strances to the Sovereign: City appointments of the most lucrative kind would have been the sure rewards of sedition and disloyalty, arrayed in all the charms of wit and eloquence.

The steady and powerful friend of rational liberty, Burke was the determined enemy of court corruption and of democratical licentiousness; directing his efforts against the one or the other, as it happened at the time to require resistance. It was his uniform opinion, that eastern riches were producing a most important and hurtful change in the manners and morals of Britain; an opinion that became stronger and stronger, as instances multiplied, and his experience increased.

Although the act respecting India supervisions passed by a considerable majority in parliament, it excited great clamours among many of the proprietors. All parties, indeed, admitted that the Company was involved in pe cuniary difficulties; yet many said they were only temporary; and that the restraint, imposed on them by the new act, was merely to pro. mote ministerial purposes. The Ministry, how. ever, proceeded to make many other regulations, as remedies to the alledged disorders of their finances. Burke joined his eloquence to the precision and legal knowledge of Dunning, and the commercial information of Johnstone, in vigorously opposing the principle of the regulations, and many of the details. One law

Z

empowered the Company to export their teas, duty free, wherever they could find a market. The avowed object of this resolution was to give relief to the India Company it was, besides, the intention of Ministry to increase the import revenue from America.

There was this great difference between Lord North and Burke, that Lord North could perceive one class of objects and interests separately, but seldom attended to their relation to other classes of objects and their interests, and the probable effect to the nation in general. Burke thoroughly comprehending the separate interests of different members of the state, grasped the whole in his mind, and considered measures immediately affecting one part, not only in their relation to that one part, but to all the parts and to the whole. Lord North considered the India Company and revenue only Burke the interests of the whole empire. He perceived that the Americans would see the intention of the drawback on exported tea, would persist in their associations to resist its importation, although lowered in price; because their objection was not to the price but to the principle. He foretold that this new resolution would bring the disputes to a crisis: and that Britain must either entirely abandon the duty or enforce taxation. From this alternative, he predict ed that commercial and political evils would

arise, which would altogether overbalance the partial advantage to the revenue and to Indian commerce. Partial and temporary expedients are more adequate to the capacity of the majority of mankind, than great and comprehensive counsels. Lord North's proposition was adopted. The India Company sent out three ships for Boston, laden with tea.

The Bostonians, on hearing of this cargo and its destination, renewed the associations into which they, in common with other colonies, had entered. The populace tumultuously surrounded the houses of the consignees of the tea, to frighten them from acting. Whenthe ships arrived, a meeting was held by the Bostonians and the inhabitants of the neighbouring towns, at which it was determined that the ships, with their cargoes, should be sent back. Notice of this resolution was given to the Company's agents. Meanwhile, difficulties arose about sending off ships. A clearance from the Custom-house could not be obtained; they could not pass a fort that commanded the mouth of the harbour, without the permission of the Governor, which he refused. On this the meeting was dissolved, and there was a general cry of "a mob! a mob!" A number of armed men, disguised as Indians, boarded the ships, and threw the cargoes into the sea.

*

See Stedman's History of the American War, vol. i. p. 87.

When the news of this outrage was brought to England, it was communicated to Parliament by a message from the King. Two things were alledged by Ministers as necessary to be insisted on --satisfaction to the India Company for the injury they had sustained, and to the honour of the British nation for the insult it had received. For these purposes a bill was proposed, to shut up the port of Boston, except for stores for his Majesty's service, and the necessaries of life for the inhabitants, until peace and good order should be restored, and satisfaction made to the sufferers.

The bill, in its progress through the House of Commons, met with very able and animated opposition, especially from Mr. Dempster, Governor Johnstone, Colonel Barrè, and, most of all, from Burke.

His speech on this occasion, independent of its reasoning, in relation to the Boston-port bill, may be considered as a history of the dis. putes between England and the colonies previous to the irreconcileable quarrel. He contended that, if the punishment was for resistance, all the northern provinces were equally repugnant to the authority of parliament: that if the punishment was merited on account of disaffection, all these provinces were equally disaffected if the punishment was intended merely on account of the outrage, there was no evidence that all the Bostonians were con

cerned. Why then should they be ALL implicated in the punishment? Time should be allowed for finding out the guilty, instead of hurrying the bill through 'parliament. The law was inexpedient, as our own trade must suffer, and not only by preclusion from Boston; but that other colonies were equally inimical to the tea duty as Massachuset, and had discontinued, or at least diminished, their trade with Britain. In answer to that part which denied the justice of punishing a whole city for the act of certain inhabitants, Lord North alledged the analogy of the law of England, which ordained that a whole district should indemnify a person robbed within its precincts, because its police, if vigilant and active, might have prevented the crime. He adduced also the case of the city of Edinburgh, the whole inhabitants of which had been fined for the riot of a part, in the case of Porteus. * Burke shewed the diversity of the cases of Boston and Edinburgh.

From his speeches, the following statement of difference was drawn, and transcribed into the periodical publications of the time.

* As some readers may not recollect this case, although very noted, I shall mention it in a few words. A riot having taken place in Edinburgh, in 1736, at the execution of a smuggler, the military were called in. Porteus, their Captain, ordered them to fire before the hour was expired. Some persons were killed. Porteus was tried and condemned for murder, but pardoned. A mob, incensed at this pardon, seized Porteus, and hanged him.