Life of William, Earl of Shelburne/Volume 1/Chapter 8

by Edmond George Petty-Fitzmaurice

 

CHAPTER VIII

 

THE SECRETARYSHIP OF STATE

 

1766–1767

 

The office of Secretary of State at the time that Shelburne, then twenty-nine years of age, accepted the seals under Chatham, was divided into the Southern and Northern departments. The former had the management of Home and Irish affairs and of the correspondence with the States of Western Europe, India, and the Colonies; the latter that of the correspondence with the States of Europe not included in the sphere of the Southern Department, the Secretary of which ranked officially before his colleague. During the administration of Rockingham a proposal had been made to separate the American from the European business, and to appoint Dartmouth Colonial Secretary, putting an end at the same time to the inferior position occupied by the Board of Trade, which in fact was to be raised into a separate and independent department. This scheme, however, was not carried out, and the old distribution of business still existed when Rockingham resigned, and continued until the time of his second administration, when in 1782 the Foreign Office was first established on the lines which have continued to the present day.

The evils of a divided administration of the Colonies had attracted the attention of Chatham. His first act on acceding to power was to determine once and for all to put an end to it. It was possible either, as Rockingham had intended, to make a third Secretaryship of State, or to reduce the Board of Trade to a mere "Board of Report upon reference to it for advice or information on the part of the Secretary of State."^[1] The latter was the course now adopted, and Shelburne, who held the seals of the Southern department, was directed to carry it out in conjunction with Hillsborough the President of the Board. Hillsborough appears to have been ready not only to accept his office reduced to even a smaller degree of importance than it had occupied before the minute of 1752,^[2] which was now revoked, but to have insisted on the new commission being made out in terms which could leave no loophole to the Board for advancing claims to independent action at any future time. Freed from this embarrassment Shelburne was able to give undivided attention to his department.

Ever since the peace, Choiseul and Grimaldi had been scheming how to win back what they had lost. They had gained Austria to their alliance;^[3] they were intriguing in Stockholm,^[4] and plotting in Copenhagen;^[5] they were fishing in the troubled waters of Polish politics;^[6] their emissaries traversed the English Colonies;^[7] their spies surveyed the defences of the English coast;^[8] Portsmouth was to be destroyed,^[9] and Gibraltar to be seized by a coup de main;^[10] Avignon was to be annexed to France,^[11] and Portugal to Spain;^[12] Corsica was to be invaded;^[13] Geneva was threatened.^[14] But the time for overt action had not yet arrived, and the two ministers resolved to wait, until the financial difficulties of France and the domestic troubles of Spain could be surmounted, and in the interval to rest satisfied with delaying the settlement of the outstanding questions with England, keeping them as a useful pretext for a rupture when a favourable moment arrived. Their only fear was lest Chatham should precipitate hostilities.^[15]

"Mon but," said Choiseul to Merci, "est de ménager les esprits en Angleterre; c'est ce que je recommande sans cesse à Monsieur de Guerchy, et je m'applaudis d'être parvenu à faire suivre mon plan en Espagne. Nous aurons certainement en 1770 la plus belle arme, une marine respectable et de l'argent en caisse. Les ministres du roi travaillent avec le plus grand zèle et la meilleure intelligence à ces trois objets; c'est ce que plusieurs fois j'ai fait connoître à M. de Starenberg."^[16]

In keeping with this policy of delay no real steps had been taken to carry out the demolition of the harbour of Dunkirk; while English traders were subject to numberless vexations in French ports, on the pretext that owing to the 8th and 9th clauses of the Treaty of 1713 not having been carried into effect, the remainder of the commercial clauses were void, notwithstanding the written declaration of the French Commissaries to the contrary.^[17] The Manilla ransom remained unpaid, and at the same time an adverse claim was set up by Spain to the possession of the Falkland Islands.^[18]

The incapacity of the predecessors of Chatham had encouraged the two ministers in their aggressive designs. George Grenville, according to Johnson, "had powers not universally possessed; could he have enforced payment of the Manilla Ransom, he could have counted it,"^[19] but how to enforce payment of it was beyond his comprehension. To Chatham these delays were intolerable. Aware of the hostile intentions of France and Spain, he attempted to form a great northern alliance for defensive purposes, and confiding this negotiation to Conway, Sir Andrew Mitchell and Mr. Stanley,^[20] he instructed Shelburne to insist on the immediate settlement of the outstanding claims of England against France and Spain. Shelburne himself was keenly desirous to preserve the Peace of 1763, towards the conclusion of which he had himself contributed, but he had also a keen sense of the honour of the country. He informed Masserano, the Spanish Ambassador, of "the steady resolution of the King's servants to insist on the just claim of his subjects to the ransom of Manilla, and with the unalterable sentiments of His Majesty and his ministers on the equity of his demand,"^[21] adding "that if the Spaniards in talking of their possessions included the American and Southern Seas, and our navigating these gave occasion to them to suspect a war, he had no hesitation to say that he would advise one, if they insisted on renewing such a vague and strange pretension long since worn out."^[22] Similar language was held to Guerchy, who, with Choiseul, saw in the energetic attitude of the new Secretary of State a sudden and unexpected danger to his own designs. "Les propositions de mylord Shelburne," said Choiseul, "sont aussi indiscrètes qu'effrayantes, mais il faut se flatter que quand il aura été quelques mois en place, il verra qu'entre les projets de guerre et l'exécution, il se rencontre beaucoup de difficultés, et nous osons nous flatter qu'il trouvera que les ailes de la France ne sont pas toujours aussi aisées à couper que l'on se permet de dire dans la conversation en Angleterre. Au reste, Monsieur, quand vous verrez le Ministre anglais, vous lui marquerez le désir ardent du roi de maintenir la paix qui subsiste si heureusement entre les deux Cours; vous lui direz que le système sur cet objet est que nous voulons éviter tout ce qui pourrait troubler une tranquillité qui nous est chère; que nous employerons à cet objet les moyens de justice et de complaisance, et qu'en même temps vous avez ordre de prévenir le ministère de S. M. Britannique que le Roi s'attend au même désir de conserver la paix, et à la même justice de la part de la Cour de Londres, sans quoi il sera impossible de parvenir à un but aussi désirable, et que le roi n'agréera jamais quelque acte qui soit contraire à la dignité de sa personne.

"Vous ajouterez, Monsieur, que les alliances du roi ne menacent en aucune façon le repos de l'Europe; que vainement voudrait-on, pour excuser des arrangements dangereux au système pacifique de la France, faire envisager le Pacte de Famille comme un traité ambitieux centre lequel les puissances doivent être en garde; que ce pacte ne contient de choses que celles qui peuvent preserver la maison de Bourbon d'entreprises injustes; que nous doutons que les intrigues qui se passent dans le Cabinet de S. M. Britannique soyent aussi innocentes; et que cependant nous n'en sommes pas effrayés connaissant la droiture du Roi d'Angleterre, et le fondement que le Roi veut faire sur l'amitié de S. M. Britannique."^[23]

Choiseul, having sent these instructions to the representative of France in England, now employed all his diplomatic skill to gain time, in order to convince those with whom he had to negotiate that his intentions were strictly pacific. The English Embassy in Spain was vacant, and the Earl of Rochfort had been just appointed to Paris. "The three articles," writes Shelburne to Chatham, who was again ill, "proposed to be added to the instructions given the former Ambassador, will convey to your Lordship the general line of what I took the liberty to recommend more particularly to his attention. The article of Dunkirk I found very strongly stated in the former instructions. The Duke of Richmond made Dunkirk his road. Lord Rochfort begs not to do this; as he said it was the first thing that disgusted not only the Court but the people of France against the Duke of Richmond; but that he will be very ready to go some time hence from Paris to examine the state of it.

"I took care to lay before the King the contents of your Lordship's last letter. It had come round to the King that if a nobleman was not sent to Spain, Prince Masserano would be recalled in order to send a man of inferior rank.^[24] This, as well as other considerations, has made the King very desirous that some nobleman should be found, and made General Conway think of Lord Hillsborough. I cannot say it met my idea, not because I do not think Lord Hillsborough most extremely fit, but I am convinced, all things considered, that he will also decline; but as the King put it upon my saying that his affairs might suffer from a delay of ten days, and that otherwise he thought it convenient for his service that the offer should go, having stated my opinion I did not think my objection of weight enough to urge it further."^[25]

The projected appointment was most distasteful to Chatham. He begged that when the offer was made, Lord Hillsborough should be informed that it did not come "with his advice or suggestion," since, had he judged that Lord Hillsborough could be spared from the royal service at home, he would have thought of his Lordship for Spain "first not last"; and he went on to "own that the incident made no small impression upon his mind, and gave him abundant room to think that he was not likely to be of much use."^[26] It is difficult not to see in this strange and perverse complaint the first symptom of the malady which afterwards destroyed the Administration. Other circumstances besides the constant ill-health of Chatham were already beginning to weaken it. An apprehended scarcity had occasioned the issue of an Order in Council on the 24th of September laying an embargo on corn. When Parliament met, fierce debates arose on the constitutional character of this proceeding. These debates, in which Richmond and Mansfield appeared as the assailants and Chatham with Shelburne and Camden as the defenders of prerogative, were not of advantage to the Administration.^[27] Quarrels about an appointment at Court, caused mainly by the arrogance of Chatham in the distribution of patronage, had at the same time alienated Conway, and led to the resignation of the greater part of the Whigs, who had not left office with Rockingham in July. On the other hand, the Duke of Bedford refused to give the support which was now asked of him.

These early signs of weakness were eagerly scanned by the astute diplomatists of France and Spain, but as yet the injury done was slight. "On the whole," said Walpole, "the session has ended very triumphantly for the great Earl."^[28] Choiseul thought so too. Early in November he told Rochfort that he had dissuaded Masserano^[29] from presenting a very strongly-worded memorial under the influence of the excited feelings which prevailed at Madrid on the subject of the Falkland Islands,^[30] adding that if the question were left to him "he could settle it in half an hour." The same phrase it came out had been used almost at the same time by Masserano in London, and being reported to Shelburne,^[31] led to an interview, when the Spanish Ambassador said "that the Manilla Ransom should be paid in January, if the point about the Falkland Islands could be accommodated."^[32] A similar declaration was made at the same time by Choiseul to Lord Hertford then in Paris, and was communicated to the English Administration.^[33] To this proposition Shelburne replied in a conciliatory spirit, refusing the direct mediation of France in a question which concerned England and Spain alone, at the same time expressing his willingness to treat the two questions of the ransom and the settlement of the islands together, if by that means an agreement could be more easily reached.^[34] When, however, the question was further gone into, Guerchy declared that what Choiseul had meant was that if the settlement on the Falkland Islands was abandoned by England, the Manilla ransom might be paid subject to the arbitration of France as to the amount, an announcement which caused Chatham to declare that the original proposal was not merely changed "mais qu'il s'évanouit."^[35]

Rochfort at one moment conceived that England might consent to the amount of the payment being made a subject of arbitration, but Shelburne refused arbitration on the amount of the payment, as his predecessor had on the whole question. Masserano himself had declared that "as the King of Spain's dignity alone was in question, and his desire of strict justice was the sole motive of his conduct, he should in consequence always think himself obliged to pay the whole or none."^[36] Availing himself of this declaration Shelburne insisted on the payment of the whole sum due, offering in return that the settlement on the Falkland Islands should be abandoned by England, the right of settlement in the future being, however, reserved. "The King's sincerity is undoubted," he wrote, "as appears by the whole transaction. His steadiness I am certain will not be less. If any attempt therefore is made to negotiate away the substance of the proposal first made to His Majesty, your Excellency may be assured that His Majesty will not listen to it, so that if the Ministers of Spain endeavour on the return of their messengers to start fresh difficulties, the only consequence will be, that the station in question at the Isles of Falkland, the importance of which His Majesty fully knows, will remain open to be established by His Majesty, and the Manilla Ransom cannot be forgotten by His Majesty nor his subjects, till some happier moment shall come, when the Minister of the Court of Spain may be more disposed to do justice, where it is so unquestionably due. In the meantime it may be easily judged whether the conduct of His Majesty tends most to preserve the public tranquillity, or that of France and Spain."^[37]

Thus wrote Shelburne, but the internal divisions of the English Cabinet on the affairs of India and of America, coinciding with the failure of the Northern alliance, rendered vigorous action impossible, and left Grimaldi and Choiseul to pursue their policy of delay in safety, till the moment for aggression arrived.^[38]

Of all her recent territorial acquisitions England had been most dazzled by those which had fallen to her share in India. It was believed that now in reality "the gorgeous East was held in fee." Distance lent enchantment to the view; young and old, rich and poor, were eager to bathe in the stream of the new Pactolus which was believed to have turned its course and to be rolling golden waves towards England. The violent discussions at the India House served to keep up a constant excitement, and attracted an interest which equalled, if it did not exceed, the interest in the debates of Parliament. The charter of the East India Company was to expire in a few years, and the more enlightened of the directors were beginning to realize, that unless the period which had still to elapse before the expiration of the exclusive privileges they possessed were employed in setting their house in order and coming to an equitable arrangement with the Government, they might see an end put to their monopoly and a corresponding fall in the value of Indian stock, which now stood at a gigantic premium. They also knew that there was an element of uncertainty in the title to a great portion of their present possessions, which made it advisable for them to agree quickly with their adversaries.

The treaties negotiated by Clive had raised the Company from the position of a trading corporation with a monopoly, to that of the sovereign of vast and growing territories. Their income, large in reality, larger yet in popular estimation, consisted of two parts: trade profits on the one hand, territorial revenue on the other. But this increase of wealth had caused no increased sense of responsibility, either in the proprietors at home or in their servants in India. The rapacity of the one was only equalled by the cruelty of the other: the horrors of the Blackhole were only exceeded by the crimes of the English invaders. As far back as 1759 Clive had himself declared to Pitt that it was doubtful if the Company could govern such vast possessions,^[39] but since that time those possessions had been more than doubled by Clive himself, who, though the unsparing enemy of the abuses of the Company, had been himself too much implicated in transactions of a doubtful character, justifiable only by the circumstances of time and place, to make it possible for him to appear with advantage as the critic of the shortcomings of others. Nor does he appear to have ever been sincerely desirous of seeing a limit put to the territorial acquisitions of the Company. Thus, although the letter of instructions sent out to him by the Treasury Committee of the India House in September 30th, 1765, stated "that experience had shown that an influence maintained by force of arms is destructive of that commercial spirit which we ought to promote, ruinous to the Company and oppressive to the country," and went on to say "we earnestly recommend to your Lordship to exert your utmost influence to conciliate the affections of the country powers, to remove any jealousy they may entertain of our unbounded ambition, and to convince them that we aim not at conquest and dominion, but at security for carrying on a free trade equally beneficial to them and to us";^[40] yet practically the triumph of Clive at the India House in 1765, previous to his last mission, had meant the triumph of the policy of territorial aggrandizement, as the event soon proved. Of this policy the chief opponent was Lawrence Sullivan, long the rival of Clive and the friend of Shelburne. He was desirous of confining the action of the Company within the terms of their charter as a trading corporation, denying the expediency of their holding a territorial revenue.^[41] Vansittart, once Governor of Bengal, wished the Company to retain their present territories, but not to extend them.^[42] It was generally agreed that the annual election of the directors acted as a shield to corruption, that the qualification for a vote at the India House ought to be raised—it was now the possession of £500 of stock—and that fictitious votes should if possible be abolished, but there agreement stopped, and meanwhile it rained schemes.

In this position Shelburne found Indian affairs. His accession to office had been received with apprehension by the friends of Clive, with joy by those of Sullivan.^[43] But though fully aware that danger threatened them, the Court of Proprietors in September 1766, maddened with the thirst of gain, and careless that their first duty was to reduce their large liabilities, proposed, in defiance of the wishes of the directors, to raise the dividend at once from six to ten per cent. in the current half-year. The ministers thereupon sent a warning note. But advice was useless. "Nothing," writes Shelburne to Chatham, "can be so unsatisfactory as the state of the Indian business is become. Notwithstanding the communication of Government, the advice of the directors and of the honestest proprietors, they came to a declaration of increase of dividend by a great majority composed of factious sets of men, and appointed the Thursday after to go greater lengths as to Lord Clive, &c.; but though the majority was very great, the public confidence did not follow it, and the stock stood; till they have been obliged to prevent its falling, to retreat, and join the others in a general language of entire confidence in Parliament."^[44]

Shelburne was among those who denied the right of the Company to territorial revenue, and starting from this position he briefly sketched the heads of a plan of reform as follows:^[45]

"Three points are to be considered, (1) The right as to the Charter. (2) The advantages that the public can avail itself of, with due regard to the trade, always the first object to it and to the Company itself. (3) The mode of doing it.

"1. The Charter. Clear.

"2. What may be done. As this Company is become an object of public policy, and the support of the trade greatly depends upon the future support, as it appears hitherto to have existed by the aid of Government, and as a particular set of proprietors may be led away by the hopes of present profit (not having the proper materials before them to judge of points of general policy, which may be intermixed with other considerations regarding the general interests of the State both at home and with foreign Powers), it seems absolutely necessary to prohibit for the future their raising the dividend further without consent of Parliament, so as to prevent the dangerous consequences which might result from the nation being at any time embarked in disputes, and so great a trade being hazarded, without Parliament being apprized of the danger, or being able timely to consider of such remedies as may suggest themselves to prevent such dangers.

"3. (a) The dividend for —— years to remain fixed at ten per cent. The term should be such that at the end of it we may better be able to distinguish between the profits of the trade and the revenue, and likewise give proper encouragement to the Company in future.

"(b) The savings after payment of the dividend, and after properly providing for the cost of collection, and the payment of the troops, to be applied to a fund at the disposition of Parliament.

"(c) The increase of their trade and re-exportation to be encouraged by all possible means, in order to enable them to bring home the fruits of their possessions in India.

"(d)The powers of the direction at home and in India to be made more permanent, so as to reconcile the Government to the natives, and make the servants more honest and obedient.

"(e) A proper check to be considered to make the directors act honestly and give a fair account."

Alarmed at the consequences of their own temerity, the proprietors, as Shelburne had informed Chatham, resolved to treat. Early in January 1767 they began by stating the points on which, in their opinion, it was necessary to make an agreement with the Administration. But not a word appeared in the report of their Treasury Committee, appointed to examine these points, as to the concessions to be made to the State for the grant of the privileges which the Report recommended should be asked. Yet the Company was not acting without deliberation. It had secured a friend in Charles Townshend, who, regardless alike of the opinions of Chatham on Indian Government and of Shelburne on American taxation, had determined to conciliate the powerful Indian connection at home, and to obtain a revenue by once more attacking the distant American Colonies, the opposition of which, unwarned by recent events, he ventured to despise.

To rouse the spirit of the members of the House of Commons was the surest means, according to Chatham, of making an advantageous bargain with the Company. At his suggestion papers relating to India had been moved for by Beckford, and obtained notwithstanding the opposition in the Cabinet of Townshend.^[46] Their discussion, after several delays, was fixed for January 21st. When the day arrived Charles Townshend at once appeared on the scene, and declared he believed the Company had a right to territorial revenue.^[47] "Soon after I came to town," wrote Shelburne to Chatham, "the Chairman and Deputy Chairman came to me to speak about their accounts with the French for prisoners, which are still unpaid. They took occasion at the same time to enter into their general situation. They declared they did not think themselves authorized by the general Court to do more than to desire of the Administration certain powers which are wanted for the better regulation of the Company's affairs in India, and to hear what Government may expect for them and for a new charter. Further they did not think themselves authorized to go, without fresh powers; and in their private opinions they did not see how that could be, till some authentic determination was come to, to decide the right; upon which it was well known there were different opinions, not only in the city, but in Parliament. This was their language to me, to which I returned a very general answer.

"The Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether that they had more confidence in him or that from a more intimate communication with them he was able to inspire them with his sentiments, has been uniform in believing they would come to Government, and with such a proposal as would be approved by Parliament. He has gone so far as to declare it as his opinion to the House; upon which the printing of the papers was stopped, and the stock rose. In the meantime the directors have said nothing, nor taken any step worth mentioning, and the matter stands there. Mr. Beckford is at a loss how to prosecute the inquiry in this situation, when the Committee meets on Friday. I take it for granted your Lordship will choose to explain yourself to the Duke of Grafton, in consequence of whatever may occur to you upon it; but it was impossible to write without mentioning the greatest point a nation ever had depending; and that is all I mean."^[48]

Chatham replied:

"My letter by the post will have apprised your Lordship of my thoughts concerning the present period of the East India inquiry. I remain fully persuaded that Mr. Townshend's declaration in the House, with regard to an expected proposal, must necessarily suspend all operations for a competent time till the proposal shall be produced or be formally disavowed. In the meantime it is not to be permitted to suppose such levity and indiscretion in man as to doubt of the grounds of such a declaration. A proposal therefore I take for granted will come; and when it shall be before the House, the ways to ulterior and final proceedings upon this transcendant object will open themselves naturally and obviously enough, and acquire double force and propriety."^[49]

On the 6th of February the proposals of the Company were imparted to the Administration. They bore the stamp of the ideas put forward by the Chairman in his recent conversation with Shelburne. Chatham at once declared them "inconclusive and inadmissible," at the same time that he suggested the following scheme of Parliamentary action:^[50]

1. "The whole proposal to be moved for by some member and laid before Parliament.

2. "The papers which are already before the House to be moved for, to be printed.

3. "Not to proceed to the decision of the question of right on Friday.^[51]

4. "The Committee to adjourn for a week or to some proper day.

5. "When they do proceed, to begin by stating facts exactly resulting from premises, viz.:

(α) "That it appears by the Charter, Acts, &c., that the East India Company was instituted for the purposes of trade.

(β) "That the acquisitions and cessions of territories and revenues obtained in India from the time of the retaking Calcutta from the country powers by the Company, were made in consequence of actual and extensive operations of war, and succours stipulated."^[52]

Thus clearly were the views of Shelburne and Chatham marked off from those of Charles Townshend. It was not, however, on Indian affairs alone that a difference of opinion existed. It was equally distinct on those of the American Colonies.

The Declaratory Act had spread an "unfortunate jealousy and distrust of the English Government throughout the Colonies."^[53] Though the Stamp Act was repealed, there were questions still pending which might at any moment make that distrust a source of present danger. The Mutiny Bill in 1765 had been extended to America, and was not to expire for two years. It required the colonists to furnish the troops at their own expense, with "fire, candles, vinegar, salt, bedding, utensils for cooking, beer or cider, and rum." This statute was difficult to justify by those who condemned the Stamp Act as an infringement of colonial rights. Again, the repeal of the latter Act had been accompanied by a resolution of both Houses of Parliament, that it was their opinion that the colonial assemblies should compensate the sufferers by the riots of the preceding year. The sufferers were in England regarded as martyrs, in America as public enemies. Either of these questions might become dangerous, nor were there wanting violent men in America ready to fan the sparks of latent discontent, or bitter partisans in England ready to put the most unfavourable construction on whatever was said or done by the colonists.

Conway had in June, pursuant to the resolution of the two Houses, directed the several colonial governors to recommend their assemblies to compensate the sufferers by the riots. Bernard, Governor of Massachusetts—then, as usual, engaged in a variety of petty disputes with the House of Assembly—took occasion to use the word "require" instead of "recommend" in his address to that Assembly, although the former word had been abandoned by the House of Lords after a long struggle with the House of Commons on the exact wording of the resolution.^[54] Indignation was universal, and when in October the Assembly received petitions from the sufferers, Joseph Hawley of Northampton proposed to grant relief only on condition of a general pardon to the rioters. An adjournment took place in order to give time to the members to consult their constituents. Meanwhile the Rockingham Administration had fallen, and the agent of Massachusetts informed his employers that the attitude of the new Secretary of State was very conciliatory, for he had told him "to assure the Assembly of Massachusetts that they might be perfectly easy about the enjoyment of their rights and privileges under the present administration."^[55]

Shelburne at once redeemed the pledges he had given. "His Majesty," he writes to Bernard, " is extremely sorry to observe any degree of ill-temper remaining in his Colony of Massachusetts Bay, or that points should be so improperly agitated as to tend to the revival of disputes which every friend to America must wish to be forgotten. They have seen the Parliament of Great Britain give due attention to all well-founded complaints of the Provinces, notwithstanding they appeared to them in some parts not so properly urged. Though the Legislature will certainly on all just occasions exercise and enforce its Legislative power over the Colonies, yet it cannot be doubted but it will exert it with a due regard to the nature of their connection with the mother-country.

"Upon this occasion it is proper to observe in general that the ease and honour of His Majesty's government in America will greatly depend on the temper and wisdom of those who are entrusted with the Administration there, and that they ought to be persons disdaining narrow views, private combination, and partial attachments. A temperate conduct founded on the true basis of public good, avoiding all unnecessary reserve where nothing arbitrary is thought of, nothing unreasonable required, must carry conviction to the hearts of the deluded, conciliate the minds of all, and insure the confidence of His Majesty's loyal and loving subjects of America.

"Upon these considerations I am persuaded that the Assembly will immediately upon their meeting fall upon measures to terminate all local difficulties, which appear by your accounts to have hitherto prevented that compliance expected by Parliament with the recommendations you have been required to make, in consequence of the resolutions of both Houses. It is impossible to conceive that they will suffer any private considerations to interfere with their desire of showing a proper sense of that paternal regard which they have experienced from His Majesty, and of that attention which Parliament has given to their complaints, which can never be done with more propriety than by granting with the utmost cheerfulness a just compensation to those who have suffered by the late disorders."^[56]

The friendly attitude of Shelburne seems to have caused a general willingness to grant relief to the victims of the riots, and relief was granted; but Hawley's Bill passed at the same time, and the House of Assembly at Massachusetts, whether knowingly or unknowingly, thereby resolved to exercise the prerogative of mercy, the prerogative of the Crown and of the Crown alone.

A few months before these events the Assembly of New York had declined to take any notice of a requisition by the General and Governor, made upon them in accordance with the provisions of the Mutiny Act, and while they had by their own vote supplied the troops with necessaries, they had refused to furnish some articles which were, it was asserted, not habitually provided under similar circumstances in England. They now announced their intention of persevering in that course. Thus within a few months of the repeal of the Stamp Act two grave constitutional questions had already arisen between England and her colonies.

While these events were passing, Shelburne was applying himself to the general settlement of America: the task for which his fitness had in former years been insisted upon by Henry Fox,^[57] and with which he had already become conversant, though for a short time only, while President of the Board of Trade. He began by clearing out of his path a number of the questions which had for some time past been cumbering the office. A boundary question between Massachusetts and New York was adjusted;^[58] and the validity of ancient grants in Vermont under the seal of New Hampshire was determined.^[59] The situation of the Admiralty Courts, whose decisions, by a judge without a jury, had in many cases caused much discontent, he considered a matter which ought no longer to be left open. He next proposed, contrary to the advice of Sir Guy Carleton, to place Canada, like the other states, under a council and assembly.^[60] To this council and assembly, to which Catholics, up to the extent of at least one-fourth, were to be admitted, he desired to entrust the settlement of the conflict between the English and the French law, the latter of which still remained dear to the descendants of the ancient colonists. He checked the desire of the English Bishops to transplant the Episcopate to the colonies,^[61] and he recommended that the tenure of the judges should be as in England, during good behaviour.^[62] In regard to the unsettled western territories between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi, he determined to encourage settlements on the Ohio and in Illinois in keeping with the policy which he had tried to lay down in principle in 1763 of establishing a boundary line between the colonies and the Indian nations, neither recognizing the sea-to-sea claims of some of the older coast colonies, nor allowing the back lands to become part of an overgrown Canada under a military governor. This policy was opposed by Hillsborough, who, according to Franklin, urged as objections "the distance from the other settlements which would make it of little use to this country, as the expense on the carriage of goods would oblige the people to manufacture themselves; and further, that it would for the same reason be difficult both to defend and govern; that it might lay the foundation of a power in the heart of America which might be troublesome to the other colonies and prejudicial to our government over them, and that people were wanted here and in the settled colonies, so that none could be spared for a new colony."^[63]

But these questions, however important, especially in their ultimate development, seemed at the moment inconsiderable in comparison with that of the American revenue, which itself depended on American policy. "The Treasury," Shelburne told Franklin while discussing the Illinois grant, "are alarmed and astonished at the growing charges and the heavy accounts and draughts continually brought in from America; Major Farmer for instance had lately drawn for no less than 30,000l. extraordinary charges on his going to take possession of Illinois, and the superintendents, particularly the southern one, began also to draw very largely."^[64] The chief expenditure of the mother-country on behalf of the colonies was incurred for military purposes. The total amount was estimated at £400,000 annually. The question was whether that expenditure was necessary. If it were not necessary, there was every probability that the ordinary revenue of the Crown, if carefully tended, and the grants of the Colonial Assemblies, would be sufficient for securing and defending America, and that there would consequently be no necessity for raising the difficult question of the right of the mother-country to tax. This was the opinion of Shelburne. He believed the road out of the difficulty to lie in increasing the land revenue, in reducing the military force in the towns where they could not be wanted except for the purpose of overawing the colonists, and in only keeping up the force necessary to check the incursions of the Indians.

In conformity with these views he sent a circular to each Governor in America, instructing him to transmit an exact estimate of the annual charge of maintaining and supporting the entire establishment of the Colony, distinguishing the different funds, and the different services to which they were appropriated, distinguishing also the fixed and regular funds from those which were annually granted or which expired in a given time. They were also to transmit a full and clear account of the manner of imposing and levying quit rents, as also of the mode of granting lands, specifying the amount of the arrears of the quit rents, the number of grants hitherto made, the names of the grantees, and the amount and date of the grants.

At the same time he indicated his own views in a letter to General Gage, Commander-in-Chief in America, on the whole subject, including the policy relating to the unoccupied lands between the older colonies, Canada and the Mississippi.

 

"I write to acquaint you," he said, "of three very material points, which are thought to require the deliberation of the King's servants in order to their being laid before him.

1st. A proper system for the management of the Indians, and for the carrying on the commerce with them on the most advantageous footing.

2nd. The most eligible manner of disposing of the troops; as well for convenience as for offence and defence.

3rd. A reduction of the contingent expenses of the establishment in North America, and the raising an American fund to defray American expenses in part or in whole.

As so much depends upon the happy regulation of these different articles, they require to be well weighed before a final resolution can be taken upon them, and as the King is desirous that they shall be regulated with all the dispatch that is consistent with securing both the permanence and honor of his Government, and the prosperity of his American subjects, every light and information which can be added to those we are already possessed of will be duly attended to.

You will therefore pay the utmost attention to these three points, and from time to time transmit such information and reflections upon them as shall occur to you.

In regard of the first article, that of the Indian affairs, a plan formed some time ago has been under deliberation. As this plan was transmitted to all the governors in North America for their opinions, it must have fallen within your observation. Many articles in it however appearing not so well calculated for the end proposed as could be wished, and several others being rather detrimental to it, there is a necessity either of reforming it, or of substituting another in its place. But it is to me matter of doubt whether any method of managing Indians can be found preferable to that of leaving the trade of each province to the particular care of that province, under some general rules and restrictions to which all the provinces must be subject in general.^[65]

A plan drawn up by Lord Barrington has been some time under consideration for quartering the troops. This matter will be fully discussed here, but as it is possible that in the end His Majesty may leave it in great measure to your prudence and judgment, you will lose no time to consider this point fully. In the meantime it is His Majesty's desire, that in any changes of the present disposition you have occasion to make, regard be had to make the military as little burdensome to the inhabitants as possible, by disposing them preferably among the young colonies, where in many respects they must be considered as advantageous, rather than in His Majesty's more settled colonies, except where they are desired, or in your opinion wanted.

The third article is that of the greatest consequence, and therefore merits the most particular and mature consideration.

The forming an American fund to support the exigencies of Government in the same manner as is done in Ireland, is what is so highly reasonable that it must take place sooner or later.^[66] The most obvious manner of laying a foundation for such a fund seems to be by taking proper care of the quit-rents, and by turning the grants of lands to real benefit, which might tend to increase rather than diminish the powers of Government in so distant a country.

You must be sensible that very great abuses have taken place in both respects which cry aloud for redress.

Proper regulations for these purposes might be a means of preventing Indian disturbances in future, which now in great measure arise from individuals possessing themselves of their lands without the knowledge of Government.

It is far however from His Majesty's intention that any rigour should be exercised in respect of quit-rents long due, but nothing can be more reasonable than that the proprietors of large tracts of land (which ought by the terms of the respective grants to have been cultivated long since) should either pay their quit-rents punctually for the time to come, or relinquish their grant in favour of those who will.

As to the manner of making out grants of land for the future, I could wish to have the best information possible, so that such a system might be adopted for that purpose, particularly in the new and conquered Provinces, as would at the same time serve to promote the good of the Colonies, and lighten the burden which lies upon the mother-country.

Although the reduction of expense in America is a very necessary point, yet I must do the Treasury the justice to say, that they do not wish to retrench any expense which can contribute to the advantage of the country or the good of the service; on the contrary, the intention is that no expense shall be spared which is really useful, but that none shall be incurred which is not so. And indeed it is hardly possible that many articles of expense very necessary at the time, which the exigencies of the war required to be entered into without delay, should not now require reformation and admit of being retrenched. But this desirable point can only be effected by a thorough digest and judicious arrangement of the different departments in America. You cannot therefore be too full in giving your own thoughts upon these matters, nor in procuring the very best intelligence possible from your correspondents in all the Provinces to be transmitted to me from time to time also."^[67]

 

The despatch then proceeded to set out the advantages which would accrue from the establishment of the three proposed new Settlements by reducing the expenses incurred through the extensive cantonment of troops in the back Settlements; by intercepting illicit trade, and by preventing Indian incursions.

Very different from the views of Shelburne were those of Townshend. He had taken service with Chatham without adopting his policy. He regretted the repeal of the Stamp Act, he defended that Act in principle, and in practice, he insisted on the necessity of a colonial revenue; the military expenditure might be reduced, but the garrisons near the colonial towns ought to be kept up; taxes for this object should be imposed; the distinction between internal and external taxation was in his opinion ridiculous.^[68] Accordingly on the 26th of January, five days after his speech on the proposals of the East India Company, Townshend took the opportunity of enunciating the above views in the debate on the army estimates. His colleagues sat by in indignant silence. Their subsequent remonstrances were vain. Chatham was ill at Bath, and Townshend knew it. But to Chatham, though absent, Shelburne appealed, writing as follows:

 

In regard to America, the enclosed minute from the House of Commons will show your Lordship Mr. Grenville's question. Mr. Townshend answered him, but agreed as to the principle of the Stamp Act and the duty itself; only the heats which prevailed made it an improper time to press it; and treating the distinction between external and internal taxes as ridiculous in everybody's opinion except the Americans, pledged himself in short to the House to find a revenue, if not adequate (a word Lord George Sackville pressed him with, with a view to pin him down as much as possible), yet nearly sufficient to answer the expense, when properly reduced. What he means, I do not conceive. I have always thought the quit-rents may be so managed, without having too great a retrospect, as to produce a certain sum; and I have likewise had reason to think that such a new method of granting lands might be devised as might give infinite satisfaction to America, contribute to the ascertaining property by preventing future suits at law, in great measure prevent the Indian disturbances, and besides all this incidentally produce a certain revenue, without its being the object; but I do not conceive either of them can possibly take place this year, there not being materials in any office here sufficient to form a final judgment of them. Many of them must come for that purpose from America.

I have heard, indeed, from general conversation, that Mr. Townshend has a plan for establishing a board of customs in America, and by a new regulation of the tea duty here, and some other alterations, to produce a revenue on imports there. I am myself in no respect able to form a judgment how far this may be likely to answer the end or no; but in many views it appears a matter that will require the deepest consideration, at this time especially. Besides I believe your Lordship will think the speech I have just mentioned to you is not the way to make any thing go down well in North America.

I thought it necessary to inform your Lordship thus far of the state of American affairs here, before I came to speak of the actual state of them there. They have universally agreed to the compensation required by Parliament to be made to the sufferers. My letter upon that subject, in Massachusetts Bay has undergone a very free discussion; but they have fully agreed, and the Assembly have written me a letter, which I enclose to your Lordship. The governor writes short, but inveighing in general terms against the people.

A petition is at the same time come from New York, signed by two hundred and forty persons, to the House of Commons, and sent to the Board of Trade to present;^[69] who have transmitted it to me, to know the King's pleasure upon it. I likewise find that when the last ships came away the Assembly had my letter under consideration; which your Lordship may remember was written after a Council, upon Sir Henry Moore's and General Gage's accounts of the difficulty made by the Assembly to provide the troops with vinegar and other articles, which Sir Jeffery Amherst's letters assure him they will not comply with, lest they should admit what might hereafter be deemed a precedent for a Tax Act.

I have only told the merchants in general that it was well known some of those who opposed the Stamp Act opposed it upon very extensive principles with regard to American trade, upon a supposition that the advantages of it must finally centre with the mother-country; that these objects could never be considered separate: to consider them together required not only great judgment and great power, but temper too; leaving it to them to judge how very imprudently the present moment was chosen, when on the one hand they saw how far the prejudices, about the Stamp Act still prevailed, and on the other an assembly imprudent enough to hesitate about obeying an Act of Parliament in its full extent, after the tenderness which had been shown America; not to mention their manner of sending it over. The merchants and the Americans here seem sensible of its being the height of imprudence, and are sorry; but your Lordship may easily conceive it has occasioned a number of reports, and is likely, in the talk of the town, to undergo the imputation of rebellion, and will probably be mentioned as such by Mr. Grenville in the House of Commons without seeing it.^[70]

 

Chatham replied by expressing a hope for better news, but the next mails from America confirmed the accounts of the resistance to the Mutiny Act at New York, of Massachusetts having joined a general indemnity for the rioters to the indemnification of the sufferers, and of the general distrust spread by the Declaratory Act, which made the Colonists, as Shelburne told Chatham in informing him of these fresh difficulties, extremely apprehensive that the principle on which the Act was based would be reduced into practice by taxing them. His letter concluded by warning Chatham that he did not expect that the temporary agreement patched up between the ministers, who were waiting to know his opinion, could last beyond the 14th of February.^[71]

Everything now depended on Chatham. Never at any moment of his career had he been so completely the arbiter of the whole situation. The ablest members of his Cabinet were at variance, the others were hesitating and waiting only for his slightest nod. But in a few days Charles Townshend was justified. The strange illness, which soon practically removed Chatham from the scene of affairs, had already begun when Shelburne on the 16th of February appealed to him a third time against his colleague.

"The King's commands," he wrote, "and the importance of whatever determination is taken in regard to America, must excuse me to your Lordship for breaking in upon you, when I know your intention is to be in town if well enough; if not, that the same reason which detains you, may make business altogether inconvenient. In the last case I hope you will make no scruple to lay aside my letter. It is the general opinion that the present packet should not go to America without some determination of government after the imprudent conduct of New York, as well on account of appearance here, as effect there. I have therefore stopped its sailing in order to submit my own thoughts to your Lordship, before I execute the rest of the King's commands by laying it before the rest of his servants. I wish I could at the same time acquaint you with the opinions of the other ministers, but though everybody is strongly for enforcing, nobody chooses to suggest the mode. I presumed to ask the King whether any occurred to His Majesty, but I could not find that any had, except that it should be enforced. Enclosed I send your Lordship all that I have received from Lord Barrington; which contains a general account of the Act. It was first suggested by the military, and intended to give a power of billeting on private houses, as was done in the war. It was altered by the merchants and agents, who substituted empty houses, provincial barracks, and barns, in their room, undertaking that the Assembly should supply them with the additional necessaries; and it passed, I believe, without that superintendence or attention on the part of Government, which is so wanted in all cases where necessity requires something different from the general principles of the constitution. I am told it was carried through by Mr. Ellis, without the entire conviction or cordial support of Mr. Grenville, who made it a separate Bill lest it might embarrass the General Mutiny Act.

"The infatuated conduct of the Assembly in refusing even present obedience to the Act, precludes I am afraid all consideration of the merits or principles of it, by involving a far greater question. I have, however, examined with all the attention possible the Mutiny Act here, and find it amazingly tender both in regard to Scotland and Ireland. That part of it only which regards the discipline extends to Ireland. It is very extraordinary that by the best information I have been able to procure, the troops are quartered there under no direct law whatever here or there, but either on account of old prerogative or custom, or the necessity of the thing being understood, it is generally submitted to.

"As things stand in America, so many considerations cross upon each other, that all the difficulties of the situation are scarce within compass to be stated. One great difficulty, however, is, that whatever the conduct of New York or even of America may be, arising from the diffidence and excess of apprehension your Lordship mentions, it were to be wished not to establish a precedent in whatever is done, which may hereafter be turned to purposes of oppression and to promote measures opposite to those general public principles upon which the Stamp Act was repealed. Another is that if these infatuated people should be tempted to resist in the last instance, which there is the greatest reason to apprehend from the Governor's letter and their address, I think it too plain from the accounts we daily receive that France and Spain would no longer defer breaking a peace, the days of which they already begin to count, though I profess and very sincerely feel the want of that experience and sagacity necessary to form any judgment of the intentions of foreign Powers."^[72]

.

.

.

.

.

.

"Your Lordship will have received the Duke of Grafton's letter with an account of the present state of the Indian business, which I am extremely glad to find meets your Lordship's intention. His Grace, I take it for granted, has enclosed to you the minute of Cabinet, stating their proposal as it stands being unintelligible, with several queries, upon which they were desired to explain themselves. The Duke of Grafton has since seen the Chairman and Deputy Chairman; who said they were infinitely obliged to every Lord of the Cabinet for not commanding their attendance, as they must have been silent. They desired for that reason to put the paper of queries in their pocket, without reading it till they got to the India House, where they would prepare the answer, but were afraid it was impossible to do it so soon as Friday; which leaves it open to Mr. Beckford to state himself as ready, which I understand he is, to go into the inquiry, having delayed it hitherto more out of candour to Mr. Townshend's declaration than his own opinion, which has always been that it could not be transacted out of Parliament, and will give Mr. Townshend and Mr. Conway an opportunity in answer, to state the matter as it is: that there has been a proposal, which, not being sufficiently clear to lay before Parliament, has been returned to the directors for further explanation upon it, which they have promised to give, but has not yet been received. The consequence I suppose must be further adjournment for at least a week longer. If this meets your Lordship's idea, I will take care to give it all possible attention, and will make it my business to see Mr. Beckford upon it, and that it shall be properly understood. If it does not, I beg your Lordship to let me have your further commands any time to-morrow. I am sure I need not endeavour to express to your Lordship my concern for the occasion of your delay, or for the inconvenient situation I am afraid you find yourself in."^[73]

The news had now arrived—and it was to this that Shelburne alluded in the concluding paragraphs of his letter that "the gout had returned so severely upon Lord Chatham at Marlborough as to confine him to his bed."^[74] From this time forward he continued "quite unable to enter into any detail of things,"^[75] nor could his colleagues induce him to give his opinion on the answer of the East India Company, which they had received on February 20th, or on any other business. He only declared "that his fixed purpose had always been and still was, not to be a proposer of plans, but, as far as a seat in one House enabled him, an unbiassed judge of them."^[76]

But while he lay on a sick bed at Marlborough, his disorganized Ministry suffered the first defeat on a Money Bill experienced by any Ministry for five and twenty years. All the sections of the landed interest gathered in their strength, and on the 27th of January, headed by Dowdeswell—the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the Rockingham Administration—proposed to reduce the land tax from four to three shillings in the pound. Townshend was told he might substitute the promised American revenue for the extra shilling. He needed no encouragement. His resistance to the proposition of Dowdeswell was weak, and the majority against him was considerable. Stung by the defeat, Chatham dragged himself to London resolved "to crush the preposterous union of clashing factions."^[77] To do so it was first necessary to crush Townshend, who on the 6th of March added to his other offences by opposing the motion, brought forward by Beckford at the suggestion of Chatham and with the sanction of the Ministry, for printing the Indian papers. His place was offered to Lord North, but before a reply could be received a Cabinet Council on American affairs had been held. It was there decided with considerable unanimity to suspend the legislative functions of the Assembly of New York till the Mutiny Act was complied with. The question of the American extraordinaries next came on for discussion, upon which Townshend, as Shelburne wrote to Chatham, "mentioned the necessity of voting a particular sum; which he said he neither could nor would move, unless the Cabinet previously took the whole state of America into consideration, and enabled him to declare to the House the opinion of administration as to the forts, the Indian trade, the disposition of the troops, in short the whole arrangements, considered with a view to a general reduction of expense, and a duty which he undertook should be laid to defray what remained: that he had promised this to the House, and upon the authority of what passed in the Cabinet; and if he could not make it good, he should be obliged to consider the best means, by what he should say or by his conduct, to make it appear that it was not his fault, and against his opinion. I acquainted your Lordship of this the last time I had the honour of waiting on you from Lord Barrington, the difficulty greatly arising from several conjectural estimates being laid by him before the House. I was surprised at Mr. Townshend's conduct, which really continues excessive on every occasion, till I afterwards understood in conversation that he declared he knew of Lord North's refusal, and from himself. The Duke of Grafton told me, and I suppose may tell your Lordship, that he sent to Lord North to ask him. It appears to me quite impossible that Mr. Townshend can mean to go on in the King's service; but of this your Lordship will judge much better than I can, after the Duke of Grafton has given you a farther account."^[78]

In a few days the formal refusal of North came to justify the surmise of Shelburne. Chatham, baffled and weary, withdrew into a gloomy retirement, and then, to borrow the beautiful imagery of Burke in after years, "before this splendid orb was entirely set and while the western horizon was in a blaze with his descending glory, on the opposite quarter of the heavens arose another luminary and for his hour became lord of the ascendant."^[79]

Splendid, however, as were the talents and eloquence of Charles Townshend, Shelburne determined to make one more decisive effort in favour of conciliation, before a policy hostile to the Colonies was adopted. The Massachusetts Amnesty Act, the conduct of the Assembly of New York with regard to the Mutiny Act, and the scheme of taxation were the subjects of immediate difficulty. From a memorandum drawn up for his use by Maurice Morgann,^[80] his opinions on the course which ought to have been followed may be gathered:

"Notwithstanding the great defects in the constitutions of the American Provinces, they acknowledged and practised a due obedience to the laws of the British Legislature until the enacting of the late Stamp Act.

"The progression of affairs in America had not yet led the thoughts of men to independence. They were obedient from habit, and from that reverence with which they considered the mother-country; but the Stamp Act having an immediate tendency to destroy the whole frame of their constitutions, by taking away from their Legislatures the only subjects of taxation which the laws of trade and navigation had left them, it was no wonder therefore if they thought of self-defence and resistance, that their habits of obedience were broken, and their reverence towards this country diminished.

"The feelings of mankind are generally more to be depended upon than their understandings. In England the Stamp Act was a speculative point, but in America the meanest settler felt his freedom and his property to depend on the event.

"It is clear that the British Government ought to have enforced that Act with its whole power, or to have acknowledged its error with ingenuousness and candour, which would have showed a frankness and condescension which must have been interpreted into true dignity; but unhappily the British Parliament did neither. It affirmed its own right of enacting, whilst it repealed the Act itself in visible complaisance to the clamour of America, and thereby naturally suggested to the Provinces, that the timidity of the British Parliament kept pace with its ill dispositions towards them.

"To the law declarative of the right of the British Parliament, were added resolutions that the sufferers by the riots in America ought to be compensated by the American Assemblies. The first served to excite ill-humour; the last furnished a subject for the exercise of it; and the whole together gave occasions to turbulent and seditious men, to inflame for their own purposes the disorders of America; and by promoting indecent resolutions and suggesting improper words and expressions, they seem successfully to have laid a ground for more resentments here, and consequently for more fears, doubts, and animosities in America.

"To these misfortunes has been added the Mutiny Act, which strangely enacts that the American Assemblies shall enact that certain Articles be provided for the Troops in barracks there. The whole amount of those Articles is I suppose a mere trifle, not worth the contending for; but it is a question of real importance to America, whether their Assemblies are obliged to enact implicitly points concerning which all debate is precluded, and whether the Parliament of Great Britain can thus effectually tax America internally through the medium of their own Assemblies, without leaving those Assemblies any choice in the matter, except as to the mode only in which the money shall be raised. It seems also very hard that this provision should be made for an indefinite number of troops, which may occasionally load particular provinces beyond their power to support; nor is the end to be obtained, likely to conciliate the Americans to the means. A military establishment there, is what they so little desire or need, that they look upon it on the contrary with the most jealous and fearful eye.

"The Mutiny Act is likely to renew the animosities, and perhaps the tumults in America. It has already occasioned such resolutions of the Assemblies there, as may be considered derogatory of the dignity of Great Britain, so that this Act is likely to produce two questions at home, one concerning its own propriety, and the other concerning the dignity of Great Britain, which is committed in the support of it.

"Besides this succession of impolitic measures, there has been doubtless much want of wisdom and management in His Majesty's Governors in America. Mr. Bernard in particular, after having governed the Province of Massachusetts Bay for many years with words only, felt very naturally a wish in the beginning of the present troubles to muster up his arguments and chop logic with the General Assembly, and though he has been foiled at his own weapons, he seems to this day to value himself more upon a good argument than a wise measure; but seeing at present the ill-success of this proceeding, and that the clamour is too loud for argument, he seems to have retired to his closet to vent his chagrin in womanish complaints, instead of combining men, and forming such bold plans of administration as the exigence of affairs seems to require, and as his situation, invested as he is with the authority of Great Britain, might well enable him to do.

"It remains now to be considered what measures under these circumstances it is most wise and becoming in Great Britain to pursue. I consider the Mutiny Act, and the requisition for a compensation to sufferers, as of no other consequence than as the dignity of Great Britain seems staked on their support. The laws of trade and navigation are essential, and must be supported at all risks, and with every exertion of power. The other points are doubtful in their principles, and may perhaps be among those rights—to use a language which I do not understand—that are never fit to be exercised, and yet this subtle distinction is the sole ground upon which the repeal of the Stamp Act can be defended, consistently with the Act which affirms the right. The enforcing of the Mutiny Act will I am afraid create a general dissatisfaction in America, and involve all the Provinces in one common cause of resistance—an effect which may be attended with the most fearful consequences—and the dignity of Great Britain be lost for ever together with her power, and the ends of those factious persons, who have excited the indecent and petulant resolutions of the assemblies there, be fully accomplished; yet if Great Britain does not in some shape put forth her dignity on this occasion, she may end by losing all credit and reverence in America and lose likewise her power there, which is and must be in a great measure founded on opinion.

"Some measures therefore it seems ought to be taken of so bold and decisive a nature, as to convince the Americans that the long patience of Great Britain has been by no means owing to timidity, and yet the ends of those measures should be so manifestly just and important as to leave no room for jealousies and fears in the minds of the sober and well-disposed, and thereby give no pretence for common measures of resistance, and it would be still more desirable if these measures could be directed against a particular Province."^[81]

The course, however, thus indicated was not that which recommended itself to the other members of the Administration, of whom Conway alone, true to the principles he had supported under Rockingham, inclined to lenient measures. He lacked, however, the ability to form and the decision to carry out a plan. Charles Townshend, now in high favour at Court, enjoyed an easy triumph over his hesitations and the indolence of Grafton, while Camden in the absence of Chatham forswore his ancient love of liberty, though for a season only.^[82] It was successively decided by the Cabinet to move the Privy Council to annul the Massachusetts Amnesty Act as an interference with the royal prerogative, and the New York Quartering Act as inconsistent with the clause in the charter of the province requiring the legislation of that colony to be as nearly as possible consonant with the laws of England; to pass an Act of Parliament forbidding the Governor to give his consent to any further legislation sent up to him by the Assembly, till compliance should have been made with the Mutiny Act; to extend the Mutiny Act itself for another year;^[83] and while supporting the Acts of Navigation in their integrity, to impose port duties for the purposes of revenue on wine, oil, and fruits, if allowed to be carried into America direct from Spain and Portugal, and also on glass, paper, lead, colours, and tea. The revenue obtained from these duties was to be placed at the disposal of the King for the payment of the civil officers of the colonies, and it was hoped that the fact of the new taxation being levied in the shape of port duties would effectually baffle the arguments of those who had resisted the Stamp Act on the ground that it imposed an internal tax. Bernard began to think that now at last he was really Governor of Massachusetts. He was to have a salary independent of the whims of any colonial Assembly. To him Charles Townshend was a second and better Grenville. At the same time the relations between the East India Company and the mother-country were provisionally settled, but in a manner very different from what had been intended by Chatham, to whom "India now became a perpetual source of regrets."^[84] A bill was introduced restraining the dividends, and the qualification for a Directorship was raised, but the vast territorial revenue was confirmed to the Company on condition of a payment of £400,000 per annum into the Treasury. Amongst the opponents of even these moderate proposals was Edmund Burke.^[85]

Conway alone in a Cabinet held on March 13th expressed doubts of the expediency of the suspension of the legislative powers of the Assembly of New York.^[86] Shelburne consented to it as part of a scheme which leaving the obnoxious Act to die a natural death, was to join firmness in the face of the opposition of a single province to conciliation towards a whole continent.^[87] But finding his opinions on every other question overruled, and Chatham immediately afterwards retiring into solitude, he for some time ceased all further attendance at the meetings of his colleagues, and decided to devote himself to neutralizing the disastrous effects which could not fail to flow from their policy,^[88] so far as he was able to do so in his executive capacity as Secretary of State.

The Ministers at the bidding of an imperious colleague and the King had decided on the measures just described; but they could not fail to be conscious of the precariousness of the position which they themselves occupied. Conway and Camden in their hearts were averse to the schemes of Townshend; Northington, rich if not in honours at least in emoluments, was anxious to retire; Grafton, now first minister owing to the illness of Chatham in fact as well as in name, but already weary of the endless personal struggles in which he was engaged, knew that if ready himself to sacrifice Shelburne, Charles Townshend was equally anxious to sacrifice him. He accordingly looked round for new alliances.

Amongst those most anxious to make their way into office was the Bedford party. They were the chief advocates of a firm policy against the colonists, and hoped to storm the Treasury bench over the prostrate body of Chatham as they had done in 1763 over that of Bute. To them the continuance of Shelburne in office, especially as Colonial Minister, was intolerable.^[89] Neither was Shelburne more agreeable to the followers of Rockingham, for Burke was their prophet, and to Burke the opponents of the Declaratory Act were anathema; nor to those of Grenville, for he had been amongst the earliest opponents of the Stamp Act. The King had only admitted him to his councils out of deference to Chatham, and now willingly joined Grafton and Northington in denouncing him as a "secret enemy" and suggesting his removal.^[90] Charles Townshend openly professed to have him in "the greatest contempt,"^[91] and only the fact of their sitting in different Houses made a joint continuance in office possible for a day longer. Meanwhile he was attacked on all sides: by Bedford on the form in which the Massachusetts Amnesty Act had been disallowed,^[92] by Richmond on some delays which had arisen in the settlement of Canada—delays which were owing to Northington,^[93]—by Lord Talbot for his conduct and vote on the Stamp Act and the Declaratory Resolutions,^[94] and on his whole political position by Charles Townshend in that strange mixture of wit, eloquence, and buffoonery which yet lives as the "champaign" speech.^[95]

To have resigned was his own wish, but while Chatham still held the Privy Seal and regarded him as his representative in the Cabinet, resignation was difficult if not impossible.^[96] He accordingly kept the seals, and, while the air was heavy with rumour and intrigue, occupied himself in settling the difficulty about the Mutiny Act with the state of New York. The Assembly of that province had now made a grant for the use of the army without any special appropriation. The Attorney and Solicitor-General^[97] advised that this was technically a sufficient compliance with the terms of the Mutiny Act; and Shelburne eagerly seized the opportunity thus afforded of closing the controversy.

"I have His Majesty's commands," he wrote to Sir H. Moore, "to transmit to you an Act of the last session of Parliament for restraining and prohibiting the Governor, Council, and House of Representatives of the province of New York, until provision shall have been made for furnishing the King's troops with all the necessaries required by law, and from passing or assenting to any Act of Assembly, vote or resolution for any other purpose.

"This law you will perceive was enacted for the purpose of enforcing the obedience of the Assembly of New York to the terms of the Mutiny Act, but at the same time framed with that singular temper and lenity as to offer that Assembly an opportunity of rectifying their conduct, and this without involving them in any disabilities except as the consequence of further disobedience. Nor is the province itself subjected to inconvenience thereby, without leaving it in the power of the people by a proper conduct and a due exertion of their privileges to avoid or remove them.

"Since the passing this Act I have received your letter of June 18th acquainting me that the Assembly have in their address to you declared their intention of making that provision for the troops which is prescribed by the Mutiny Act.

"I lost no time in laying this letter before His Majesty, who was graciously pleased to express his satisfaction that his province of New York had voluntarily returned to a just sense of their duty, and had thereby given an unquestionable proof of their duty to His Majesty, and of their obedience to the Parliament of Great Britain.

"Whilst I transmit this Act, it is with real pleasure I consider that the prudent conduct of the Assembly has already rendered the provisions contained in it unnecessary, and I entertain no doubt but that the same just spirit of subordination and constitutional obedience to that supreme Legislature, which has on all occasions discovered the clearest intentions of restraining its own power within the limits of equity and justice, will render New York equally worthy with the rest of His Majesty's provinces of His Majesty's favour and protection, and of those singular privileges which they enjoy under the blessings of his reign, and under the influence of the British constitution."^[98]

While this question was thus happily settled the plots and counterplots of the Whig factions busily continued.

"It is a weary and unprofitable task," says Hallam speaking of the feuds of the Merwings, "to follow changes in detail, in which the eye meets with no sunshine nor can rest on any interesting spot." The remark might be equally applied to the suicidal struggles of the Whigs in 1767, who were apparently unconscious that more important issues were at stake than the triumph of the house of Woburn over the house of Wentworth, or of both over the house of Hanover. At home the King watched their struggles with satisfaction mingled with apprehension that they might yet be too strong for him; abroad Choiseul prayed that " the anarchy in England might last for ever."^[99] Grimaldi saw in the divisions of English parties the equivalent of the domestic troubles caused in Spain by the expulsion of the Jesuits and the reforms of Squillaci, one of the ablest of the remarkable school of foreign statesmen who illustrated the reign of Charles III. So little fear had he now of any active foreign policy on the part of England, that Masserano came in October to express ironically the regret of his Court that the claims of Spain against England were still unsettled. "The Spanish Ambassador," says Shelburne,^[100] "complained of the points in dispute between the two nations, particularly our settlements in the South Seas or to the south of America, as capable of most dangerous consequences. I told him that I saw the several points remaining unsettled, and the consequences he mentioned, in the same view he did—with this addition on the side of England, that it became every day more and more difficult for an English Ministry to bring the people to a reasonable view of the several differences; that if the Ministry was changed, it would be still more difficult for a new Ministry, inasmuch as every time a new Ministry was formed, it must naturally in this country bring with it fresh attention to the interests of the people; perhaps those might come whose interest it might be to flatter the prejudices of the people. Then as to the present, I felt it so much the duty of a Minister to risk himself, that I thought it fit in every case of this nature for a Minister to correct and stop all such views with the public where they exceeded, that I was willing to do so now, and for this purpose I was willing, as I had before long since told him, as soon as he told me he had the necessary powers, to enter into a full discussion of all points; that I had often told the King, I was emphatically convinced of his personal honour; that I was persuaded, he would not say he had power, merely to draw me in to any discovery of the King's or my private sentiments; that he was incapable of such a ruse; that for myself I was ready to hazard to him my own idea of what might be right for England to do towards accommodation; that there must be both interests considered, and if our settlements alarmed them, they must remember the claim we had on the King of Spain's honour and justice on account of the ransom due on taking the Manilla, into the consideration of which the King would always insist on first entering. He said, that greater things ought to be considered; first despatch them: the others would follow. I said grievances should be considered according to the time they happened; that as to their greatness, settle the small ones first that could be settled, leaving the difficult to stay to the last, and not to be soured with little jealousies. I found he did not like such close quarters, and wanted to get off the conversation when it got so close, but I desired he would not forget what I said, and would remember that the delay did not lie with me."

A final crisis at length arrived to end the distractions and divisions of the Ministry. In the midst of his schemes, and when apparently near the fulfilment of all his hopes, Charles Townshend suddenly died of a putrid fever on September 4th, 1767. Shortly after Northington resigned, nor did the changes in the Ministry rendered necessary by these events end there.

"I cannot be so near Hayes," wrote Shelburne to Lady Chatham, "without communicating to your Ladyship from London an event of a personal nature. It is General Conway's resigning the emoluments of his office as Secretary of State, on account of certain delicacies he felt for what passed last summer in regard to Lord Rockingham.^[101] It has been some time in agitation, but was not communicated to me, till General Conway mentioned it, at the moment the Duke of Grafton was gone in to the King to acquaint His Majesty finally of his resolution. I must own, when it was first told me, I felt it an agreeable opening for me to do the same; and that I might by that means be freed from various delicacies, and some uneasiness in a situation in which Lord Chatham placed me, and which without his approbation I did not think myself at liberty to desert. Upon weighing it, however, I must own I saw as many objections, and what concluded me to defer such a step was, that I thought it wrong to do a thing which, however rightly intended, might have the air of experiment, without Lord Chatham's example or concurrence.

"I know not how to make your Ladyship sufficient excuses for troubling you upon any subject of business; I am afraid it is not a sufficient one, to say it is an case to my own mind to acquaint your Ladyship of it, so that if Lord Chatham should chance to hear of it, you might have the goodness to acquaint him of the motives of my conduct.

"As for the course of public affairs, what regards Parliament I conceive may, with common management, be carried through without difficulty. As for the Court, Lord Chatham knows my opinion, as it has been unvaried since I first waited upon him at Northend. As to foreign affairs, there are many accounts which certainly do not flatter the almost universal wish of peace; but if there should any certainty come of any such great event as a war, I shall presume to acquaint your Ladyship of it, without troubling you with too many particulars. In the meantime, I have every reason to believe nothing can so effectually keep it off as the report of Lord Chatham's health."^[102]

Grafton had now a great opportunity. Being rid of Charles Townshend, he might have reconstituted his Government on liberal principles, and reversed the American policy which Townshend had forced on him. But he chose to adopt a course which could not fail to lead to an exactly opposite result. The resignation of their offices by Northington and Conway again afforded a tempting opportunity to Bedford, who, broken by the untimely death of his son and his own failing sight, now no longer sought office for himself, but for his friends only. He, however, made the resignation by Shelburne of the management of Colonial affairs the condition of his support. As this resignation would render vacant three instead of two offices, the proposal of Bedford was not unwelcome, and suddenly remembering the old controversy about the division of work in the department of the Secretary of State, Grafton sought an interview with Shelburne. It was intended to offer the third Secretaryship of State to Hillsborough.

At this interview Grafton said:^[103]

 

I do not choose to take any step of consequence without first communicating it to your Lordship, particularly anything which can have the least regard to the situation your Lordship is in, or indulge more than a thought concerning it, without endeavouring to know your Lordship's inclination and your feelings upon it. In the distressing situation in which I am, having embarked in this thing, and from my office feeling it incumbent upon me, since the state Lord Chatham has been in, to take the lead, and being bound to wish what is best in the main for the King's affairs, I should feel myself the most culpable man in the world if there was an opening when any great body of men might be taken in, and faction broke into by that means (which was always Lord Chatham's great object), if I did not do everything in my power to embrace it. Now having received openings from different parties, though really and in fact they are but faint glimmerings, what I would presume to wish to know, would be what your Lordship's sentiments are in regard to your own department, or what your feelings would be in case it would be useful to the King's affairs to come to a division of it. Your Lordship may perhaps have heard that it was a thing in agitation in August last. When there was so many different schemes about General Conway, it was then thought that your Lordship might be prevailed upon to go to the Northern Department, and General Conway hold one part of yours with the Ordnance. I must say that it has ever been my opinion that it ought to be separated. I have declared it a hundred times to the Chancellor; I told General Conway so expressly at the meeting we had about him last summer before Mr. Walpole and Lord Hertford. I beg and beseech your Lordship at the same time not to think it is any personality towards you, because I do protest it is not. Were a Solomon in the situation, I should not be of opinion that he could go through it. When General Conway had that department, though he had it not in so extensive a manner as your Lordship, I then was of opinion that it ought to be separated, and was the strongest for Lord Dartmouth's being made a third Secretary, which shows that it is not now personal towards your Lordship; I therefore beseech you not to attribute it to any such motive.

 

Lord Shelburne answered:

 

Your Grace knows so very well my motives of engaging in and continuing in this system, that I need not repeat them. As to what passed in August, I am a total stranger to it, which may not be surprising, as, since Lord Chatham's illness, I have not heard the least of what has been carrying on or projected, except the business that occurred necessarily in the course of my own office, nor had I the least idea till this moment that any change respecting the Southern Department was ever in the least agitation or thought of by your Grace. As to what you mention, I have not the least objection to talking to you upon it, whenever your Grace thinks proper, as I presume this is not a proper place for it, there being so many people waiting in the next room. Your Grace will only give me leave to ask you for curiosity whether any American event has given rise to this new opinion of your Grace's, for I presume it is so far new as to have been conceived since the forming of the present administration, else if your Grace had possessed it then so strongly, you would certainly have urged it at that time as by far the properest.

 

The Duke replied:

 

That it was no event whatever, nor nothing personal towards your Lordship; on the contrary I think the business very sufficiently and very ably managed. I should wish on that account that your Lordship was to remain at the head of that part, but it is my decided opinion that it ought to be divided, and so strongly so, that no consideration whatever should make me continue at the head of the Treasury, and any person whatever in the kingdom, be it who it will, in possession of that department in its present extent. There is no saying what I might do, engaged in the present general election as I am, till that was over, but the first convenient opportunity either he or I should leave the King's service. As to its occurring to me when the system was first formed, I really confess it did not to the degree it does at present: besides Lord Chatham was then in the situation in which I unhappily feel myself in some sort at present: a horse, my Lord, could not go through the business of your office properly; I did not receive till yesterday some papers from Sir H. Moore which were dated before October the 3rd.

 

Lord Shelburne said in answer to these rather pointed observations:

 

As to that particular, it was certainly very wrong, but it was the affair of an Under Secretary and not mine, and I did suppose must be owing to some accident of supposing his Grace to be in the country, which sometimes happened,^[104] as they were in general very punctual, but I am vastly happy that no real evil has happened to the King's affairs or those of the public, which I had the care of in that quarter of the world, but that it had been reduced in the main to some degree of order and obedience also to Parliamentary authority, from a very different state in which I found it; a degree of success which I could not attribute to my own ability but to good luck alone. As to the rest I cannot help observing frankly to his Grace, that had I been where his Grace is, and he Secretary, and supposing me to have the same opinion with his Grace, that I should most certainly have chosen to have communicated it frankly to the person whom it regarded, rather than to those several other persons whom his Grace mentioned, or at least have avowed and communicated it at the same time. I will not detain your Grace longer at present, but will be ready to talk further to your Grace whenever you think proper and whenever you please.

 

The Duke of Grafton answered:

 

That it would have been most agreeable to him to have communicated it, but that he was obliged to consider at that time of the going on of the King's affairs.

He then repeated many civil expressions and professions of the same sort with those above mentioned, and proposed to talk further about it at the Council to be held at the Queen's House the next day at half-an-hour after two.

 

At this second interview Shelburne said:

 

I think it a pity this thing had not been thought of at first, when Lord Chatham's sentiments upon so important a subject might have been known. I am afraid in his present situation we cannot have his assistance, but as your Grace is so thoroughly convinced that the measure is necessary and useful to the King's affairs, my duty to His Majesty must produce in me a most cheerful acquiescence. Your Grace understands me, however, to mean my continuing in my present office, as I do not choose to take upon me the framing and modelling of this new office. This did not come up to his idea; he desired then that I should take the American part, as the Bedfords cannot be trusted with it on account of different principles, and that it was as well under me, and that he did not like to change it.^[105]

 

"Your Ladyship," Shelburne wrote to Lady Chatham next day, "sees the delicacy of this situation. My sincere and only wish is to do what is agreeable to Lord Chatham, not so much from a motive of private regard, as a thorough conviction that nothing but his compass and extent of mind can save this country from some great confusion. My reason for not choosing the new department proposed is no dislike to the office, but that I think the general system affected; but if Lord Chatham desires I should do it, I am very ready to take the part he wishes, notwithstanding my own earnest inclinations. Lord Chatham, if he enters at all into the situation, must carry me very strongly to miss no proper opportunity of declining office altogether, where I do not see my way, and have little or nothing to direct my conduct.

"Your Ladyship will judge so much better than I can of the proper time for communicating the contents of this letter to Lord Chatham when he will be least inconvenienced by it, that I flatter myself it will help to plead my excuse for the trouble of it, and that whenever he shall have bestowed a moment's attention on it, he will not withhold his opinion on an occasion, where I should wish so much to have it for my guide."^[106]

It was, however, impossible to obtain any reply of a definite character from Chatham, and Shelburne ended by acquiescing in the proposed division of the office, choosing, for the reasons he had indicated to Lady Chatham, to surrender his connection with American affairs.^[107] Being now more than ever anxious to obtain an interview with Chatham, and to explain his position, he started for Hayes, but after riding as far as Bromley, was stopped by a message from the great Earl declaring his inability to see him owing to constant illness. He accordingly contented himself with writing thence to Lady Chatham as follows:

"It may be proper just to acquaint Lord Chatham, as he knows what passed before, that the first time I saw the Duke of Grafton after the letter I sent your Ladyship a copy of, I desired he would understand the word acquiescence in its strict sense—and that solely on account of Lord Chatham—but not the least degree of conviction, as I foresaw many evils from what was proposed. Since that, I have been acquainted of nothing, till yesterday, when the Duke of Grafton told me what was fixed on Friday last, which is exactly the same as in all the newspapers, and takes place in part only after Christmas, and in no part has been, happily for me, either confided or communicated to me.^[108]

"I am persuaded, when Lord Chatham has either time or health to return to any business, his intuition and knowledge of human nature will make it easy for him to distinguish between the secret and the real views of any of the parties concerned, if it be necessary; as well as of the effects which the steps taken in his absence are most likely to produce.

"There is but one thing which I wish to say, in apology for my having made so much use of Lord Chatham's name: that it is not thinking my attachment of any consequence to him, as I must be sensible that there are twenty unexceptionable people that would be equally useful to his views, in any situation his kindness to me may make him wish for me; but it is solely on my own account, and my wishing to direct my conduct the best for the public."^[109]

This was the last communication which Shelburne had with Chatham for a considerable time. The latter now wrapped himself in a mysterious silence, and only occasionally emerged to indulge in the gratification of extravagant and morbid fancies, bearing the stamp of madness if they were not indeed the acts of a madman. The exact character of the disease which in 1767 and 1768 afflicted this great statesman will probably always remain a moot-point in history. In the opinion of some of his contemporaries he was insane; others recognized only an exaggerated form of that love of mystery and acting for the sake of effect which had always been ingredients in his character and were now stimulated by disease.^[110]

To this opinion Shelburne himself seems to have inclined.^[111] He in any case keenly felt the invidiousness of his own position: the representative of Chatham in the Cabinet, yet unable to obtain even the shortest interview with him; anxious himself to resign, yet desired to stay, and called upon to decide questions of great difficulty, yet without any certainty that he would not be thrown over by his principal. The bitter remembrance of this passage in his career, when unsupported and alone he had on the one hand to resist the attacks of the King and the intrigues of his colleagues, and on the other to suffer under the obstinate silence or empty declamations of his leader,^[112] made him in the evening of life paint his picture of the great Earl in darker colours than the facts justified, and without adequate recognition of those great qualities which once had saved and once again might have saved the country,—qualities which he either thought too well known to need detailed description, or would have described had he lived to revise his own work.^[113]

The ministerial changes did not actually take place till January, when Hillsborough entered on the administration of the American Colonies, and Weymouth succeeded to the management of Home Affairs and of the Northern Department in the place of Conway, while Shelburne retired within his now limited sphere. The preponderance of the Bedford party at once became marked. It meant peace with France and Spain, and a vigorous policy against the Colonies, and was understood in that sense by the representatives and agents of those countries.^[114]

The victory of the Bedford party also affected the "western" policy of the Government in America with reference to the Indian Lands. The Grenville Ministry, in which the Duke of Bedford held a leading position, acting on the lines of the Proclamation of 1763, had devised a plan of management in July 1764, which proposed to run an Indian boundary line such as would open the Ohio Valley to immediate settlement, and would enable the Imperial Government to purchase tracts of territory according to the necessities of the time. But there was apparently no question of forming new settlements on a self-governing basis. No boundary line, however, was run, and the matter would seem to have fallen into abeyance. In 1766, Barrington, on behalf of the Rockingham Ministry, devised another plan which if adopted would have effectually barred all further settlements, even within the limits of the existing colonies, in order to cut down expenses as much as possible, owing to the necessities of the financial situation. In the debates of January and February 1767, on the army extraordinaries, Charles Townshend appears to have pledged the Grafton Ministry to this policy,^[115] and to have received the support of George Grenville from the Opposition side of the House, though the attitude of the Bedford party does not clearly appear.^[116] On this question Shelburne joined issue with Townshend,^[117] and his views would seem to have prevailed, as in June Lord Northington speaks of his having "got the mastery" of the American business, and that the King had given "general directions thereon."^[118]

Shelburne at the same time was negotiating, as already seen, with Franklin, and with Phineas Lyman and Sir John Amherst, in regard to the establishment of new settlements on the Ohio and on the Illinois,^[119] which Townshend's restrictive ideas would have rendered impossible, and would have also been impossible under the intermediate plan of 1764. After the death of Charles Townshend in September, he laid his policy before his colleagues;^[120] and having, it is to be presumed, received their approval, presented it to the Board of Trade in a letter of October 5th.^[121] In November, Franklin revived the question of the Indian boundary; and Shelburne made a communication relating to it to the Board of Trade.^[122] The Board replied on December 23rd; and just before leaving the American Department Shelburne directed that the boundary line projected in 1764 should be run—thereby in the opinion of a recent American author "laying the foundation of the policy which subsequently became the basis of the Indian Policy of the United States; i.e. the policy of marking a boundary line between the Indian hunting grounds and settlements, and forbidding pioneers to cross that line."^[123]

The Board's answer to the October letter did not arrive until March 7th, 1768, after Shelburne had given up the American Department.^[124] It was in the main outlines a reversion—as was to be expected—to the policy of the Grenville Ministry of 1764; but it allowed the formation of a new colony by a Chartered Company between the mountains and the Indian boundary line, and declined to entertain any larger schemes. Hillsborough, apparently in the interest of Virginia, opposed this plan, as he had uniformly done, and resigned in 1772; probably in consequence of this difference of opinion with his colleagues.

At the moment that the influence of the Bedford party was visibly triumphant, it was announced amid universal astonishment that Dunning—the intimate friend of Shelburne, and now member for Calne—had been raised to the post of Solicitor-General, vacant by the resignation of Sir Edward Willes.^[125] He had been appointed Recorder of Bristol, was the most shining pleader at the bar, and had greatly distinguished himself as counsel for Wilkes. "Though his manner was insufferably bad, coughing and spitting at every word," says Hannah More, speaking of his great forensic victory at the trial of the Duchess of Kingston, "yet was his matter pointed to the last degree." "His words were always pure, and always elegant, and the best words dropped easily from his lips into the best places with a fluency at all times astonishing, and when he had perfect health"—which was rarely the case—"really melodious."^[126] But it was not merely as an advocate that Dunning obtained applause. The almost unanimous voice of his contemporaries pointed to him as one of the few eminent lawyers who were as great in statesmanship as at the bar. Chatham, who as a rule hated lawyers, declared him to be "another man from any he had known in the profession. I will sum up his character" he said "as it strikes me. Mr. Dunning is not a lawyer, at the same time that he is the law itself"; and he told Shelburne that among the many things for which he was indebted to him, an introduction to Dunning held the highest place.^[127] "If Mr. Dunning," he said on another occasion, "can for a time forgo the bar, he may live long, and prolong the life of the declining constitution of our country, and most probably will one day raise up again the Great Seal.^[128] How many professors of the law he may chance to outlive gives me no solicitude; I only pray he may not 'outlive the law itself,' to use Serjeant Maynard's words."^[129] Such was the character of the new Solicitor-General. The Bedford party, anxious to promote the unscrupulous Wedderburn, regarded the appointment with ill-concealed annoyance, but probably knew that before long the friend of Shelburne would have to follow his leader into retirement. Meanwhile the legal world saw with astonishment a Law Officer of the Crown still wearing a stuff gown, for no Chancellor was to be found sufficiently careless of royal resentment to allow the counsel of Wilkes to take silk.^[130]

 

1. Marginal note by Hillsborough on a letter from Shelburne on August 16th, 1766.
2. See Vol. I. p. 174 for an account of the relations of the Board of Trade and the office of the Secretary of State. For the settlement now made, see Order in Council, August 8th, 1766; Hillsborough to Shelburne, August 14th, 1766; Shelburne to Hillsborough, August 16th, 1766; Hillsborough to Shelburne, August 25th, 1766; Shelburne to Hillsborough, August 26th, 1766.
3. Rochfort to Halifax, June 25th, 1764, June 9th, 1765.
4. Sir John Goodricke to Conway, November 10th, 1766, and a paper at Lansdowne House "endorsed French views on Sweden."
5. Gunning to Conway, October 21st, 1766.
6. Wroughton to Conway, November 12th, 1766.
7. See the authorities quoted by Bancroft, v. 19.
8. See Stanhope, v. 247.
9. See the secret despatches of Rochfort, September 17th, 1764, and February 25th, 1765, given in Coxe's Memoirs of the House of Bourbon, iii. 298.
10. Shelburne to Devisme, December 2oth, 1766.
11. Coxe, iii. 339; Henri Martin, xvi. livre 6.
12. Coxe, iii. 297; Devisme to Shelburne, November 1766, February 9th, 1767.
13. Hertford to Halifax, August 12th, 1764.
14. Hutton to Shelburne, November 1766.
15. See supra, 282.
16. Extract from an intercepted letter of Merci, dated December 22nd, 1766, enclosed in one from Rochfort to Shelburne, January 7th, 1767. Merci was of the same Lorraine family which gave the two illustrious generals of that name to the Empire. He was Secretary of the Embassy at this time. Starenberg had just resigned the post of Ambassador, to become Ministre d'État at Vienna.
17. See Rochfort to Shelburne, February 27th; Shelburne to Rochfort, March 13th, 1767. As to the 8th and 9th clauses of the treaty of Utrecht, see Stanhope, i. 48. The fortifications of Dunkirk were demolished and the basin filled up in consequence of the treaty of Utrecht, 1713. The same stipulations were inserted in the treaty of Aachen, 1748, and the treaty of Paris, 1763, but they always led to difficulties, the French attempting to evade their real execution.
18. On the surrender of the Manilla, 1762, the Archbishop purchased the exemption of the city from plunder by paying four millions of dollars. Of this sum two millions were in bills on the Spanish Treasury, which on presentation were rejected, on the ground that the capitulation had been extorted by force and that the city had been plundered.

    In 1748 an expedition was fitted out to settle the Falkland Islands, but abandoned in order to avoid a quarrel with Spain, which had protested. The Spanish right to them was, however, not conceded. Bougainville began a settlement on them in 1764, but Spain again protested, and France, glad of an opportunity of conciliating an ally by a concession in itself of no value, transferred the settlement to Spain. At the same time as Bougainville, Commodore Byron settled one of the islands, and it was against this settlement called Port Egmont that the Spaniards now protested.

19. Boswell's Life of Johnson, ii. 135.
20. The negotiations for this alliance failed, owing to Russia insisting on making a Turkish war into a casus foederis, and to the doubts entertained by Frederick the Great of the stability of the English administration, which caused him to prefer a close alliance with Russia. The partition of Poland was also already on the tapis. Frederick had in fact not forgotten his alleged desertion by Bute (Memoirs of Frederick II., 317, 429-430), which is still a fruitful subject of controversy. See the "Buckinghamshire Papers," vol. i., in the Publications of the Royal Historical Society, 1902, and de Ruville, Life of Chatham, ii. 1 6, iii. ch. i.; also the observations of Prince Bismarck, Gedanken und Erinnerungen, ii. 233, 234.
21. Shelburne to Devisme, August 22nd, 1766.
22. Paper endorsed "Lord Shelburne's conversation with Prince Masserano about navigating in the Southern Seas, the Falkland Islands, etc., 1767.
23. Choiseul to Guerchy, August 11th, 1766.
24. Lord Bristol, the English Ambassador to Spain, had accepted the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland.
25. Shelburne to Chatham, October 18th, 1766.
26. Chatham to Shelburne, October 19th, 1766.
27. From a letter of September 23rd from the King to Shelburne, it appears that both Camden and Northington opposed the issue of the Order in Council, of which Chatham was the chief adviser. See Chatham to Townshend, September 24th, 1766. It was the defence made by Camden in the House of Lords, that this stretch of the prerogative "was at worst but a forty days' tyranny" which excited the most clamour.
28. Walpole to Montagu, December 12th, 1766.
29. Rochfort to Shelburne, November 5th, 1766.
30. Devisme to Shelburne, September 15th, November 10th, 1766.
31. Shelburne to Rochfort, November 22nd, 1766.
32. Shelburne to Rochfort, November 17th, 1766.
33. Hertford to Conway, October 20th; Shelburne to Rochfort, November 17th, 1766.
34. Shelburne to Rochfort, November 17th, 1766.
35. Shelburne to Rochfort, November 29th, 1766, December 12th, 1766.
36. Rochfort to Shelburne, December 4th, 1766; Shelburne to Rochfort, December 12th, 1766; Shelburne to Rochfort, January 23rd, 1767.
37. Shelburne to Rochfort, January 2nd, 1767.
38. Grimaldi to Masserano, March 23rd; Rochfort to Shelburne, March 7th, 1767.
39. Clive to Mr. Pitt, January 7th, 1759.
40. From a series of Notes taken by Barré from the papers laid before Parliament. Lansdowne House MSS.
41. Sullivan to Shelburne, November 1766.
42. Vansittart to Shelburne, October 1766.
43. Walsh to Clive, October 1766.
44. Shelburne to Chatham, October 5th, 1766.
45. In the Lansdowne House MSS.
46. Chatham to the Duke of Grafton, December 7th, 1766. The first propositions of the East India Company will be found in the Chatham Correspondence, iii. 164-165. January 2nd, 1767.
47. Beckford to Chatham, January 27th, 1767.
48. Shelburne to Chatham, February 1st, 1767.
49. Chatham to Shelburne, February 3rd, 1767. This letter it printed in the Chatham Correspondence, iii. 181-182.
50. Memorandum sent by Chatham to Shelburne on the receipt of the proposals of the Company. The latter are given in the Chatham Correspondence, iii. 196.
51. February 20th.
52. Seven years afterwards Chatham summed up his views on the Indian situation in a letter to Shelburne as follows: "I always conceived that there is in substantial justice a mixed right to the territorial revenues between the State and the Company as joint captors; the State equitably entitled to the larger share, as largest contributor in the acquisition by fleets and men. Nor can the Company's share when ascertained be considered as private property, but in trust for the public purposes of India and the extension of trade; never in any case to be portioned out in dividends to the extinction of the spirit of trade."—May 24th, 1773, Chatham Correspondence, iv. 264.
53. Shelburne to Chatham, February 6th, 1767.
54. See the Journals of the two Houses for February 1766, passim.
55. Letter of the agent of Massachusetts to the Speaker of the House of Assembly, September 19th, 1766, quoted by Bancroft, vi. 40.
56. Shelburne to Bernard, October 1766.
57. See supra, p. 148.
58. Shelburne to Bernard, December i ith, 1766; Bernard to Shelburne, February 28th, 1767; and their correspondence at the time, passim.
59. Shelburne to Moore, April 11th, 1767.
60. Paper among Lansdowne House MS. endorsed "Relative to the present state of Quebec, May 1 7th, 1767." General Murray, the Governor of Canada, had been requested by General Conway in April 1766 to return to England to confer with the Government as to the position. Sir Guy Carleton was appointed to succeed him as Commander-in-Chief, and to act in his absence as Lieutenant-Governor. Murray was retained in his Government until April 1768—though absent from Canada—and it was not until October 1769 that Sir Guy Carleton became Governor-in-Chief.
61. Rev. Dr. Johnson to Sir William Johnson, July 6th, 1767, quoted by Bancroft, vi. 54, and "Thoughts by the Archbishop of York, on the State of the Church of England in America, April 10th-11th, 1767." "Thoughts on the same subject, June 1764."
62. Shelburne to the Lords of Trade, April 9th, 1767; Moore to Shelburne, February 21st, 1767.
63. It was proposed to constitute three settlements one at the mouth of the Ohio, one at Detroit, and another in the Illinois country. The Indian boundary line was ultimately drawn west of the mountains by the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768 and the Treaty of Lochaber in 1770. Paper entitled "Walpole's Grant," Franklin's Works, v. 45, 67, 68, 113, 502. See also Alvord on The Proclamation of 1763, 30, and "The British Ministry and the Treaty of Fort Stanwix," in the Proceedings of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 175-177. On the ultimate development of this important question, see Fiske, The Critical Period of American History, v.; Germs of National Sovereignty; and Payson Treat, The National Land System, 1785-1820.
64. The settlement policy eventually took shape in the grant to the to-called "Walpole Company," to be founded west of the Alleghanies. The colony was to be called "Vandalia," in honour of Queen Charlotte, who was supposed to be descended from the Vandals. How far Shelburne supported this plan is not quite clear. The company was formed, after his policy, as described in the letter of October 5th, 1767, had been discarded by the Ministry upon the report of the Board of Trade of March 17th, 1768. On the Walpole grant, see Hist. MSS. Commission Reports, Various Collections, vi.; Knox Papers, 253.
65. By the arrangements sanctioned by Lord Hilltborough, under the Proclamation of 1763, the power to regulate the Indian trade was centralized in the Government of Great Britain, and was to be exercised by the agents of the Crown on the spot. It was proposed to appoint two superintendents of Indian trade—one for the Northern, one for the Southern Districts; and the appointments were subsequently made.
66. The hereditary revenue in Ireland was sufficient for defraying the ordinary expenses of Government, without having recourse to annual votes of supply. See Ch. IX. infra.
67. Shelburne to Gage, November 14th, 1767.
68. Grafton to Chatham, March 13th, 1767.
69. The petition attacked the Acts of Trade.
70. Shelburne to Chatham, January 31st, 1767.
71. Shelburne to Chatham, February 6th, 1767.
72. Shelburne to Chatham, February 14th, 1767.
73. Shelburne to Chatham, February 16th, 1767.
74. Lady Chatham to Shelburne, February 16th, 1767.
75. Chatham to Shelburne, February 17th, 1767.
76. Chatham to Grafton, February 23rd, 1767; Shelburne to Chatham, February 25th, 1767; Chatham to Shelburne, February 26th, 1767.
77. Chatham to the King, March 7th, 1767.
78. Shelburne to Chatham, March 12th, 1767.
79. Speech on American taxation, April 19th, 1774.
80. Lansdowne House MSS. Maurice Morgann was a clerk in the Secretary of State's Office, and acted as Private Secretary to Shelburne. He was the author of an Essay on the Character of Falstaff. Johnson being asked his opinion of this Essay, answered, "Why, sir, we shall have the man come forth again; and as he has proved Falstaff to be no coward, he may prove Iago a very good character."—Boswell's Johnson, v. 70.
81. In December 1767, Maurice Morgann, the author of the above memorandum, was sent to Canada to investigate the system of judicature and the civil constitution of the province. On the 20th of June Lord Shelburne wrote to Sir Guy Carleton, as follows: "As the right administration of Government in Quebec is a matter of the greatest importance to that Province, the improvement of its civil constitution is under the most serious and deliberate consideration. … Every light which can be procured on this subject will be material, as well as every information which can tend to elucidate how far it is practicable and expedient to blend the English with the French laws, in order to form such a system as shall at once be equitable and convenient, both for His Majesty's old and new subjects, in order to the whole being confirmed and finally established by authority of Parliament." (See Kingsford, History of Canada, v. ch. v.) Morgann did not return to England until January 1770.
82. Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III., ii. 418, 448.
83. 6 and 7 George III. c. 55.
84. Chatham to Shelburne, March 6th, 1774.
85. Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III., ii. 436.
86. Shelburne to Chatham, March 12th, 1767.
87. See paper quoted above, p. 318, and Parliamentary History, xvi. 966.
88. Shelburne to Chatham, February 3rd, 1774. During 1767 and 1768, as afterwards in 1782 and 1783, Shelburne kept a record of the Cabinet Councils he attended. See too Part. Hist. xviii. 276, 1221; Grenville Correspondence, iv. 364, 371.
89. Walpole, Correspondence, v. 75-77; Memoirs of the Reign of George III., iii. 135-138.
90. The King to Chatham, May 30th, 1767. Chatham Correspondence, iii. 260.
91. Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III., iii. 26, note.
92. Ibid. ii. 454; iii. 47.
93. Ibid. iii. 45.
94. Shelburne to Chatham, May 26th, 1767.
95. Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III., iii. 26, note.
96. Autobiography of Grafton, ch. vi. 213.
97. Shelburne to Chatham, February 3rd, 1774.
98. Shelburne to Moore, July 18th, 1767.
99. Choiseul to Durand, August 4th, 1767, quoted by Bancroft, v. 68.
100. Notes of a conversation with Prince Masserano, October 22nd, 1767.
101. It appears that Conway, having now been appointed Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance, which entitled him to the pay of that office, and to that of a Colonel on active service, was unwilling to be in the receipt of these emoluments and of the salary of the Secretary of State as well, fearing that the Rockingham party, who were eager to detach him from his present connection, would say he kept his office for the sake of money.
102. Shelburne to Lady Chatham, October 9th, 1767.
103. Paper marked "Friday night, December 11th, 1767. At the Lord President's." Compare Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III., iii. 138.
104. The allusion is to the frequent absence of the Duke at Newmarket and at Wakefield Lodge, where he kept hounds.
105. Paper marked "Memorandum by Lord Shelburne of the conversation at the (Queen's House."
106. Shelburne to Lady Chatham, December 13th, 1767.
107. There were now to be three Secretaries of State; the Secretaryship for the Colonies held by Hillsborough being new. It was abolished in 1782
108. The allusion is to the American policy of the Cabinet.
109. "Shelburne to Lady Chatham, December 22nd, 1767.
110. Subsequently to the publication of the first edition of this book, I had some conversation with the eminent physician Sir Andrew Clark, as to the nature of Lord Chatham's complaint. Suppressed gout he said probably disordered the whole nervous system, and drove him into a state of mental depression varying with attacks of excitement almost equivalent to insanity. But there was no specific brain disease. It was after a bad attack of external gout that the patient for a time entirely recovered his force of mind.
111. See the Chapter of Autobiography, supra, 55-60.
112. In a paper by the Abbe Morellet, "English Parties in 1784," among the Lansdowne MSS., the following passage occurs: "Lord Shelburne has whispered it in my ear, and Mr. Franklin has told me a fact completely justifying this reproach. After several fruitless conferences with Lord Chatham on the Stamp Act, he asked for an interview in the country, that he might propose certain modifications in the Act of Parliament Lord Chatham intended to introduce. … Franklin arrived at eight. Lord Chatham perorated till two o'clock without comprehending or concluding anything, and sent away the American deputy son papier à la main comme il était venu."
113. Lord Chesterfield to the shorter but in many respects not dissimilar picture of Lord Chatham in his Characters added this sentence: "However it must be acknowledged that he had those qualities which none but a great man can have with a mixture of those failings which are the common lot of wretched and imperfect human nature."—Letters (ed. Bradshaw), iii.
114. Durand to Choiseul, December 11th, 1767, January 11th, 1st February, 1768; Châtelet de Lomont au Chevalier de Modène, March 15th, 1768. Bancroft, vi. ch. xxxi.
115. "Minutes of the Cabinet, March 30th, 1767"; "Reasons for not diminishing expenses this year," March 30th, 1767. (Lansdowne House MSS.)
116. Lansdowne House MSS.
117. Pitt Correspondence, iii. 210, note, 232-233; Caldwell Papers, Maitland Club Publications, Part II. ii. 106. Townshend and Conway contradicted one another in this debate.
118. Autobiography of Grafton, 175.
119. See Franklin's Works (ed. Bigelow), iv. 309.
120. "Minutes submitted to the Cabinet in the beginning of the summer of 1767 relative to the system of Indian trafficks." (Lansdowne House MSS.)
121. Documents relating to the Colonial History of the State of New York, vii. 981.
122. Ibid. vii. 1004.
123. Mr. C. W. Alvord to the present author, March 1912.
124. Documents relating to the Colonial History of the State of New York, vii. 19.
125. Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III., iii. 146.
126. Stanhope, v. 292. Sir W. Jones, Works, iv. 577.
127. Chatham to Shelburne, December 3rd, 1770.
128. Chatham to Shelburne, January 5th, 1773.
129. The Prince of Orange is said to have told the aged Serjeant Maynard that he must have outlived almost all the great lawyers of his time. "Yes, sir," is said to have been the reply of the Serjeant, "and I should have outlived the law itself if your Highness had not come over to our assistance."
130. For a further account of Dunning, see Law Magazine, vii.; Roscoe, Lives of Eminent Lawyers; and Brougham, Statesmen of the Reign of George III.