in Strictures upon the Declaration of the Congress of the recent Declaration of Independence, and particularly of James Otis, Jr.'s pamphlet Rights of the British Colonies and its endorsement by the Massachusetts Assembly, Governor Thomas Hutchinson said, The Assembly of Massachusetts Bay, therefore, was the first that took any publick of the [Sugar] Act, and the first which ever took exception to the right of Parliament to impose Duties or Taxes on the Colonies, whilst they had no representatives in the House of Commons. This they did in a letter to their Agent in the summer of 1764, which they took care to print and publish before it was possible for him to receive it. And in this letter they recommend to him a pamphlet, wrote by one of their members, in which there are proposals for admitting representatives from the Colonies to fit in the House of Commons. I have this special reason, my Lord, for taking notice of this Act of the Massachusetts Assembly; that though an American representation is thrown out as an expedient which might obviate the objections to Taxes upon the Colonies, yet it was only intended to amuse the authority in England; and as soon as it was known to have its advocates here [in London], it was renounced by the colonies, and even by the Assembly of the Colony which first proposed it, as utterly impracticable." Indeed, the resolves of the Continental Congresses of both 1765 and 1774 declared that imperial representation was too impractical on the footing that "local and other circumstances, cannot properly be represented in the British parliament". The British Government, similarly, does not appear to have formally requested discussions with the Americans concerning the issue of Parliamentary seats until 1778. In that year "the commissioners of the king of Great Britain," known as the Carlisle Peace Commission of 1778, made an offer to the Congress of "a reciprocal deputation of an agent or agents from the different states, who shall have the privilege of a seat and voice in the parliament of Great Britain". Virtual representation inve In Britain, representation was highly limited due to unequally distributed voting constituencies and property requirements; only 3% of the population could vote and they were often controlled by local gentry. This meant that spurious arguments had come to be employed in Britain to try to explain away and cover up the iniquities