XL. CHAP. impatience, levity, and fickleness. I see nothing uncommercial, in making the Americans pay a duty April. upon tea." 1769. No one would defend the Act, yet few urged its repeal. The Rockingham party were willing that it should remain as a source of embarrassment to the Ministers. Conway next proposed as a middle course, to agree to take it into consideration the next session. "I approve the middle course," said Beckford. "I was the first man who said you ought not tax America for the purpose of revenue. The duty upon tea, with a great army to collect it, has produced in the Southern part of America, only two hundred and ninety-four pounds, fourteen shillings; in the Northern part it has produced nothing." "For the sake of a paltry revenue," cried Lord Beauchamp, "we lose the affection of two millions of people." "We have trusted to terror too long," observed Jackson. แ Washing my hands of the charge of severity," said Lord North, "I will not vote for holding out hopes, that may not be realized." "If you are ready to repeal this Act," retorted Grenville, in answer to Lord North, "why keep it in force for a single hour? You ought not to do so, from anger or ill-humor. Why dally and delay in a business of such infinite importance? Why pretend that it is too late in the session, that this is not the time, when the difficulty is every day increasing? If the Act is wrong, or you cannot maintain it, give it up like men. If you do not mean to bind the Colonies by your laws in cases of taxation, tell the Americans so fairly, and conciliate their affections." Lord North put an end to the conversation, by moving the previous question for the order of the XL. 1769. day. "The British Administration will come to no CHAP. decision," such was Du Chatelet's report to Choiseul. "They will push time by the shoulder, till the Americans consolidate their union, and form a general plan of resistance." 2 The question turned on the reality of the principle of representation. America was not alone in asserting representative liberty; the principle was at the same time violated in England. The freeholders of Middlesex elected Wilkes to represent their shire in Parliament. The King wished him expelled; and the House of Commons expelled him. The people rallied to his support; the City of London made him one of its magistrates; by the unanimous vote of Middlesex he was again returned. The House of Commons voted the return to be null and void. The public mind was profoundly agitated; men united as "Supporters of the Bill of Rights," to pay the debts of Wilkes and his election expenses. A third time he was returned and unanimously; for his intended competitor proved too much of a craven to appear. Once more his election was voted to be null. At a fourth trial he was opposed by Luttrell, but polled nearly three fourths of all the votes. The House of Commons, this time, treated him as a person incapacitated to be a candidate, and received Luttrell in his stead. Their disfranchisement of Wilkes had no authority in law, and violated the vital principle of representative Government; by admitting Luttrell, they sequestered and usurped the elective franchise of Middlesex; and Wilkes, who, if he had been left April. 1 W. S. Johnson to Governor 2 Du Chatelet to Choiseul, 21 Trumbull, 26 April, 1769. April, 1769. XL. 1769. CHAP. to himself, would have fallen into insignificance, became the most conspicuous man in England. This April. subserviency of the body, once esteemed the most august assembly in Europe, exhibited it to the world as a collection of pensioners and office-holders, and the property of the Minister. Yet the Administration, with Parliament as its obedient instrument, heard with alarm how widely the American plan of passive resistance was extending. Besides: Chatham might reappear; and those Ministers who had been of his selection, stood in constant dread of his rebuke. Grafton and Camden, therefore, silent in the House of Lords, insisted in Council, that some attempt should be made to conciliate the Colonies. May. Accordingly on the first day of May, just on the eve of the prorogation of Parliament, the Cabinet discussed the policy which it should definitively adopt. All agreed that the duties on the British manufactures of glass, paper, and painters' colors, were contrary to the true principles of commerce, and should be repealed; there remained of Charles Townshend's Revenue Act nothing but the duty on tea; and this, evaded by smuggling or by abstinence from its use, yielded in all America not fifteen hundred dollars, not three hundred pounds a year. Why should such a duty be retained, at the cost of the affections of thirteen Provinces and two millions of people? Grafton spoke first and earnestly for its repeal; Camden seconded him with equal vigor. Granby and Conway gave their voice and their vote on the same side, XL. 1769. and Sir Edward Hawke, whom illness detained from CHAP. the meeting, was of their opinion. Had not Grafton and Camden consented to remove Shelburne, the mea- May. sure would have been carried, and American independence indefinitely postponed. But Rochford, the new Secretary, with Gower and Weymouth adhered to Hillsborough. The fearful responsibility of deciding fell to Lord North. Of a merciful disposition and of rare intelligence, he was known to be at heart for the repeal of the tax on tea. He wished, and at that time intended, to extend the proposal to the repeal of the other duties, and he never surrendered himself to the party of the Bedfords. But it was the King's fixed rule, never to redress a grievance, unless the prayer for it was made in the spirit of obedience; and then and for years after, he held that "there must always be one tax to keep up the right." He was so much dissatisfied with Grafton's vote on this occasion, that "from that time he was more forward to dictate his will to the Duke, than to inquire first the Duke's opinion on any measure;" and "Lord Camden also sank much in the royal estimation." The most questionable acts of Lord North's public career, proceeded from "an amiable weakness, which followed him through life," the want of power to resist the influence of those he loved." It was the King, who swayed Lord North, XL. 1769. May. CHAP. a junior Lord of the Treasury, contrary, as he himself with the utmost solemnity declared, to his most earnest wish, and his intention at that very time, to give his deciding vote in the Cabinet against the repeal, which the Duke of Grafton, the head of his Board, had proposed and advocated. Now, indeed, the die was cast. Neither the Bedford party, nor the King meant to give up the right to tax; and they clung to the duty on tea, as an evidence of their lordly superiority. "We can grant nothing to the Americans," said Hillsborough," "except what they may ask with a halter round their necks.”3 "They are a race of convicts," said the famous moralist, the pensioned Samuel Johnson, "and ought to be thankful for any thing we allow them short of hanging." A Circular letter was sent forthwith to all the Colonies, promising on the part of the Ministry to lay no more taxes on America for revenue, and to repeal those on paper, glass, and colors. Camden found fault with the paper as not couched in terms so conciliatory as those in the minute of the Cabinet. The complaint was pitiful, for the substance of the decision had been truly given. More honied words would have been useless hypocrisy. Camden should have blamed himself. When he acquiesced in the removal of Shelburne, he gave his assent to his own humiliation. 'Lord North, Cavendish Debates, i. 485. 2 Besides the Autobiography of the Duke of Grafton, compare the speeches of the Duke of Grafton and of Weymouth in the House of Lords, 5 March, 1776; in Force, vi. 312. Du Chatelet to Choiseul, 12 May, 1769. Boswell's Life of Johnson, 435. |