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The American colonists were not without supporters in the British government. Whig MP Edmund Burke for one, who wrote "Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents" in 1770. He and others thought the grievances legitimate. Prior to 1763, there had been a sort of benign neglect by the British when it came to the American Colonies. However, after the French and Indian Wars, the British government found itself in debt and wished to raise taxes. Prime Minister George Grenville calculated that the average British taxpayer paid 26 shillings annually, whereas a British subject in Massachusetts paid one shilling per year. British landowners, (who controlled Parliament), already paid a tax of 20% and refused to pay more. So commenced the little "stand-off", which led to the American Revolution. The colonists did not want taxation without direct representation.