162 Schemes of conciliation. [i774- retaliation. Not only were these resolutions passed, but they were transmitted to Congress, and approved by that body. We may doubt whether they really expressed its views, but here, as usual, unity, organisation, and definiteness of purpose gave the minority a victory over half-hearted opponents. Nevertheless Joseph Galloway of Pennsylvania, who may be regarded as the leader of the moderate party, brought forward a scheme for con- ciliation. He proposed to call into existence a Grand Council, elected for three years by the various colonial legislatures. The President of this body was to be appointed by the King, and to hold office during his pleasure. Either the Council or Parliament might initiate legislation for the colonies, but both must approve. The scheme was not wholly unlike that proposed twenty years earlier by Franklin. Apart from its practical merits or defects, it was quite certain that the time was quite unfit. Such a project might possibly have worked had there been a strong general desire for co-operation. In an atmosphere filled with suspicion and ill-will it was inevitably doomed to failure. In the autumn of 1774 a general election took place in England ; and on November 1 a new Parliament met. American affairs were naturally the all-absorbing topic. The measures proposed by Lord North showed that he understood that he was no longer faced by the disaffection of Massachusetts alone, but by that of the whole body of colonies. The military forces in America were to be strengthened ; and all the colonies, New York, Delaware, and North Carolina excepted, were to be cut off from the American fisheries and from trade with the mother-country. The policy of the Ministry was met in both Houses by counter- proposals of conciliation. A bill was introduced into the House of Lords by Chatham, taking up a line similar to that adopted by the Buckingham Whigs when they withdrew the stamp duty and passed the Declaratory Act. The bill affirmed the right of Parliament to control the colonies in matters of trade, and also to quarter soldiers on the colonists. An elective body representing the colonies and constituted on the same lines as the present Congress was to be called into existence, and was to make a free grant to the imperial exchequer. The proposal was open to two obvious objections. Like Galloway's scheme, it could only work where there was a genuine wish on both sides for co-operation, not when they approached the question with mutual aversion and distrust. Moreover the division between internal taxation and commercial regulation could never be drawn with exact precision. Nevertheless the respect due to the name and authority of Chatham, and the importance of fully considering at such a crisis every possible remedy, should have saved the bill from rejection on the first reading. In the House of Commons, Burke and David Hartley moved resolu- tions on the same lines as Chatham's scheme, proposing to leave the question of taxation entirely to the colonists themselves. No one now
