and submission." "The waves," replied Franklin, "never rise but when the winds blow;" and, addressing the British public, he showed that the new system of politics tended to dissolve the bonds of union between the two countries. "What does England gain by conquests in America," wrote the French minister, "but the danger of losing her own colonies? Things cannot remain as they are; the two nations will become more and more embittered, and their mutual griefs increase. In four years, the Americans will have nothing to fear from England, and will be prepared for resistance." He thought of Holland as a precedent, yet "America," he observed, "has no recognised chieftain; and, without the qualities united in the house of Orange, Holland would never have thrown off the yoke of Spain." 1768. Jan. On Hillsborough's taking possession of his newly created office, Johnson, the faithful agent of Connecticut, a churchman, and one who from his heart wished to avoid a rupture between the colonies and England, waited upon him to offer congratulations on his advancement. "Connecticut," declared Hillsborough, "may always depend upon my friendship and affection." "Connecticut," said Johnson, "is a loyal colony." "You are a very free colony," rejoined Hillsborough; "generally you have used your very extraordinary powers with moderation; but you are very deficient in your correspondence, so that we have too little connection with you." "That," answered the agent, "is owing to the good order and tranquillity which have so generally prevailed in a quiet colony, where the government is wisely administered and the people easy and happy. Add to this: from the nature of our constitution, fewer occasions arise of troubling the king's ministers with our affairs than in the governments immediately under the crown." "A request for a copy of your colony laws," said Hillsborough, "has been repeatedly made; but I cannot find that any obedience has been paid to the requisition." "The colony," replied Johnson, "has several times sent over copies of the printed law book; there is one or more at the plantation office." "It is the duty of the government," resumed 1768. Jan. Hillsborough, "to transmit, from time to time, not only the laws that pass, but all the minutes of the proceedings of the council and assembly, that we may know what you are about, and rectify whatever may be amiss." "If your lordship," rejoined the agent, "wants a copy of our laws for private perusal, for the information of your clerks, or for reference, the colony will send you one of their law books; and you will find it as good a code of laws, almost, as could be devised for such an infant country, and in no respect inferior to any collection of the kind in any of the colonies. But, if your lordship means to have the laws transmitted for the inspection of the ministry as such, and for the purpose of approbation or disapprobation by his majesty in council, it is what the colony has never done, and, I am persuaded, will never submit to. By the charter which King Charles II. granted, the colony was invested with a power of legislation, not subject to revision. In point of fact, your lordship well knows that those laws have never been re-examined here; that the colony has for more than a century been in the full exercise of those powers, without the least check or interruption, except in a single instance, in such times and under such circumstances. as I believe you will not mention but with detestation, much less consider as a precedent." "I have read your charter," said Hillsborough; "it is very full and expressive; and I know what powers you have exercised under it. But there are such things as extravagant grants, which are therefore void. You will admit there are many things which the king cannot grant, as the inseparable incidents of the crown. Some things which King Charles pretended to grant may be of that nature, particularly the power of absolute legislation, which tends to the absurdity of creating an independent state." "Nobody," replied Johnson, "has ever reckoned the power of legislation among the inseparable incidents of the crown. All lawyers are agreed that it is an undisputed prerogative of the crown to create corporations; and the power of law-making is, in some degree at least, incident to every corporation; depending not merely on the words of the grant, but founded in the reason of things, and coextensive with the purposes for which the body is created. Every corporation in England enjoys it as really, though not as extensively, as the colony of Connecticut. Since, therefore, no question can be made of the right of the crown to create such bodies and grant such powers in degree, it would be very difficult to limit the bounty of the prince. The law has not done it, and who can draw the line? Surely not the ministers of the prince. The colony charters are of a higher nature, and founded on a better title, than those of the corporations of England. These are mere acts of grace and favor; whereas those in America were granted in consideration of very valuable services done or to be performed. The services having been abundantly executed at an immense expense by the grantees in the peopling and cultivation of a fine country, the vast extension of his majesty's dominion, and the prodigious increase of the trade and revenues of the empire, the charters must now be considered as grants upon valuable considerations, sacred and most inviolable. And even if there might have been a question made upon the validity of such a grant as that to Connecticut in the day of it, yet parliament as well as the crown having, for more than a century, acquiesced in the exercise of the power claimed by it, the colony has now a parliamentary sanction, as well as a title by prescription added to the royal grant, by all which it must be effectually secured in the full possession of its charter rights." Jan. "These are matters of nice and curious disquisi- 1768. tion," said Hillsborough, evasively; "but at least your laws ought to be regularly transmitted for the inspection of the privy council and for disapprobation, if found repugnant to the laws of England." "An extra-judicial opinion of the king's minister," answered Johnson, "or even of the king's privy council, cannot determine whether any particular act is within that proviso or not; this must be decided by a court of law having jurisdiction of the matter, about which the law in question is conversant. If the general assembly of Connect 1768. Jan. icut should make a law flatly contradictory to the statute of Great Britain, it may be void; but a declaration of the king in council would still make it neither more nor less so, but be as void as the law itself, for other words in the charter clearly and expressly exclude them from deciding about it." "I have not seen these things," replied Hillsborough, “in the light in which you endeavor to place them. You are in danger of being too much a separate, independent state, and of having too little subordination to this country.' And then he spoke of the equal affection the king bore his American subjects, and of the great regard of the ministers for them as Britons, whose rights were not to be injured. 66 Upon the repeal of the stamp act," said Johnson, “ we had hoped these were the principles adopted; but the new duties imposed last winter, and other essential regulations in America, have damped those expectations and given alarm to the colonies." "Let neither side," said Hillsborough, "stick at small matters. As to taxes, you are infinitely better off than any of your fellow-subjects in Europe. You are less burdened than even the Irish." "I hope that England will not add to our burdens,” said Johnson; "you would certainly find it redound to your own prejudice." Thus, for two hours together, they reasoned on the rights of Connecticut, whose charter Hillsborough wished to annul; not on the pretence that it had been violated or misused, but because by the enjoyment of it the people were too free. Connecticut so united caution with patriotism that successive British ministers were compelled to delay abrogating its charter, for want of a plausible excuse. The apologists of the new secretary called him honest and well meaning; he was passionate and ignorant and full of self-conceit; alert in conducting business; wrong-headed in forming his opinions, and pompously stiff in adhering to them. He proposed, as his rule of conduct, to join inflexibility of policy with professions of tenderness; and, in a man of his moderate faculties, this attempt to unite firmness with suavity became a mixture of obstinacy and deceit. 1768. His first action respecting Massachusetts betrayed his character. Hutchinson, through Jenkinson, obtained an annual grant of two hundred pounds sterling; Hillsborough gave to the grant the form of a secret warrant under the king's sign manual on the commissioners of the customs at Boston. That a chief justice, holding office during pleasure and constantly employing his power for political purposes, should receive money secretly from the king, was fatal to the independence of the bench. Jan. The reflecting people in Boston dreaded the corrupt employment of the new revenue. "We shall be obliged," said they, "to maintain in luxury sycophants, court parasites, and hungry dependants, who will be sent over to watch and oppress those who support them. If large salaries are given, needy poor lawyers from England and Scotland, or some tools of power of our own, will be placed on the bench. The governors will be men rewarded for despicable services, hackneyed in deceit and avarice; or some noble scoundrel, who has spent his fortune in every kind of debauchery. "Unreasonable impositions tend to alienate the hearts of the colonists. Our growth is so great, in a few years Britain will not be able to compel our submission. Who thought that the four little provinces of Holland would have been able to throw off the yoke of that powerful kingdom of Spain? yet they accomplished it by their desperate perseverance." "Liberty is too precious a jewel to be resigned." The attempt at concerting an agreement not to import had thus far failed; and, unless the assembly of Massachusetts should devise methods of resistance, the oppressive law would gradually go into effect. Of the country members, Hawley, than whom no one was abler or more sincere, lived far in the interior; and his excitable nature, now vehement, now desponding, unfitted him to guide. The irritability of Otis had so increased that he rather indulged himself in rhapsodies" and volcanic "flashes" of eloquence, than framed deliberate plans of conduct. Besides, his mind had 66 |