carried to extremes. When a vacancy occurred in the representation for Middlesex there was a fresh contest, and Glyn, a partisan of Wilkes, was elected. In the attendant riots blood had been shed. The murderers were convicted, but again pardoned and rewarded, and the anger of the people became still greater. Wilkes's petitions were neglected, and on his publishing a severe letter against Lord Weymouth, Secretary of State, the House, instead of leaving the matter to the Law Courts, declared it a breach of privilege, and unable to pronounce a libel against a Peer a breach of the privileges of the Commons, they proceeded, perfectly illegally, to have Wilkes arrested and brought to the bar of the House, and there tried for libel. Wilkes avowed the letter, and Lord Barrington, Secretary of War, and one of the "King's friends," moved his expulsion. A new writ was issued for Middlesex, and Wilkes was re-elected almost unanimously. The House voted that he could not sit, and a fresh writ was issued, and Wilkes was again unanimously elected. Another election was ordered, and this time the Government contrived to get about three hundred votes for Colonel Luttrell against eleven hundred given for Wilkes. The House declared that Luttrell was the member. So iniquitous a decision raised Wilkes into the position of a great popular leader, and was not carried without many vigorous protests from the most influential members of the Liberal party. It tended much to lessen the power of the ministry; both great cities and great counties held meetings to express their want of confidence in the present representation and to ask for a dissolution.

The difficulties

in America.

Nor did the ministry strengthen itself by its dealings with America. The new imposts of 1767 had been received with great indignation by the colonists, especially in Massachusetts. There the governor, Francis Barnard, seems to have been totally destitute of all power of conciliation. He was backed up by Lord Hillsborough, Colonial Secretary, scarcely more temperate than himself, The Assembly, in its quarrel with the governor, issued a circular letter to the other colonies, calling for their co-operation against the new taxes. They refused to retract this step at the command of Lord Hillsborough, and were dissolved. The difficulties of the crisis went on increasing. The customhouse commissioners were foolish enough to capture and detain an illicit trader; serious riots were the consequence; the commissioners were mobbed and their houses robbed. The spirit of resistance spread. The Society of Sons and Daughters of Liberty, who refused to use imported goods,

1769]

cans.

THE AMERICAN DIFFICULTIES

1057

multiplied in other colonies. The view of the Government was not conciliation, but coercion. Troops and ships of war were crowded into Boston. In England the feeling was strongly against the AmeriCoercive measures were recommended and applauded; Francis Barnard was raised to the rank of a Baronet; the conduct of the people of Boston gravely censured in Parliament; and at length Bedford's section of the Whigs produced a motion which could hardly fail to excite resistance. The Duke moved, and the Parliament applauded his motion, that as it was probable that American juries would sympathize with their countrymen, the rioters might be withdrawn from their country, in accordance with an obsolete law of treason of the reign of Henry VIII. This measure, which seemed to deprive the colonists of their first rights as Englishmen, met with deserved execration both at home and in America. But to crown all, and to put the ministers quite in the wrong, some general action on their part was wanting. This want was supplied when the conciliatory efforts of Grafton were defeated in his own Cabinet. He suggested the removal of all taxation of America. English pride forbade the Council to accept a measure which they thought derogatory to the rights of an Imperial nation. Therefore, for the mere purpose of asserting the right, they agreed to the removal of all taxes but one, and insisted that the tax on tea should be kept. Thus the original principle of the right to tax was upheld, and the sting still left to rankle in the minds of the Americans.

The unpopularity which their conduct had brought on the ministry was increased by the vigorous and bitter assaults of Letters of Junius. This anonymous writer, probably Sir Philip Junius. Francis, lost no opportunity of attacking, with the greatest animosity, the Duke of Grafton and his supporters, not even sparing the King, and by his bold assaults, excellent style, and by the mystery which hung over him, drew upon himself much public attention, and directed men's minds to all the weaknesses of the administration.

The incompetency of the ministry was indeed becoming obvious. In the first place it was divided within itself. The Weakness of Prime Minister, with the Chancellor and some others, the ministry. were remnants of the Chatham ministry and admirers of Chatham's policy. The rest of the Cabinet were either men who represented Bedford's party, or members of that class whose views are sufficiently explained by their name, "the King's friends." Grafton, fonder of hunting and the turf than of politics, had by his indolence suffered himself to fall under the influence of the last-named party, and uncon

stitutional action had been the result which had brought discontent in England to the verge of open outbreak. Hillsborough, under the same influence, was hurrying along the road which led to the loss of America. On this point the Prime Minister had found himself in a minority in his own Cabinet. France too, under Choiseul, in alliance with Spain, was beginning to think of revenge for the losses of the Seven Years' War. A crisis was evidently approaching, and the Opposition began to close their ranks. Chatham, yielding again to the necessities of party, made a public profession of friendship with Temple and George Grenville; and though there was no cordial connection, there was external alliance between the brothers and the old Whigs under Rockingham. In the first session of 1770 the storm broke. Notwithstanding the state of public affairs, the chief topic of the King's speech was the murrain among "horned beasts,"-a speech not of a king, but, said Junius, of "a ruined grazier." Chatham at once moved an amendment when the address in answer to this speech was proposed. He deplored the want of all European alliances, the fruit of our desertion of our allies at the Peace of Paris; he blamed the conduct of the ministry with regard to America, which, he thought, needed much gentle handling, inveighed strongly against the action of the Lower House in the case of Wilkes, and ended by moving that that action should at once be taken into consideration. At the sound of their old leader's voice his followers in the Cabinet could no longer be silent. Camden declared he had been a most unwilling party to the persecution of Wilkes, and though retaining the Seals, attacked and voted against the ministry. In the Lower House, Granby, one of the most popular men in England, followed the same course. James Grenville and Dunning, the Solicitor-General, also resigned. Chatham's motion was lost, but was followed up by Rockingham, who asked for a night to consider the state of the nation. Grafton found it nearly impossible to

Camden,
Granby and
Grafton resign.

prop up his falling ministry; the Great Seal went, as Lord Shelburne said, a-begging. Charles Yorke was indeed induced to take it in spite of his former political connections, but, overwhelmed apparently by the coldness of his former friends, he committed suicide. Grafton thus found himself in no state to meet the Opposition, and in his heart still admiring Chatham, and much disliking business, he suddenly and unexpectedly gave in his resignation the very day fixed for Rockingham's motion.

The Opposition seemed to have everything in their own hands, but there was no real cordiality between the two sections. The

1770]

NORTH'S MINISTRY

1059

Want of cordial

alliance among the Opposition.

for Lord North and avoids a

Rockingham party despised the City friends of Chatham, who, under the leadership of Lord Mayor Beckford, had become prominent in the Wilkite riots, and since that time by a somewhat impertinent use of the right which the City possessed of directly approaching the King with petitions. They dreaded also the paramount influence the Grenville party were nearly sure to possess in any joint Government. On the other hand, Chatham despised the half measures and moderation constantly advocated by the Rockingham party. The King, with much quickness and decision, took advantage of this disunion. To him it was of paramount importance to retain his friends in office, and to avoid a new Parliament elected in the present excited state of the nation. There was only one of the late ministry capable of The King sends assuming the position of Prime Minister. This was Lord North, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and to him dissolution. the King immediately and successfully applied, so that while the different sections of the Opposition were still unable to decide on any united action, they were astonished to find the old ministry reconstituted and their opportunity gone. The new Prime Minister was a man whose unwieldy person and want of grace seemed little to fit him for the command of a popular assembly. His frame was bulky, his action very awkward, and his shortsighted, protruding eyes, swollen cheeks and over-large tongue, enabled Walpole to compare him to a blind trumpeter. But under this awkward exterior he had great capacity for business and administration, and much sound sense; he was a first-rate debater, and gifted with a wonderful sweetness of temper, which enabled him to listen unmoved, or even to sleep, during the most violent attacks upon himself, and to turn aside the bitterest invectives with a happy joke. With his accession to the Premiership the unstable character of the Government ceased. Resting on the King, making himself no more than an instrument of the King's will, and thus commanding the support of all royal influence, from whatever source derived, North was able to bid defiance to all enemies, till the ill effects of such a system of government and of the King's policy became so evident, that the clamour for a really responsible minister grew too loud to be disregarded.

Thus is closed the great constitutional struggle of the early part of the reign-the struggle of the King, supported by the Triumph of the unrepresented masses, and the more liberal and inde- King's policy. pendent of those who were represented, against the domination of the House of Commons. It was an attempt to break those trammels

which, under the guise of liberty, the upper classes, the great lords and landed aristocracy, had succeeded after the Revolution in laying on both Crown and people. In that struggle the King had been victorious. But he did not recognize the alliance which had enabled him to succeed. He did not understand that the people had other objects much beyond his own. He saw that they felt thus far with him, that they disliked the comparative servitude in which he was placed, that they felt hurt at the coercion frequently brought to bear upon him by the dominant faction, that they were willing and anxious to assist him in breaking those ties of party, which were little else than the ties of faction and class. Seeing this, he did not recognize that the people were equally disinclined for the establishment of personal government, that they wanted to strengthen the Crown and to weaken the Whig party, chiefly as a means of attaining to a more complete system of self-government. He believed that his own power and his own skill had been chiefly instrumental in the success which had met his efforts. He had no intention of allowing any of the fruits of that success to fall to any but himself. Kindhearted and well-meaning, he wished to govern for the good of his people, but he distinctly wished to govern for them and not to let them govern for themselves. It is thus that during the ministry of North, and of those who preceded him, the royal influence was constantly employed in repression,-repression of all popular movements at home, repression of all attempts at liberty in the colonies; and this principle Lord North, backed by a servile House of Commons, was able to uphold.

Grenville's

tion petitions.

1770.

The House was indeed notoriously under ministerial influence, and one of the last acts of Grenville was to attempt a reform reform of elec- in one particular at least. Disputed elections had hitherto been referred to a Committee of the whole House, and had thus become the merest party questions, in which the right and wrong of the case was never thought of. Grenville's measure, which was carried against considerable opposition, gave the cognizance of such questions to a select Committee, with judicial powers, and themselves bound by oath. Even thus justice was not secured, and though the number of the Committee was subsequently again decreased and fresh measures taken to secure fair decisions, it has lately been found necessary to put the settlement of election petitions into the hands of some of the regular judges. This important measure closed the career of Grenville; before the year was out died. Thus Lord North found himself relieved from an able