Thus  a  lengthy  and  troublesome  business  was
brought  to  a  temporary  conclusion ;  but  the  ministry
had  little   cause  for  triumph  in   the   very  moderate

1  Grenville  Papers,  4,  224;  Hist.  Comm.  MSS.  Weston  Underwood  MSS.,
405;  Stopford  Sackville  MSS.,  1,  123;  Grafton's  Autobiography,  p.  125;
Walpole's  Memoirs,  3,  36.
2  Ibid.,  and  Add.  MS.,  32982,  f.  148,  f.  192,  f.  194-


128     LORD  CHATHAM  AND  THE  WHIG  OPPOSITION

success  which  it  had  achieved.  Divided  and  dis-
cordant counsels,  the  absence  of  the  prime  minister,
and  the  recklessness  of  certain  members  of  the  cabinet,
had  marred  the  execution  of  a  great  work  ;  and,  if
Grafton  and  his  colleagues  had  done  nothing  more
during  the  session,  they  would  still  have  borne  ample
testimony  to  their  incapacity  to  rule.  Unfortunately,
however,  for  the  ill-fated  first  lord  of  the  treasury,
he  was  called  upon  to  deal  with  the  American  colonists
who  were  showing  a  fixed  determination  to  resist
what  they  regarded  as  the  aggressions  and  encroach-
ments of  the  mother  country.  The  assembly  of  New
York  refused  to  enforce  the  mutiny  act,  on  the  ground
that  that  measure,  by  compelling  the  provincial
assemblies  to  arrange  for  providing  the  troops  with
quarters  and  a  few  of  the  common  necessities  of  life,
was  in  reality  a  tax  in  kind  if  not  in  money,  and  New
York  did  not  stand  alone  in  rebellion  ;  for  the  assembly
of  Massachusetts  took  upon  itself  to  grant  an  indemnity
for  all  offences  committed  during  the  popular  agitation
against  the  stamp  act,  and  in  so  doing  certainly  passed
beyond  the  limits  of  its  legal  authority.
