one," as portrayed and deified in 'Poor Richard,' to England, as the agent of the colony, charged with the mission of representing to the British Government the danger as well as the impolicy of the proposed measure-founded on the utterly erroneous idea that the English in America were less sensitive about that sacred place, the pocket, than the English at home.

On Franklin's arrival in London, he was consulted both by the Ministers and the Opposition; and declared, with all the fervour of a shopkeeper against an attempted robbery, that the Americans would resist the imposition, passively and actively, and that they would rather see the disruption of the Empire than submit to imperial taxation. The Ministry were not convinced, and pressed forward their measure, which, however, excited as little interest in the House of Commons as a debate upon Indian finance does in our own day. In vain Colonel Isaac Barré, who in after-years was suspected, and not without reason, of being the author of the Letters of Junius, thundered against the measure, and brought his experience of America, where he had served under the illustrious Wolfe, to bear in support of his arguments; in vain did other and less famous leaders of the Opposition take the same side.

с

The

Bill was passed, and the seeds of disaffection, so soon to expand into revolution, were planted in America. Virginia, most loyal and aristocratic of colonies, was as deeply discontented as puritanical New England; and Patrick Henry, a young lawyer recently elected as a member of the House of Burgesses, suddenly made himself one of the most popular men in America, by introducing into the Legislature a series of resolutions declaring that the General Assembly of Virginia had the exclusive right and power to tax the people of that colony, and that whoever maintained the contrary ought to be regarded as a public enemy.

Mr Robinson, the Speaker, objected to the resolutions as inflammatory; but the orator, with all the fervour of his Celtic blood boiling in his veins, defended alike their spirit and their phraseology, and forgot himself so far in the vehemence of his declamation as to warn the Sovereign personally of the danger he incurred by setting himself in opposition to the wishes of his American subjects. "Cæsar," said he, "had his Brutus ; Charles his Cromwell; and George III. may" here the horrified Speaker started on his chair, and a cry of "Treason! treason!" resounded on all sides. Henry saw with quick perception that his "buncombe " might be dan

gerous if persisted in; and after a pause and a low bow to the Speaker, deliberately finished his sentence -"and George III. may profit by their example. If this be treason, sir, make the most of it."

The House was not in the mood for violent language; and Henry having agreed to modify his resolutions in form, but retaining their spirit, they were passed by a large majority. The LieutenantGovernor of the colony unwisely added fuel to this growing fire by dissolving the Assembly and issuing writs for a new election-thus keeping up and intensifying an excitement which it would have been better to have allayed. Washington made no public utterances upon the subject; but in a letter to Mr Dandridge, his wife's uncle, a resident in London, he said "that the speculative part of the colonists looked upon this unconstitutional method of taxation as a direful attack upon their liberties." He was somewhat cautious, as became so faithful a disciple of the philosophy of Poor Richard, in expressing his own opinion; but went on to say: "Whatever may be the result of this and of some other (I think I may add) ill-judged measures, I will not undertake to determine; but this I may venture to affirm, that the advantage accruing to the mother-country will fall greatly short of the

expectation of the Ministry. . . . As to the Stamp Act, regarded in a single view, one of the first bad consequences attending it is, that our Courts of Judicature must inevitably be shut up; for it is impossible, or next to impossible, under our present circumstances, that the Act of Parliament can be complied with, were we ever so willing to enforce its execution. And not to say (which alone would be sufficient) that we have not money enough to pay for the stamps, there are many other cogent reasons which prove that it would be ineffectual."

While Washington was thus privately “venturing to affirm," and timidly thinking that he might call the measures ill-judged, the fiery oratory of Patrick Henry was working to more potent ends on the public mind, not alone in Virginia, but in all the other colonies. On the motion of the General Assembly of Massachusetts, nearly five months after the passing of Henry's modified resolutions, a Congress was held in New York, at which delegates attended from nine out of the thirteen. colonies; and after stormy though all but unanimous debates, prepared an address to the King, and petitions to both Houses of Parliament, setting forth the grievances of the American people, and demanding the repeal of the obnoxious Act. Mean

while riots broke out in several cities; the stamp distributors were hung in effigy; their offices were sacked or levelled with the ground; the stamps were seized and thrown into the flames; while most of the stamp distributors-happy not to be executed in person as well as in effigy-hastened to range themselves on the popular side, by resigning their too dangerous appointments.

On the 1st of November 1765, when the Act was to come into operation, all the ships in the harbour of Boston displayed their colours half-mast high, as a sign of mourning for the departed liberty of America; while the bells of that and other cities rang funereal peals throughout the day. At New York a copy of the Act was fixed upon a pole, surmounted by a death's-head, and a scroll bearing the inscription, "The folly of England and the ruin of America!" and carried through the streets, followed by a clamorous multitude. Colden, the Lieutenant-Governor-who had made himself especially obnoxious to the New Yorkers, by recommending to the British Government the taxation of the Colonies, and the establishment of hereditary instead of elective Assemblies-fearful of personal violence, withdrew into the fort on Governor's Island, in the harbour, and garrisoned it for defence