The manner in which the repeal of the Stamp Act was received in America seemed to justify the measure. Although accompanied with the Declaratory Act, it was welcomed by many persons among the higher classes, of honest and upright mind, with great satisfaction. Washington declared that those who were instrumental in procuring the repeal were entitled to the thanks of all well-wishers to Great Britain and her colonies. There were fierce republican spirits, however, in New England, who viewed the Declaratory Act in the same light which they had viewed the Stamp Act; and as soon as the first burst of joy had subsided, this was made the subject of their declamation, and a stimulus to popular excitement. Public writers were employed to prevent a return of harmony between Great Britain and her colonies, and though addresses of thanks were voted by the assemblies to the king, this was but an evanescent show of gratitude. The same temper was found especially to prevail in the assembly of Massachusets against the Declaratory Act, as had been displayed against the Stamp Act, and the spirit of resistance soon spread to the other colonies. The right of legislative authority assumed by Great Britain over her colonies was loudly questioned, and bills were passed in the assemblies independently of the British parliament, and in defiance of our declared sovereign legislative right. One breach was therefore healed by the repeal of the Stamp Act, but another was opened by the scarcely less obnoxious act with which it was accompanied. A tree of liberty had been planted, and there was a universal disposition to preserve its leaves and its fruits from the touch of kingly and sovereign power.
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE ROCKINGHAM CABINET.
The seeds of the dissolution of the ministry, as before shown, were thickly scattered, and it was easy to foresee that the event was at no great distance. Its fall, however, might have been retarded for a little space, had it not been for the intrigues of the chancellor, Henry Earl of Northington. In order to discredit the cabinet, that nobleman started numerous difficulties on some legal points that were submitted to his judgment, and set on foot several intrigues, which accelerated its downfall. The first token of his defection appeared in the strong dissatisfaction which he exhibited on account of the commercial treaty with Russia, and it was soon after made more fully manifest in a meeting of ministers on the subject of the government of Canada. There appears to have been no good ground for his opposition, but Northington panted for retirement, and longed to serve his ancient friend Pitt; whence it pleased him to denounce a report drawn up and submitted to the council on this subject as theoretical, visionary, and unworthy of practical statesmen. The meeting broke up without coming to any conclusion, and before another could be convened, Northington demanded an audience of the king; resigned under the pretence that the present ministry was unable to carry on the government; and recommended that his majesty should call Pitt into his councils. In consequence of this, Pitt received the personal commands of his majesty to form a new administration, offering him a carte blanche for its formation.
Hitherto Pitt had manifested great patriotism, having served his country, apparently, for the love of it alone. That he was ambitious, however, he now proved. In reply to his majesty’s commands he spoke of his infirmities, and—although he was only fifty-eight years old—of his great age. Under these circumstances he proposed taking to himself not the premiership, with the direction of the house of commons, but the office of privy-seal, which implied his exaltation to the peerage. The king and the country alike stared with astonishment at this proposition, but his views were not thwarted, and he proceeded to form his own cabinet. Negociations failed with Lord Temple, the Marquess of Rockingham, Lord Gower, Mr. Dowdeswell, and Lord Scarborough. In the midst of them, however, Pitt received an autograph note from his majesty, announcing his creation as Earl of Chatham, and thus stimulated, he proceeded in his task. On the 2nd of August the members of the new cabinet were formally announced in the Gazette. Pitt, as Earl of Chatham, took the office of privy-seal; Lord Camden was made chancellor; the Earl of Shelburne was appointed one of the secretaries of state; General Conway continued in office as the other; the Duke of Grafton was made first lord of the treasury; Charles Townshend became chancellor of the exchequer; Sir Charles Saunders succeeded to the admiralty; and the Earl of Hillsborough was nominated first lord of trade. Several changes were also made in the subordinate places of the treasury and the admiralty boards, and the strange medley, which soon became more mixed and various, has been thus described by Burke:—“He [Lord Chatham] made an administration so chequered and speckled; he put together a piece of joinery so crossly indented and whimsically dovetailed; a cabinet so variously inlaid; such a piece of diversified mosaic; such a tesselated pavement without cement; here a bit of black stone, and there a bit of white; patriots and courtiers; king’s friends and republicans; Whigs and Tories; treacherous friends and open enemies; that it was indeed a very curious show, but utterly unsafe to touch, and unsure to stand on. The colleagues whom he had assorted at the same boards stared at each other, and were obliged to ask, Sir, your name? Sir, you have the advantage of me. Mr. Such-a-one, I beg a thousand pardons. I venture to say it did so happen, that persons had a single office divided between them, who had never spoken to each other in their lives, until they found themselves, they knew not how, pigging together, heads and points, in the same truckle bed.”
DECLINE OF LORD CHATHAM’S POPULARITY.
Lord Chesterfield characterised the exaltation of Pitt to an earldom as “a fall up stairs”—a fall which hurt him so much, that he would never be able to stand upright again. By his acceptance of a coronet, in truth, he greatly diminished his popularity. Burke undermined his influence in the city by two clever publications: in the first of these he gave an account of the late short administration, and in the second he gave a humorous and ironical reply to it, in which the disingenuous conduct of their successors was ably exposed. The wit of Chesterfield ably seconded the pen of Burke; and the Earl of Chatham soon found that though he was dignified by the king, he had shorn himself of all his honours in the sight of the people. The influence which the Earl of Bute was supposed to have had over him tended still more to blight his fair fame. He was taunted with being a willing agent of men whom he did not esteem, and his acceptance of a peerage was a never-failing source of invective. Moreover, in his negociations with his brother-in-law, Lord Temple, he had quarrelled with that nobleman, and all its disparaging circumstances were freely discussed to his lasting disadvantage.. A shower of pamphlets appealed against him, and the city of London, where his influence had recently reigned paramount, mortified him, by declining repeated proposals of presenting him with an address on his appointment. Men saw in him no longer the unblemished patriot, but looked upon him as a cringing slave to royalty for place and power. In their displeasure they may have judged too harshly, but it is certain, as Lord Chesterfield observed, that he was no longer Mr. Pitt in any respect, but only the Earl of Chatham. The charms of his eloquence were lost for ever, for when the people can place no confidence in their rulers, the finest oratory is but an empty sound.
It happened unfortunately for the Earl of Chatham’s popularity, that owing to a deficiency in the harvest of last year great scarcity prevailed, and as distress existed on the continent. The people, always disposed to look upon the dark side of the picture, apprehended that the country would be involved in all the horrors of famine. The price of provisions greatly increased, and in consequence tumultuous riots occurred in various parts of the kingdom, in which many lives were lost. Some of the rioters were captured, and special commissions were sent into the country to try them, and, in many instances, they were brought to condign punishment. A proclamation was issued for enforcing the law against forestallers and regraters, but as the price of all articles rose, and the city of London made a representation to the throne respecting large orders for wheat which had been received from the continent, another was issued prohibiting its exportation. At the same time an embargo was laid by royal authority on all outward-bound vessels laden with corn.
It was not in England alone that the waning influence of the Earl of Chatham became manifest. One of his first diplomatic attempts was to establish a powerful northern confederacy, principally between England, Prussia, and Russia, in order to counterbalance the formidable alliance framed by the Bourbons in their family compact. The king of Prussia, however, was averse to the formation of any new and stricter connexions with England, as well on account of the usage he had met with during the late war, as of the unsettled state of the government of Great Britain since the peace. “Till he saw,” he said, “more stability in our administration, he did not choose to draw his connexions with us closer,” and the negociations was therefore dropped.