matured plan, removed Lord Sandys from the board of trade and put Charles Townshend, an ambitious statesman, able and unscrupulous where his ambition was at stake, in his place. Although holding only the office of first lord of trade, Townshend had also a seat in the cabinet, counseled the king in person on administration affairs, and, while the self-willed Egremont still held the nominal control, Townshend became the actual secretary of state for the colonies.

On March 9, 1763, Townshend introduced the first part of the scheme for taxing America by act of parliament. The supplies demanded for the first year of peace alarmed the House of Commons, and they were eager for any method of relief. It was shown that the duty on the trade of the American colonies with the French and Spanish West Indies was ineffectual because prohibitory; and in a general way that the collection of a colonial revenue of two thousand pounds cost the customs department in Great Britain between seven and eight thousand a year. The fact was lost sight of that this difference passed into the pockets mainly of the government officers who held these sinecures. Indeed it may be here asserted that the system of British colonial government was a system of plunder by the officials of each home administration in turn. Townshend's plan was to reduce the duty, but rigidly to enforce its collection. Although the plan of an act further to raise revenue by stamps was at this time indubitably in the minds of the ministry (the amount to be raised to be sufficient to support the army establishment in America), it was not as yet declared. It was Grenville's share to bring forward a bill for the enforcement of the navigation laws, authorizing the employment of ships of the navy and turning its officers and seamen into customs authorities and informers.

These arrangements were supplemented by an act of parliament establishing a standing army in America. This was the last important act of Bute's administration. In April the seals were given to George Grenville, and the administration of affairs fell into the hands of a triumvirate of which he was the head, as chancellor of the exchequer, while Egremont and Halifax were secretaries of state. Jenkinson, Bute's efficient assistant, became principal secretary of the treasury.

The details of American administration now fell to Halifax, whose experience was large, and the new measures were rapidly

brought forward. On the morning of September 22, 1763, three lords of the treasury, with George Grenville at their head, held a meeting at their council-board in Downing street, and adopted a minute directing Jenkinson, the first secretary of the treasury, to "write to the Commissioners of the Stamp Duties to prepare the draft of a bill to be presented to Parliament for extending the stamp duties to the colonies." This order was at once executed. Mr. Bancroft, in his account of this period, asks the question, "Who was the author of the American Stamp Act?" Jenkinson said later in the House of Commons that if the Stamp Act was

a good measure the merit of it was not due to Grenville; if it was a bad one the ill policy did not belong to him." But he never informed the house, nor indeed any one else during his life, who

Governor Clarke of New York, in 1744, to the lords of trade; but Governor Clinton, in a letter to the Duke of Newcastle on December 13 of that year, doubted the expediency of the measure, as being contrary to the spirit of the people, "who are quite strangers to any duty but such as they raise themselves."

Grenville's proposal, made on March 9, to draw a revenue from America by stamps, and his notice that a bill would be introduced at the next session, crystallized public opinion on both sides of the ocean. On his challenging the opposition in the Commons to deny the right of parliament, no voice was lifted in reply, and the next day it was resolved that such right existed and that its exercise was proper. It is true that the house was thin and the hour late, and that the declaration of the minister was only of intention.

But if the crystallization of opinion in England united all parties, including the friends of America, in defense of the right of parliament to impose taxes on the colonies, that same process united all parties in America in the denial of that right, and in the assertion of the doctrine which had been claimed in the New York colony since 1683, that taxation without representation was a wrong and an injustice to which no freeman would submit. Nor yet, in view of the menace of the twenty regiments of British soldiers to be sent over and quartered in the chief cities, were they willing to avoid the issue or postpone it by assenting in advance to the proposed act, as was suggested by their "well wishers" abroad. There was still a faint hope that by earnest representation of the agents of the colonies abroad and by respectful petition to the king and parliament the blow might be averted.

The assembly of New York was the first to petition the king and parliament in a respectful representation on October 18, 1764. After a declaration of inviolable fidelity, they recited "that in the three branches of the political frame of Government established in the year 1683, viz., the Governor, a Council of the Royal appointment, and the representatives of the People, was lodged the legislative authority of the Colony, and particularly the power of taxing its inhabitants for the support of the Government; that the people of the Colony consider themselves in a state of perfect eqality with their fellow-subjects in Great Britain, and as a political body enjoying like the inhabitants of that country the exclusive right of taxing themselves; a right which whether inherent in the people or sprung from any other source has received the Royal Sanction, is at the basis of our Colony State, and become venerable by long usage; that the Representatives for the Colony of New York cannot therefore without the strongest demonstrations of grief express their sentiments on the late intimation of a design to impose taxes on the Colonies by laws to be passed in Great Britain and they invite the King to interpose his prerogative on the unconstitutional law." On the same day, and by the same resolution in which the transmission of these memorials was ordered, the assembly created a committee to correspond with the several assemblies on the American continent upon the several objectionable acts of parliament lately passed with relation to the trade of the northern colonies, and also on the subject "of the impending dangers which threaten the Colonies of being taxed by

laws to be passed in Great Britain." William Bayard, a member of this committee of correspondence, visited Boston to confer with the Massachusetts assembly, which on the 22d of the same month adopted a petition in the same direction but less vigorous in text and spirit.

Early in the year 1765 Grenville introduced his bill into the House of Commons. It contained fifty-five articles relating to stamp duties in America, and passed the house on February 7. Previous to its passage the American agents were advised that if the colonies would propose any other means of raising the required revenue the stamp duty would be deferred or laid aside. To this they had no authority to make answer. The bill was approved by the House of Lords in March, without debate, and on March 22 received the king's signature.

The news of the passage of the act reached New York in April, and aroused a storm of indignation-a storm tempered by the consoling information that there was a large body in England whose sympathies were with the colonies. The English advices of May brought word that "without doors we hear every person at all qualified to form any judgment of the matter seemed in favor of the Colonies." When the news reached New York, the assembly was in recess. In Virginia the House of Burgesses was sitting. On May 29 they replied with a series of resolutions, firm in expression, declaratory of their rights and of the unconstitutionality of the measure. It was during the debate on this occasion that Patrick Henry used the memorable words which electrified the continent and in their bold utterance sufficed to make his name immortal. The people of Pennsylvania showed themselves no less jealous of their rights. On April 14 the great guns at the fort and those at the barracks in New York were spiked; a sufficient declaration of the popular temper. And now each incoming packet brought accounts of the growing strength of a sentiment in England in favor of the bold attitude of the colonies. The news arrived of the stirring words of Colonel Barré, the brave companion of Wolfe at the capture of Quebec, in answer to the assumption of Townshend that the colonists were "children of England's planting." "The Americans are Sons of Liberty," retorted Barré in a tone which shook the house.

In comment on this and declarations similar in nature if less vigorous in expression, the press of the colonies took up the phrase..