project they viewed not as an act of grace or of mercy but as a direct
attempt to enlist French Canadians on the side of Great Britain. The
British government did not grant religious toleration to Catholics
either at home or in Ireland and the Americans could see no good motive
in granting it in North America. The act was also offensive because
Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Virginia had, under their charters,
large claims in the territory thus annexed to Quebec.

To enforce these intolerable acts the military arm of the British
government was brought into play. The commander-in-chief of the armed
forces in America, General Gage, was appointed governor of
Massachusetts. Reinforcements were brought to the colonies, for now King
George was to give "the rebels," as he called them, a taste of strong
medicine. The majesty of his law was to be vindicated by force.


FROM REFORM TO REVOLUTION IN AMERICA

=The Doctrine of Natural Rights.=--The dissolution of assemblies, the
destruction of charters, and the use of troops produced in the colonies
a new phase in the struggle. In the early days of the contest with the
British ministry, the Americans spoke of their "rights as Englishmen"
and condemned the acts of Parliament as unlawful, as violating the
principles of the English constitution under which they all lived. When
they saw that such arguments had no effect on Parliament, they turned
for support to their "natural rights." The latter doctrine, in the form
in which it was employed by the colonists, was as English as the
constitutional argument. John Locke had used it with good effect in
defense of the English revolution in the seventeenth century. American
leaders, familiar with the writings of Locke, also took up his thesis in