this is in the hand of Providence: yet now, even Book now, I should confide in the prevailing virtue and efficacious operation of lenity, though working in darkness and in chaos, in the midst of all this unnatural and turbid combination."

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In the course of his speech, Mr. Burke took occasion to draw the political portraits of several personages who had, during the present reign, occupied the highest departments of the state. "To Mr. George Grenville, with whom the new colony system had originated, he affirmed that this country owed in other respects great obligation. He had, as Mr. Burke believed, a very serious desire to benefit the public; but with no small study of the detail, he did not seem to have equally carried his view to the total circuit of affairs. He generally considered his objects in lights too much detached. This great person was bred to the law, a science rather calculated to invigorate than liberalize the understanding. Passing from that study, he did not go very largely into the world, but plunged into business-the business of office. But men too much conversant in office rarely possess minds of remarkable enlargement. Persons nurtured in the forms and habits of office do admirably well as long as things go on in their common order: but when the high roads are broken up, when the waters are out,

BOOK when a new and troubled scene is opened, and the XVL file affords no precedent, then it is that a greater

1774

knowledge of mankind, and a far more extensive comprehension of things, are requisite than ever office gave, or than office can ever give. He said, that in the year 1765, being in a very private station, unknowing and unknown, it was his fortune to become connected with a very noble person, the marquis of Rockingham, then at the head of the Treasury department; and that he was placed in a situation which enabled him to discern in that noble person such sound principles, such an enlargement of mind, such clear and sagacious sense, and such unshaken fortitude, as had bound him, as well as others much better than him, by an inviolable attachment. The question of the repeal of the Stamp Act was brought on by the marquis, in the very instant when it was known that negotiations were carrying on between the court and the leaders of opposition. In the midst of a chaos of plots and counter-plots, of warfare against public opposition and private treachery, it was that the firmness of this noble person was put to the proof, Every thing was full of traps and mines; earth below shook; heaven above menaced. All the elements of ministerial safety were dissolved; yet he remained fixed and determined in principle, in measure, and in conduct. He practised no

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management, he sought no apology, he secured BOOK no retreat; but on the conclusion of an inquiry which lasted six weeks, by a noble, spirited, and unexpected majority, in the teeth of all the old mercenary Swiss of state, in defiance of the whole embattled legion of veteran pensioners and practised instruments of a court, gave a total repeal to the Stamp Act, and, if it had been so permitted, a lasting peace to the empire." Of lord Chatham, Mr. Burke said, that "the venerable age of this great man, his merited rank, his superior eloquence, his splendid qualities, his eminent services, the vast space he filled in the eye of mankind, forbade him to censure his conduct; and to flatter him he was afraid. Let those who have betrayed him by their adulation insult him by their malevolence. For a wise minister, however, speaking with the freedom of history, Mr. Burke said, he must surely be acknowledged to have adopted measures greatly mischievous to himself, perhaps for that reason fatal to his country;-MEASURES, the effects of which are, I am afraid, FOR EVER INCURABLE. He made an administration so chequered and speckled; he put together a piece of joinery so crossly indented, and whimsically dove-tailed; a cabinet so variously inlaid, such a piece of diversified mosaic, such a tesselated pavement without cement, here a bit of black stone and there a

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BOOK bit of white; patriots and courtiers, king's friends and republicans, Whigs and Tories, treacherous friends and open enemies; that it was indeed a very curious show, but utterly unsafe to touch, and unsure to stand on. When his face was hid but for a moment, his whole system was on a wide sea, without chart or compass, whirled about, the sport of every gust; and those of the mariners who were most directly opposite to his opinions, being by far the most artful and powerful of the set, seizing the helm, turned the vessel wholly out of the course of his policy." The house were much amused with these ingenious representations; but no other effect was produced, the numbers on the division being 184 to 51. The session ended June 21, 1774, and his majesty's speech contained a very high eulogium on the measures which had been adopted for the purpose of reclaiming his deluded subjects; and on the temper, firmness, and unanimity, which had been displayed in the deliberations of parliament, which could not fail of giving them the greatest weight. Indeed, such was the elation of the court and its partisans at this period, that America seemed in their apprehension already subdued, and a complete victory obtained before the battle was begun.

Governor Hutchinson, by, whose advice the king and his ministers had been chiefly guided,

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and who gave the most positive assurances that a BOOK speedy and general submission would be the consequence of the measures which he recommended, had been for some time past in England; and general Gage, already commander of the troops stationed at Boston, was appointed governor of the province. He arrived in that city in the month of May 1774, and was received with that dead and melancholy silence which portended a tremendous storm. The intelligence of the Boston Port Bill had been recently received ; and on the day succeeding the arrival of the new governor a general meeting of the inhabitants was convened, in order to take it into consideration. At this meeting a resolution was passed, expressive of their ideas of the impolicy, injustice, and barbarity of the bill, and inviting the other colonies to join with them in a general agreement to put a stop to all exportation and importation to Great Britain and the West Indies till it should be repealed. Addresses from Virginia, Pennsylvania, the Carolinas, New York, and the other provinces, in a short time arrived, exhorting them, with many expressions of affection and sympathy, to resolution and perseverance; and declaring, that they considered Boston as suffering in the common

One spirit, one undivided sentiment, of pity, indignation, and revenge, roused and per