Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

plain his errors of judgment rather than to leave in doubt the sincerity of his character. This is he to whom the poet Gray, in verses splendid but not venal, flung praise as to one who kept the steady course of honor on the wild waves of public life. In his college vacations, he had seen Pitt at Stowe, and been fascinated by his powers; he took office in the hope that the ministry might adopt the great commoner as its chief.

1765. July.

Conway, who had been arbitrarily dismissed from military office, was suggested as Grafton's associate. But "thinking men foresaw " peril to the stamp act, in "intrusting its execution to one of the very few persons who had opposed the passing of it;" and the king wished to consign that office to Charles Townshend, by whom it had so long been coveted. Who can tell how America would have fared under him, in an administration whose patron and adviser was the victor at Culloden? But though the king, in person, used every argument to prevail with him, yet he declined to join in a system which he compared to "lutestring, fit only for summer wear. Even so late as on the ninth of July, the king, who had reserved the place of secretary at war for Conway, renewed his entreaties; but the persistent refusal of Townshend, who held fast to his lucrative office of paymaster, threw the seals of the southern department and America, at the very last moment, into the hands of Conway.

وو

The new secretary, like Shelburne and Edmund Burke, was an Irishman, and therefore disposed to have "very just notions" of the colonies. His temper was mild and moderate; in his inquiries he was reasonable and accurate; and it was his desire to unite both countries in affection as well as interest. But he was diffident and hesitating. He seemed to be inflexibly proud, and was not firm; to be candid, and was only scrupulous. His honesty, instead of nerving his will, kept him for ever a skeptic. He would in battle walk up to the cannon's mouth with imperturbable courage; but, in the cabinet, his mind was in a perpetual seesaw, balancing arguments, and never reaching fixed conclusions, unless his sense of honor was touched, or his gentle disposition was

invigorated by his humanity. The necessity of immediate action was sure to find him still wavering. He was so fond of doing right that the time for doing it passed before he could settle what it was; and the man who was now appointed to guide the mind of the house of commons, never could make up his own.

66

1765.

July.

The ministry would have restored Shelburne to the presidency of the board of trade; but he excused himself, because Rockingham, on taking office, had given no pledges but as to "men.” Measures, not men, will be the rule of my conduct," said Shelburne, in concurrence with Pitt; and thus the two branches of the liberal aristocracy gained their watchwords. The one was bound to provide for its connection, the other to promote reform. There could be no progress of liberty in England but from the union of the aristocratic power of the one with the popular principle of the other. The refusal of Shelburne left the important office to the young and inexperienced Earl of Dartmouth, whom the poet Cowper described as "the one who wears a coronet and prays."

A peerage was conferred on Pratt, who took the name of Camden; though Rockingham was averse to his advancement. But it was through Rockingham himself that Lord George Sackville, who had been degraded while Pitt was minister, was restored to a seat at the council board, and raised to one of the lucrative vice-treasurerships of Ireland. Thus was an administration, whose policy had been sanctioned by large and increasing majorities in parliament, and by the most cordial approbation of the king, avowedly turned out, to gratify his personal disgust at its exercising its constitutional right to control him in the use of the court favor. The new cabinet did not include one man of commanding ability, nor had it a single measure to propose to the crown, to the nation, or to the colonies; and, in parliament, its want of debating talent stamped its character with weakness. Grenville sullenly predicted that every day would produce difficulties in the colonies and with foreign powers.

"Within the last twelve years," wrote Voltaire at that

time, "there has been a marked revolution in the public

1765.

[ocr errors]

mind. Light is certainly spreading on all sides." George III., without intending it, promoted the revo

July. lution which Voltaire anxiously awaited, and has

tened results affecting America and the world, of which neither of the two had any preconception.

The new ministry did not enter upon their career with the purpose of repealing or changing the stamp act. Many of those whose support was essential to them, among others Northington, who remained in the cabinet as chancellor, Yorke, and Charles Townshend, were among its earliest and most strenuous supporters; and the Duke of Cumberland was the last man in England to temporize with what he might think to be rebellion. The agents of the colonies, seeing among the ministry some who had been their friends, took courage to solicit relief; but for many weeks Franklin admitted no hope of success. An order in council, sanctioned by the name and apparently by the advice of Lord Dartmouth, perhaps the worst order ever proposed by the board of trade, so bad that it was explained away by the crown lawyers as impossible to have been intended, permitted appeals to the privy council from any verdict. given by any jury in the courts of New York; while the treasury board, with Rockingham at its head, directed the attorney and solicitor general to prepare instruments for collecting in Canada, by the king's authority, the same revenue which had been collected there under the government of Louis XV.; and, without any apparent misgiving, proceeded to complete the arrangements for executing the stamp act.

CHAPTER XVI.

HOW THE STAMP OFFICERS WERE HANDLED IN AMERICA. ADMINISTRATION OF ROCKINGHAM.

AUGUST SEPTEMBER, 1765.

1765.

Aug.

SIX weeks and more before the change of ministry was known in Boston, and while the passions of the public mind throughout the continent were still rising, Jared Ingersoll, of Connecticut, late agent for that province, now its stamp-master, arrived there from England; and the names of the stamp distributors were published on the eighth of August. The craftily devised policy of employing Americans failed from the beginning. "It will be as in the West Indies," clamored the people; "there the negro overseers are the most cruel."

[ocr errors]

"Had you not rather," said a friend of Ingersoll, "these duties should be collected by your brethren than by foreigners ? " "No, vile miscreant! indeed we had not,' answered Dagget, of New Haven. "If your father must die, is there no defect in filial duty in becoming his executioner, that the hangman's part of the estate may be retained in the family? If the ruin of your country is decreed, are you free from blame for taking part in the plunder?" "North American Liberty is dead," wrote another, "but happily she has left one son, the child of her bosom, prophetically named Independence, now the hope of all when he shall come of age." But why wait? asked the impatient. "Why should any stamp officers be allowed in America at all?" 66 'I am clear in this point," declared Mayhew, "that no people are under a religious obligation to be slaves, if they are able to set themselves at liberty." "The stamp act," it was said universally in Boston, "is

arbitrary, unconstitutional, and a breach of charter. Let it be of short duration. There are two hundred thousand inhabitants in this province, and by computation about two millions in America. It is too late for us to be dragooned out of our rights. We may refuse submission, or at least the stamp officers will be afraid to stab their country." If every one of them could be forced to resign, the statute which was to execute itself would perish from the beginning. Spontaneously the decree seemed to go forth that Boston should lead the way in the work of compulsion.

It was already known there that the king, desirous of changing his ministry, had sent for William Pitt; and the crowd that kindled the bonfire in King Street on the birthday of the Prince of Wales rent the air with "God bless our true British king! Heaven preserve the Prince of Wales! Pitt and liberty for ever!" And high and low, rich and poor, joined in the chorus: "Pitt and liberty!"

1765. Aug.

The daybreak of Wednesday, the fourteenth of August, saw the effigy of Oliver, the stamp distributor for Boston, tricked out with emblems of Bute and Grenville, swinging on the bough of an elm, the pride of the neighborhood, known as the Great Tree, standing near what was then the entrance to the town. The pageant had been secretly prepared by Boston mechanics, true born SONS OF LIBERTY: Benjamin Edes, the printer; Thomas Crafts, the painter; John Smith and Stephen Cleverly, the braziers; and the younger Avery; Thomas Chase, a hater of kings; Henry Bass and Henry Welles. The passers-by stopped to gaze on the grotesque spectacle, and their report collected thousands. Hutchinson, as chief justice, ordered the sheriff to remove the images. "We will take them down ourselves at evening," said the people.

Bernard summoned his council. "The country, whatever may be the consequence," said some of them, "will never submit to the execution of the stamp act." The majority spoke against interfering with the people. Bernard and Hutchinson were still engaged in impotent altercations with their advisers, when, just after dark, an "amazing multitude, moving in the greatest order and following the

« ZurückWeiter »