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stitution; "not from a vain preference of one family to

another," still less from personal regard, but because 1754. he passively gave the name of his house as a watchword

for toleration in the church, freedom of thinking and of speech, the security of property under the sanction of law, the safe enjoyment of English liberty. They had defended this wise and deliberate act against the wounded hereditary affections and the monarchical propensities of the rural districts of the nation; till at last their fundamental measures had ceased to clash with the sentiment of the people, and the whole aristocracy had accepted their doctrines. Murray, afterwards Lord Mansfield, called himself a whig; was one of the brightest ornaments of the party; and, after Hardwicke, their oracle on questions of law. Cumberland, Newcastle, Devonshire, Bedford, Halifax, and the Marquis of Rockingham were all reputed whigs. So were George and Charles Townshend, the young Lord North, Grenville, Conway, and Sackville. On the vital elements of civil liberty, the noble families which led the several factions had no systematic opinions. They knew not that America, which demanded their attention, would amalgamate the cause of royalty and oligarchy, and create parties in England on questions which the Revolution of 1688 had not even considered.

It was because the whig party at this time had proposed to itself nothing great to accomplish, that it was possible for a man like Newcastle to be at its head; with others like Holdernesse, and the dull Sir Thomas Robinson, for the secretaries of state. The province of New York had replied to the condemnation of its policy, contained in Sir Danvers Osborne's instructions, by a well-founded impeachment of Clinton for embezzling public funds and concealing it by false accounts; for gaining undue profits from extravagant grants of lands, and grants to himself under fictitious names; and for selling civil and military offices. These grave accusations were neglected; but the province also complained that its legislature had been directed to obey the king's instructions. They insisted that such instructions, though a rule of conduct to his governor, were

not the measure of obedience to the people; that the rule of obedience was positive law; that a command to grant money was neither constitutional nor legal, being inconsistent with the freedom of debate and the rights of the assembly, whose power to prepare and pass the bills granting money was admitted by the crown. The Newcastle administration did not venture upon effective measures to enforce its orders; while it yet applauded the conduct of the board of trade, and summarily condemned the colony by rejecting its loyal justificatory address to the king. The best English lawyers questioned more and more the legality of a government by royal instructions.

As a measure of security against French encroachments, the king, listening to the house of burgesses of Virginia, instructed the Earl of Albemarle, then governor in chief of that dominion, to grant lands west of the great ridge of mountains which separates the rivers Roanoke, James, and Potomac from the Mississippi, to such persons as should be desirous of settling them, in quantities of not more than a thousand acres for any one person.

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July,

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As a further measure, Halifax, by the royal command, proposed an American union. "A certain and permanent revenue," with a proper adjustment of quotas, was to be determined by a meeting of one commissioner from each colony. In electing the commissioners, the council, though appointed by the king, was to have a negative on the assembly, and the royal governor to have a negative on both. The colony that failed of being represented was yet to be bound by the result. Seven were to be a quorum; and of these a majority, with the king's approbation, were to bind the continent. The executive department was to be intrusted to one commander in chief, who should, at the same time, be the commissary-general for Indian affairs. To meet his expenses, he was "to be empowered to draw on the treasuries of the colonies for sums proportionate to their respective quotas. A disobedient or neglectful province was to be reduced by "the authority of parliament; and the interposition of that authority was equally to be applied for, if the whole plan of union should be defeated.

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Such was the despotic, complicated, and impracticable plan of Halifax, founded so much on prerogative as to be at war with the principles of the English aristocratic revolution. Nor was any earnest effort ever made to carry it into effect. It does but mark, in the mind of Halifax and his associates, the moment of that pause which preceded the definitive purpose of settling all questions of an American revenue, government, and union by what seemed the effective, simple, and uniform system of a general taxation of America by the British legislature.

"If the several assemblies," wrote Thomas Penn from England," will not make provision for the general service, an act of parliament may oblige them here." "The assemblies," said Dinwiddie, of Virginia, "are obstinate, selfopinionated, a stubborn generation;" and he advised "a poll-tax on the whole subjects in all the provinces, to bring them to a sense of their duty." Other governors, also, "applied home" for compulsory legislation; and Sharpe, of Maryland, who was temporarily appointed general, held it "possible, if not probable, that parliament, at its very next session, would raise a fund in the several provinces by a poll-tax," or by imposts, " or by a stamp duty," which last method he at that time favored.

Charles Townshend would have sent three thousand regulars, with three hundred thousand pounds, to New England, to train its inhabitants, and, through them, to conquer Canada. But the administration confessed its indecision; and in October, while it sent pacific messages "to the French administration, particularly to Madame de Pompadour and the Duke de Mirepoix," the direction and conduct of American affairs was abandoned to the Duke of Cumberland, then the captain-general of the British army.

The French ministry desired to put trust in the solemn assurances of England. Giving discretionary power in case of a rupture, they instructed Duquesne to act only on the defensive; but "the cruel and sanguinary" Cumberland entered on his American career with eager ostentation. He was heroically brave and covetous of military renown, hiding regrets at failure under the aspect of indifference. Himself

obedient to the king, he never forgave a transgression of "the minutest precept of the military rubric." In Scotland, in 1746, his method against rebellion was "threatening military execution." "Our success," he at that time complained to Bedford, “has been too rapid; it would have been better for the extirpation of this rabble, if they had stood."

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For the American major-general and commander in chief, Edward Braddock was selected, a man in fortunes desperate, in manners brutal, in temper despotic; obstinate and intrepid; expert in the niceties of a review; harsh in discipline. As the duke had confidence only in regular troops, it was ordered that the general and field-officers of the provincial forces should have no rank, when serving with the general and field-officers commissioned by the king. Disgusted at this order, Washington retired from the service, and his regiment was broken up.

The active participation in affairs by Cumberland again connected Henry Fox with their direction. This unscrupulous man, having "privately forsworn all connection with Pitt," entered the cabinet without office, and undertook the conduct of the house of commons. Cumberland had caused the English mutiny bill to be revised, and its rigor doubled. On a sudden, at a most unusual period in the session, Fox showed Lord Egmont a clause for extending the mutiny bill to America, and subjecting the colonial militia, when in actual service, to its terrible severity. Egmont interceded to protect America from this new grievance of military law; but Charles Townshend defended the measure, and, turning to Lord Egmont, exclaimed: "Take the poor American by the hand, and point out his grievances. I defy you, I beseech you, to point out one grievance. I know not of one." He pronounced a panegyric on the board of trade, and defended all their acts, in particular the instructions to Sir Danvers Osborne. The petition of the agent of Massachusetts was not allowed to be brought up; that to the house of lords no one would offer; and the bill, with the clause for America, was hurried through parliament.

It is confidently stated, by the agent of Massachusetts, that a noble lord had then a bill in his pocket, ready to be

brought in, to ascertain and regulate the colonial quotas. All England was persuaded of "the perverseness of the assemblies," and inquiries were instituted relating to the easiest method of taxation by parliament. But, for the moment, the prerogative was employed; Braddock was ordered to exact a common revenue; and all the governors received the king's pleasure "that a fund be established for the benefit of all the colonies collectively in North America."

Men in England expected obedience; but, in De1754. cember, Delancey referred to "the general opinion of the congress at Albany, that the colonies would differ in their measures and disagree about their quotas; without the interposition of the British parliament to oblige them,” nothing would be done.

In the same moment, Shirley, at Boston, was planning how the common fund could be made efficient; and to Franklin, who, in December, 1754, revisited the town in which he drew his first breath, he submitted a new scheme of union. A congress of governors and delegates from the councils was to be invested with power at their meetings to adopt measures of defence, and to draw for all necessary moneys on the treasury of Great Britain, which was to be reimbursed by parliamentary taxes on America.

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"The people in the colonies," replied Franklin, are better judges of the necessary preparations for defence, and their own abilities to bear them. Governors often come to the colonies merely to make fortunes, with which they intend to return to Britain; are not always men of the best abilities or integrity; have no natural connection with us, that should make them heartily concerned for our welfare." "The councillors in most of the colonies are appointed by the crown, on the recommendation of governors; frequently depend on the governors for office, and are therefore too much under influence. There is reason to be jealous of a power in such governors. They might abuse it merely to create employments, gratify dependants, and divide profits." Besides, the mercantile system of England already extorted a secondary tribute from America. In ad

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