%107. The Country to be defended.%—Having thus provided for the government of the newly acquired territory, it next became necessary to provide for its defense; for nobody doubted that both France and Spain would some day attempt to regain their lost possessions. Arrangements were therefore made to bring over an army of 10,000 regular troops, scatter them over the country from Canada to Florida, and maintain them partly at the expense of the colonies and partly at the expense of the crown.
[Illustration: THE BRITISH COLONIES IN 1764]
The share to be paid by the colonies was to be raised
1. By enforcing the old trade and navigation laws.
2. By a tax on sugar and molasses brought into the country.
3. By a stamp tax.
%108. Trial without Jury.%—In order to enforce the old laws, naval vessels were sent to sail up and down the coast and catch smugglers. Offenders when seized were to be tried in some vice-admiralty court, where they could not have trial by jury.[1]
[Footnote 1: This is one of the things complained of in the Declaration of Independence.]
%109. The Sugar Act and Stamp Tax.%—The Sugar Act was not a new grievance. In 1733 Parliament laid a tax of 6_d_. a gallon on molasses and 5_s_. per hundredweight on sugar brought into this country from any other place than the British West Indies. This was to force the colonists to buy their sugar and molasses from nobody but British sugar planters. After having expired five times and been five times reënacted, the Sugar Act expired for the sixth time in 1763, and the colonies begged that it might not be renewed. But Parliament merely reduced the molasses duty to 3_d_. and laid new duties on coffee, French and East Indian goods, indigo, white sugar, and Spanish and Portuguese wines. It then resolved that "for further defraying the expense of protecting the colonists it would be necessary to charge certain stamp duties in the colonies."
At that time, 1764, no such thing as an internal tax laid by Parliament for the purpose of raising revenue existed, or ever had existed, in America. Money for the use of the King had always been raised by taxes imposed by the legislatures of the colonies. The moment, therefore, the people heard that this money was to be raised in future by parliamentary taxation, they became much alarmed, and the legislatures instructed their business agents in London to protest.