310 LORD HILLSBOROUGH-VIRGINIA. [1769. proceeds distinctly to accuse lord Hillsborough of having suppressed in the minute of the Council, which was to be communicated to the colonial governors, "words as kind and lenient as could be proposed by some of us, and not without encouraging expressions which were too evidently displeasing to his lordship." Camden charged Hillsborough with this suppression; which he denied. The presumptuous Secretary, who evidently acted with some authority from a higher quarter, not only garbled the minute, but accompanied it with a circular letter, which Grafton terms "unfortunate and unwarrantable-calculated to do all mischief, when our real minute might have paved the way to some good." Grafton and Camden felt that their power was gone. They ought to have resigned and denounced their dangerous colleague. The tea-duties were to be retained upon the principle maintained by the king, that "there must always be one tax, to keep up the right." Whilst the king's ministers were thus divided upon the question of which few men saw the real importance, a demonstration of opinion was taking place in one of the colonies, of far more significance than the riots at Boston, and the meeting of its Convention. Lord Hillsborough had removed sir Jeffrey Amherst from the post of governor of Virginia, and had appointed in his place lord Boutetort, who, in a lucrative American office, could repair the consequences of his extravagance at home. In 1758 America had been called "the hospital of England;" the places in the gift of the Crown being filled "with broken Members of Parliament, of bad if any principle; valets de chambre, electioneering scoundrels, and even livery servants."* Lord Boutetort was a faded courtier, whose rank would be acceptable to the aristocratic families of Virginia, and whose parade might dazzle the eyes of discontented politicians. Boutetort, the only governor who had appeared in Virginia within memory, opened the Session of the Legislature of Virginia, at Williamsburg, with royal pomp. He went to the House of Representatives in a state carriage, drawn by six white horses. He gave splendid entertainments. A dutiful address was presented to him, which he answered with the most perfect courtesy. But there were men in that Assembly of a character not to be propitiated by cream-coloured horses or sumptuous feasts. George Washington, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Peyton Randolph, were members of that Assembly. The House of Burgesses followed up its dutiful Address by unanimous Resolutions, in which they asserted that the right of laying taxes on Virginia was exclusively vested in its own Legislature; and pronounced that the mode of trial recommended in Parliament upon charges of high treason, 'was illegal and unconstitutional. The governor, without waiting for an official communication, dissolved the Assembly. On the next day the members assembled at the Raleigh tavern; and in a room called "The Apollo "-probably in memory of the famous Apollo Room where Ben Jonson prescribed his "Leges Conviviales"-eighty-eight pledged themselves not to import or purchase certain articles of British merchandise, whilst the Revenue Act was unrepealed, and signed Resolutions to that effect. The example spread. Pennsylvania approved the Resolutions. Delaware adopted them. The Assembly of Massachusetts was at last legally convened in May, *Letter of General Huske in Phillimore's "Memoirs of Lord Lyttelton." + Bancroft, "American Revolution," vol. iii. p. 309. 1769.] OUTRAGES AT BOSTON. 311 1769. The members complained that they could not discuss the public affairs with freedom, being surrounded with an armed force. The governor told them he had no authority over the ships in the port or the troops in the town. The place of assembling was removed to the town of Cambridge. The two authorities continued hostile, and the Assembly was prorogued. Sir Francis Bernard was recalled to England; and a lieutenant-governor, Hutchinson, an American, remained in authority. Then commenced a series of outrages on the part of the leaders of the non-importation agreement, which was disgraceful to the cause which would have had far better argument in moderation. Obnoxious persons were tarred and feathered. At a public dinner "strong halters, firm blocks, and sharp axes, to such as deserve them," was one of the toasts.* These excesses, which are slightly passed over by the historian of the American Revolution, elicited the following remarks from lord Chatham, strenuous as he was in contending for the right of America to be untaxed by Great Britain. His words are not reported in the Parliamentary History, but they are given in a letter from Mr. Johnson, Agent for Connecticut. "I have been thought to be, perhaps, too much the friend of America. I own I am a friend to that country. I love the Americans because they love liberty, and I love them for the noble efforts they made in the last war. But I must own I find fault with them in many things; I think they carry matters too far; they have been wrong in many respects. I think the idea of drawing money from them by taxes as ill-judged. Trade is your object with them, and they should be encouraged. But (I wish every sensible American, both here and in that country, heard what I say,) if they carry their notions of liberty too far, as I fear they do, if they will not be subject to the laws of this country, especially if they would disengage themselves from the laws of trade and navigation, of which I see too many symptoms, as much of an American as I am, they have not a more determined opposer than they will find in me." We have now reached the period of lord North's administration. On the 5th of March, 1770, on the House of Commons proceeding to take into consideration the petition of the Merchants of London trading to North America, the First Lord of the Treasury, in a temperate speech, moved the repeal of such portions of the Act of 1767, as laid duties upon glass and other articles, omitting any mention of tea. "I cannot propose," he said, "any further repeal than what it was my intention to promise them. The Americans, by their subsequent behaviour, have not deserved any particular indulgence from this country." Upon this principle, many a mistaken policy has been persisted in, out of pure defiance of the excesses which that policy has provoked. "We will not be driven to repeal, by any threats held out to us," said the minister. He anticipated no larger revenue than 12,000Z. a year from the tea duties, but he would not give up the right to tax America which was asserted in the preamble of the Act imposing the duties. There was much discussion upon the particular point in dispute; but colonel Barré took a broad view of the whole question: "For three years we have seen nothing but the folly and absurdity of succeeding administrations. If the former erred, they had the sense of the nation with them; they acted * Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 342. + Note of Mr. Jared Sparkes, in his edition of Franklin's Works, 312 REPEAL OF DUTIES, EXCEPT THAT ON TEAS. [1770. upon a system. We are now proceeding upon no system at all: what we do carries nothing with it but monuments of our tyranny and folly. . . Why suffer these discontents to rankle in the minds of your American subjects? I suspect we are not safe behind this peace. With your colonies discontented, what would be your condition if a war should break out? Could you depend upon receiving their support? With their minds soured, they might, perhaps, go further: they might take you at an unlucky moment, and compel you to come into their terms." The proposition of lord North was carried by a majority of sixty-two. Franklin, writing to a friend in America, says of this result, "I think the repeal would have been carried, but that the ministry were persuaded by governor Bernard, and some lying letters, said to be from Boston, that the associations not to import were all breaking to pieces; that America was in the greatest distress for the want of the goods; that we could not possibly subsist any longer without them, and must, of course, submit to any terms Parliament should think fit to impose upon us. The ministerial people gave out, that certain advices were received of our beginning to break our agreements; of our attempts to manufacture proving all abortive, and ruining the undertakers; of our distress for want of goods, and dissensions among ourselves, which promised the total defeat of all such kind of combinations, and the prevention of them for the future, if the government were not urged imprudently to repeal the duties. But now that it appears, from late and authentic accounts, that agreements continue in full force, that a ship is actually returned from Boston to Bristol with nails and glass (articles that were thought of the utmost necessity), and that the ships, which were waiting here for the determination of Parliament, are actually returning to North America in their ballast, the tone begins to change." 1770.] ENCOUNTER WITH THE MILITARY AT BOSTON. 313 On the same day that the British Parliament was voting against the repeal of the tea-duties, the people of Boston were fighting with British soldiers in their streets. The story of this conflict has been related as if, as is generally the case, there were not egregious faults on both sides. "At the cry of innocent blood shed by the soldiery, the continent heaved like a troubled ocean," writes Mr. Bancroft.* There was a quarrel between a soldier and some workmen at a rope-walk. The soldier challenged one to fight in the good old English fashion of fisty-cuffs; was beaten; and came back with some of his companions for revenge. A general scuffle ensued, and the troops were driven to their barracks. Sunday intervened; but on Monday, the 5th of March, the troops, who had been stimulating each other, came forth in the evening, and offering some insults to the townsmen, there was a serious tumult. This was at length quieted. The more prudent of the citizens cried "Home, home;" but many boys remained, daring the soldiers, and calling them "lobsters." They at last surrounded a sentinel; and captain Preston, the captain of the day, ordered the main guard to turn out. The captain, a corporal, and six men marched to the rescue of the sentinel. They began to load; and then a party of the townsmen passed along the front of the soldiers, and struck their muskets with sticks. They dared the guard to fire, calling them "lobster scoundrels." One of the soldiers received a blow with a stick thrown at him, and he shot a mulatto. Two other persons were killed, and eight wounded. A warrant was issued against Preston, who surrendered himself, and the soldiers were committed to prison. With great good sense governor Hutchinson and the colonel in command removed all the troops from the town. The affray was called "a massacre." When Preston was tried for murder a few months afterwards, no counsel dared undertake his defence; till John Adams, a rising advocate, devoted to the popular cause, but more devoted to his duty, accepted a brief; and the jury returned a verdict of Not Guilty. The high-minded barrister became the President of the United States. Two of the soldiers were found Guilty of Manslaughter. On the 9th of May, Burke brought forward a motion for inquiry into the late disorders in America. On that occasion George Grenville made his last speech in Parliament, he dying in the following November. His concluding words, in giving his assent to Burke's motion, were solemn and prophetic: "If, by the neglect of his ministers, our beloved sovereign should leave his crown to his successor diminished and dishonoured, then, sir, let those who brought the misery upon us, rise up severally and say, 'I was the man who formed those incompetent plans; I was the man who advised this plan and that plan; I was the man to whom all these fatal consequences are owing.' When the American colonists came to know that the British Parliament had repealed all the duties laid by the Act of 1767, except that on tea, the spirit which had prompted the non-importation agreements was somewhat allayed. The citizens of New York determined by a large majority to resume importations from England; and many orders were despatched in July for every kind of merchandise but tea. Other provinces were indignant with the New Yorkists. Massachusetts maintained a position of sullen defiance. "American Revolution," vol. iii. p. 386. 314 RENEWAL OF THE CONFLICT REGARDING WILKES. [1770 The jurymen of Boston had manifested that in the discharge of their duty, in the trial of captain Preston and the soldiers, they were not to be influenced by popular clamour. The conduct of John Adams showed how high-minded were many of those opponents of an obstinate policy, who, in parliamentary language were usually called rebels. "The language we hold," said colonel Barré, "is little short of calling the Americans rebels: the language they hold is little short of calling us tyrants-rebels on one side, tyrants on the other." It was thus that the men of England and the men of America were mutually inflamed. Although, for two or three years, there was in America an apparent calm-a deceptive absence of violence which looked like peacethe time was rapidly approaching when the exhortation of Mr. Wedderburn, in 1770, before he became lord North's solicitor-general, would be looked upon as a prophecy: "How, sir, will it hereafter sound in the annals of the present reign, that all America-the fruit of so many years' settlement, nurtured by this country at the price of so much blood and treasure—was lost to the Crown of Great Britain in the reign of George III.?"* Whilst there is a lull in this trans-atlantic tempest, let us revert to our domestic affairspetty in their details, but very significant in their tendencies. The parliamentary conflict on the question of the Middlesex election was not likely to drop after the great debates on the Address at the opening of the Session of 1770. Mr. Sheriff Townsend, in his place in the House of Commons on the 7th of February, declared, upon going into a Committee of Ways and Means, that it was not his intention to pay the Land-tax. He would state the case as on the part of the freeholders of Middlesex. Their lawful representative, Mr. Wilkes, was kept out of the House by force and violence. Mr. Luttrell was not their representative. Lord North told the worthy sheriff that if any demand upon him was illegal, the law would relieve him. He refused to pay the tax; his goods were distrained; he brought an action against the collector; and lord Mansfield having charged the jury that the question was no other than whether there was a legislative power in this country, the jury found for the defendant. The declaration of Mr. Townsend was an indication of the prevailing temper of the citizens of London. On the 14th of March, the lord mayor and sheriffs, a few aldermen, and a great number of the common council, exercising the ancient right of the City to present addresses to the king in person, arrived, with an immense concourse of people at St. James's. The address, remonstrance, and petition offered on this occasion, prayed for the dissolution of Parliament, and the removal of evil ministers; spoke of "secret and malign influence" which had deprived the people of their dearest rights; and declared that the present House of Commons did not represent the people. The king's answer was "deemed by some to have been uncommonly harsh."+ His majesty said, "I shall always be ready to receive the requests, and to listen to the complaints, of my subjects: but it gives me great concern to find that any of them should have been so far misled, as to offer me an Address and Remonstrance, the contents of which I cannot but consider as disrespectful to me, injurious to my Parlia ment, and irreconcileable to the principles of the constitution." A debate |