The Intolerable Acts were passed in 1774 to punish Boston for its resistance to paying British-imposed taxes.
Burke believed that Parliament did have a legal right to tax the colonies. But Burke also believed that sometimes it was necessary to consider other issues in addition to what was legal. His argument is sometimes described as an argument in favor of obeying the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law. Past efforts by the British to tax the colonies—from the Stamp Act of 1765 (which taxed various types of printed material, legal documents, and dice and playing cards) through the tea taxes of 1767 and 1773—had all led to violence and discontent. Concerning the quarrel with the colonies, Burke said that what was legal (the right to tax) did not matter as much as human nature. He thought Parliament should exercise its authority while respecting the people who were subject to that authority.
In the following excerpt, Burke described to Parliament the nature of the colonists: free people with the rights of Englishmen. He also pointed out the practical difficulties of waging a war in a country so far away, with an entire ocean separating the warring nations: "You cannot pump this [ocean] dry," he said.
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