ince of Boston alone.
Associations against British commerce were organized to such an extent,
that the exports to America were found to fall short of those in the
preceding year by L740,000, and the revenue derived from that country
was reduced from L701,000 to L30,000. In this the Americans were aided
by other countries, who sent them their manufactures in great abundance,
so that the narrow views of ministers not only destroyed the resources
of Great Britain, but tended to enrich its commercial and political
rivals. This greatly alarmed the English merchants, and Lord
Hillsborough thought proper to issue a circular letter to the colonies,
stating that his majesty's ministers intended, during the next session,
to take off the duties upon glass, paper, and painters' colours, they
having been enacted contrary to the true principles of commerce. No
mention, however, was made of the duty upon tea, and the Americans
looked upon this omission as having been purposely and invidiously
made, as a mark of the legislative supremacy of Great Britain. Nothing,
moreover, was said about repealing the odious clauses in the Mutiny
Act, and the colonists likewise complained that the circular spoke
of commercial expediency, and not of the right which they claimed of
imposing taxes upon the colonies by their own act alone In truth, if
this circular was intended to conciliate the inhabitants of British
America, it was a total failure. The universal mind was too much
irritated to be soothed by such an impotent palliative.

MEETING OF PARLIAMENT.

{A.D. 1770}

Although America was almost in a state of open rebellion, and England
itself, with Ireland, were rent with faction, yet the parliament did not
assemble till the 9th of January. This delay naturally excited surprise,
and this was still further heightened by the tenor of the king's speech.
Taking no notice of the public discontents, though it feelingly lamented
the general distress, it chiefly adverted to a general distemper which
had broken out among the horned cattle, which the king gravely assured
the lords and commons, he had, by the advice of his privy-council,
endeavoured to check. And this was solemnly uttered when wits and
scoffers abounded on every hand--when Junius had his pen in his hand
full fraught with gall, and Wilkes was bandying about his bon-mots and
sarcasms. "While the whole kingdom," says Junius, in a letter to the
Duke of Grafton, "was agitated with anxious