For seven years to come, under different phases--sometimes in France, under pretext of obtaining cure for a wound received in a duel; sometimes in London as candidate for the House of Commons; outlawed by the Middlesex magistrates for his indecent pamphlets; chosen by the city as one of its representatives--John Wilkes was almost constantly before the public, sustained by the most diverse partisans, honest or corrupt; absorbed in those public liberties which they considered outraged in his person, or sympathetically interested in the audacious impiety which bore without blushing the banner of moral or political license. It was the error and the fault of the government to have alienated public opinion by imprudent prosecutions, thus assuring to Wilkes a popularity in no way deserved. When at last he died, in 1797, the venal and debauched pamphleteer had for a long time fallen into the obscurity and contempt from which he should never have emerged. The Stamp Act has left its date and its ineradicable trace on the history of England, and of the world. Already for a long time under the influence of the rapid development of their prosperity and resources, the American colonies proudly defended their privileges, resenting the offensive investigations of the revenue officers, while admitting the right of the mother-country to that monopoly of commerce which they succeeded in violating by an active contraband trade. Submitting without trouble to the external taxes intended to regulate the commerce, the Americans claimed entire independence as regarded other duties. {265} In 1692 the General Court of Massachusetts resolved that no tax could be imposed upon his Majesty's colonial subjects without the consent of the governor, the council, and the representatives assembled in General Court. It was this fundamental principle of the liberties of Great Britain, as well as of her colonies--that an English subject could not be taxed without his consent--that was openly violated in 1765 by the proposition of Mr. George Grenville. This financial expedient had been previously suggested to Sir Robert Walpole, but he answered with his usual good sense, "I have Old England already on my hands; do you suppose I wish to encumber myself in addition with New England? He will be a bolder minister than I who will assume that."