meafures as fhall be neceffary for preferving and "fupporting the legal dependence of the colonies "on the mother country, &c. &c."

Here was certainly a difturbance preceding the repeal; fuch a disturbance as Mr. Grenville thought neceffary to qualify by the name of an infurrection, and the epithet of a rebellious force: terms much ftronger than any, by which, those who then fupported his motion, have ever fince thought proper to diftinguish the fubfequent difturbances in America. They were difturbances which feemed to him and his friends to juftify as ftrong a promife of fupport, as hath been ufual to give in the be ginning of a war with the moft powerful and declared enemies. When the accounts of the American governours came before the house, they appeared stronger even than the warmth of publick imagination had painted them; fo much stronger, that the papers on your table bear me out in faying, that all the late disturbances, which have been at one time the minifter's motives for the repeal of five out of fix of the new court taxes, and are now his pretences for refufing to repeal that fixth, did not amount-why do I compare them? no, not to a tenth part of the tumults and violence which prevailed long before the repeal of that act.

Ministry cannot refuse the authority of the commander in chief general Gage, who, in his letter of the 4th of November, from New York, thus represents the state of things;

"It

"It is difficult to fay, from the highest to the "loweft, who has not been acceffary to this infur"rection, either by writing or mutual agreements

to oppofe the act, by what they are pleased to term "all legal oppofition to it. Nothing effectual has "been propofed, either to prevent or quell the tu"mult. The rest of the provinces are in the "fame fituation as to a pofitive refufal to take the 'Stamps; and threatening those who shall take them, "to plunder and murder them; and this affair 'Stands in all the provinces, that unless the act, "from its own nature, enforce itself, nothing but "a very confiderable military force can do it."

It is remarkable, Sir, that the perfons who formerly trumpeted forth the moft loudly, the violent refolutions of affemblies; the univerfal infurrections; the feizing and burning the stamped papers; the forcing stamp officers to refign their commiffions under the gallows; the rifling and pulling down of the houfes of magiftrates; and the expulfion from their country of all who dared to write or fpeak a fingle word in defence of the powers of parliament; thefe very trumpeters are now the men that reprefent the whole as a mere trifle; and choose to date all the difturbances from the repeal of the stamp-act, which put an end to them. Hear your officers abroad, and let them refute this fhameless falfehood, who, in all their correfpondence, state the difturbances as owing to their true causes, the difcontent of the people, from

the

the taxes. You have this evidence in your own archives-and it will give you compleat fatisfaction; if you are not fo far loft to all parliamentary ideas of information, as rather to credit the lye of the day, than the records of your own houfe.

Sir, this vermin of court reporters, when they are forced into day upon one point, are fure to burrow in another; but they fhall have no refuge : I will make them bolt out of all their holes. Confcious that they must be baffled, when they attribute a precedent difturbance to a fubfequent measure, they take other ground, almost as abfurd, but very common in modern practice, and very wicked; which is, to attribute the ill effect of ill-judged conduct to the arguments which had been used to diffuade us from it. They fay, that the oppofition made in parliament to the ftamp-act at the time of it's paffing, encouraged the Americans to their refiftance. This has even formally appeared in print in a regular volume, from an advocate of that faction, a Dr. Tucker. This Dr. Tucker is already a dean, and his earneft labours in this vineyard will, I suppose, raise him to a bishoprick. But this affertion too, juft like the reft, is falfe. In all the papers which have loaded your table; in all the vaft crowd of verbal witneffes that appeared at your bar, witneffes which were indifcriminately produced from both fides of the house; not the leaft hint of fuch a caufe of disturbance has ever appeared.

appeared. As to the fact of a ftrenuous oppofition to the ftamp-act, I fat as a stranger in your gallery when the act was under confideration. Far from any thing inflammatory, I never heard a more languid debate in this houfe. No more than two or three gentlemen, as I remember, spoke against the act, and that with great referve and remarkable temper. There was but one divifion in the whole progress of the bill; and the minority did not reach to more than 39 or 40. In the house of lords I do not recollect that there was any debate' or divifion at all. I am fure there was no proteft. In fact, the affair paffed with fo very, very little noise, that in town they fcarcely knew the nature of what you were doing. The oppofition to the bill-in England never could have done this mifchief, because there fcarcely ever was lefs of oppofition to a bill of confequence.

Sir, the agents and diftributors of falfehoods have, with their ufual industry, circulated another lye of the fame nature with the former. It is this, that the disturbances arofe from the account which had been received in America of the change in the miniftry No longer awed, it feems, with the fpirit of the former rulers, they thought themselves: a match for what our calumniators choofe to qualify by the name of fo feeble a miniftry as fucceeded. Feeble in one fenfe thefe men certainly may be called; for with all their efforts, and they have

made

made many, they have not been able to refift the diftempered vigour, and infane alacrity with which you are rushing to your ruin. But it does fo happen, that the falfity of this circulation is (like the reft) demonstrated by indifputable dates and records.

So little was the change known in America, that the letters of your governours, giving an account of thefe disturbances long after they had arrived at their higheft pitch, were all directed to the old miniftry, and particularly to the earl of Halifar, the fecretary of ftate correfponding with the colonies, without once in the smallest degree intimating the flightoft fufpicion of any minifterial revolution whatsoever. The miniftry was not changed in England until the 10th day of July 1765. On the 14th of the preceding June, governor Fauquier from Virginia writes thus; and writes thus to the earl of Halifax: "Government is set at defiance, "not having forength enough in her hands to en"force obedience to the laws of the community." "The private diftrefs, which every man feels, in

6.6

creafes the general diffatisfaction at the duties "laid by the ftamp-act, which breaks out, and shews itself upon every trifling occafion." The general' diffatisfaction had produced fome time before, that is, on the 29th of May, feveral ftrong publick refolves against the ftamp-act; and thofe refolves are affigned by governor Bernard, as the

&

caufe