The year 1767 brought another series of measures that
stirred anew all the elements of discord. Charles Townshend, British
chancellor of the exchequer, was called upon to draft a new fiscal program.
Intent upon reducing British taxes by making more efficient the collection
of duties levied on American trade, he tightened customs administration,
at the same time sponsoring duties on colonial imports of paper, glass,
lead and tea exported from Britain to the colonies. The so-called Townshend
Acts were based on the premise that taxes imposed on goods imported
by the colonies were legal while internal taxes (like the Stamp Act)
were not.
The Townshend Acts were designed to raise revenue to
be used in part to support colonial governors, judges, customs officers
and the British army in America. In response, Philadelphia lawyer John
Dickinson, in Letters of a Pennsylvania Farmer, argued that Parliament
had the right to control imperial commerce but did not have the right
to tax the colonies, whether the duties were external or internal.
The agitation following enactment of the Townshend duties
was less violent than that stirred by the Stamp Act, but it was nevertheless
strong, particularly in the cities of the Eastern seaboard. Merchants
once again resorted to non-importation agreements, and people made do
with local products. Colonists, for example, dressed in homespun clothing
and found substitutes for tea. They used homemade paper and their houses
went unpainted. In Boston, enforcement of the new regulations provoked
violence. When customs officials sought to collect duties, they were
set upon by the populace and roughly handled. For this infraction, two
British regiments were dispatched to protect the customs commissioners.
The presence of British troops in Boston was a standing
invitation to disorder. On March 5, 1770, antagonism between citizens
and British soldiers again flared into violence. What began as a harmless
snowballing of British soldiers degenerated into a mob attack. Someone
gave the order to fire. When the smoke had cleared, three Bostonians
lay dead in the snow. Dubbed the "Boston Massacre," the incident was
dramatically pictured as proof of British heartlessness and tyranny.
Faced with such opposition, Parliament in 1770 opted
for a strategic retreat and repealed all the Townshend duties except
that on tea, which was a luxury item in the colonies, imbibed only by
a very small minority. To most, the action of Parliament signified that
the colonists had won a major concession, and the campaign against England
was largely dropped. A colonial embargo on "English tea" continued but
was not too scrupulously observed. Prosperity was increasing and most
colonial leaders were willing to let the future take care of itself.