It was not until some time after 1750 that any grand assault was made upon the principle of "no taxation without representation," but the frequent disputes with the royal governors were such as to keep people from losing sight of this principle, and to make them sensitive about acts that might lead to violations of it. In the particular disputes the governors were sometimes clearly right and the people wrong. One of the principal objects, as we shall presently see, for which the governors wanted money, was to maintain troops for defence against the French and the Indians; and the legislatures were apt to be short-sighted and unreasonably stingy about such matters. Again, the people were sometimes seized with a silly craze for "paper money" and "wild-cat banks"--devices for making money out of nothing--and sometimes the governors were sensible enough to oppose such delusions but not altogether sensible in their manner of doing it. Thus in 1740 there was fierce excitement in Massachusetts over a quarrel between the governor and the legislature about the famous "silver bank" and "land bank." These institutions were a public nuisance and deserved to be suppressed, but the governor was obliged to appeal to parliament in order to succeed in doing it. This led many people to ask, "What business has a parliament sitting the other side of the ocean to be making laws for us?" and the grumbling was loud and bitter enough to show that this was a very dangerous question to raise. [Sidenote: Bitter memories; in Virginia.] It was in the eight colonies which had royal governors that troubles of a revolutionary character were more likely to arise than in the other five, but there were special reasons, besides those already mentioned, why Massachusetts and Virginia should prove more refractory than any of the others. Both these great commonwealths had bitter memories. Things had happened in both which might serve as a warning, and which some of the old men still living in 1750 could distinctly remember. In Virginia the misgovernment of the royal governor Sir William Berkeley had led in 1675 to the famous rebellion headed by Nathaniel Bacon, and this rebellion had been suppressed with much harshness. Many leading citizens had been sent to the gallows and their estates had been confiscated. In Massachusetts, though there were no such scenes of cruelty to remember, the grievance was much more deep-seated and enduring. [Sidenote: And in Massachusetts.]