182 THE DEEPER SIGNIFICANCE 
America had drawn a distinction between external 
and zzternal taxes, and had said that the Americans 
did not deny Parliament’s right to tax them in the 
former case, but only in the latter case. The distinc- 
tion was more ingenious than sound, and indeed the 
Americans had been guilty of inconsistency. They 
had at first tacitly assented to port duties because the 
nature of an indirect tax is not so quickly and dis- 
tinctly realized as that of a direct tax, and so they 
had only gradually come to take in the full situation. 
But the acquiescence in port duties had been by no 
means unqualified. During all the reign of Charles IT. 
the New England colonies had virtually defied the 
custom-house; in later times the activity of smugglers 
had reduced all tariff acts to a dead letter; and so 
lately as 1761 the resistance to general search war- 
rants showed what might be expected when any rash 
ministry should endeavour to enforce such tariff acts. 
In short, it was perfectly clear that if pushed to a 
logical statement of their position, the Americans 
would deny the authority of Parliament from begin- 
ning to end. No one understood this better than 
Townshend when he now proceeded to lay a duty 
upon certain dried fruits, glass, painter’s colours, paper, 
and tea. 3 
With this continental revenue he proposed, of course, 
to keep up a small army for defending the frontier; 
but he also proposed other things. For more than 
half a century the various royal governors had tried to 
persuade the legislatures to vote them fixed salaries, 
but the legislatures, unwilling to give them too loose 
a tether, had obstinately refused to do more than make 
an annual grant which expired unless renewed by a 
