[240] Sir William Burnaby had been Admiral and Commander-in-Chief on the West India station. He was knighted in 1754, and made a baronet in 1767.—E.
[241] I have not been able to find another report of this important debate.—E.
[242] The fall of the Ministers was so much expected, that it was said, “They were dead, and only lying in state; and that Charles Townshend [who never spoke for them] was one of their mutes.”
[243] Walpole takes no notice of the debate in the House of Lords on the American Resolutions. It took place on the 10th of February, and will be found in the Parliamentary History, vol. xvi. p. 168. The speeches of Lord Camden and Lord Northington are eloquent and interesting.—E.
[244] Prime Minister of Portugal.
[245] Mr. Frederick Vane, M. P. for Durham.—E.
[246] Whatever might be Lord Rockingham’s exultation at having carried a measure on which he considered the safety of the empire to depend, he was so far from being blind to his own precarious position, that a few days after, on the 26th, he made overtures to Mr. Pitt expressing an earnest desire to transfer the Government to him. The letters that passed on this occasion are given in Lord Chatham’s Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 397.—E.
[247] Mr. Fuller, no doubt, was a hearty well-wisher of the repeal. He was a sensible man, and his opinion carried additional weight from the decided and independent tone in which he delivered it; and Almon says, that after his death it was discovered that he had been for many years in the receipt of a pension from the Government of 500l. a year, a fact that explains the sudden decline of his zeal mentioned by Burke, Correspondence, ii. 8.—E.
[248] Dr. Hay was a man given up to his pleasures.
[249] Some political writers, opposed to the Rockingham Ministry, have condemned and ridiculed this bill as inconsistent with the principle, and calculated to defeat the object of the repeal of the Stamp Act. Indeed, they have gone so far as to say that it raised an insurmountable barrier to the settlement of these unhappy differences. However unjust the charge may be, the bill proved a fertile experiment to maintain the dignity of the country, and the best defence of the measure is to be found in the state of political parties, which rendered it apparently impossible to obtain the repeal without this concession to the feelings of the King, and to public opinion. The Colonies, also, gave themselves, at that time, little concern about abstract resolutions of right, so long as the same were not carried into practice. The joy with which the Repeal Act was received in America seems to have been unqualified, and some years elapsed before any serious objections were taken against the Declaratory Act. Even in 1775, Burke writing to his Committee at Bristol, observes, that it had not yet become a grievance with the Colonists.—E.