mous publication, juft as it was admitted to be in itself, was made by a nobleman, fo far from being able to boast of the immaculate purity of his own morals, that the prelate perfonally concerned in this bufinefs has been described as co-adjutor to a lay-lord, "homini poft homines natos turpiffimo, fceleratifimo, contaminatiffimo."

On the 14th February, 1764, a motion was made in the house of commons by Sir William Meredith, a distinguished member of the oppofition, "that a GENERAL WARRANT for apprehending and feizing the authors, printers, and publishers of a feditious libel, together with their papers, is not warranted by law." The minifters found themselves extremely embarraffed by the plaufibility and popularity of this motion. They however forcibly urged, that it was not confiftent with the dignity of the houfe to pafs a refolution refpecting a point of law, which, though it fhould pafs, would not therefore be law. And if the courts of Law fhould in the caufes actually depend ing be influenced by this refolution, and the houfe of lords in their judicial capacities fhould decree for the legality of general warrants, the confequences would be very difagreeable. They acknowledged that the power in queftion, to which ufage had given a sort of sanction, was very liable to abufe; but they maintained that the remedy should be provided by an act of parliament paffed upon cool deliberation, distinguishing cases, and specifying those discretionary powers which the contingent exigencies of government re→ quire to be vefted in the secretary of state. But the oppofition infifted, that the practice in question was an abuse, and they would never confent to any act for regulating that abufe. The debate being adjourned to the 17th, certain modifications to the original motion were proposed by the miniftry, calculated to leffen the odium attending the practice, fpecifying the ufage of office, and the tacit affent and approbation of the highest legal jurisdiction. But not daring to attempt to put a negative upon it, even in its VOL. I. present

F

present form, they moved the farther adjournment of the queftion for four months. Mr. Pitt again exerted himself with ardor in fupport of the original motion. "It was no justification, he said, that general warrants could plead the authority of precedent;-two he admitted had been figned by himself, but they were not against libels; they were issued in a time of war and public danger against perfons believed to be in the interefts of the enemy. Senfible of the irregularity of the act, but preferring the public fafety to every personal confideration, he ran the rifque, as he would of his head, relying upon the exigencies of the times and the neceffity of the measure for his vindication. In the present case no fuch neceffity exifted; the charge was writing and publishing a libel-what was there in this crime fo heinous and terrible as to require the ufe of this formidable engine, which like an inundation bore down all the barriers of the public fecurity? It was plainly the indulgence of a violent refentment pointed against a particular perfon. Surely Parliament could not fee the extent of the furrender which they had made! a vote had paffed, by which the perfonal freedom of every reprefentative of the nation was now at the mercy of his majefty's attorney general. He concluded with faying, that if the house negatived the prefent motion, they would be the disgrace of the prefent age, and the reproach of pofterity." The adjournment was carried by a majority of 14 voices only, in one of the fulleft houfes known for many years, the minority on this occafion being no lefs than 220. Such a defeat was confidered as equivalent to a victory; the freedom of the city of London was voted to lord chief justice Pratt, and prefented to his lordship in a golden box; the picture of that magiftrate, now the idol of the nation, placed in the Guildhall of the metropolis, whofe example was, with an emulation of eagerness, followed by the city of Dub

lin,

lin, and other principal cities throughout the two kingdoms*.

Scarcely was this affair terminated, when the minifter, Mr. Grenville, in the rage of making experiments, however hitherto unfuccefsful, determined upon a measure in its tendency and ultimate confequences the moft interefting and important which ever perhaps came under the cognizance of the British parliament. As the reductions which had taken place fince the conclufion of the war were far inferior to thofe made by Mr. Pelham after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, and the vaft increafe of the national debt had rendered indifpenfable a proportionable increase of revenue, large fupplies were yet wanting to raise the national income to a level with the annual expenditure. The invention of the governors, and the patience of the people of Great Britain, being at this period alike exhausted †, Mr. Grenville caft his eyes upon the vaft continent of America, as affording a boundless fcope for minifterial and parliamentary exaction. The project of taxing America had been many years fince propofed to Sir Robert Walpole, but that cautious and fagacious ftatefman replied, "that it was a measure too hazardous for him to venture upon; he fhould therefore leave it to fome more daring fucceffor in office to make the experiment." It is true that two or three remote and obfcure precedents might be adduced in vindication

F 2

* In the month of January 1764, the hereditary prince of Brunfwic was married to the princefs Augufta, eldest fifter of the king, to whom the parliament voted a marriage portion of 80,ocol. a fum equal to that formerly granted to the princess of Orange.

In the debate on the Cider Bill, Mr. Grenville, in answer to the invectives of Mr. Pitt, contended, that the tax was unavoidable; "government, he faid, did not know where to lay another tax of equal efficiency. The right honorable gentleman complains of the hardship of this tax; why does he not tell us where we can lay another tax instead of it?-repeating with strong emphafis two or three times, tell me where you can lay another tax?" Mr. Pitt thus unfairly urged, replied, in a musical tone, and in the words of a favorite and popular canzonet, "Gentle Shepherd, tell me where!" The house burst into laughter, and Mr. Grenville, after this, retained the appellation of the "Gentle Shepherd." Little, certainly, did this minister imagine how fertile would be the invention of his fucceffors in office, or how thoroughly fubdued by time and cuftom the spirit of the people.

vindication of the authority of the British parliament to impose taxes in America. But then the taxes hitherto impofed, confifting of certain import and export duties, were invariably and profeffedly defigned for the mere purpose of commercial regulation. It is remarkable, that the trivial and incidental produce of these duties was not even appropriated by parliament, and it was never fo much as suspected that they would be quoted as cafes in point should a direct taxation be attempted. The project of Mr. Grenville, therefore, was of a nature perfectly novel. His avowed purpose was to raise a revenue in America in aid to the mother country, the entire produce of which was to be paid into the exchequer of Great Britain. This was a project in the higheft degree alarming to the Americans; for if the claim of England to tax the colonies for her own benefit, and at her own difcretion, was once admitted, a system of oppreffion would be introduced, which from the irrefiftible tendencies of things would gradually become infupportably grievous; and which once established, no fubfequent efforts would be able to destroy. No queftion could perhaps be agitated of more difficult or doubtful difcuffion than the extent of the conftitutional authority of Great Britain over America. It had never been analyfed or defined: it was, indeed, in its own nature indefinable: it was only admitted in the general, that Great Britain poffeffed a difcretionary fuperintending power, pervading the whole empire, with respect to objects of great and common concern. This power had been invariably exercifed with caution, prudence, and moderation; and the benefits arifing from it to the empire at large, and even to its colonies and dependencies feparately confidered, were fo manifeft, that no difpofition exifted to call in question the validity of its acts, or to fix precife limits to its dominion. It was a political problem thrown as it were into fhade, like various others, which it would be deemed highly imprudent to make the fubject of a rigid or public fcrutiny. The precife extent of the prerogative of the crown, of the privileges

of

of parliament, of the jurisdiction of the different courts of judicature, who is competent to delineate? or who would deem it discreet or politic to create divifions and animofities in a state by a vain endeavor to ascertain questions, which folly and prefumption alone would without abfolute neceffity agitate? But the indefinite authority poffeffed by Great Britain over the colonies, an authority so liable to abuse, fo justly therefore the subject of jeaiousy, and which had maintained its full weight and energy, chiefly by the utility and propriety of its occafionał exertions, it was now determined to put wildly and wantonly to the hazard by an attempt to exercise it in a mode abfolutely unprecedented, and in the highest degree alarming, unconftitutional, and dangerous.

On the 10th of March 1764, the house of commons, at the motion of the minifter, paffed a variety of resolutions, respecting certain new duties on foreign goods imported into the British colonies in America, which being primarily of the nature of commercial regulations, paffed without any diftinct or particular notice in the British parliament, though their equivocal complexion rendered them very distasteful to the Americans. But in the series of parliamentary refolutions was one of fuch peculiar importance, that Mr. Grenville himself declared his intention to referve the execution of it till the next year. This resolution imported, that it would be proper to impofe certain STAMP DUTIES in the faid colonies and plantations, for the purpofe of raifing an American revenue payable into the British exchequer. The profpect of being relieved by the taxation of America from a portion of the national burdens was fo agreeable to the intereft, and the unlimited exercife of authority fo flattering to the pride, of this affembly, that the refolution in queftion paffed the house with no violent or unufual oppofition. The dire effects of this measure it will be but too foon neceffary to explain. In the mean time it is material to remark, that according to the true principles of the constitution, even the produce of the duties impofed for the regula