se the
duties on sugar, teas, and foreign goods from 5 to 15 per cent.
encountered an earnest but unavailing opposition. This bill was still
more obnoxious from a clause, afterwards abandoned, to levy the duty on
the current value of goods at the market of consumption, instead of
export--a mode which taxed all the expenses of shipment. Mr. Gregson
proposed the rejection of an impost required only by the extraordinary
pressure of convictism. Several of the non-official members voted with
the governor for the last time.

A committee of the council had been appointed to ascertain how the
expenditure could be reduced and the revenue augmented. They enumerated
various forms in which further taxation might be practicable. These were
proposed by the governor. Auctioneers, pawnbrokers, publicans, butchers,
eating-house keepers, stage-coach and steam-boat proprietors, cabmen,
and watermen, were to be subject to new or increased license fees.

This project aroused the people to an unusual degree. On the day of
public meeting[235] a procession of cabs and waggons, decorated with
flags bearing the inscription, "No taxation without representation,"
presented a novelty in colonial agitation. Mr. Kemp, the veteran
politician, presided. The opposition prevailed, and the governor
resolved to withdraw the obnoxious measure. It would be difficult to
discern a line beyond which taxation might not pass, if every trade and
profession can be subject to arbitrary imposts levied by a legislature
at the mere dictation of the crown.

Referring to this meeting as a triumph which history would report to the
latest posterity, the _Courier_ added--"Rulers will henceforth recoil
from the virtuous indignation of the people, as the reptile recoiled
from the touch of Ithuriel's spear." It was supposed by Wilmot that this
not very lucid prediction conveyed a gross and personal insult, and that
it attributed to him the artifices and loathsome habits of the fiend.
The private secretary was instructed to withdraw the subscription of the
governor, and to explain the cause of his displeasure. Such petulance
took the colony by surprise. A less experienced politician might have
been expected to disregard a heavier censure; and this conflict with a
local editor was noticed by the London press as a curious instance of
official sensibility.

The sheriff refused to call a meeting to consider the condition of the
colony, because one of the objects was to notice t