tervention to save them from
ruin.

Early in 1770, an important change took place in the British cabinet.
The Duke of Grafton suddenly resigned, and the reins of government
passed into the hands of Lord North. He was a man of limited capacity,
but a favorite of the king, and subservient to his narrow colonial
policy. His administration, so eventful to America, commenced with an
error. In the month of March an act was passed, revoking all the
duties laid in 1767, _excepting that on tea_. This single tax was
continued, as he observed, "to maintain the parliamentary right of
taxation,"--the very right which was the grand object of contest. Here
was the stumbling-block at the threshold of Lord North's
administration. In vain the members of the opposition urged that this
single exception, while it would produce no revenue, would keep alive
the whole cause of contention; that so long as a single external duty
was enforced, the colonies would consider their rights invaded, and
would remain unappeased. Lord North was not to be convinced. On the
very day in which this ominous bill was passed in Parliament, a
sinister occurrence took place in Boston. Some of the young men of the
place insulted the military while under arms; the latter resented it;
the young men, after a scuffle, were put to flight, and pursued. The
alarm bells rang, a mob assembled; the custom-house was threatened;
the troops, in protecting it, were assailed with clubs and stones, and
obliged to use their fire-arms before the tumult could be quelled.
Four of the populace were killed, and several wounded. The troops were
now removed from the town, which remained in the highest state of
exasperation; and this untoward occurrence received the opprobrious
and somewhat extravagant name of "the Boston massacre."

In Virginia the public discontents, which had been allayed by the
conciliatory conduct of Lord Botetourt, and by his assurances, made on
the strength of letters received from the ministry, that the
grievances complained of would be speedily redressed, now broke out
with more violence than ever. The Virginians spurned the mock-remedy
which left the real cause of complaint untouched. His lordship also
felt deeply wounded by the disingenuousness of ministers which had led
him into such a predicament, and wrote home demanding his discharge.
Before it arrived, an attack of bilious fever, acting upon a delicate
and sensitive frame, enfeebled by anxiety and chagrin