chap. IX.} 1764. April. |
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New England, but the mother country, reasoned
Grenville, feels herself benefited by the welfare of every particular colony; and the colonies must much more contribute interchangeably to the advantage of each other.
Such was the system of regulations for the colonies, prepared under the direction of Grenville, with minute and indefatigable care.
It was after these preparations, that on the memorable ninth day of March, 1764, George Grenville made his first appearance in the House of Commons as Chancellor of the Exchequer, to unfold the budget.
He did it with art and ability.1 He boasted that the revenue was managed with more frugality than in the preceding reign.
He explained his method of funding the debt.
He received great praise for having reduced the demands from Germany.
The whole sum of these claims amounted to nearly nine millions of pounds, and were settled for about thirteen hundred thousand pounds. The demands from the Landgrave of Hesse still exceeded seventeen hundred thousand pounds, and he was put off with a payment of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. The taxes of Great Britain exceeded, by three millions of pounds, what they were in 1754, before the war; yet the present object was only to make the colonies maintain their own army.
Till the last war, they had never contributed to the support of an army at all. Besides the taxes on trade, which were immediately to be imposed, Grenville gave notice in the house,2 that it was his
1 Walpole's Memoirs of George III. i, 389. Thomas Whately's Considerations.
2 ‘Mr. Grenville gave notice to the house, that it was his intention in the next session, to bring in a bill imposing stamp-duties in America, and the reasons for giving such notice were, because he understood some people entertained doubts of the power of parliament to impose internal taxes in the colonies; and because that although of all the schemes which had fallen under his consideration, he thought a stamp-act was the best; he was not so wedded to it as not to give it up for any one that might appear more eligible; or if the colonies themselves thought any other mode would be more expedient, he should have no objection to come into it.’ Letter of Garth, Agent of South Carolina, a member of parliament to South Carolina.
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1860.
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