WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM AUGUSTUS Henry, Duke of Grafton frontispiece facing 26 "THE CAPTIVE PRINCE, OR, LIBERTY Gone Mad". FARMER GEORGE VOL. II CHAPTER XIII ENGLAND AND AMERICA. I. THE STAMP ACT GEORGE GRENVILLE will live in history as the statesman who took the first step seriously to alienate the American colonies from the motherland. He was, indeed, an unfortunate man, for he is doomed to be remembered only by the magnitude of his mistakes. He attacked Wilkes, and that demagogue at once took a place in the line of heroes who have fought for the liberty of the subject against the oppression of the Crown; he taxed a colony, and not long after England had to deplore the loss of the United States: indeed, the only act that Dr. Hunt can find to the credit of Grenville's judgment was the purchase, for £70,000 from the Duke and Duchess of Athol, of the Isle of Man, which then for the first time came completely under the royal authority.1 Of course, the idea to tax the American colonies did not arise with Grenville. It had been suggested by an American governor to Walpole, 1 Political History of England, vol. X, 1760-1801. 1 Vol. ii-1-(2002) who, however, was too wary to entertain the scheme. "No, it is too hazardous a measure for me," he said drily; "I shall leave it to my successors." But those who guided the helm of State immediately after him were also careful not to deal with the question except by ignoring it, and consequently it was left for Grenville to undertake, under pressure, it is said, from the King. "I have heard it doubted whether the measure originated with Mr. George Grenville," John Nicholls has written. "I have heard it intimated the measure originated with the King, that is to say, with the King's secret advisers; and that Mr. Grenville acceded to the plan with considerable reluctance. I have no means of knowing whether the measure originated with Mr. Grenville or with the King. But from the unremitting obstinacy with which the King persevered in the wish to impose taxes on the Colonies by a British Parliament, every man must see that it may fairly be called the favourite measure of his reign." 3 It is an axiom of the constitution that the King 1 Coxe: Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole. 2 "The idea to tax the colonies seems to have been the King's, and it is said that Grenville believed that even the attempt must have alarming consequences." Galt: George III, his Court and Family. 3 Recollections and Reflections. THE STAMP ACT 3 can do no wrong, and therefore, whoever proposed the scheme, the responsibility falls on the shoulders of the responsible ministers of the Crown, who, on March 10, 1764, laid before Parliament resolutions for further regulating regulating American commerce, for the prevention of smuggling, and for the maintenance of a small standing army of 10,000 men. Certain port dues were to be raised, though they were to be counterbalanced by concessions in other directions; but the increase in revenue from this source would not suffice to maintain the garrison, the cost of which was estimated at £350,000 a year; and it was proposed to raise £100,000 by an Act requiring that all legal documents should have stamps. This was, indeed, an innovation, for hitherto custom duties had been imposed upon the colonists solely for the purpose of regulating trade: the Stamp Act would raise revenues from them. There was something to be said in defence of the Act, for though the late war had not been undertaken solely as a defence of the colonies, yet a great expense had been incurred by the operations necessary to repress the intrusions of the French Canadians. Was it right, Grenville asked, that the colonies should be defended by England, and should contribute nothing towards the cost of their defence? To Grenville, who |