Excerpt from Lives of the Presidents The history of the United States may be said to have begun when the people rebelled against the Stamp Act. Abundant cause for dissatisfaction had previously existed. The Navigation laws, which compelled the Colonies to do all their trading with England. Were intensely disliked. We were not allowed to buy any European goods except in England; and no foreign ships were allowed to enter our ports. The Colonists were prevented from even exchanging their products with each other. Benja min Franklin had been sent over to England as the agent Of the Colonies. He got but scant hearing and no satisfaction from the Ministers of the Crown; and wrote back that he saw nothing for the Colo nies but But submission was the last thing they dreamt of. When the news that the 342 Chests of tea had been flung overboard reached London, King George III. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.