when the act was under consideration. Far from anything
inflammatory, I never heard a more languid debate in this House. No more
than two or three gentlemen, as I remember, spoke against the act, and
that with great reserve and remarkable temper. There was but one
division in the whole progress of the bill; and the minority did not
reach to more than 39 or 40. In the House of Lords I do not recollect
that there was any debate or division at all. I am sure there was no
protest. In fact, the affair passed with so very, very little noise,
that in town they scarcely knew the nature of what you were doing. The
opposition to the bill in England never could have done this mischief,
because there scarcely ever was less of opposition to a bill of
consequence.

Sir, the agents and distributors of falsehoods have, with their usual
industry, circulated another lie, of the same nature with the former. It
is this: that the disturbances arose from the account which had been
received in America of the change in the ministry. No longer awed, it
seems, with the spirit of the former rulers, they thought themselves a
match for what our calumniators choose to qualify by the name of so
feeble a ministry as succeeded. Feeble in one sense these men certainly
may be called: for, with all their efforts, and they have made many,
they have not been able to resist the distempered vigor and insane
alacrity with which you are rushing to your ruin. But it does so happen,
that the falsity of this circulation is (like the rest) demonstrated by
indisputable dates and records.

So little was the change known in America, that the letters of your
governors, giving an account of these disturbances long after they had
arrived at their highest pitch, were all directed to the _old ministry_,
and particularly to the _Earl of Halifax_, the Secretary of State
corresponding with the colonies, without once in the smallest degree
intimating the slightest suspicion of any ministerial revolution
whatsoever. The ministry was not changed in England until the 10th day
of July, 1765. On the 14th of the preceding June, Governor Fauquier,
from Virginia, writes thus,--and writes thus to the Earl of
Halifax:--"Government is set at _defiance_, not having strength enough
in her hands to enforce obedience to the laws of the community.--The
private distress, which every man feels, increases the _general
dissatisfaction_ at the duties laid by the _Stamp Act_, which breaks out
an