Where were the oppressed?
Could any one point to a single person who before war broke out had known British tyranny?
What suffering could any one point to as the result of the tax on tea?
The people of England paid a tax on tea four times heavier than that paid in America.

Was not the British Parliament supreme over the whole Empire?
Did not the colonies themselves admit that it had the right to control their trade overseas?
And if men shirk their duty should they not come under some law of compulsion?
It was thus that many a plain man reasoned in England.

The plain man in America had his own opposing point of view.

Debts and taxes in England were not his concern.

He remembered the recent war as vividly as did the Englishman, and, if the English paid its cost in gold, he had paid his share in blood and tears.