On March 10, 1764, preliminary resolutions passed the House of Commons looking towards the Stamp Act.

In some of the middle colonies the towns and counties were both active and had a relation with each other which was the forerunner of the present system of local government in the Western States.

The colonies had little occasion to feel or to resent direct royal prerogative.

In any event, colonization and the grant of lands were provincial matters.

The participation of the people in their own government was the more significant, because the colonies actually had what England only seemed to have, - three departments of government.

The residence of the Plymouth settlers in the Netherlands, and the later conquest of the Dutch colonies, had brought the Americans into contact with the singularly wise and free institutions of the Dutch.