America; and thus was the project of General Amherst, which had at first been looked upon as romantick and visionary, finally achieved.

CHAPTER III.

Resignation of Mr. Pitt-Appointment of Lord Bute-Peace of Fontainbleau Mr. Grenville made Prime Minister—His proposition to tax the Colonies-Resolutions imposing Stamp Duties-and the consequences thereof.

THE successes which attended the English arms in America, more than any thing else, contributed to the restoration of peace in Europe. George the IIIrd. had succeeded to the throne of Great Britain soon after the capture of Quebec, and Mr. Pitt, finding his influence with the new King not sufficiently great to allow him to guide the measures for which the nature of his situation in the Cabinet made him responsible, resigned the Seals in October 1761. The Earl of Bute, who had been raised only two days after the old King's death to the Privy Council, was in the following year made Prime Minister. His first object was the restoration of peace, and contrary to the wishes of the nation, who seemed desirous of pushing their conquests still further, a negociation for that purpose was opened at Fontainbleau, and the preliminaries `signed in November 1762. When the King made this known to the Parliament, at the opening of their session onthe 25th of the same month, the clamour against the Minister was loud and strong-Mr. Pitt declared the tenour of the treaty to be derogatory to the honour and interests of the nation." He was determined (he said) afflicted as he was with illness, at the hazard of his life, to attend the House that day-to raise up his voice, his hand, and his arm against the preliminary articles of a treaty, which obscured all the glories of

the war, surrendered the dearest interests of the nation, and sacrificed the public faith by an abandonment of our allies." But the Minister prevailed and the treaty was soon after formally ratified. By this treaty, Great Britain gained both provinces of Canada, the whole of Louisiana east of the Mississippi, the island of Cape Breton, and all the islands in the Gulph and river of St. Lawrence, and thus became mistress of nearly the whole Continent of North America—In Europe the advantages of the treaty were equally great, so that it is difficult to conceive the grounds of Mr. Pitt's objections to a peace which brought with it such extensive additions to the British Empire. Scarcely were the ratifications of this treaty exchanged when the Earl of Bute, to the astonishment of the whole nation, resigned his place of Premier, which was immediately given to Mr. George Grenville, brother to Earl Temple, and of course connected with the family of Mr. Pitt. It was now generally supposed that Mr. Pitt would be brought again into the Cabinet; but after several overtures made to him by the King himself, that honest statesman and patriot declared that he could not consent to take part in an Administration which excluded all the great Whig families of the nation.

Great Britain having now subdued all her enemies, and extended her Empire beyond her most ambitious hopes, began to feel the pride of her strength. But a debt had been contracted, which weighed heavily upon the people, and which called loudly upon the Minister for the exertion of all his financial ingenuity. And here begins the story of American wrongs. Hitherto when money was wanted from the Colonies, the Parliament of England had been content to ask for it

by a formal requisition upon the Colonial Legislatures, and they had supplied it with a willing hand. But now it was thought that a shorter method of obtaining it might be resorted to with better effect; and Mr. George Grenville, in 1764, had the hardihood to propose a measure which Sir Robert Walpole had some years before declared "too hazardous for him to venture upon."-This measure of Mr. Grenville had for its avowed object to raise a revenue in America, the entire produce of which was to go into the Exchequer of Great Britain. We have before seen the effect which was produced in America, and the consequences which were predicted by Dr. Franklin, at the proposition to tax the Colonies, even when the produce was to be applied to their own defence and protection. It may be easily conceived then that the present project of the Minister excited the strongest feelings of alarm and inquietude among the Americans.

At an early period in the present year, the Minister had proposed several Resolutions, as a sort of prelude to his grand scheme, laying additional duties upon imports into the Colonies from foreign Countries. These Resolutions were passed by Parliament without much debate or notice, and though they awakened some fears among the reflecting politicians of Americà, they were quietly acquiesced in, as a commercial regulation, which it was acknowledged, Great Britain had a right to control. About the same time a pamphlet appeared, avowedly from the pen of Governour Bernard of Massachusetts, in which the right of Great Britain to tax the Colonies was strongly maintained. It was evident from the sentiments contained in this pamphlet, that Governour Bernard had been employed as the mere tool of the Minister, and

that a system of oppression was in preparation, which portended a speedy and fatal blow to the liberties of the Colonies. It was contended, in this extraordinary production, that the universal political rule of confining taxation to representation, could only apply to the inhabitants of Great Britain, and not to the people of these Colonies-that the Charters themselves could only be considered as mere temporary instruments, suited to the state of infant Colonies, but unconstitutional, and hostile to the very nature of the English government, as applied to them in their present increased state of importance-that if the Charters could be pleaded against the authority of the Parliament, they amounted in fact to an alienation of the King's dominions, and a dismemberment of the Empire. The writer went on to propose, that all the Charters should be abolished, and that there should be an entire new division of the Colonies-that there should be a nobility for life in each new division, and one General Government for the whole under the control of the King.

These and many other propositions equally hostile to the liberties and welfare of the Colonies, clearly pointed out the hand of the Minister. Indeed his agency in the business was scarcely left to inference alone-Emissaries were sent from England to several of the Colonies, to sound the men of influence on the great changes proposed. That, in the new modelling of the Charters, it was proposed to form Massachusetts and New-Hampshire into one Province, was confessed by Governour Wentworth himself; and as a death blow at once to that liberty of conscience, the preservation of which had been the first object of our fathers in seeking the new world, it was proposed to abolish all Colonial acts which made Ministers of the