reduced us to this state, in which we can neither give up the cause without a certainty of ruin, nor maintain it without such a struggle as must shake the empire? ... If we look for their motives, we shall find them such as An attack on weak and interested men usually act upon. They were weak the ministry enough to hope that the crisis of Great Britain and America would be reserved for their successors in office, and they were determined to hazard even the ruin of their country rather than furnish the man whom they feared and hated with the melancholy triumph of having truly foretold the consequences of their own misconduct. But this, such as it is, the triumph of a heart that bleeds at every vein, they cannot deprive him of. They dreaded the acknowledgment of his superiority over them, and the loss of their own authority and credit, more than the rebellion of near half the empire against the supreme legislature. On this patriotic principle they exerted their utmost efforts to defer the decision of this great national cause till the last possible moment. The timidity, weakness, and distraction of government at home gave spirits, strength, and union to the colonies. IV. THE STRUGGLE WITH THE AMERICAN COLONIES When the troubles with the American colonies over the enforcement of the Stamp Act arose, William Pitt, who had been in retirement since 1761, returned to parliament and made the following address in the House of Commons. He advocated practical reconciliation, while asserting a general abstract right possessed by parliament to exercise control over the colonies. Gentlemen: Sir, I have been charged with giving birth to sedition in America. They have spoken their sentiments with freedom against this unhappy act, and that freedom has become their crime. Sorry I am to hear the liberty of speech in this House imputed as a crime. But the imputation shall not discourage 381. A speech Pitt (January 14, 1766) An answer to George Gren ville, prime minister Pitt's advice me. It is a liberty I mean to exercise. No gentleman ought to be afraid to exercise it. It is a liberty by which the gentleman who calumniates it might have profited. He ought to have desisted from his project. The gentleman tells us America is obstinate; America is almost in open rebellion. I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest. I come not here armed at all points, with law cases and acts of parliament, with the statute book doubled down in dog'sears, to defend the cause of liberty; if I had, I myself would have cited the two cases of Chester and Durham. I would have cited them to have shown that, even under former arbitrary reigns, parliaments were ashamed of taxing a people without their consent, and allowed them representatives. I am no courtier of America. I stand up for this kingdom. I maintain that the parliament has the right to bind, to restrain America. Our legislative power over the colonies is sovereign and supreme. When it ceases to be sovereign and supreme, I would advise every gentleman to sell his lands, if he can, and embark for that country. When two countries are connected together, like England and her colonies, without being incorporated, the one must necessarily govern; the greater must rule the less; but so rule it as not to contradict the fundamental principles that are common to both. . . . The Americans have not acted in all things with prudence and temper. The Americans have been wronged. They have been driven to madness by injustice. Will you punish them for the madness you have occasioned? Rather let prudence and temper come first from this side. I will undertake for America that she will follow the example. There are two lines in a ballad of Prior's, of a man's behaviour to his wife, so applicable to you and your colonies that I cannot help repeating them : "Be to her faults a little blind: Be to her virtues very kind." Upon the whole, I will beg leave to tell the House what is really my opinion. It is, that the Stamp Act be repealed absolutely, totally, and immediately. That the reason for the repeal be assigned, because it was founded on an erroneous principle. At the same time let the sovereign authority of this country over the colonies be asserted in as strong terms as can be devised, and be made to extend to every point of legislation whatsoever; that we may bind their trade, confine their manufactures, and exercise every power whatsoever, except that of taking their money out of their pockets without their consent. After considerable delay parliament took the very action that Chatham had advised. They repealed the act taxing the colonies, but at the same time passed the following "declaratory act," asserting that they had the right and power to pass laws controlling the American colonies if they wished to do so. An act for the better securing the dependency of his Majesty's colonies and plantations in America upon the crown and parliament of Great Britain. Whereas several of the houses of representatives in his Majesty's colonies and plantations in America have of late, against law, claimed to themselves, or to the general assemblies of the same, the sole and exclusive right of imposing duties and taxes upon his Majesty's subjects in the said colonies and plantations; and have, in pursuance of such claim, passed certain votes, resolutions, and orders, derogatory to the legislative authority of parliament, and inconsistent with the dependency of the said colonies and plantations upon the crown of Great Britain: . . . be it declared . . ., That the said colonies and plantations in America have been, are, and of right ought to be, subordinate unto and dependent upon the imperial crown and parliament of Great Britain; and that the king's Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal and commons of Great Britain, in parliament assembled, had, hath, and of right ought to have, full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America, subjects of the crown of Great Britain, in all cases whatsoever. 382. The declaratory act of March 18, 1766 383. Speech of Townshend in the House of Commons (May 13, 1767) And be it further declared . . . that all resolutions, votes, orders, and proceedings in any of the said colonies or plantations, whereby the power and authority of the parliament of Great Britain to make laws and statutes as aforesaid is denied or drawn into question, are, and are hereby declared to be, utterly null and void to all intents and purposes whatsoever. The growing anger of the ministry and parliament, roused by the opposition of the colonies, can be gathered from the following contemporary account of the speech of Townshend in introducing the new taxes in 1767. On the 13th of May came on at last the great American questions. Charles Townshend had already hinted, when he opened the budget, at new taxes which he proposed to lay on the colonies. He now opened them; and very inadequate indeed did they prove, even in calculation, to the loss of a shilling in the pound on land, part of which deficiency they were intended to supply. Being so inconsiderable, and estimated by himself as likely to produce but from £35,000 to £40,000 a year, the House too lightly adopted his plan before it had been well weighed, and the fatal consequences of which did not break out till six years after. A concurrent cause weighed with many, and added weight to the arguments of more, for inflicting a kind of punishment on the refractory colonies, some of which had stubbornly refused to comply with the late act enjoining them to make provision for the army, with other parliamentary injunctions. Massachusetts Massachusetts Bay had, as I have said, taken upon themselves to execute the act in their own names, and on their own sole authority. This deed Townshend said the Privy Council had advised his Majesty to annul. That colony contained a set of men disposed to inflame all the rest. He stated fully, clearly, and with both authority and moderation those several topics; and concluded, he said, that many would think he proposed too little, others too much. The Mutiny Bill had been opposed Pennsylvania almost everywhere, but Pennsylvania and some few colonies had executed all our orders. He wished he could name any more instances. New Jersey had avoided the act by appoint- New Jersey ing commissioners, with injunctions to act according to the custom of the provinces. New York was so opulent that he thought they ought to be New York kept in dependence. General Gage, accordingly, was sending troops thither. Yet did the New Yorkists commend themselves and boast that they could not remember the time when they had refused aid to Britain. They had resolved that if they should grant the present demand it might exceed all their abilities. This was an extraordinary excuse. More contemptuously still, they promised aid on the requisition of the crown, but said nothing of parliament. Were these, he asked, the descendants of those men who had fled from prerogative to America? Yet even this gracious compliance they held themselves at liberty to refuse, if not in proportion to the other provinces, if unreasonable, nay, if inconvenient. They would insist, too, on his Majesty's repaying what they should furnish to his troops, when he should think proper. He would not read, he said, the letters to their governor, Sir Henry More, as too inflammatory. To comply, they alleged, would be very serious; yet desired Sir Henry to represent their obedience favourably. The Massachusetts termed our acts our ordinances, and Parliament its sovereignty asserted their own rights of taxation. Many they had dis- must assert countenanced and frightened from their assembly. Governor over the Bernard, he believed, was a little heated against them; yet colonies the facts which he charged on them were true. In general, it did not become parliament to engage in controversy with its colonies, but by one act to assert its sovereignty. He warned the House to beware lest the provinces engaged in a common cause. Our right of taxation was indubitable; yet himself had been for repealing the Stamp Act to prevent mischief. Should their disobedience return, the authority of parliament had been weakened, and, unless supported with spirit and dignity, must be destroyed. The salaries of governors and judges in that part of the world must be made independent of their assemblies; but he advised the House to confine their resolutions to the offending provinces. Pennsylvania was an answer |