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of one or two of those most hostile to their ministry; but the king refused his assent.

On the night of the fifth, the same question came up in the house of commons, where Pitt spoke at length, with tact and gentleness; and the house, with considerable unanimity, contented itself with changing the proposition of the ministry into a resolution declaratory of its opinion.

The house of lords nevertheless persevered; and, on the sixth, it attracted the world to witness its proceedings. To keep up appearances, Bute rose and declared "his most lively attachment to the person of the king, yet the interest of his country must weigh with him more than any other consideration; the king himself would not blame him or other lords for obeying the dictates of their conscience on important affairs of state." Encouraged by this indirect promise of the king's good-will, the new coalition, after a solemn debate, carried a vote of fifty-nine against fifty-four, in favor of executing the stamp act. For the house of lords now to consent to its repeal would in some sort be an abdication of its co-ordinate authority with the commons.

1766. Feb.

Once more, on the morning of the seventh, Rockingham, forgetting alike the principles of the old whig party and of the British constitution, which forbid the interference of the king with the legislature, hurried to court, and this time asked and obtained leave to say that the king was for the repeal; and he made haste to spread the intelligence.

The evening of that same day, Grenville, to test the temper of the house, made a motion for the execution of all

acts.

With instant sagacity, Pitt, who at the time was far too ill to be in the house, and yet was impelled by a sense of duty to be present, seized the advantage thus offered, and called on the house, not to order the enforcement of the stamp act, before they had decided the question of repeal. The request was reasonable, was pressed by him with winning candor and strength of argument, and commended itself to the good sense and generous feeling of the independent members of the house.

"I shudder at the motion," cried the aged General

Howard, while the crowded house listened as if awed into silence; "I hope it will not succeed, lest I should be ordered to execute it. Before I would imbrue my hands in the blood of my countrymen, who are contending for English liberty, I would, if ordered, draw my sword, but would sooner sheathe it in my own body." Nugent argued that giving way would infuse the spirit of resistance into the Irish. Charles Townshend praised the general purport of Grenville's proposal, and yet censured him vehemently for anticipating the decision of the house. Grenville remained obdurate, and denounced curses on the ministers who should sacrifice the sovereignty of Great Britain over her colonies. He had expected great support: Sandwich had estimated the strength of the Bedfords at one hundred and thirty; their new allies had claimed to be eighty or ninety; and now, though Lord Granby and all the Scotch and the king's friends voted with him, the motion was rejected, in a very full house, by more than two to one.

1766.

Feb.

The king, when informed of this great majority, was more deeply affected than ever before; and authorized Lord Strange, chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, "to say that he was for a modification of the stamp act, but not for a repeal of it.”

The opponents of concession now claimed for their side the name of the king, whose opinions they declared that Rockingham had misrepresented. The irritated chief summoned the author of the rumor to meet him at the palace. There, on the twelfth, they went into the closet alternately, two or three times each, to reconcile the seeming contradiction. For fear of mistakes, Rockingham wrote with a pencil these words: "Lord Rockingham was authorized by his majesty, on Friday last, to say that his majesty was for the repeal." "It is very true," said the king, as he read the paper; "but I must make an addition to it; upon which he took a pen, and wrote at the end of it, "the conversation having been only concerning that or enforcing." He added: "I desire you would tell Lord Strange that I am now, and have been heretofore, for modification." So Rockingham was disavowed, and the opposition declared

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more than ever that the ministers counterfeited as well as prostituted the sentiments of the king, whose unwritten word they would not trust, and whose written word convicted them of falsehood.

1766. Feb.

On the same day, Bedford and Grenville went to an interview with Bute, for whom it was a proud moment to find his aid solicited by his bitterest personal enemies. He desired that the past might be buried in oblivion, and that all honest men might unite; but he refused to enter upon any conference on the subject of a new administration. The Duke of York interposed his offices, and bore to the king the Duke of Bedford's "readiness to receive the royal commands, should his majesty be inclined to pursue the modification instead of the total repeal of the stamp act." But the king, who was resolved not to receive Grenville again as his chief minister, disregarded the offer.

Such were the auspices when, on the thirteenth, Benjamin Franklin was summoned to the bar of the house of commons. The occasion found him full of hope and courage, having among his interrogators Grenville and Charles Townshend, and the house of commons for intent listeners. Choiseul, too, was sure to learn and to weigh all that Franklin should utter.

In answer to questions, Franklin declared that America could not pay the stamp-tax for want of gold and silver, and from want of post-roads and means of sending stamps back into the country; that there were in North America about three hundred thousand white men, from sixteen to sixty years of age; that the inhabitants of all the provinces. together, taken at a medium, doubled in about twenty-five years; that their demand for British manufactures increased much faster; that in 1723 the whole importation from Britain to Pennsylvania was but about fifteen thousand pounds sterling, and had already become near half a million; that the exports from the province to Britain could not exceed forty thousand pounds; that the balance was paid from remittances to England for American produce, carried to our own islands or to the French, Spaniards, Danes, and Dutch in the West Indies, or to other colonies

in North America, or to different parts of Europe, as Spain, Portugal, and Italy; that these remittances were greatly interrupted by new regulations, and by the English men-ofwar and cutters stationed all along the coast in America; that the last war was really a British war, commenced for the defence of a purely British trade and of territories of the crown, and yet the colonies contributed to its expenses beyond their proportion, the house of commons itself being the judge; that they were now imposing on themselves many and very heavy taxes, in part to discharge the debts and mortgages on all their taxes and estates then contracted; that if, among them all, Maryland, a single province, had not contributed its proportion, it was the fault of its government alone; that they had never refused, and were always willing and ready to do what could reasonably be expected from them; that, before 1763, they were of the best temper in the world towards Great Britain, and were governed at the expense only of a little pen, ink, and paper; they allowed the authority of parliament in laws, except such as should lay internal duties, and never disputed it in laying duties to regulate commerce; and considered that body as the great bulwark and security of their liberties and privileges; but that now their temper was much altered, and their respect for it lessened; and, if the act is not repealed, the consequence would be a total loss of the respect and affection they bore to this country, and of all the commerce that depended on that respect and affection.

1766.

Feb.

"Do you think it right," asked Grenville, " that America should be protected by this country, and pay no part of the expense ?" "That is not the case," answered Franklin; "the colonies raised, clothed, and paid during the last war twenty-five thousand men, and spent many millions." "Were you not reimbursed by parliament?" rejoined Grenville. "Only what, in your opinion," answered Franklin, “we had advanced beyond our proportion; and it was a very small part of what we spent. Pennsylvania, in particular, disbursed about five hundred thousand pounds; and the reimbursements, in the whole, did not exceed sixty thousand pounds."

1766. Feb.

"Do you think the people of America would submit to pay the stamp duty if it was moderated?” “No, never. They will never submit to it." And when the subject was brought up a second and a third time, and one of Grenville's ministry asked, "May not a military force carry the stamp act into execution?" Franklin answered: "Suppose a military force sent into America; they will find nobody in arms; what are they then to do? They cannot force a man to take stamps who chooses to do without them. They will not find a rebellion: they may, indeed, make one."

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"How would the Americans receive a future tax, imposed on the same principle with that of the stamp act?" "Just as they do this; they would not pay it," was the answer. "What will be the opinion of the Americans on the resolutions of this house and the house of lords, asserting the right of parliament to tax the people there?” They will think the resolutions unconstitutional and unjust." "How would they receive an internal regulation, connected with a tax?" "It would be objected to. When aids to the crown are wanted, they are, according to the old established usage, to be asked of the assemblies, who will, as they always have done, grant them freely. They think it extremely hard that a body in which they have no representatives should make a merit of giving and granting what is not its own, but theirs; and deprive them of a right which is the security of all their other rights." not the post-office, which they have long received, a tax as well as a regulation?" interposed Grenville to Franklin, the deputy post-master for America; and Charles Townshend repeated the question. "No," replied Franklin, "the money paid for the postage of letters is merely a remuneration for a service done."

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"But if the legislature should think fit to ascertain its right to lay taxes, by any act laying a small tax contrary to their opinion, would they submit to pay the tax?" "An internal tax, how small soever, laid by the legislature here on the people there, will never be submitted to. They will oppose it to the last." "The people," he made answer to

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