eloquence as excited the admiration of the house, and drew very high praise from its most distinguished member, Mr. Pitt.

The chief object which engaged the attention of the Rockingham Administration was America. The sentiments of opposite parties rendered their situation extremely delicate and difficult. On the one hand, the Grenville party, the devisers of taxation, and the framers of the stamp-act, insisted on coercive measures: on the other, Mr. Pitt and his adherents on a disavowal of the right of taxing America. Lord Rockingham consulted with Burke, whose advice was,

to chuse a middle course between the opposite extremes: neither to precipitate affairs with the colonists, by rash counsels; nor to sacrifice the dignity of the crown and nation, by irrésolution or weakness. A plan was formed consonant to this opinion. To gratify the Americans, the stamp-act was repealed: to vindicate the honour of Britain, a law was passed declaring her right to legislate for America in taxation and every

other case; and censuring the violence of the colonial opposition.

An attempt to satisfy two parties of totally contrary views, by not deciding the point at issue, is rarely either the offspring of wisdom or the parent of success. Such temporizing indecision generally dissatisfies both parties, and keeps the differences alive. The stampact had been opposed in America, not as inexpedient, but as unjust. They had not pretended they could not pay the impost, but that the imposers had no right to tax. Either the stamp-act was a grievance, or was not: if a grievance, the redress did not apply to the subject of complaint; if not a grievance, why offer redress? If the objections of the colonies were groundless, it would have been just in Parliament to disregard them; and wise or unwise, according to the value of the object, means of coercion, and probable result. If the right was ascertained, and we thought coercion prudent, the repeal would be absurd; if not, the declaration of right would be a mere impotent bravado. If

the complaints of America were well grounded, then it would have been just and wise to renounce the exercise of an unjust power. Here was the maintenance of an obnoxious speculative principle, with the abandonment of practical benefit, for which only it could deserve support. The declaratory law tended to counteract, in America, the effect of the repeal. The measures of the Rockingham Administration were esteemed the result of good intentions, but of feeble and shortsighted policy.

These measures, recommended and supported by Burke, I cannot, consistently with impartiality, praise, as manifestations of either great political wisdom or vigour. His plan, at this his outset, was founded more upon speculative distinctions and barren generalities, than afterwards, when his great powers were, by experience, matured in the contemplation of affairs. I must confess, I think that bis sequestered exertions, as a man of genius, literature, and philosophy, could have produced much greater benefit

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to society, in the same period, than his political efforts during the Rockingham Administration.

The repeal of the stamp-act, and the declaratory law, were proposed and passed.

The Rockingham Ministry, though supported by the extraordinary genius and acquirements of Burke, were deficient in political experience and vigour; qualities much more efficacious in the conduct of affairs, than, without them, the highest intellectual superiority. It must, however, be allowed, that they proposed several popular, and some good laws. These Burke supported with all the powers of his eloquence. The cideract, was repealed: so that the jurisdiction of the excise was contracted, and great satisfaction afforded to those who considered the excise laws as dangerous to constitutional liberty; an opinion much more conformable to the ideas of those who discussed their probable consequences in theory, than to the experience of those who contemplated the

actual effects.

Resolutions were passed

against general warrants, and the seizure of papers. Several regulations were made, favourable to commerce. Still, however, the Ministers were deemed unqualified for conducting the business of Government. Their dismission from office was accelerated by the Chancellor Northington. They were endeavouring to form a constitution for the recently conquered province of Canada. Burke sketched for this purpose a plan of great ingenuity, but too refined and fanciful for being reduced to practice. He was still a political speculatist, rather than a wise statesman and experimental philosopher. When the scheme was shewn to the Chancellor, he condemned it in the most explicit terms. Going to the King, he represented the Ministers as totally inexperienced in business, and unfit for office. His Majesty commissioned Northington to consult Mr. Pitt on the formation of another ministry. To that illustrious man the appointment was principally left. Mr. Pitt would not admit any advice from his former friends and associates,