And this tremendous act was to go into operation on the first day of the following June. [Illustration: VIRTUAL REPRESENTATION. _1775._ April 1 1775 Price 6.^{d} 1. One String Jack. Deliver your Property. 2. Began Just so in France } Accomplices 3. Te Deum } 4. I Give you that man's money for my use 5. I will not be Robbed 6. I shall be wounded with you 7. I am Blinded 8. The French Roman Cathlick Town of Quebeck 9. The English Protestant Town of Boston The king's friends were fond of asserting that the Americans were "virtually represented" in Parliament, through their British friends in that body. On the back of the copy of this broadside, "Virtual Representation," in the possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society, is the following explanation, in the handwriting of the time:-- "A full explanation of the within print.--No. 1 intends the K--g of G. B., to whom the House of Commons (4) gives the Americans' money for the use of that very H. of C., and which he is endeavouring to take away with the power of cannon. No. 2, by a Frenchman signifies the tyranny that is intended for America. No. 3, the figure of a Roman Catholic priest with his crucifix and gibbet, assisting George in enforcing his tyrannical system of civil and religious government. Nos. 5 and 6 are honest American yeomen, who oppose an oaken staff to G----'s cannon, and determine they will not be robbed. No. 7 is poor Britannia blindfolded, falling into the bottomless pit which her infamous rulers have prepared for the Americans. Nos. 8, 9 represent Boston in flames and Quebec triumphant, to show the probable consequence of submission to the present wicked ministerial system, that popery and tyranny will triumph over true religion, virtue, and liberty."] [Sidenote: The shooting of citizens] By the third act--a pet measure of George III., to which Lord North assented with great reluctance--it was provided that if any magistrate, soldier, or revenue officer in Massachusetts should be indicted for murder, he should be tried, not in Massachusetts, but in Great Britain. This measure--though doubtless unintentionally--served to encourage the soldiery in shooting down peaceful citizens, and it led by a natural sequence to the bloodshed on Lexington green. It was defended on the ground that in case of any chance affray between soldiers and citizens, it would not be possible for the soldiers to obtain a fair trial in Massachusetts. Less than four years had elapsed since Preston's men had been so readily acquitted of murder after the shooting in King Street, but such facts were of no avail now. The momentous bill passed in the House of Commons by a vote of more than four to one, in spite of Colonel Barré's ominous warnings.