1765. FOR THE LEADERSHIP OF THE COMMONS. 189 The Duke of Conway became Secretary of State. The other secretary was the Duke of Grafton. Except in the instance of very rare endowments, it is considered necessary for the efficient administration of high office that the minister should have acquired experience in subordinate employment. Grafton had never been in office, and did not come within the exception. He afterwards became the head of an administration himself, but he owed this elevation partly to accident, partly to his great rank and fortune, qualifications which have always had too much weight with the Whig party. Unsteady, capricious, and indolent, he had hardly any quality of a statesman; and, like many men who have little of personal merit to stand upon, he was disposed to presume on his accidental advantages. The department of finance was entrusted to Mr. Dowdeswell, a respectable and intelligent county member, but hardly fitted to be Chancellor of the Exchequer at a time when the increase of the public debt, and the signal failure of the fiscal policy, which had been recently attempted, rendered that office one of more than ordinary weight and solicitude. Lord Lord Mr. Dowdeswell. Northington, who had kept very much Northington. aloof from the factious counsels of his colleagues in the late Government, retained the great seal; but with this exception, all the official experience of the administration was centred in the Duke of Newcastle. He held the privy seal, to which was attached for his peculiar gratification the church patronage. Some of the best and foremost Whigs refused to take part in the new Government. Sir George Savile, member for the great county of York, and a man of high standing both in respect of character and ability,* though willing to give the administration his sup * He had been designated by Newcastle for Speaker at the commencement of the reign. 190 NEW MINISTRY TRY TO CONCILIATE PITT. CH. VI. port, would not compromise his position by becoming a party to an arrangement so precarious. The rising reputation of Lord Shelburne was not among them. Charles Townshend, though eager for high place, was content to let his brilliant talents remain in the comparative obscurity of the Pay Office, rather than accept a seat in a cabinet so frail. Chief Justice The earliest acts of the Government showed vacillation, and distrust in their own stability. They sought, at the same time, to cultivate popularity and to conciliate Pitt, by conferring a peerage on Pratt, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, who had gained public applause by acquitting Wilkes with some high patriotic sentiments somewhat in the style of his illustrious patron. So much importance had Pitt attached to the elevation of his friend, that he had made it one of the articles in the negotiation with the Duke of Cumberland. Not satisfied with this, they went so far as to appoint one Nuthall Solicitor to the Treasury, for no other apparent reason than that he was the private solicitor of Mr. Pitt. But all this was to little purpose. Pitt smiled at such artless devices; while the King, still wholly intent on breaking up the old historical parties, could never encourage a new combination of great Whig families such as that which had just been formed under the Marquis of Rockingham. While they thus failed in acquiring strength and Death of the berland. support, the Ministry, sustained a heavy, though not unexpected, loss by the death. of the Duke of Cumberland. Without any claim to the character of a great man, this prince was distinguished by some noble and commanding qualities. In his profession of arms he shared the personal courage which was common to his race; and though sorely tried in the prime of life by grievous and incurable maladies, his patience 1765. CHARACTER OF THE DUKE OF CUMBERLAND. 191 and fortitude never forsook him. His military talents were not above mediocrity. On the only occasion when he held a difficult command, his plans were so unskilfully contrived that they ended in the surrender of his army. His failure on that occasion, having been harshly censured by his father, he bore the rebuke with the silent submission of a soldier and a son, but resigned all his military employments, and, at the age of thirty-seven, retired from the active pursuit of a profession to which he was warmly attached. In the early part of his military career, he had incurred popular odium by the stern severity with which he had put down the Scotch rebellion of 1745. But in his latter years, though without the least effort on his part, he had acquired the esteem and almost the affections of the people. His personal honour was of the purest kind; and he had that high and overruling sense of duty which is one of the most admirable qualities of a public man. A keen and yet disinterested politician; a judicious and consistent supporter of the principles which had placed his family upon the throne; a loyal subject and a faithful friend;—such was the Duke of Cumberland,-who may fairly be pronounced one of the most estimable princes of the House of Hanover. 192 DISTURBANCES IN AMERICA. CH. VII. CHAPTER VII. DISTURBANCES IN AMERICA-ASSEMBLY OF CONGRESS-IRRESOLUTION OF THE GOVERNMENT-DEBATES IN PARLIAMENT -PITT'S DENIAL OF THE RIGHT OF PARLIAMENT TO TAX THE COLONIES-REMARKS ON THIS SUBJECT-FRANKLIN'S EXAMINATION AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS-REPEAL OF THE STAMP ACT THE DECLARATORY ACT. THE Ministry coming into office during the recess of Parliament, had ample time to concert their policy and measures. But the pres Reception of the American Stamp Act. At sure of one important question would have been sufficient to test the energy and skill of the ablest administration. In the summer and autumn, intelligence reached the Government of the spirit of discontent and resistance with which the Stamp Act had been received throughout North America. Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, the principal cities of the colonial continent, there were riots almost simultaneously. The act was publicly burnt, and the houses of persons connected with the Government were set on fire. The newly-appointed distributors of stamps were compelled to renounce their offices on peril of their lives. And the respectable inhabitants, in coming forward to protect life and property, did so with the more readiness, because these disorders brought discredit on the noble and righteous cause of resistance to tyranny and oppression in which they were engaged. But the sentiments of the people were expressed in the most solemn and authentic form. The great and flourishing province of Virginia, the 1765. ASSEMBLY OF CONGRESS. 193 eldest of the colonies, as well as the one most distinguished for ancient loyalty and attachment to the parent state, protested through her Representative Assembly against the aggression of the British legislature. The Virginia House of Burgesses passed a series of resolutions, asserting, in terms the most unhesitating and distinct, the hereditary right of the colonists to all the immunities and privileges which appertained to the people of Great Britain. They referred to the charters of James the First for an express recognition of that right; and they claimed, in their representative capacity, the first and most important of those privileges-that, namely, of imposing taxes upon their constituents. So entirely were these sentiments in accordance with the opinions of the whole province, that, when the English Governor dissolved the Assembly for the vote which they had passed, all the members who concurred in that vote were reelected, while its opponents were invariably dismissed. General Provincial Congress. Similar demonstrations were made by other provinces; and, in order to secure unity of purpose, it was determined that a General Congress of Deputies, from such of the Provincial Assemblies as thought fit to send them, should meet at New York on the ensuing first of October. Thus, without any such extensive design on the part of its original promoters, was laid the foundation of that famous Federal Union which, in a few years, altered the condition of a few scattered and dependent states, vain of the patronage and notice of Great Britain, into a mighty Commonwealth, asserting its undisputed claims to an equality with the proudest sovereignties of the old world. The Congress, though of course discountenanced by the representatives of the Crown, as- Resolutions of sembled on the appointed day, at New the Congress. York, to the number of twenty-seven, delegated by no less than ten of the provincial legislatures. These VOL. I. |