The movement thus started in Boston before the passage of the Stamp Act spread rapidly through the other provinces after the Act had been passed, and continued to be for several years a very serious expression of colonial patriotism and opposition to the oppressive policy of the mother country. See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765. The Stamp Act. "The scheme of the imposition by Parliament of a tax on the American colonists to be collected by stamps was not a new one. Nearly forty years before this time, 'Sir William Keith, the late Governor of Pennsylvania, presented an elaborate disquisition to the King … proposing the extension of the stamp duties to the Colonies by Act of Parliament.' It had been one of the projects of the factious Dunbar, during his short career of turbulence and intrigue in New Hampshire. Governor Sharpe of Maryland and Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia had recommended a resort to it at the time of the abortive movement for a union of the Colonies. Its renewal at this time has been said to have been especially due to Charles Jenkinson, then only private secretary to Lord Bute, but who rose afterwards to be Earl of Liverpool. The project, as now resolved upon, was pursued with inconsiderate obstinacy, though it encountered a spirited debate when it was brought into the House of Commons [February, 1765]. … The bill was pending in the House between three and four weeks, at the end of which time it was passed, the largest number of votes which had been given against it in any stage of its progress not having amounted to fifty. It was concurred in by the House of Lords, where it appears to have met no resistance, and in due course [March 22] received the royal assent. No apprehension of consequences counselled a pause. The Stamp Act—as it has ever since been called by eminence—provided … for the payment, by British subjects in America to the English Exchequer, of specified sums, greater or less, in consideration of obtaining validity for each of the common transactions of business." _J. G. Palfrey, History of New England, book 6, chapter 3 (volume 5)._ The following is the text of the Stamp Act: