The correct answer to this open question is the following.
Colonists might have responded to Johnson's statement in anger and upset. They might say that they were still English citizens living in the American colonies and they should have and exert the same rights as the people living in Britain.
The issue was summarized in the famous quote "Taxation with no representation is tyranny," The British government imposed heavy taxation to the colonists such as the Navigation Acts, the Sugar, Act, the Stamp, Act or the Tea Act, that infuriated the colonists that had to pay taxes but did not have a voice or representation in the British Parliament.
