“For I am convinced, that the authors of this law would never obtain an act to raise so trifling a sum as it must do, had they not intended by it to establish a precedent for future use. To console ourselves with the smallness of the duties, is a walk deliberately into a snare that is set for us...In short, if they have a right to levy a tax one penny upon us, they have a right to level a million upon us: for where does the right stop? At any given number of pence, shillings or pounds?...'There is nothing which we can call our own' or, to use the words of Mr. Locke, 'what property have we in that, which another may, by right, take, when he pleases, to himself?'”
