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

[101] wishes and his demands, that he seemed even disin-

Chap XXX.} 1767. Sept.

terested. His judgment was clear and his perceptions quick; but his power of will was feeble; a weakness which only endeared him the more to his royal master, making his presence soothing, not by arts of flattery, but by the qualities of his nature. He took a leading part in the conduct of affairs, just as the people of America were discussing the character of the new Revenue Act, which the King had not suggested; which no living member of the cabinet would own; which Grafton, the Prime Minister, described as ‘absurd;’ but which was left as the fatal bequest of Charles Townshend to his successors and his country.¹

The new taxes were not to be collected till the twentieth of November; and should the Sons of Liberty effect a universal agreement to send for no more goods from Britain, no customs would, even then, fall due. ‘But such a confederacy,’ said Bernard,² ‘will be impracticable without violence;’ and he advised a regiment of soldiers as the surest way of ‘inspiring notions of acquiescence and submission.’ ‘Ships of war and a regiment,’ said Paxton in England,³ ‘are needed to ensure tranquillity.’

Never was a community more distressed or

Oct.

divided by fear and hope, than that of Boston. There the American Board of the Commissioners of the Customs was to be established; and to that town the continent was looking for an example. Rash