abused Lord Rockingham in the House of Lords, Lord Gower said to him, “Sandwich, how could you worry the poor dumb creature so!” A question of more importance than the Indian one was now to come on the carpet--the Regulation of America. The repeal of the Stamp Act, however necessary and salutary, had, as Grenville and his adherents foretold, instead of pacifying that continent, inspired the turbulent with presumption. With whatever joy the repeal had been received, it was not followed by that general gratitude to the Ministers who obtained it, which they deserved. Great Britain having yielded, the tribunes of America flattered themselves that new concessions might be extorted: so certain is the march of successful patriotism towards acquisition. Still the disturbances were not alarming nor universal: and if, instead of tampering with a wound not closed, emollients, restoratives, at least oblivion, and no farther essays at taxes had succeeded, harmony perhaps had again taken place. A Ministry composed of heterogeneous particles, some inclination to show authority after mildness, an eagerness to replace the loss on the land-tax, and, above all, the inconsiderate vanity of Charles Townshend, and not a small propensity in him to pay court to Grenville, all concurred to prompt rash and indigested measures; while a Parliament, so obsequious as that of the moment, was ready to enact every successive contradiction that was proposed to it by the Court, and eased Ministers of the trouble of weighing the plans they intended to pursue. Nay, the circumstances of the time recommended violence as the least obnoxious measure; Grenville being sure to give less obstruction to any intemperance which resembled his own, and secretly enjoying any indiscretion that would involve his successors in the same difficulties as those he had occasioned himself. The first plan on which the Ministers fixed was that of force and punishment. They proposed to oblige the Provinces to furnish beer and vinegar to the soldiers; and if they refused, the governor of New York was to be prohibited from giving the royal assent for holding their assemblies. This step would, in effect, have been a dissolution of their government, and not less violent than the seizure of charters by Charles II. When the scheme was laid before the Cabinet, Conway, who adhered to the conciliating measures of the last year, and to his own mild maxims, alone opposed so arbitrary a project. When,