Why was it then that such a marvelous change should take place in the minds of the American people, during the next twelve years? In 1764 the colonists loved England as their mother country. In 1776 they had learned to despise her authority. They bound themselves, by solemn oaths, to use no article of English manufacture. They publicly burned the Acts of the English Parliament. They even killed the king's soldiers and cast from them forever his authority. By what terrible magic was this change wrought so swiftly: that three millions of people should be taught to abhor the country they once loved? To answer this question rightly we must remember that the cause of the colonists was one of popular rights against royal prerogative, that the best and wisest men in England were in favor of the colonists; that even William Pitt, the {166} greatest statesman England had ever seen, declared openly in Parliament, "I rejoice that America has resisted." We must also bear in mind that for many years England had governed her American colonies harshly; and in a spirit of undisguised selfishness, America was ruled not for her own good but for the good of English commerce. The colonists were not allowed to export their products except to England. No foreign ships were permitted to enter colonial ports. Whatever were the exorbitant demands of English manufacturers or merchants, still the colonists were not permitted to buy at a cheaper market. Still more, certain goods, woolen for example, were not allowed to be sent from one colony to another. The manufacture of hats was forbidden, and even the Bible was not allowed to be printed in America. The colonists had long borne the cost of their own government and defense. But in that age of profuse expenditure on useless wars, the king and nobility of England thought to gather from America's toiling sons the means to pay for their own misrule. The Parliament of England passed a law to tax America. The colonists replied they were willing to vote what moneys the king required of them; but they vehemently denied the right of any assembly, in which they were not represented, to take from them any portion of their property. Another law was also passed requiring a royal stamp to be placed on every legal document. Benjamin Franklin had been sent to England by the colonists. He went to plead their cause before the British government. He told them plainly that the colonists could not submit to such taxation. The act was to come in force on the first of November, 1763. On that day the church bells were tolled, and the people wore the aspect of those on whom some heavy calamity had fallen. Not one of the stamps was ever sold in America. Without stamps mercantile transactions ceased to be binding, notes were not legal, marriages were null. Yet the business of life went on. Men married; they bought; they sold--illegally, because without stamps; but no harm came of it.