[Bollan], The Mutual Interest of Great Britain and the American Colonies

The title of William Bollan's 1765 pamphlet, The Mutual Interest of Great Britain and the American Colonies, reveals a theme—of unity through recognition of shared interests—that remained a rare constant throughout his writings and intellectual evolution. Bollan’s ideas about the ideological and constitutional foundations of those shared interests changed dramatically, however. When Bollan gives his own views on the Sugar and Stamp Acts of 1764 and 1765, he offers only limited means of constitutional resolution. He argues first that the Acts (though he only refers specifically to the Sugar Act) are economically inadvisable as they will impoverish colonists, which will in turn hurt British manufacturers, traders and seamen, and encourage colonists to manufacture for themselves or else encourage smuggling, especially as payment was required in specie. Bollan was clearly opposed to British parliamentary taxation in practice.