house of lords had outlived its functions, and was for them become worse than "useless."

gave

March.

On the morning of the eighteenth day, the king went 1766. in state to Westminster, and his assent, among other bills, to what, ever after, he regarded as the well-spring of all his sorrows, "the fatal repeal of the stamp act." He returned from signing the repeal amid the shouts and huzzas of the applauding multitude. There was a public dinner of the friends of America in honor of the event; Bow bells were set a-ringing; and the ships on the Thames displayed all their colors. At night, a bonfire was kindled, and houses were illuminated all over the city. An express was despatched to Falmouth with letters to different provinces, to transmit the news of the repeal as rapidly as possible to the colonies; nor was it at that time noticed that the ministry had carried through the mutiny bill, with the obnoxious American clauses of the last year; and that the king, in giving his assent to the repeal of the stamp act, had also given his assent to the act declaratory of the supreme power of parliament over America, in all cases whatsoever.

April.

While swift vessels hurried with the news across the Atlantic, the cider act was modified by the ministry, with the aid of Pitt; general warrants were declared illegal; and Edmund Burke, already famed for "most shining talents" and "sanguine friendship for America," was consulting merchants and manufacturers on the means of improving and extending the commerce of the whole empire. When Grenville, madly in earnest, deprecated any change in "the sacred act of navigation," Burke ridiculed him for holding any act sacred, if it wanted correction. Free ports were therefore established in Jamaica and in Dominica, which meant only that British ports were licensed to infringe the acts of navigation of other powers. Old duties, among them the plantation duties, which had stood on the statute-book from the time of Charles II., were modified; and changes were made in points of detail, though not in principle. The duty on molasses imported into the plantations was fixed at a penny a gallon; that on British coffee, at seven shillings the hun

1766. April.

dred weight; on British pimento, one half-penny a pound; on foreign cambric or French lawn, three shillings the piece, to be paid into the exchequer, and disposed of by parliament. The act of navigation was purposely so far sharpened as to prohibit landing non-enumerated goods in Ireland. Under instructions given by the former administration, the governor of Grenada claimed to rule the island by prerogative; and Sir Hugh Palliser, at Newfoundland, arrogated the monopoly of the fisheries to Great Britain and Ireland.

Great Britain not only gave up the stamp-tax, but defrayed the expenses of the experiment out of its sinking fund. The treasury asked what was to be done with the stamps in those colonies where the stamp act had not taken place; and they were ordered to be returned to England, where the curious traveller may still see bags of them, cumbering the office from which they were issued.

A change of ministry was more and more spoken of. The nation demanded to see Pitt in the government; and two of the ablest members of the cabinet, Grafton and Conway, continued to insist upon it. But Rockingham, who, during the repeal of the stamp act, had been dumb, leaving the brunt of the battle to be borne by Camden and Shelburne, was determined it should not be so; and Newcastle and Winchelsea and Egmont concurred with him. To be prepared for the change, and in the hope of becoming, under the new administration, secretary for the colonies, Charles Townshend assiduously courted the Duke of Grafton. Pitt, on retiring to recruit the health which his unparalleled exertions in the winter had utterly subverted, made a farewell speech, his last in the house of commons, wishing that faction might cease, and avowing his own purpose of remaining independent of any personal connections whatsoever.

The joy of the colonies was, for a time, unmixed with apprehension. Virginia voted a statue to the king, and an obelisk on which were to be engraved the names of those who, in England, had signalized themselves for freedom. "My thanks they shall have cordially," said Washington, "for

their opposition to any act of oppression." The consequences of enforcing the stamp act, he was convinced, "would have been more direful than usually apprehended."

Otis, at a meeting at the town hall in Boston, to fix a time for the rejoicings, told the people that the distinction between inland taxes and port duties was without foundation; for whoever had a right to impose the one had a right to impose the other; and, therefore, as the parliament had given up the one, they had given up the other; and the merchants were fools if they submitted any longer to the laws restraining their trade, which ought to be free.

1766.

May.

A bright day in May was set apart for the display of the public gladness, and the spot where resistance to the stamp act began was the centre of attraction. At one in the morning, the bell nearest Liberty Tree was the first to be rung; at dawn, colors and pendants rose over the house-tops all around it; and the steeple of the nearest meeting-house was hung with banners. During the day, all prisoners for debt were released by subscription. In the evening, the town shone as though night had not come; an obelisk on the common was brilliant with a loyal inscription; the houses round Liberty Tree exhibited illuminated figures of the king, of Pitt and Camden and Barré; and Liberty Tree itself was decorated with lanterns, till its boughs could hold

no more.

All the wisest agreed that disastrous consequences would have ensued from the attempt to enforce the act, so that never was there a more rapid transition of a people from gloom to transport. They compared themselves to a bird. escaped from the net of the fowler, and once more striking its wings in the upper air; or to Joseph, the Israelite, whom Providence had likewise wonderfully redeemed from the perpetual bondage into which he was sold by his elder

brethren.

The clergy from the pulpit joined in the fervor of patriotism and the joy of success. "The Americans would not have submitted," said Chauncy. "History affords few examples of a more general, generous, and just sense of liberty in any country than has appeared in America within the year

1766. May.

of

past." Such were Mayhew's words; and, while all the continent was calling out and cherishing the name of Pitt, the greatest statesman of England, the conqueror Canada and the Ohio, the founder of empire, the apostle of freedom, "the genius and guardian of Britain and British America," "To you," said Mayhew, speaking from the heart of the people, and as if its voice could be heard across the ocean, 66 to you grateful America attributes that she is reinstated in her former liberties. The universal joy of America, blessing you as our father, and sending up ardent vows to Heaven for you, must give you a sublime and truly godlike pleasure; it might, perhaps, give you vigor to take up your bed and walk, like those cured by the word of Him who came from heaven to make us free indeed. America calls you over and over again her father; live long in health, happiness, and honor. Be it late when you must cease to plead the cause of liberty on earth."

END OF VOLUME THREE,

Cambridge: Press of John Wilson & Son.