continued and enforced, and such was the wish of the king.
Both sections of Whigs were in favour of repeal, but for very different
reasons. Pitt and the New Whigs, being advocates of parliamentary
reform, came out flatly in support of the principle that there should be
no taxation without representation. Edmund Burke and the Old Whigs,
being opposed to parliamentary reform and in favour of keeping things
just as they were, could not adopt such an argument; and accordingly
they based their condemnation of the Stamp Act upon grounds of pure
expediency. They argued that it was not worth while, for the sake of a
little increase of revenue, to irritate three million people and run the
risk of getting drawn into a situation from which there would be no
escape except in either retreating or fighting. There was much practical
wisdom in this Old Whig argument, and it was the one which prevailed
when Parliament repealed the Stamp Act and expressly stated that it did
so only on grounds of expediency.

[Sidenote: Why George III. was ready to pick a quarrel with the
Americans.]

There was one person, however, who was far from satisfied with this
result, and that was George III. He was opposed to parliamentary reform
for much the same reason that the Old Whigs were opposed to it, because
he felt that it threatened him with political ruin. The Old Whigs needed
the rotten boroughs in order to maintain their own control over
Parliament and the country. The king needed them because he felt himself
able to wrest them from the Old Whigs by intrigue and corruption, and
thus hoped to build up his own power. He believed, with good reason,
that the suppression of the rotten boroughs and the granting of fair and
equal representation would soon put a stronger curb upon the crown than
ever. Accordingly there were no men whom he dreaded and wished to put
down so much as the New Whigs; and he felt that in the repeal of the
Stamp Act, no matter on what ground, they had come altogether too near
winning a victory. He felt that this outrageous doctrine that people
must not be taxed except by their representatives needed to be sternly
rebuked, and thus he found himself in the right sort of temper for
picking a fresh quarrel with the Americans.

[Sidenote: Charles Townshend and his revenue acts, 1767.]

[Sidenote: Lord North.]

An occasion soon presented itself. One of the king's devices for
breaking down the system of cabinet govern