These duties were plainly intended, not to regulate commerce, but to raise revenue, which would be as certainly collected from the colonists, as the duties on stamps could have been. The principle of the two measures was the same. Many of the Americans were too intelligent to be misguided by the distinction between internal and external taxation, or by the precedents quoted in support of the right, for which parliament contended. This measure was considered as establishing a precedent of taxation for the mere purpose of revenue, which might afterwards be extended at the discretion of parliament; and was spoken of as the _entering wedge_, designed to make way for impositions too heavy to be borne. The appropriation of the money did not lessen the odium of the tax. The colonists considered the dependence of the officers of government, on the colonial legislature, for their salaries, as the best security for their attending to the interests, and cultivating the affections of the provinces.[193] Yet the opinion that this act was unconstitutional, was not adopted so immediately, or so generally, as in the case of the stamp act. Many able political essays appeared in the papers, demonstrating that it violated the principles of the English constitution and of English liberty, before the conviction became general, that the same principle which had before been successfully opposed, was again approaching in a different form. [Footnote 193: Prior documents.] {1768} The general court of Massachusetts, perceiving plainly that the claim to tax America was revived, and being determined to oppose it, addressed an elaborate letter to Dennis de Berdt, agent for the house of representatives, detailing at great length, and with much weight of argument, all the objections to the late acts of parliament. Letters were also addressed to the earl of Shelburne and general Conway, secretaries of state, to the marquis of Rockingham, lord Camden, the earl of Chatham, and the lords commissioners of the treasury. These letters, while they breathe a spirit of ardent attachment to the British constitution, and to the British nation, manifest a perfect conviction that their complaints were just. Conclusive as the arguments they contained might have appeared to Englishmen, if urged by themselves in support of their own rights, they had not much weight, when used to disprove the existence of their authority over others. The deep and solemn tone of conviction, however, conveyed in all these letters, ought to have produced a certainty that the principles assumed in them had made a strong impression, and would not be lightly abandoned. It ought to have been foreseen that with such a people, so determined, the conflict must be stern and hazardous; and, it was well worth the estimate, whether the object would compensate the means used to obtain it. [Sidenote: Petition to the King.]