott of British goods. Women resumed spinning bees and again found substitutes for British tea and other goods. Many colonial merchants signed non-importation agreements, and the Daughters of Liberty urged colonial women to shop only with those merchants. The Sons of Liberty used newspapers and circulars to call out by name those merchants who refused to sign the agreements and sometimes they were threatened with violence. For instance, a <\/span><strong style=\"font-size: 1rem; orphans: 1; text-align: initial;\">broadside<\/strong><span style=\"font-size: 1rem; orphans: 1; text-align: initial;\"> from 1769\u20131770 reads:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">WILLIAM JACKSON,<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 1rem; text-align: initial;\">an IMPORTER;<br \/>\n<\/span>at the BRAZEN HEAD,<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #333333;\">North Side of the TOWN-HOUSE,<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #333333;\">and Opposite the Town-Pump, [in]<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #333333;\">Corn-hill, BOSTON<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #333333;\">It is desired that the SONS<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #333333;\">and DAUGHTERS of LIBERTY,<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #333333;\">would not buy any one thing of<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #333333;\">him, for in so doing they will bring<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #333333;\">disgrace upon themselves, and their<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #333333;\">Posterity, for ever and ever, AMEN.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"fs-idm20866528\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">The boycott in 1768\u20131769 turned the purchase of consumer goods into a political gesture. It mattered what you consumed. Indeed, the very clothes you wore indicated whether you were a defender of liberty in homespun or a protector of parliamentary rights in British attire.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"textbox exercises\">\n<h3>Link to Learning<\/h3>\n<p>For examples of the types of luxury items that many American colonists favored, visit the <a href=\"http:\/\/nationalhumanitiescenter.org\/pds\/becomingamer\/economies\/text4\/text4read.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">National Humanities Center <\/a>to see pictures and documents relating to home interiors of the wealthy.<\/p>\n<p>For more information about the Townshend Acts, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=FKGSda3sEVU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">watch this History Channel synopsis<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<div class=\"textbox tryit\" style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Try It<\/h3>\n<p>\t<iframe id=\"assessment_practice_128337d5-6317-4c34-a0ed-1ff756f969f1\" class=\"resizable\" src=\"https:\/\/assess.lumenlearning.com\/practice\/128337d5-6317-4c34-a0ed-1ff756f969f1?iframe_resize_id=assessment_practice_id_128337d5-6317-4c34-a0ed-1ff756f969f1\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border:none;width:100%;height:100%;min-height:300px;\"><br \/>\n\t<\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"textbox learning-objectives\">\n<h3>Glossary<\/h3>\n<p><strong>broadside:\u00a0<\/strong>a type of pamphlet printed by colonial protestors and dissenters; they were usually printed on cheap paper with cheap ink and meant to be distributed as quickly and widely as possible<\/p>\n<p><strong>Charles Townshend:\u00a0<\/strong>the Chancellor of the Exchequer of Britain from 1766-1767 under Prime Minister William Pitt. Townshend took control from the elderly Pitt and influenced the passage of the Townshend Acts in colonial America, which were one of the key triggers of the American Revolution<\/p>\n<p><strong>Massachusetts Circular:\u00a0<\/strong>a letter penned by Son of Liberty Samuel Adams that laid out the unconstitutionality of taxation without representation and encouraged the other colonies to boycott British goods<\/p>\n<p><strong>Revenue Act of 1767:\u00a0<\/strong><span style=\"color: #333333;\">one of the Townshend Acts which placed an import duty on\u00a0glass, lead, painters&#8217; colors, paper, and tea and authorized the use of writs of assistance for finding contraband goods<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>writ of assistance:\u00a0<\/strong>a search and seizure warrant granted to customs officials under the Revenue Act, which gave them <em>carte blanche<\/em> to search any merchant vessel they suspected of transporting untaxed goods, without any probably cause<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t <section class=\"citations-section\" role=\"contentinfo\">\n\t\t\t <h3>Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t <div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <div id=\"citation-list-166\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div class=\"licensing\"><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">CC licensed content, Shared previously<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li>US History. <strong>Authored by<\/strong>: P. Scott Corbett, Volker  Janssen, John M. Lund,  Todd Pfannestiel, Paul Vickery, and Sylvie Waskiewicz. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: OpenStax College. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/us-history\/pages\/5-3-the-townshend-acts-and-colonial-protest\">https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/us-history\/pages\/5-3-the-townshend-acts-and-colonial-protest<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/\">CC BY: Attribution<\/a><\/em>. <strong>License Terms<\/strong>: Download for free at http:\/\/cnx.org\/content\/col11740\/latest\/<\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t <\/section>","protected":false},"author":969,"menu_order":9,"template":"","meta":{"_candela_citation":"[{\"type\":\"cc\",\"description\":\"US History\",\"author\":\"P. Scott Corbett, Volker  Janssen, John M. 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