made it a charge
against the minister that he had increased rather than diminished the
evil of sinecures--"It had been written in pamphlets that 400,000
pounds a year was dealt out in pensions"; from which charge the able
Chancellor, on the occasion of opening his first budget in the House of
Commons, the 9th of March, 1764, defended himself by denying that the
sums were "so great as alleged." It was scarcely an adequate defense;
but the truth is that Grenville was sure to be less distressed by a
bad custom, no law forbidding, than by a law, good or bad, not strictly
enforced, particularly if the law was intended to bring in a revenue.

Instinctively, therefore, the minister turned to America, where it was
a notorious fact that there were revenue laws that had not been enforced
these many years. Mr. Grenville, we may suppose, since it was charged
against him in a famous epigram, read the American dispatches with
considerable care, so that it is quite possible he may have chanced
to see and to shake his head over the sworn statement of Mr. Sampson
Toovey, a statement which throws much light upon colonial liberties and
the practices of English officials in those days:

"I, Sampson Toovey [so the statement runs], Clerk to James Cockle, Esq.,
Collector of His Majesty's Customs for the Port of Salem, do declare on
oath, that ever since I have been in the office, it hath been customary
for said Cockle to receive of the masters of vessels entering from
Lisbon, casks of wine, boxes of fruit, etc., which was a gratuity for
suffering their vessels to be entered with salt or ballast only, and
passing over unnoticed such cargoes of wine, fruit, etc., which are
prohibited to be imported into His Majesty's Plantations. Part of which
wine, fruit, etc., the said James Cockle used to share with Governor
Bernard. And I further declare that I used to be the negotiator of
this business, and receive the wine, fruit, etc., and dispose of them
agreeable to Mr. Cockle's orders. Witness my hand. Sampson Toovey."

The curious historian would like much to know, in case Mr. Grenville did
see the declaration of Sampson Toovey, whether he saw also a letter
in which Governor Bernard gave it as his opinion that if the colonial
governments were to be refashioned it should be on a new plan, since
"there is no system in North America fit to be made a module of."

Secretary Grenville, whether or not he ever saw this letter from
Governor Bernard, was fa