NEW DUTIES IMPOSED.

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resist the restrictions imposed by the interests or the jealousy of the mother country."

The glory acquired by England in the recent war had raised her pride of power and her military reputation to a point never before reached, and this exaltation probably had its influence on the course of the ministry towards the American colonies. It was thought a favorable time to draw tighter the cords of dependence and submission, more and more endangered by the growing numbers and wealth of the colonists, and to make that wealth more directly tributary to the mother country, which had expended so much of her own for their exclusive benefit.

The colonies had long carried on a very active illicit trade with the Spanish settlements in America, and even with the French, by which they not only obtained the products of those settlements on better terms, but also a considerable sum in specie, which assisted them in paying a large balance annually due to the mother country. The British government now determined to make this trade a source of revenue, and the rather as it was injurious to the interests of the British West Indies, as well as to the East India Company. They accordingly, in April 1764, imposed heavy duties on all the commodities imported from those foreign settlements into the British colonies, and required the money to be paid into the British exchequer. The better to secure the execution of these enactments, the officers of the navy were required to perform the duties of custom-house officers, and, like

1 Mr. Bancroft cites several curious predictions of this result, which were made at the time; and it doubtless would eventually have taken place; but since the stamp act was proposed immediately after the peace of 1763, the cession of Canada could hardly have had any influence in producing the opposition of the colonies to that measure.-IV. Bancroft, p. 460.

them, were rewarded by a share in the forfeitures then imposed. They also passed an act declaring that no paper-money to be thereafter issued in the colonies should be a legal tender, and that such paper as had been previously made a legal tender, should not so continue after the time appointed for its redemption.

But this was not all. To carry only the settled purpose of the administration, George Grenville, then chancellor of the exchequer, immediately after the passage of the act for the more strict enforcement of the navigation laws, introduced a resolution which declared it was expedient to raise a revenue in the colonies by a duty on stamps.1 In proposing this internal tax, he ventured on a measure from which two of the boldest of his predecessors had shrunk, at a time when the colonies had not attained their present numbers and strength. Yet the caution with which he proceeded in its execution showed a distrust of the temper with which the colonies would be likely to receive it; for after the resolution was passed, he informed the agents which the colonies severally had in London, that he purposely delayed any action on the resolution, that their constituents might have an opportunity of suggesting such other modes of raising revenue as would be more agreeable to them: to which communication the agents replied by expressions of gratitude for the considerate regard the minister had manifested towards the colonies.

By way of further reconciling the colonies to these

'Mr. Bancroft states, on the authority of Charles Jenkinson and others, that the stamp act was first suggested by some supporter of the king's wishes, against the opinion of Grenville; yet the latter, defended the child by adoption with all a parent's love; and he maintained to the last that if he had continued in the ministry he would have carried it into execution.-V. Bancroft.

GRENVILLE'S RESOLUTIONS.

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unpalatable measures, several acts for their benefit were passed. The bounty on hemp raised by them was increased; the rice of South Carolina and Georgia was allowed to be carried to the foreign West Indies; and to benefit New England, the bounty given to the British whale-fishery was to be gradually withdrawn.

These legislative boons failed of their purpose in the colonies, which, so far from availing themselves of the minister's offer to suggest a substitute for the proposed stamp tax, denied the right of the British Parliament, in which they were unrepresented, to tax them at all. Such were the declarations of the Legislatures of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Virginia, and North Carolina; and at the same time associations were formed to abstain from the use of such British manufactures as were not indispensable.

Their opposition was, however, little regarded, and at the succeeding session, Grenville introduced a series of resolutions for laying duties on stamps in America. Though his resolution at the preceding session had called forth no debate, and no response had been made to his inquiry whether any member denied the right of Parliament to lay such a tax, yet the subject now gave rise to an animated debate. One particular passage stands out in relief from the rest, and has found a place in every American history.

In an expostulation by Charles Townshend, one of the warmest supporters of the measure, he asked, "Will those American children planted by our care, nourished by our indulgence to a degree of strength and opulence, and protected by our arms, grudge to contribute their mite to relieve us from the heavy burden under which we lie?"

On which Colonel Barré, who, having served in

78

COLONEL BARRE― STAMP ACT PASSED.

America, claimed to speak of the colonists from personal knowledge, indignantly retorted :

66

They planted by your care! No-your oppressions planted them in America. They fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated, inhospitable country, where they exposed themselves to every hardship, and to the cruelties of a foe the most subtle and formidable of any people upon God's earth.

"They nourished by your indulgence! They grew by your neglect of them. As soon as you began to care about them, you sent persons to rule them, to spy out their liberties, to misrepresent their actions, and to prey upon them-men whose behavior has often caused the blood of those sons of liberty to recoil within them.

"They protected by your arms! They have nobly taken up arms in your defence; have exerted a valor amidst their constant and laborious industry for the defence of a country, whose frontier was drenched in blood, while its interior yielded all its little savings to your emolument. The people, I believe, are as truly loyal as any subjects the king has; but a people jealous of their liberties, and who will vindicate them if ever violated."

While this generous burst of truth and eloquence meets with a grateful response in every American bosom, it produced no other effect than a passing admiration on its interested hearers.

A bill in conformity with the minister's resolutions was then brought in and passed both Houses, with feeble opposition in the House of Commons, and none at all in the House of Lords. The royal consent was given by commission, in consequence of the king's indisposition, which it is since known was the same mental malady with which he was subsequently so long afflicted.

THE STAMP ACT OPPOSED — PATRICK HENRY.

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The minister made some further attempts to conciliate the colonies by additional commercial favors, and by selecting the officers of the stamps from the colonists, on the recommendation of their colonial agents. Among those thus selected was Dr. Franklin.

When the news of this odious act reached America, the indignation of the colonists knew no bounds. In some places the bells were made to toll, and the colors were at half-mast, to denote their sense of the general calamity. Those who brought out stamps were compelled to surrender them; and those who had undertaken to distribute them were made to renounce that office, sometimes upon oath.

Then too the literary talents of the colonies were put in requisition. But the writing class, from the prevalent habits and pursuits of the colonists, and the want of the requisite mental culture, was a small one. John Dickinson of Delaware, James Otis of Massachusetts, and Richard Bland of Virginia, seem most to have attracted the notice of their countrymen.

The Legislature of Virginia happened to be in session when the passage of the act was first announced, and then it was that Patrick Henry, a young and almost self-educated orator, electrified his brother members by the boldness of the resolutions he brought forward in support of colonial rights,' and the yet greater boldness with which he supported them. In the course of his impassioned harangue he cried, "Cæsar had his Brutus; Charles the First his Cromwell; and George the Third" -here the cry of "Treason! treason!" resounded on all sides added the self-possessed orator, "may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it." His resolutions, denying the right of Parliament to lay 2 May 30, 1765.

2

1 Wirt's Life of Henry.