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which had since ensued. He now solemnly warned the same assembly that they were preparing the way for far more serious and alarming commotions. The people of America, he said, looked to them to find a remedy for their wrongs, and if that remedy was withheld, desperation might follow. The day might arrive when the vast continent would arise in arms, and America be lost to them. for ever. "Consider well," he exclaimed, addressing himself to the ministerial bench, "what you are doing! Why will you deceive yourselves and us? You know that it is not this place, nor that place, that disputes your right but every part. They tell you with one voice, from one part of the continent to the other, that you have no right to tax America."

At this period, one of the most enlightened, experienced, and best-informed statesmen, on all subjects connected with America, was Thomas Pownall, member of Parliament for Tregony, more familiarly known in his day as Governor Pownall. Session after session, the warning voice of this sagacious person was raised in deprecation of the present fatal policy of the government, but to little purpose. The course, he told them, which

1 This meritorious public servant had successively held the appointments of Lieutenant-Governor of New Jersey, Governor of Massachusetts, and Governor of South Carolina. He was the author of several works, chiefly of an antiquarian character. His death took place at Bath, February 25, 1805, either in his eighty-fourth or eighty-fifth year.

they were pursuing would inevitably convert loyal subjects into political fanatics, and wealthy merchants and sturdy husbandmen into desperate rebels. The people of America, he said, were inspired by the same spirit of freedom which had animated their Puritan forefathers, that same indomitable spirit which had induced the founders. of American liberty to banish themselves from all that was near and dear to them in their native land, and, in exchange for its comforts, its venerable associations, its civilisation, its security, and its endearments, to encounter the hardships and the perils of the wilderness, and the neighbourhood of the treacherous and merciless savage. Not only, proceeded the prophetic though disregarded orator, are the descendants of those men actuated by the same yearning after freedom and the same. loathing of oppression, but the sacrifices which they may be required to make, and the difficulties with which they might have to contend, would be far less severe than those over which their ancestors had achieved their memorable triumph. They had not, he said, a country to leave, but a country to defend. They had not to forsake their friends and relations, but to unite with and to stand by them in one common union. "The only sacrifice," he continued, "they have to make is that of a few follies and a few luxuries. Necessity is not the ground of their commerce with you. It is merely the affectation of your modes and customs; the

love for home, as they call England, that makes them like everything that comes from thence. Bút passion may be conquered by passion. They will abominate, as sincerely as they now love you; and if they do, they have within themselves everything requisite to the food, raiment, or the dwelling of mankind, and have no need of your commerce." But the orator might just as profitably have preached to the winds. As for himself, was the injudicious exclamation of Lord North, he would never yield "till he had seen America at his feet."

Although the session closed without any attempt having been made to conciliate the people of America, there was, nevertheless, one at least of the ministers, the Duke of Grafton, who had begun to perceive how suicidal was the policy which he and his colleagues had been pursuing toward the colonists. Accordingly, at a Cabinet Council, which was held on the 1st of May, he proposed to them that, on the reassembling of Parliament, they should bring in a bill for the entire repeal of the obnoxious import duties. Unfortunately, however, the concession was considered to be too humiliating a one, and consequently, on Lord North proposing that the duty on tea should still be retained, chiefly as an assertion of right on the part of the mother country, the Duke of Grafton found himself in a minority by a casting vote of one. "But for that unhappy

event," he writes, "I think the separation from America might have been avoided." "We can grant nothing to the Americans," were the words of the wrong-headed Hillsborough, "except what they may ask with a halter around their necks."

CHAPTER VIII.

Recall of Governor Bernard - Conflict in Boston, with Loss of Life Repeal of Colonial Import Duties, except on Tea Publication of Secret Correspondence of the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts with Friends of Ministers in England - Proceedings against Franklin ThereonScene before the Privy Council — Tax on Tea Entering the Ports of the American Provinces- The First Cargoes Thrown into Boston Harbour Boston Port Bill and Massachusetts Government Bill Passed through Parliament.

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THE intention of government, to propose in the next session of Parliament a repeal of the duties on glass, paper, and colours, was communicated by Lord Hillsborough, in a rude and ill-judged circular letter, to the governors of the different American colonies. For several reasons the proposed concessions afforded little satisfaction on the other side of the Atlantic. "We should be glad," are the words of the people of Massachusetts, in their "Appeal to the World," "that the ancient and happy union between Great Britain and this country might be restored. The taking off the duties on paper, glass, and painters' colours, upon commercial principles only, will not give satisfaction. Discontent runs through the continent upon much

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