The sentiment expressed as to the future was equally gratifying to the Governor. Lord Hillsborough, (November 15, 1768,) in an official letter, said,--"It will, I apprehend, be a great support and consolation for you to know that the King places much confidence in your prudence and caution on the one hand, and entertains no diffidence in your spirit and resolution on the other, and that His Majesty will not suffer these sentiments to receive any alterations from private misrepresentations, if any should come"; and in a private letter, by the same mail, the Secretary said,--"If I am listened to, the measure you think the most necessary will be adopted." It is not easy to see how a Government could express greater confidence in an agent than the Secretary expressed in Francis Bernard; and the talk in Ministerial circles now was, as it was confidentially reported to the Governor, that, as he had nothing to arrange with the faction, and nothing to fear from the people, he could fully restore the King's authority. The tone of the Governor's letters and the object of his official action, by a thorough repudiation of the democratic principle, and a jealous regard for British dominion, were well calculated to inspire this confidence; for they came up to the ideal, not merely of the leaders of the Tory party, or of the Whig party, but of the England of that day. There was then great confusion in the British factions. Ex-Governor Pownall, after comparing this confusion to Des Cartes's chaos of vortices, remarked, (1768,) in a letter addressed to Dr. Cooper,--"We have but one word,--I will not call it an idea,--that is, our sovereignty; and it is like some word to a madman, which, whenever mentioned, throws him into his ravings, and brings on a paroxysm." The Massachusetts crown officials were continually pronouncing this word to the Ministry. They constantly set forth the principle of local self-government, which was tenaciously and religiously clung to by the Patriots as being the foundation of all true liberty, as a principle of independence; and they represented the jealous adherence to the local usages and laws, which faithfully embodied the popular instincts and doctrine, to be proofs of a decay of the national authority, and the cloak of long-cherished schemes of rebellion. And this view was accepted by the leading political men of England. They held, all of them but a little band of republican- grounded sympathizers with the Patriots, that the principles announced by the Patriots went too far, and that, in clinging to them the Americans were endangering the British empire; and the only question among the public men of England was, whether the Crown or the Parliament was the proper instrumentality, as the phrase was, for reducing the Colonies to obedience. Lord Barrington, in his speech above cited, laid most stress on the denial of the authority of Parliament: all who questioned any part of this authority were