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George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 7, 4th edition., Chapter 17: (search)
nite every branch of the opposition in one line of policy, Chatham desired a cordial junction with the Rockingham whigs. That party had only two friends who spoke in the house of lords, and in the house of commons was mouldering away. And yet Rockingham was impracticable. I look back, he said, with very real satisfaction and content, on the line which I, indeed, emphatically I, took in the year 1766; the stamp-act was repealed, and the doubt of the right of this country was fairly faced and r peril was near, and that it could be averted only by a circumscription of the absolute power of parliament. To further that end, the aged statesman paid a visit to Rockingham. At its opening, Chatham's countenance beamed with cordiality; but Rockingham had learned as little as the ministers, and with a per- Chap. XVII.} 1774. Dec. verseness equal to theirs, insisted on maintaining the declaratory act. The Americans have not called for its repeal, was his reply to all objections; and he neve
George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 7, 4th edition., Chapter 18: (search)
ors, the bar being crowded with Americans. The statesmanship of Chatham and the close reasoning of Camden, availed no more than the whistling of the winds; the motion was rejected by a vote of sixty-eight against eighteen; but the duke of Cumberland, one of the king's own brothers, was found in the minority. The king, triumphing in the very handsome majority, was sure nothing could be more calculated to bring the Americans to submission; but the debate of that day, notwithstanding that Rockingham had expressed his adherence to his old opinion of the propriety of the declaratory act, went forth to the colonies as an assurance that the inevitable war would be a war with a ministry, not with the British people. It took from the contest the character of internecine hatred, to be transmitted from generation to generation, and showed that the true spirit of England, which had grown great by freedom, was on the side of America. Its independence was foreshadowed, and three of Chat- Cha
George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 7, 4th edition., Chapter 20: (search)
y followed a chief like Grafton, or yielded his judgment to the king. Lord George Germain was fitly selected to deliver the message of the commons at the bar of the lords. There is in the address one paragraph which I totally disclaim; said Rockingham; I openly delare, I will risk neither life nor fortune in support of the measures recommended. Four-fifths of the nation are opposed to this address; for myself, I shall Chap. XX.} 1775. Feb. 7. not tread in the steps of my noble but ill-fatns went in state to the palace, and in the presence of the representatives of the great powers of Europe, presented to George the Third the sanguinary address which the two houses of parliament had jointly adopted, and which, in the judgment of Rockingham and his friends, amounted to a declaration of war. The king, in his reply, pledged himself speedily and effectually to enforce obedience to the laws and the authority of the supreme legislature. His heart was hardened. Having just heard of t
George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 7, 4th edition., Chapter 24: (search)
ould carry them. He then abused the Americans for not paying their debts, and ascribed their associations to a desire to defraud their creditors. It is memorable, that when on the twenty-first, the debate was renewed and the bill passed, both Rockingham and Shelburne, the heads of the old whigs, and the new, inserted in their protest against the act, that the people of New England are especially entitled to the fisheries. Franklin, as he heard the insinuations of Sandwich against the honestss. Full of feeling, even to passion, he observed, and reasoned, and spoke serenely. Of all men, he was a friend to peace; but the terrors of a sanguinary civil war did not confuse his perceptions or impair his decision. Neither Chatham, nor Rockingham, nor Burke, blamed Franklin for renouncing allegiance; and we shall see Fox once more claim his friendship, and Shelburne and the younger Pitt rest upon him with the confidence which he deserved. He went home to the work of independence, and,
George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 8, Chapter 48: (search)
tamp act. When a difference at court drove Grenville from office, his theory lost its importance, for no party in England or America undertook its support. The new ministers by whom his colonial policy was to be Chap. Xlviii} 1775. Aug. changed, had the option between repealing the tax as an act of justice to the colonies, or repealing it as a measure of expediency to Britain. The first was the choice of Pitt, and its adoption would have ended the controversy; the second was that of Rockingham. He abolished the tax, and sent over assurances of his friendship; but his declaratory act established as the rule for the judiciary and the law of the empire, that the legislative power of parliament reached to the colonies in all cases whatsoever. This declaration opened the whole question of the nature of representation, and foreshadowed a revolution or peaceful reform in America and in England. In 1688 the assertion of the paramount power of parliament against a king, who would have
George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 8, Chapter 51: (search)
freedom, was at this time outside of the Chap. LI.} 1775. Nov. government, though steadily gaining political strength. Chatham, while he had life in him, was its nerve. Had Grenville been living, it would have included Grenville; it retained Rockingham, Grenville's successor; it had now recovered Grafton, Chatham's successor; and Lord North, who succeeded Grafton, sided with Germain and Sandwich only by spasms, and though he loved his place, was more against his own ministry than for it. The d or endangered his system of government at home. To him it was an option between losing the brightest jewel in his crown, or losing the crown itself, in so far as it was an emblem of monarchical power. The same consideration animated Fox and Rockingham to defend American liberty as the bulwark of the rights of the British people. If a cordial reconciliation should not be speedily effected, to lose America entirely seemed to them a less evil than to hold her as a conquered country; for the ma
George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 10, The American revolution. (search)
representatives of the same favored class; and the kings awakened no counterpoising sentiment of loyalty so long as the house of Hanover, the creature of parliament, was represented by princes of foreign birth, ignorant of the laws and the language of the land. In this manner the government was conducted for a half century by the aristocracy, which, keeping in memory the days of Cromwell and of James the Second, were led into the persuasion that the party of liberty, to use the words of Rockingham, was that which fought up against the king and against the people. But by the side of the theory of absolute power concentred in parliament, which had twice been the sheet-anchor of the English constitution, there existed the older respect for the rights of the individual, and the liberties of organized communities. These two elements of British political life were brought into collision by the American revolution, which had its provocation in the theory of the omnipotence of parliamen
George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 10, Chapter 5: (search)
ry. No quarter, said the commissioner Johnstone, who in changing sides on the American question had not tamed the fury of his manner, no quarter ought to be shown to their congress; and, if the infernals could be let loose against them, I should approve of the measure. The proclamation certainly does mean a war of desolation: it can mean nothing else. Gibbon divided silently with the friends of America, who had with them the judgment, though not the vote, of the house. Three days later Rockingham denounced the accursed manifesto in the house of Chap. V.} 1778. lords, saying that since the coming of Christ war had not been conducted on such inhuman ideas. Lord Suffolk, in reply, appealed to the bench of bishops; on which the Bishop of Peterborough traced the resemblance between the proclamation and the acts of Butler at Wyoming. He added: There is an article in the extraordinaries of the army for scalping-knives. Great Britain defeats any hope in the justness of her cause by me
George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 10, Chapter 26: (search)
d the formation of a ministry till he could bring Rockingham to accept conditions, but the house of commons woaramount power of the aristocracy; its office, as Rockingham expressed it, to fight up against king and peoplelburne and the liberal wing of the supporters of Rockingham. Chap. XXVI.} 1782. March 21. Such a union Chathhurlow, Gower, and Weymouth, Camden, Grafton, and Rockingham. This Shelburne declined as absolutely impracticvereign and the good of the country he urged that Rockingham might be sent for. The king could not prevail witling in a number of principal persons, among whom Rockingham might be included; and when the many objections teasure were pointed out, he still refused to meet Rockingham face to face, and could not bring himself furtherice. Before accepting the offer of the treasury, Rockingham, not neglecting two or three minor matters, made on with America. In constructing his ministry, Rockingham wisely composed it of members from both fractions
George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 10, Chapter 27: (search)
st, which asserted the right of the parliament of Great Britain to make laws to bind the people and the kingdom of Ireland; and after reflection the ministry of Rockingham adopted and carried the measure. Appeals from the courts of law in Ireland to the British house of peers were abolished; the restraint on independent legislatiion of loyalty to their king, and their legislature voted one hundred thousand pounds sterling for the levy of twenty thousand seamen. During the ministry of Rockingham, the British house of commons for the first time since the days of Cromwell seriously considered the question of a reform in the representation of Great Britainliam Pitt, then without office, but the acknowledged heir of the principles of Chatham. The resolution of inquiry was received with ill-concealed repugnance by Rockingham. Its support by Fox was lukewarm, and bore the mark of his aristocratic connections. Edmund Burke, in his fixed opposition to reform, was almost beside himsel
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