LI.

Nov.

cause the setting appeared uncouth;" but the debate CHAP. which he opened had no effect except that Grafton took part with him, and as a consequence resigned 1775. his place as keeper of the privy seal. Every effort of the opposition was futile. On the tenth of November Richard Penn was called to the bar of the house of lords, where he bore witness in great detail to the sincerity of the American congress in their wish for conciliation, and to the unanimity of support which they received from the people. Under the most favorable auspices the duke of Richmond proposed to accept the petition from that congress to the king as a ground for conciliation; he was ably supported by Shelburne; but his motion, like every similar motion in either house, was negatived by a majority of about two to one.

On the same day, the definitive ministerial changes, which were to give a character to the whole war, were completed. Rochford retired on a pension, and his place was taken by Lord Weymouth, who greatly surpassed him in ability and resolution. Dartmouth, who was mild tempered, amiable, and pure, yet weak, ignorant, and narrow, one of the best disposed of British statesmen, yet one whose hand was set to the most cruel and most arbitrary measures, exchanged his seat in the cabinet for the privy seal, consoling himself with the belief that he had been ever laboring for conciliation, while in fact he had been sanctioning and executing the policy at which his soul revolted. The seals of the American department were transferred to Lord George Sackville Germain, who owed his selection to his speech in the house of commons on the twenty eighth of March, 1774, and who came into

CHAP. office on the condition of his enforcing the measures recommended in that speech.

LI.

1775. Nov.

Germain stood before Europe as a cashiered officer, disgraced for cowardice on the field of battle; and his unquestioning vanity made him eager to efface his ignominy by a career that should rival that of Pitt in the Seven Years' war. Haunted by corroding recollections, he stumbled like one in the dark as he struggled to enter the temple of fame, and eagerly went about knocking for admission at every gate but the right one. He owed his rehabilitation to Rockingham, to whom he instantly proved false; Chatham would never sit with him at the council board. His career was unprosperous, from causes within himself. His powers were very much overrated; he had a feverish activity, punctuality to a minute, and personal application, but no sagacity, nor quickness or delicacy of perception, nor soundness of judgment. He wanted altogether that mastery over others which comes from warmth of heart. Minutely precise and formal, he was a most uncomfortable chief, always throwing upon the officers under his direction the fault of failure even in impossible schemes. His rancor towards those at whom he took offence was bitter and unending. His temper was petulant; his selfish passions were violent and constant, yet petty in their objects. Apparelled on Sunday morning in gala, as if for the drawing room, he constantly marched out all his household to his parish church; where he would mark time for the singing gallery, chide a rustic chorister for a discord, stand up during the sermon survey the congregation, or overawe the idle, and with unmoved sincerity gesticulate approbation to the

to

LI.

Nov.

preacher, whom he sometimes cheered on by name. CHAP. Though smooth and kindly to his inferiors and dependents, he was capable of ordering the most relent- 177 less acts of cruelty; could chide his generals for checking savages in their career as destroyers; and at night, on coming home to his supper and his claret, the friendless man, unloving and unloved, could, with cold, vengeful malice, plan how to lay America in ashes, because he could not have the glory of reducing her to submission.

revenue.

An opportunity soon offered for the new secretary to unfold his policy. On the sixteenth Burke brought forward a bill for composing the existing troubles, by formally renouncing the pretension to an American "If we are to have no peace," replied Germain, "unless we give up the right of taxation, the contest is brought to its fair issue. I trust we shall draw a revenue from America; the spirit of this country will go along with me in the idea to crush rebellious resistance."

As he said this, the orders were already on the way to hire troops of the roytelets of Brunswick and Hesse Cassel, and in defiance of the laws of the empire to raise four thousand recruits in Germany; for if Germain was to crush the Americans, it could not be done by Englishmen. The ministry was the master of parliament, but not of the affections of the English people. Germain's appointment shows how little their sympathies were considered; the administration, as it was now constituted, was the weakest, the least principled, and the most unpopular of that century. The England that the world revered, the England that kept alive in Europe the

CHAP. Vestal fire of freedom, was at this time outside of the

Nov.

LI. government, though steadily gaining political strength. 1775. "Chatham, while he had life in him, was its nerve." Had Grenville been living, it would have included Grenville; it retained Rockingham, Grenville's successor; it had now recovered Grafton, Chatham's successor; and Lord North, who succeeded Grafton, sided with Germain and Sandwich only by spasms, and though he loved his place, was more against his own ministry than for it. The king's policy was not in harmony with the England of the Revolution, nor with that of the eighteenth century, nor with that of the nineteenth. The England of to-day, which receives and brightens and passes along the torch of liberty, has an honest lineage, and springs from the England of the last century; but it had no representative in the ministry of Lord North, or the majority of the fourteenth parliament. America would right herself within a year; Britain and Ireland must wait more than a half century.

Still less did the ministry possess the hearts of the people of Ireland; though it controlled a majority of her legislature, and sought to allay discontent by concessions in favor of her commerce and manufactures. The consent of the Irish house of commons was requested to sending four thousand of the troops on the Irish establishment to America, and receiving in their stead four thousand German Protestants. "If we give our consent," objected Ponsonby, in the debate on the twenty fifth of November, "we shall take part against America, contrary to justice, to prudence, and to hu manity." "The war is unjust," said Fitzgibbons, "and Ireland has no reason to be a party therein." Sir

LI.

Nov.

Edward Newenham could not agree to send more CHAP. troops to butcher men who were fighting for their liberty; and he reprobated the introduction of foreign 1775. mercenaries as equally militating against true reason and sound policy. "If men must be sent to America," cried George Ogle, "send there foreign mercenaries, not the brave sons of Ireland." Hussey Burg condemned the American war as "a violation of the law of nations, the law of the land, the law of humanity, the law of nature; he would not vote a single sword without an address recommending conciliatory measures; the ministry, if victorious, would only establish a right to the harvest when they had burned the grain." Yet the troops were voted by one hundred and twenty one against seventy six, although the resolution to replace them by foreign Protestants was negatived by sixty eight against one hundred and six.

The majority in parliament did not quiet Lord Dec. North. Sir George Saville describes him "as one day for conciliation; but as soon as the first word is out, he is checked and controlled, and instead of conciliation out comes confusion." On the first day of December, he pressed to a second reading the American prohibitory bill, which consolidated the three special acts against the port of Boston, the fisheries, and the trade of the southern colonies, and enlarged them into a prohibition of all the trade of all the thirteen colonies. American vessels and goods were made the property of their captors; the prisoners might be compelled to serve the king even against their own countrymen. No one American grievance was removed; but commissioners were to be appointed to accept the submission of the colonies, or parts of colonies,