and caution. The orders fent out by the minister to the naval commanders in the West Indies were too rigorous, or, at least, too liable to abuse. Under the idea of putting a total stop to fmuggling, fhips of war were converted into guarda-coftas, and captains of the navy were obliged to take the ufual cuftom-house oaths, and to act in the capacity of revenue officers. By these means, the nature of their own exalted character was debafed, and that irregular vivacity of theirs, and contempt of common forms, which had been fo lately and with fuch advantage exerted against the enemy, were now inconfiderately played off against the subject. Unacquainted with all thofe cafes, in which fhips are, or are not, liable to feizure, to penalty, or detention, they gave a fatal blow to the interefts of trade, without promoting in any respect Mr. GRENVILLE's intentions.

The first branch of commerce which felt the weight of the blow was that which had been for a long time carried on between the British and Spanish plantations, to the great advantage of both, but especially the former, the chief materials of it being, on the fide of the British colonies, British manufactures, or such of their own produce as enabled them to purchase those manufactures; and, on the part of the Spaniards, gold and filver in bullion and in coin, cochineal, and medicinal drugs, befides live stock and mules, with which the West India islands used to be fupplied through the fame channel, and which were still more necessary than the precious metals. Though this trade did not clash with the spirit of any of the prohibitory acts, yet it was found to vary from the letter of them fufficiently to afford the revenue officers a plea for doing that from duty, which they had ftrong temptations to do from motives of intereft. Accordingly they seized indifcriminately all British as well as foreign fhips en

gaged

gaged in that traffic, which the custom-house officers, ftationed on fhore, had always permitted to pass unnoticed.

The fame misfortune attended the trade carried on by the American colonies with the French West India islands, and which was no less lucrative than the former. It depended on a mutual exchange of articles, which would have otherwise remained useless incumbrances on the hands of the poffeffors, so that it united all the advantages which liberal minds include in the idea of a well-regulated commerce. It had been interrupted during the war, but was foon likely to flourish again, had not Mr. GRENVILLE thought its fuppreffion a matter of the utmost importance to the trade and revenue of Great Britain. Sound policy would rather have connived at such a resource, which not only prevented the North American colonies from being drained of their current cash by the calls of the mother country upon them, but afforded fupplies of specie for the purposes of internal circulation. This was of the greater moment, as their domeftic trade neceffarily increased from day to day, in proportion to the remarkable increase of mankind in that part of the world, where the cheapness of land determined the greater part of the inhabitants to the exercife of the rural arts, fo favorable to population.

In confequence of Mr. GRENVILLE's prohibitions, which were for fome time enforced by the naval officers with the utmost severity, not only all the contraband, but the fair and lawful trade of the Americans was threatened with irretrievable ruin. Other circumstances, the appointment of courts of admiralty, the extinction of the paper currencies, and a compulsory provifion for the quartering of foldiers, concurred with those checks on the coafting and maritime trade to make the people of America think themselves proceeded against as delinquents, or

at

at best as people under fufpicion of delinquency. But the grand manœuvre, as Mr. BURKE well obferves, was the fifteenth act of the fourth of GEORGE III; which opened a new principle, and may be properly said to begin the second period of the policy of this country with regard to the colonies. The fcheme of a regular plantation parliamentary revenue was then adopted in theory, and fettled in practice---a revenue, not substituted in the place of, but fuperadded to, a monopoly. "This act, fir," continues Mr. BURKE, " had for the first time the title of granting duties in the colonies and plantations of America; and for the time it was afferted in the preamble, that it was just and necessary that a revenue should be raised there. Then came the technical words of giving and granting; and thus a complete American revenue act was made in all the forms, and with a full avowal of the right, equity, policy, and even neceffity of taxing the colonies, without any formal confent of theirs. **** Sir, it has been faid in the debate, that when the first American revenue act paffed, the Americans did not object to the principle. It is true they touched it but very tenderly. It was not a direct attack. They were, it is true, as yet novices, ---as yet unaccustomed to direct attacks upon any of the rights of parliament. The duties were port duties, like those they had been accustomed to bear; with this difference, that the title was not the fame, the preamble not the fame, and the fpirit altogether unlike."

Mr. BURKE then takes notice of fome pretences which had been urged in juftification of Mr. GRENVILLE's conduct towards the colonies. It was faid, that he had given their agents an option for their affemblies to tax themselves, which they had refused. Mr. BURKE endeavours to prove that this was neither

true

true nor poffible. He obferves first, that Mr. GRENVILLE had never thought fit to make fuch an apology for himself in the innumerable debates on the fubject. That gentleman might have proposed to the colony agents, that they should agree in fome mode of taxation as the ground of an act of parliament. But he never could have proposed that they should tax themfelves on requifition: he well knew, that the colony agents could have no general powers to consent to it; and they had no time to confult their affemblies for particular powers, before he paffed his first revenue act: he had also declared his opinion an hundred times in the house, that the colonies could not legally grant any revenue to the crown; and that infinite mifchiefs would be the confequence of fuch a power: he had even told one of the members, who had stated his diflike to the stampact, that he was willing to exchange that duty for any other equally productive; but that any objections to the Americans being taxed by parliament were useless, as he was determined on the measure. It was therefore evident that the chancellor of the exchequer had no idea of leaving it at the option of the colonial affemblies to tax themselves. Mr. BURKE goes on in a tone of triumph. "Thus, fir," he adds, "I have difpofed of this falfhood. But falfhood has a perennial spring. It is faid, that no conjecture could be made of the dislike of the colonies to the principle. This is as untrue as the other. After the refolution of the houfe, and before the paffing of the ftamp-act, the colonies of Maffachufet's Bay and New York did fend remonftrances, objecting to this mode of parliamentary taxation. What was the confequence? They were fuppreffed; they were put under the table, notwithstanding an order of council to the contrary, by the miniftry which compofed the very council

that

that had made the order; and thus the house proceeded to its bufinefs of taxing without the least regular knowledge of the objections which were made to it. But to give that house its due, it was not over defirous to receive information, or to hear remonftrance. On the fifteenth of February 1765, whilft the ftampact was under deliberation, they refufed with fcorn even fo much as to receive four petitions prefented from fo refpectable colonies as Connecticut, Rhode ifland, Virginia, and Carolina; besides one from the traders of Jamaica. As to the colonies, they had no alternative left to them, but to difobey; or to pay the taxes impofed by that parliament which was not fuffered, or did not fuffer itfelf, even to hear them remonftrate upon the subject."

After this minute furvey of the character and measures of Mr. GEORGE GRENVILLE, the next portrait which attracts our notice in Mr. BURKE's historical gallery is that highly finished one of lord ROCKINGHAM, of which we have given fome account in a former part of this work. A very handfome compliment is alfo paid to general CONWAY, then fecretary of state, who moved the repeal of the stamp-act, and whofe fubfequent defertion of his friends Mr. BURKE laments in very affecting language. "I remember," fays he, "with a melancholy pleafure, the fituation of the honourable gentleman who made the motion for the repeal; in that crifis, when the whole trading intereft of this empire, crammed into your lobbies, with a trembling and anxious expectation waited, almost to a winter's return of light, their fate from your refolutions. When, at length, you had determined in their favor, and your doors, thrown open, fhewed them the figure of their deliverer in the well-earned triumph of his important victory, from the whole of that grave

multitude