George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 5, 13th edition.

[280] of internal taxation, they sent letters to every

chap. XIII.} 1765. May.

assembly on the continent, proposing that committees of the several assemblies should meet at New-York, on the first Tuesday of the following October, ‘to consult together,’ and ‘consider of a united representation to implore relief.’ They also elected Otis and two others of their own members to repair to New York accordingly.

At the same time the province increased its strength by perseverance in appropriating annually fifty thousand pounds towards discharging its debt; and so good was its credit, and so affluent its people, that the interest on the remaining debt was reduced from six to five per cent. by a public subscription among themselves.¹

Simultaneously, in the very first days of June, and before the proceedings in Virginia and Massachusetts were known in New-York, where the re-print of the Stamp Act was hawked about the streets as the ‘Folly of England and the ruin of America,’ a Freeman of that town, discussing the policy of Grenville, and the arguments on which it rested, demonstrated that they were leading alike to the reform of the British parliament and the independence of America.

‘It is not the tax,’ said he,

it is the unconstitutional manner of imposing it, that is the great subject of uneasiness to the colonies. The minister admitted in parliament, that they had in the fullest sense the right to be taxed only by their own consent, given by their representatives; and grounds his pretence of the