-1763] Parties and opinions in England. 147 of the time ; while men of principle frequently allowed their judgment to be vitiated by unfounded theory. When we find a trained lawyer like Lord Camden, in the debate on the Stamp Act, laying down the doctrine that the union of taxation and representation is "a law of nature," we are filled with wonder and despair. Pitt indeed, alone among British statesmen of that day, had that mixture of imaginative insight with practical grasp of detail which might have enabled him to solve the problem of colonial administration. To reconcile the claims of the British government with the aspirations of the colonists was indeed scarcely possible. Yet he might so have appealed to the sentiments of the colonists as to lead them to forgo, for a while, those aspirations, and to overlook what was implied in the claim of authority. But no such capacity could be found elsewhere among English statesmen. George Grenville was virtually the leader of what in the dislocated and confused state of affairs must be called the Tory party. In all questions of administration and finance, his industry, method, and clear mastery of details gave him paramount influence over his followers. He approached colonial questions in the technical unbending spirit of a lawyer wholly insensible to the importance of understanding, still more of conciliating, colonial sentiment. The Whig followers of Rockingham, inspired by Burke, rose to a far higher level. Yet one cannot but see that Burke, in his estimate of colonial views and feelings, too often lost himself in abstractions, and theorised without any real knowledge of all those cross-currents of opinion which were at work in America. Vagueness and ignorance of details were not the only hindrances to effective administration. During the whole dispute with the colonies one is reminded at every turn how ill fitted a system of party government is for a task which is practically one of diplomacy, where success can only be obtained by patient co-operation and unanimity in direction. We feel that even a high-minded and patriotic statesman like Burke could not, in approaching colonial questions, wholly forget the possi- bilities of gain or loss in the game of party politics. Vital questions are not often greatly influenced by the existence or absence of political machinery. Yet one cannot but feel that a strong permanent department, representing experience in colonial administration and independent of parties, might have done much by keeping parliamentary and public opinion well-informed and in touch with the colonies. Projects for taxation of the colonies had more than once come under the notice of British administrators. An elaborate scheme of colonial taxation submitted by some individual to Lord Townshend, Walpole's brother-in-law and colleague, is extant in the Record Office ; and there is a tradition that Walpole refused to listen to such a scheme, pleading that the Old World was against him already and that he would not make an enemy of the New. It therefore hardly showed any surprising lack of statesmanship or indifference to the interests of the colonies UH, v,
