Declaratory Bill. "From the necessity of the times," says Hardwicke, "and the universal clamour which the merchants and manufacturers had raised about the Stamp Act, I concurred in the repeal of it. It was principally owing to my brother that the dignity and authority of the legislature were kept up by the Bill for asserting the dependence of the Colonies."[1]
In the debates on the Stamp Act Shelburne shared the burden and heat of the day with Camden and Grafton, while the Prime Minister sat by, dumb and speechless;[2] but in the debate on the Declaratory Resolutions he abandoned the Ministers. "There were only two questions," he said, "for the consideration of Parliament, repeal or no repeal. It was unwise to raise the question of right, whatever their opinions might be. Let them be warned by the example of the statesmen of Vienna, who from a dearly-bought experience, refrained from taxing the inhabitants of Brussels and of Antwerp—cities which he had himself but lately visited—while claiming the right of doing so, a right the existence of which in the case of England and her Colonies, he, to say the least, ventured to doubt."[3] These being his opinions, he with Camden, Cornwallis, Paulet and Torrington, divided the House against the Declaratory Resolutions. "With these five," says the American historian, "stood the invisible genius of popular reform."[4] The majority consisted of one hundred and twenty-five peers.
Notwithstanding these differences of opinion and the failure of all his previous attempts, Rockingham resolved upon a last negotiation. Its fate can be read in the two following letters:
Shelburne to Pitt.
February 24th, 1766.
Though I was very much ashamed to have troubled you lately upon such an ill-grounded tale, it is not through an apprehension of my having lost any degree of your
