nd bold in suggestions.
He had voted for the Stamp Act, and voted for its repeal as expedient, not because it was just.
In January, 1767, by virtue of his office, on which devolved the duty of suggesting ways and means for carrying on the government, he proposed taxation schemes which aroused the most vehement opposition in America.
He introduced a bill imposing a duty on tea, paints, paper, glass, lead, and other articles of British manufacture imported into the colonies.
It was passed June 29.
The exportation of tea to America was encouraged by another act, passed July 2, allowing for five years a drawback of the whole duty payable on the importation.
By another act, reorganizing the colonial custom-house system, a board of revenue commissioners for America was established, to have its seat at Boston.
Connected with these bills were provisions very obnoxious to the Americans, all having relation to the main object—namely, raising a revenue in America.
There was a provision
the United States and Great Britain (June, 1812) reached Ogdensburg, N. Y., on the St. Lawrence, eight American schooners—trading vessels—lay in the harbor.
They endeavored to escape into Lake Ontario, bearing away affrighted families and their effects.
An active Canadian partisan named Jones had raised a company of men to capture them.
He gave chase in boats, overtook the unarmed flotilla at the foot of the Thousand Islands, captured two of the schooners, and emptied and burned them (June 29). A rumor was circulated that the British were erecting fortifications among the Thousand Islands, and that expeditions of armed men were to be sent across the St. Lawrence to devastate American settlements on its borders.
General Brown and Commander Woolsey, of the Oneida, were vested with ample power to provide for the defence of that frontier.
Colonel Benedict, of St. Lawrence county, was ordered to guard the region from Ogdensburg to St. Regis (q. v.) with a competent force, and milit
