No taxation without representation the House of Commons must include colonial representatives when it voted on colonial matters, or operate by using the consent of the colonial Assemblies. The Americans rejected the Stamp Act of 1765 brought in by British Prime Minister George Grenville, and violently rejected the remaining tax on tea imports, under the Tea Act passed in May 1773, at the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773. The Parliament considered this an illegal act because they believed it undermined the authority of the Crown-in-Parliament. When the British then used the military to enforce laws that the colonists believed Parliament had passed
No taxation without representation limited due to unequally distributed voting constituencies and property requirements; only 3% of the population could vote and they were often controlled by local gentry. This meant that spurious arguments had come to be employed in Britain to try to explain away and cover up the iniquities in its political life. Therefore the British government tried to argue that the colonists had virtual representation in their interests. In the winter of 1764–65, George Grenville, and his secretary Thomas Whately, invented the doctrine of 'virtual representation' in an attempt extend the scope of such unjust arguments to America, and thereby attempt