The James Journal Jun. 2014 | Page 16

  15   fired   upon   the   crowd,   wounding   or   killing   quickly   caught   on.   Soon,   these   committees   eleven   Americans.   This   day   has   come   to   be   were   popping   up   all   over   the   colonies,   and   known   as   the   Boston   Massacre,   and   it   was   these   committees   eventually   evolved   into   purely   caused   by   differing   economic   views   colonial   committees,   like   Virginia’s   House   of   between  the  colonists  and  the  British.     Burgesses.   Colonial   committees   would   make     up  the  First  Continental  Congress.   The   Townshend   Acts   failed   miserably,   producing   an   astonishingly   low   £295   in   one      In   1773,   the   British   East   India   year,  while  the  military  costs  in  the  colony  for   Company   was   going   into   bankruptcy.   The   that   year   were   £170,000.   The   acts   were   British   government,   if   they   allowed   this   to   repealed,  but  the  tax  on  tea  was  kept,  “to  keep   happen,   would   loose   a   lot   of   tax   revenue,   as   alive   the   principle   of   Parliament’s   right   to   tax   the   company   sold   a   great   deal   of   tea   to   the   the   colonies”   (Kennedy,   Cohen,   Bailey;   134).   colonies.   The   company   was   then   given   a   This  angered   many  Americans,   especially   since   monopoly   on   America’s   tea   industry,  and   they   the   Navigation   Laws   were   being   enforced   could   sell   it   lower   than   ever   before.   One   more.   Samuel   Adams,   to   create   further   would   think   colonists   would   be   happy   with   organized   opposition   to   Britain,   created   a   this   deal   on   tea,   but   it   was   not   the   case.   committee   of   correspondence   in   1772,   and   it   Americans  resented  this  deal,  as  they  thought   it  was  an  attempt  to  get  them  to  accepting  the   tax   on   tea.   British   officials   tried   to   enforce   it,   but   the   Americans   wouldn’t   h ]