BOOK A vote had passed, by which the personal free

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1764.

dom of every representative of the nation was now at the mercy of his majesty's attorney-general. Mr. Pitt expatiated in a strain of the most beautiful eloquence on the solicitude with which the constitution watches over the personal safety of the meanest individual. It is a maxim of our law, said he, that every Englishman's house is his castle. Not, that it is surrounded with walls and battlements: it may be a straw-built shed: every wind of heaven may whistle around it: all the elements of nature may enter in; but the KING cannot; the KING dare not. He concluded with saying, that if the house negatived the present motion, they would be the disgrace of the present age, and the reproach of posterity." The adjournment was carried by a majority of 14 voices only, in one of the fullest houses known for many years, the minority on this occasion being no less than 220. Such a defeat was considered as equivalent to a victory: the freedom of the city of London was voted to lord chief justice Pratt, and presented to his lordship in a golden box; the picture of that magistrate, now the idol of the nation, placed in the Guildhall of the metropolis, whose example was, with an emulation of eagerness, followed by the city of Dublin, and other principal cities throughout the two kingdoms. Early

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in the year 1764, the hereditary prince of Bruns- BOOK wic was married to the princess Augusta, eldest sister of the king, to whom the parliament voted 1764. a marriage portion of 80,000l. a sum equal to that formerly granted to the princess of Orange.

Scarcely was the question of general warrants disposed of, when the minister, Mr. Grenville, in the rage of making experiments, however hitherto unsuccessful, determined upon a mea- Project for sure, in its tendency and ultimate consequences America. the most interesting and important which ever perhaps came under the cognizance of the British parliament. As the reductions which had taken place since the conclusion of the war, were far inferior to those made by Mr. Pelham after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, and the vast increase of the national debt had rendered indispensable a proportionable increase of revenue, large supplies were yet wanting to raise the national income to a level with the annual expenditure. The invention of the governors, and the patience of the people of Great Britain, being at this period alike exhausted*, Mr.

BOOK Grenville cast his eyes upon the vast continent of XIIL America, as affording a boundless scope for 1764. ministerial and parliamentary exaction. The

project of taxing America had been many years since proposed to sir Robert Walpole; but that cautious and sagacious statesman replied, "that it was a measure too hazardous for him to venture upon; he should therefore leave it to some more daring successor in office to make the experiment." And it is particularly stated, that sir William Keith, governor of Virginia, proposing a plan for that purpose to the minister soon after the failure of his excise bill, sir Robert Walpole replied indignantly, "I have Old England set against me, and do you think I will

why does he not tell us where we can lay another tax instead of it?"-repeating with strong emphasis two or three times, "Tell me where you can lay another tax?" Mr. Pitt, thus unfairly urged, replied, in a musical tone, and in the words of a favorite and popular canzonet, "Gentle Shepherd, tell me where!" The house burst into laughter, and Mr. Grenville, after this, retained the appellation of the "Gentle Shepherd." Little, certainly, did this minister imagine how fertile would be the invention of his successors in office, or how thoroughly subdued by time and custom the spirit of the people. The peace establishment of 1763, compared with that of 1748, was enormously extravagant-the number of regiments retained in the service being increased from 40 to 70, and other expences raised in proportion; and, for the support of this unnecessary and unaccountable force, America was to be plundered, harassed, and oppressed.

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have New England likewise *." It is true, that BOOK two or three remote and obscure precedents might be adduced in vindication of the authority 1704. of the British parliament to impose taxes in America. But then the taxes hitherto imposed, consisting of certain import and export duties, were invariably and professedly designed for the mere purpose of commercial regulation. It is remarkable, that the trivial and incidental produce of these duties was not even appropriated by parliament, and it was never so much as suspected that they would be quoted as cases in point, should a direct taxation be attempted. The project of Mr. Grenville, therefore, was of a nature perfectly novel. His avowed purpose was to raise a revenue in America in aid to the mother country, the entire produce of which was to be paid into the exchequer of Great(R) Britain. This was a project in the highest degree alarming to the Americans; for if the claim of England to tax the colonies for her own benefit, and at her own discretion, were once admitted, a system of oppression would be introduced, which, from the irresistible tendencies of things, would gradually become insupportably grievous; and which once established, no subsequent efforts would be able to destroy. No

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BOOK question could perhaps be agitated of more difficult or doubtful discussion than the extent 1764. of the constitutional authority of Great Britain over America. It had never been analysed or defined: it was, indeed, in its own nature, indefinable: it was only admitted in the general, that Great Britain possessed a discretionary superintending power, pervading the whole empire, with respect to objects of great and common concern. This power had been invariably exercised with caution, prudence, and moderation: and the benefits arising from it to the empire at large, and even to its colonies and dependencies separately considered, were so manifest, that no disposition existed to call in question the validity of its acts, or to fix precise limits to its dominion. It was a political problem thrown as it were into shade, like various others, which it would be deemed highly imprudent to make the subject of a rigid or public scrutiny. The precise extent of the prerogative of the crown, of the privileges of parliament, of the jurisdictions of the different courts of judicature, who is competent to delineate? Or who would deem it discreet or politic to create divisions and animosities in a state, by a vain endeavour to ascertain questions, which folly and presumption alone would, without absolute necessity, agitate? But the indefinite authority possessed by Great