Excerpt from The League of States
The events attendant upon the passage of the Stamp Act, and the attempts to enforce it, failed to teach wisdom to the British cabinet. A fatal pride of power, and love of domination, and contempt for the American colonists blinded the rulers of Great Britain, and for ten years they listened to the popular tumults in the Western World, the petitions of loyal men there and at home, and the remonstrances of the oppressed in both countries, with a stolid indifference that may be interpreted only by the knowledge which the world had been compelled to obtain of the amazing conceit, ineffable vanity, and cruel selfishness which had always distinguished the public acts of the ruling classes of England ever since Mercury became their tutelar deity. Finally, when the lightnings of defiance flashed from Western clouds upon the dim visions of the King and his council, and the muttering of the thunders of revolution that came over the Atlantic fell ominously upon their dull ears, they were compelled to acknowledge a sense of danger and to prepare for a coming tempest. They sent armed men to plant the heel of military despotism upon the necks of a free people, and to choke into silence the annoying clamors for justice in the New England capital, where they were loudest and most persistent. In amazing blindness they annihilated its commerce. The port was sealed up, the courts of justice were removed fifteen miles away, and a thousand households were filled with distress. This act, intended to punish, only exasperated.
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