Before the bill was discussed again, the coalition, after long delays caused by almost fatal dissensions among themselves, had been installed. In pursuit of an ascendency in the cabinet, Lord North plumed himself on having ever been a consistent whig; believing that "the appearance of power was all that a king of England could have;"* and insisting that during all his ministry "he had never attributed to the crown any other prerogative than it was acknowledged to possess by every sound whig and by all those authors who had written on the side of liberty." But he betrayed his friends by contenting himself with a subordinate office in a cabinet in which there would always be a majority against him, and, while Fox seized on the lead, the nominal chieftainship was left to the duke of Portland, who had neither capacity for business, nor activity, nor power as a speaker, nor knowledge of liberal principles. The necessity of accepting a ministry so composed drove the king to the verge of madness. He sorrowed over "the most profligate age; ""the most unnatural coalition;" and he was heard to use "strong expressions of personal abhorrence of Lord North, whom he charged with treachery and ingratitude of the blackest nature." # "Wait till you see the end," I said the king to the representative of France at the next levee; and Fox knew that the chances in the game were against him, as he called to mind that he had sought in vain the support of Pitt; had defied the king; and had joined himself to colleagues whom he had taught liberal Englishmen to despise, and whom he himself could not trust. In the slowly advancing changes of the British constitution, the old whig party, as first conceived by Shaftesbury and Locke to resist the democratic revolution in England on the one side, and the claim of arbitrary sovereignty by the Stuarts on the other, was near its end. The time was coming for the people to share in power. For the rest of his life, Fox battled for the reform of the house of commons, so that it became the rallying cry of the liberal party in England. A ministry di Russell's Memorials of Charles James Fox, ii., 38. Almon, xxvi., 355. #Memorials of Fox, ii., 249. Moustier to Vergennes, 3 April 1788. MS. vided within itself by irreconcilable opinions, detested by the king, confronted by a strong and watchful and cautious opposition, was forced to follow the line of precedents. The settlement of the commercial relations to be established with the United States had belonged to the treasury; it was at once brought by Fox within his department, although, from his ignorance of political economy, he could have neither firm convictions nor a consistent policy. He was not, indeed, without glimpses of the benefit of liberty in trade. To him it was a problem how far the act of navigation had ever been useful, and what ought to be its fate; but the bill in which the late ministry had begun to apply the principle of free commerce with America he utterly condemned, "not," as he said, "from animosity toward Shelburne, but because great injury often came from reducing commercial theories to practice." More over, the house of commons would insist on much deliberation and very much inquiry before it would sacrifice the navigation act to the circumstances of the present crisis.† * In judging his conduct, it must be considered that the changes in the opinion of a people come from the slow evolution of thought in the public mind. One of the poets of England, in the flush of youth, had prophesied : "The time shall come when, free as seas or wind, And seas but join the regions they divide." More than half a century must pass away before the prophecy will come true by the efforts of statesmen, who, had Fox lived in their time, might have shared their indecision. The coalition cabinet at its first meeting agreed to yield no part of the navigation act, ‡ and, as a matter of policy, to put off the bill before parliament relating to commerce with America "till some progress should be made in a negotiation with the American commissioners at Paris." Thither without delay Fox sent, as minister on the part of Great Britain, David Hartley, a friend of Franklin and a well-wisher to the United States. * Moustier to Vergennes, 11 April 1783. MS. Fox to Hartley, 10 June 1783. MS. Fox to the king, Memorials of Fox, ii., 122. The avowed liberal opinions of Hartley raising distrust, Lord Sheffield, a supporter of the ministry, and, on trade with America, the master authority of that day for parliament, immediately sounded an alarm. "Let the ministers know," said he on the fifteenth, in the house of lords, "the country is as tenacious of the principle of the navigation act as of the principle of Magna Charta. They must not allow America to take British colonial produce to ports in Europe. They must reserve to our remaining dominions the exclusive trade to the West India islands; otherwise, the only use of them will be lost. If we permit any state to trade with our islands or to carry into this country any produce but its own, we desert the navigation act and sacrifice the marine of England. The peace is in comparison a trifling object.” * But there was no need of fear lest Fox should yield too much. In his instructions to Hartley, he was for taking the lion's share, as Vergennes truly said. He proposed that the manufactures of the thirteen states should as a matter of course be excluded from Great Britain, but that British manufactures should be admitted everywhere in the United States. While America was dependent, parliament had taxed importations of its produce, but British ships and manufactures entered the colonies free of duty. "The true object of the treaty in this business," so Fox enforced his plan, "is the mutual admission of ships and merchandise free from any new duty or imposition;" that is, the Americans on their side should leave the British navigation act in full force and renounce all right to establish an act of navigation of their own; should continue to pay duties in the British ports on their own produce; and receive in their own ports British produce and manufactures duty free. One subject appealed successfully to the generous side of his nature. To the earnest wish of Jay that British ships should have no right under the convention to carry into the states any slaves from any part of the world, it being the intention of the United States entirely to prohibit their importation,# Fox answered promptly: "If that be their policy, it never can be * Almon, xxvi., 615. + Works of John Adams, iii., 380. Fox to Hartley, 10 April 1783. MS. competent to us to dispute with them their own regulations." * In like spirit, to formal complaints that Carleton, "in the face of the treaty, persisted in sending off negroes by hundreds," Fox made answer: "To have restored negroes whom we invited, seduced if you will, under a promise of liberty, to the tyranny and possibly to the vengeance of their former masters, would have been such an act as scarce any orders from his employers (and no such orders exist) could have induced a man of honor to execute." + The dignity and interests of the republic were safe, for◄ they were confided to Adams, Franklin, and Jay. In America there existed as yet no system of restrictions; and congress had not power to protect shipping or establish a custom-house. The states as dependencies had been so severely and so wantonly cramped by British navigation acts, and for more than a century had so steadily resisted them, that the desire of absolute freedom of commerce had become a part of their nature. The American commissioners were very much pleased with the trade-bill of Pitt, and with the principles expressed in its preamble; the debates upon it in parliament awakened their distrust. They were ready for any event, having but the one simple and invariable policy of reciprocity. Their choice and their offer was mutual unconditional free trade; but, however narrow might be the limits which England should impose, they were resolved to insist on like for like. The British commissioner was himself in favor of the largest liberty for commerce, but he was reproved by Fox for transmitting a proposition not authorized by his instructions. A debate in the house of lords on the sixth of May revealed the rapidity with which the conviction was spreading that America had no power to adopt measures of defensive legislation. There were many who considered the United States as having no government at all, and there were some who looked for the early dissolution of the governments even of the separate states. Lord Walsingham, accordingly, proposed that the law for admitting American ships should apply not merely to the ships of the United States, but to ships belonging to any * Fox to Hartley, 10 June 1783. MS. Fox to Hartley, 9 August 1783. Hartley to Fox, 20 May 1783. MS. one of the states and to any ship or vessel belonging to any of the inhabitants thereof. He was supported by Thurlow, who said: "I have read an account which stated the government of America to be totally unsettled, and that each province seemed intent on establishing a distinct, independent, sovereign state. If this is really the case, the amendment will be highly necessary and proper." * The amendment was dropped; and the bill under discussion, in its final shape, repealed prohibitory acts made during the war, removed the formalities which attended the admission of ships from the colonies during their state of dependency, and for a limited time left the power of regulating commerce with America to the king in council. Immediately the proclamation of an order in council of the second of July confined the trade between the American states and the British West India islands to British-built ships owned and navigated "by British subjects.' " "Undoubtedly," wrote the king, "the Americans cannot expect nor ever will receive any favor from me."+ To an American, Fox said: “For myself, I have no objection to opening the West India trade to the Americans, but there are many parties to please."‡ The blow fell heavily on America, and compelled a readjustment of its industry. Ships had been its great manufacture for exportation. For nicety of workmanship, the palm was awarded to Philadelphia, but nowhere could they be built so cheaply as at Boston. More than one third of the tonnage employed in British commerce before the war was of American construction. Britain renounced this resource. The continent and West India islands had prospered by the convenient interchange of their produce; the trade between nearest and friendliest neighbors was forbidden, till England should find out that she was waging war against a higher power than the United States; that her adversary was nature itself. Her statesmen confounded the "navigation act" and "the marine of Britain; "# the one the offspring of selfishness, the other the sublime display of the creative power of a free people. + Correspondence of George III. with Lord North, ii., 442. Diplomatic Correspondence, 1783-1787, ii., 513; Fox to Hartley, 10 June 1783. MS. # Sheffield's Commerce of the American States, preface, 10. |