3. It had long been felt that the taxes were exceedingly burdensome, and, from a statement made to the Legislature at this time, by one of the public treasurers, of the real condition of the public funds, it was seen that these taxes had been, for a time at least, unnecessarily imposed. The treasurer showed that a full collection of the amounts in arrear, for which security had been given, would discharge the entire public debt and leave in the public treasury the sum of twenty thousand dollars. A bill was at once passed in both houses of the Legislature, and without opposition in either, discontinuing the special taxes that had been devoted to the extinguishment of the public debt. Governor Martin, however, vetoed the bill, and thus began a series of conflicts with the Legislature that lasted until his expulsion from the province. 4. The repeal of the Stamp Act had been gratefully received; but Parliament still excited great apprehension by an express and formal assertion of its powers to tax America. It had cost immense sums to the Crown to drive out the French, and much money was still needed to pay British expenses in America. It was insisted that the colonies ought to pay their fair share in these burdens. The great question was, how this was to be done. If Parliament could levy what it pleased, then Americans were no longer free, in that they were not masters of their own purses. Many propositions were made to arrange the difficulty, but none were satisfactory to both sides. 1773. 5. So dissatisfied was Governor Martin with his first Legislature that he speedily dissolved it, and did not permit a new one to meet until the last of January, 1773. The new Legislature met in New Bern, and the House gave notice of its temper by electing as its speaker John Harvey, of Perquimans, admitted on all hands to be the most earnest supporter of colonial rights in all the province. Upon every important subject of legislation the Governor and the new Assembly were at variance, and he accordingly dissolved it on the 9th of March, declaring that it "had deserted its duty and flagrantly insulted the dignity and authority of the government." 6. The next Assembly met in New Bern, on the 4th of December, 1773, and continued in session seventeen days, when it shared the fate of its predecessor, and was sent home with the injunction to consult with the people and learn their will.