CHAP. III. DEFINITIVE TREATY OF PEACE 3 Alas, he managed to do so in the maddest of all ways, and the price paid by the Empire was the loss of America!1 On the day of his grandfather's death, 25th October 1760, George III., then twenty-two years of age, declared before the Privy Council at Carleton House, 'It will be the business of my life to promote the glory and happiness of these kingdoms, and to preserve and strengthen the constitution both in Church and State."2 On the 18th November, the King's Speech to both Houses of Parliament created immense popularity: 'Born and educated in this country,' said he, 'I glory in the name of a Briton.... The civil and religious Rights of my loving people are equally dear to me with the most valuable prerogatives of my Crown.'s There was high talk also about 'the success of arms,' 'the reduction of Canada,' and about 'his good brother and ally the King of Prussia.' The old chronicler says in his unconsciously humorous way, 'they were relieved and gratified by hearing the King's Speech delivered in all the purity of English pronunciation.' Well done, George! The twelfth Parliament of Great Britain met on 3rd November 1761, and had some little rejoicing over the King's marriage to the Princess Charlotte of MecklenburgStrelitz. Its two first sessions were much engrossed with what was called 'the Family Compact '5 of the Bourbons, the 'resignation" of Pitt and Newcastle, the 'Peace of Fontainebleau,' and, finally, 'the Definitive Treaty," signed by Great Britain, France, and Spain, at Paris on 10th February 1763, whereby there reigned once more peace throughout Europe. And all through these transactions, we are again and again painfully reminded of the presence of 'the Favourite,' the name by which the public designated the unconstitutional ascendency of the Earl of Bute in the councils of the King. 4 'WILKES AND LIBERTY' BOOK IV. [BOOK LA.D. 1763 In the third session, 1763, John Wilkes, who was not a favourite, begins to come prominently into view. In the forty-fifth number of his North Briton, he had abused the Prorogation Speech, charging the King with 'falsehood from the throne,' and throwing the blame on the Ministry.1 Out of this arose the great discussion as to 'the legality of general warrants,' when applied to members of Parliament. It was contended that Wilkes's 'privilege' as member for Aylesbury had been 'invaded,' that it could only be lost by treason, felony, or breach of peace, not by his libel. He was tried, however, for obscenity and blasphemy in his 'paraphrase of Veni Creator and his Essay on Woman.' Failing to return for his sentence, he was 'outlawed' and the House passed a resolution, by two hundred and fifty-eight votes against one hundred and thirty-three, 'that the privilege of Parliament does not extend to the case of writing and publishing seditious libels, nor ought to be allowed to obstruct the ordinary course of law, in the speedy and effectual prosecution of so heinous and dangerous an offence.' But it was many a day and many a year, before 'the King and his party' got rid of the cry of 'Wilkes and Liberty,' which their own foolish tactics had thus created. In this same session also, George Grenville first mooted what came to be known as the Stamp Tax, and which ultimately, though indirectly, severed the United States from the British Empire. It arose on the debate about Ways and Means, and took the form of an apparently innocent suggestion in connection with defending and securing the Colonies and plantations in America, 'that towards further defraying said expenses, it may be necessary to charge certain Stamp Duties in the said Colonies and plantations.' The Americans loudly denied the right of the Mother Country to impose taxes on the Colonies, not being repre 1 Hansard's P. H. vol. xv. p. 1337. Ibid. p. 1347. CHAP. III. THE STAMP TAX AND THE COLONIES 5 sented in Parliament,' and the proposal went no further at that time. But early in next session, 1765, the 'Stamp Act for America' was formulated on 'sixty-five resolutions' by the House of Commons, agreed to, and passed almost without debate, the minority numbering only forty; so little did any one realise the thunder-storm that was brewing over their heads!1 But the Colonies were instantly ablaze. Their own Assemblies had offered to raise and vote freely 'a larger supply' than the Stamp Tax would produce; and now Virginia unflinchingly demanded its instant 'repeal'! It became the first axiom of all political existence 'that taxation and representation must go together.' 2 In October, at the invitation of Massachusetts, a 'Congress of all the Colonies' was held. The 'stamps for the new excise' were resolutely seized by the magistrates at Boston, and placed in official custody! Hence the King's Speech, at the opening of the fifth session of this Parliament on 17th December 1765, solemnly announces,—' Matters of importance have lately occurred in some of my American Colonies which will demand the most serious attention of Parliament.'s But the Houses were not misled, by this stilted reference, to minimise the events. The Earl of Hardwicke at once declared 'that the affair was the greatest in extent and in consequences that had ever come before Parliament." Lord Chesterfield, writing to his son, sums up the social feeling in the tart remark, 'I would not have the Mother Country become a stepmother.' While Pitt, in the House of Commons, with a statesman-like grasp of the problem, warned the Government thus:-'Your success would be hazardous; America, if she fall, would fall like a strong man; she would embrace the pillars of the State, and 1 Hansard's P. H. vol. xvi. p. 35. 3 Hansard's P. H. vol. xvi. p. 83. Ibid. p. 89. 2 Green's S. H. ch. x. sect. ii. p. 747. • Ibid. p. 84. 6 REPEAL OF THE STAMP ACT BOOK IV. 1766 pull down the Constitution along with her.' His demand was, 'Let the Stamp Act be repealed totally, absolutely, and immediately."1 It was in this debate that Edmund Burke first opened his lips in Parliament, and his 'maiden speech' won the praise of William Pitt. Also, it is before a committee of the whole House on this miserable business that Benjamin Franklin first crosses our path, giving evidence on the side of the Colonies. The motion to repeal the Act was finally 'carried by a vote of 275 against 167;' though, to soothe the susceptibilities of the 'King's Party,' a 'Declaratory Bill' was allowed to proclaim the right of Great Britain to make laws binding all the British Colonies in North America in all cases whatsoever.' That, in view of the other vote, practically meant, 'except in imposing taxes'-so, nobody was hurt. The Repeal of the Stamp Act, in 1766, was received with shouts of almost universal joy, even here in Britain itself.1 Pitt took the reins as Lord Privy Seal, and went to the Upper House as Earl of Chatham; and Chesterfield writes in his usual cheery cynical strain to his son,-'The joke is that Pitt has had a fall upstairs!' During the sixth session, 1766-1767, 'wheat and corn had risen to famine prices.' The King's Speech had suggested 'an embargo to prevent wheat and flour from going out of the kingdom.' A Proclamation was issued, against 'the forestallers, regrators, and ingrossers,' by whose monopolies the famine was created.5 And, finally, Chatham's ministry laid an 'embargo' on the ships which were about to carry away from London what was 'necessary to the sustenance of the poor.' Thereon, political enemies, eager for a party stroke, raised a loud outcry against 'the suspending and dispensing Prerogative of the Crown,'—a kind of 2 Ib d. p. 137. 1 Hansard's P. H. vol. xvi. pp. 103-108. CHAP. III. SUSPENSION OF NEW YORK ASSEMBLY 7 reductio ad absurdum of the famous words that had played so vital a part in the Great Revolution of 1688 !1 2 Another lash, also, was laid on the back of already restive America, in the form of a 'bill for suspending the Assembly of New York,' 'in 1767, for refusing to make provision for supplying with necessaries his Majesty's troops as required by Act of Parliament." In vain Governor Pownall appealed to the House, to let the 'mode of quartering and the act of making the supply for the expense of it originate with the people of the Colonies and be the act of their own Assemblies;' or to let it be a 'service of the Crown, which the Crown itself requires, and for which it makes the proper requisitions without the interposition of Parliaments.' That they might stand, but not this 'enforcing bill.'s It would be the beginning only of a 'series of mischiefs." But King and Parliament had taken the bit between their teeth, and would listen to no remonstrance. The bill was obstinately pressed through. An additional dose of salt was unsparingly rubbed into the raw flesh of the American Colonies. George III. became hardened in his bigotry. Whom the gods would destroy, they first dement; and his infatuation raged against the Americans as 'rebels' and against Lord Chatham, as 'that trumpet of sedition.' Such was the crisis amid which the thirteenth Parliament of Great Britain was opened on 10th March 1768. What came to be known as the King's Party took the reins of Government, and held them practically for fourteen yearsone of the most disastrous and discreditable periods in British History. First of all, the House of Commons, under such leadership, so mismanaged matters as to stir up Middlesex to elect and re-elect John Wilkes four times in succession, and return him defiantly against all opponents. When, at last, the 1 Hansard's P. H. vol. xvi. p. 251. 2 Ibid. p. 331. • Ibid. p. 424. |