mont, who insisted on a plan like that of Murray; but Shelburne enforced his own opinion, and the new government did not include the domain, which was to be reserved for the present for the use of the Indians.

1763. July.

Shelburne did not implicate himself in the plans for taxing America. It fell, therefore, to Jenkinson, the principal secretary of the treasury, from the nature of his office, to prepare the business for consideration. Grenville would have esteemed himself unpardonable, if he could have even thought of such a measure as the stamp act, without previously making every possible inquiry into the condition of America. In addition to the numerous public reports and correspondence, information was sought from men who were held in England worthy of trust in all situations, and the exaggerated accounts given by the officers who had been employed in America dispelled every doubt of its ability to bear a part in the national expenses. Ellis, for several years governor of Georgia, looked up to as one of the ablest men that had been employed in America, of whose interests he made pretensions to a thorough knowledge, a favorite of Halifax and the confidential friend of Egremont, had no small share in introducing the new system, and bore away sinecure offices for his reward.

McCulloh, a crown officer in North Carolina, and agent for an English company concerned in a purchase of more than a million acres of land in that province, a man who had influence enough to gain an office from the crown for his son, with seats in the council for his son and nephew, furnished Jenkinson with a brief state of the taxes usually raised in the old settled colonies, and assured him that a stamp-tax on the continental colonies would, at a moderate computation, produce sixty thousand pounds per annum, and twice that sum if extended to the West Indies. He also renewed the proposition which he had made eight years before to Halifax, for gaining an imperial revenue by issuing exchequer bills for the general use of America. But, before any measure was matured, Egremont was no longer secretary of state nor Shelburne at the board of trade.

The triumvirate ministry had neither popularity, nor

1763.

Aug.

weight in parliament. To strengthen his government, the king, conforming to the views sketched by Bute in the previous April, but against the positive and repeated advice of his three ministers, directed Egremont to invite Lord Hardwicke to enter the cabinet, as president of the council. "It is impossible for me," said Hardwicke, at an interview on the first day of August, "to accept an employment, whilst all my friends are out of court." "The king," said Egremont, "cannot bring himself to submit to take in a party in gross, or an opposition party." 66А king of England," answered Hardwicke, "at the head of a popular government, especially as of late the popular scale has grown heavier, will sometimes find it necessary to bend and ply a little; not as being forced, but as submitting to the stronger reason, for the sake of himself and his government. King William, hero as he was, found himself obliged to this conduct; so had other princes before him, and so did his majesty's grandfather, King George II., who thanked me for advising him to it."

This wise answer was reported to the king, who, disregarding the most earnest dissuasions of Grenville, desired ten days for reflection; on which Grenville went into the country to await the decision. But on Wednesday, the third, Halifax, with Egremont at his side, harangued the king for half an hour, pressing him, on the instant, to resolve either to support the existing administration or to form another from its adversaries. The angry Egremont spoke to the same effect, and the king all the while preserved absolute silence. "Behavior so insulting and uncivil," said Egremont to Grenville, "I never knew could be held to two gentlemen." Yet the king had only remained silent on a subject on which he had reserved to himself ten days before coming to a decision. Instead of resigning, Egremont was ready to concert with Grenville how to maintain themselves in office in spite of the king's wishes, by employing "absolute necessity and fear."

The king wishing to be rid of Egremont, Shelburne was commissioned to propose a coalition between Pitt and Temple on the one side, and the Duke of Bedford on the other.

The anger of Bedford towards Bute had ripened into hatred. He was therefore willing to enter the ministry, but on condition of Bute's absence from the king's counsels and presence, and Pitt's concurrence in a coalition of parties and the maintenance of the present relations with France. Pitt had no objection to a coalition of parties, and could not but acquiesce in the peace, now that it was made; but Bedford had been his strongest opponent in the cabinet, had contributed to force him into retirement, and had negotiated the treaty which he had so earnestly arraigned. For Pitt to have accepted office with Bedford would have been glaringly inconsistent with his declared opinions, and his engagements with the great whig families in opposition. "If I suffer force to be put upon me by the opposition," said the king, after mature reflection, “the mob will try to govern me next;" and he decided to stand by the ministry. But, just at that moment, news came that Egremont was dying of a stroke of apoplexy.

1763. Aug.

"Your government," said the Duke of Bedford to the king, "cannot stand; you must send to Mr. Pitt and his friends; " advice which Grenville never forgave. On Saturday, the twenty-seventh, Grenville went to the king and found Pitt's servants waiting in the court. He passed two long hours of agony and bitterness in the ante-chamber, incensed and humiliated on finding himself at the mercy of the brother-in-law whom he had betrayed. The king, in his interview with Pitt, proceeded upon the plan of defeating faction by a coalition of parties, and offered the great commoner his old place of secretary of state. "I cannot abandon the friends who have stood by me," said Pitt; and he declined to accept office without them. Nor did he fail to comment on the infirmities of the peace, and to declare that "the Duke of Bedford should have no efficient office whatever." The king preserved his self-possession, combated several of these demands, said now and then that his honor must be consulted, and reserved his decision till a second interview.

Confident that those who made the overture must carry it through, Pitt summoned Newcastle, Devonshire, Rocking

ham, and Hardwicke to come to London as his council. But the king had no thought of yielding to his "hard terms."

"Rather than submit to them," said he to Grenville, in the greatest agitation, "I would die in the room I now stand in."

On the twenty-ninth, at the second audience, Pitt still insisted on a thorough change of administration. The king closed the debate of nearly two hours by saying: "Well, Mr. Pitt, I see this won't do. My honor is concerned, and I must support it." A government formed out of the minority who had opposed the peace seemed to the king an offence to his conscience and a wound to his honor. house of commons," said Pitt, on taking leave, "will not force me upon your majesty, and I will never come into your service against your consent."

"The

1763.

Sept.

Events now shaped themselves. First of all, Bute, having disobliged all sides, went to the country with the avowed purpose of absolute retirement. His retreat was his own act, and not a condition to be made the basis of a new ministry. As a protection against the Duke of Bedford, he desired that Grenville might be armed with every degree of power. Next Lord Shelburne withdrew from office. Bedford, doubly irritated at being proscribed by Pitt, whom he had proposed as minister, promised to support the present system in all its parts, and accepted the post which was pressed upon him by his political friends, by Grenville, and by the king.

From seemingly accidental causes, there arose within ten days, out of a state of great uncertainty, a compact and well-cemented ministry. The king, in forming it, stood on the solid ground of the constitution. The last great question in parliament was on the peace, and was carried in its favor by an overwhelming majority. The present ministers had made or supported that peace, and so were in harmony with parliament. If they were too little favorable to liberty, the fault lay in the system on which parliament was chosen; it was an adequate representation of the British constitution of that day, and needed nothing but

cordial union among themselves and with the king to last for a generation.

1763. Sept.

66

Of the secretaries of state, Halifax, as the elder, had his choice of departments, and took the southern, on account of the colonies;" and the Earl of Hillsborough, like Shelburne an Irish as well as an English peer, was placed at the head of the board of trade.

One and the same spirit was at work on each side of the Atlantic. From Boston, Bernard urged anew the establishment of an independent civil list, sufficient to pay enlarged salaries to the crown officers. While he acknowledged that "the compact between the king and the people was in no colony better observed than in that of the Massachusetts Bay," that "its people in general were well satisfied with their subordination to Great Britain," that "their former prejudices, which made them otherwise disposed, were wholly or almost wholly worn off," he nevertheless railed at “the unfortunate error, in framing the government, to leave the council to be elected annually." He advised rather a council "resembling as near as possible the house of lords;" its members to be appointed for life, with some title, as baronet or baron; composed of people of consequence, willing to look up to the king for honor and authority. A permanent civil list, independent of colonial appropriations, an aristocratic middle legislative power, and a court of chancery, these were the subjects of the very earnest and incessant recommendation of Bernard to the British gov

ernment.

After the extension of the British frontier by the cession of Canada, and the consequent security of the interior, New England towns, under grants from Wentworth, the governor of New Hampshire, rose up on both sides of the Connecticut, and extended to the borders of Lake Champlain. But New York, under its old charter to the Duke of York, had long disputed with New Hampshire the jurisdiction of the country between the river and the lake. The British government regarded the contest with indifference, till Colden urged the board of trade to annex to New York all of Massachusetts and of New Hampshire west of the Connecticut