time, he irritated the colonies by trying to put a stop to the practice of trading with the Spanish settlements, in which our colonists had long indulged to the great annoyance of the Spaniards. The news of these measures caused great excitement in America, and no less than six of the thirteen colonies protested against The Stamp Act the Stamp Act; but in spite of this the act was passed. passed. By the Stamp Act the government was able to levy a tax on all such transactions as giving receipts, cashing cheques, and leaving money by will. This is done by means of a stamp which is bought from the government and attached to the document, without which the transaction is illegal. This was the first attempt of the government to levy an inland revenue as distinct from customs. The colonists met this law by obstinately refusing to use the stamped paper.

The Rockingham administration..

Things were in this state when Grenville left office in 1765. He had never been a favourite at court, as his long speeches bored the king, and George soon made an excuse for dismissing him. The king then applied, through his uncle the Duke of Cumberland, to Pitt; but the negotiations broke down. The duke next addressed the Marquess of Rockingham, and he and his friends. agreed to form a government. As, however, they were opposed by the other sections of the Whigs, and had to rely for support on the king's friends, they were necessarily very weak. Under these circumstances the Rockingham Whigs only held office for a year; but during that time they repealed the Stamp Act, and also passed a resolution declaring general warrants to be illegal. While repealing the Stamp Act, however, they were careful to pass an act stating that England has authority over the colonies both in legislation and taxation. The repeal of the Stamp Act was mainly carried through the efforts of Edmund Burke, the wisest statesman of his time, in whom Rockingham had great confidence, and of Pitt, who made a magnificent speech, in which he pointed out that the trade of America was worth £3,000,000 a year to England, and that we were risking this sum for a miserable pittance. In spite, however, of the support which he gave to the government in this case, Pitt was no good friend to Rock- Pitt's coalition. ingham. Like the king, Pitt was no admirer of party

government in the strict sense of the term; but always advocated,

Pitt becomes

and retires into private life.

as the Patriots had done in the time of Walpole, the formation of a government which should include all sections of opinion. The Rockingham party was so small, that Pitt now saw his chance of effecting a coalition against it, and so in 1766 he united with the king to turn out Rockingham. A strong government was then formed under the Duke of Grafton, one of Rockingham's Secretaries of State, as nominal head, and Pitt himself took the office of Lord Privy Seal, and went to the House of Lords as Earl of Chatham. Great things were hoped from this administration, but it was unlucky from the first, and in the end turned out a complete failure. Pitt's removal to the Upper House was a mistake. It weakened his power, as he could no longer sway the House of Commons by his eloquence, and it lost him his title of the "Great Lord Chatham, Commoner," in which he had gloried, and deprived him of some of his reputation for disinterestedness. Worse than that, he had hardly assumed power when he fell ill. How ill he was will never be known, but he first refused to see his colleagues, and then to answer letters, and finally retired to Bath, and took no share in public business. Left thus without a head-for Grafton had neither influence nor ability-the ministry had no fixed policy, and soon fell into complete disorder. In the teeth of Pitt's declaration, Charles Townshend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, put a number of smali customs duties on American imports, the total produce of which taxes was only estimated at £40,000. This action revived the irritation which had been appeased by the repeal of the Stamp Act, and as the government was still insisting upon the scheme of stopping smuggling, ill feeling reached a high pitch. Soon after passing this measure Townshend died, and was succeeded by Lord North. Shortly afterwards Lord Chatham recovered, but his first act was to resign his post.

Taxes on American imports.

Wilkes

sex.

In England the ministry went equally wrong. In 1768 there was a general election, and Wilkes was elected by the county of MiddleThe king was determined that he should not re-elected. ' take his seat, and the government, under his influence, ordered Wilkes to be arrested as an outlaw for his former libels. Riots so violent followed that in London alone twenty people were killed by the soldiers, and Wilkes became the hero of the mob, who

at this time were thoroughly discontented with the state of affairs. The fact was that George's scheme was beginning to bear its fruits. He had now successfully wrested the government from the hands of the Whig leaders, and had got a ministry which would do what he wished; but unfortunately he had not the ability to be a successful despot, and the more personal power he had the more things went wrong. The government, under his guidance, became thoroughly unpopular, as was shown by the publication in 1769 of the first of "The letters of Junius," which appeared in the "The Letters Public Advertiser. The real name of their author was never ascertained, though it is now generally thought that they were written by Sir Philip Francis, then a clerk in one of the government offices. They attacked the government in coarse and violent language, but with biting sarcasm and admirable skill, and they were read all over the country.

of Junius."

the House.

declared the election void, and Again Wilkes was re-elected, and

Again

Not satisfied, however, with preventing Wilkes from taking his seat, the Commons, under the lead of the king's friends, actually tried him for a new libel, expelled him from the Wilkes House, and ordered a new election for Middlesex. expelled from Of course Wilkes was re-elected; but the Commons held him incapable of sitting, ordered a new one to be held. then at the fourth contest the Commons actually declared that his opponent, Colonel Luttrell, had been re-elected. chosen, though he had only gained 296 votes to 1143 given.to Wilkes. This concluded the contest for the moment, but the attacks which poured in upon Grafton from all sides were so violent that he retired, and his place was taken by his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord North, a man of great administrative ability and an excellent debater, but wholly under the becomes Prime king's influence. George had, in fact, succeeded in reducing the government to the ideal at which he had aimed, while the clever use he had made of the crown influence had gained him such a following in the House that his opponents were almost powerless. It was evident by this time, from the reception of "Junius' Letters,” that the House of Commons had become very un- Publication of popular, and the Commons were, therefore, more than

Lord North

Minister.

debates.

ever jealous of any publication of their debates, which had been

distinctly declared to be a breach of privilege in 1728. In spite of this declaration the debates had been surreptitiously reported under false names, under the title, for instance, of "Debates in the Parliament of Lilliput," a name taken from "Gulliver's Travels." Of late, however, this disguise had been thrown off, and in 1771 the Commons made a vigorous attempt to prevent the practice, by ordering the arrest of one of the printers. The man was a liveryman of London, and denied the authority of the House, and he was backed by the authorities of the city, who arrested the messenger of the Commons and brought him before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, one of whom was Wilkes. By them the printer's quarrel was taken up, and the Commons were foiled. Since that time the publication of debates, though still asserted to be a breach of privilege, has gone on with only occasional interruptions.

Attempt to

Repressive

measures against the American

The first act of the new ministry was an attempt to conciliate the colonies by withdrawing all the customs duties except that on tea, which was retained in order to show the right of conciliate the Parliament to tax the colonies. This might have colonies. satisfied the colonists at first, but their views were now enlarged, and it was the principle, and not the money, that they now cared about. In 1773 Lord North passed an act which altered the government of India, and, to help the East India Company, he allowed it to bring certain tea, duty free, into England, and to export it to America, subject only to the small duty enforced there. However, when the tea-ships reached Boston, they were boarded by a body of colonists disguised as Indians, and the tea was flung into the water. This lawless act roused the government to vigorous action, and to punish the people of Massachusetts, of which Boston was the capital, two acts were passed, by the first of which the Constitution of Massachusetts was annulled, and the colony put under the absolute power of the crown; by the second the custom-house was taken to New Salem, which was much the same as removing the trade of Liverpool to Preston, or that of London to Gravesend. The object was to ruin the Boston merchants by preventing goods being landed there. This action brought matters to a crisis, for all men who understood colonial feeling knew that the colonists would rather fight than submit. Unfortu

colonists.

nately, the mass of Englishmen were profoundly ignorant of the colonies. There had for a long time been little emigration from England to America; there was very little passing to and fro, for in those days the voyage took six weeks; and Parliament refused to pay attention to the warnings of Chatham and Burke, the only statesmen who were really competent to advise in the matter.

The colonies

England.

After these repressive measures had been passed, the other colonies came to the assistance of Massachusetts, and a Congress was summoned at Philadelphia which was attended by representatives from all the states but Georgia, which unite against had only been founded in 1732. One of the leaders of Congress was George Washington, who had distinguished himself in the old war against the French. He said he would himself raise a thousand men to help the men of Boston. Meanwhile the Massachusetts assembly, instead of dispersing, as ordered by the governor, had kept together, and withdrawn to Concord, where it began to raise troops and to collect supplies. In 1775 an attempt to seize these led to the first fighting at Lexington, and in it the colonists, who were excellent irregular soldiers, got the advantage, and soon afterwards seized Bunker's Hill, which was so situated that it commanded Boston. From this they were expelled by the British, but at a great sacrifice of life, and then the war began in real earnest.

The three groups of colonies.

The colonies were divided into three groups—the northern or New England colonies comprising Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire, which were in origin Puritan; the central, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, lay near the Hudson and Delaware rivers, on territory much of which had originally been Dutch, but had been settled by English colonists since 1664; and the southern, Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, which were slave-holding states. The first danger the English had to fear was a general rising of their American states; but an invasion of Canada by the colonists proved a failure, for such fair laws had been given to the French settlers that they remained true to their allegiance.

This danger being averted, the English applied themselves to the conquest of the New England states; but in this Declaration of they failed, for George Washington, who had been Independence.