At home, the government had come to the determination to resort to force. In consequence, accounts were soon received in Boston that a regiment, a frigate, with other armed vessels, were on their approach to support the government. The only effect was a determination, followed by immediate preparations, to resist force by force. A strong force, both naval and military, soon crowded round them, and a sullen silence was imposed for a time. But nothing was thus gained; all the colonies took fire, and adopted a haughtier tone, and more decided

measures.

The ministry began to feel that something must be retracted; and a circular was transmitted, offering to take off the obnoxious duties. But the storm was now too high for compromise; the pretence of right was not disclaimed; the true intent and reserved purpose of its being maintained was either fully known, or strongly suspected, and the duty on tea, insignificant in itself, remained as the tangible ground for resistance. We are thus brought up to 1770, when it may be considered that all parties to this great question had definitively taken their ground in the contest. Before we proceed further, therefore, with Mr Burke's history, we shall offer a few remarks to fix the character of the principles on which his conduct ought to be fairly judged. He has been accused of inconsistency for espousing the quarrel of America, and taking part against the French Revolution. It is one of the main objects of this memoir to discuss such charges. With this object in view, we shall here state the elementary grounds on which the conduct of Mr Burke is to be justified in either case as they shall occur; and, first, as relates to America.

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The distinction between the two cases will, indeed, need no refinement. America resisted an external government imposing a constitution. In France an insurrection of certain classes levied war against the kingdom. We shall have a further opportunity for pursuing this comparison at large, and shall here only delay to point out some prominent peculiarities of the question, with respect to the colonist, with a view to show that it does not involve the principles of that allegiance which every one must be considered to owe to the government of his country; neither involving the self-preserving expediency of the social state, which makes the maintenance of subordination essential to the existence of social order in a country, nor the external necessities of circumstance by which one country may be in a manner vitally connected with another; nor, finally, the strong, though not so essential or elementary principle, of prescriptive authority. Of these first principles of civil allegiance, not one will be found to have applied to America. The power exercised by Great Britain was originated during the weakness of the colonies,-had for its professed object their protection, and was maintained by prescription; but the understanding on all sides was governed by these same considerations, and there was an established method and rule in the exercise of those powers. The powers now claimed were wholly different in principle: they were despotic, and violated the very foundation of civil allegiance. The first principle of lawful obedience is this,-that all lawful government is exclusively for the good of the people governed: opposed to this is the subjection of weakness to force. In the first

case, the duties of king and people are, so far as they are clearly ascertained, reciprocal; in the second, they are not binding further than the disparity of force imposes. There is no law for slavery but the old adage, "might makes right." So far as authority can be considered of any value on such purely elementary questions, we may briefly state that the best historians and jurists of ancient and modern times agree in the opinion, that the colonist, if governed by the parent country, has a strict parity of right; he is to be governed pari jure, and entitled in common interest to a community of privilege. Si quid autem commune fuerit, id aut communiter administrandum, aut pro ratis portionibus dividendum.*

A few facts and circumstances will show the application of these statements to America. The colonists, from the beginning, had been allowed to exercise a full discretion in the management of their own internal affairs; the government of England had been simply paternal; and, by universal understanding, for the advantage of the colonies. The advantages were understood to be reciprocal-the legitimate principle of all colonial empire. The Americans were protected by the naval power of England, and enriched by being the principal carriers in her trade; England, on her part, enjoyed a vast monopoly of the colonial markets. Here was the whole relation in all its bearings. There existed no right to extend it; the colonies were not in any way a member or members of the British nation; they were not represented in England. As colonies deriving protection from the naval power, and capital from the commercial wealth of England, a certain subjection based on these grounds, and a revenue arising from the very nature of the connexion, was the equitable return. These impositions were early established, and might be claimed from prescription, while the same prescription confirmed the immunity of the colonies from the interposition of new and inconsistent exactions. The navigation act had the authority of time. The new imposts were arbitrary, and amounted to the assertion of despotic power.

But it is surprising to witness the fast hold of old national prejudices. The question as to the precise right by which the jurisdiction of a country over her colonies can be maintained, after it has ceased to be beneficial to the latter, and can be thrown off, does not appear to have been discussed. The maxim that might makes right, has, we must admit, a formidable place in the equity of international law; but, still, this equity is in itself clear enough; a subjection imposed by force alone, is only such till it can be thrown off. In the internal government of nations, the will of the nation is involved the power of the ruler is neither more nor less than the power of the nation itself and this is the fundamental principle of government. The idea of parentage was impressed on the English mind: it was strengthened by the indefinite notion of subjection. Of the first, which, at the time, afforded strong rhetorical appeals, we need dwell no longer than to mention Mr Burke's retort to lord Carmarthen, who said in his speech, "The Americans are our children, and how can they revolt against their parent?" Mr Burke, in reply, said, "They are our children,

*Grotius de Jure, lib. 2, ch. 9, § 10.

but when children ask for bread, we are not to give a stone." To say that the Americans were subjects of the crown was true in one sense, and understood in another; there was a lurking sophism in the public understanding. Their remote ancestors had been subjects in the strongest sense, as natives of Great Britain; but to such a subjection there is the same natural law of limitation which divides all the races of the human family. In this sense the assumption is absurd, and this was the popular sense. The Americans were actually bound by a conventional subjection to a certain settled form of government, and the question must be what this was, and what it implied. The question is of some importance in the life of Mr Burke; and it is therefore we call the attention of our readers to its brief consideration. The government of a kingdom is universally understood to be either for the benefit of the people, or a state of slavery for the benefit of a master or dominant nation. The latter case may be dismissed with the remark, that, not being voluntary, it essentially involves the right of resistance. The first, which applies to America, is easily reduced to its principle; the right of resistance must commence at farthest when the interests of the people are avowedly disregarded by their government. In numerous cases the fact may be difficult to ascertain; but in the case of America, there was no such difficulty: the wrong was ostensible; it was distinctly avowed; there was no latent evasion. It was proposed to raise an American revenue, not for the benefit of America, but for England. America was to be governed for England: this was the principle broadly put forth, and was the real ground of national complaint. Now, our main object in these remarks is to call the reader of this memoir to observe, that this can be compared with no ordinary case of the rebellion of a country against its own constituted authorities. It was the legitimate reclamation of its external government to the proper duty of every government; it was not the common case of a populace pretending to control the authority of the laws and constitutions of the land, but the case of a people who insisted on the common and indefeasible duty of their government. But to. constitute the case of the French revolution there must be a simple question between the people and their government: for this there should have been a community of rights, privileges, laws, administration and interests, between England and America: they should have been members of the same empire, and alike represented in the British parliament; and this, after all, would be only a rude approximation to the common analogy of the question between a nation and its government. But the cases may be thus definitely put-France revolted against her own constitution; America against external usurpation. A question, however, of a different kind was actually to be settled; not as in the days of James II., at what point the dereliction of the duties of a sovereign might determine the allegiance of the subject; but at what point of its progress a great country might claim a government for itself. That some such point exists, must at once be conceded; as the progress may approach and arrive at equality, or the dependent state may become superior without any supposed opposition of interests. This precise period in the scale of progress must be decided, like all human changes, by events; and the event of competent power is

enough in the universal understanding of nations. A clear infringement of the fundamental principle of government is more than our case requires: the government of England in America had been settled, like all just government, by usage-in departing from this, the question arose as to the authority. A new right was claimed; and it was of the nature of despotism, arbitrary and unlimited. We do not enter for it is unnecessary-into the special injustice proposed: it is easy to see the growing consequences of such a precedent as was thus introduced. He must have been a dull American whose fears took no alarm at finding the hand of England at his purse strings. It was plain that the moment had arrived, when one government was inadequate to two nations with opposing interests and demands; with the broad Atlantic rolling between them, and each fully requiring all the authority and deliberative weight of an entire administration.

We trust that we have said enough to convey a clear sense of the grounds of Mr Burke's conduct-what he did, and where he stopped. The habit of looking to party principles has led his opponents into error. Allowing for the actual changes of the controversy in which the colonies and the parent country were then committed, he will be seen to have kept steadily adherent to the principles of justice and sound policy; and, if his conduct appeared inconsistent, it was because his revilers and calumniators confounded the simplest distinctions.

The next year renewed a contest, which the good sense and firmness of Mr Burke's party had set at rest. The declaratory act simply arrested a dangerous question: the conduct of succeeding administrations, adopting explicitly a principle which it was the policy of the Rockingham party to suppress, and absurdly acting for no other immediate end than the establishment of a right which could not be admitted, adopted the absurd project of a taxation not more than merely nominal-a challenge to try a power. This policy implied so much that was dangerous in design, and so fully suggested all the most objectionable consequences, that it could not fail to elicit resistance. Against this Mr Burke took his determined stand. As the strife proceeded, his own judgment was also maturing by experience: it was not consistent with his principles, or with sound discretion, to anticipate the final event of the struggle; but at every step he adhered to justice.

The contest with the colonies proceeded for many years, during which Mr Burke took a conspicuous and leading part in behalf of the Americans. In 1771, his efforts, and the high character he had acquired for knowledge of American affairs, obtained for him the appointment of agent for New York. This appointment was worth £700 a-year.

Meanwhile, his activity in the house, as leader of the opposition, was maintained by frequent exertions of eloquence on a variety of questions of home politics: on these the briefest enunciations will, for the most part, be enough.

The reports of his speeches during this session are too slight and insufficient to give more than some imperfect view of the general line of argument. We have already had incidental occasion to quote him on the discussion of the power of filing ex officio informations by the attorney-general. He exerted himself with great vigour in behalf of

two bills for ascertaining the rights of electors, in February, 1771. In March, a bill framed by himself, on the powers of juries in libel prosecutions, was brought forward by Mr Dowdeswell: it is remarkable as an anticipation of the doctrine afterwards decidedly laid down, settling that the jury are judges of the law as well as of the fact. His speech, on this occasion, may be found both in the parliamentary history of England, and in his works, from which it has been copied by the compiler of the former. Mr Dowdeswell's motion was rejected by a large majority, on the grounds that the declaration it proposed was actually the law, and that it might only have the effect of unsettling the authority on which it thus stood. A few days after there was a report in the Public Advertiser of Mr Burke's speech: the reporter had in effect fallen into the very error of misunderstanding the argument so far, as to put into Mr Burke's mouth the fallacy anticipated by the opponents of the motion. This drew a long letter from him, distinctly stating his view, and explicitly declaring that "Mr Dowdeswell did not bring in an enacting bill to give to juries, as the account expresses it, a power to try law and fact in matters of libel;" but "that they shall be held competent in right and law to try the whole matter laid in the information. The bill is directing to the judges concerning the opinion in law which they are known to hold on the subject.” The fact was, that there was an uncertainty created by the effort of the judges to restrain the power of juries, and extend that of the bench. There was a difference of opinion, and in consequence much doubt. Such a consequence appears to be the proper object of a declaratory enactment. A bill to the same effect, and copied from Mr Burke, was brought in by Mr Fox at a subsequent period.

Among other discussions at this period, there appears to have been much irritation on the score of its privileges this year manifested by the house. The debates of 1771 are filled with angry debates on matters now of slight interest. One of these, nevertheless, had an important and permanent result-the liberty of publishing the debates.

Many members having from time to time complained of unfair reports of their speeches in the public journals of the day, at last, in February, 1771, colonel Onslow made a complaint of several journals, and moved that the printers should be brought to justice for infringing a standing order of the house, against printing, in newspapers, the transactions of the house of commons. The affirmative was carriedthe printers were ordered to appear. Some complied; others refused. The sergeant-at-arms was ordered to arrest the refractory printers. This failed; and, in the mean time, several more delinquencies of the same nature were similarly brought forward by Mr Onslow. A long series of motions, through the month of March, to the same purport, with various results, continued to excite the house, and irritate the public mind; until some of the persons arrested, acting, doubtless, on advice, adopted a course of defence. When taken into custody by the messenger of the house, the person so arrested instantly sent for a city constable, to whom he gave the messenger in charge. To detain his prisoner, the messenger adopted the same expedient. Both were brought before the sitting magistrate, who immediately dismissed the printer, as not being in the custody of a legal officer. The consequence was