"No hats or felts, dyed or undyed, finished or unfinished, shall be put on board any vessel in any place within any British plantations, nor be laden upon any horse or other carriage to the intent to be exported from thence to any other plantation, or to any other place, upon forfeiture thereof, and the offender shall likewise pay five hundred pounds for every such offense. Every person knowing thereof, and willingly aiding therein, shall forfeit forty pounds." "That is diabolical," said Robert, his blood beginning to boil. Mr. Adams saw the flush upon his cheek and smiled. "I see that it stirs you up, as it does every lover of liberty. But I have not given you the full text of the iniquitous act: the law forbade any one from making a hat who had not served as an apprentice seven years, nor could a man employ more than two apprentices. Under that law no hatter up in Portsmouth could paddle across the Piscataqua and sell a hat to his neighbor in Kittery because the hat was made in New Hampshire. The hatter who had a shop in Providence could not carry a hat to his neighbor just over the line in Swansey, one town being in Rhode Island and the other in Massachusetts. The law, you see, was designed to crush out the manufacture of hats. The law applied to almost everything." "I had no idea that such laws had been passed; they are abominable!" Robert replied with a vigor that brought a smile to Mr. Adams's face, who took a bit of cheese and smacked his lips. "Every time I taste it I think of you and your father, mother, and sister who made it," he said. "I hope to see them sometime," said Mrs. Adams. "I am not quite through with the iniquity," continued Mr. Adams. "About forty years ago--it was in 1737, I think--Parliament passed what is called the Sugar Act, which imposed a duty on sugar and molasses, if imported from any of the West India Islands other than those owned by Great Britain. Cuba, as you know, is a dependency of Spain and St. Domingo of France. The sugar plantations of Jamaica and Guinea are owned by Englishmen, and the law was passed to compel the Colonies to trade solely with the Jamaica planters. The Great and General Court protested that the act was a violation of the rights of the Colonies, but no notice was taken of the protest--it was thrown into the basket for waste paper. Since the time of Charles II. not less than twenty-nine acts have been passed, which, in one way or another, restrict trade and invade the rights of the Colonies. I suppose, Mr. Walden, you leach the ashes, which you scrape up from your fireplace?" "Oh yes," Robert replied; "not only what we take from the hearth in the kitchen, but when we have a burning of a ten-acre lot, as we had a few weeks ago, we scoop up several cart-loads of ashes which we leach, and boil the lye to potash."[22]