ntrary, by the ministry
which composed the very Council that had made the order; and thus the
House proceeded to its business of taxing without the least regular
knowledge of the objections which were made to it. But to give that
House its due, it was not over-desirous to receive information or to
hear remonstrance. On the 15th of February, 1765, whilst the Stamp Act
was under deliberation, they refused with scorn even so much as to
receive four petitions presented from so respectable colonies as
Connecticut, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Carolina, besides one from the
traders of Jamaica. As to the colonies, they had no alternative left to
them but to disobey, or to pay the taxes imposed by that Parliament,
which was not suffered, or did not suffer itself, even to hear them
remonstrate upon the subject.

This was the state of the colonies before his Majesty thought fit to
change his ministers. It stands upon no authority of mine. It is proved
by uncontrovertible records. The honorable gentleman has desired some of
us to lay our hands upon our hearts and answer to his queries upon the
historical part of this consideration, and by his manner (as well as my
eyes could discern it) he seemed to address himself to me.

Sir, I will answer him as clearly as I am able, and with great openness:
I have nothing to conceal. In the year sixty-five, being in a very
private station, far enough from any line of business, and not having
the honor of a seat in this House, it was my fortune, unknowing and
unknown to the then ministry, by the intervention of a common friend, to
become connected with a very noble person, and at the head of the
Treasury Department. It was, indeed, in a situation of little rank and
no consequence, suitable to the mediocrity of my talents and
pretensions,--but a situation near enough to enable me to see, as well
as others, what was going on; and I did see in that noble person such
sound principles, such an enlargement of mind, such clear and sagacious
sense, and such unshaken fortitude, as have bound me, as well as others
much better than me, by an inviolable attachment to him from that time
forward. Sir, Lord Rockingham very early in that summer received a
strong representation from many weighty English merchants and
manufacturers, from governors of provinces and commanders of men-of-war,
against almost the whole of the American commercial regulations,--and
particularly with regard to the total ruin which was t