[249] Some political writers, opposed to the Rockingham Ministry, have condemned and ridiculed this bill as inconsistent with the principle, and calculated to defeat the object of the repeal of the Stamp Act. Indeed, they have gone so far as to say that it raised an insurmountable barrier to the settlement of these unhappy differences. However unjust the charge may be, the bill proved a fertile experiment to maintain the dignity of the country, and the best defence of the measure is to be found in the state of political parties, which rendered it apparently impossible to obtain the repeal without this concession to the feelings of the King, and to public opinion. The Colonies, also, gave themselves, at that time, little concern about abstract resolutions of right, so long as the same were not carried into practice. The joy with which the Repeal Act was received in America seems to have been unqualified, and some years elapsed before any serious objections were taken against the Declaratory Act. Even in 1775, Burke writing to his Committee at Bristol, observes, that it had not yet become a grievance with the Colonists.--E. [250] Lord Rockingham gave the place to Mr. Milbank, and was justified in so doing, for the patronage did not belong to the Lord-Lieutenant, who was very indiscreet to have a difference with Lord Rockingham on such a subject.--E. [251] See pp. 184–187, 202, 203, supra.--E. [252] Stephen Fox. [253] Mary, eldest daughter of the Earl of Ossory, by Lady Evelyn Leveson, youngest daughter of John first Earl Gower. [254] There is no such prohibition in the Navigation Act, but the Act of 6 Geo. III. c. 62, seems to imply the possession of a monopoly of the cotton trade by our West India Islands. No cotton was at that time cultivated in North America. In 1843 our importation of cotton from the United States exceeded 574,000,000 lbs., whilst from our West India Islands it actually did not reach 2,000,000 lbs.--E. [255] The Duke of Richmond had married Lady Mary Bruce, daughter by her first husband of Lady Ailesbury, Conway’s wife. [256] Henry Arthur Herbert had married Barbara, niece of the last Marquis of Powis, and had been created Earl of Powis on the accession of the fortune to him and her. [257] This was the lady celebrated by Pope, who first ambitioned the Crown of Poland, then sought a fortune in the mines of the Asturias, where she met the Comte de Gages. She then was reduced to such extreme poverty, that the young Pretender arriving in Spain, and visiting her, she received him in bed, not having clothes to put on, and he gave her his coat to rise in. She retired to Paris, and was at last harboured in the Temple by the Prince of Conti, where she died not long after the transaction and lawsuit I have mentioned in the text. The Comte de Gages had likewise retired to Paris, and died there a little before Lady Mary Herbert, who lived to August, 1775.