76 



DISCOVERY 



November i, 1765, is well known. The bells were 

 tolled as for a funeral, the flags were put half-mast, 

 and the shops were shut.* There was a general 

 suspension of business with England, and a complete 

 refusal on the pxirt of anyone to use the stamps. The 

 " Passive Resistance " movement was complete and 

 triumphant. Most ominous of all, representatives 

 from nine Colonies met to protest — the first common 

 action ever initiated by the Colonies. 



Why, it may be asked, if Grenvillc's position appears 

 so reasonable, did the Stamp Act arouse such oppo- 

 sition ? The answer is that the Colonists were English- 

 men, and Englishmen brought up in the traditions and 

 principles of English liberty. Theirs was the same 

 cause as that of Hampden in the previous century. 

 Ship Money, against which Hampden protested in 

 1637, was a ta.\ instituted and used for the admirable 

 purpose of guarding the seas, and incidentally pro- 

 duced the first three-decker, the Sovereign of the 

 Seas. The Stamp Act of 1765 was instituted for 

 the admirable purpose of guarding the American 

 frontier against attacks such as those of Pontiac. 

 Ship Money was probably, and the Stamp Act was 

 certainly, legal ; but the one tax in England and the 

 other in America met with the fiercest opposition. 

 But there is this difference between John Hampden 

 and the American Colonists. John Hampden objected 

 to the Ship Money because it was not voted by the 

 English Parliament ; the American Colonists objected 

 to the Stamp Act because it was. It is quite a mistake 

 to suppose, as it is stated in so many te.xtbooks, that 

 the American Colonists revolted because they were 

 not represented in the British Parliament. This, in 

 the words of Professor Pollard,* was " no more the 

 origin of the American Wcir of Independence than 

 Edward Ill's claim to the French throne was of the 

 Hundred Years' War." 



As we have seen in the first article, the Colonists 

 had acquired, during the previous half -century , virtually 

 complete self-government. They had been allowed to 

 develop themselves, not altogether without restraint, 

 but in effect largely so ; and the control of taxation 

 by their own Assemblies had become almost a mania 

 with them. Grenville, in tr>'ing to impose the Stamp 

 Act through the British Parliament, was trj-ing, 

 though he did not realise it, to put back the hands of 

 the clock. Or, to change the metaphor, he was like 

 a parent trying to treat a boy of eighteen as if he were 

 a boy of fourteen. The American Colonists had 

 reached manhood — they could be treated as children 

 no more, and they objected to the absolute sovereignty 



• The more ardent of our Colonists settled to eat no more 

 lamb, so as to have more wool for making their own clothes. 



' See an admirable article on " No Taxation without Kepre- 

 sentation " in History, October 1918. 



of the British Parhament, though perhaps willing to 

 recognise the authority of the Crown. " Is there not 

 something extremely fallacious," said the famous 

 American, John Adams, in 1765, " in the common- 

 place image of the Mother-country and Children- 

 colonies ? .\re we children of Great Britain any 

 more than the cities of London, Exeter, or Bath ? 

 Are we not brethren and fellow-subjects with those 

 in Britain ? " 



The opposition of the Colonies is one of which both 

 Great Britain and the United States may well be proud. 

 Professor McLaughlin, the distinguished American 

 historian who lectured in England in the spring of 1918, 

 has well expressed the point of view from which that 

 opposition ought to be regarded from both sides of 

 the Atlantic. " The American Revolution," he says, 

 " is, on the whole, the chief jewel in the Imperial 

 diadem of Britain ; it was one of her greatest deeds. 

 It was based on English-bom philosophy ; it was 

 waged by Colonists who had developed in freedom. . . . 

 None but English Colonies, as we have seen, could have 

 made such a fight for independence. . . . No one but 

 Englishmen established American independence, and 

 this they did on the basis of English History." • 



But, whilst we may be proud of the Colonies, let 

 us be just to the Mother-countrj'. In the first place, 

 neither the British people nor their statesmen were 

 anxious to assert or to exercise the right of taxing 

 America.* In the second place, the Stamp Act, 

 though passed in 1765, was repealed in 1766, and 

 Pitt the foremost, and Burke the best informed, of 

 English statesmen, made some of their greatest 

 speeches in opposing American taxation.* In the 

 third place, let us realise once more that Grenville 

 was in a difiicult position. It is easy enough to see 

 that he did the wrong thing — but extremely difficult 

 to see what was the right thing to do. The present 

 writer has corresponded with English and American 

 historians on this point, and has failed to elicit a 

 completely satisfactory reply. No doubt Grenville 

 might have let Great Britain bear, in addition to all 

 her other burdens, the whole pecuniary burden of 

 the new force — but was that quite fair to the Mother- 



^ See America and Britain, by Professor McLaughlin 

 {1919). 



♦ See Project oj a Commonwealth, part i (1915). 



' Sir George Trcvelyan prefaces his History of the American 

 Revolution with an account of the condition of Eton at that 

 time, and seems to imply that Eton, the home of the ruling 

 aristocracy, was partly responsible. As one who has spent 

 the far greater part of liis existence at Eton, the present 

 writer cannot refrain from alluding to the fact that if Eton 

 produced George Grenville, the author of the Stamp Act, 

 and Lord North, the conductor of the American War. she 

 also produced Lord Chatham, the greatest opponent of the 

 Stamp .\ct, and Charles James Vox, the greatest opponent 

 of the war. 



