Note 298 — Chapter XIII

His Revenue Act, and the two subsequent Acts to give it effect, produced an excitement throughout the American colonies that will be noticed hereafter. Mr. Bancroft remarks: "They would nullify Townshend's Revenue Act by consuming nothing on which he had laid a duty, and avenge themselves on England by importing no more British goods. At the beginning of this excitement (September, 1767), Charles Townshend was seized with fever, and after a short illness, during which he met danger with the unconcerned levity that had marked his conduct of the most serious affairs, he died at the age of forty-one, famed alike for incomparable talents and extreme instability." (History of the United States, Vol. VI., p. 98.)