The British king thought he was the divine ruler appointed by God, for one, so he thought he was all powerful. The settlers they were taxing were originally British, most of them at least, and so they thought it was their natural right to tax their own people. They would have taxed everything because it was a way to make money, and they would have done so simply because they could. They thought that they had the right to tax everything because, as I said before, they thought they were a divine ruler appointed by God, and therefore, they thought that that gave them the right to tax everything.