[SamAdams76]

By contrast, London at that time (1776) was teeming with slums and filth. London was the center of world trade at the time so certainly they had some very wealthy merchants but it was basically a class-based society in which your economic prospects were determined at birth.

Only a fraction of Englishmen had the right to vote and despite London's million inhabitants (most of them poor and making less than $4,000 a year - in todays money), London had only 8 seats in Parliament while some much smaller town would have over 100 seats in Parliament. It would be as if Dallas, Texas could send 50 or 60 congressmen to Washington but New York City or Chicago could only send 2 or 3! This was due to some archaic system where Parliament seats could be bought and sold by wealthy landowners.

So for the most part, taxation without representation was rampant even in England itself.

[DeaconBenjamin]

I acknowledge that there were rotten boroughs, but I doubt they would send 100 to Parliament.