Townshend Acts

Legislation passed by the British Parliament in 1767 that enforced billeting of troops, levied taxes, and imposed tighter regulations on trade in the American colonies.

The Townshend Revenue Act, the most far-reaching of the four acts, proposed by Charles Townshend, chancellor of the Exchequer, set import duties on glass, paint, paper, and tea. He characterized the duties as distinct from internal taxes levied by the despised Stamp Act, repealed in 1766. Nevertheless the colonists resented the act, seeing it as a further British effort to exert control over the colonies and a means to raise revenue. The other three acts included the Suspending Act, which suspended the New York assembly until it complied with the Quartering Act; an act establishing a new Board of Customs Commissioners and stricter and more powerful customs procedures; and an act lifting British duties on tea internally and for export to the colonies.