This claim of the ministry was met by the liberal party on both sides of the water in two ways. It was asserted that the late war, and in fact all the wars which affected the colonies, had been waged in the interest of commerce and for the aggrandizement of the realm of which they were no part, and that the newly acquired territories were of doubtful advantage to colonies as yet sparsely populated. But if these considerations were not conclusive, still the colonists ought not to be taxed, because the imperial government by monopolizing their trade received far more than the colonial share of the expense attending their defence. The liberals also asserted that there was no disposition on the part of the colonists to seek exemption from a reasonable share of these imperial expenses; but as in the past they had voluntarily contributed their part, and in some cases even more, so they would in the future; and that in the future, as in the past, these contributions ought to be voluntary, and the frequency and amount to be determined by the provincial assemblies. Moreover, as the colonists neither had, nor could have, any equitable or efficient representation in the imperial Parliament, they could not consent to have their property taken from them by representatives not chosen by themselves.
The ministry and their adherents replied that the foregoing arguments, even if sound, were such as no party charged with the administration of affairs, and obliged to raise a certain amount of money from a people clamorous for relief from present taxes, could accept; that no reliance could be placed on voluntary contributions; that the necessities of government required that money should be raised by some system which would act with regularity and certainty, and reach the unwilling as well as the willing; that even in the last war, when the existence of the English colonies was threatened by a foe moving with celerity by reason of its unity, the movements of English troops had been delayed by the backwardness of the colonies in furnishing their quotas; and now that the pressure of the French power was removed from New England, that section would leave the Middle and Southern colonies to their own resources, especially when it was remembered how remiss those colonies had been in assisting the north and east when attacked.[40] It was also answered that so far from the monopoly of the colonial trade being a set-off to the expenses incurred by the mother country in defending the colonies, the fact was notorious that by the evasion of the navigation laws and acts of trade the colonists had escaped the restrictions intended by those laws, and at the same time had received bounties and drawbacks from the British Exchequer which enabled them to undersell the British merchants in the markets of Europe.