He declared that a proper resistance to wrong was revolution, and not rebellion, and intimated that if the Americans were successful, they might, in after times, celebrate the revolution of 1775 as the English did that of 1688. Earnest recommendations to pursue milder measures were offered by the opposition, but without effect. It was voted that two thousand additional sea men and one thousand four hundred soldiers should be sent to America.
A few days afterward Lord North brought February 10, 1775 forth another bill, providing for the destruction of the entire trade of the New England colonies, and of their fisheries. ** It had a clause, excepting those individuals from the curse who should produce a certificate from their respective governors testifying to their general good conduct, and who should acknowledge the supremacy of the British Parliament. In addition to the opposition which the bill received in the Commons, the merchants of London presented an earnest remonstrance against it, *** and so did the Quakers in behalf of their brethren in Nantucket, but without effect. It passed by a majority of one hundred and eighty to fifty-eight. Fresh intelligence from America, represent-March 8, adhesion to the Continental Congress, arrived at this juncture, and another bill was speedily passed, in the form of an amendment, including all the colonies in the Restraining Act, except New York and North Carolina, where loyalty seemed to predominate.
While the Restraining Act was under consideration, North astonished all parties by offering what he pretended to be a conciliatory bill. It proposed that when the proper authorities, in any colony, should offer, besides maintaining its own civil government, to raise
* This fearless political writer was born in 1727. He became a member of Parliament in 1757. In the forty-fifth number of the "North Briton," published in 1763, he made a severe attack on government, for which he was sent to the Tower. On account of a licentious essay on woman he was afterward expelled from the House of Commons. Acquitted of the charge for which he was committed to the Tower, he prosecuted Mr. Wood, the Under Secretary, received five thousand dollars damages, and then went to Paris. He returned to England in 1768, sent a letter of submission to the king, and was soon afterward elected to a seat in Parliament for Middlesex. The seat was successfully contested by another. He was then elected alderman of London, and the same year obtained a verdict of twenty thousand dollars against the Secretary of State for seizing his papers. He was sheriff in 1771, and in 1774 was elected lord mayor, and took his seat in Parliament for Middlesex. He was made Chamberlain of London in 1779, and soon afterward retired from the field of party polities. He died at his scat in the Isle of Wight in 1797, aged seventy years. The likeness here given is copied from a medal struck in his honor. The obverse side has a pyramid upon a pedestal, beside which stands a figure of Time inscribing upon the pyramid the number 45. On the pedestal are the words Magna Charta, and beneath, In memory of the year MDCCLXVIII. Wilkes had a most forbidding countenance, but his manners were pleasing. In his private character he was licentious, yet his talents and energy employed upon the popular side made him the idol of the people.
** According to testimony produced in Parliament, about 400 ships, 2000 fishing shallops, and 20,000 men were thus employed in the British Newfoundland fisheries.
*** The people of New England were, at that time, indebted to the merchants of London nearly five million dollars. With the destruction of the trade of the colonists, all hope of collecting even a small share of this sum would be lost.
Singular Position of Lord North.—His Triumph.—Action of the London Merchants.—The moral Spectacle in the Colony
a certain revenue and place it at the disposition of Parliament, it would be proper to forbear imposing any tax, except for the regulation of commerce. The ministerial party opposed it because it was conciliatory, and the opposition were dissatisfied with it because it proposed to abate but a single grievance, and was not specific. To his great astonishment, the minister found himself in the midst of a cross-fire from both parties; yet he stood his ground well, and adroitly carried the proposition through. Although he acknowledged that it was really a cheat with a fair exterior of honesty, and intended to sow division in the councils of the colonies, heedless members of Parliament gave it support, and the bill was passed by a vote of two hundred and seventy-four to eighty-eight
On the heel of this bill Burke proposed a conciliatory plan, and five days afterward Mr. Hartley offered a mild scheme, similar to Chatham's; but they were March 22 negatived by large majorities. The "lord mayor, aldermen, and livery of London," urged by the merchants, who were smarting under the effects of the lash applied to the Americans, addressed the king in condemnation of the late measures toward the colonies. April 10, 1775 They were sternly rebuked by his majesty, who expressed his astonishment that any of his subjects presumed to be abettors of the rebels. It was obvious that
"King, Commons, and Lords were uniting amain