The 18th century blogosphere
Samuel Johnson took a dim view of the complaints of the American colonists, particularly their rallying cry of “Taxation without representation is tyranny!” His 1775 pamphlet Taxation No Tyranny defended the right of the King to rule over his American subjects, and included the stinging rebuke “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?”
Although he published it anonymously, the pamphlet was known to be Johnson’s work, and it provoked an immediate flurry of responses from those sympathetic to the colonists’ plight (or at least opposed to King George and his government). A sampling of these replies, ranging from the analytical to the satirical, is given below.
