Chatham whose infirmities had prevented him from asserting his authority while he was nominally the Duke's chief and who afterwards, when his health improved, used all his great influence to oppose the Cabinet he had left in disgust. To this action of Lord Chatham and to the Letters of Junius, which had a great effect on public opinion, the fall of the Duke of Grafton is generally assigned. With the exception of Lord Chatham there had been only one man of marked ability in that group, Charles Townshend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he had died in September 1767. The Duke of Grafton remained in office, holding the Privy Seal under his successor Lord North, the eldest son of the Earl of Guilford.'

In the nine years which had passed since George III. came to the throne some of the Whig leaders had died, the dissensions between the others, and especially the longstanding quarrel between Chatham and the Grenvilles, had given the King his opportunity. He need now trouble himself no longer with them nor employ men like Grenville, Rockingham and Chatham, who had always been distasteful to him. He was the better able to take this course, as the "King's Friends" in the House of Commons had now increased in number so much that their master could rely on them to carry out his wishes. All that was wanted was some one to act as their leader. For that purpose Lord North was exactly suited; he came of a Tory house, he had been strong for the Stamp Act, and was keen for the taxation of America. Lord John Russell describes him as an invaluable accession to the Court because he was "a man of firmness sufficient to defend bad measures and not too obstinate in urging his own views.' Provided with this convenient instrument the King could now follow his own course. He did so during the eleven years in which he governed through Lord North, with the result that his misguided obstinacy bore its first-fruits in the separation of the American Colonies from England. The War of Independence, in which La Fayette and other Frenchmen

"2

1 "This graceful minister is oddly constructed. His tongue is a little too big for his mouth, and his eyes a great deal too big for their sockets. Every part of his person sets natural proportion at defiance. At this present writing his head is supposed to be much too heavy for his shoulders."-Note to the Letter of Junius, No. xxxviii., April 3, 1770.

2 Memorials and Correspondence of Charles James Fox, 1853, i.

p. 120.

who served with him were engaged, was one of the causes which produced the French Revolution, and that again led up to the Napoleonic era and the wars which devastated Europe. Through them England was guided chiefly by the genius of three subjects of the King, who could be described as two boys and a baby' in this year 1770, when the King started on the career which was to cause such loss and suffering to his country till he himself died, half a century later, a broken man, whose brain had long given way.

In this month of January 1770 Pownall was working hard at the American question. In the Library of the Massachusetts Historical Society at Boston is a tract of his which covers four pages; it is headed "The State of the Constitution of the Colonies." Mr. Jared Sparks found a copy on which Benjamin Franklin had made marginal notes, just as Edmund Burke did in his copy of the Administration, and those notes, with a summary of the original, Mr. Sparks republished. We are thus able to compare the views of Pownall with those of Franklin as we have already done with those of Burke. It will be seen that Pownall stood half-way between them; while he went further than Burke he did not go so far as Franklin in his estimate of the rights of the colonies.

POWNALL

1. Whenever any Englishmen go forth without the realm these settlements as English settlements, and these Inhabitants, as English subjects, carrying with them the Laws of the Land wherever they form Colonies and receiving H.M. protection by virtue of His Royal Charter have and enjoy all liberties and immunities of Free and Natural subjects... as they and every one of them were born without the

FRANKLIN

3

The settlers of Colonies in America did not carry with them the Laws of the Land as being bound by them wherever they should settle. They left the

realm to avoid the inconveniences and hardships they were under.... They carried with them a right to such part of the Laws of the Land as they should judge advantageous.

1 Horatio Nelson, born September 1758. William Pitt II., born May 1759. Arthur Wellesley, born March 1769.

2 Catalogue No. 429-32. A note says that it was not published but circulated among friends; this copy is noted as having been sent by William Samuel Johnson to Jonathan Turnbull, February 3, 1770.

3 Works of Benjamin Franklin, 1840, iv. p. 270.

1 Mr. Sparks observes that Pownall appears to have seen these notes of Franklin's, for a reply to this one bears the initials T. P., and runs thus: "They are bound to the King and his successors, and we know no succession but by Act of Parliament."

From these premises Pownall went on to shew that British subjects residing abroad had a right to their own Civil Government on the spot, so long as they were excluded from representation in the legislature of England. This has since been fully recognised; all the present dominions are in that position, but it was much disputed as regards the original colonies. He said that

all freeholders within the precincts of these jurisdictions have, as of right they ought to have, a share in the power of making those laws which they are to be governed by, a right to perform and do all the like acts respecting the matters, things and rights within the precincts of their jurisdiction as the Parliament hath respecting the realm and British dominions.

He proceeds to state that a colony had, under the King's seal, which the Governor held, separate jurisdiction in Chancery matters to that of England under the Great Seal held by the Lord Chancellor, and that no colonist could be brought to England for trial there by a tribunal which was other than his own. Several regiments having been sent to Boston in the preceding year, the question of the command of British troops in the colonies was attracting much attention at that time. The supreme command was stated by Pownall in this tract to rest with the Governor under his commission from the King, whose right to grant a separate and independent commission to any military officer Pownall denied. In a note he points out that a parallel case would occur in England if the King, on going abroad for a time, first established a Regency to act in his absence, and then commissioned a military commander-in-chief to command the troops. "If he could-then while openly, by patent according to law, he appeared to establish a free British Constitution-he might, by a fallacy, establish a military power and Government. The question of how they stood vis-à-vis to the English legislature and jurisdiction was that which then most occupied the attention of the colonists. A note on this tract made by Mr. W. S. Johnson, who sent it out from England, speaks of it as a "various and complicated subject, upon which hardly any two men in this country think exactly alike." The same note ends by saying "The last point, relative to the military, is of vast importance, but I fear will not bear to be pushed much at present."

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