Lord North's Administration-Retrospect of Colonial affairs-Opposition to the Revenue ActDebates in Parliament on American proceedings-Measures of coercion proposed-Lord Hillsborough-Virginia-Outrages in Boston-Repeal of duties, except that on teasEncounter with the military at Boston-Renewal of the conflict regarding WilkesRemonstrance of the City of London-Beckford's Address to the King-Printers arrested for publishing Debates-Released by the City authorities-Riots-The Lord Mayor and an Alderman committed-Officers of State.

THE domestic agitations during the period of the duke of Grafton's ministry required to be given in an unbroken narrative. We now take up the more truly important relation of those events in the North American Colonies, and of the mode in which they were dealt with by the imperial government. These facts form the prologue to the tragedy of the American Revolution.

In 1768 a third Secretary of State was appointed. The office of Secretary of State for Scotland had been abolished; but now a new place was created for the earl of Hillsborough-the Secretaryship of the Colonies. It was a position of authority which demanded a rare union of firmness and moderation. But the Secretary was a member of a cabinet divided in judgment on the great question of American taxation; and lord Hillsborough was of the party of the duke of Bedford, who held opinions on that subject, not exactly in consonance with that championship of our free constitution which has been claimed for him.* Hillsborough had to deal with colonial subjects of the British Crown, whose indignation at the Stamp Act had been revived by Charles Townshend's fatal measure for granting duties in America on glass, red and white lead, painter's colours, paper, and tea. These duties were not to be collected until the 20th of November, 1767. That day passed over in

See ante.

1768.] COLONIAL AFFAIRS-OPPOSITION TO THE REVENUE ACT.

307

quiet in Boston; but the inhabitants had previously assembled, and had entered into resolutions to forbear the use of many articles of British produce or manufacture. The principle of resistance to the Revenue Act of 1767 was declared in a work largely circulated, entitled "Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania." The author was John Dickinson. Franklin republished these letters in London, although they were opposed to his earlier opinion that external taxation,-import duties-were essentially less obnoxious than internal taxation-a Stamp Act. In February, 1768, the Assembly of Massachusetts, between which body and the governor, Francis Bernard, there had, been serious disputes, addressed a circular letter to the other provinces, inviting them to unite in opposing the act for raising a revenue in the colonies. When the intelligence of this circular reached London, Hillsborough wrote to Bernard directing him to require, in the king's name, the House of Representatives in Massachusetts to rescind the resolution which produced the circular letter from their Speaker; and if they refused, immediately to dissolve them. The governors of the other colonies were ordered to pursue a similar course, if the assemblies gave any countenance to the "seditious paper," of Massachusetts. The dissolution of the Assembly of that state took place on the 1st of July, 1768, on its refusal, by a very large majority, to rescind the resolution. At that time there was a great ferment in Boston, occasioned by the seizure of a sloop laden with wine from Madeira, which had been attempted to be landed without paying duty. The new Commissioners of Customs directed the seizure; but a riot ensuing, they fled in terror to a fortress at the mouth of the harbour. It was now ascertained, from a letter written by Hillsborough to Bernard at the very time that this riot was taking place, that troops were ordered to be sent from Halifax to Boston. Some of the more violent inhabitants proposed to arm; others requested the governor to call together another Assembly. He refused to do so. The bold step was then taken by the popular leaders of summoning a Convention to meet at Boston. Elections took place; and committee men, as they were termed, from ninety-five towns or districts held sittings in a building belonging to the people of Boston, known as Faneuil Hall. The Convention sat only six days. The governor had remonstrated against this body of delegates attempting to transact the public business, and warned them of the penal consequences which they might incur if they did not separate. They protested, however, against taxation of the Colonies by the British Parliament, and against a standing army. They addressed a petition to the king. They recommended to all the preservation of good order. On the 28th of September, a squadron arrived from Halifax; conveying a large body of troops with artillery. Other troops continued to arrive; and four regiments were encamped near the city, or found their lodging in any public building. It was illegal to quarter them on the inhabitants. There was quiet; but the spirit of resistance was not thus to be extinguished. That spirit was not confined to Massachusetts; although the determination to counteract the operation of the Revenue Act took only the form of associations who agreed not to consume the produce or manufactures of the mother country. The "sons of liberty," as they were called, would wear no English broadcloth; and the "daughters of liberty" would drink no tea, if a duty were to be paid of threepence a-pound. The

308

DEBATES IN PARLIAMENT ON AMERICAN PROCEEDINGS.

[1768.

consumers of tea in England paid four times as much duty; but the Colonists denied the right of the imperial Parliament to levy any duty at all upon those who were unrepresented.

The king, on opening the Parliament on the 8th of November, 1768, spoke in severe terms of the proceedings in North America. The spirit of faction had broken out afresh; one of the colonies had proceeded to acts of violence and of resistance to the execution of the law; the capital town of that colony was in a state of disobedience to all law and government,—had adopted measures subversive of the constitution, and attended with circumstances that might manifest a disposition to throw off their dependence on Great Britain. Not a word was uttered of the cause of this disobedience. Turbulent and seditious persons were to be defeated. On the 15th of December, in the House of Lords, the duke of Bedford moved an Address to the king, recommending that the chief authors and instigators of the late disorders in Massachusetts should be brought to condign punishment; and beseeching his majesty that he would direct the governor of that colony "to take the most effectual methods for procuring the fullest information that can be obtained touching all treasons or misprision of treason, committed within this government since the 30th day of December last, and to transmit the same, together with the names of the persons who were most active in the commission of such offences, to one of your majesty's principal Secretaries of State, in order that your majesty may issue a special commission for inquiring of, hearing and determining, the said offences

within this realm, pursuant to the provisions of the statute of the 35th year of the reign of king Henry VIII., in case your majesty shall, upon receiving the said information, see sufficient ground for such a proceeding." This most arbitrary proposal was carried without a division. In the House of Commons, at the opening of the Session, Mr. Stanley, the seconder of the Address, said that the people of the insolent town of Boston "must be treated as aliens." "It is not arms that govern a people," exclaimed Burke. Beckford spoke with plain English honesty: "At the time of passing the American Stamp Act, I openly declared it to be my opinion that taxing America for the sake of raising a revenue would never do. Why would you stir these waters? Let the nation return to its old goodnature, and its old good-humour." The Resolutions and Address of the Lords had been sent down to the Commons. On the 26th of January, 1769, the proposal of the duke of Bedford was strenuously resisted, and feebly defended. Burke said, with regard to this dangerous remedy for disaffection, "you fire a cannon upon your enemy which will re-act upon yourselves." Why, he said, do you call for this Act of Henry VIII. to be put in force? "Because you cannot trust a jury of that country. If you have not a party among two millions of people, you must either change your plan of government, or renounce the colonies for ever." George Grenville said the Resolution was "so much waste paper . . . . Your conduct reminds me of the story of the sailor who climbed up to the top of the main-mast: on being asked what he was doing, he said he was doing nothing, and that the lad was helping him."* The most practical advice was offered to the House by Mr. Pownall, who had been governor of Massachusetts:-"Let the matter of right rest upon the declaratory law, and say no more about it."+

The minority, whether in Parliament or amongst the nation generally, who opposed the principle of American taxation, little knew in the spring of 1769 how near they were to a triumph. On the 19th of April, governor Pownall moved that the House should go into Committee to consider the Act passed for granting certain duties on the American colonies. There was a short debate, but the motion was rejected, by what lord North called "a mannerly way of putting aside the present question "-namely, by moving the orders of the day. On the 9th of May the Parliament was prorogued. But on the 1st of May a Cabinet Council was held, in which the result of a deliberation on the question of America is thus described by the duke of Grafton in his MS. Memoirs: "The internal state of the country was really alarming; and from my situation I had more cause to feel it than any other man. But a measure at this time adopted by a majority of the king's servants gave me still more apprehension, considering it to be big with more mischief; for, contrary to my proposal of including the article of teas, together with all the other trifling objects of taxation, to be repealed on the opening of the next Session, it was decided that the teas were still to remain taxed as before, though contrary to the declared opinions of lord Camden, lord Granby, general Conway, and myself. Sir Edward Hawke was absent through illness: otherwise I think he would have agreed with those who voted for including the teas in the repeal." The duke of Grafton then

* "Cavendish Debates," vol. i. p. 203.

† tid. p. 225.

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LORD HILLSBOROUGH-VIRGINIA.

[1769. proceeds distinctly to accuse lord Hillsborough of having suppressed in the minute of the Council, which was to be communicated to the colonial governors, "words as kind and lenient as could be proposed by some of us, and not without encouraging expressions which were too evidently displeasing to his lordship." Camden charged Hillsborough with this suppression; which he denied. The presumptuous Secretary, who evidently acted with some authority from a higher quarter, not only garbled the minute, but accompanied it with a circular letter, which Grafton terms "unfortunate and unwarrantable-calculated to do all mischief, when our real minute might have paved the way to some good." Grafton and Camden felt that their power was gone. They ought to have resigned and denounced their dangerous colleague. The tea-duties were to be retained upon the principle maintained by the king, that "there must always be one tax, to keep up the right.”

Whilst the king's ministers were thus divided upon the question of which few men saw the real importance, a demonstration of opinion was taking place in one of the colonies, of far more significance than the riots at Boston, and the meeting of its Convention. Lord Hillsborough had removed sir Jeffrey Amherst from the post of governor of Virginia, and had appointed in his place lord Boutetort, who, in a lucrative American office, could repair the consequences of his extravagance at home. In 1758 America had been called "the hospital of England;" the places in the gift of the Crown being filled "with broken Members of Parliament, of bad if any principle; valets de chambre, electioneering scoundrels, and even livery servants."* Lord Boutetort was a faded courtier, whose rank would be acceptable to the aristocratic families of Virginia, and whose parade might dazzle the eyes of discontented politicians. Boutetort, the only governor who had appeared in Virginia within memory, opened the Session of the Legislature of Virginia, at Williamsburg, with royal pomp. He went to the House of Representatives in a state carriage, drawn by six white horses. He gave splendid entertainments. A dutiful address was presented to him, which he answered with the most perfect courtesy. But there were men in that Assembly of a character not to be propitiated by cream-coloured horses or sumptuous feasts. George Washington, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Peyton Randolph, were members of that Assembly. The House of Burgesses followed up its dutiful Address by unanimous Resolutions, in which they asserted that the right of laying taxes on Virginia was exclusively vested in its own Legislature; and pronounced that the mode of trial recommended in Parliament upon charges of high treason, 'was illegal and unconstitutional. The governor, without waiting for an official communication, dissolved the Assembly. On the next day the members assembled at the Raleigh tavern; and in a room called "The Apollo "-probably in memory of the famous Apollo Room where Ben Jonson prescribed his "Leges Conviviales "—eighty-eight pledged themselves not to import or purchase certain articles of British merchandise, whilst the Revenue Act was unrepealed, and signed Resolutions to that effect. The example spread. Pennsylvania approved the Resolutions. Delaware adopted them.

The Assembly of Massachusetts was at last legally convened in May, * Letter of General Huske in Phillimore's "Memoirs of Lord Lyttelton." Bancroft, "American Revolution," vol. iii. p. 309.