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."[1]
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."[2]
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,[3] 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
- ↑ Shelburne to Chatham, March 12th, 1767.
- ↑ Speech on American taxation, April 19th, 1774.
- ↑ 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.
