Money was wanted for the service of the country, and specially for the maintenance of the navy, and a month later Townshend proposed that the land tax should be continued at four shillings in the pound. A strong opposition was expected, for the country gentlemen reasonably contended that the tax had been raised from three to four shillings as a war-tax, that it was time to lower it, and that if the stamp act had not been repealed it might be reduced to its normal amount.[77] The whigs, whose economic policy was directed by their desire to increase the wealth and power of the nation by promoting trade, held that the larger share of taxation should be drawn from the land, and fostered the agricultural interest in order to enable it to bear the disproportionate burden they laid upon it. Nevertheless, the Rockingham and Grenville parties took advantage of the dissatisfaction of the landed gentry, acted together in a factious spirit, and defeated the government proposal by 206 votes to 188. This was a serious blow to the government, and was the first occasion on which a minister had been defeated on a money-bill since the revolution. The defeat was due to Townshend's neglect. Chatham would no longer bear with him, and one of his last acts before his retirement was to invite Lord North, the eldest son of the Earl of Guilford, to take his place as chancellor of the exchequer. North refused, and Townshend remained in office. He had to raise money somehow, and he was kept in mind of his pledge with regard to America; for parliament was indignant at the conduct of the New York assembly, and the court party urged him on by representing that the king was humiliated by the repeal of the stamp act. In June he carried two bills affecting the colonies, one providing for the execution of the trade laws, the other imposing duties on the importation of glass, paper, paints, and tea. The produce of these duties was to be applied, first, to the cost of administering justice and of the civil government, and the surplus was to be paid into the exchequer and appropriated by parliament to the defence of the colonies. The bills passed without opposition and the acts came into operation on November 20. A bill was also passed suspending the legislative power of the New York assembly, until it should comply with the mutiny act.
The new duties were external taxes, taxes on trade, such as the colonists had professed themselves prepared to pay, and they were trifling in amount, their produce being estimated at less than £40,000. But they were imposed for purposes of revenue, not for the regulation of trade, which would in Chatham's eyes have rendered them a rightful imposition. And the colonists' position had changed. They demanded to be taxed only by their own assemblies, and regarded the new acts as laying the foundation of a fiscal system which would probably be as liable to abuse as the Irish civil list. A renewal of the rumour concerning a colonial episcopate increased their suspicion as to the height to which demands on their purse might grow. Their discontent was originally founded on their impatience of control and on the restraints placed upon their industry and commerce; their resistance was roused by the fear of future ill-government rather than by actual grievances. The quarrel became embittered by faults on both sides. By denying the authority of parliament and contemning the prerogative, the Americans took up a position which could not be conceded to them without national humiliation; they irritated the English by violent words and actions, and treated the loyalists with injustice and cruelty. On the other hand, England, besides imposing restrictions on their industry and commerce, made demands upon them which, though just, were galling to their spirit. As they had representative assemblies, they argued that they should be taxed only by their authority. The king and the nation generally had no sympathy with their complaints and were unconciliatory.
CHATHAM'S ILLNESS.
Yet while there were faults on both sides, both alike showed a spirit worthy of their common stock, the colonists by their insistence on self-government, the mother-country by its steadfast adherence to the imperial idea as it then existed. Massachusetts again took the lead in resistance; the merchants renewed the non-importation agreements, and the assembly sent a petition to the king, and on February 11, 1768, a circular letter to the other provincial assemblies condemning the late acts and inviting co-operation. This letter, the work of Samuel Adams, did much to remove the jealousies between the provinces and to arouse a spirit of union. It evoked expressions of sympathy from Virginia and other colonies, and the merchants of New York at once joined the Bostonians in a system of non-importation. Of almost equal importance were The Farmer's Letters by Dickinson, which appeared in a Pennsylvania paper in 1767-68, and contained an able statement of the claims of colonies, recommending a firm but peaceable attitude of resistance. Meanwhile the condition of the ministry was unfavourable alike to any chance of conciliation or to a consistently vigorous policy.
George was grievously disappointed by Chatham's illness. Between them they had put together an administration which Burke aptly compared to a piece of mosaic, formed of men of various parties; and with it George not unreasonably hoped to be able to carry out his ideal system of government, to destroy party distinctions and establish his rule over his people for their benefit and with their good-will.[78] In Chatham's absence, Grafton became his principal minister, though he had no authority in the cabinet. For a time Chatham's speedy recovery was expected, and both the king and Grafton made constant appeals to him at least to express his opinion on public affairs. No help was to be had from him; he would only entreat Grafton to remain in office. The disorganised ministry was confronted by a strong opposition composed of the Rockingham, Bedford, and Grenville connexions. Chatham became incapable of transacting any business; and when it was evident that his illness would be prolonged, Grafton advised the king to enter into negotiations with them. In July, 1767, George invited Rockingham to draw up a plan for an administration. He did not intend to admit the Rockinghams to office; he wanted a ministry, formed on non-party lines, which would be strong enough to hold its ground in parliament, and all he wished Rockingham to do was to submit a scheme of such a ministry for his approval, including in it some of the present ministers. Rockingham, however, held the modern doctrine that a prime minister should form his own administration, and assumed that the existing ministry was at an end.
He yielded to the king's wish, but was determined not to take office except with a comprehensive ministry united on the basis of opposition to that court influence which had wrecked his former government. With this idea he attempted to form a union with the Bedford party. The negotiation failed, for Grenville and Temple, who were then united to the Bedfords, represented to their allies that no union was possible without agreement as to American policy. This ended the matter, for the Grenville and Bedford parties were strongly in favour of American taxation. Rockingham therefore told the king that he was unable to act upon his invitation. Grafton remained in office. A man of pleasure and of culture, in some points a true descendant of Charles II., he was out of his proper element in political life. He grudged leaving his kennels at Wakefield Lodge or the heath at Newmarket to transact public business in London, and preferred reading a play of Euripides at Euston to being bored by a debate at Westminster. On no other English minister have the responsibilities of office had so little effect; he would put off a cabinet meeting for a race meeting, and even in the presence of the king and queen appeared at the opera by the side of his mistress, Nancy Dawson, afterwards Lady Maynard.
ACCESSIONS TO THE MINISTRY.
Yet, uncongenial as official work was to him, Grafton was unwilling to desert the king and disappoint Chatham. He fully intended to carry out Chatham's policy. He failed to do so, for he allowed himself to be swayed by the king; and he let things slide in a wrong direction, because he would not take the trouble to make any strenuous effort to check their course. In Chatham's absence the king gradually gained complete control of the ministry, and on every important question the ministers followed a line wholly contrary to that which Chatham would have adopted. Townshend died in September and North became chancellor of the exchequer. North was an able financier, personally popular, and a successful leader of the house of commons. He was a strong tory and was prepared to uphold the king's policy whether he approved it or not. At the end of the year an agreement was made with the Bedford party. The duke, whose sight was failing and who was mourning the loss of his only surviving son, would not himself take office, but bade his followers do as they pleased. Lord Gower became president of the council in place of Northington; Conway resigned the seals of secretary, though he remained in the cabinet, and Lord Weymouth was made secretary of state for the northern department. Lord Hillsborough was appointed as a third secretary of state for the colonies which, in consequence of the increase of colonial business, were removed from Shelburne's department, and other members of the "Bloomsbury gang" received minor offices. These changes were held to amount to the formation of a fresh administration. George did not at first like the junction with the Bedfords, which seemed contrary to his policy of destroying connexions, but the new ministers were so ready to carry out all his wishes that he was soon delighted with them.
The ministry showed its bias by its action with reference to a dispute between the two chief magnates in Cumberland and Westmorland, the Duke of Portland, a prominent member of the Rockingham party, and Sir James Lowther, Bute's son-in-law, who commanded nine seats in the house of commons. The duke's estate in the north came to him by a grant from William III. to the first Earl of Portland, in virtue of which he held the forest of Inglewood and the socage of Carlisle, valued at about £30,000, as appurtenances to the estate expressly granted. Lowther contended that the grant did not convey these appurtenances and applied to the treasury for a lease of them. Without officially informing the duke of his claim, the treasury granted the lease. As between subject and subject the duke's title would have been indisputable, for his house had had undisturbed possession for over sixty years, but as regards claims of the crown there was an ancient maxim: Nullum tempus occurrit regi—"Time does not bar the king's rights". The attempt of the treasury to revive this maxim was considered oppressive, and was generally attributed to the influence of Bute and the court, and to a desire to injure a political opponent and gratify a powerful supporter. The feeling was strengthened by the characters of the two disputants, for Portland was a man of high reputation, Lowther a cynical tyrant. On February 17, 1768, Sir George Savile, a great Yorkshire landowner and a member of the Rockingham party, whose integrity and wealth gave him weight in the house, brought in a bill called the Nullum tempus bill, to make sixty years' possession a bar to claims of the crown. It was opposed by the ministry, and North succeeded in adjourning the motion, though only by 134 to 114. Parliament was dissolved in March, and the new parliament passed the bill.
The union with the Bedford party lessened any chance of American conciliation. Hillsborough ordered the Massachusetts assembly to rescind its circular letter. It refused, and, acting on Hillsborough's instructions, Bernard dissolved the assembly. Other colonies rejected the command to disregard the letter; they would stand or fall with Massachusetts. In New York, however, the "whig party" was defeated at the elections, the assembly complied with the mutiny act, and its legislative authority was restored. Bernard sent home disquieting reports; the revenue laws were openly defied, and the officers forcibly prevented from executing them; he was himself insulted by the mob, and had not, he wrote, "the shadow of authority". There were no troops nearer than New York. Bernard, an upright and fairly able man, though too apt to dispute with his disputatious opponents, was extremely unpopular, for it was known that he advised the ministers to take strong measures. It was his duty to represent the royal authority and to maintain the laws, and he told them that he could do nothing unless he was supported. He was right. Between a frank surrender and a vigorous and consistent policy there should have been no middle way. The ministers found one. They irritated the Americans without attempting to crush the fomenters of disturbance; they threatened and retreated, made a demonstration of force and shrank from employing it; their threats made the British government hated, their lenity brought it into contempt.[79] Bernard, of course, wrote as a partisan, but with this allowance his reports may be accepted as trustworthy.