to hope for. General Conway, who had been the consistent friend of the colonies, accompanied the repealing act by a conciliatory letter, and, for the moment, it seemed as if the bone of contention was out of the way and a new era had come in. Full-length portraits of Conway and of Barré were ordered to be hung up in Faneuil Hall in Boston. The Assembly of Virginia voted to erect a statue of George III.; and a similar honor to Pitt was proposed in Maryland. But nowhere was the enthusiasm greater than in New York. The inhabitants petitioned for, and the Assembly decreed, the erection of statues both of the King and of Pitt;1 on the King's birthday, which occurred not long after the news of the repeal of the Stamp Act was received, the people assembled in the Fields (now City Hall Park) and with rejoicings and festivities set up a Liberty Pole, at the foot of which the King's health was drunk in hogsheads of punch. But it was a perishable monument of the restoration of peace and harmony. Before the summer was over, in only a little more than two months from the time of its erection, the Pole was levelled to the ground by the soldiers of the Fort. Thenceforward it became for several years a rallying-point of contention between the soldiers and the people. It was repeatedly cut down, or blown up with gunpowder, and as often replaced at once by a new one; and in these contests, where hard blows and sometimes serious wounds were given and taken, the spirit of resistance was kept alive and active. 1 The statues were not finished for four years. In August, 1770, that of George III., which was of lead, was set up in the Bowling Green, and that of Pitt, in marble, at the corner of Wall and Smith (now William) Streets. -- CHAPTER XIV. END OF COLONIAL RULE. MEASURES FOLLOWING THE REPEAL OF THE STAMP ACT. IGNORANCE OF AMERICA CHUSETTS. Assertion of power over by Parlia the colonies ment. Act. THE repeal of the Stamp Act was, after all, only a concession for the sake of present expediency, not an acknowledgment of an exclusive and inherent right in the colonial subjects to tax themselves. It was accompanied by a Declaratory Act asserting the power of Parliament over the colonies"in all cases whatsoever;" which might well arouse, as Lord Shelburne afterward wrote to Pitt it did, "an unfortunate jealousy and distrust of the English Government throughout the Colonies." The Mutiny Act, also, not long before, had been extended to America, and one of its provisions was, that the Colonial Assemblies should pro- The Mutiny vide quarters, with "fire, candles, vinegar, salt, bedding, utensils for cooking, beer or cider, and rum," for the support of troops. Parliament, moreover, accompanied the repeal of the obnoxious act by a resolution recommending that the Assemblies of the several provinces should compensate all those who had suffered loss the year before in the stamp-riots. That the Sugar Act should still remain the law, without modification, would have been enough to keep alive distrust of the home government; but when, to the negation of any essential change of policy, there was added so much positive proof that the policy was unchanged, there was quite sufficient reason for the most jealous watchfulness on the part of the Americans. Meanwhile the Rockingham Ministry was dissolved, and, though Pitt accepted the Privy Seal, the changes in the Cabinet indicated that a spirit of aggression rather than of conciliation would rule in the affairs of the colonies. Pitt, moreover, to the surprise of the English all England, and, indeed, of all Europe, chose to go into the Cabinet. House of Lords as the Earl of Chatham, at the sacrifice of his influence as well as of his popularity. That mysterious illness of Changes in his tion Ascendency of Townshend. which has been a cause of so much speculation, which was believed by many to be akin to madness, by others the exaggeration of peculiar eccentricity, and, in our time, perhaps, would be covered under the more charitable and comprehensive term of nervous prostrawas now at its height. Whatever it was, it led him, unfortunately both for England and America, into almost complete isolation, leaving Charles Townshend free from all restraint. He had accepted office under Pitt while opposed to his policy in regard to the affairs of the colonies. He had acceded to the repeal of the Stamp Act, only because it was inexpedient to attempt to enforce it. Military garrisons, he now insisted, should be kept up in the large colonial towns, to be supported by colonial taxation; a colonial revenue must be exacted; and he ridiculed the distinction between internal and external taxes. This distinction was one at first strenuously insisted upon by the Americans; but had Townshend, who died in the autumn of 1767, lived a little longer, he would have seen how completely his own measures changed their opinions on this point. Taxation of the colonies was to be resisted, let it take what form it would, if only the purpose was plainly seen that taxation was intended. The intrigues and strife of parties, and the determination of the landed interest in England to lighten its own burden, favored Townshend's polity. It was proposed to reduce the land-tax of four shillings in the pound to three shillings, and Townshend was quite willing to see the defeat of his own party on this question, as it enabled him to insist upon making up the deficiency in the revenue by colonial taxation. But the colonies were of one mind; they would submit to no infringement upon their rights by Parliament, though, as events ordered, it was upon New York and Massachusetts that the duty devolved of taking the lead in defence of those rights. Refusal of New York to support troops. When Sir Henry Moore, the Governor of New York, sent a message in June, 1768, to the Assembly, requiring them to make provision for troops, then on their way to that colony, in accordance with the Act of Parliament, the Assembly refused. They were willing to bear a proportionate share in the support of troops on the march through the province, as they had always done, and of their own free will. But the quartering of soldiers in the colony at the colony's expense, as this act provided, was the imposition 1768.] CIRCULAR LETTER OF MASSACHUSETTS. 353 of a tax without their consent. In the spring, Parliament ordered that the legislative functions of New York should be suspended till the law was complied with. In the debate on this measure, Pownall, formerly Governor of Massachusetts, but now a member of Parliament, was exceedingly frank in his animadversions upon the conduct of the House. It had seen fit to assume that New York alone had revolted against this assumption of power. "Believe me," said Mr. Pownall, whose experience and sound judgment should have commended his words to those men who ought by this time to have begun to see that they were attempting to ride a storm and guide a whirlwind," Believe me, there is not a province, a colony, or a plantation that will submit to a tax thus imposed, more than New York will." colonies. Other colonies, where like requisitions were made for the support of troops, were careful, in granting them, to avoid seeming Sustained to do so in obedience to the act. Sympathy with New York, by the other as the target of ministerial displeasure, extended to them all, and that deepened to indignation when the Mutiny Act was extended for another year, and it was determined to impose port duties. on wines, oil, and fruit, if shipped direct from Spain and Portugal, and upon glass, paper, lead, colors, and tea. The revenue to be raised from these duties was to be at the disposal of the Crown, and to be used for the support of the civil officers of the colonies. This was justly considered a blow at the very root of their constitutional rights. The one thing above all others which the colonists had never lost sight of, and had never ceased to contend for, as the history of the colonial period shows, was, to provide for the necessities of government in their own way, and to keep those to whom the affairs of government were intrusted, dependent upon the Colonial Assemblies. In this emergency, the General Court of Massachusetts addressed a circular letter to the Assemblies of all the other colonies, suggesting that they should unite in supplications to the King for relief. sachusetts. The acts of Parliament, they said in this letter, "imposing duties on the people of this province, with the sole and express Circular Letpurpose of raising a revenue, are infringements of their nat- ter of Masural and constitutional rights; because, as they are not represented in the British Parliament, his Majesty's Commons in Britain by those acts grant their property without their consent." And they submitted it to the consideration of their countrymen, "Whether any people can be said to enjoy any degree of freedom, if the Crown, in addition to his undoubted authority for constituting a Governor, should appoint him such a stipend as it shall judge proper, without the consent of the people, and at their expence; and whether, while the judges of the land, and other civil officers, hold not their commissions during good behavior, their having salaries appointed for them by the Crown, independant of the people, hath not a tendency to subvert the principles of equity, and endanger the happiness and security of the subject." With one accord the other colonies united in hearty approbation of this letter. But when it reached England, the Earl of Hillsborough, who had succeeded Shelburne as Secretary of State for the Colonies, wrote to Governor Bernard of Massachusetts to order the General Court "to rescind the resolution which gave birth to the letter, and to declare their disapprobation of and dissent to that rash and hasty proceeding;" and if they refused, the Governor was to dissolve the Court. The other colonies were ordered to take no notice of the letter, and were also threatened with dissolution of their Assemblies in case of disobedience. English It is a remarkable evidence of the utter ignorance that prevailed in England of American affairs and American character, that ignorance of Hillsborough could have sent such a message to a body America. whose leading men, when measured with the worthiest of the public men of England, were in every sense their peers, and in some sense their superiors. The General Court replied with great dignity to the minister's insolent demand, and by a vote of ninety-five to seventeen declined to comply with it. In truth, no other result was probable, or hardly possible. The older colonies had been essentially self-governed for a century and a half, and were virtually independent. Almost all of the inhabitants, except in Georgia, were born upon the soil. The circumstances of their lives had created habits of thought as well as methods of living, and no "Be it enacted," pronounced three thousand miles away, could stand if brought in conflict with this native self-reliance and inborn belief in their own rights. To ministers in England it seemed that to dissolve an Assembly was a final and decisive step. In Boston it only showed the people that the time had come for town meetings. An appeal from Faneuil Hall was responded to by every town in the province, and committees of correspondence and of safety laid deep and strong the foundations of a new state. It was easy to impose taxes on imports by bills in Parliament, and to appoint revenue officers for their due collection. If not quite so easy to do, it was more to the purpose when done, to determine neither to order nor to receive importations. If the Ministry supposed that the colonists were to be overawed by the presence of troops, they misjudged the circumstances and character of the people in this as in everything else. Their appeals had been to the clemency of a King to whom they avowed the most loyal allegiance; |