Thus encouraged, the Bostonians became more bold in their opposition to government. The assembly being called together in May, 1769, a committee from the house of representatives remonstrated with the governor, complaining of an armament investing their city—of the military guard—of cannon pointed at the door of their state-house—and requesting him, as his majesty’s representative, to order the removal of the ships and the troops. The answer they received was, that he had no authority over his majesty’s ships, or over his troops, within the town of Boston. A few days after the house declared that the use of a military force in the execution of the laws was inconsistent with the spirit of the constitution, and that they would not transact any business while thus menaced by soldiers. In order to obviate this objection to business, the governor adjourned the assembly to Cambridge, a town separated from Boston by a narrow arm of the sea, but they were not more disposed for business at Cambridge than at Boston. The only vote passed by them was to this effect:—“That the establishment of a standing army in this colony in time of peace is an invasion of natural rights; that a standing army is not known as a part of the British constitution; that sending an armed force into the colony, under a pretence of assisting the civil authority, is highly dangerous to the people, unprecedented, and unconstitutional.” When requested by the governor to make provision for the troops, after an indignant denunciation of the Mutiny Act, and observing, that of all the new regulations, not excepting the Stamp Act, this was the most unreasonable, they thus declared their resolution:—“Your excellency must excuse us in this express declaration—that as we cannot consistently with our honour and our interest, and much less with the duty we owe to our constituents, so we never will make provision for the purposes in your several messages mentioned.” Finding the assembly thus refractory, the governor prorogued them, taking his leave in the following terms:—“To his majesty, therefore, and if he pleases, to his parliament, must be referred your invasion of the rights of the imperial sovereignty: you need not be apprehensive of any misrepresentations, as it is not in the power of your enemies, if you have any, to add to your publications—they are plain and explicit and need no comment. It is my duty, and I shall do it with regret, to transmit to the king true copies of your proceedings: and that his majesty may have an opportunity to signify his pleasure thereon before you meet again, I think it necessary to prorogue this general court immediately, to the usual time of the winter session.”
Before governor Bernard prorogued the assembly, his majesty had requested his presence in England for the purpose of ascertaining the real state of the province; at the same time testifying his approbation of his conduct, and as a mark of his favour, creating him baronet. Sir Francis left the colony on the 1st of August, and at his departure, the powers of government devolved on lieutenant-governor Hutchinson, a native of the province; a man of great abilities, but influenced in his conduct by a grasping ambition, and an inordinate love of office and aggrandisement. On his return, Sir Francis had no very favourable report to make of his province. Notwithstanding every precaution had been adopted, smuggling was still carried on to a very great extent. The Bostonians had even adopted the practice of tarring and feathering all informers, or all who attempted to assist the government: a brutal operation, which was often attended with a violence that destroyed life. Nor was smuggling carried on in the province of Boston alone. Associations against British commerce were organized to such an extent, that the exports to America were found to fall short of those in the preceding year by £740,000, and the revenue derived from that country was reduced from £701,000 to £30,000. In this the Americans were aided by other countries, who sent them their manufactures in great abundance, so that the narrow views of ministers not only destroyed the resources of Great Britain, but tended to enrich its commercial and political rivals. This greatly alarmed the English merchants, and Lord Hillsborough thought proper to issue a circular letter to the colonies, stating that his majesty’s ministers intended, during the next session, to take off the duties upon glass, paper, and painters’ colours, they having been enacted contrary to the true principles of commerce. No mention, however, was made of the duty upon tea, and the Americans looked upon this omission as having been purposely and invidiously made, as a mark of the legislative supremacy of Great Britain. Nothing, moreover, was said about repealing the odious clauses in the Mutiny Act, and the colonists likewise complained that the circular spoke of commercial expediency, and not of the right which they claimed of imposing taxes upon the colonies by their own act alone In truth, if this circular was intended to conciliate the inhabitants of British America, it was a total failure. The universal mind was too much irritated to be soothed by such an impotent palliative.
MEETING OF PARLIAMENT.
A.D. 1770
Although America was almost in a state of open rebellion, and England itself, with Ireland, were rent with faction, yet the parliament did not assemble till the 9th of January. This delay naturally excited surprise, and this was still further heightened by the tenor of the king’s speech. Taking no notice of the public discontents, though it feelingly lamented the general distress, it chiefly adverted to a general distemper which had broken out among the horned cattle, which the king gravely assured the lords and commons, he had, by the advice of his privy-council, endeavoured to check. And this was solemnly uttered when wits and scoffers abounded on every hand—when Junius had his pen in his hand full fraught with gall, and Wilkes was bandying about his bon-mots and sarcasms. “While the whole kingdom,” says Junius, in a letter to the Duke of Grafton, “was agitated with anxious expectation upon one great point, you meanly evaded the question, and instead of the explicit firmness of a king, gave us nothing but the misery of a ruined grazier.” Never was a speech from the throne more unfortunate, indeed, than this, for though it slightly adverted to the disturbances in America, yet the subject of the disease existing among horned cattle was its prominent feature. It was no wonder, therefore, that it became the jest of the whole nation. Newspapers, pamphlets, and periodicals teemed with biting sarcasm on this most extraordinary circumstance. The king’s love of farming was bitterly descanted upon, and he was represented as attending to cows, stalls, dairies, and farms, while his people were misgoverned and discontented, and his empire, like a ship in a furious storm, in danger every minute of being dashed to pieces. In fine, to show the most profound contempt of such a speech from the mouth of the monarch, at such a season, the session was nicknamed “the horned cattle session.”
Before the opening of parliament, one day the Earl of Chatham stalked into the drawing-room of St. James’s, and after the levee had some private conversation with the king. What passed between them is unknown, but Horace Walpole says, that his reception was most flattering, and the king all condescension and goodness. It does not appear, however, that the interview satisfied Chatham, for it by no means tended to soften his opposition. When parliament met, indeed, he took his place in the house of lords, vigorous and more eloquent than ever, and the administration was doomed to feel his power, like that of a giant refreshed with wine.
The address, which was moved in the upper house by the Duke of Ancaster, and seconded by Lord Dunmore, was as general and unmeaning as the king’s speech. Chatham rose to reply, and after glancing at his age and infirmities, he took a general review of measures since the year 1763. There never was a period, he asserted, when the serious attention of the house to public affairs was more imperatively demanded, and he boldly maintained that it was the duty of their lordships to lay the true state and condition of the country before his majesty. After indulging in a quiet sneer at the care the council had bestowed upon horned cattle, he remarked, that he was glad to hear that the king had reason to believe the peace of the country would be preserved, since peace could never be more desirable to a kingdom, than when it was torn to pieces by divisions and distractions, as England was at the passing hour. He then criticised the last treaty with France and Spain, asserting that England had not obtained what she had a right to expect from the success of our arms, and the feeble condition of our enemies. He also maintained, that having deserted our ally the King of Prussia, we had left ourselves without alliances on the continent, and, consequently, had been every moment on the verge of a new war, during a seven years’ peace. This war, he said, might be unavoidable, and must be unfavourable to England, as the princes of the house of Bourbon, while we stood in an isolated position, had become closely united among themselves, and had formed the closest connexion with the powers of Europe. He, however, lamented still more the unhappy acts which had severed the affections of the American colonists from Great Britain; and the internal discontents of the country. To these he earnestly called the attention of their lordships, since their privileges, however transcendent and appropriate in themselves, stood in fact on the people as a basis. The rights of the highest and the meanest subject, he said, had the same foundation, the security of the law, which was common to all. He maintained that the liberty of the subject was invaded both at home and in the colonies, and that the people who were loud in their complaints, would not be pacified without a redress of their grievances. Liberty, he observed, was a plant that deserved to be cherished; that he loved the tree himself, and wished well to all its branches; that, like the vine in scripture, it had spread from east to west, had embraced whole nations with its branches, and sheltered them under its leaves. Concerning the discontents of the colonists, he conceived that they arose from the measures of government. These had driven them into excesses which could not be justified, but for which, he, for one, was inclined to make some allowance. As to their combinations, and their success in supplying themselves with goods, this, he said, had alarmed him for the commercial interests of the mother country, but he could not conceive in what sense they could be deemed illegal, or how the house by any declaration could remove the evil. Other remedies must be looked for, as the discontents of two millions of people could only be removed by a removal of their causes. Finally, on the subject of discontent in England, he attributed it to the proceedings of the house of commons in the matter of Mr. Wilkes, and he concluded by submitting the following amendment:—“That after the words, ‘and which alone can render our deliberations respectable and effectual,’ be inserted these words, ‘and for these great and essential purposes, we will, with all convenient speed, take into our most serious consideration the causes of the discontents which prevail in so many parts of your majesty’s dominions, and particularly the late proceedings of the house of commons, touching the incapacity of John Wilkes, Esq., expelled by that house, to be elected a member to serve in this present parliament, thereby refusing, by a resolution of one branch of the legislature only, to the subject his common right, and depriving the electors of Middlesex of their free choice of a representative.’”
This amendment was opposed by Lord Mansfield, he considering that it was a gross attack on the privileges of the commons, and calculated to create a quarrel between the two houses, or between the king and the commons. A question, he said, relating to the seat of a member, could only be determined by the house itself, whose judgment was final, and must be received as the law of the land. The arguments which he used in his speech to support his opinions were ably answered by Chatham. The noble lord began his reply by extolling common sense above subtilty and ingenious refinement. The constitution had been invaded, and he heard with astonishment that invasion defended on principle. He denied that the commons had a supreme jurisdiction, or that its decision must be received as the law of the land; for why, he pertinently asked, were the generous exertions of our ancestors made to secure and transmit to their posterity a known law and a certain rule of living, if, instead of the arbitrary power of a king, we must submit to that of a house of commons? Tyranny was detestable in any shape, but especially when exercised by a number of tyrants. But that, he triumphantly asserted, was not the fact or the constitution of England, and he pointed out where the law of parliament might be found by every honest man; namely, in Magna Charta, in the statute-book, and in the Bill of Rights. The first principle of the constitution is, he observed, that the subject shall not be governed by the will of any man or body of men, but by the whole legislature, and by certain laws to which he has given his assent: laws which were open to him to examine, and not beyond his ability to understand. He then denounced the late decision as destitute of every condition essential to its legality, and as being unsupported by reason, precedent, Magna Charta, or the Bill of Rights. Whether it be questioned by the legislature, he continued, will depend on the resolution of the house; but that it violates the constitution, no man who had listened to the debate could deny. He then expressed his confidence in the wisdom and constitutional authority of the house, and after praising the ancient nobility as founders of the constitution, and invoking the house to follow their brilliant example, he thus concluded:—“Those iron barons—for so I may call them when compared with the silken barons of modern days—were the guardians of the people; yet their virtues 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 foremost in the breach, to repair, or to perish in it?”
The lord chancellor Camden had declared, upon his patron’s resignation of the privy-seal, that Chatham should still be his polar star, and that he reluctantly consented “to hold on a little while longer with this crippled administration.” The part which he took in this debate proved him to be sincere in his declarations. The house was astonished to hear, indeed, sentiments from his lips as strong as those delivered by Chatham. “I accepted,” said he, “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 will openly and boldly speak my sentiments.” Lord Camden then agreed with his friend respecting the incapacitating vote of the commons, and accused the ministry, by implication, of having formed a conspiracy against the liberties of the country. By their violent and tyrannical conduct, he said, they had alienated the minds of the people from his majesty’s government—he had almost said from his majesty’s person—and that in consequence a spirit of discontent had spread itself into every nook of the kingdom, and was daily increasing, so that it was to be feared, that, if some methods were not devised to appease the clamours heard on every hand, the people might in despair become their own avengers, and take the redress of their grievances into their own hands. The address was negatived, and Lord Pomfret then moved an adjournment for some days; chiefly, as Lords Temple and Shelburne told the house in reply, for the purpose of removing the untractable chancellor, Camden, from his seat in the ministry. Lord Shelburne, however, expressed a conviction “that after the dismissal of the present worthy chancellor the seals would go a begging,” and that “there would not be found in the kingdom a wretch so base and mean-spirited as to accept of them on the conditions on which they must be offered.”