The Americans forced the British to repel many of the new acts. They petitioned the crown. When their requests were denied, they smuggled goods and avoided paying the tax. The colonist refused to buy certain good from the British and this caused the merchants in Britain to put pressure on Parliament to repel the acts. Resentment and violence grew and mobs threatened
the safely of the agents and their families who enforced these act and those who were loyal to Britain. They taunted the British soldiers in the colonies; there were riots and British property was destroyed.
The Americans were successful in getting Parliament to repeal the acts, but the repealed acts would simply be replaced with new acts. This caused both sides to be further entrenched in their positions. The British believed they had a right to rule the colonies and saw them as being unruly disobedient subjects. The Americans believed they had a right to have a say in their own affairs. As they saw the power of their own local representative assemblies being taken away and that they did not have representatives in Parliament, revolutionary ideas grew.
<span>The British defeated the French in North America in seventeen sixty-three. As a result, the British took control of lands that had been claimed by France. Britain now was responsible for almost two million people in the thirteen American colonies and sixty thousand French-speaking people in Canada. In addition to political and economic responsibilities, Britain had to protect all these colonists from different groups of Indians.</span>
