PROTESTS SPREAD

 British officials sought a means of taxing the colonists in a way that would not anger them.  The Townshend Acts were a series of measures introduced into Parliament by Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend in PROTESTS SPREAD

CHARLES TOWNSHEND

 Townshend hoped the acts would pay imperial (British) expenses in the colonies and weaken the colonial assemblies.  Because Benjamin Franklin and other Americans in Britain had argued against Parliament's power to impose the Stamp Act on the ground that it was a direct tax, British leaders convinced themselves that the colonists would accept so-called indirect taxes such as import duties.  This was a wishful misunderstanding of colonial opinion. TOWNSHEND ACTS OF 1767

TOWNSHEND ACTS OF 1767

 The acts imposed duties on glass, lead, paints, paper, and tea imported into the colonies.  The acts also created a Board of Customs Commissioners to enforce customs laws without the accused having recourse to a trial by jury. TOWNSHEND ACTS OF 1767

TThe Townshend Acts set up a system to enforce the new import duties. TTo help customs officers find illegal (smuggled) goods, they were allowed to use writs of assistance. WWrits of Assistance – court orders that allowed officials to make searches without saying for what they were searching. MMany colonists saw these writs and the searches they allowed as yet another violation of their rights.

 When the New York assembly refused to supply money to house and feed soldiers under the Quartering Act, Parliament suspended the assembly.  The colonies reacted with a series of Non- Importation Agreements, or boycotting of British goods-which reduced colonial imports from Britain in by half.  The boycott hurt British merchants and manufacturers, who put pressure on Parliament.  On March 5 th, 1770, Parliament repealed all the Townshend duties-except the one on tea. TOWNSHEND ACTS OF 1767

TThat tax was left in force to demonstrate Parliament's right to tax the colonies. IIn the years before the Revolution, resistance to the tea tax became a symbol of American patriotism.