"He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance."

"No taxation without representation!" is the cry we most remember, partly because of its simply rhyme but also because "No new bureaucrats without our consent!" doesn't quite have as powerful a ring.

For more than 250 years, the United States of America has been fairly consistent in a desire to avoid too much government regulation and bureaucracy. In many ways that sense of resistance to governmental meddling can be traced to this one grievance from the Declaration of Independence. Sandwiched near the middle of the list of 27 grievances in the Declaration (#10, to be exact), most readers would likely parse over this statement and give it a back seat to other, more prominent complaints.

Still, one might argue that the presence of new tax collectors and inspectors and all sorts of British government officials was far more a thorn in the side of colonial business than taxation without a representative in Parliament. After all, when money is tight, unemployment is high, and people are losing house and home, it is very easy to think there is something defective with the economic system.

The colonies found themselves in a recession after the end of the Seven Year's War. The Stamp Act of 1765 heightened colonial sensitivity to taxation without a direct elected representative in Parliament. But it was the series of acts known as the Townshend Duties that really rankled their feathers. The Townshend Duties were really a series of acts --  the Revenue Act of 1767, the Indemnity Act (1767), the Commissioners of Customs Act (1767), the Vice Admiralty Court Act (1768), and the New York Restraining Act.

Among these acts, the Commissioners of Customs Act has the most direct connection to the complaint about too many British officials in the colonies. The preamble to the law sums up its intent clearly:

An Act to Enable His Majesty to Put the Customs, and Other Duties, in the British Dominions in America, and the Execution of the Laws Relating to Trade There, under the Management of Commissioners to be Appointed for that Purpose, and to be Resident in the Said Dominions.

The best that can be said is that this is a rare occasion where the British were unsubtle.

Reaction among colonists to the Commissioners Act was not subtle, however. “The excessive use of foreign superfluities is the chief cause of the present distressed state of this town, as it is thereby drained of its money,” declared Nathaniel Ames at a freeholders meeting in Boston on October 28, 1767. “Misfortune is likely to be increased by means of the late additional Burthens and Impositions on the trade of the Province.”

While Ames was arguing in support of the (passed) vote to boycott British goods, he provides perhaps the best example connecting the additional red tape from British customs officials to the economic conditions in the colony of Massachusetts. Plainly put, more British officials are keeping us broke.

By this time, more than 40 colonial newspapers existed along the Atlantic colonies. Despite a lack of formal education structure, the colonists did boast an 85% literacy rate between 1760 and 1770 (literacy was high among whites and far lower among slaves and Native Americans). This high rate of reading, combined with the proliferation of newspapers and, to be fair -- a sexy topic of rebellion, steered newspapers to being the voice of the people. As an author in the Pennsylvania Gazette said, “However little some may think of common News-Papers, to a wise man they appear the ark of God, for the safety of the people."

Newspapers like the Pennsylvania Gazette helped spread ideas to an American readership that was more literate than other parts of the British empire. 

One of the things to keep in mind with the customs duties levied and enforced by these “swarms of offices” is the commonly held British view of what constituted a fair tax at the time. British politician Thomas Sheridan reasoned “That no Taxes can be just or safe, which are not equal. All subjects as well the meanest, as the greatest, are alike concerned in the common safety; and therefore, should according to their respective Interests of Riches or Enjoyments, bear the Charge in equal Proportions."

David Hume expanded on the idea of fairness by saying taxes on luxury items and imports are the most fair and equitable. “The best taxes are such as are levied upon consumptions, especially those of luxury, because such taxes are least felt by the people,” he wrote.  “They seem in some measure, voluntary; since a man may choose how far he will use the commodity which is taxed…”

The taxes imposed by Britain and enforced by these swarms of offices were anything but voluntary. They were mandatory, inasmuch that if a person wanted to do business, they needed to be paid, or at least worked around by bribing a corrupt customs official. Still struggling with a poor economy driven by low demand, the colonists were now seeing business further restricted by various taxes on items that could probably be considered anything but luxury -- the Townshend Duties imposed taxes on glass, lead, paints, paper, and tea, among other items. These were everyday items, used by merchants, printers, blacksmiths, lawyers, and dozens of other specialty jobs. And, worse -- the taxes were being used to pay the salaries of the British officials charged with upholding the duties.

if the duties passed upon luxury goods imported back to the colonies, like Thomas Jefferson’s massive wine collection or Martha Washington’s handmade Moroccan leather slippers, it’s probable that the middling class would give something less of a hoot about these taxes. Instead, Parliament roped the entire middle class into the fray, whipped into action by American newspapers.

Martha Washington would have loved Jimmy Choo.