This was the time for England to change her whole policy. Not Boston alone, but all America, had declared against American taxation. The principles of liberty had again and again been clearly pointed out. Further, there would have been no disgrace in admitting a mistake. The whole colonial question was new in human history, for Roman practice was inadmissible. "The best writers on public law," reasoned Otis, "contain nothing that is satisfactory on the natural rights of colonies.... Their researches are often but the history of ancient abuses."[15] The natural rights of man should have been allowed to rule, as in the course of time, with England's other colonies, they came to do. But, for better or for worse, sides had been taken. Few thought of turning back. In England there were no breaks in the ranks of the king's supporters; in America the office-holding class, the "best families," the people of settled income and vested rights, were as a rule, selfishly or unselfishly, for the king. Already "mobocracy," "the faction," "sedition," were familiar terms among them. England was ready to take, and the American Tories were ready to applaud, the next step. And Boston was being marked down as the most obnoxious of the towns of America.[16] FOOTNOTES: [10] The adjectives are those of _Massachusettensis_, the ablest Tory pamphleteer, as quoted in Frothingham's "Siege," 33. [11] "Memorial History of Boston," iii, 5. [12] "Memorial History of Boston," iii, 7. [13] Bancroft's "United States," v, 247. [14] Fiske, "American Revolution," illustrated edition, i, 17. [15] Bancroft's "United States," v, 203. [16] The Castle, or Castle William, referred to in this chapter, was the old fort on Castle Island. It was never put to any other use than as a barracks and magazine. CHAPTER III CHARLES TOWNSHEND, SAM ADAMS, AND THE MASSACRE Unfortunately, when the Stamp Act was repealed, the way had been left open for future trouble. The Rockingham ministry, the most liberal which could then be assembled, even in repealing the Stamp Act thought it incumbent upon them to assert, in the Declaratory Act, the right to tax America. The succeeding ministry, called together under the failing Pitt, was the means of reasserting the right. Pitt, too ill to support the labor of leading his party in the Commons, entered the House of Lords as Earl of Chatham, thus acknowledging the eclipse of fame and abilities which in the previous reign had astounded Europe. It was during one of his periods of illness, when he was unable to attend to public affairs, that a subordinate insubordinately reversed his public policy by proceeding once more to tax America.