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- The constitutional history of opposition to taxation is sufficiently interesting to be abstracted from broader contexts. Key action occurred in the Colony of Virginia in the decade before 1776. A particular protest document, arguably the most eloquent and most effective among many colonial protests, merits special attention. A remarkable 1769 imprint, with parts called The Petition to His Majesty, The Memorial to the House of Lords, and The Remonstrance to the House of Commons, surfaced in a 1994 New York auction. This document, called "PMR" below, records a Virginia House of Burgesses April 1768 protest sent to the British Government by Acting Lt. Governor John Blair. This particular imprint had been owned by David Hartley, sometime Member of Parliament and a long-time friend of Benjamin Franklin. He probably received it from G.W. Fairfax, a George Washington friend, who returned to England in 1773. Hartley was the sole official British signatory of the 1783 Treaty of Paris formally ending the American Revolution. Hartley had long supported freedoms for all Englishmen, at home and in the colonies: freedoms sought in the PMR and later reflected in the Declaration of Independence. History texts say little about this Virginia protest or what British government thought of it; it elicited no formal response. However, in mid-1768, Virginia Governor General Sir Jeffrey Amherst was unceremoniously replaced by Lord Norborne Berkeley, Baron de Botetourt, who promptly came to Virginia, with a royal instruction "to reside constantly within the Colony" and to call for military aid if there was any "sudden commotion of the populace". Virginia had notified the other colonies of its PMR, seeking support for its positions. This letter, together with the Massachusetts Circular Letter, stimulated further protests. By December 69, all the American colonies had formally protested taxation called for by the Townshend Acts. (en)
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