The Americans were a bold and independent people from the beginning. They came to the shores of the New World, the greater and better part of them, republicans in feeling and principle. “They were men who scoffed at the right of kings, and looked upon rulers as public servants bound to exercise their authority for the benefit of the governed, and ever maintained that it is the inalienable right of the subject freely to give his money to the crown or to withhold it at his discretion.” Such were the Americans in principle, yet were they bound to the mother-country by old ties of affection, and by no means wishful to rush into rebellion. It was precisely the case of the son grown to years of discretion, whom an unreasonable parent seeks still to coerce, until the hitherto dutiful, though clear-headed and resolute son, violently breaks the bonds of parental authority and asserts the independence of his manhood. The human being would have been less worthy in submission; the colonies would have belied the strong race which planted them, had they done otherwise. England believed that she had a right to dictate and change the government of the colonies at her pleasure, and to regulate and restrict their commerce; and for some time this was, if not patiently submitted to, at least allowed. The navigation acts declared that, for the benefit of British shipping, no merchandise from the English colonies should be imported into England excepting by English vessels; and, for the benefit of English manufacturers, prohibited exportation from the colonies, nor allowed articles of domestic manufacture to be carried from one colony to another; she forbade hats, at one time, to be made in the colony, where beaver abounded; at another, that any hatter should have above two apprentices at one time; she subjected sugar, rum and molasses to exorbitant duties on importation; she forbade the erection of iron-works and the preparation of steel; or the felling of pitch and white pine-trees unless in enclosed lands. To some of these laws, though felt to be an encroachment on their rights, the colonies submitted patiently; others, as for instance, the duties on sugar and molasses, they evaded and opposed in every possible way, and the British authorities, from the year 1733, when these duties were first imposed, to 1761, made but little resistance to this opposition. At this latter date, however, George III. having then ascended the throne, and being, as Charles Townshend described him, “a very obstinate young man,” it was determined to enforce this law, and “writs of assistance,” in other words, search-warrants, were issued, by means of which the royal custom-house officers were authorised to search for goods which had been imported without the payment of duty. The people of Boston opposed and resented these measures; and their two most eminent lawyers, Oxenbridge Thatcher and James Otis, expressed the public sentiment in the strongest language.