tainted, was
to leave it no juices at all." They assailed the injustice that
refused {88} to recognize as legal tender any paper bills of credit
issued by the colonies. Politicians, guided by the intelligence and
the inspiration of Burke, applauded the Americans for their firmness in
resolving to subsist to the utmost of their power upon their own
productions and manufactures. They urged that it could not be expected
that the colonists, merely out of a compliment to the mother country,
should submit to perish for thirst with water in their own wells. And
these clear-sighted politicians saw plainly enough that such blows as
the Government were aiming at America must in the end recoil upon Great
Britain herself. They appreciated the injury that must be done to
British commerce by even a temporary interruption of the intercourse
between the two countries. But bad as the restrictive measures were in
their immediate, as well as in their ultimate consequences, worse
remained behind. The proposed Stamp Act scarcely shocked Otis or Adams
more directly and cruelly than it shocked the soundest and sanest
thinkers on the other side of the Atlantic. Words which certainly
expressed the thoughts of Burke declared that the approval, even with
opposition, given to such a measure as the Stamp Act, the bare proposal
of which had given so much offence, argued such a want of reflection as
could scarcely be paralleled in the public councils of any country.

The King's speech at the opening of Parliament on January 10, 1765,
gave unmistakable evidence of the temper of the monarch and of the
Ministry. It formally expressed its reliance on the wisdom and
firmness of Parliament in promoting the proper respect and obedience
due to the legislative authority of Great Britain. The Government was
resolved to be what it considered firm, and it undoubtedly believed
that a proper show of firmness would easily overbear any opposition
that the colonists might make to the proposed measure. The Stamp Act
was introduced, the Stamp Act was debated upon; in due time the Stamp
Act passed through both Houses, and in consequence of the ill health of
the King received the royal assent by commission on March 28, 1765.
The first foolish challenge to American loyalty was formally made, and
{89} America was not slow to accept it. It may be admitted that in
itself the Stamp Act was not a conspicuously unfair or even a
conspicuously unreasonable measure. I