Status Updates From The Glorious Cause: The Ame...

The right of Parliament to regulate trade seemed just as clear—it was a matter of "necessity,"' Stephen Hopkins wrote. The empire had a center, England, and it had constituent parts, the colonies. To pull it together, superintend its commerce, and make decisions relating to matters of common concern were necessary, and Parliament seemed the only agency capable of so doing.

For Pitt praised American resistance: "I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people, so dead to all the feelings of liberty, as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest."

The confusion of the English Parliament and government did not help the British when the subjects in America decided to revolt.

For the Americans in countinghouses and legislatures, if not exactly confused, were at the least unclear about what they were up against. They had not had to face a Parliament committed to taxing them for revenue.They had enjoyed rights without having to think about them. Unexamined rights may always be something of a luxury. The Americans were soon to think so.