The British Parliament 123
feeble support in the two houses. It therefore took the bold step of going “out of
doors” to solicit expressions of public opinion. Rockingham’s spokesmen talked
with merchants all over the country. Soon petitions from merchants in Bristol,
Liverpool, Glasgow, Leeds, and other towns flowed in. On the one hand Rocking-
ham’s new secretary, Edmund Burke, in his maiden speech in Parliament, upheld
the supremacy of Parliament in all matters over all British subjects. On the other,
the merchants, the marquis, and Burke himself held that Parliament should repeal
the Stamp Act purely as a matter of practical politics. The King finally instructed
those who considered themselves his friends to vote for repeal, and the Stamp Act
was repealed in March 1766.
At the same time, to prevent misunderstanding in America, and to satisfy those
in England who predicted dire consequences from such softness in the face of re-
bellion, the Rockingham Whigs and and King and his friends were in entire
agreement on a further statement of law. It took the form of the Declaratory Act,
modelled on the Declaratory Act enunciated for Ireland in 1719.^21 It may be com-
pared also to the announcement of the King of France in the séance de la flagellation
in Paris. The French King emphatically affirmed his sovereignty over the Par-
lement of Paris on March 3, 1766. The Declaratory Act, two weeks later, affirmed
the sovereignty of the King- in- Parliament over the people and the assemblies of
the American colonies.
The act announced that “the King’s Majesty, by and with the advice and consent
of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and of the Commons, had, hath and of Right
ought to have full power and authority to make Laws and Statutes of sufficient
force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America, subjects of the
Crown of Great Britain, in all cases whatsoever.”
TRIBULATIONS OF PARLIAMENT, 1766–1774The trouble with America turned on the question of the authority of Parliament.
Anything in England, therefore, that brought the authority of Parliament under
critical examination, or which cast discredit upon it, added strength to the Ameri-
can opposition. Contrariwise, Parliament laid itself more open to criticism in En-
gland by becoming embroiled with America.
There were beginning to be people in England who thought that Parliament did
not really represent them. At the same time, George Ill’s increasing personal influ-
ence—what was called “corruption,” though the King was only doing for himself
what the politicians had formerly done in his name—tended to dim the lustre of
the great Areopagus. “The public does think we are a corrupt body,” as Burke told
the House of Commons in 1771.^22 Moreover, there were stirrings in Ireland, which
also had its grievances against the British Parliament. Ireland was often cited in
21 For the American Declaratory Act see the statutes 6 George III c. 12; for the Irish, 6 George I
c. 65.
22 “Speech on the Motion Made in the House of Commons, February 7, 1771, Relative to the
Middlesex Election,” Writings (Boston, 1901), VII, 62.