to be done. The restrictions imposed upon the trade with the French West India islands, and especially upon the importation of molasses, had been, as we have seen, the main practical grievance of the commercial system. The prohibition of manufactures, however unreasonable and unjust, was of no serious consequence to a country where agriculture, fisheries, and commerce were naturally the most lucrative forms of enterprise; but an abundant supply of molasses was essential to the great distilleries at Boston. The duty when it was 18. a gallon had been a mere dead letter. When Grenville reduced it to 6d. a gallon, the most violent measures had still been unable to suppress a great smuggling trade, and the duty only yielded 2,000l. a year. The Rockingham Government lowered it to 1d., and this small duty, being no longer a grievance, produced no less than 17,000l. The duties imposed on coffee and pimento from the British plantations, and on foreign cambrics and lawns, imported into America, were at the same time lowered; and the British West India islands, in whose favour the colonial trade with the French islands had been restricted, were compensated by the opening in them of some free ports and by some other commercial favours.1

"The Americans,' said Chatham a few years later, when describing this period, ' had almost forgot, in their excess of gratitude for the repeal of the Stamp Act, any interest but that of the mother country; there seemed an emulation among the different provinces who should be most dutiful and forward in their expressions of loyalty.' The Rockingham Ministry had undoubtedly, under circumstances of very great difficulty, restored confidence to America, and concluded for the present a

2

'Macpherson's Annals Ocmmerce, ili. 446, 447.

'Thackeray's Life of Chas ham, ii. 268.

E. II.

THE FEELING IN AMERICA.

contest which would probably have ended in a war.

99

In

most of the provincial Assemblies and in many public meetings of citizens, addresses of thanks were carried to the King, to the Ministry, to Pitt, Camden, and Barré; and in more than one province statues were raised to the King and to Pitt. The shrewd Philadelphian Quakers passed a characteristic resolution, 'that to demonstrate our zeal to Great Britain, and our gratitude for the repeal of the Stamp Act, each of us will on the 4th of June next, being the birthday of our gracious Sovereign, dress ourselves in a new suit of the manufactures of England, and give what homespun clothes we have to the poor.' A feeling of real and genuine loyalty to the mother-country appears to have at this time existed in the colonies, though it required much skill to maintain it.

The Americans had in truth won a great victory," which inspired them with unbounded confidence in their strength. They had gone through all the excitement of a violent and brilliantly successful political campaign; they had realised for a time the union which appeared formerly so chimerical; they had found their natural leaders in the struggle, and had discovered the weakness of the mother country. Many writers and speakers had arisen who had learnt the lesson that a defiance of English authority was one of the easiest and safest paths to popular favour, and the speeches of Pitt had kindled a fierce enthusiasm of liberty through the colonies. There was no want of men who regretted that the agitation had ceased, who would gladly have pressed on the struggle to new issues, and who were ready to take advantage of the first occasion for quarrel. It was not easy for an ambitious man in these distant colonies to make his name known to the world; but if events ever

1 Annual Register, 1766, p. 114.

led to a collision, a great field of ambition would be suddenly opened. Besides this, principles of a far-reaching and revolutionary character had become familiar to the people. It is a dangerous thing when nations begin to scrutinise too closely the foundations of political authority, the possible results to which political principles may logically lead, the exact limits by which the different powers of a heterogeneous and prescriptive government must be confined. The theory of English lawyers that a Parliament in which the Americans were unrepresented might fetter their commerce in all its parts, and exact in taxation the last shilling of their fortunes, and that their whole representative system existed only by the indulgence of England, would, if fully acted on, have reduced the colonies to absolute slavery. On the other hand, Otis and other agitators were vehemently urging that the principles of Chatham and Camden would authorise the Americans to repudiate all parliamentary restrictions on American trade. No objection seems indeed to have been felt to the bounties which England conferred upon it, or to the protection of their coasts by English vessels; but in all other respects parliamentary interference was profoundly disliked. Lawyers had assumed during the late troubles a great prominence in colonial politics, and a litigious, captious, and defining spirit was abroad.

It was noticed that in the addresses to the King and to the Government thanking them for the repeal of the Stamp Act, as little as possible was said about the supremacy of Parliament, and in the most exuberant moments of colonial gratitude there were no signs of any disposition, in any province, to undertake, under proper guarantees and limitation, the task of supporting English troops stationed in America. Had the colonies after the Peace of Paris been willing to contribute this small service to the support of the Empire, the constitu

GOVERNOR BERNARD.

101

tional question might never have been raised; had they now offered to do so, it would probably never have been revived. The requisitions to the colonial Assemblies to compensate the sufferers in the late riots were very unpopular. In one or two provinces the money was, it is true, frankly and promptly voted; but in most cases there was much delay. Massachusetts, where the most scandalous riots took place, rebelled violently against the too peremptory terms of the requisition; refused at first to pass any vote of compensation; yielded at last, after a long delay, and by a small majority, but accompanied its grant by a clause indemnifying the rioters, which was afterwards annulled by the King.

Bernard, who since the beginning of 1760 had been Governor of Massachusetts, had of late become extremely unpopular, and his name has been pursued with untiring virulence to the present day. His letters are those of an honest and rather able, but injudicious and disputatious man, who was trying, under circumstances of extreme difficulty, to do his duty both to the Government and the people, but who was profoundly discontented with the constitution of the province. In 1763 and 1764 he exerted all his influence to procure the lowering or the abolition of the duties in the Sugar Act, and in general a larger amount of free trade for the colonies. 1765 he opposed the Stamp Act as inexpedient, though he maintained that Parliament had the right of taxing the colonies, provided those taxes were excluzively applied for the benefit of those who paid them. Up to this time he appears to have been generally liked and esteemed; but he was now called upon to take the most prominent part in maintaining the policy of the English Government, and his letters give a vivid picture of the difficulties he encountered. He describes

'See Hutchinson, p. 254.

In

6

himself as placed' in the midst of those who first stirred up these disturbances, without a force to protect my person, without a council to advise me, watched by every eye, and misrepresented or condemned for everything I do on the King's behalf.' He laments that the govern. ments of the colonies were weak and impotent to an amazing degree,' that 'the governors and officers of the Crown were in several of the chief provinces entirely dependent upon the people for subsistence,' that the persons of the governors and Crown officers are quite defenceless and exposed to the violence of the people, without any possible resort for protection,' and he continually urged that as long as the Council, which was the natural support of the Executive, was elected annually by the Assembly, and as long as almost all the civil officers were mainly dependent for their salaries on an annual vote of the Assembly, it would be impossible to enforce in Massachusetts any unpopular law or to punish any outrage which was supported by popular favour. It was his leading doctrine that if British rule was to be perpetuated in America, and if a period of complete anarchy was to be averted, it was necessary to put an end to the obscurity which rested upon the relations of the colonies to the Home Government; to establish finally and decisively the legislative ascendency of the British Parliament, and to remodel the constitutions of the colonies on a uniform type. He proposed that the Assemblies should, as at present, remain completely representative; but that the democratic element in the Constitution should be always balanced by a council consisting of a kind of life peers, appointed directly by the King, and that there should be a fixed civil list from which the King's officers should derive a certain provision. As such changes were wholly incompatible with the charters of the more democratic colonies, he proposed that American representatives