In the late contest with Parliament the colonists had gained a victory, but it was neither final nor precisely on the right ground. As a matter of practical politics, they were ready to accept Pitt's distinction between commercial regulations and internal taxes. They took the repeal of the Stamp Act with thanks, but not as a finality. They participated in the lively demonstrations of joy which followed that event on both sides of the Atlantic; but thoughtful observers on both sides perceived that one of the most powerful agencies in effecting the repeal was the mercantile class, which had no intention of relinquishing its grasp upon colonial commerce. Nor was the popular feeling without guidance. It was the good fortune of the colonists, all through the long contest, to have statesmen like John Adams, Jay, and Dickinson, who could supplement the passionate appeals of Otis and some of his associates with the calm reasons of political philosophy. None rendered more valuable services in this respect than John Adams. In a series of papers which appeared in the _Boston Gazette_ in the summer and fall of 1765,—when the minds of the people were inflamed by the Stamp Act,—and were afterwards republished in London as _A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law_, he combated the ecclesiastical and feudal principles which lay at the bottom of the monarchical and Anglican system. The substantial grievance of the commercial colonies was not the Stamp Act, which had not taken a farthing from their pockets. It was the enforcement of trade regulations, which impaired the value of the fisheries and dried up a principal source of revenue. A renewal of the contest, and for the first time on its true grounds, was not long postponed. The Rockingham ministry gave way, and Pitt, gazetted Earl of Chatham July 30, 1766, took the helm of state August 2d, and was the nominal head of the government until October, 1768. Among those associated with him were the Duke of Grafton, Charles Townshend, Conway, and the Earl of Shelburne. It was Pitt's misfortune—and his country's—during these stormy times, that when he was most needed he was disabled by sickness. Historians have speculated as to the probable pacification of America had Pitt—not Chatham—guided affairs.[79] Pitt's was a great name in America as well as in Europe. By his genius the French power in America had been destroyed. This the colonists knew. He had been generous in reimbursing their expenses in the late war. This, and his efforts in effecting the repeal of the Stamp Act, they remembered with gratitude. Whatever man could do in restoring things to their old order Pitt could have done. He might even have relinquished something of his claims for parliamentary supremacy in respect to trade and general legislation; but it is doubtful whether, even at that early period, he could have eradicated the ideas of independence which had taken possession of the colonists, or have