right of taxing them. It is not unlikely that without this declaration Rockingham would have found it difficult to have carried the Bill. Shelburne wrote to say that "The prejudice against the Americans on the whole seems very great, and no very decided opinion in favour of the Ministry." The outrages committed by the Americans aroused widespread indignation. Very few, if any, supposed that the Declaratory Act would evoke any further disfavour by the Americans. Benjamin Franklin, at that time in London, stated to a Parliamentary Committee his opinion that "The resolutions of right would give his country very little concern if they are never attempted to be carried into practice."

The repeal of the Stamp Act produced instantaneous joy. But a comparison of the bell-ringing and jubilation with which the news of the repeal was greeted in America as well as in Britain, with the scenes and language which were shortly to prevail, fills us with a powerful distrust of the foresight of our ancestors. The American mob had triumphed, and for the present there seemed no reason why they should try to foment a quarrel between Britain and the Colonies. This to professional agitators was ample cause for regret. The regret was but momentary; the lawyer was abroad in the land, and other causes for agitation would quickly be found by his restless and too ingenious brain.

For a brief interval the American aristocracy and the professional classes apart from the law could breathe freely and testify to their loyalty.

A TEMPORARY LULL

Only a few cavillers ventured to murmur against the resolution of the Philadelphian Quakers that "To demonstrate our zeal to Great Britain and our gratitude for the repeal of the Stamp Act, each of us will on the 4th of June next, being the birthday of our gracious sovereign, dress ourselves in a new suit of the manufactures of England, and give what homespun clothes we have to the poor."

If, it followed, the Americans were to be placated and pandered to, nothing less could be done for the rebellious cyder counties. It is true that against the cyder tax, as Lord North afterwards said, there were never two syllables of common-sense urged. Nevertheless it was repealed, and the Act for restraining the importation of foreign silks, which Bedford had opposed, was also passed.

"The Colonists," says an American writer distinguished by unusual candour, "were certainly lucky in having chanced upon a Whig administration for their great appeal against taxation. It has often been said that both the Declaratory Act and the repeal of the Stamp Act were a combination of sound constitutional law and sound policy, and that if this same Whig line of conduct had been afterwards consistently followed, England would not have lost her American Colonies. No doubt if such a Whig policy had been continued the Colonies would have been retained in nominal dependence a few years longer. But such a policy would have left the Colonies in their semi-independent condition without further remodelling or reform, with

British sovereignty unestablished in them, and with a powerful party of the Colonists elated by their victory over England. They would have gone on demanding more independence, until they snapped the last string.' "" 1 The continuance, therefore, of the agitation in America as long as agitators were unsuppressed in England was inevitable.

1 S. G. Fisher, True Story of the American Revolution, p. 78.

CHAPTER VIII

CHATHAM JOINS THE KING

WHILE the Bill for the repeal of the American Stamp Act was still before Parliament, Rockingham had been urging upon George the necessity of obtaining the cordial support of Pitt. In the debates the Ministers were constantly addressing the "Great Commoner" as if he were the missing keystone in the administrative arch. They were perpetually deferring to him, ever apologising for their own presumption. And indeed Pitt's refusal to join the Rockingham administration is deserving of nothing but opprobrium. Everything had been done to conciliate him; the First Lord of the Treasury had actually expressed, on behalf of himself and his colleagues, their readiness "to be disposed of as he pleased, if he would only place himself at their head." In Pitt's own words, "Faction was shaking and corruption sapping the country to its foundations." True, and he did nothing!

Under these circumstances the King could hardly compromise his conduct any further by making overtures to his capricious subject. subject. "I have revolved," he wrote on the 9th January 1766 to Lord Rockingham, "most coolly and attentively, the business now before me, and am of opinion that so loose a conversa

tion as that of Mr. Pitt and Mr. Townshend is not sufficient to risk either my dignity or the continuance of my administration, by a fresh treaty with that gentleman. For if it should miscarry, all public opinion of this Ministry would be destroyed by such an attempt."

In spite of Pitt's petulance and intractability, Rockingham, Grafton, Townshend, and the rest persisted. Pitt still refused the proffered terms in disdain. "He would," he said, "never again act in concert with the Duke of Newcastle." He had a dozen reasons; he resented this, he disliked that with more than feminine mutability. Edmund Burke, Rockingham's brilliant private secretary, wrote of him as "on his back at Hayes, talking fustian."

During this period of his seclusion, however, courted and flattered as he was, Pitt's principles and attitude towards his former political associates had been undergoing a not unnatural change. Egomania had always led him into an impatience of all parties. He regarded himself as the special mouthpiece and champion of the people. He now began to perceive that such a rôle made him also the peculiar coadjutor of King George. By the King and Pitt the nation could be governed, for what was the King and Pitt but another name for the King and people? Certainly if Pitt could continue to command the homage of politicians and the suffrage of the mob, the King and Pitt might conduct public affairs excellently well, and crush out all faction and rivalry. Wherefore, "The