History of New England political freedoms and local democracy, which they felt was increasingly threatened by the English government. The main grievance was taxation, which colonists argued could only be imposed by their own legislatures and not by the Parliament in London. Their political cry was "no taxation without representation." A ship was planning to land tea in Boston on December 16, 1773, and Patriots associated with the Sons of Liberty raided the ship and dumped all the tea into the harbor. This Boston Tea Party outraged British officials, and the King and Parliament decided to punish Massachusetts, passing the Intolerable Acts in 1774.
No taxation without representation It would be best if they had both...[Furthermore, the right of every British subject is that the] supreme power cannot take from any man any part of his property, without his consent in person, or by representation. Otis simultaneously refuted, in "The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved", a contemporary argument that attempted to rationalise virtual representation on the basis of the colonial agents' alleged influence on British policy. "As to the colonists being represented by the provincial agents," he wrote, I know of no power ever given them but to appear before his Majesty, and his ministry.