George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 5, 13th edition.

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Chapter 10:

How America received the plan of a Stamp tax.—Grenville's administration continued.

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April—December, 1764.

No sooner was parliament up, than Jenkinson pressed

chap. X.} 1764. April.

on Grenville to forward the American stamp-act, by seeking that further information, the want of which he had assigned as a reason for not going on with it. But the treasury had no mode of direct communication with the colonies, and the Secretary of State had no mind to consult them. For the moment nothing was done, though Jackson wrote to Hutchinson of Massachusetts for his opinion on the rights of the colonists and the late proceedings respecting them. Meantime the officers of France, as they made their last journey through Canada, and down the valley of the Mississippi, as they gazed on the magnificence of the country, and on every side received the expressions of passionate attachment from the many tribes of red men, cast a wistful and lingering look upon the empire which they were ceding.¹ But Choiseul himself saw futurity better. He who would