d contrary to well-established
precedent for ministers to adopt a policy already outlined by
Opposition; and in view of the facts that good Whig tradition, even
if somewhat obscured in latter days, committed them to some kind of
liberalism, that the City and the mercantile interest thought Mr.
Grenville's measures disastrous to trade, and that they were much in
need of Mr. Pitt's eloquence to carry them through, ministers at last,
in January, 1766, declared for the repeal.

Now that it was a question of repealing Mr. Grenville's measures,
serious attention was given to them; and honorable members, in the
notable debate of 1766, learned much about America and the rights of
Englishmen which they had not known before. Lord Mansfield, the most
eminent legal authority in England, argued that the Stamp Act was
clearly within the power of Parliament, while Lord Camden, whose opinion
was by no means to be despised, staked his reputation that the law was
unconstitutional. Mr. Grenville, in his precise way, laid it down
as axiomatic that since "Great Britain protects America, America is
therefore bound to yield obedience"; if not; he desired to know when
Americans were emancipated. Whereupon Mr. Pitt, springing up, desired
to know when they were made slaves. The Great Commoner rejoiced that
America had resisted, and expressed the belief that three millions of
people so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit
to be made slaves would be very fit instruments to make slaves of all
Englishmen.

Honorable members were more disposed to listen to Mr. Pitt than to vote
with him; and were doubtless less influenced by his hot eloquence than
by the representations of English merchants to the effect that trade was
being ruined by Mr. Grenville's measures. Sir George Seville, honorable
member for Yorkshire, spoke the practical mind of business men when he
wrote to Lord Rockingham: "Our trade is hurt; what the devil have you
been doing? For our part, we don't pretend to understand your politics
and American matters, but our trade is hurt: pray remedy it, and a
plague of you if you won't." This was not so eloquent as Mr. Pitt's
speech, but still very eloquent in its way and more easily followed
than Mr. Pitt's theory that "taxation is no part of the governing or
legislative power."

Constitutional arguments, evenly balanced pro and con, were not certain
to change many minds, while such brief statements as that of Sir Geor