penetrating judgment"; never a man to excel him in
"luminous explanation and display of his subject," nor ever one less
tedious or better able to conform himself exactly to the temper of the
House which he seemed to guide because he was always sure to follow it.
In 1765 Mr. Townshend had voted for the Stamp Act, but in 1766, when the
Stamp Act began to be no favorite, he voted for the repeal, and would
have spoken for it too, if an illness had not prevented him. And now,
in 1767, Mr. Townshend was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and as such
responsible for the revenue; a man without any of that temperamental
obstinacy which persists in opinions once formed, and without any fixed
opinions to persist in; but quite disposed, according to habit, to
"hit the House just between wind and water," and to win its applause by
speaking for the majority, or by "haranguing inimitably on both sides"
when the majority was somewhat uncertain.

In January, 1767, when Lord Chatham was absent and the majority was
very uncertain, Mr. Grenville took occasion, in the debate upon the
extraordinaries for the army in England and America, to move that
America, like Ireland, should support its own establishment. The
opportunity was one which Mr. Townshend could not let pass. Much to the
astonishment of every one and most of all to that of his colleagues in
the ministry, he supported Mr. Grenville's resolution, declaring himself
now in favor of the Stamp Act which he had voted to repeal, treating
"Lord Chatham's distinction between internal and external taxation as
contemptuously as Mr. Grenville had done," and pledging himself able, if
necessary, to find a revenue in America nearly adequate to the proposed
project. The Earl of Shelburne, in great distress of mind, at once wrote
to Lord Chatham, relating the strange if characteristic conduct of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, and declaring himself entirely ignorant of
the intentions of his colleagues. It was indeed an anomalous situation.
If Lord Chatham's policies were still to be considered those of
the ministry, Mr. Townshend might be said to be in opposition, a
circumstance which made "many people think Lord Chatham ill at St.
James's" only.

Lord Chatham was not ill at St. James's. He was most likely very well
at St. James's, being unable to appear there, thus leaving the divided
ministry amenable to the King's management or helpless before a factious
Opposition. The opportunity of the Opposit