Life of William, Earl of Shelburne/Volume 1/Chapter 4

by Edmond George Petty-Fitzmaurice

 

CHAPTER IV

 

THE PRESIDENCY OF THE BOARD OF TRADE

 

1763

 

On the 5th of May, 1763, Egremont wrote to Shelburne and his colleagues at the Board of Trade:

"North America naturally offers itself as the principal object of your Lordships' consideration upon this occasion, with regard to which I shall first obey His Majesty's commands, in proposing to your Lordships some general questions, before I proceed to desire you will furnish that information which His Majesty expects from your Lordships, with regard to the northern or southern parts of this continent considered separately.

"The questions which relate to North America in general are,

"1st. What new Governments should be established there? what form should be adopted for such a Government? and where the capital or residence of each Governor should be fixed?

"2ndly. What military establishment will be sufficient? what new forts should be erected? and which, if any, may it be expedient to demolish?

"3rdly. In what way, least burthensome and most palatable to the Colonies, can they contribute towards the support of the additional expense which must attend their civil and military establishments upon the arrangement which your Lordships shall propose?"

Such were the directions of the Secretary of State, assuming the expediency of taxation, and only leaving the mode of it to be determined. The North America of which he spoke was at the time only a geographical expression, with its civilized portion divided into governments as different in size and various in constitution as the petty states of Italy before 1860, but with this difference that whereas the latter constituted so many varieties of absolutism, the former were the mixed but healthy offspring of English freedom.

The royal colonies, with the exception of Georgia, which since the surrender of its charter was practically ruled from Whitehall, were governed in one uniform manner by a Governor, Council, and Assembly, making three distinct branches of Legislature in imitation of King, Lords, and Commons in this kingdom.^[1] The Governor and the Members constituting the Council were appointed by the Crown, and on their first appointment received instructions, as rules for their particular conduct, calculated according to the powers which were vested in such Governors by virtue of letters-patent under the Great Seal. Through the whole of these royal provinces, viz. North and South Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, and New Hampshire then including Vermont, these powers were uniform as to essential matters of Government, and differed no further than as the local and particular circumstances required. The Council acted in a double capacity, viz. in matters of State as a Council to advise the Governor, who was constrained by special instructions to take their opinion on particular occasions, and in legislative matters as a distinct branch of the Legislature, in which capacity it acted alone without the presence of the Governor. The Assembly constituted the third branch of the Legislature, and consisted of the representatives of the people, chosen by the freeholders according to provincial Acts of Assembly. Bills read three times in both Houses of Assembly, when assented to by the Governor thenceforward became laws to all intents and purposes, and operated immediately unless they contained suspending clauses to the effect that they were not to take effect till His Majesty's pleasure was declared. The Crown at the same time was not so far bound by the assent of the Governor, but that at any time within a certain limited period, the King with the advice of his Privy Council, might repeal such provincial Acts. Thus the Crown might be said to have two negatives in the Legislature, one through the Governor and another of its own. All judicial proceedings were cognizable before the Courts of Appeal in England, when the matter at issue amounted to a certain sum. The Judges appointed by the Crown or by the Governor held during pleasure, except in New York.

In the charter colonies a far different state of things existed. In Maryland, the charter of which contained the most extensive powers of any in English America, the power of making laws was vested in the Proprietary under the Charter with the assent and approbation of the freemen of the province. No right was reserved to the Crown of invalidating these laws, so long as they were not repugnant from, but as nearly as might be agreeable to the laws of this country. Under the charter as modified by an Act of William III., the Governor was appointed by the proprietary conjointly with the Crown, but the Judges and all other officers were appointed by the proprietary or the Governor or his deputy, and although the Act of Navigation and the Laws of Trade were held to restrain the commercial liberties granted by the charter, the words of the grant still remained, which said: "the Crown at no time thereafter shall impose or cause to be imposed any taxes or contributions upon the inhabitants of Maryland, or the goods and merchandize within the province or the shipping in its ports."

In Connecticut the Assembly was elected by the freemen of the province. On meeting, it elected the Governor, Deputy Governor, and twelve assistants, who, forming one collective body with the elected representatives, made laws subject to the same limitation as in the case of Maryland, and appointed Judges and all officers, superior and inferior. In Rhode Island, the constitution was almost exactly the same as in Connecticut, but there was a proviso of doubtful import at the close of the charter, by which, in all controversies "of a public nature," the appeal was to be to the King and his successors.

In Pennsylvania, the proprietary or his deputy whom he appointed conjointly with the Crown, could under the charter enact laws for raising money and other purposes of Government, to be made with the advice of the representatives of the freemen of the province assembled for that purpose. The laws were not to be repugnant to those of the mother-country. The Governor appointed all Judges and other officers, but the charter saved and reserved to His Majesty the hearing and determining of the appeals of all persons belonging to Pennsylvania. The charter also provided an adequate machinery for the disallowance of illegal Acts, and specially reserved such impositions and Customs as by Act of Parliament should be appointed from the powers of commercial legislation which it granted. In Massachusetts the Governor was appointed by the Crown, but the Council was elected by the Assembly itself elected by the freeholders. The Governor, with the advice of his Council, appointed the Judges who held during good behaviour. An appeal lay to the King in Council whenever the matter in issue was above £3000 value. The laws passed by the Assembly were not to be repugnant to those of England. The Assembly appointed all the civil officers except the Judges, and had power to impose taxes, which were to be issued and disposed of by warrant under the hand of the Governor with the advice and consent of the Council. The Governor had a negative on all legislation. All laws were to be transmitted home, and if not disallowed within three years, were to remain in force. The jurisdiction of the English Admiralty Court was expressly reserved by the charter.

In all the colonies, the Governor had power to prorogue and dissolve the Assemblies, but the time of their meeting and the duration of their sittings were in every case ascertained. The right of taxation was recognised as belonging to the Assemblies, and special mention had been made of it in the charters of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. But there was another question, not so easy of answer as that of the right of the colonies to tax themselves, viz. whether the colonies could be taxed by any power but themselves. This question was that to which an affirmative answer was assumed in the third query of the despatch addressed by Egremont to Shelburne.

Two theories on the subject of taxation had for a long time divided the lawyers and statesmen both of the mother-country and of the colonies: on the one hand, that of taxation by the Crown in virtue of the prerogative; on the other, that of taxation by Parliament considered as part of the general legislative power. The first had naturally found favour before the Revolution of 1688, but only a fruitless attempt had been made by Halifax and Townshend to revive it in 1753; the second had, as naturally, prevailed since the Revolution. The law of the question might now be said to depend on the opinion given by Sir Philip Yorke—afterwards Lord Hardwicke—and Sir Clement Wearg in 1724, "that a colony of English subjects cannot be taxed but by some representative body of their own or by the Parliament of England"; and in that given by Sir William Murray—afterwards Lord Mansfield—and Sir Dudley Ryder in 1744, "that a colonial Assembly cannot be compelled to do more towards their own defence than they shall see fit, unless by the force of an Act of Parliament which alone can prescribe rules of conduct for them." The theory embodied in these opinions was supported by appeals to the relations between the ancient colonies and their mother-cities and, what was of more importance, by a certain number of modern precedents. How vague and ill ascertained however these theories were, may be seen by reference to the judgment of Lord Mansfield, in the case of Campbell v. Hall, given a year after this time, viz. July 20th, 1764, the exhaustive and careful character of which is in itself a proof how little understood Lord Mansfield considered the bare law of the question to be, and how necessary it had become to give some clear and decisive exposition of its principles, which like so much of English law, were altogether out of keeping with existing facts. The general result of that judgment, given upon an appeal coming from the island of Grenada—one of the cessions of the Treaty of 1763—was, that between colonies acquired by conquest or by cession, and those acquired by occupancy, i.e. what were popularly termed "settled colonies," there was a legal distinction; that whereas, in the former, the Crown could legislate by the sole royal prerogative exercised in its executive capacity in subordination to the legislative power of the Imperial Parliament, in the latter a representative Assembly must share in legislation, including taxation; the legislative power of the Assembly however, to be always held in subordination to that of the Parliament.^[2] The American colonies clearly fell into the latter category.

It was consistently with this doctrine of the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament that the Colonial system had bound the trade between England and America with a complicated series of chains and fetters rendered barely tolerable by extensive smuggling and the open connivance in many cases of the port authorities at the violation of their own rules. But the matter was not to end there. The Board of Trade had observed with satisfaction that, "upon a consideration of the past history of the Colonies, not only their latitude in trade but also their government had from time to time been limited and restrained so as to render them more dependent on England. Thus the Acts of Navigation had restrained the powers of trade granted by the charter of Maryland. Thus too the Crown had confined the powers of trade within certain limits in the case of Pennsylvania; and several other limitations in point of government were contained in its charter, which found no place in those of Maryland, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, as for example the obligation to transmit home all laws passed in Pennsylvania, and to submit to the disannulling of such laws if not approved. So too, the right of appealing to the King in Council was in the Rhode Island charter expressly reserved, which was not the case in either of the two charters which had preceded it. Again, the last charter to Massachusetts was much more limited than the first, and express reservation had been made in it of the Admiralty jurisdiction.^[3] So also the charter to Georgia had only twenty-one years' duration, and the powers under it were then to revert to the Crown.^[4] By such gradual limitations as these it had come to pass (under the régime of the Revolution) that the extensive political rights and commercial liberties granted to the colonies by the Stuart kings in virtue of their prerogative had been lessened, until at last the theory of the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament was brought forward to override the rights of the colonial assemblies to tax themselves for the purposes of revenue.

The revenue of the different states of North America consisted, broadly speaking, of two different parts, the one raised by taxation originating in votes of supply, and the other springing from independent sources, such as rents, fines, escheats, quit-rents,^[5] and forfeitures. The relative proportions of these two descriptions of revenue varied enormously, and according as the second was great or small, the dependence of the Governor on the Assembly was small or great. In North and South Carolina a considerable royal revenue in theory existed, but it was so difficult of collection as to be of little practical value; in Virginia and Maryland the opposite was the case, while in Pennsylvania, New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, the independent proprietary or royal revenue was either altogether inadequate for the purposes of government or practically did not exist at all.

Thus in the great majority of the States, the Governor was dependent on the Assembly, not merely for the supplies which a period of war or other special causes might render necessary, but for the ordinary expenses of Government, including his own salary and those of every officer in the Colony.

In England the civil list was given to the Crown for life at the beginning of each reign, and the sum so voted considering the uses to which it was applied, was a source of power even in a country where it bore but a small proportion to the whole expenses of Government. But in most of the colonies an annual vote for the expenses of Government carefully appropriated the sums voted to the holders of each individual civil office—the practice resembling the present procedure of the House of Commons in regard to the Civil Service estimates—so that the recipient of the money and the amount he received could be publicly known. It was the desire of the Governors to obtain a large and permanent revenue, not depending on annual votes and not so carefully appropriated as to deprive them of all latitude in its expenditure; and their patrons at home found in the alleged unwillingness of the colonies to bear their due proportion of joint expenses, an excuse to join the Governors in the demands which the latter had long been making to be set free from the trammels of the Colonial Constitutions, either by the Assemblies voting a permanent revenue or in default by the Parliament of England interfering over the heads of the Assemblies.

Affairs had about this time come to a crisis. England had gone to war with France for the possession of the valleys of the Mississippi and the Ohio and had prevailed.^[6] But the struggle had been costly, and it was anticipated that fresh expenses would be incurred in the settlement of the new territories, the benefits of the acquisition of which were justly held to belong as much to the States as to the mother-country, and the costs of their conquest and retention to be accordingly as much a Colonial as an English charge. It was under these circumstances that Charles Townshend, when President of the Board of Trade for one month in 1763, inspired by the example and traditions of Halifax, and with stanch supporters in Mansfield and Grenville, resolved to tax the colonies by authority of Parliament, and devised an elaborate scheme for that effect. But time and the forms of the House of Commons were against him, and on the 29th March 1763 the Bill was for the moment abandoned. A few weeks more and Charles Townshend himself had left the scene of his mischievous activity, not however before he had helped Grenville to pass a measure extending and making clear the powers of the Courts of Admiralty under the Navigation Acts, and had decided that the tenure of the Chief Justice of New York which had hitherto been quam diu se bene gesserit, should be at the royal pleasure, and that a standing army of twenty regiments should be sent to America, the pay of which was to be defrayed for one year out of English revenue and afterwards from colonial sources regiments, the presence of which would be beneficial or dangerous exactly as they were used, either to defend the frontiers against the Indians, or to overawe the settlers in their homes. The fact that the white population of Canada was French in race and Roman Catholic in religion, with the exception of a very small minority, constituted a further and serious difficulty.

Such were the legacies which Shelburne found left to him by his predecessors when he received the despatch of the 5th May from Egremont, calling his attention to the new possessions of England in America and the questions to which their acquisition gave rise, but assuming the policy previously settled by Grenville and Townshend to be substantially sound.

The letter of the Board in reply gave scant encouragement to the schemes of Townshend and Grenville.^[7] After shewing that as the new territories were for the most part but sparsely populated, great difficulties must arise in seeking at once to establish in them the machinery of a regular civil government, it proposed to confine the number of new States to two, viz. Canada and Florida,^[8] extending at the same time the boundaries of Georgia to its present limits, and to leave the vast territory westward of the Appalachian Mountains and the great lakes to the Indians who acknowledged the sovereignty of George III., but open to the free trade of all the King's subjects, under the protection of such military force in the different forts and posts of the Indian country as might be judged necessary. The letter then went on to say,

 

"We shall defer at present entering into any particulars as to the number of troops which it may be necessary to maintain for this purpose, the number and situation of the posts and forts, and the regulations proper to be established for a free trade from all your Majesty's Colonies into the Indian country, till by further information from your Majesty's Commander-in-Chief in America, and from your Majesty's Agents for Indian Affairs, we shall be able to make a more full and particular Report upon so interesting and important a subject; and we apprehend that no such delay can be attended with any material inconvenience, since if your Majesty should be pleased to adopt the general propositions of having a large tract of country round the great lakes as an Indian country open to trade, but not to grants and settlements, the limits of each territory will be sufficiently ascertained by the bounds to be given to the Governors of Canada and Florida on the north and south, and the Mississippi in the west, and by the strict directions to be given to your Majesty's several Governors of your ancient colonies, for preventing their making any new grants of lands beyond certain fixed limits to be laid down in the instructions for that purpose; and we apprehend that in the meantime, the security of the trade will be sufficiently provided for by the forts already erected, and such garrisons as your Commander-in-Chief may at his direction think proper to keep in them.

"But that no time may be lost in finally settling this important point of the Indian country, it will be absolutely necessary that immediate orders be sent as well to your Majesty's Commander-in-Chief of America, as to your Majesty's Agents for Indian Affairs, that without delay they furnish every information in their power on this subject, and that they be directed to correspond directly with your Majesty's Board of Trade for this purpose.

"Canada, Florida, and the newly acquired islands in the West Indies appear to us to be the places where planting perpetual settlements and cultivation ought to be encouraged, and consequently where regular forms of government must be immediately established.^[9]

"Canada, as possessed and claimed by the French consisted of an immense tract of country, including as well the whole lands to the westward indefinitely, which was the subject of their Indian trade, as all that country from the southern bank of the River St. Lawrence, where they had carried on their encroachments.

"It is needless to state with any degree of precision the bounds and limits of this extensive country, for we should humbly propose to your Majesty that the new Government of Canada should be restricted so as to leave, on the one hand all the lands lying about the great lakes and the sources of the rivers which fall into the River St. Lawrence from the north to be thrown into the Indian country, and on the other hand all the lands from Cape Roziere to Lake Champlain along the heights where the sources of the river rise which fall into the Bay of Fundy and Atlantic Ocean to be annexed to Nova Scotia and New England, in such manner as upon any future directions after particular surveys have been made shall appear most proper. If this general idea shall be approved the future bounds of the new Colony of Canada will be as follows:

"On the south-east it will be bounded by the high lands which range across the continent from Cape Roziere in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to that point of Lake Champlain above St. John's which is in latitude 45° north, which high lands separate the heads of the rivers which fall into the great River St. Lawrence from those which fell into the Atlantic Ocean or Bay of Fundy.

"On the north-west it will be bounded by a line drawn southwest from the River St. John's, by the heads of those rivers which fall into the River St. Lawrence, as far as the east end of the Lake Nipissing upon the Ottawa River, and on the south-west by a line drawn due west to the River St. Lawrence, from that point on Lake Champlain which is directly opposite to where the south line falls in, and so cross the said River St. Lawrence, and pursuing a north-west course along the heights where the rivers rise which fall into the Ottawa River, to be continued to the east end of Lake Nipissing, where the north line terminates."^[10]

 

It was clear that if the vast uncultivated territory recently acquired by England were annexed to Canada, the government of that colony, even if theoretically civil, would in practice become military. Nor were there wanting those in England who would not have looked upon such a state of things with an unfavourable eye, as the opinion of General Murray, the Governor designate of the new colony, recorded by himself many years afterwards clearly shows. Canada would then have overawed the colonies south and east of it, exactly as it had overawed them in former years before the final removal of those French garrisons, in the dreaded presence of which acute continental statesmen had seen the surest guarantee for the continuance of English rule over the states on the seaboard.^[11] In his despatch of the 8th June, Shelburne had stated that the advantages resulting from the restriction of the bounds of the colony of Canada would be those "of preventing by proper and natural boundaries, as well the ancient French inhabitants as others, from removing and settling in remote places where they neither could be so conveniently made amenable to the jurisdiction of any colony, or made subservient to the interest of the trade and commerce of this kingdom by an easy communication with and vicinity to the great River St. Lawrence. The division," he continued, "by the heights of the land to the south of the River St. Lawrence, will on the one hand, leave all your Majesty's new French subjects under such government as your Majesty shall think proper to continue to them, in regard to the rights and usages already secured or that may be granted to them. On the other hand, the re-annexing to Nova Scotia all that tract of land from the Cape Roziere, along the Gulph of St. Lawrence with the whole coast of the Bay of Fundy to the River Penobscot or to the River St. Croix, will be attended with this peculiar advantage of leaving so extensive a line of sea coast to be settled by British subjects, and all the new settlers upon this tract of land will with greater facility be made amenable to the jurisdiction of Nova Scotia than to that of Canada, and upon this same principle it will likewise be necessary to re-annex the Islands of Cape Breton and St. John's to the government of Nova Scotia." The main objects of the policy thus sketched out were to establish a boundary between the colonists and the Indian nations, and to secure that the lands belonging to the latter should only be opened up by Crown purchases made by public Treaty between the Governor or Commander-in-chief and the tribes. The undeveloped territories were to be kept open for future settlements, but without encouraging them prematurely at the expense of the Indian population. Of the extreme claims of the existing coast colonies under their charters to a right of indefinite extension westwards, Shelburne would seem thus early to have formed an unfavourable opinion,^[12] though he considered the English title to be based on the discovery and settlement of the Atlantic sea-board.

In his reply Egremont immediately refused to allow the Board of Trade to correspond directly with the Commander-in-Chief in America, and proposed to include in the new province, all the great lakes, and all the Ohio valley to the Mississippi.^[13] Shelburne however remained firm. "If this great country," he said, "should be annexed to the government of Canada, we are apprehensive that the powers of such government would not be properly carried into execution, either in respect to the Indians or British traders, unless by means of the garrisons at the different posts and forts in that country, which must contain the greatest part of your Majesty's American forces, and the Governor of Canada would become virtually Commanderin-Chief, or constant and inextricable disputes would arise between him and the commanding officers of your British troops."^[14] The opinion of Shelburne for the time carried the day and the idea of the great military colony was abandoned.^[15]

American historians have seen in the policy thus pursued a deliberate intention of closing the West for ever against further emigration, from the fear that remote colonies would claim the independence which their position would favour. The statesmen of the eighteenth century have follies enough to answer for without charging them with this error in addition. However impossible it was in practice to dam up the ever advancing tide of the English race, it was equally impossible in theory openly to avow the intention of dispossessing the still powerful Indian nations,^[16] which were bound to England by numerous Conventions, and were regarded for the most part as the subjects of George III., equally entitled with the inhabitants of Boston or even of London to the protection of his government.^[17] To adjust the relations between savage and civilized man during the period of the struggle which can have but one result, is a task as difficult as it is thankless, but American Presidents have not been accused of attempting to prevent further colonization of their continent, because they have from time to time issued proclamations ascertaining and attempting to protect the ever retiring bounds of the Indian reservations.^[18]

To the last question contained in the despatch of the Secretary of State—that which related to colonial taxation—the Board of Trade sent the following answer:

"It now only remains that, in obedience to your Majesty's commands, we give our opinions upon the mode of revenue least burthensome and most palatable to the Colonies, whereby they can contribute to the additional expense which must attend the civil and military establishments adopted on the present occasion. But on this point of the highest importance, it is entirely out of our power to form any opinion which we could presume to offer for your Majesty's consideration, as most of the materials necessary to form a just and accurate judgment upon it are not within reach of our office. Such as can be procured shall be collected with all possible dispatch, and shall at any time, be laid before your Majesty in such manner as you shall please to direct."^[19]

Thus the difficulty was for the time avoided. Before it could be again approached, events had taken place which installed a President at the Board of Trade more willing than Shelburne to fall in with the schemes of Grenville for promoting the Imperial supremacy of the mother-country. Differences of opinion on colonial policy did not alone alienate Shelburne from his colleagues in regard to taxation, and the Ministry had hardly been formed a few days before he found himself as little able as his predecessors to agree with the Secretary of State on the proper methods of conducting colonial business. He accordingly addressed a memorandum to Egremont, which after pointing out the necessity of a clear understanding, went on to say:

 

Before the year 1752, Governors and other chief officers in the Plantations were directed by their instructions to correspond with and transmit accounts of all their proceedings and of all occurrences in their respective departments to the Secretary of State and to the Board of Trade.

A constitution of this kind is improper upon the face of it, and would under any circumstances be defective, inconvenient, and embarrassed, and though a friendly intercourse and correspondence between office and office might obviate some of the inconveniences and difficulties it is liable to, yet that being a case seldom existing and never to be relied upon, it frequently happened that contradictory orders were given by the different officers upon the same points, and more frequently in affairs of difficulty and delicacy no orders were given at all, the responsibility of both officers being set aside by each having it in his power to throw the blame upon the other.

The confusion and embarrassment arising to the King's affairs, and the prejudice and perplexity to those of individuals, who knew not which office to apply to, and were frequently referred from one to another without finding redress in either, gave rise to the Order in Council of the 11th March, 1752, which after vesting in the Board of Trade the patronage of offices, directs that, for the future, Governors shall correspond only with that Board upon all affairs relative to their governments, except in cases of such nature and importance as might require His Majesty's more immediate direction by one of his Secretaries of State, and except also upon all occasions whereon they might receive His Majesty's commands through the Secretary of State, in which cases they were to correspond with the Secretary of State only.

The intentions of these exceptions are well known. The supposed cases were, first, a correspondence which might pass between a Secretary of State and the Governor of any foreign colony upon points which might become subjects of discussion between the different States at home; and, secondly, a state of war, in which all directions must necessarily be given by the Secretary of State.

As the words of the Order were general, and the cases alluded to not expressed, the communication of this Order to the Board of Trade was accompanied with a letter from the Secretary of State to the Board and the copy of one from him to the Governors explanatory of these exceptions, which letters clearly mark out the intention, and confine the construction to the two cases above mentioned, as will fully appear from the annexed copies of the letters themselves and the Order.

The case of war, principally excepted in the Order that restrains the correspondence to the Board of Trade, existing very soon after it was issued, and almost every material transaction of Government in the plantations, both executive or legislative, having reference more or less to this state, the chief correspondence with respect to those colonies which were immediately in the property and possession of the Crown, necessarily passed into the Secretary of State's Office; and with respect to those which were acquired by the success of our arms, they being held necessarily under military government as possessions the fate of which depended upon the issue of the war, they were necessarily and properly under the immediate care and direction of the Secretary of State.

The war being now happily ended, and the most important of our acquisitions in America ceded to His Majesty, it becomes necessary to consider in what way the affairs of America in general are to be administered for the future, and whether the regulations made in the year 1752, in respect to the correspondence, are or are not to take place, and how they are to be understood.

It appears that upon Mr. Townshend's entry upon his office, the Board of Trade did notify their appointment to all the American Governors, as well of the old established as the new acquired colonies, and did transmit to them at the same time copies of the Order of Council of the nth of March, 1752, and the explanatory letters of the Secretary of State as the rule of their future correspondence.

The Board, though fully convinced of the propriety of that regulation in every view and consideration of it, and that American affairs can never be administered with advantage to the public or satisfaction to the subject, whilst the correspondence is divided between the two Offices, yet as the Board of Trade have not received His Majesty's commands in respect to the new acquisitions, and as many things may be in agitation and remain to be done by the Secretary of State in reference to the Treaty, and to the Settlement of Indian affairs under the direction of the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Shelburne does not think it advisable to take the step Mr. Townshend took which it is conceived may possibly embarrass His Majesty's Service and produce inconveniences; hoping and wishing for such an explanation with the Secretary of State upon this and every other point that regards the office His Majesty has conferred upon him, as may be for their mutual satisfaction, and may obviate any disagreeable circumstance whatever that may occur to affect the stability of the present system, or that harmony and good-will which he does most sincerely and cordially wish to see take place and for ever remain between the two Offices.

 

In reply to this communication, Egremont stated that he was not prepared upon the subject; that he had never read the Commission of the Board of Trade; and at the same time spoke of the great fatigue he had recently undergone; whereupon Shelburne rather unceremoniously told him he must expect more if the affairs of America were to be put in order.^[20] Thus to differences of opinion on questions of policy were superadded the old feuds as to official rights, and to these the first important communications exchanged between the two offices had given a practical importance.^[21]

There was yet another important question on which Shelburne was at variance with his colleagues. He differed from them on the subject of the arrest of Wilkes. He had joined the Ministry and been sworn a Privy Councillor on the 20th April. On the 23rd, No. 45 of the North Briton appeared, and on the 24th the warrant for the arrest of its author was issued from the office of the Secretary of State under the hand of Halifax, who had neither waited to consult the law officers nor, as it would appear, any of his colleagues, except the other two members of the triumvirate, Grenville and Egremont, who with him constituted the real Government.^[22] Almost immediately after the issue of the warrant, Shelburne asked the opinion of a professional adviser as to the legality of the course adopted; and received a reply condemning the whole conduct of Halifax in the clearest and strongest terms. As Shelburne, towards the close of the year, consulted the same legal adviser on the further issues raised by the arrest of Wilkes, it is probable that the opinion given on the present occasion was well received.^[23]

Thus the Secretaries of State and the President of the Board of Trade disagreed on almost every important question, and although the King, at the advice of Mansfield, "supported the latter against Egremont in order to play them one against the other and so keep the power in his own hands,"^[24] yet, by the end of June, so dissatisfied had Shelburne grown with the position of affairs that he sent Bute a note threatening to resign immediately. In reply, Bute wrote as follows:

"June 23rd.

"My dear Lord,—I do beseech you for the future spare me the pain of thinking that on my not answering a note, you can for a minute suppose the least diminution in my regard for you or friendship to you. I am not prone to enter into such tyes on slight ground, nor, when once made, to infringe them without serious reason, which, I flatter myself, Lord Shelburne can never give me. Having answered this part of your letter with the frankness that becomes a man and your friend, suffer me with the same freedom to touch some sentences that follow. You here (and I have observed it before on another occasion) state your entering into the King's Service as an act of personal friendship to me. I am so unwilling to refuse anything of that kind from you, that I will accept it in one light as such, but let me view it in others too. Let me with truth affirm that, when I recommended my friend to the King as a person whose talents for business far advanced his age, I also had that friend's advantage in view.

"The Board of Trade at your age, my dear Lord, and at the critical minute of this Peace, appears to me one of the greatest situations this country can afford and the very noblest field you can possibly exercise your talents in. Ambition ought to be satisfied and every day you discharge your duty in this important trust, every report you draw, like the excellent one you have favoured me with,^[25] lays in materials to raise your character, to make you known, to render you respected, and to take off that envy that in spite of your endeavours will exist from the few years of manhood you are able to count. Hear in me a friend that will not often trouble you with advice. Don't be concerned at want of information or the little paultry trappings of Ministry. If any around you whisper you are not of sufficient importance, hear them not. My Lord, they either talk ignorantly or selfishly, and in both cases foolishly; they will find that such impressions and the jealousys that ever attend them will by hurting you, root up their hopes. In short, both you and they will lose the end for want of patience in using the means to obtain it. Be satisfied with a rigid attendance on the duty of your office, and you will draw the tooth of envy, conciliate men to you, and be even better pleased with yourself, than by any other mode of action whatever. I am not sure I know you enough to judge of the manner you will take this advice, but I write it unprejudiced by party views or prejudice. I know it calculated for your interest and if it does not suit your plan, 'tis only a few minutes lost in decyphering this scrawl."

At the same time Weymouth, who declared he considered "his political existence" as connected with that of Shelburne, and was above all things anxious to gain him over to the Bedford faction, wrote:

"I am very sorry to find that since I saw you, you have had another reason to be offended of the same kind as the former. I am sure, if these matters are not cleared up soon, that things cannot go on; but at the same time I think that the strength and power of the persons whom you have so great reason to complain of, seem to be of so short a duration, that it is scarce worth your while to quarrel with them; they cannot stand without your support, and you certainly will without theirs, but insults are not to be borne, and I can easily see, as I am sure you do, that your present situation is very critical."^[26]

In deference to these persuasions, Shelburne gave up the idea of immediate resignation and waited, but not for long, for a great change was impending.

 

1. The report prepared by Mr. James Abercromby in 1754 for the Board of Trade, and now among the Lansdowne MSS., has been principally relied on in the above sketch, together with the account of the Colonial Constitutions published in 1774 by Governor Pownall.
2. Campbell v. Hall, 1 vol. of Cowper's Reports. Sir Edward Creasy in his Constitutions of the Britannic Empire, has given a précis of the case.
3. The original charter had been invalidated under a quo warranto in the last years of Charles II. A fresh charter was granted under William III.
4. Abercromby's Report.
5. Franklin, in the Appendix to the Memorandum on the Settlement of Ohio (1770), represents the income arising from quit-rents as having been practically nil for many years. (Works, v. 479.)
6. On the history of the conflicting claims to the Hinterland of the Atlantic coast of America between France and England, and between Canada and Louisiana when they were both French colonies, see Parkman, A Half Century of Conflict, i. 313-314, ii. 74-77, Appendix A, 273; and Montcalm and Wolfe, i. 20-25, by the same author.
7. Reply of the Board of Trade, June 8th, 1763. Observations by Governor Pownall, June 1763; Observations by Lord Shelburne, May 1763.
8. In the Proclamation of 1763 the new colonies on the mainland were to be three in number—Canada, East Florida, and West Florida. (See Vol. II. Appendix I. A.)
9. The main proposals in the above letter were embodied in a Proclamation issued in 1763, shortly after Shelburne's resignation of the Presidency of the Board of Trade, the text of which will be found in the Appendix. In regard to the form of Government it said: "As soon as the state and circumstances of the said colonies will admit thereof, they [the Governors] shall, with the advice and consent of the members of our Council, summon and call General Assemblies within the said Governments respectively in such manner and form as it is used and directed in those colonies and provinces in America which are under our immediate government."
10. The line thus indicated was clearly traced out on a map appended to the despatch, both of which may still be seen at the Record Office. The line very closely resembles the first line of demarcation proposed in 1782 by Oswald (see Vol. II. p. 185), during the peace negotiations, as the southern and eastern boundary between Canada and the United States of America.
11. See on the above subject the authorities quoted by Mr. Bancroft, iii. ch. xx., and iv. ch. viii.; ed. 1855.
12. See Vol. II. 194.
13. Egremont to Shelburne, July 14th, 1763.
14. Shelburne to Egremont, August 5th, 1763.
15. Egremont to Hillsborough, September 19th, 1763.
16. At the time of the controversy between Lord Shelburne and Lord Egremont the great Indian war led by Pontiac was raging.
17. See Franklin's paper on the Settlement on the Ohio, 1770; Works, v. 465.
18. "The intervention of the Home Government to prevent the spoliation of the Indian remains a most noble monument of British national justice, and is acted upon to this day in Canada." Kingsford, History of Canada, where the text of the Proclamation of 1763 will be found. Vol. v. pp. 127-142. See also C. W. Alvord, Genesis of the Proclamation of 1763, where the whole subject is very fully discussed; O. M. Dickerson, American Colonial Government, 1696-1765, 285 et seq.; and Great Britain and the Illinois Country, 1763-1774, by Clarence E. Carter.
19. Shelburne to Egremont, June 8th, 1763.
20. Shelburne to Bute, April 26th, 1763.
21. See supra, as to the correspondence with the Commancler-in-Chief in America.
22. The arrest of Wilkes did not actually take place till the 30th of April.
23. The lawyer was not Dunning, but most probably Glyn.
24. Grenville Correspondence, ii. 238.
25. It is not clear what this report was, but probably his reply to Egremont is meant.
26. Weymouth to Shelburne, June 16th, 1763.