he had thought out the matter in this direction, he would have
been led further than he or any other man in England or America
was at that time prepared to go. If the British parliament was
unfit to legislate for America, and if, as was undoubtedly the case,
it was impossible to create a representative body which was fit
to legislate, it would follow that the American colonies could only
be fairly governed as practically independent states, though
they might possibly remain, like the great colonies of our own
day, in a position of alliance rather than of dependence. It was
because the issues opened led to changes so far greater than the
wisest statesman then perceived, that Pitt’s solution, logically
untenable as it was, was preferable to Burke’s. Pitt would have
given bad reasons for going a step in the right direction. Burke
gave excellent reasons why those who were certain to go wrong
should have the power to go right.
Scarcely were the measures relating to America passed when
the king turned out the ministry. The new ministry was formed
by Pitt, who was created earl of Chatham (1766),
on the principle of bringing together men who had
shaken themselves loose from any of the different
Ministry
of Lord Chatham.
Whig cliques. Whatever chance the plan had of
succeeding was at an end when Chatham’s mind temporarily
gave way under stress of disease (1767). Charles Townshend, a
brilliant, headstrong man, led parliament in the way which had
been prepared by the Declaratory Act, and laid duties on tea
and other articles of commerce entering the ports of America.
It was impossible that the position thus claimed by the British parliament towards America should affect America alone. The habit of obtaining money otherwise than by the consent of those who are required to pay it would be certain to make parliament careless of the feelings and interests of that great majority of the population at home, which was unrepresented in parliament. The resistance of America to the taxation imposed was therefore not without benefit to the people of the mother country. Already there were signs of a readiness in parliament to treat even the constituencies with contempt. Wilkes and “The North Briton.” In 1763, in the days of the Grenville ministry, John Wilkes, a profligate and scurrilous writer, had been arrested on a general warrant—that is to say, a warrant in which the name of no individual was mentioned—as the author of an alleged libel on the king, contained in No. 45 of The North Briton. He was a member of parliament, and as such was declared by Chief Justice Pratt to be privileged against arrest. In 1768 he was elected member for Middlesex. The House of Commons expelled him. He was again elected, and again expelled. The third time, the Commons gave the seat to which Wilkes was a third time chosen to Colonel Luttrell, who was far down in the poll. Wilkes thus became the representative of a great constitutional principle, the principle that the electors have a right to choose their representatives without restriction, save by the regulations of the law.
For the present the contention of the American colonists and of the defenders of Wilkes at home was confined within the compass of the law. Yet in both cases it might easily pass beyond that compass, and might rest itself upon an appeal to the duty of governments to modify the law, and to enlarge the basis of their authority, when law and authority have become too narrow.
As regards America, though Townshend died, the government persisted in his policy. As resistance grew stronger in America, the king urged the use of compulsion. If he had not the wisdom of the country on his side, he had its prejudices. The arrogant spirit of Englishmen made Lord North’s ministry. them contemptuous towards the colonists, and the desire to thrust taxation upon others than themselves made the new colonial legislation popular. In 1770 the king made Lord North prime minister. He had won the object on which he had set his heart. A new Tory party had sprung up, not distinguished, like the Tories of Queen Anne’s reign, by a special ecclesiastical policy, but by their acceptance of the king’s claim to nominate ministers, and so to predominate in the ministry himself.
Unhappily the opposition, united in the desire to conciliate America, was divided on questions of home policy. Chatham would have met the new danger by parliamentary reform, giving increased voting power to the freeholders of the counties. Burke from principle, and his noble patrons mainly from lower motives, were opposed to any such change. As Burke had wished the British parliament to be supreme over the colonies, in confidence that this supremacy would not be abused, so he wished the great landowning connexion resting on the rotten boroughs to rule over the unrepresented people, in confidence that this power would not be abused. Amid these distractions the king had an easy game to play. He had all the patronage of the government in his hands, and beyond the circle which was influenced by gifts of patronage, he could appeal to the ignorance and self-seeking of the nation, with which, though he knew it not, he was himself in the closest sympathy.
No wonder resistance grew more vigorous in America. In 1773 the inhabitants of Boston threw ship-loads of tea into the harbour rather than pay the obnoxious duty. In 1774 the Boston Port Bill deprived Boston of its commercial rights, whilst the Massachusetts Government Bill took The American War of Independ-ence. away from that colony the ordinary political liberties of Englishmen. The first skirmish of the inevitable war was fought at Lexington in 1775. In 1776 the thirteen colonies united in the continental congress issued their Declaration of Independence. England put forth all its strength to beat down resistance; but the task, which seemed easy at a distance, proved impossible. It might have been so even had the war been conducted on the British side with greater military skill and with more insight into the conditions of the struggle, which was essentially a civil contest between men of the same race. But the initial difficulties of the vast field of operations were greatly increased by the want of skill of the British leaders in adapting themselves to new conditions, while even loyalist sentiment was shocked by the employment of German mercenaries and Red Indian savages against men of English blood. Even so, the issue of the struggle was for long doubtful, and there were moments when it might have ended by a policy of wise concession; but the Americans, though reduced at times to desperate straits, had the advantage of fighting in their own country, and above all they found in George Washington a leader after the model of the English country gentleman who had upheld the standard of liberty against the Stuarts, and worthy of the great cause for which they fought. In 1777 a British army under Burgoyne capitulated at Saratoga; and early in 1778 France, eager to revenge the disasters of the Seven Years’ War, formed an alliance with the revolted colonies as free and independent states, and was soon joined by Spain.
Chatham, who was ready to make any concession to America short of independence, and especially of independence at the dictation of France, died in 1778. The war was continued for some years with varying results; but in 1781 the capitulation of a second British army under Cornwallis at Yorktown was a decisive blow, which brought home to the minds of the dullest the assurance that the conquest of America was an impossibility.
Before this event happened there had been a great change in public feeling in England. The increasing weight of taxation gave rise in 1780 to a great meeting of the freeholders of Yorkshire, which in turn gave the signal for a general agitation for the reduction of unnecessary expense in the government. To this desire Burke gave expression in his bill for economical reform, though he was unable to carry it in the teeth of interested opposition. The movement in favour of economy was necessarily also a movement in favour of peace; and when the surrender of Yorktown was known (1782), Lord North at once resigned office.
The new ministry formed under Lord Rockingham comprised not only his own immediate followers, of whom the most prominent was Charles Fox, but the followers of Chatham, of whom Lord Shelburne was the acknowledged leader. A treaty of peace acknowledging the independence The second Rockingham ministry. of the United States of America was at once set on foot; and the negotiation with France was rendered easy by the defeat of a French fleet by Rodney, and by the failure of the combined forces of France and Spain to take Gibraltar.
