OF THE BOSTON TEA PARTY 183 
fresh grant. This was still one of the burning ques- 
tions of American politics, and Townshend now pro- 
posed to settle it offhand by taking it out of the hands 
of the legislatures once for all. Henceforth the 
governors should be paid by the crown out of the 
revenues collected in America, and as if this were not 
enough, the judges should be paid in the same way. 
If after these expenses there should be any surplus 
remaining, it would be used for pensioning eminent 
American officials. In plain English it would be used 
as a corruption fund. Thus the British ministry 
assumed direct control over the internal administration 
of the American colonies, including even the courts of 
justice; under these circumstances it undertook to 
maintain an army, which might be employed against 
the people as readily as against Indians; and it actually 
had the impudence to demand of the Americans the 
money to support it in doing these things! To 
all this, said Townshend, with an evil twinkle in his 
eye, you Americans can’t object, you know, for your 
friends say you are willing to submit to port duties. 
Then. by way of an extra good sting he added a clause 
prohibiting the New York legislature from assembling 
for business of any sort until it should be prepared to 
yield to the British ministry in a measure for quar- 
tering troops that was intensely unpopular in New 
York. 
In this way did Townshend gather into a single 
parcel all the obnoxious things he could think of, and 
hurl them at the heads of the Americans in this so- 
called Revenue Act. His own feeling about it was 
betrayed in his laughing remark as he went down 
with it to the House of Commons, “I suppose I 
