[
457]
and Egmont concurred with him.
1 To be pre-
chap. XXIV.} 1766.
April. |
pared for the change, and in the hope of becoming, under the new administration, secretary for the colonies,
Charles Townshend assiduously courted the
Duke of
Grafton.
Pitt, on retiring to recruit the health which his unparalleled exertions in the winter had utterly subverted, made a farewell speech, his last in the House of Commons, wishing that faction might cease, and avowing his own purpose of remaining independent of any personal connections whatsoever; while the ships bore across the
Atlantic the glad news of the repeal, which he had been the first to counsel, and the ablest to defend.
The joy was, for a time, unmixed with apprehen-
sion.
South Carolina voted
Pitt a statue; and
Virginia a statue to the king, and an obelisk, on which were to be engraved the names of those who, in
England, had signalized themselves for freedom.
‘My thanks they shall have cordially,’ said
Washington, ‘for their opposition to any act of oppression.’
The consequences of enforcing the Stamp Act, he was convinced ‘would have been more direful than usually apprehended.’
Otis, at a meeting at the
Town Hall in
Boston, to fix a time for the rejoicings, told the people that the distinction between inland taxes and port duties was without foundation; for whoever had a right to impose the one, had a right to impose the other; and, therefore, as the parliament had given up the one, they had given up the other; and the merchants were fools if they submitted any longer to the laws restraining their trade, which ought to be free.