(Apstudent.com) Great Britain exported goods and forced the colonies to buy them. Another way the crown could squeeze more money out of the colonies was by stiff taxation that resulted in a general colonial hatred for the crown. Examples of taxes that were stiffly enforced by the crown were the Townshed duties, and the stamp act. (Apstudent.com) Townshed, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, passed the Townshed acts in 1767. (Apstudent.com) These acts were characterized by their taxation of luxury items imported into the colonies that included paper, lead, tea, and paint. (Apstudent.com) The Townshed acts were later repealed, except for the tea tax, which remained for many years, and precipitated the Boston Tea Party. Another punitive act was the Stamp Act. This act was passed on March 22, 1765. The Stamp Act was British legislation passed as part of Prime Minister George Grenville's measures which stated that all legal or official documents used in the colonies, (wills, deeds and contracts), had to be written on special, stamped British paper which the British proceeded to tax heavily. (Apstudent.com) Eventually, the colonists became so fed up with the act, that they began a process of burning British stamp paper. (Apstudent.com) Demonstrations like this one continued until British merchants convinced Parliament to tear up the Stamp Act in 1766. (Apstudent.com) As a result of their futile efforts to squeeze all the money they could out of the colonists, the King unwittingly sowed the seeds of revolution, and his attitude in implementing these truculent policies served to start the American Revolution long before any shots were fired. .
The next of King George III's misguided policies, which the colonists pointed out was completely unjust and wrong, was Prime Minister Robert Walpole's policy in dealing with the American colonies. This policy was officially called Salutary Neglect. (Apstudent.
