INTRODUCTION. 57 



put in motion to resist the encroachments of parliament ; and it is not impossible 

 that the adaptation of the plan to such a purpose, induced its rejection by the 

 ministry, while the fear that it would strengthen the royal power caused it to be 

 disapproved with equal promptness by the colonial assemblies.* 



The passage of the stamp act in 1765, which levied imposts in violation of a 

 principle which all the American colonies had asserted, and thus far persever- 

 ingly maintained ; and which provided for the execution of that impolitic mea- 

 sure by means and agents equally obnoxious, produced universal exasperation. 



The act was printed and circulated in the streets of New- York, with the title 

 of " The Folly of England and the Ruin of America." A congress of deputies met 

 in New- York in October, 1765. New- York was represented by Robert R. Li- 

 vingston, John Cruger, Philip Livingston, William Bayard, and Leonard Lispe- 

 nard. Cadwallader Colclen, then lieutenant-governor, announced that the con- 

 gress was unconstitutional, unprecedented and unlawful, and he should give it no 

 countenance. The congress solemnly protested that the people of the colonies 

 were entitled to all the rights of Englishmen ; that no taxes could be imposed 

 upon them without their consent ; that their only legislative representatives were 

 the provincial assemblies ; and that the stamp act, passed by the parliament of 

 Great Britain, without the consent of those assemblies, was subversive of the 

 rights and liberties of the people. The manifestations of popular indignation 

 and resistance, obliged the lieutenant-governor, Colden, to surrender the stamps 

 which had been sent over for the use of the province — a concession which he 

 made under protest, and to avert the calamities of a civil war. The law was 

 successfully resisted, and in the subsequent year was repealed ; but the moment 

 of the final controversy was now hastening, and every effort of the ministry to 

 maintain the power of the crown, served only to inflame a spirit of resistance 

 which had become general throughout the colonies. 



• DtJNLAP. 



Intr. 8 



