nd by 1768 were
prepared to use the American question as a convenient weapon to
discredit the Ministry. They were quite as aristocratic in temper as
the ministerial party, but advocated forbearance, conciliation, and
calmness in dealing with the Americans, in speeches as remarkable for
their political good sense as for their ferocity toward North,
Hillsborough, and the rest. While the Ministry drew its views of the
American situation from royal governors and officials, the Whigs
habitually consulted with Franklin and the other colonial agents, who
occupied a quasi-diplomatic position. Thus the American question
became a partisan battleground. The Tories, attacked by the Whigs,
developed a stubborn obstinacy in holding to a "firm" colonial policy,
and exhibited a steady contempt and anger toward their American
adversaries which was in no small degree due to the English party
antagonism.

Still further to confuse the situation, there occurred at this time the
contest of John Wilkes, backed by the London mob, against the Grafton
Ministry. This demagogue, able {45} and profligate, had already come
into conflict with the Grenville Ministry in 1765, and had been driven
into exile. Now, in 1768, he returned and was repeatedly elected to
the Commons, and as often unseated by the vindictive ministerial
majority. Riots and bloodshed accompanied the agitation; and Wilkes
and his supporters, backed by the parliamentary Whigs, habitually
proclaimed the same doctrines of natural rights which were universally
asserted in America. To the King and his Cabinet, Wilkes and the
American leaders appeared indistinguishable. They were all brawling,
disorderly, and dangerous demagogues, deserving of no consideration.

Under these circumstances, the complaints of the colonists, although
supported by the Whigs and by Chatham, received scant courtesy in
England. The Grafton Ministry showed nothing but an irritated
intention to maintain imperial supremacy by insisting on the taxes and
demanding submissiveness on the part of the assemblies. A series of
"firm" instructions was sent out by Hillsborough, typical of which was
an order that the Massachusetts legislature must rescind its circular
letter of protest under threat of dissolution, and that the other
assemblies must repudiate the letter under a similar menace. The sole
result was a series of embittered wrangles, dissolutions, protests,
{46} and quarrels which left the colonists s