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Creating the hated Townshend Acts...
Creating the hated Townshend Acts...
Item # 554270
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August 20, 1767
THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, August 20, 1767
* Creating the hated Townshend Acts
* Colonial Pennsylvania original
This newspaper was published by Benjamin Franklin for many years, his famous imprint appearing in issues through 1765. The imprint of this issue reads: "Printed by David Hall and William Sellers...".
Page 2 has various news reports from both Europe and the colonies, one item from Boston noting: "...That noting would be attempted by way of internal taxation of the colonies...".
Page 3 reports from the House of Commons includes: "...a Bill for restraining & prohibiting the Governor...of the Province of New York from passing or assenting to any Act...until Provision shall have been made...for furnishing the King's Troops with all the Necessaries required by Law...".
The real significance of this issue is what follows, being a lengthy list of Resolves for various taxes, datelined June 2, on American colonies including import duties on glass, lead, paints, paper & more (see photos) which when formally enacted just 27 days later would be known as the Townshend Acts.
Four pages, handsome coat-of-arms engraving in the masthead, just a few minor stains, generally in very nice, clean condition.
wikipedia notes: The Townshend Acts were a series of acts passed beginning in 1767 by the Parliament of Great Britain relating to the British colonies in North America. The acts are named for Charles Townshend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who proposed the program. Historians vary slightly in which acts they include under the heading "Townshend Acts", but five laws are frequently mentioned: the Revenue Act of 1767, the Indemnity Act, the Commissioners of Customs Act, the Vice Admiralty Court Act, and the New York Restraining Act.
The purpose of the Townshend Acts was to raise revenue in the colonies to pay for governors and judges who would be independent of colonial control, to create a more effective means of enforcing compliance with trade regulations, to punish the province of New York for failing to comply with the 1765 Quartering Act, and to establish the precedent that the British Parliament had the right to tax the colonies. The Townshend Acts met with resistance in the colonies, prompting the occupation of Boston by British troops in 1768, which eventually resulted in the Boston Massacre of 1770.
Ironically, on the same day as the massacre in Boston, Parliament began to consider a motion to partially repeal the Townshend duties. Most of the new taxes were repealed, but the tax on tea was retained. The British government continued in its attempt to tax the colonists without their consent, however, which led to the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution.
Category: The 1600's and 1700's
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