As we have already seen, there were many people in Great Britain who thought the Stamp Act unjust. Two great men, Burke and Pitt, openly said so; and when the news came that the Americans refused to obey, the latter exclaimed: "I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of all the rest."
The British minister, Gren´ville, now sent for Franklin, and asked whether he thought the Americans would pay the stamp tax if it were less. But Franklin said: "No; never! They will never submit to it;" and went on to explain that it was not a question of more or less money, but a question of right and wrong.
As the Americans declared they would not buy a single thing from the British until their rights were respected, British vessels soon went home with unsold cargoes, and British merchants loudly cried that their business was ruined. These complaints, added to the colonists' determined resistance, made Parliament repeal, or call back, the Stamp Act, six months after it was to be enforced.
The stamps which were never used were stored away in a room in the House of Parliament. Here they lay forgotten for many a year, and when they were finally unearthed again, they were either given away as curiosities or destroyed.
The news of the repeal of the Stamp Act set the Americans almost crazy with joy. Bells were rung, bonfires lighted, and speeches made. In New York the people were so happy that they erected a new liberty pole, and made a big leaden statue of King George, which they set up on Bowling Green.
LX. THE BOSTON TEA PARTY.
In their joy the colonists did not at first notice that Parliament, in repealing the Stamp Act, still claimed the right to tax the colonies "in all cases whatsoever." But the very next year Parliament passed what are known in history as the "Townshend Acts," from the man who proposed them. These laws, besides forcing the colonists to feed the king's troops and keep the trade law, placed a tax on glass, paint, tea, and a few other things.
The money raised by these taxes was to be used partly for paying the salaries of governors, judges, customhouse and other colonial officers. Hitherto, the colonies had paid the salaries of governors and judges themselves, and they said that, while it might be all right to let a good king be paymaster, a bad king might make them very uncomfortable by sending out governors like Andros and Berkeley, who, being paid by him, would care only to please him.