114. The Townshend Acts, 1767
The Rockingham ministers did what Mr. Pitt advised them to do. He then turned them out and made a ministry of his own. He was now Earl of Chatham, and his ministry was the Chatham Ministry. The most active of the Chatham ministers was Charles Townshend. He had the management of the finances and found them very hard to manage. So he hit upon a scheme of laying duties on wine, oil, glass, lead, painter's colors, and tea imported into the colonies. Mr. Pitt had said that Parliament could regulate colonial trade. The best way to regulate trade was to tax it. At the same time that Townshend brought in this bill, he brought in others to reorganize the colonial customs service and make it possible to collect the duties. He even provided that offences against the revenue laws should be tried by judges appointed directly by the king, without being submitted to a jury of any kind.
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