t to tax and legislate for the
Colonies, and it was probably through this difference of sentiment that
Pitt refused to join his ministry on its formation. For six months he
made no effort to repeal the obnoxious Acts, and in fact suffered
preparations to go on for enforcing them. News however soon came from
America which made this attitude impossible. Vigorously as he had
struggled against the Acts, Franklin had seen no other course for the
Colonies, when they were passed, but that of submission. But submission
was the last thing the colonists dreamed of. Everywhere through New
England riots broke out on the news of the arrival of the stamped paper;
and the frightened collectors resigned their posts. Northern and
Southern States were drawn together by the new danger. "Virginia," it
was proudly said afterwards, "rang the alarm bell"; its assembly was the
first to formally deny the right of the British Parliament to meddle
with internal taxation, and to demand the repeal of the Acts.
Massachusetts not only adopted the denial and the demand as its own, but
proposed a Congress of delegates from all the colonial assemblies to
provide for common and united action; and in October 1765 this Congress
met to repeat the protest and petition of Virginia.

[Sidenote: Pitt and America.]

The Congress was the beginning of American union. "There ought to be no
New Englandman, no New Yorker known on this continent," said one of its
members, "but all of us Americans." The news of its assembly reached
England at the end of the year and perplexed the ministry, two of whose
members now declared themselves in favour of repealing the Acts. But
Rockingham would promise at most no more than suspension; and when the
Houses met in the spring of 1766 no voice but Shelburne's was raised in
the Peers for repeal. In the Commons however the news at once called
Pitt to the front. As a minister he had long since rejected a similar
scheme for taxing the Colonies. He had been ill and absent from
Parliament when the Stamp Act was passed. But he adopted to the full the
constitutional claim of America. He gloried in a resistance, which was
denounced in Parliament as rebellion. "In my opinion," he said, "this
kingdom has no right to lay a tax on the Colonies.... America is
obstinate! America is almost in open rebellion! Sir, I rejoice that
America has resisted. Three millions of people so dead to all the
feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be sla