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 35,000l. to 40,000l. 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. Massachusets 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, these several topics; and concluded, he said, that many would think he proposed too little, others too much. The Mutiny Bill had been opposed 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 appointing commissioners, with injunctions to act according to the custom of the provinces. New York was so opulent that he thought they ought to be 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 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 proportions 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 Massachusets termed our acts our ordinances, and asserted their own rights of taxation. Many they had discountenanced and frightened from their assembly. Governor Bernard, he believed, was a little heated against them;[11] yet 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 to New York. New Jersey had limited the sum, but had not said it would not comply. He thought it would be prudent to inflict censure on New York alone; that some burthen ought to be lightened at home, and imposed on America. He had hinted at taxes; he would name some, though not as Chancellor of the Exchequer. They were duties on wine, oil, and fruits from Spain and Portugal as they come back; on china; and to take off the drawback on glass, paper, lead, and colours. A commissioner of the customs, too, would be necessary in America. Parliament ought to exercise its authority; but not contrary to the constitution of the provinces. He then moved a resolution that New York had disobeyed the Act, and that, till they should comply, the Governor should be restrained from passing any act of their Assembly. This, he owned, some had said would be confounding the innocent and the guilty, and would dissolve their Assembly. On the contrary, others had advised to block up harbours and quarter soldiers, but himself could bear to hear of nothing military. Some were for a local tax; but that would be to accept penalty in lieu of obedience.
This speech,[12] so consonant to the character of a man of business, and so unlike the wanton sallies of the man of parts and pleasure, was (however modified) but too well calculated to inflame the passions of a legislature whose authority was called in question, and who are naturally not prone to weigh the effusions of men entitled to as much freedom as themselves, while in an apparent situation of dependence. Authority never measures liberty downwards. Rarely is liberty supposed to mean the independence of those below us; it is our own freedom from the yoke of superiors. The Peer dreads the King, the Commoner the Peer; the Americans the Parliament. Each American trader thought himself a Brutus, a Hampden, while he wrestled with the House of Commons; yet his poor negroes felt that their master, Brutus, was a worse tyrant than Nero or Muley Ishmael. Had the Parliament of England presumed by one god-like act to declare all the slaves in our Colonies freemen, not a patriot in America but would have clamoured against the violation of property, and protested that to abolish the power of imposing chains was to impose them. O man! man! dare not to vaunt your virtue, while self-interest lurks in every pore!
The above speech could but expand the narrow heart of Grenville with triumph. It is a prophet’s holiday when woes accomplish his prediction. As mortifying was it to Conway and Lord Rockingham’s party, who had served their American brethren to so little purpose: yet they contended still for moderate measures. Dowdeswell represented that the House was not acquainted with the state of the laws in the Colonies, and which of them it would be necessary to repeal: he said, he should rather incline to enforce and amend the late Act. Beckford pleaded for the Colonies, and affirmed that they had the better of Bernard in every argument. Whether he spoke as by birth an American, or whether by concert with Lord Chatham, that while the Ministers humbled the Colonies, his lordship might still be supposed favourable to them, is uncertain,—such a duplicity from his silence ran through the whole of that his second administration. He seemed to be playing the despot, and laying in at the same time for future patriotism. Burke roundly imputed the plan to him, and called it weak, as resolutions ought to be followed by deeds; and therefore, he said, he should oppose both. He arraigned the idea of dissolving their Assemblies, at the same time that the House seemed to allow them as a co-ordinate power, since the execution of the Act was to depend on their acquiescence. Yet the suspension of all their laws would fall heavier on the innocent, than the punishment could on the guilty; and what effect would the penalty have? Would not the turbulent be re-chosen? He advised a new model of their police.
Grenville opposed by outgoing the proposals of the ministry, and said, no moderation was to be suffered, when the authority of Parliament was resisted. He knew that when they saw the Stamp Act repealed, they would laugh at declarations. Lord Chatham had declared, should they still resist, he would fill their harbours with ships and their towns with soldiers. The declaration of the Lords had not been sent over. Bernard had stated the requisition in the words of both Houses—Mr. Conway had not; whether it was that he saw the fire kindled, and chose to retire. Lord Shelburne had power to control the impertinent representation of the Board of Trade. Lord Shelburne’s letter should be considered hereafter. Bernard had begged for instructions in case of rebellion; no answer had been sent to him. He supposed the Secretaries of State would continue to represent the resolutions of Parliament as they had done. The encouragement the provinces had met with, had excited them to proceed in disobedience; yet, could no better be obtained, himself would concur even in these means of enforcing submission. If the House would support its magistrates there with no force, it were better to pass no act. On the late seizures of corn, force had been employed at home. He would advise the imposing on the Assembly-men an oath of acknowledging the sovereignty of Great Britain, and on all men in the Colonies. The taxes proposed, he thought, would be subversive of the Act of Navigation. He would lay a tax on paper currency.
Conway replied, that he had not followed Mr. Grenville from office to office to hunt out his faults or errors, nor had been employed in such mean revenge; while men, by his orders, were dragged out of their beds by general warrants. No order had been sent to himself from the House of Lords to be transmitted to the Colonies; yet, as appeared, that order had been transmitted. The Colonies were not mere corporations; their charters gave them legislative power. On taxes they would always be tender. The measure proposed to be taken with the Assemblies, he thought, at once too violent and inefficient. Some provinces had actually done more than they had been required to do.
Charles Townshend declared he could not approve a general oath or test that should comprehend all the Colonies. Of a tax on paper currency he had had some thoughts. Yorke said, he thought, though the Chief Justice Wilmot was of a different opinion, that the Privy Council could and ought to annul the Act of the Massachusets.
Rigby dropped the question to satirize the Court. He wished he knew who it was that framed our ministries. He and his friends had been turned out from that ignorance. Europe must take us for a nation of ministries, while by our actions it must think we had no administration. Formerly we had annual parliaments; now annual ministries: yet, though so many ministries were dismissed, no crime was alleged against any. Let it be known who it was possessed that latent power. He told the House that, in the Congress at New York, it had been agreed to erect a statue to Lord Chatham. It had been afterwards proposed to erect one to the King; no man had seconded the motion.
Wedderburn said it was faction that had the ruling influence, and that Lord Bute must consequently have a large system. Conway declared himself for a local tax on the disobedient.
To Townshend’s third resolution, Grenville proposed an amendment for bringing in a bill to amend the late Act.[13] On this the House divided at one in the morning, when the Court party rejected the amendment by 180 to 98; Conway voting with Grenville and the Rockinghams in opposition to Townshend’s question, though with different views,—the former wishing to add rigour to the Act, the others to new-model it. It will be seen in the votes what taxes were laid. The harsher intentions were dropped, but the taxes produced sufficient evil. The violence of Rigby’s invective against Lord Bute was imputed to the latter’s rejection of new overtures from the Bedford faction. Wedderburn’s outrage was still more remarkable; when he, who had been a creature of the Favourite, pointed out his influence, who could doubt its existence? Yet the accusation was more odious from a tool than the crime of the accused. Conway was not at all supported by his old friends, when attacked by Grenville. They were offended at his agreeing with Wedderburn in imputing all the late changes to faction; yet had he added that if there was a secret influence, nobody lamented it more than he did. Charles Townshend, at the same time, not only threatened to resign, but falsely affirmed he had offered his resignation to the King, who would not accept it. Conway dreaded its being said that he remained in place with all denominations of men. I satisfied him (and so it proved) that Townshend spoke not a word of truth; and I showed him how incumbent it was on him to carry through the East Indian business, which nothing but his temper could bring to an accommodation. In this I rendered an essential service to my country. Conway did perfect the agreement; and the Parliament at last accepted 400,000l. a-year for two years.[14]