Page:Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America.djvu/21

Rh in a single day. Parliament had been for a long time only partially representative of the people; it now ceased to be so almost completely.

With, the support which such methods secured, along with encouragement from his ministers, the king was prepared to put in operation his policy for regulating the affairs of America. Writs of Assistance (1761) were followed by the passage of the Stamp Act (1765). The ostensible object of both these measures was to help pay the debt incurred by the French war, but the real purpose lay deeper, and was nothing more or less than the ultimate extension of parliamentary rule, in great things as well as small, to America. At this crisis, so momentous for the colonists, the Rockingham ministry was formed, and Burke, together with Pitt, supported a motion for the unconditional repeal of the Stamp Act. After much wrangling, the motion was carried, and the first blunder of the mother country seemed to have been smoothed over.

Only a few months elapsed, however, when the question of taxing the colonies was revived. Pitt lay ill, and could take no part in the proposed measure. Through the influence of other members of his party,&mdash;notably Townshend,&mdash;a series of acts were passed, imposing duties on several exports to America. This was followed by a suspension of the New York Assembly, because it had disregarded instructions in the