oon seen in the tone of the
Parliament. Till now it had bowed beneath the greatness of Pitt; but in
the teeth of his denunciation the provisions of the Peace of Paris were
approved by a majority of five to one. It was seen still more in the
vigour with which George and his minister prepared to carry out the
plans over which they had brooded for the regulation of America. The
American question was indeed forced on them, as they pleaded, by the
state of the revenue. Pitt had waged war with characteristic profusion,
and he had defrayed the cost of the war by enormous loans. The public
debt now stood at a hundred and forty millions. The first need therefore
which met Bute after the conclusion of the Peace of Paris was that of
making provision for the new burthens which the nation had incurred,
and as these had been partly incurred in the defence of the American
Colonies it was the general opinion of Englishmen that the Colonies
should bear a share of them. In this opinion Bute and the king
concurred. But their plans went further than mere taxation. The amount
indeed which was expected to be raised as revenue by these changes, at
most two hundred thousand pounds, was far too small to give much relief
to the financial pressure at home. But this revenue furnished an easy
pretext for wider changes. Plans for the regulation of the government of
the Colonies had been suggested from time to time by subordinate
ministers, but they had been set aside alike by the prudence of Walpole
and the generosity of Pitt. The appointment of Charles Townshend to the
Presidency of the Board of Trade however was a sign that Bute had
adopted a policy not only of taxation, but of restraint. The new
minister declared himself resolved on a rigorous execution of the
Navigation laws, laws by which a monopoly of American trade was secured
to the mother country, on the raising of a revenue within the Colonies
for the discharge of the debt, and above all on impressing upon the
colonists a sense of their dependence upon Britain. The direct trade
between America and the French or Spanish West Indian Islands had
hitherto been fettered by prohibitory duties, but these had been easily
evaded by a general system of smuggling. The duties were now reduced,
but the reduced duties were rigorously exacted, and a considerable naval
force was despatched to the American coast by Grenville, who stood at
the head of the Admiralty Board, with a view of suppressing the
cland