In the midst of these vast schemes, having given indications that he contemplated a Reform Bill, an India Bill, the pacification and better government of Ireland, alliances which would have forestalled the great alliances of his son, and a plan which might perhaps have retained America, Chatham fell ill at Bath, and the Government ceased to have a natural head.
While Chatham was thus absent from his post his reckless Chancellor Chatham's illness and mental failure. Jan. 1767. of the Exchequer brought in a scheme for again raising revenue from America. The sum was indeed a very small one—£40,000, and raised upon tea, glass, and paper, and therefore falling, it might be urged, under the head of those mercantile arrangements which the colonies admitted the Townshend's financial measures. right of Parliament to make; but in the present state of affairs in America it was a mere act of madness. The repeal of the Stamp Act had been made conditional on the repayment of property injured in the riots. This the Assemblies had agreed to only with much grumbling, and the Assembly of New York had gone so far in its opposition to a requisition for supplying necessaries to the troops that it had been suspended. While America was in this irritable condition Townshend's measure came to inflame the smouldering mass.
Corruption of Parliament. 1768.
What Chatham had spoken of as the rotten part of the Constitution was, early in the year 1768, brought into full play. There was a general election, in which bribery and the purchase of seats were shamelessly employed. £4000 is said to have been the average price of a small borough. Oxford offered to re-elect its members for £7500, to be applied to the liquidation of a corporation debt; and to show how ridiculously inefficient the representation was, it may be mentioned that in a population of eight millions there were only a hundred and sixty thousand voters. The people were by this time beginning, though perhaps somewhat blindly, to feel that the representative body did not really represent them, and, as usual, they fixed upon one individual, and that not a very worthy one, as a representative of this feeling. Wilkes had already been a popular martyr and the victim of Wilkes elected for Middlesex. 1768. the vengeance both of King and Parliament. He now presented himself for election in London. He was there rejected, but immediately afterwards elected by a large majority in the county of Middlesex. His election produced riots in London, and the Government—contrary probably to their own judgment, and urged by the King—determined to interfere. Wilkes was apprehended as an outlaw, and riots ensued, which were suppressed only by the use of the troops. Twenty people were killed and wounded. The military were not only acquitted when tried upon the charge of murder, but were rewarded by Government. The anger of the people increased, and in the riots which ensued in various parts of England the point immediately at issue was complicated with other social questions, many depressed trades taking the opportunity of exhibiting their discontent. The Government which had to deal with this difficulty was the Duke of Grafton's—Chatham immediately upon his recovery had retired from it, and Lord Shelburne had also left it. Grafton, without views of his own, had become the mere tool in the hands of the King and his party. George was set with dogged obstinacy upon the suppression of insubordination in America and the destruction of Wilkes in England. Under such circumstances the war with the people was carried to extremes. When a vacancy occurred in the representation for Middlesex there was a fresh contest, and Glyn, a partisan of Wilkes, was elected. In the attendant riots blood had been shed. The murderers were convicted, but again pardoned and rewarded, and the anger of the people became still greater. Wilkes's petitions were neglected, and on his publishing a severe letter against Lord Weymouth, Secretary of State, the House, instead of leaving the matter to the Law Courts, declared it a breach of privilege, and unable to pronounce a libel against a Peer a breach of the privileges of the Commons, they proceeded, perfectly illegally, to have Wilkes arrested and brought to the bar of the House, and there tried for libel. Wilkes avowed the letter, and Lord Barrington, Secretary of War, and one of the "King's friends," moved his expulsion. A new writ was issued for Middlesex, and Wilkes was re-elected almost unanimously. The House voted that he could not sit, and a fresh writ was issued, and Wilkes was again unanimously elected. Another election was ordered, and this time the Government contrived to get about three hundred votes for Colonel Luttrell against eleven hundred given for Wilkes. The House declared that Luttrell was the member. So iniquitous a decision raised Wilkes into the position of a great popular leader, and was not carried without many vigorous protests from the most influential members of the Liberal party. It tended much to lessen the power of the ministry; both great cities and great counties held meetings to express their want of confidence in the present representation and to ask for a dissolution.
Nor did the ministry strengthen itself by its dealings with America. The new imposts of 1767 had been received with great indignation by the colonists, especially in Massachusetts. There the governor, Francis Barnard, seems to have been totally destitute of all power of conciliation. He was backed up by Lord Hillsborough, Colonial Secretary, scarcely more temperate than himself. The Assembly, in its quarrel with the governor, issued a circular letter to the other colonies, calling for their co-operation against the new taxes. They refused to retract this step at the command of Lord Hillsborough, and were dissolved. The difficulties of the crisis went on increasing. The customhouse commissioners were foolish enough to capture and detain an illicit trader; serious riots were the consequence; the commissioners were mobbed and their houses robbed. The spirit of resistance spread. The Society of Sons and Daughters of Liberty, who refused to use imported goods, multiplied in other colonies. The view of the Government was not conciliation, but coercion. Troops and ships of war were crowded into Boston. In England the feeling was strongly against the Americans. Coercive measures were recommended and applauded; Francis Barnard was raised to the rank of a Baronet; the conduct of the people of Boston gravely censured in Parliament; and at length Bedford's section of the Whigs produced a motion which could hardly fail to excite resistance. The Duke moved, and the Parliament applauded his motion, that as it was probable that American juries would sympathize with their countrymen, the rioters might be withdrawn from their country, in accordance with an obsolete law of treason of the reign of Henry VIII. This measure, which seemed to deprive the colonists of their first rights as Englishmen, met with deserved execration both at home and in America. But to crown all, and to put the ministers quite in the wrong, some general action on their part was wanting. This want was supplied when the conciliatory efforts of Grafton were defeated in his own Cabinet. He suggested the removal of all taxation of America. English pride forbade the Council to accept a measure which they thought derogatory to the rights of an Imperial nation. Therefore, for the mere purpose of asserting the right, they agreed to the removal of all taxes but one, and insisted that the tax on tea should be kept. Thus the original principle of the right to tax was upheld, and the sting still left to rankle in the minds of the Americans.
Letters of Junius.
The unpopularity which their conduct had brought on the ministry was increased by the vigorous and bitter assaults of Junius. This anonymous writer, probably Sir Philip Francis, lost no opportunity of attacking, with the greatest animosity, the Duke of Grafton and his supporters, not even sparing the King, and by his bold assaults, excellent style, and by the mystery which hung over him, drew upon himself much public attention, and directed men's minds to all the weaknesses of the administration.
Weakness of the ministry.
The incompetency of the ministry was indeed becoming obvious. In the first place it was divided within itself. The Prime Minister, with the Chancellor and some others, were remnants of the Chatham ministry and admirers of Chatham's policy. The rest of the Cabinet were either men who represented Bedford's party, or members of that class whose views are sufficiently explained by their name, "the King's friends." Grafton, fonder of hunting and the turf than of politics, had by his indolence suffered himself to fall under the influence of the last-named party, and unconstitutional action had been the result which had brought discontent in England to the verge of open outbreak. Hillsborough, under the same influence, was hurrying along the road which led to the loss of America. On this point the Prime Minister had found himself in a minority in his own Cabinet. France too, under Choiseul, in alliance with Spain, was beginning to think of revenge for the losses of the Seven Years' War. A crisis was evidently approaching, and the Opposition began to close their ranks. Chatham, yielding again to the necessities of party, made a public profession of friendship with Temple and George Grenville; and though there was no cordial connection, there was external alliance between the brothers and the old Whigs under Rockingham. In the first session of 1770 the storm broke. Notwithstanding the state of public affairs, the chief topic of the King's speech was the murrain among "horned beasts,"—a speech not of a king, but, said Junius, of "a ruined grazier." Chatham at once moved an amendment when the address in answer to this speech was proposed. He deplored the want of all European alliances, the fruit of our desertion of our allies at the Peace of Paris; he blamed the conduct of the ministry with regard to America, which, he thought, needed much gentle handling, inveighed strongly against the action of the Lower House in the case of Wilkes, and ended by moving that that action should at once be taken into consideration. At the sound of their old leader's voice his followers in the Cabinet could no longer be silent. Camden declared he had been a most unwilling party to the persecution of Wilkes, and though retaining the Seals, attacked and voted against the ministry. In the Lower House, Granby, one of the most popular men in England, followed the same course. James Grenville and Dunning, the Solicitor-General, also resigned. Chatham's motion was lost, but was followed up by Camden, Granby and Grafton resign. Rockingham, who asked for a night to consider the state of the nation. Grafton found it nearly impossible to prop up his falling ministry; the Great Seal went, as Lord Shelburne said, a-begging. Charles Yorke was indeed induced to take it in spite of his former political connections, but, overwhelmed apparently by the coldness of his former friends, he committed suicide. Grafton thus found himself in no state to meet the Opposition, and in his heart still admiring Chatham, and much disliking business, he suddenly and unexpectedly gave in his resignation the very day fixed for Rockingham's motion.