The British Parliament 127
even the conservative Blackstone had thought that some decayed boroughs might
be abolished. Delolme had said so in French in 1774, but not in English in 1775.
In the face of a popular movement against Parliamentary supremacy, both at home
and in America, and which in America in 1775 reached the point of armed defi-
ance, the forces of conservative opposition gathered strength.
It could be argued that the only thing the matter with Parliament was that it
was too much influenced by the King. There were more who would reform its in-
tegrity than its representativeness. There were more who would free it from the
insidious influence of ministers, and of the King, than who wanted to bring it
under the influence of a body of voters. Hence demands were frequently heard for
a Place Bill, or legislation to reduce the number of offices which members of Par-
liament might hold. There was discussion of a Triennial Act, to make it necessary
to reelect the Commons every three years instead of every seven. Radicals even
talked of annual parliaments. There were proposals to increase the number of
county members, who were thought to be more independent, that is, less suscep-
tible to “influence,” than those of the boroughs, by whom they were outnumbered
four to one.
Critics of Parliament in England made common cause with the leaders of
American discontent. And in America, while the repeal of the Stamp Act allayed
the crisis, it brought no peace. The Americans in their optimism underestimated
the Declaratory Act as a mere statement of legal fiction. If anything, they seemed
to gloat at having forced Parliament to back down. In England the country gentle-
men wished to reduce the land- tax, which had never remained at four shillings in
time of peace. The King himself did not favor a reduction (in this respect showing
sentiments like his contemporaries, the “enlightened despots”), nor have modern
students of taxation thought the four- shilling rate oppressive, given the difference
between real and nominal landed income.^29 However this may be, to the consterna-
tion of the King and his new minister, Charles Townshend, the House of Com-
mons demonstrated its vaunted independence, and, in a surprise vote, cut the tax
to three shillings, thus depriving the government of some £500,000 of revenue.
Whigs joined with the King’s friends in this reduction of the land- tax. Townsh-
end, having been given to understand that the Americans would accept “external”
taxes from Parliament, thereupon readily obtained enactment of his famous tariff,
which levied customs duties in America on importations of paint, glass, lead, and
tea. The proceeds were to be spent in America, not primarily for military protec-
tion against the Indians, as in the the plan for the Stamp Act, but rather to pay the
salaries of the colonial governors, judges, and a corps of royal officials. Since the
Americans had until now voted money to pay the governors in their own assem-
blies, the leaders of discontent feared the loss of all means of pressure upon the
colonial executives, if salaries were to come from duties automatically collected.
The use made of appointive office in England and Ireland to influence members of
legislatures was also known in America.
Again, the main disturbance was in Boston. The Boston town meeting began
to put pressure on the provincial assembly. It even called a “convention” of all
29 Correspondence of George III, I, 454; Dowell, History Of Taxation, III, 86.