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CHAP. king in parliament unlimited power over the colonies. Sandwich was impatient of all restraints on their ad1776. ministration; he desired to exercise over them noth

May. ing short of a full and absolute authority, and regret

ted that the government was cramped by the cry of liberty, with which no chief executive power was troubled except that of England.

Had conciliation been designed, the commissioners would have been despatched long before; but the measure which had for its object the pacification of English opinion, was suffered to drag along for more than a year, till the news that Howe had been driven from Boston burst upon the public, and precipitated the counsels of the ministry.

The letters patent for the commissioners, which were issued on the sixth of May, conferred power on Lord Howe and General Howe, jointly and severally, to grant pardons to such as should give early proofs of their sincere abhorrence of their defection from loyalty, and should duly sue for mercy. The two points in controversy were the right of taxation, and the repeal of the changes in the charter of Massachusetts. Lord North, when he relapsed into his natural bias towards justice, used to say publicly that the right of taxation was abandoned; Germain always asserted that it was not. The instructions to the commissioners were founded upon the resolution of the twentieth of February, 1775; which the colonies had solemnly declared to be insufficient. The parliamentary change in the charter of Massachusetts was to be enforced; and secret instructions required that Connecticut and Rhode Island should be compelled, if possible, to accept analogous changes; so that not only was uncon

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ditional submission required, but in the moment of CHAP victory other colonial charters were still further to be violated, in order to carry out the system which the 1776. king had pursued from the time of the ministry of Bute. Lord Howe wished well to the Americans, kept up his friendly relations with Chatham, and escaped the suspicion of a subservient complicity with the administration. It was said by his authority, that he would not go to America unless he had powers to treat on terms of conciliation; he refused to accept a civilian as his colleague, and though his brother was named with him in the commission, he insisted on the power of acting alone; but if his sincerity is left unimpeached, it is at the expense of his reputation for discernment; for the commission for restoring peace was a delusion. The ministers had provided forces amounting to about forty thousand men; sufficient, as they thought, to beat down the insurrection; and they were resolved, as masters of events, to employ their army with unrelenting firmness.

The friends of liberty in England had never been so desponding. The budget for the year included an additional duty on newspapers, which Lord North did not regard as a public benefit, but rather as "a species of luxury that ought to be taxed." Debate in the house of commons brought no result; Fox, who joined calmness of temperament to sweetness of disposition, and, as his powers unfolded themselves, gave evidence of a genial sagacity that saw beyond parliamentary strife the reality of general principles, vainly struggled to keep up the courage of his political friends. A pamphlet, written with masterly ability by Richard Price, on LIBERTY, which he defined to be a govern

CHAP. ment of laws made by common consent, won for its LXIII. author the freedom of the city of London, and was 1776. widely circulated through the kingdom, and the conMay. tinent of Europe, especially Germany. His masterly plea for America was unavailing; but his tract gained peculiar importance from his applying to the actual condition of the representation of his own country, the principle on which America justified her resistance. "The time may come," said he, "when a general election in Britain will be nothing but a general auction of boroughs."

Carrying the war into the heart of English politics and society, he raised the cry for the reform in parliament which was never to be hushed, and transferred English opinion to the side of America, for the sake of that liberty which was of all things dearest to the English nation.

But what hope was there of reform in England? It was the vices of its ruling classes which prepared reform by forcing independence on America. Or how could France at that time offer liberty a home? "For my part," reasoned Chastellux, "I think there can be neither durable liberty nor happiness but for nations who have representative governments." "I think so too," remarked the octogenarian Voltaire. "The right of self-administration," said Malesherbes to Louis the Sixteenth, as he threw up his ministry, "belongs to every community; it is a natural right, the right of reason. The safest council for a king is the nation itself."

Turgot, like Malesherbes, believed in the imprescriptible right of man to the free use of his powers; and wished also that the executive chief should profit

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by the counsels of the collected wisdom of the na- CHAP. tion; but he now stood without any support in the cabinet; and his want of influence had appeared in 1776 the discussions on America. One of two things must therefore follow: Turgot must either become all prevailing and establish his system, or go into private life. Maurepas, roused by jealousy, insinuated to the right-minded king, that discontent pervaded France, and that it had Turgot alone for its object; that it was not best to wait for his resignation, for he might give as his reason for the act that he was hindered in the accomplishment of good. On the twelfth of May he was therefore dismissed, as one who was not suited to his place. For a moment the friends of the people had a beautiful and a peaceful dream; but it soon passed away, leaving the monarchy of France to sway and fall, and the people to be awakened by the example of the western world. The new minister of finance was De Clugny; a passionate and intemperate rogue, a gamester, and a debauchee, who at once conciliated support by giving out that he would do nothing disagreeable to the farmers general of the revenue. "To what masters, ye great gods, do ye give up the universe!" exclaimed Condorcet. In parting with Malesherbes, the king discarded his truest personal friend; in Turgot, French monarchy lost its firmest support, the nobility its only possible saviour; but for America the result was very different; no one was left in the cabinet who was able to restrain the government from yielding to the rising enthusiasm for America. So tangled is the web of history! The retirement of the two men who were the apostles of liberty pushed

CHAP. forward the cause of human freedom, though by ir regular and disorderly movements.

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1776 May.

In the early part of the century Leibnitz had found traces of the opinions of Epicurus and Spinoza in the books that were most in vogue, and in the men of the great world who were the masters of affairs, and he had foretold in consequence a general overturn in Europe. "The generous sentiment which prefers country and the general good to life," he said, "is dying out; public spirit is no more in fashion, and has lost the support of good morals and true religion; the ruling motive in the best is honor, and that is a principle which tolerates any thing but baseness, does not condemn shedding a deluge of blood from ambition or caprice, and might suffer a Herostratus or a Don Juan to pass for a hero; patriotism is mocked at, and the well-intentioned, who speak of what will become of posterity, are answered by saying that posterity may see to that. If this mental epidemic goes on increasing, providence will correct mankind by the revolution which it must cause."

But men had more and more given the reins to brutal passions; and throwing off the importunate fear of an overruling providence, no longer knew of any thing superior to humanity, or more godlike than themselves. "What distinguishes man," said Aristotle, "is the faculty of recognising something higher and better than himself." The eighteenth century refused to look for any thing better; the belief in the divine reason was derided like the cowering at spectres and hobgoblins; and the worship of humanity became the prevailing idolatry. Art was commissioned to gratify taste; morality had for its office to increase pleasure;