XXXIL 1768. March CHAP. To ensure the arrival of an armed force, the ('ommissioners of the Customs applied directly to the Naval Commander at Halifax,1 and also sent a second memorial to the Lords of the Treasury. They said that a design had certainly been formed to bring them on the eighteenth of March to Liberty Tree, and oblige them to renounce their commissions. "The Governor and magistracy," they add, "have not the least authority or power in this place. The mob are ready to be assembled on any occasion. Every officer who exerts himself in the execution of his duty will be exposed to their resentment. If the answer from Government to the remonstrances of the Lower House of Assembly should not be agreeable to the people, we are fully persuaded, that they will proceed to violent measures. In the mean time we must depend on the favor of the mob for our protection. We cannot answer for our security for a day, much less will it be in our power to carry the Revenue Laws into effect." 2 These letters went from Boston to the Min istry in March. The tales of riots were scandalously false. The people were opposed to the revenue system of the British Parliament; and they hoped for redress; if the Ministry should refuse it, they on their part were resolved to avoid every act of violence, to escape paying the taxes by never buying the goods on which they were imposed, and to induce their repeal by ceasing to con 1 Commodore Hood to Mr. Gronville, Halifax, July 11, 1768, in Grenville papers, iv. 306. 2 Memorial from the Commission ers of the Customs at Boston, 28 March, 1768. XXXII 1768. sume English manufactures. England had on her CHAP side the general affection of the people, the certainty that the country could not as yet manufacture for March itself, and consequently the certainty that the schemes of non-importation would fail. If she refuses to take back the last Revenue Act, there is danger that she will substitute a frank and upright man for Bernard, whose petulance, duplicity, and corruption are now exposed, and patiently await the time when the wants of the colonists will weary them of their self-denial, and lead them to abandon it of themselves. But the administration of public affairs had degenerated into a system of patronage, which had money for its object; and was supported by the King from the love of authority. The Government of England had more and more ceased to represent the noble spirit of England. The Twelfth Parliament, which had taxed America and was now near its dissolution, has never been rivalled in its bold profligacy. Its predecessors had been corrupt. The men of Bolingbroke's time took bribes more openly than those of Walpole; those of Walpole than those of the Pelhams; and those of the Pelhams, than those since the accession of George the Third; so that direct gifts of money were grown less frequent, as public opinion increased in power. But there never was a Parlia ment so shameless in its corruption as this Twelfth Parliament which virtually severed America from England. It had its votes ready for any body that was Minister, and for any measure that the Minister of the day might propose. It gave an almost unanimous support to Pitt, when, for the last time in seventy years, the foreign politics of England were on the 1768. CHAP. side of liberty. It had a majority for Newcastle after XXXIL he had ejected Pitt; for Bute when he dismissed NewMarch castle; for Grenville so long as he was the friend of Bute; for Grenville, when he became Bute's most implacable foe; and for the slender capacity of the inexperienced Rockingham. The shadow of Chatham, after his desertion of the House, could sway its decisions. When Charles Townshend, rebelling in the Cabi net, seemed likely to become Minister, it listened to him. When Townshend died, North easily restored subordination. Nor was it less impudent as to measures. It promoted the alliance with the King of Prussia and deserted him; it protected the issue of general warrants, and utterly condemned them; it passed the Stamp Act, and it repealed the Stamp Act; it began to treat America with tenderness, then veered about, imposed new taxes, changed essentially American Constitutions, and showed a readiness to suspend and abolish the freedom of the American Legislative. It was corrupt, and it knew itself to be corrupt, and made a jest of its own corruption. While it lasted, it was ready to bestow its favors on any Minister or party; and when it was gone, and had no more chances at prostitution, men wrote its epitaph as of the most scandalously abandoned body that England had ever known.1 Up to this time the Colonists had looked to Parliament as the bulwark of their liberties; henceforward they knew it to be their most dangerous enemy. They avowed that they would not pay 1 W. S. Johnson, 29 April, 1768. XX XII 1768. taxes which it assumed to impose. Some still al- CHAP lowed it a right to restrain colonial trade; but the advanced opinion among the patriots was, that each March provincial Legislature must be perfectly free; that laws were not valid unless sanctioned by the consent of America herself. Without disputing what the past had established, they were resolved to oppose any Minister that should attempt to "innovate" a single iota in their privileges. "Almighty God himself," wrote Dickinson, "will look down upon your righteous contest with approbation. You will be a band of brothers, strengthened with inconceivable supplies of force and constancy by that sympathetic ardor which animates good men, confederated in a good cause. You are assigned by Divine Providence, in the appointed order of things, the protector of unborn ages, whose fate depends upon your virtue." 4 The people of Boston responded to this appeal. In a solemn Meeting, Malcom moved their thanks to the ingenious author of the Farmer's Letters; and Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Warren, were of the committee to greet him in the name of the Town as "the Friend of Americans, and the benefactor of mankind." "They may with equal reason make one step more;" wrote Hutchinson1 to the Duke of Grafton; "they may deny the regal as well as the parliamentary authority, although no man as yet has that in his thoughts." 2 Du Châtelet to Choiseul, 12 March, 1768. Farmer's Letters, xii. Works, i. 282. • Bernard to Hillsborough, 28 March, 1768. 1 Hutchinson to the Duke of Grafton, 27 March, 1768. CHAP. March Du Chatelet,1 in England, having made his inquiXXXII. ries into the resources of America, was persuaded 1768. that even if the detailed statements before him were one half too large, England could not reduce her Colonies should they raise the standard of rebellion. "Their population is so great," said he to Choiseul, "that a breath would scatter the troops sent to enforce obedience. The ever existing attractions of an entire independence and of a free commerce, cannot fail to keep their minds continually in a state of disgust at the national subjection. The English Government may take some false step, which will in a single day set all these springs in activity. A great number of chances can hasten the revolution which all the world foresees without daring to assign its epoch. I please myself with the thought that it is not so far off as some imagine, and that we should spare neither pains nor expense to co-operate with it. We must also nourish his Catholic Majesty's disposition to avenge his wrongs. The ties that bind America to England are three fourths broken. must soon throw off the yoke. To make themselves independent, the inhabitants want nothing but arms, courage, and a chief. If they had among them a genius equal to Cromwell, this republic would be more easy to establish than the one of which that usurper was the head. Perhaps this man exists; perhaps nothing is wanting but happy circumstances to place him upon a great theatre." 2 It 'Du Châtelet to Choiseul, 12 March, 1768; and compare other letters. 2 Peut-être cet homme existe-til; peut-être ne manque-t-il plus que de quelques circonstances heureuses pour le placer sur un grand théâtre. Du Châtelet, 12 March. |