Chap. Xxviii} 1767. Feb. |
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place Hutchinson at the head of its boundary Com-
mission.1
The Billeting Act for America, which the Rockingham Ministry had continued for two years, so that it would not of itself expire till the twenty-fourth of March, 1768, constituted the immediate difficulty.
It was contrary to the whole tenor of British legislation for Ireland, and to all former legislation for America.
Shelburne disapproved its principle, and, corresponding with the Secretary at War, sought to reconcile the wants of the army with the rights of America; being resolved ‘not to establish a precedent, which might hereafter be turned to purposes of oppression.’2
The American Continent was interested in the settlement of Canadian affairs; Shelburne listened to the hope of establishing perfect tranquillity, by calling an Assembly that should assimilate to the English laws such of the French laws as it was necessary to retain, and by rendering the Canadian Catholics eligible to the Assembly3 and Council.
But the more Shelburne showed his good disposition towards America, the more the Court spoke of him as ‘an enemy.’4 The King had long been persuaded5
1 Shelburne to Bernard, 11 Dec. 1766; Bernard to Shelburne, 28 Feb. 1767; Same to Same, 23 March, 1767, and very many letters.
2 Shelburne to Chatham, 6 Feb. 1767, and 16 Feb. 1767; Chat. Corr. III. 193, 208, 209. Compare the paper indorsed, ‘Remarks on the Present State of America, April, 1767, from Mr. Morgan.’ Lansdowne House Mss. ‘There are strong reasons against the principles of this Act,’ &c. Morgan condemns the Act utterly. ‘There is no bottom to the impropriety of enacting that those Assemblies should enact.’
3 Paper in Lansdowne House marked, Lord Shelburne to the Board of Trade on the Appointment of an Assembly, and other things necessary to the Settlement of Canada: indorsed, Relative to the Present State of Quebec, 17 May, 1767. The paper seems to have been drafted by an Under Secretary for Lord Shelburne's consideration; perhaps by L. Macleane.
5 Compare
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1859.
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