nner and form of the Union, their weak noddles are
perfectly distracted."

Noddles of ministers, however, were in no way distracted but saw clearly
that, if Americans could not agree on any plan of defense, there was no
alternative but "an interposition of the authority of Parliament." Such
interposition, recommended by the Board of Trade and already proposed
by Charles Townshend in the last ministry, was now taken in hand by
Grenville. The troops were to remain in America; the Mutiny Act, which
required soldiers in barracks to be furnished with provisions and
utensils by local authorities, and which as a matter of course went
where the army went, was supplemented by the Quartering Act, which
made further provision for the billeting and supplying of the troops
in America. And for raising some part of the general maintenance fund
ministers could think of no tax more equitable, or easier to be levied
and collected, than a stamp tax. Some such tax, stamp tax or poll tax,
had often been recommended by colonial governors, as a means of bringing
the colonies "to a sense of their duty to the King, to awaken them to
take care of their lives and their fortunes." A crown officer in North
Carolina, Mr. M'Culloh, was good enough to assure Mr. Charles Jenkinson,
one of the Secretaries of the Treasury, backing up his assertion
with sundry statistical exhibits, that a stamp tax on the continental
colonies would easily yield 60,000 pounds, and twice that sum if
extended to the West Indies. As early as September 23, 1763, Mr.
Jenkinson, acting on an authorization of the Treasury Board, accordingly
wrote to the Commissioners of Stamped Duties, directing them "to
prepare, for their Lordships' consideration, a draft of an act for
imposing proper stamp duties on His Majesty's subjects in America and
the West Indies."

Mr. Grenville, who was not in any case the man to do things in a hurry,
nevertheless proceeded very leisurely in the matter. He knew very well
that Pitt had refused to "burn his fingers" with any stamp tax; and
some men, such as his friend and secretary, Mr. Jackson, for example,
and the Earl of Hillsborough, advised him to abandon the project
altogether, while others urged delay at least, in order that Americans
might have an opportunity to present their objections, if they had
any. It was decided therefore to postpone the matter for a year; and in
presenting the budget on March 9, 1764, the first minister merely gave
notic