introduced into the Virginian House of Burgesses a set of resolutions, that the first settlers in that province had brought with them, and transmitted to their posterity, all the privileges and immunities enjoyed by the people of England, that they enjoyed the right of being governed by their own assembly in the article of taxes and internal police, and that the Stamp Act was illegal, unconstitutional and unjust.[16] "Cæsar had his Brutus," Henry concluded a violent speech. "Charles the First his Cromwell, George the Third"—here he was interrupted by cries of "Treason" which disconcerted him for a moment when he recovered himself and continued—"may profit by their example. If this be treason make the most of it." It showed the temper of the nation that Virginia, hitherto regarded as the most loyal state, approved the resolutions by a large majority. The Governor immediately dissolved the assembly, but, like all the acts of the English in America at this time, this move was too late to be effective, for the resolutions were regarded by other provinces as a precedent, and were adopted by numerous other legislative bodies.
Boston, which had had experience of the utter futility of petitions to the King and to Parliament, flamed at once into violence. The Assembly there voted thanks to General Conway and Colonel Barré for their opposition in the House of Commons to the Stamp Act, and ordered their portraits to be placed in the Town Hall. On August 26 a mob destroyed the Stamp Office, the Admiralty records, and the houses of public officials who had given offence by accepting the objectionable Act. Hutchinson, the Lieutenant-Governor and Chief-Justice of Massachusetts, was maltreated; while Oliver, the Secretary of the province, who had accepted the post of Stamp-Distributor, was hung in effigy on a tree in the main street of the town, his house destroyed and himself compelled by the threatening crowd to resign his new appointment, and to swear—beneath the tree where his effigy swung in the breeze—that under no circumstances would he ever resume it. The rioters were supported by the overt sympathy of their countrymen. Mayhew, a popular preacher, chose for the text of a sermon, "I would that they were even cut off which trouble you"; the Governor, who had arrested a prominent merchant, one of the ring-leaders of the disturbances, was compelled to release him, under threat from the civic guard that otherwise they would disband themselves; while some other imprisoned citizens were set free by the mob, which forced the gaolers to surrender the keys.
November 1, when the Stamp Act came into operation, was kept as a day of mourning. The bells were muffled and tolled and mock funerals passed through the streets; copies of the Act were hawked through the towns with the title of "England's Folly and the Ruin of America"; while the newspapers appeared with a death's-head in place of the stamp which by the new measure they had to bear. Boston was content to hoist half-mast the colours of the shipping in its harbour, but Philadelphia spiked the government guns in the town and in the barracks, and other towns displayed their resentment in similar practical ways.[17]
It was found impossible, however, to distribute the stamps; nay, more, it was impossible even to keep them, for the rioters kept strict watch and as each box was landed, wrested it from the authorities, and consigned it to the flames. The Governor of New Jersey had to request that the stamps should be kept on a man-of-war, while on November 7, Francis Bernard, the Governor of Massachusetts, informed Admiral Lord Colville that such was the "increasing licentiousness" of the people that he feared that he would be obliged to quit his post. The position indeed was untenable. Every legal document to be valid required a stamp, but there was no stamped paper to be had. The law courts could proceed only with criminal cases, for which no stamps were required; and business was at a standstill, until the Governors, realizing the danger of allowing this state of affairs to continue, on the ground that it was impossible to secure stamps, issued certificates to the merchants permitting them to send their ships on voyages without complying with the Act. Not content with this licence, however, the Council of Massachusetts went so far as to enter a resolution in their journals that it was lawful to transact business without stamps.[18] A more fatal blow to the mother-country was delivered by the principal colonial merchants, who agreed in solemn conclave to order no more goods from England, to cancel all orders already given, and to send no more remittances to England in payment of debts until the Stamp Act was repealed—which last resolution could be excused only on the ground that all is fair in war.
Opposition in the colonies had been fanned by the change of government at home. The news of Grenville's fall in July had been received with delight, and the joy was intense when it became known that in the succeeding Rockingham administration, Conway, who had opposed the Stamp Act, had accepted the office of Secretary of State for the southern department. The occurrences in America were, however, still viewed with indifference in England, and the King in a letter to Conway, dated December 5, was one of the first to sound the note of alarm. "I am more and more grieved at the accounts of America. Where this spirit will end is not to be said. It is undoubtedly the most serious matter that ever came before Parliament; it requires more deliberation, candour, and temper than I fear it will meet with."[19] The trouble was alluded to in the King's Speech at the opening of Parliament on December 17. "Matters of importance," it was said, "had lately occurred in some of the colonies in America, which demand serious attention"; but such a reference was resented by George Grenville and his supporters, who attacked ministers for attempting to gloss over the recent events in America as "matters of importance," when, as a matter of fact, they contended, the colonies were in a state of rebellion.
In spite of the conviction in America that General Conway would remove the obnoxious tax, ministers were undecided what course to pursue, and when at last they realized the seriousness of the position, they found themselves face to face with only a choice between the disconcerting tasks of repealing the Stamp Act or enforcing it at the point of the sword. They were not given long to decide, for pressure was brought to bear upon them by the great body of English merchants who were suffering from the suspension of the American trade. Petitions were presented from London, Liverpool, Glasgow and other manufacturing towns, pointing out that the debts that America refused to discharge amounted to four millions sterling—an eighth of the entire amount was owed to Glasgow shippers by the states of Maryland and Virginia alone—that further orders were withheld, and that consequently, artisans were thrown out of work, and many merchants would shortly be reduced to bankruptcy. The only remedy for this disastrous state of affairs, the petitioners represented, was a speedy repeal of the Stamp Act.
It remained, however, for Pitt to force the hands of the new administration. "My resolution is taken," he wrote to Nuthall[20] on January 9, 1766; "and if I can crawl or be carried, I will deliver my mind and heart upon the state of America." Pitt stated his opinion very openly in the debate on the Address, when he declared that England had no right to lay a tax on the colonies, although the authority of England over them was sovereign and supreme in every case of legislation.
"The colonists are subjects of this kingdom equally entitled with yourselves to all the national rights of mankind and the peculiar privileges of Englishmen; equally bound by its laws and equally participating in the constitution of this free country. The Americans are the sons, not the bastards, of England. Taxation is no part of the governing or legislative power. Taxes are the voluntary gift and grant of the Commons alone. In legislation, the three estates of the realm are alike concerned; but the concurrence of the peers and the Crown to a tax, is only necessary to clothe it with the form of a law; the gift and grant is of the Commons alone. In ancient days, the Crown, the barons, and the clergy possessed the lands. In those days the barons and the clergy granted to the Crown, they gave and granted what was their own. At present, since the discovery of America, and other circumstances permitting, the Commons are become the proprietors of the land; the Church has but a pittance; the property of the Lords, compared with that of the Commons is as a drop of water in the ocean; and this House represents those Commons, the proprietors of the lands; and those proprietors virtually represent the rest of the inhabitants. When, therefore, in this House we give a grant, we give and grant what is our own. But in an American tax, what do we do? We, your Majesty's Commons for Great Britain, give a grant to your Majesty, what? Our own property? No; we give a grant to your Majesty the property of your Majesty's Commons of America. It is an absurdity in terms. The distinction between legislation and taxation is essentially necessary to liberty. The Crown, the peers, are equally legislative powers with the Commons. If taxation be a part of simple legislation, the Crown, the peers, have rights in taxation as well as yourselves; rights which they will claim, which they will exercise when the principle can be supported by power.... The commoners of America, represented in their several assemblies, have ever been in possession, in the exercise of this, their constitutional right, of giving and granting their own money. They would have been slaves if they had not enjoyed it. At the same time this kingdom, as the supreme governing and legislative power, has always bound the colonies by her laws, by her regulations and restrictions, in trade, in navigation, in manufactures; in everything, except that of taking their money out of their pockets without their consent. Here I would draw the line, 'quam ulira citraque requit consistere rectum.'"
George Grenville at once spoke to oppose this view, only to bring down upon him a scathing attack from Pitt. "The gentleman tells us that America is obstinate; that America is almost in open rebellion. Sir, I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people so dead to all feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to have made slaves of all the rest." The Great Commoner's uncompromising declaration of the inability of the English Parliament legally to tax the colonies, however, was not allowed to escape criticism. Burke[21] opposed the theory, "Junius" attacked it, and in the House of Lords Lord Mansfield denied it; while, later, Macaulay denounced it. "The Stamp Act," he said, "was indefensible, not because it was beyond the unconstitutional competence of Parliament, but because it was unjust and impolitic, sterile of revenue, and fertile of discontent."[22]
Whether Pitt was right or wrong, his influence was such that Lord Rockingham realised the importance of conciliating him.[23]