wisdom and constitutional authority of this House. It is to your ancestors, my lords, it is to the English barons, that we are indebted for the laws and Constitution we possess. Their virtues were rude and uncultivated, but they were great and sincere. Their understandings were as little polished as their manners, but they had hearts to distinguish right from wrong; they had heads to distinguish truth from falsehood; they understood the rights of humanity, and they had spirit to maintain them. My lords, I think that history has not done justice to their conduct, when they obtained from their sovereign that great acknowledgment of national rights contained in Magna Charta: they did not confine it to themselves alone, but delivered it as a common blessing to the -whole people. They did not say, these are the rights of the great -barons, or these are the rights of the great prelates. No, my lords, they said, in the simple Latin of the times, nullus liber homo' [no free man], and provided as carefully for the meanest subject as for the greatest. These are uncouth words, and sound but poorly in the ears of scholars, neither are they addressed to the criticism of scholars, but to the hearts of free men. These three words, nullus liber homo,' have a meaning which interests us all. They deserve to be remembered, they deserve to be inculcated in our minds, they are worth all the classics. Let us not, then, degenerate from the glorious example of our ancestors. Those iron barons (for so I may call them when compared with silken barons of modern days) were the guardians of the people ; yet their virtues, my lords, were never engaged in a question of such importance as the present. A breach has been made in the Constitution,-the battlements are dismantled,—the citadel is open to the first invader, the walls totter,-the Constitution is not tenable. What remains, then, but for us to stand forward in the breach, and repair it, or perish in it?"

That memorable debate of the Peers on the 9th of January was closed by an event which was not unexpected, but which form. ed a striking exception to the ordinary course of the actions of great statesmen. It is clear from the Chatham Correspondence that the Lord Chancellor Camden, and the marquis of Granby, were to a certain extent under the influence of Chatham. His confidential correspondent, Mr. John Calcraft, writes to him on the 28th of November, to beg " that they may be put on their guard" not to attend a particular council. "Fearing neither of our friends are the best politicians, I cannot help harbouring doubts but they may get entangled at this council, for no pains will be spared." Camden, Granby, and Conway, as well as Grafton, in the spring of 1769, held to the necessity of not attempting any taxation of

LORD CAMDEN DISCLAIMS THEIR MEASURES.

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America, by import duties. They were overruled. Grafton re mained in power, and Camden and Granby did not quit their employments. The schism in the cabinet was made more serious by the question of Wilkes. After Chatham's speech on the 9th of January, Camden rose from the woolsack, and thus threw off al· restraint :" I accepted the great seal without conditions; I meant not, therefore, to be trammelled by his majesty-I beg pardon, by his ministers—but I have suffered myself to be so too long. For some time I have beheld with silent indignation the arbitrary measures of the minister. I have often drooped and hung down my head in council, and disapproved by my looks those steps which I knew my avowed opposition could not prevent. I will do so no longer, but openly and boldly speak my sentiments. I now proclaim to the world that I entirely coincide in the opinion expressed' by my noble friend-whose presence again reanimates us--respecting this unconstitutional vote of the House of Commons. If, in giving my opinion as a judge, I were to pay any respect to that vote, I should look upon myself as a traitor to my trust, and an enemy to my country. By their violent and tyrannical conduct, ministers have alienated the minds of the people from his majesty's government-I have almost said from his majesty's person-insomuch, that if some measures are not devised to appease the clamours so universally prevalent, I know not, my lords, whether the people, in despair, may not become their own avengers, and take the redress of grievances into their own hands."

In the House of Commons, the marquis of Granby voted for the amendment which had been proposed in opposition to the government. The Lord Chancellor, and the Commander-in-Chief, were thus in open hostility with the other members of the Cabinet. Such an anomalous state could not long endure. Chatham, Temple, and their friends, were waiting the issue with extreme solici tude. Granby had been earnestly entreated to retain his command of the army in spite of his vote. "The king, it seems, and the duke of Grafton are upon their knees to lord Granby not to resign," writes Temple to Chatham.*. Chatham grieves that twenty-four hours' respite has been granted to a minister's entreaties. † He was at last set at rest by Granby's resignation. But he regrets that the Chancellor had dragged the great seal for an hour at the heels of a desperate minister. His high office had been offered to Mr. Charles Yorke, the son of the lord 'chancellor Hardwicke. It was a prize he had long coveted; but to accept it would be to desert his party. He declined. Three days after he went to the levée at St. James's; and, at the earnest entreaties of the king, he ♦“Chatham Correspondence,” vok. ñï.p./391. · ` '† Ibid., p. 392. + Ibid., p. 398.

kissed the royal hand as Chancellor. Camden was dismissed. Yorke, borne down by agitation of mind, died, as was supposed by his own hand, on the 20th of January. On the 22nd there came on another great debate in the House of Lords on the State of the Nation, in which Chatham announced his cordial union with the party of Rockingham. It was on this occasion that Chatham recommended a specific plan of Parliamentary Reform. "The boroughs of this country have properly enough been called the rotten parts of the Constitution. But in my judgment, my lords, these boroughs, corrupt as they are, must be considered as the natural infirmity of the Constitution. Like the infirmities of the body, we must bear them with patience, and submit to carry them about with us. The limb is mortified, but the amputation might be death. Let us try, my lords, whether some gentler remedies may not be discovered. Since we cannot cure the disorder, let us endeavour to infuse such a portion of new health into the Constitution as may enable it to support its most inveterate diseases. The representation of the counties is, I think, still preserved pure and uncorrupted. That of the greatest cities is upon a footing equally respectable; and there are many of the larger trading towns which still preserve their independence. The infusion of health which I now allude to would be to permit every county to elect one member more, in addition to their present representation. The knights of the shires approach nearest to the constitutional representation of the country, because they represent the soil. It is not in the little dependent boroughs, it is in the great cities and counties, that the strength and vigour of the Constitution resides; and by them alone, if an unhappy question should ever arise, will the Constitution be honestly and firmly defended. It would increase that strength, because I think it is the only security we have against the profligacy of the times, the corruption of the people, and the ambition of the crown."

The continued debate on the State of the Nation was deferred till the 2nd of February. On the 28th of January, the duke of Grafton resigned. The king was not unprepared for this event. On the 23rd of January he thus wrote to lord North: "Lord Weymouth and lord Gower will wait upon you this morning to press you in the strongest manner to accept the office of First Lord Commissioner of the Treasury. My mind is more and more strengthened in the rightness of the measure, which would prevent every other desertion. You must easily see that if you do not accept, I have no peer at present that I would consent to place in the duke of Grafton's employment." "The rightness of the meas ure" was to be tested by twelve years of national calamity.

LORD, NORTH S ADMINISTRATION.

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1

CHAPTER VII.

Lord North's Administration.-Retrospect of Colonial affairs.-Opposition to the Revenue Act.-Debates in Parliament on American proceedings.-Measures of coercion proposed.-Lord Hillsborough.-Virginia.-Outrages in Boston.--Repeal of duties, except that on teas.-Encounter with the military at Boston.-Renewal of the confict regarding Wilkes.-Remonstrance of the City of London.-Beckford's Address to the King.--Printers arrested for publishing Debates. Released by the City authorities. Riots.-The Lord Mayor and an Alderman committed. Officers of State.

THE domestic agitations during the period of the duke of Grafton's ministry required to be given in an unbroken narrative. We now take up the more truly important relation of those events in the North American Colonies, and of the mode in which they were dealt with by the imperial government. These facts form the prologue to the tragedy of the American Revolution.

1

In 1768 a third Secretary of State was appointed. The office of Secretary of State for Scotland had been abolished; but now a new place was created for the earl of Hillsborough-the Secretaryship of the Colonies. It was a position of authority which demanded a rare union of firmness and moderation. But the Secretary was a member of a cabinet divided in judgment on the great question of American taxation; and lord Hillsborough was of the party of the duke of Bedford, who held opinions on that subject, not exactly in consonance with that championship of our free constitution which has been claimed for him.* Hillsborough had to deal with colonial subjects of the British Crown, whose indignation at the Stamp Act had been revived by Charles Townshend's fatal measure for granting duties in America on glass, red and white lead, painter's colours, paper, and tea. These duties were not to be collected until the 20th of November, 1767. That day passed over in quiet in Boston; but the inhabitants had previously assembled, and had entered into resolutions to forbear the use of many articles of British produce or manufacture. The principle of resistance to the Revenue Act of 1767 was declared in a work largely circulated, entitled " Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania." The author was John Dickinson. Franklin republished these letters in London, although they were opposed to his earlier

See ante.

opinion that external taxation,-import duties-were essentially less obnoxious than internal taxation—a Stamp Act. In February, 1768, the Assembly of Massachusetts, between which body and the governor, Francis Bernard, there had been serious disputes, addressed a circular letter to the other provinces, inviting them to unite in opposing the act for raising a revenue in the colonies. When the intelligence of this circular reached London, Hillsborough wrote to Bernard directing him to require, in the king's name, the House of Representatives in Massachusetts to rescind the resolution which produced the circular letter from their Speaker; and if they refused, immediately to dissolve them. The governors of the other colonies were ordered to pursue a similar course, if the assemblies gave any countenance to the "seditious paper,” of Massachusetts. The dissolution of the Assembly of that state took place on the 1st of July, 1768, on its refusal, by a very large majority, to rescind the resolution. At that time there was a great ferment in Boston, occasioned by the seizure of a sloop laden with wine from Madeira, which had been attempted to be landed without paying duty. The new Commissioners of Customs directed the seizure; but a riot ensuing, they fled in terror to a fortress at the mouth of the harbour. It was now ascertained, from a letter written by Hillsborough to Bernard at the very time that this riot was taking place, that troops were, ordered to be sent from Halifax to Boston. Some of the more violent inhabitants proposed to arm; others requested the governor to call together another Assembly, He refused to do so. The bold step was then taken by the popular leaders of summoning a Convention to meet at Boston. Elections took place; and committee men, as they were termed, from ninetyfive towns or districts held sittings in a building belonging to the people of Boston, known as Faneuil Hall. The Convention sat only six days. The governor had remonstrated against this body of delegates attempting to transact the public business, and warned them of the penal consequences which they might incur if they did not separate. They protested, however, against taxation of the Colonies by the British Parliament, and against a standing army. They addressed a petition to the king. They recommended to all the preservation of good order. On the 28th of September, a squadron arrived from Halifax; conveying a large body of troops with artillery. Other troops continued to arrive; and four regis ments were encamped near the city, or found their lodging in any public building. It was illegal to quarter them on the inhabitants: There was quiet; but the spirit of resistance was not thus to be extinguished. That spirit was not. confined to Massachusetts;