The result of the whole transaction was the birth of a very strong sense in the minds of the colonists that the mother country looked upon them as a sponge to be squeezed. This conviction took more than a passing hold upon them. It was speedily inflamed into inextinguishable heat, first by the news that they were to be taxed without their own consent, and next by the tyrannical and atrocious measures by which it was proposed to crush their resistance. The rebellion may be characterised as having first originated in the blind greediness of the English merchants, and as having then been precipitated by the arbitrary ideas of the patricians, in the first instance, and afterwards of the King and the least educated of the common people. If the severe pressure of the mercantile policy, unflinchingly carried out, had not first filled the colonists with resentment and robbed them of their prosperity, the imperial claim to impose taxes would probably have been submitted to without much ado. And if the suppression of their trade in 1764 had not been instantly followed by Grenville's plan for extorting revenue from them, they would probably in time have been reconciled to the blow which had been dealt to their commerce. It was the conjunction of two highly oppressive pieces of policy which taught them that they would certainly lose more by tame compliance than they could possibly lose by an active resistance." _J. Morley, Edmund Burke, chapter 4._ ALSO IN: _W. Massey, History of England, Reign of George III., volume 1, chapter 5._ {3183} UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1764-1767. Patriotic self-denials. "Upon the news of the intention to lay [the Stamp Tax] … on the colonies, many people, the last year, had associated, and engaged to forbear the importation, or consumption, of English goods; and particularly to break off from the custom of wearing black clothes, or other mourning [it being generally of British manufacture—Foot-note], upon the death of relations. This agreement was then signed by some of the council, and representatives, and by great numbers of people in the town of Boston, and the disuse of mourning soon became general. This was intended to alarm the manufacturers in England. And now [in 1765], an agreement was made, and signed by a great proportion of the inhabitants of Boston, to eat no lamb during the year. This was in order to increase the growth, and, of course, the manufacture of wool in the province. Neither of these measures much served the purpose for which they were professedly intended, but they served to unite the people in an unfavourable opinion of parliament." _T. Hutchinson, History of the province of Massachusetts Bay, 1749-1774, pages 116-117._