The

THE financial position of the British Government, in 1763, was such as to excite the anxious consideration both of King George III. and of Grenville, as both were of a thrifty disposition. public debt had been increased to one hundred and forty millions sterling, besides a floating debt of fourteen millions. The seven years' war, which had left so great a burthen on the kingdom, had been waged partly in Germany, for the sake of the King's Hanoverian possessions and connections; and its expenses partly accrued from the engagements to pay our German allies, whose claims were magnified without shame or scruple. But some portion of the new debt had been incurred in America; and it was expected that the keeping of our large territorial conquests there would fix a heavy annual charge upon the Imperial exchequer in future. A standing army of twenty regiments, or ten thousand men, was to be maintained in America, by the resolutions which the Secretary-atWar laid before the House of Commons in March. of this year. Charles Townshend at the same time explained that the cost of their support would be borne by England only during the first twelvemonth. It was intended by Ministers, he said, that the support of these regiments afterwards should be defrayed entirely by the colonists.* But a beginning was at once to be made with the raising of a revenue from America by immediate taxation, by way of giving a pledge and material guarantee to the English landed interest that the colonies

The following extract from a London correspondent's letter, dated March 27th, which appeared in Weyman's New York Gazette, is preserved by Mr. Bancroft :-"I cannot omit mentioning a matter much the subject of conversation here, and which, if carried into execution, will in its consequences greatly affect the colonies. It is the quartering sixteen regiments in America, to be supported at the expense of the provinces. The inutility of these troops in time of peace, though evidently apparent, might not be complained of by the people of America, were the charge defrayed by England. But to lay that burthen on the plantations, already exhausted by the prosecution of an expensive war, is what I believe you

should pay for the augmentation of the military establishments. With this view, as it appears, while Charles Townshend was yet at the Board of Trade in Lord Bute's Ministry, alterations were proposed in those prohibitory customs' duties on the import of foreign rum, sugar, and molasses into the English colonies, the enforcement of which at Boston had provoked much discontent. The plan devised now was to reduce these duties to a scale of rates that would not be prohibitory, so as to make them yield a certain amount of revenue; more stringent measures being at the same time adopted to enforce their collection. This was an artful contrivance, to give the appearance, not of inposing new taxes, but of lowering taxes which had been imposed in the reign of George II. The House of Commons was therefore entertained with tales of the resistance of the colonists to the levy of those duties on French or Spanish sugars, rums, and molasses; and it was represented that their collec tion, while it cost £7,000 or £8,000 a year, produced only £2,000 a year; as if the object with which they were imposed had been to yield a profit, not to carry out a protectionist commercial policy.

Resolutions were brought forward accordingly by Charles Townshend, on the 9th of March, and were readily passed, to the effect above described : after which a Bill founded upon these resolutions was framed by a Select Committee, of which Lord North was a member; but, the session approaching its close, the Bill was withdrawn on the 29th of that

would not have thought of. The money, it is said, will be levied by Act of Parliament, and raised on a stamp duty, excise on rum distilled on the continent, and a duty on foreign sugar and molasses, &c., by reducing the former duty on these last-mentioned articles, which it is found impracticable to collect, to such a one as will be collected. This manner of raising money, except what may arise on the foreign sugars, &c., I apprehend, will be thought greatly to diminish even the appearance of the subject's liberty, since nothing seems to be more repugnant to the general principles of freedom than the subjecting a people to taxation by laws in the enactment of which they are not represented."

1763.]

month.

Six weeks later, when Lord Shelburne had succeeded Townshend at the Board of Trade, upon Lord Bute's resignation, the new Secretary of State, Lord Egremont, addressed to that Board some general questions concerning the new establishments to be formed in America. One question was this:-" In what way, least burthensome and most palatable to the colonies, can they contribute towards the support of the additional expense which must attend their civil and military establishments upon the arrangement which your Lordships shall propose?" The expediency and propriety of taxing the colonists were points here quietly assumed to stand beyond question. This was the view propounded by Grenville and his colleagues, but it never gained the assent of Lord Shelburne. In his reply, on behalf of the Board of Trade, to the inquiries of the Secretary of State, he contented himself with saying:-" On this point, one of the highest importance, it is entirely out of our power to form any opinion which we could presume to offer for your Majesty's consideration, as most of the materials necessary to form a just and accurate judgment upon it are not within reach of our office." It was certainly not within the official competency of the Board of Trade to decide a grave question of constitutional law. The new AttorneyGeneral, Charles Yorke, may be supposed to have advised Government upon this occasion; and his opinion was already shown, by his having been one of the Select Parliamentary Committee to draw up the first taxing Bill. Lord Shelburne, as we have seen, did not remain many weeks longer at the Board of Trade, and soon became an active member of the Opposition. The affair of John Wilkes and his prosecution for an obscene libel then engrossed public attention: America was little regarded. As soon as the Ministry was reconstituted, with Grenville for its virtual chief, Lord Halifax for Secretary of State, and Lord Hillsborough at the Board of Trade, they prepared to execute the policy which they had in view. The Commissioners of the Stamp Duties were ordered, in September, to furnish the draft of a Bill for imposing stamp duties upon his Majesty's subjects in America and the West Indies. In adopting this measure, Grenville seems to have taken the advice of Jenkinson, his chief secretary to the Treasury, contrary to that of Richard Jackson, his secretary for the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer. Grenville himself knew little about the colonies, and did not share the wish of Halifax to bring their entire administration into mere dependence on the Crown. He was more desirous to uphold the strict mercantile monopoly of Great Britain in the colonies,

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and to lighten the burthen of taxation in England by laying what he could upon his American fellowsubjects.

With these objects in view, before the meeting of Parliament towards the end of 1763, Grenville issued a set of instructions to the colonial Governors, and to the naval and military commanders in America, for the more rigorous enforcement of existing laws concerning trade and navigation. All officers, both of the army and navy, with the troops and crews under their command, were to co-operate with the revenue officers, and were to be rewarded by getting a large share of the forfeitures, adjudged by the Courts of Admiralty without trial by jury, and with an appeal only to the King in Council. This was Grenville's practical response to the opposition raised in Massachusetts, during two years before, to the execution of the revenue laws; and it was by no means adapted to conciliate the people in the colonies, or persuade them to accept new schemes of taxation. But when the session of Parliament opened, on the 15th of November, there was not a single member of either House who seemed able to foresee the coming storm in the western horizon. The King's Speech once more called attention to "the heavy debts contracted during the late of which no provision had been made." The renewal of the land tax, which would produce two millions sterling, was readily voted; but it was quite understood in the House of Commons that America should be made to pay; and Mr. Huske, the American M.P. for Maldon, officiously promised to show how they might exact from the colonies half a million sterling of new revenue, which would give the English landed interest such relief as it wanted.* The session thus opened went on, passing over Christmas, into the first months of 1764; and the 9th of March arrived, which was a critical day in the history of the British American Empire.

war, for many

On that day, in Committee of Ways and Means, Mr. Grenville appeared with his Budget, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and stated his intentions with regard to taxing the American colonies. Besides new import duties, to be immediately laid upon their trade, he would, in the next session, bring in a Bill for stamp duties. "He now gave

notice of this, because he understood that some people entertained doubts of the power of Parlia

* This speech was uttered either on the 5th or 6th of December, in Committee of Supply on the military forces in America, or on the 7th or 8th, in Committee of Ways and Means on the land-tax. There was talk of reducing the land-tax one shilling in the pound, which would relieve the landowners to the amount of half a million. (Bancroft.)

ment to impose internal taxes in the colonies. Although, of all the schemes which had fallen under his consideration, he thought a Stamp Act was the best, he was not so wedded to it that he could not give it up for any one that might appear more eligible. If the colonies themselves thought any other mode would be more expedient, he should have no objection to come into it by Act of Parliament." But he challenged his opponents to discuss, if they thought fitting, the right of Parliament to lay any tax, internal or external, upon the colonies. Not a voice of those present in the House of Commons at this sitting was heard to deny the Minister's proposition. Next day, at a very late hour of the evening, and in a very thin House, he submitted a series of resolutions to the Committee of Ways and Means, setting forth the details of the new taxation. The Act of the 6th George II., chapter 13, so far as it prohibited the import of foreign rum and other spirits into the British colonies, was to be continued; but foreign sugar and molasses were to be subjected to certain duties for revenue, and duties were likewise to be imposed on foreign coffee, wine, silk, cambric, calico, and indigo. The 13th resolution was as follows:-"That the produce of all the said duties, and also of the duties which shall be raised, from and after the 29th of September, 1764, by virtue of the said Act made in the sixth year of his late Majesty, shall be paid into his Majesty's Exchequer, and there reserved, to be from time to time disposed of by Parliament towards defraying the necessary expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the British colonies and plantations in America." Grenville is entitled to some credit for making this reservation -an example which was not followed by his successors in the same line of policy, Charles Townshend and Lord North. It was Grenville's purpose to secure the application of whatever Parliament should compel the Americans to pay, simply to keeping up the military defences of America, not to increase the power of the Crown over American official salaries.* But the fourteenth resolution of

Bancroft observes that for this reason the Crown officers in America were lukewarm in support of Grenville, when they learnt that the taxes were to be applied exclusively to keeping up the army. What Bernard and others sought was a permanent civil list, laid upon perpetual funds. "But Grenville, accepting the opinions of his secretary Jackson, refused to become the attorney for American office-holders, or the founder of a stupendous system of colonial patronage and corruption. When Halifax urged the payment of the salaries of the Crown officers in the colonies directly from England, in accordance with the system which had been maturing since 1748, Grenville would not consent to it; and though Halifax, at a formal interview with him, at which Hillsborough and Jenkinson were present, became extremely

the series, which he got the House of Commons to pass on this occasion, was one of a most ill-advise 1 and unfortunate character. It had been emphatically disapproved, in private, not only by Jackson, the able secretary to the Exchequer, but also by Lord Hillsborough, President of the Board of Trade. This resolution was-"That towards further defraying the said expenses, it may be proper to charge certain stamp duties in the said colonies and plantations."

The impolicy of attempting this method of taxation in the colonies, which Walpole and Pitt had considered and declined, was in vain represented to Grenville. In the minds of colonial politicians, according to nearly all their own speakers and writers, an important distinction was made between external taxes on the import of merchandise into the colonies, and taxes levied in the interior of a province upon its domestic interests of property and business. The former might be supposed to belong to the general system of regulations for British commerce, with regard to foreign competitors and rivals, in which system the American colonists professed their willingness to acquiesce, though still disposed, at least in Massachusetts, to persist in a contraband traffic with the Spanish and French West Indies. But they would not submit to any internal taxation of the colonies by a Parliament at Westminster, because it seemed to be an infringement of their rights of domestic self-government. The charges of the Post-office they did not regard as a tax, but as a payment for service done, and a payment to which no man was obliged who did not send or receive letters by post. But the use of stamps would be compulsory; for without them no one could inherit or bequeath an estate, recover a debt, secure a loan or contract, or enter into the matrimonial state. It was, moreover, obvious that the soreness of feeling provoked by this objectionable impost would be continually and universally kept in irritation by the daily need of using stamps. under the proposed law. These and other arguments against the Stamp Act were privately submitted to Grenville by several persons in London, connected with America, favourable in general to the policy of the King's Government. Among those persons were Thomas Penn, one of the Pennsylvania proprietors, and Allen, Chief Justice of Pennsylvania. On the other hand, Jasper Mauduit,

heated and eager, Grenville remained inflexible. He was narrow-minded and obstinate; but it was no part of his intention to introduce despotic government." (Bancroft, Vol. IV., chap. 9, note.)

+ Franklin's evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons, February, 1766. Works of Franklin, edited by Jared Sparks, Vol. IV., page 192.

Mr.

the agent for Massachusetts, made a merit of his servile acquiescence; and Knox, the agent for Georgia, likewise assented to the stamp duty. Huske, already named, now repented of his eagerness to promise a colonial revenue, and entreated a respite, that the colonists might speak for themselves; while Thomas Pownall, once Governor of Massachusetts, who afterwards became a champion in Parliament of American liberties, was one of the most forward to praise the measures of taxation proposed by Grenville. That Minister relied, moreover, on granting some valuable boons to colonial 'trade for the mitigation of the colonists' displeasure. Of these particular indulgences the most considerable was that of relieving the American whale-fishery from the differential duty on its products hitherto maintained for the advantage of British whalers, who had also been encouraged by a direct pecuniary bounty. The rice grown in South Carolina and Georgia was allowed to be sent to foreign countries. The growth of hemp and flax in America was to be rewarded with a bounty; and certain drawbacks were allowed on foreign goods exported from Great Britain to the colonies. With these supposed compensations, the Minister persisted in his design, while he repeatedly expressed feelings of regard and tenderness for the King's subjects in America. He remarked that they now had an opportunity, by signifying their assent to the stamp duty, of making a precedent for their being consulted in future, before any tax should be imposed on them by Parliament. If they could, however, propose some more convenient mode of taxation, which should be equally efficacious, he would give it all due consideration. But if any party objected to the Americans being taxed at all, they might save themselves the trouble of discussion, for he was determined that the colonies should contribute to the national revenue.

The other fiscal measures relating to the colonial tariff were embodied in a Bill which was presented on March 14th by a committee, of which Grenville, Jenkinson, and Lord North were members. This Bill, meeting with no opposition, was rapidly passed through both Houses, and instantly obtained the Royal assent on the 4th of April. The King, in closing that session of Parliament, commended members for "the wise regulations which had been established to augment the public revenues, to unite the interests of the most distant possessions of the Crown, and to secure their commerce with Great Britain." In his narrow-mindedness and obstinacy, the head of the State was unable to perceive that Parliament had entered a path of the most dangerous tendency-a path that might lead, as indeed

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We must,

it did lead, to revolution and civil war. of course, be careful how we judge by after events; yet it is impossible to doubt that the statesmen of England had evidence enough before them to form a correct idea of the temper of the American people. The wishes and resolves of the colonists were disregarded, rather than unknown; and it was hoped to subdue opposition by overwhelming force.

Meanwhile, till the full import of the British Government policy was realised in America, there were other matters of special concern to engage the attention of the different provinces. Numerous parties of hardy adventurers from Pennsylvania, from Virginia, and from North Carolina, soon made their way beyond the Alleghanies to the The banks of the Cumberland and Tennessee. vast region of the Mississippi, though forbidden to settlers by the authority of Royal Orders in Council, was freely ranged over and squatted upon by these independent pioneers of civilisation. The idea of a continental English dominion in America, instead of a group of detached and isolated provinces, now grew to large proportions. At the same time, there were some undetermined boundary questions affecting the more settled and populous territories. A matter of considerable interest to New England was the disposal of the back country situated between the Connecticut river, the Hudson, and Lake Champlain. This territory was claimed by New York; and the Governor, Colden, was urgent with the Board of Trade that it should be allotted to his province, instead of to Massachusetts or New Hampshire. Those eastern provinces, he said, were animated by a Republican and levelling spirit, whereas New York was more aristocratic; and' it was therefore more proper that the latter should have its jurisdiction enlarged. The King's Government decided the matter as Colden proposed. But the temper of the New York people, by that time was not at all docile to the Royal authority.

It happened in New York, as regards the dispute on the tenure of judicial appointments, as it did in Massachusetts with that concerning the obnoxious method of procedure against contraband traders, and in other provinces with other grievances of a different nature. There were many concurrent sources of colonial dissatisfaction in the several portions of British America shortly before the announcement that they were to be taxed by the Parliament at Westminster. Though Pennsylvania, with Franklin for its counsellor and spokėsman, was even then soliciting direct government by the Crown, to supersede that of its proprietary

lords, it had to complain of troublesome militia regulations, and interference with its legislation touching the use of a paper currency. This last, indeed, was a matter in which general inconvenience was caused by one of the measures that Grenville had already pushed through Parliament. The provincial Assemblies, during the late war, had been accustomed to issue bills which were made a legal tender in payment of debts. As they had become greatly depreciated, and merchants in England were thereby put to heavy losses, it was enacted, immediately after the peace, that such bills should not in future be issued, to be put in circulation as a legal currency. The salutary effects which this law might have produced were in some degree thwarted by the derangement of the colonial monetary system through other recent measures of British legislation. It was by the prohibited trade with the Spanish American dominions that the colonists had obtained a supply of the precious metals, enabling them to remit specie to England in payment for the goods they purchased. This supply was now cut off by the sudden adoption of extraordinary means to suppress that long-established traffic which had, though contrary to law, been practised with the security and punctuality of legitimate commerce. At the same time, they were required to pay the new taxes in gold and silver, transmitted to England for the Imperial exchequer ; so that the scarcity of money in the colonies was severely felt, and many respectable citizens were threatened with the utter ruin of their private affairs.

The prominence at this time assumed by some eloquent pleaders at the bar in the colonial courts of justice, where cases affecting the Royal prerogative had come on for trial, was a rather ominous symptom. At Boston, upon the occasion related in our last chapter, the enthusiastic oratory of James Otis had won for him great influence with the people; but Oxenbridge Thacher was also esteemed a notable advocate of freedom. At New York, the members of the legal profession, in their remonstrance against the appointment of judges during the Royal pleasure, had been led by John Morin Scott, and one or two others, with courageous earnestness. In Virginia, which was destined to furnish the coming revolution with some of its most powerful agents, Patrick Henry, a young lawyer hitherto scarcely known beyond his native village, gained high popularity by the boldness of his speech in a case of some local interest. It concerned the payment of a commutation for tithes or other legal dues to a parish clergyman; but the real question at issue was the validity of an Act of the Virginia provincial

Legislature, fixing the rate of such commutation in tobacco for money, which Act, in 1759, had been negatived by the Crown, at the instance of the Bishop of London. Patrick Henry, in his argument before a Virginia county court, vehemently denied the King's power at any time to annul laws of domestic operation, which had been formally passed by the representative Assembly, the Council, and the Governor of the province. This was taking higher ground of constitutional or political principles than had yet been ventured upon; and Patrick Henry was menaced with a prosecution for treason. He retired for a short time from the scene of his perilous forensic triumph; but the popular voice not long afterwards called him to a seat in the provincial Assembly. He was soon to appear as one of the foremost intellectual champions of the American cause.

In this condition of the public mind, with so many inflammatory agencies at work, the news of Grenville's financial scheme, more especially of his intention to propose a stamp duty early in the next year, aroused in the colonies a storm of angry feeling. But the attitude taken at first was calm in resistance. A town meeting was held at Boston in the month of May, when Samuel Adams, a citizen of modest fortune, but highly esteemed for the strict integrity of his character, and for his intellectual attainments as a distinguished scholar of Harvard University, led the discussion in a tone of uncompromising firmness. Resolutions were passed asserting the claim of the King's subjects in the colonies, not only by charter, but as their birthright, to the same freedom which other British subjects enjoyed; and especially declaring that they should not be taxed without their own consent expressed by a representative Legislature. They called on the provincial Assembly of Massachusetts, then in session, to give effect to these resolutions : and they appointed a committee, consisting of Otis, Thacher, Cushing, Gray, and Sheafe, to enter into correspondence with the other provinces for joint action. The Boston Instructions to repre sentatives were drawn up by Adams, and were accompanied by a statement of the case, which Otis had been desired to prepare. These memorials demanded for the colonists, by the law of nature and reason, as well as by the common law of the realm, those rights which belonged to all Englishmen-personal security and liberty, the possession of their own property, and the power of local legislation for their own government, subject only to a negative of particular acts by the Crown, but with the sole power of imposing taxes in the colony. It was plainly declared that "the authority of the