1 XXVII. in America." Then laying his hand on the table in CHAP. front of him, he declared to the House, " England is undone, if this taxation of America is given up." " 2 Grenville at once demanded of him to pledge himself to his declaration; he did so most willingly; and his promise received a tumultuous welcome. Lord George Sackville pressed for a revenue that should be adequate; and Townshend engaged himself to the House to find a revenue, if not adequate, yet nearly sufficient to meet the military expenses when properly reduced. The loud burst of rapture dismayed Conway, who sat in silent astonishment at the unauthorized but premeditated rashness of his presumptuous colleague. "I The next night, the Cabinet questioned the insubordinate Minister, "how he had ventured to depart, on so essential a point, from the profession of the whole Ministry;" and he browbeat them all. appeal to you," said he, turning to Conway, "whether the House is not bent on obtaining a revenue of some sort from the Colonies." Not one of the Ministry then in London, had sufficient authority to advise his dismission; and nothing less could have stopped his 1767. Jan. CHAP. 1767. CHAPTER XXVIII. THE BRITISH ARISTOCRACY REDUCE THEIR OWN TAXES-DEFEAT JANUARY-MARCH, 1767. THE day after Townshend braved his colleagues the Legislature of Massachusetts convened. HutchinJan. son, having received his compensation as a sufferer by the riots, restrained his ambition no longer, and took a seat in the Council as though it of right belonged to the Lieutenant Governor.1 The House resented "the lust of power," manifested by his intrusion into an elective body of which he had not been chosen a member. The Council, by a unanimous vote, denied his pretensions. The language of the Charter was too explicit to admit of a doubt; yet Bernard, as the accomplice of Hutchinson, urged the interposition of the central Government. Feb. 8 Men feared more and more the system which Paxton had gone to mature. With unshaken confidence in Hawley, Otis, and Samuel Adams, they 'Bernard to Secretary of State, 7 Feb. 1767, and 21 Feb. 1767. 2 Answer of the House, 31 Jan. 1767, in Bradford, 104; and Letter from the House to Dennys De Berdt, 16 March, 1767 Opinion of the Attorney General in England, cited in "a Minute relative to Massachusetts Bay," 1767. Freeborn American, in Boston Gazette, 9 March, 1767. XXVIII scanned with increasing jealousy every measure that CHAP. could imply their consent to British taxation. They 1767. inquired if more troops were expected; and when Feb. the Governor professed, "in pursuance of the late Act of Parliament," to have made provision at the Colony's expense for those which had recently touched at Boston Harbor, they did not cease their complaints, till they wrung from him the declaration that his supply "did not include articles prescribed by that Act," but was "wholly conformable to the usage of the Province."1 Upon this concession, the House acquiesced in an expenditure which no longer compromised their rights; and they also declared their readiness to grant of their own free accord such aids as the King's service from time to time should require.2 By the authority of the same Act of Parliament, Gage demanded quarters for one hundred and fiftyeight recruits, of the Governor of Connecticut; but that Magistrate refused compliance with the Requisition, and did nothing, till he was duly authorized by an Act of the Colonial Assembly. The Crown Officers in the Colonies busied themselves with schemes to check every aspiration after Independence. Carlton, the able Governor of Canada, advised against granting legislative immunities to its people. The more he considered the state of affairs, the more he was convinced, that it was indispensably necessary to keep Crown Point and Ticon Feb. CHAP. deroga in good repair; to have a citadel and place of XXVIII arms in New-York, as well as a citadel in Quebec; 1767. and to link the two provinces so strongly together, that on the commencement of an outbreak, ten or fifteen thousand men could be moved without delay from the one to the other, or to any part of the continent. No pains, no address, no expense, he insisted,1 would be too great for the object, which would divide the Northern and Southern Colonies, as well as secure the public magazines. For Chatham, who wished to keep the affections of the colonists, the future was shrouded in gloom. He could not suspend the Act of Parliament; but through Shelburne, he enjoined the American Commander-in-Chief to make its burden as light, both in appearance and in reality, as was consistent with the public service. He saw that the imperfect compliance of New-York would open a fair field to the arraigners of America, and between his opinions as a statesman and his obligations as Minister, he knew not what to propose. The Declaratory Act was the law of the land, and yet was as a barren fruit-tree, which, though fair to the eye, only cumbers the earth, and spreads a noxious shade.* Shelburne was aware also, that if the Americans "should be tempted to resist in the last instance," France and Spain would no longer defer breaking the peace of which they began to number the days. Spain was resolved not to pay the Manilla ransom, Carlton to Gage, Quebec, 15 Chatham to Shelburne, Bath, burne to Chatham, Feb. in Chat. Corr. iii. 186. H. Hammersley to Lieut. Gov. Sharpe, 20 Feb. 1767. Farmer's Letters. Shelburne to Chatham, 16 Feb. 1767; in Chat. Corr. iii. 209. XXVIII 1767. was planning how to drive the English from the CHAP. Falkland Islands, and called on France to prepare to go to war in two years; "for Spain" said Grimaldi, Feb. "cannot longer postpone inflicting chastisement on English insolence."1 "This is the rhodomontade of a Don Quixote," said the French Minister, and Choiseul kept the guidance of affairs in his own hand, and for the time was resolved not to disturb the peace. Executive moderation might still have saved England from a conflict. Undismayed by the disorder in the cabinet, the ill health of Chatham, the factions in a corrupt Parliament, or the unpromising aspect of foreign relations, and impressed with the necessity of giving up trifles that created uneasiness, Shelburne proceeded diligently to make himself master of each American question, and to prepare its solution. The subject of the greatest consequence was the forming an American fund. To this end, without exercising rigor in respect to quit-rents long due, he proposed to break up the system of forestalling lands by speculators, to require that the engrossing proprietors should fulfil the conditions of their grants, and to make all future grants on a system of quitrents, which should be applied to defray the American expenses then borne by the Exchequer of Great Britain. 1 The Marquis de Grimaldi to Prince Masserano, 20 Jan. 1767; De Guerchy at London to Choiseul, 12 Feb. 1767; D'Ossun at Madrid to Choiseul, 24 Jan. 1767. Compare Choiseul to De Guerchy of 2 Jan., and Choiseul to D'Ossun, 27 Jan. 1767. 2 Richard Jackson to Hutchinson, Jan. 1767. 'Paper indorsed, "Things to be considered of in North America," Circular of Shelburne to all the |