On this day 250 years ago in London, Benjamin Franklin wrote his friend, and supporter of America, Bishop Jonathan Shipley about a bill under consideration in Parliament to restrict expansion of western settlements in the American colonies. Franklin explained that Parliament intended that the effect of the bill would be that

People will not go thither to obtain Lands. They will however find themselves mistaken. . . . People will confide that Government can never be so unjust as to turn them off, and indeed it will never be done.

This bill would eventually become “the Quebec Act” and the Patriots usually counted it as one of the Intolerable Acts that sparked the Revolution.

Source: https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%2210%20March%201774%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=1&sr=