, plus the acts themselves, appear to have radicalized increasing numbers of affected colonists. Becker does not focus as much on the zeal of enforcement agents, suggesting that the meaningful response to the Townshend Acts was made in a way that would "employ only constitutional and peaceful methods of obtaining redress."7 The result was a formalized boycott of English goods, known as nonimportation, so effective that by 1770, the Townshend Duties were limited to tea alone.8 While American nonimportation of tea continued, other British goods were imported. This is now referred to as the collapse or breakup of nonimportation for the reason that, as a policy of resistance to British colonial authority, it did not have its full effect.
Nevertheless, from 1770 to 1773, the political difficulties associated with British attempts to derive what might be called "unearned income" from the colonies subsided. In this regard, Labaree says, "The three years between the final breakup of non importation in the autumn of 1770 and the Boston Tea party in December 1773 h
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