Ballantyne Press

BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO., EDINBURGH CHANDOS STREET, LONDON

ON

CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA

AND

TWO LETTERS ON IRISH QUESTIONS

BY

EDMUND BURKE

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HENRY MORLEY
LL.D., PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AT
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON

LONDON

GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND

BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL

NEW YORK: 9 LAFAYETTE PLACE

SONS

"Marvels of clear type and general neatness."-Daily Telegraph.

INTRODUCTION.

IN July 1765 Edmund Burke, then thirty-five years old, began his political career as secretary to the Marquis of Rockingham, who had just undertaken the formation of a Ministry. Burke presently entered Parliament as member for Wendover, through the interest of Lord Verney. The American colonies were at that time united in vigorous resistance to a Stamp Act, which involved claim and use of the right of an English Parliament to impose direct taxes on colonies that were not represented in it.

There had been indirect taxation since the days of our English Commonwealth, when the Navigation Act of 1651 required all colonial exports to England to be shipped only in American or English vessels. After the Restoration, a second Navigation Act, in 1660, ordered that most of the exports from the colonies should be shipped only to England or to an English colony, and in American or English vessels. In 1663 a third Navigation Act required that most of the imports into the colonies should be shipped only from England or an English colony, and in American or English vessels. In 1672 there were added duties upon certain enumerated articles, in passing from one colony to another. This involved the establishment of royal custom-houses and revenue officers in service of the Crown. In Massachusetts these changes were opposed; the General Court of the colony resolved "that the Acts of Navigation are an invasion of the rights and privileges of the subjects of his Majesty in this colony, they not being represented in the Parliament." In 1680 a notice of the appointment of a collector of the royal customs for New England was torn down at Boston by order of the colonial magistrates. The opposition was not effectual, and the number of revenue officers increased.

In 1696 a Board of Trade was established, consisting of a President and seven members, entitled the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations. Among other duties this body had charge of the execution of the Navigation Acts, and it was to bring the colonies more strictly under royal control. The Board of Trade proposed, therefore, in 1697, the appointment of a captain-general, with absolute power to levy and organize an army without reference to any colonial