ittle of that bill. "The time had come to pay for these victories which . . . the American colonies had done very little to achieve. . . . [And] in helping to meet the [$2 million] expenses, Grenville considered it was only proper that at least part of the high cost of maintaining a force of ten thousand men in America . . . should be met by the colonists themselves"[10] . Most Americans today would agree that this was not an unreasonable request. The debt had been incurred on the colonies' behalf, and they should have to help pay for their protection. After all, Parliament reserved the right to tax any and every citizen of the British Empire, and the colonies were part of the empire. In Lord Grenville's eyes, and in Parliament's as well, there was no question as to whether or not Parliament could tax the colonies. But a voice of opposition rose from another member or Parliament. Grenville's own brother - in - law, William Pitt the Earl of Chatham. He did not question whether or not they could tax, there was no doubt about that in any one's mind --but whether or not they should. Pitt, like Burke, had taken into account that American has been left alone for a very long time and that they would not appreciate a swift action from Parliament demanding a tax. Unfortunately, William Pitt's fear became a reality. In the colonies, there was opposition (a , b, c) to the Revenue Act of 1763, on a basis that no one in Parliament could have foreseen. The Revenue Act, which came to be called the Sugar Act, was actually an extension of an act from 1733 called the Molasses Act. The Molasses Act required a tariff on all sugar products that were imported into America from the West Indies. The American colonists, however, had found that it was not difficult to smuggle their sugar items into the colonies and avoid the tariff that was due to the British government. This sort of activity was not allowed to go on in any other part of the British Empire, and ...
