REVOLUTION AND REACTION After the whole group of colonies had long been left in salutary neglect by the British authorities, George III and his ministers undertook the creation of an imperial control; and Parliament was too much at the king's command for opposing statesmen to stop the project.

The Americans wakened resentfully to the new conditions.

The revived navigation laws, the stamp act, the tea duty, and the dispatch of redcoats to coerce Massachusetts were a cumulation of grievances not to be borne by high-spirited people.
For some years the colonial spokesmen tried to persuade the British government that it was violating historic and constitutional rights; but these efforts had little success.

To the argument that the empire was composed of parts mutually independent in legislation, it was replied that Parliament had legislated imperially ever since the empire's beginning, and that the colonial assemblies possessed only such powers as Parliament might allow.

The plea of no taxation without representation was answered by the doctrine that all elements in the empire were virtually represented in Parliament.