And that was not all. The people in the colonies did not like the way they had been treated by the English. They had mountains full of iron, but the king would not let them make this iron into tools. They had plenty of wool, but he would not let them weave it into cloth. They must buy these and other things in England, and must keep at farming; but they were not allowed to send their grain to England, but had to eat it all at home. They could not even send goods from one colony to another. Thus they were to be kept poor that the rich English merchants and manufacturers might grow rich. These were some of the things the American people had to complain of. There were still other things, and a good many of the Americans had very little love for the English king and people. They felt that they were in a sort of slavery, and almost as if they had ropes on their hands and chains on their feet. When King George was told that the Americans would not send him money he was very angry. I am afraid he called them bad names. They were a low, ignorant, ungrateful set, he said, and he would show them who was their master. He would tax them and get money from them in that way. So the English Parliament, which is a body of lawmakers like our Congress, came together and passed laws to tax the Americans. The first tax they laid is what is called a stamp tax. I fancy you know very well what that is, for we have had a stamp tax in this country more than once, when the government was in need of money. Everybody who wrote a bank check, or made any legal paper, or sent away an express package, had to buy a stamp from the government and put it on the paper; and stamps had to be used on many other things. But there is this difference. Our people were quite willing to buy these stamps, but they were not willing to buy the stamps which the British government sent them in 1765. Why? Well, they had a good reason for it, and this was that they had nothing to do with making the law. The English would not pay any taxes except those made by the people whom they elected to Parliament, and the Americans said they had the same right. They were not allowed to send any members to Parliament, so they said that Parliament had no right to tax them. Their own legislatures might vote to send the king money, but the English Parliament had no right to vote for them. When the king found that the Americans would not use his stamps he tried another plan. He laid a tax on tea and some other goods. He thought that our people could not do without tea, so he sent several shiploads across the ocean, expecting them to buy it and pay the tax. But he soon found that the colonists had no more use for taxed tea than for stamps. They would not even let the captains bring their tea on shore, except at Charleston, and there it was packed in damp cellars, where it soon rotted. A ship sent to Annapolis was set on fire and burned to the water's edge with the tea in it.