unless we pay such and such sums; and thus it is intended to extort our money from us or ruin us by the consequence of refusing to pay it." Republicanism To those sympathetic to republicanism, such as James Burgh, Catherine Macauley, and Richard Price, any tax revenue measures that were voted into effect without the direct representation of Americans were "unconstitutional" and "pernicious". Burgh felt that virtual representation was "subversive of liberty" and "unjust in its principles" and that the House of Commons must include colonial representatives when it voted on colonial matters, or operate by using the consent of the colonial Assemblies. Heightening of tensions American colonists rejected the Stamp Act of 1765 brought in by British Prime Minister George Grenville, and initiated boycotts of British goods which helped bring about the repeal of the Act in 1766. The passage of the Townshend Acts in 1767 and 1768 again led to colonial protests, including a renewed boycott movement against British wares. Most of the taxes in the Townshend Acts were repealed in 1770 by the Ministry of Lord North. The passage of the Tea Act in May 1773, which enforced the remaining taxes on tea, led to 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 illegally, the colonists responded by forming militias and seized political control of each colony, ousting the royal governors – with the exception of the American-born Royal Governor of Connecticut, John Trumbull, who was allowed to remain as the new Patriot Governor. The complaint was never officially over the amount of taxation (the taxes were quite low, though ubiquitous), but always on the political decision-making process by which taxes were decided in London, i.e. without representation for the colonists in British Parliament. Patrick Henry's resolution in the Virginia legislature implied that Americans possessed all the rights of Englishmen, that the principle of no taxation without representation was an essential part of the British Constitution, and that Virginia alone had the right to tax Virginians. Efforts at Conciliation This offer of actual imperial representation was likewise re-stated to the delegates of the colonies via the colonial agents in 1774, according to Connecticut-born Reverend Thomas Bradbury Chandler, in his publication A Friendly Address