On the 27th of January, Mr. Cooke, of Middlesex, presented a petition from some of the North American provinces assembled in Congress, against the Stamp Act. Jenkinson and Dyson, placemen, but creatures of Lord Bute, opposed receiving it; as did Nugent and Ellis, who called it a dangerous federal union. Dowdeswell, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, agreed with them, as there was nothing, he said, in the petition, but what had been already received in others from the separate provinces, and therefore he wished Cooke to withdraw what he had offered. Mr. Pitt warmly undertook the protection of the petition, which he affirmed was innocent, dutiful, and respectful. He did not know the time, he said, when he had been counsellor to timid councils; but on this occasion should have thought it happy to have made this the first act of harmony. He painted the Americans as people who, in an ill-fated hour, had left this country to fly from the Star Chamber and High Commission Courts. The desert smiled upon them in comparison of this country. It was the evil genius of this country that had riveted amongst them this union, now called _dangerous and federal_. He did not see but honest Wildman’s[232] or Newmarket might be talked of in the same strain. This country upon occasion has its meetings, and nobody objects to them; but the names of six or eight Americans are to be big with danger. He could not guess, by the turn of the debate, whether the Administration intended lenity or not. To him lenity was recommended by every argument. He would emphatically hear the Colonies upon this their petition. The right of representation and taxation always went together and should never be separated. Except for the principles of Government, records were out of the question. “_You have broken_,” continued he, “_the original compact, if you have not a right of taxation_.” The repeal of the Stamp Act was an inferior consideration to receiving this petition.