Part 8: of an 18-part series

* The first of a series of extraordinary Royal instructions began their mission to establish the right of parliament to tax the colonies , on the 6th of July, 1770.

•    “In framing these instructions, little, if any, regard was paid to customs, forms, and prejudices in the colonies as old as their existence, which had become unwritten law [the Law of Nature].”

•    “The instructions required the dissolution of assemblies; their removal to unusual places of meeting, as in South Carolina to Beaufort, and in Massachusetts to Cambridge; negatived arbitrarily the choice of speakers; provided for the maintenance of local officers; and thus entirely ignored the local legislation for the support of government, and even directed the executive to refuse his assent to tax-bills because they taxed the officers of government. . . .”