George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 6, 10th edition.

[353] will open trade. There is an impossibility of their

Chap. XLIV.} 1770. March

manufacturing to supply any considerable part of their wants. If they should attempt it and be likely to succeed, it is in our power to make laws, and so to check the manufactures in America for many years to come. This method I will try, before I will give up my right. Gentlemen talk of the harsh measures pursued by this country towards America. Every session has produced some mark of affection towards her; bounty after bounty; importation of flax; permission to export rice. We are treated as hard task-masters, because we will not give up an undoubted right of the Legislature.

Thomas Pownall moved the repeal of the duty on tea also. The House of Commons, like Lord North in his heart,¹ was disposed to do the work of conciliation thoroughly. It was known that Grenville would not give an adverse vote.² ‘It is the sober opinion of the Americans,’ said Mackay, fresh from the military Command in Boston, ‘that you have no right to tax them. When beaten out of every argument, they adduce the authority of the first man of the law, and the first man of the State.’ Grenville assumed fully the responsibility of the Stamp Act; but he revealed to the House that the measure of taxing America had been the wish of the King. On the present occasion, had the King's friends remained neutral, the duty on tea would have been repealed; with all their exertions, in a full House, the majority for retaining it was but sixty-two.³ Lord