2 1 VI. of his subjects had given him the lie, applied to the CHAP. ministry for the protection to which every Englishman had a right. How to proceed became a question. 1763. April. Grenville, as a lawyer, knew, and "declared that general warrants were illegal;" but conforming to long established precedents," Halifax, as one of the secretaries of state, issued a general warrant for the arrest of all concerned in a publication which calm judgment pronounces unworthy of notice, but which all parties at that day branded as a libel. 3 Wilkes was arrested; but on the doubtful plea that his privilege as a member of parliament had been violated, he was set at liberty by the popular Chief Justice Pratt. The opponents of the ministry hastened to renew the war of privilege against preroga tive, with the advantage of being defenders of the constitution on a question affecting a vital principle of personal freedom. The cry for "Wilkes and Liberty" was heard in all parts of the British dominion." 4 5 In the midst of the confusion, Grenville set about confirming himself in power by diligence in the public business. "His self-conceit," said Lord Holland afterwards," "as well as his pride and obstinacy, established him." For the joint secretary of the treasury he selected an able and sensible lawyer, Thomas Whately, in whom he obtained a firm defender and political friend. His own secretary as Chancellor of 2 Grenville, in Knox's Considerations on the Present State of the Nation. 48. 2 * Grenville's Speeches in the House of Commons, 16 December, 1768, and 3 February, 1769, in Wright's Cavendish Debates, i. 110, 160. 3 Mahon's History of England, iv. • Hutchinson's History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, iii. 163. "Grenville's Account of himself to Knox. • Lord Holland to George Selwyn. VI. April. 2 CHAP. the Exchequer was Richard Jackson; and the choice is very strong evidence that though he entered upon 1763. his task blindly, as it proved, and in ignorance1 of the colonies, yet his intentions were fair; for Jackson was a liberal member of the House of Commons, a good lawyer, not eager to increase his affluent for tune, frank, independent, and abhorring intrigue. He was, moreover, better acquainted with the state of America, and exercised a sounder judgment on ques tions of colonial administration, than, perhaps, any man in England. His excellent character led Connecticut and Pennsylvania to make him their agent; and he gave the latter province even better advice than Franklin himself. He was always able to combine affection for England with uprightness and fidelity to his American employers. To a mind like Grenville's, the protective system had irresistible attractions. He saw in trade the foundation of the wealth and power of his country, and embraced all the prejudices of the mercantile system; he wished by regulations and control to advance the commerce and public credit, which really owed their superiority to the greater liberty of England. He prepared to recharter the bank of England, to connect it still more closely with the funding system; to sustain the credit of the merchants, which faltered under the revulsion consequent on the return to peace; to bind more firmly the restrictions of the commercial monopoly; to increase 1 That Grenville was very ignorant as to the colonies we have a witness in Knox, who himself had held office in Georgia, and knew America from his own observation.. 2 "The best in the world." Buike and the Duke of Grafton both vouch for Grenville's good intentions. VI. the public revenue, and in its expenditure to found CHAP. a system of frugality. America, with its new acquisitions-Florida, and 1763. April. the valley of the Mississippi, and Canada-lay invitingly before him. The enforcing the navigation acts was peculiarly his own policy, and was the first leading feature of his administration. His predecessors had bound him by their pledges to provide for the American army by taxes on the colonies; and to find sources of an American revenue, was his second great object. This he combined with the purpose1 of so dividing the public burdens between England and America as to diminish the motive to emigrate from Great Britain and Ireland; for, in those days, emigration was considered an evil. 3 2 In less than a month after Bute's retirement, Egremont, who still remained Secretary of State for the southern department, asked the advice of the Lords of Trade on the organization of governments in the newly acquired territories, the military force to be kept up in America, and in what mode least burthensome and most palatable to the colonies, they can contribute towards the support of the additional expense which must attend their civil and military establishment.4 1 M. Francès au Duc de Choiseul à Londres le 2 Septembre, 1768. 2 Second protest of the House of Lords, on the repeal of the stamp act. Knox, i. 23, Extra-official Papers, ii. 23. Secretary Lord Egremont to the Lords of Trade, 5 May, 1763: "North America naturally offers itself as the principal object of your lordship's consideration upon this occasion, with regard to which I shall first obey his majesty's commands in proposing to your lordships some general ques- "The questions which relate to '1st. What new governments should be established, and what form should be adopted for such new governments? And where the CHAP. May. The head of the Board of Trade was the Earl of VI. Shelburne. He was at that time not quite six and 1763. twenty years old, had served creditably in the seven years' war, as a volunteer, and, on his return, was appointed aide-de-camp to George the Third. He had supported the peace1 of 1763, as became a humane and It is noticeable, that the question as to taxing America by parliament, implied in the third interrogatory, does not relate to the expediency of doing it, but the mode. On the right or propriety of the measure, the Board of Trade is not invited to éxpress an opinion. Walpole, in Memoirs of the Reign of King George III. i. 257, 258, says of Shelburne: "The probability was, that he (Shelburne) intended to slip into the pay-office himself." Again; he insinuates that Shelburne, in negotiating with Fox to support the peace, practised "the pious fraud" of concealing Lord Bute's intention of retiring. Similar anecdotes were told me by one of the worthiest men in England. Having read a vast deal of Lord Shelburne's correspondence, I observed how unlike these imputations were to the character inprinted on his writings. I was advised to inquire if in the papers of the first Lord Holland these charges are preserved; anl having opportunity to do so, I was answered with courtesy and frankness, that they are not to be found in the unpublished memoirs, nor, I believe, in any of the papers of Lord Holland. As to the first surmise, that Shelburne desired to slip into the payoffice himself, there exists no evidence to justify it; while every letter that has since come to light, goes to show such a readiness on the part of Bute, and, for a time, of Grenville. to gratify Fox, that he himself was satisfied and avowed his purpose to give every support to the new ministry. The whole tone of their intercourse is inconsistent with the supposition of any difference about the paymaster's place. Grenville's Diary, in Papers ii. 207, 208. As for Shelburne, he was marked out for the higher office of a Secretary of State; but, "in the handsomest manner, wished to be omitted." Bute to Grenville, 1 April, 1763, in Grenville Papers, ii. 41. As to the other insinuation, the concealment of Bute's purpose of resigning, whether blamable or not, was the act of Bute himself, with whom Fox negotiated directly. "I am come from Lord Bute," writes Fox to the Duke of Cumberland, on the 30 Sept. 1762, "more than ever convinced that he never has had, nor now has, a thought of retiring or treating." Albemarle's Memoirs of Rockingham, i. 132. That Fox was with Bute repeatedly before superseding Grenville in the lead of the House of Commons, liberal man; in other respects he was an admirer of CHAP. Pitt. VI. While his report was waited for, Grenville, through 1763. May. Charles Jenkinson,1 began his system of saving, by an order to the Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in America, now that the peace was made, to withdraw the allowance for victualling the regiments stationed in the cultivated parts of America. This expense was to be met in future by the colonies. appears from Albemarle, i. 127, 129 and 132. Bedford Correspondence, iii. 124 and 133. That Fox did not regard this concealment as an offence appears from his own testimony; for he himself, in December, 1763, said to Grenville, that "he believed Lord Bute to be a perfect honest man; that he respected him as such; and that in the intercourse between them Lord Bute had never broken his word with him." See G. Grenville's Diary for Wednesday, 25 Dec. 1764. Even Walpole admits that Lord Holland's own friend; as well as the Bedfords, refused to find Shelburne blamable. Walpole's Geo. III. i. 262, 263. In the very paragraph in which Walpole brings these unsubstanti 2 ated charges against Shelburne, he The name of Shelburne will oc- 2 C. Jenkinson to Sir Jeffery Amherst, 11 May, 1763. Treasury Letter Book, xxii. 392. 3 Weyman's New-York Gazette, 3 October, 1763. No. 251, 2, 1.. |