CHAPTER XII.

MILITARY DESPOTISM IN THE PROVINCE.

THE repeal of the Stamp Act "hushed into silence almost every popular clamor, and composed every wave of popular disorder into a smooth and peaceful calm." 1 A special day was appointed for the rejoicings of the people of Massachusetts. In Boston, Liberty Tree was the centre of attraction, and thither at an early hour in the morning of the 19th of May a vast multitude was summoned by the ringing of bells and the booming of cannon. In the evening the town was illuminated, and images of the king, of Pitt, of Camden, and of Barré were exhibited in the houses.

Meanwhile affairs in the mother country were in an unsettled condition, and various adverse circumstances necessitated a change in the ministry. In July, the Marquis of Rockingham having proven his unfitness for office, an invitation was again extended to Pitt to return to the cabinet. The latter accepted the invitation. Pitt became chief minister, the Duke of Grafton the head of the treasury, Charles Townshend was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, and General Conway was continued secretary of state, with the Earl of Shelburne as his colleague. "If ever a cabinet," wrote Durand to Choiseul, “can hope for the rare privilege of unanimity, it is this, in which Pitt will see none but persons whose imagination he has subjugated, whose premature advancement

1 J. Adams, in Works, ii. 203.

is due to his choice, whose expectations of permanent fortune rest on him alone."1 Shortly afterwards the "Great Commoner" signified a desire to be raised to the peerage; the king, in compliance, created him Earl of Chatham, and from this period his influence at court began to wane, and his name to be less respected abroad. For a while his acceptance of the earldom of Chatham ruined the confidence which his reputation for unselfishness had aided him to win. But it was from no vulgar ambition that Pitt laid down his title of the Great Commoner. It was the consciousness of failing strength which made him dread the storms of debate; and in a few short months the dread became a certainty. A painful and overwhelming illness, the result of nervous disorganization, withdrew him from public affairs; and his withdrawal robbed his colleagues of all vigor or union.

Notwithstanding that "every newspaper and pamphlet, every public and private letter, which arrived in America from England, seemed to breathe a spirit of benevolence, tenderness, and generosity," the people of Massachusetts continued to suspect the selfish intentions of the king. The Stamp Act had been repealed; but the oppressive laws of trade still remained in force. In December, 1766, the General Court appointed committees to "consider the difficulties which embarrassed the commerce of the country, and to propose measures for remedying these evils."

Still another storm was brewing in England. Everybody was thirsting for office, and patriotism was being merged in selfishness. Pitt had been forced by illness to withdraw from his post; the cabinet was divided, and a deadly jealousy was kindled. "Such a state of affairs," wrote Chesterfield, "was never seen before, in this or in any other country."

Bancroft, vi. 22.

3

Adams, in Works, ii. 203.

"Never," said Lord Charlemont, "was known such disunion, such a want of concert, as visibly appears on both sides." Townshend assumed great importance, and in the House of Commons declared that "the government had become what he himself had been often called a weathercock." In January, 1767, he promised soon to find means for raising a revenue from America. "I am still," he said, "a firm advocate for the Stamp Act, for its principle, and for the duty. I laugh at the distinction between internal and external taxes. I know no such distinction. It is perfect nonsense." In concluding his address, he exclaimed, England is undone, if this taxation in America is given up." Even Camden, who had hitherto maintained that taxation and representation are inseparable, affirmed that his" doubt respecting the right of Parliament to tax America was removed by the declaration of Parliament itself, and that its authority must be maintained." 1

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These and other proceedings confirmed to the people of America the justice of their cause. The Earl of Shelburne, however, as secretary for the southern department, assured the people they "might be perfectly easy about the enjoyment of their rights and privileges under the present administration;" ́and at once began to consider the American question, and to prepare for its solution. Shelburne was an honest and well-meaning statesman, and the schemes which he proposed might have allayed the excitement in the colonies had his colleagues approved of them. It was plain to see that he was more a "friend" to America than his associates wished him to be; and as such they watched him. About this time, Choiseul, the minister of France at the court of St. James, was secretly investigating the condition

1 Chatham Corresp., iii. 136-185. Mahon, Hist. of Eng., v. 180.

of the colonies. By his orders, De Kalb, an officer of German extraction, came to America to discover whether there was any prospect of a revolt. He found, however, that nothing of the sort was as yet premeditated.1

Townshend had said that he would find means for raising a revenue from America; and Grenville now proposed that he should fulfil his pledge. Accordingly in May, 1767, the chancellor came forward with his scheme, and proposed a tax on glass, paper, painters' colors, and tea, to be paid as impost duties. Wise men foretold the evils that would result from the enforcement of such a bill. But in vain. On the 29th of June the Revenue Bill passed both Houses, and was signed by the king. "It had ever been uniformly acknowledged," says a writer, " that Great Britain possessed the right of commercial regulation and control; it could not be denied that port duties had been at former periods imposed for the purpose of commercial regulation. It could not be pretended, with consistency and plausibility, that the same power did not now inhere in the British Parliament; but it was at the same time impossible not to discern that this power was, in the present instance, exercised with a very different intention, and for the accomplishment of a very different object; and that by a species of artifice unworthy of a great nation, an attempt was now made to inveigle them into the payment of that revenue which could not be extorted by means more direct and unequivocal." 2 The opinion was general, particularly in America, that Townshend's scheme of taxation was more subversive of the rights of the colonies than was the Stamp Act.

"The die is thrown, the Rubicon is passed," exclaimed the people of Massachusetts, when the news reached Boston. 1 Kapp, Leben des Johann Kalb.

2

Belsham, George III., i. 204.