Non-Importation Agreements, 1769.
Partial repeal of the Townshend Acts, 1770.
118. Non-Importation Agreements, 1769.--When he learned what was going on, the governor of Virginia dissolved the assembly. But the members met in the Raleigh tavern near by. There George Washington laid before them a written agreement to use no British goods upon which duties had been paid. They all signed this agreement. Soon the other colonies joined Virginia in the Non-Importation Agreement. English merchants found their trade growing smaller and smaller. They could not even collect their debts, for the colonial merchants said that trade in the colonies was so upset by the Townshend Acts that they could not sell their goods, or collect the money owing to them. The British merchants petitioned Parliament to repeal the duties, and Parliament answered them by repealing all the duties except the tax on tea.
THE "RALEIGH TAVERN".
CHAPTER 13
REVOLUTION IMPENDING
The British soldiers at New York.
Soldiers sent to Boston, 1768.
119. The Soldiers at New York and Boston.--Soldiers had been stationed at New York ever since the end of the French war because that was the most central point on the coast. The New Yorkers did not like to have the soldiers there very well, because Parliament expected them to supply the troops with certain things without getting any money in return. The New York Assembly refused to supply them, and Parliament suspended the Assembly's sittings. In 1768 two regiments came from New York to Boston to protect the customs officers.
The Boston Massacre, 1770. Higginson, 166-169; McMaster, 118.