knew both the country and
people well, exclaimed vehemently, "They planted by your care! No! your
oppression planted them in America--they fled from your tyranny to
a then uncultivated and inhospitable wilderness, exposed to all the
hardships to which human nature is liable. They nourished by your
indulgence! No! they grew by your neglect of them; your care of them
was displayed, as soon as you began to take care about them, in sending
persons to rule them who were the deputies of deputies of ministers--men
whose behaviour on many occasions has caused the blood of those sons
of liberty to recoil within them--men who have been promoted to the
highest seats of justice in that country, in order to escape being
brought to the bar of justice in their own. I have been conversant with
the Americans, and I know them to be loyal indeed, but a people jealous
of their liberties, and who will vindicate them if ever they should be
violated; and let my prediction of this day be remembered, that the same
spirit of freedom which actuated that people at first will accompany
them still." The prediction of Colonel Barre was treated as emanating
from his loss of the regiment which he had commanded in America; and
the bill passed both houses without any difficulty, and it received the
royal assent by commission on the 22nd of March. It passed from a lack
of knowledge of American affairs; from an indifference to the interests
of the colonists; and from sheer cupidity. The profits which we had
derived from commerce with the Americans, and which were the ostensible
object proposed in planting the colonies, were not sufficient: if we
could obtain it, we must share in their profits likewise. But this was
a question which time only could solve; a riddle, which events must
explain.

INSTABILITY OF THE CABINET.

Ministers seemed to have carried matters with a high hand in parliament
during the previous debates, but there were nevertheless causes at work
which tended to weaken and dissolve their administration. The Americans
had already put their threats into execution concerning their abstinence
from the use of British goods, and this created great alarm among
shipowners, merchants, manufacturers, artizans, and labourers. The
complaints of the two latter classes of the community were increased
by a scarcity of bread, and the high price of provisions, which were
ascribed to the maladministration of the ministers. These popular
discontents, h