delicacy that must for ever remain a secret. In fact, Temple had taken so prominent, and almost violent, a part against the court, in the matter of Wilkes, and in voting wholly against the regency bill, that he knew very well that he should only be tolerated in the cabinet on account of Pitt; and, with a pride equal or superior to Pitt's, he was not disposed to accept once under such circumstances. Still more, he was just now making a reconciliation with his brother, Grenville, and was averse to throw him overboard. So far from joining Pitt, he was on the verge of another breach with him.

Pitt, disconcerted by this repulse, with a weakness to be deplored in so great a man, refused to accept the offer to form a ministry at all. He took leave of Temple with a quotation from Virgil, meaning, "Brother, you have ruined us all." Such are the weak places in great minds. Whilst the fate of his country and her colonies depended on his resolute and wise action, he suffered a mere private feeling to influence him, and defeat the consideration of the momentous public interests. Such weaknesses are scarcely simple weaknesses-they amount to crimes against duty and humanity.

Cumberland and the king behaved in this dilemma far more worthily than Pitt and his wrong-headed brother. They endeavoured to make fresh arrangements, and the treasury was offered to lord Lyttleton; but he did not venture to accept it. There was a general dread of undertaking the administration with Pitt standing aloof, and the present powerful whig houses in violent opposition. The unfortunate king was obliged to submit, and retain his present incompetent ministers. These incompetent ministers, on their part, now believing themselves indispensable, became at once proportionably assuming, and even insolent, in their demands. Grenville and Bedford put several direct demands to the king as the conditions even of their condescending to serve him: that he would promise to have no further communications with lord Bute, nor to allow him the slightest share in his councils; that he would dismiss Bute's brother, Mr. Mackenzie, from the office of privy seal of Scotland, and from the management of Scottish affairs; that he would dismiss lord Holland from being paymaster of the forces, and appoint lord Granby commander-in-chief.

Mr. Mackenzie had a promise of his office for life from the king, and Mackenzie was an amiable man, his only objection being that of being Bute's brother; and, to make Granby commander-in-chief, was to remove and disparage Cumberland. The king, after some demur, submitted to all these conditions, except the appointment of lord Granby, and escaped that only by Granby himself declining the post. George submitted, because he could not help it, to these imperious conditions; but he inly resented them, and did not avoid showing it by his coldness towards both Bedford and Grenville. He invited the duke of Devonshire to court -a youth of only seventeen-and received him cordially, as the son of an old friend. At this, the haughty Bedford took fire, and read the king a severe lecture before leaving town for Woburn. He complained of the king showing kindness to the enemies of the administration; and demanded, in a manner, perhaps, never used by any subject in this country since Henry of Lancaster spoke in similar

assumption to Richard II., whether the king had kept his promise not to consult lord Bute.

George had much difficulty in restraining his indignation, but he kept it down, and only bowed the duke silently out of his presence. No sooner had he departed than he flew to Cumberland, and declared he would bear this no longer. Again overtures were made to Pitt, again Pitt expressed himself willing to take office, but again declined, because Temple still refused. The weakness and folly of this conduct are inconceivable, as Pitt could have formed a powerful ministry without this froward brother-in-law. But, instead of this, he pettishly exclaimed, "This is an amputation! All is over with me, and by a fatality I did not expect." And he at once, like a spoiled child, set off to his new place, Burton Pynsent, in Somersetshire, to bury his chagrin in solitude. What an unequal creature is a proud but crotchety man of genius, capable of conquering the world, but not of conquering his own petulance-strong enough to uphold states, but believing himself unable to do the smallest thing without some miserable reed to lean on!

Foiled in these attempts to engage Pitt, and equally foiled in an endeavour to engage some of the heads of the leading whig houses, who would enter no administration without Pitt, a heterogeneous cabinet was at length cobbled up, through the management of the old duke of Newcastle, who was hankering after office. The marquis of Rockingham was put forward as first lord of the treasury and premier. Grafton and Conway were to be secretaries of state; and the latter, so lately dismissed with ignominy from the army, was to lead the commons. The earl of Northington was made chancellor, the old duke of Newcastle privy seal; another old and almost superannuated nobleman, lord Winchelsea, president of the council. Charles Townshend retained his post of paymaster of the forces. Such materials, it was clear, could never long hold together. "It is a mere lute-string administration," said Townshend himself; “it is pretty summer wear, but it will never stand the winter!"

As for the head of it, lord Rockingham, he was an honourable man, of no pretensions to political talent, but renowned for a large estate. He was about five-and-thirty years of age; horse-racing his great passion and pursuit-a mere plebeian Watson on the father's side, but, cn the mother's, descended from the great house of Wentworth, and inheriting its honours. He had been a lord of the bedchamber; and when George III. was told that the whi proposed to make him prime minister, he said, in astonishment, "I thought I had not two men in my bedchamber of less parts than lord Rockingham!" The best of lord Rock. ingham was that he was of very honourable principles-th: worst, that he was so indolent that he never could be rouse. to do anything; and when any one expressed his surprise at "such a poor, dumb creature," as lord Gower styled him, being made prime minister, his supporters replied, as suncient answer, "He is one of the greatest landowners England!" The ablest man in the set was general Conway, a man of fascinating manners and upright mind.

To conciliate Pitt, the new administration recommendi that chief-justice Pratt, his great friend, should be raised to the peerage, which was immediately done, as lord Camden. : and his confidential solicitor, Mr. Nuthall, was m

A.D. 1765.]

DEATH OF THE DUKE OF CUMBERLAND.

solicitor to the treasury. These concessions, as it soon appeared, had not the slightest effect on the recluse of Burton Pynsent. Though refusing to take office himself, he was prepared to hurl his lightnings on those who did, and especially growled at the folly of admitting the poor old whimpering duke of Newcastle to a place in the cabinet.

At this period it would puzzle the reader to distinguish the difference betwixt whigs and tories. The tories were no longer Jacobites, all were equally attached to the present dynasty, and the distinguishing marks of conservatism and of a moderate liberalism were no longer to be found. There was little difference discernible in the political principles of whigs and tories; there were no uniform acts or political doctrines by which the two great sections of politicians openly held,

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and when George said such things seriously, there might be full reliance on him. He was honest in intention, however much led astray by bad counsellors, and dogged in his error when once committed to it. It would appear that the king's aunt, the princess Amelia, about this time, made an attempt to introduce Bute again to the king; that she invited the king to dine with her at Gunnersbury, near Brentford; and, when there, took him into the garden, saying there was no one there but an old friend of his. This old friend, the king soon perceived, was Bute, who was walking in a neighbouring alley. On seeing him the king turned back, and told the old lady that, if she ever attempted such a thing again, it would be the last time she would see him at her house. The story is told differently by different authorities, but, in the main, is probably true. George appears, at this

Except that the whigs declared that they still venerated the principles of the revolution, and the tories said nothing about them. The chief distinctions were those of being in or at of office; and the so-called whigs were split into a number of parties, as hostile to each other as whigs and tories had formerly been. In only two things did they really accord-in the adhesion to the great whig houses of Russell, Cavendish, Wentworth, and Grenville, and in the love of office. There was also an indistinct and mysterious party called the king's friends, to whom almost all were

period, to be endeavouring to act the best for the country, but to be hoplessly trammelled by party faction.

Just at this time, too, he lost the only relative on whom he appeared to rely for counsel-the duke of Cumberland. This once and most justly unpopular prince appeared by the sufferings of his later years to have been softened and much improved. He lived quietly, and certainly gave the harassed king, his nephew, the best and most earnest assistance that he could. The people, who used in former years to abhor him, had also much softened towards him, and had grown to respect him. The duke died suddenly. On the 30th of October he was playing at piquet, when he grew confused, and mistook the cards. The next morning, however, he appeared at court, but returned to dine, and after dinner died in his chair,

Whilst these changes had been passing at home, the As the 1st of November approached, the day on which effervescence in America had grown most riotous and the stamp act was to take effect, the excitement became alarming. Boston took the lead in tumultuous fury. In intense. Furious crowds assembled in the ports to prevent August, the house of Mr. Oliver, the newly-appointed the landing of the stamped paper from the ships which stamp-distributor, was attacked and ransacked; his effigy brought it. The appointed distributors were compelled to was hung upon a tree, thenceforward honoured by the resign their posts. At New York the stamped paper was name of the Liberty Tree. It was then taken down, landed, but such was the commotion that it had to be put paraded about the streets, and committed to the flames. into the custody of the city magistrates, and be kept under The colonel of the militia was applied to, but sent an guard in the city hall. It was utterly impossible to put the evasive answer, showing that there were others above the paper into use, and, after some interruption, business and mob who enjoyed what the mob were doing. With the courts of law were allowed to proceed without it, on this encouragement they broke out afresh, crying, "Liberty the plea that the stamps could not be obtained. and Property!" which, said a colonial authority, was their cry when they meant to plunder and pull down a house. This time they gutted and partly demolished the houses of the registrar-deputy of the admiralty, the comptroller of the customs, and the lieutenant-governor, destroying a great quantity of important papers. The streets were found the next morning scattered with plate, money, and jewels, and other valuable articles, and the inhabitants, now become alarmed for their own dwellings, roused themselves to selfdefence. News now arrived of the change of ministry, and the Bostonians voted thanks to Colonel Barré and General Conway for their speeches in behalf of the colonies, ordered their portraits to be placed in the town-hall, and waited events.

In New York, delegates assembled from nine different colonial assemblies. The governor forbade them to meet, declaring their meetings unprecedented and unlawful, but he took no active measures to prevent their deliberations. The congress met in October, and sat for three weeks. They appointed Mr. Timothy Ruggles, from Massachusetts, their chairman, and passed fourteen resolutions denying the right of the mother country to tax them without their own consent; and they drew up petitions to the king and parliament. The whole passed off with the utmost order and decorum, but not the less did far-seeing men behold in this confederate body the foreshadowing of a greater and more significant union.

It was imagined that the agitation would have been most visible in New England, but it extended all over the colonies, except to those of Canada and Nova Scotia, which quietly submitted. Strange enough, apparently, those which had so lately been taken possession of, and where the bulk of the inhabitants were not English, were the only ones which made no resistance. This, in fact, however, might result from the French not being accustomed to our ideas of liberty, and from there being a stronger force maintained there. In Virginia, as we have seen, the voice of Patrick Henry created the most ominous ferment; and even in the peaceful city of Philadelphia the people rose and spiked the guns on the ramparts. Everywhere associations were entered into to resist the importation of English manufactures after the 1st of January next, which, it was agreed, should dissolve themselves as soon as the stamp tax was abolished. But it is well known, from letters addressed to Franklin at this time, that the republican element was already widely spread through the colonies, and this very first opportunity was seized on by its advocates to encourage the idea of throwing off the allegiance to England without further delay.

Such were the news which greeted the new ministry towards the close of the year. Many of them were averse to the act altogether, but they were not the less aware of the difficulty and danger of retracing steps of such moment when once taken. They delayed the meeting of parliament as long as possible, but events compelled them to this at last; for, owing to changes in office, new appointments, and deaths, there were forty new writs to fill up. Parliament was therefore summoned for the 17th of December, and the ministers endeavoured to escape from the great question a little longer by referring to the disturbances in America in the king's speech as demanding serious attention after the Christmas recess. Grenville, however, furious with indig. nation at the treatment which his mischievous measure had received, so completely fulfilling the warnings of Barré and Conway, moved an amendment on the address, expressing the utmost abhorrence of the insurrectionary conduct of the Americans, and calling on government to enforce the laws and punish the offenders. As there were no ministers in the house except one or two who had retained their posts, no answer could be given to opposite arguments by them, and he was prevailed on to withdraw his motion.

On the 14th of January, 1766, the king opened parlia ment with a second speech, rendered necessary by the change of ministry and the affairs of America. He informed the two houses that no time had been lost in issuing orders to all the governors of provinces and commanders of the forces there to exert themselves for the enforcement of law and the preservation of order; that he had commanded all the neces sary papers to be laid before them, and that he commended the whole of the subject to their best wisdom. The debate which ensued upon the address was one of the most remarkable in our annals. The ministers were evidently confounded by the newness and the greatness of the circumstances. It was not for a man like Rockingham, nor for the feebleness of Newcastle, to cope with such startling facts. To go forward or to go backward appeared equally hazardous. Never was the "sed revocare gradus" seen in a more perilous point of view. All eyes were therefore turned in anxious silence towards the only great pilot who, it was believed, could weather the storm which the narrow and obstinate spirit of Grenville had conjured up.

And there was the great arbiter of England's destinies. No fit of gout now detained him from the breathless and expectant assembly. He came from his solitude in Somersetshire, where he had pondered over these gloomy events, and yet had let no single whisper of his conclusions upon them escape him. He entered, wrapped, as it were, in a mant

A.D. 1766.]

SPEECH OF PITT ON COLONIAL POLICY.

of mystery, charged with the thunder which must fall destroyingly on the late ministers or on the Americans. He was pale and solemn, but evidently, though lame, much freer from his habitual torments of gout than usual. All eyes followed him, all hearts waited in deep suspense for his words. Two or three members had followed the mover and econder of the address, before he rose from his seat. A young Irishman, destined to become one of the greatest orators who had ever started on the public eye in that arena, was, amid the impatience for the opinions of Pitt, awaking the wonder of the commons by his fervid eloquence, and condemning the policy which had thus embroiled us with our brethren across the Atlantic. As Edmund Burke sat down, Pitt rose and pronounced his warm congratulations on the new genius which thus sprung into existence, on the admirable speech of "that young member," of "that very able advocate," and he then turned himself to the mighty topic of the evening.

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star-fixed for the reciprocal benefit of the mother country and her infant colonies. They are the subjects of this kingdom, equally entitled with yourselves to all the rights of mankind and the peculiar privileges of Englishmen, and equally bound by its laws. The Americans are the sons, not the bastards of England.

"The distinction between legislation and taxation is essential to liberty. The crown, the peers, are equally legislative powers with the commons. If taxation be a part of simple legislation, the crown, the peers, have rights in taxation as well as yourselves-rights which they will claim whenever the principle can be supported by might

"There is an idea in some that the colonies are virtually represented in this house. I would fain know by whom an American is represented here! Is he represented by any knight of the shire in any county in the kingdom? Would to God that respectable representatives was augmented to a greater number! Or will you tell him he is repre

He took care to tell the house that he stood alone and un-sented by any representative of a borough ?—a borough connected. He had lately been declaring that that should be his future policy. That he came quite uninformed of the contents of his majesty's speech, and, contrary to all precedent, begged to have it read a second time. These were clearly only those arts by which an orator seeks to raise the wonder of his eloquence, by making it appear that he speaks without preparation. But Pitt knew well in his solitude what had been passing in America, and had undoubtedly settled the course he would take on this occasion. Turning to Grenville, he bluntly declared that everything that the late ministry had done was wrong. As for the present ministry (turning towards general Conway), he declared that he had no objections to them: their characters were fair; he had never been sacrified by any of them, still he could not give them his cofidence. "Pardon me, gentle-ministers." men," he said, bowing, "confidence is a plant of a slow growth in an aged bosom; youth alone is the season of credulity!"

which, perhaps, its own representative never saw ! This is what is called 'the rotten part of the constitution.' It cannot continue a century. If it does not drop, it must be amputated. The idea of a virtual representation of America in this house is the most contemptible idea that ever entered into the head of man; it does not deserve a serious refutation."

He then declared that he felt there had been an influence at work in the late disastrous affairs; and denouncing all national prejudices, declaring that he cared not whether a Lan was born on this or the other side of the Tweed, that had been the first to draw the intrepid mountaineers of Scotland into the public service, and that they had nobly Justified his policy; he added, "it was not the country of the Lan, but the man of that country, who had wanted wisdom, and held principles incompatible with freedom."

This was shifting the burden of the mischief really from Grenville to Bute. He then excused his not having been present to oppose the attempt to tax America, by his illness, protesting that, could he have been even carried in his bed to the house, he would have done it. He then went on in his loftiest tone of eloquence: "This kingdom has no right to by a tax upon the colonies. On this point I could not be silent, nor repress the ardour of my soul, smote as it is with indignation at the very thought of taxing America internally without a requisite voice of consent.

A deep and long silence fell on the house at the close of this speech, which general Conway at length broke by saying that he agreed to almost every word of it, and should be most happy to see the right honourable gentleman in the ministry instead of himself. But he energetically repudiated the charge of influence. "I see nothing of it, I feel nothing of it," he exclaimed. "I disclaim it for myself, and, so far as my discernment can reach, for all the rest of his majesty's

This appeared now to be the truth; but the idea of Bute was so deeply ingrained in the public mind that nobody

believed it.

Grenville then rose and defended the stamp act. Не denied that the right of taxation depended on representation. He complained justly, that when he proposed to tax America, there was little opposition in that house. He contended that protection and obedience were reciprocal. "Great Britain," he said, "protects America; America is bound to just obedience. If not, tell me when the Americans were emancipated? When they want the protection of this kingdom, they are always ready to ask it: that protection has always been afforded them, in the most full and ample manner. The nation has run itself into an immense debt to give them protection; and now they are called upon to contribute a small share to the public expense-an expense arising from themselves-they renounce your authority, insult your officers, and break out, I might almost say, into open rebellion. Sir, the seditious spirit of the colonies owes its birth to the factions in this house. Gentlemen are careless of the consequences of what they say, provided it answers the purposes of opposition." The stamp

"Taxation is no part of the governing or legislative There was much justice in these remarks. power. Taxes are the voluntary gift and grant of the act had been suffered to pass with wondrous apathy: it commons alone. At the same time, on every real point of was true that the colonies were always ready enough to ask legislation, I believe the authority to be fixed as the pole-protection, and were bound to show obedience so far as it was

"Be to her faults a little blind;

Be to her virtues very kind.

Upon the whole, I will beg leave to tell the house what is precisely my opinion. It is, that the stamp act be repealed absolutely, totally, and immediately. That the reason for the repeal be assigned, because it was founded on an erroneous principle. At the same time, let the sovereign authority of this country over the colonies be asserted in as strong terms as can be advised, and made to extend to every kind of legislation whatsoever. That we may bind their trade, confine their manufactures, and exercise every power whatsoever, except only that of taking their money from their pockets without their own consent."

The advice of Pitt prevailed. Ministers determined to bring in two acts in accordance with his counsels: an act declaratory of the supreme power of parliament cver the colonies, and another repealing the stamp act, on the plea which he had suggested. Meantime, the doors of the house of commons were thrown open to petitions from all quarters. Those which it had peremptorily rejected from the agents of different American colonies and of Jamaica were freely enter

according to constitutional principles. But Grenville had gone beyond that, and attempted to exact an obedience to legislation, which must, if submitted to, have degenerated into slavery. It was a legislation which violated magna charta, and every principle of our bill of rights; it was true that such speeches as those of Barré and Pitt marvellously encouraged the most daring of the colonists, and unquestionably accelerated the catastrophe of separation as much or more than the American repugnance and the American arms. The colonists had the enthusiastic sanction of the greatest minds and statesmen of England, and that was enough to carry them beyond all restraint. The words of Grenville, so pointedly directed against him, immediately called up Pitt again. He had spoken; it was contrary to all rule, but the lion of parliament broke recklessly through the meshes of its regulations, and the members supported him when called to order, by cries of "Go on! go on!" He went on severely castigating Grenville, for complaining of the liberty of speech in that house; and dropping in his indignation the terms of courtesy towards the late minister of honourable" or "right honourable," said simply— "Sir, the gentleman tells us that America is obstinate-tained by the house. Others from the traders of London, America is almost in open rebellion. Sir, I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of all the rest." He then exposed the cases quoted by Grenville to show that taxation in this country had been imposed without representation, showing that these very instances led to immediate representation. "I would have cited them," be continued, "to show that even under arbitrary reigns parliaments were ashamed of taxing a people without their consent. The gentleman asks when the Americans were emancipated? But I desire to know when they were made slaves?" He then touched on the true sources of benefit from our colonies, the profits of their trade. He estimated the profits derived from the American commerce at two millions sterling, adding triumphantly, "This is the fund that carried us victoriously through the late war. This is the price America pays us for protection.”

He then alluded to the comparative strength of the two countries. "I know the valour," he said, "of your troops. I know the skill of your officers. In a good cause, on a sound bottom, the force of this country can crush America to atoms. But in such a cause as this your success would be hazardous. America, if she fell, would fall like the strong man. She would embrace the pillars of the state, and pull down the constitution along with her. Is this your boasted peace, not to sheathe the sword in its scabbard, but to sheathe it in the bowels of your countrymen?"

After characterising the stamp act as "a paltry mark of the narrow genius of the man who conceived and brought it forth," he characterised the resistance of the Americans as "eclipsed in its glory by the most odious steps of rage, violence, and rapine, against their brethren of a different opinion." But he contended that the ministers had driven them to madness by injustice, and he called on the English nation to let prudence and temper first come from this side. As for America, quoting two lines from Prior, he continued:

Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester, now rising into importance, were sent in, stating that the colonists were indebted to the merchants of this country several millions sterling; that the colonists had hitherto punctually liquidated them, but were now disabled, by the consequences of the stamp act; and that therefore its abolition was as requisite for the mother country as for America. Extracts from a large correspondence with America were read; and gentlemen familiar with the statistics of those colonies were heard in evidence at the bar of the commons. Amongst these was Dr. Franklin, who at this moment, as he had advised his countrymen to submit to the stamp act when passed, now supported Pitt's high-flown notions respecting the right of England to lay external, but not internal, taxes on America. He made a wide distinction betwixt an excise levied on the consumption of goods, and a customs duty levied on their import. "An excise," he said, "for the reasons I have just given, the Americans think you can have no right to lay within their country. But the sea is yours; you maintain by your fleets the safety of navigation on it, and keep it clear of pirates. You may, therefore, have a natural and equitable right to some toll or duty on merchandise carried through those your dominions of the sea, to defray the expense of your ships to maintain the safety of convey. ance," &c.

how It is scarcely necessary, at this time of day, to say thoroughly unsound were these views of Pitt and Franklin. Our supreme power over our colonies must always have been limited by the principle of representation, or this pows would have extended beyond magna charta, and have been a real despotism. If our power was supreme, then the stan act was legitimate. The notion of Pitt again, that taxation and legislation were separate things; that legislation of all kinds, except taxation, could be exercised at pleasure, was a sophism of the flimsiest kind. Neither taxation nor legisla tion of any kind can become valid, except by the consent of the commons, who are the representatives of the whole people, and that of the lords, who are the representatives