The Constitutional History of England from 1760 to 1860 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 614 pages of information about The Constitutional History of England from 1760 to 1860.

The Constitutional History of England from 1760 to 1860 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 614 pages of information about The Constitutional History of England from 1760 to 1860.
the power of taxation (so that there was no room left for such perverse legislation by a British Parliament as had lately cost its sovereign the United States).  The act of habeas corpus was extended to the province (a privilege which no one of French blood had ever enjoyed before); the tenure of land was to be the socage[113] tenure so long and happily established in England.  Complete religious toleration was established, and a certain proportion of land was allotted in Upper Canada, as a provision for a Protestant clergy, and the foundation of an ecclesiastical establishment.  So great was Pitt’s desire to complete the resemblance between the colony and Great Britain, that he even contemplated the creation of an aristocracy, by the introduction of a provision enabling the King to grant hereditary colonial titles, the possession of which should include hereditary seats in the provincial Council.  The two latter clauses were opposed by Fox, and the latter of them, though sanctioned by Parliament, was never carried out in practice.  But Fox, bitter as he was at this time in his general opposition to the government, agreed cordially in the general principles of the bill, avowing his conviction that “the only method of retaining distant colonies with advantage is to enable them to govern themselves,” so that each party in the British Parliament is entitled to a share of the credit for this pattern of all subsequent colonial constitutions—­Pitt for the original genius for organization which his contrivance of all the complicated details of the measure displayed, and Fox for his frank adoption of the general principle inculcated by his rival, even while differing as to some of the minor details of the measure.  During these years the country was increasing in prosperity, and the minister was daily rising in credit; more powerful and more popular than the most successful or the most brilliant of his predecessors.  But during these same years two great constitutional difficulties had arisen, one of which, indeed, the deep sense which both parties felt of the danger of investigating it shelved almost as soon as it was seen; but the other of which, besides the importance which it derived from the degree in which it involved the principle of the supreme authority of Parliament, and brought under discussion even that which regulates the succession to the crown, imperilled the existence of the ministry, and threatened a total change in both the domestic and foreign policy of the nation.

The Prince of Wales, who had come of age in the summer of 1783, had at once begun to make himself notorious for the violence of his opposition to his father’s ministers, carrying the openness of his hostility so far as, during the Westminster election to drive about the streets with a carriage and all his servants profusely decorated with Fox’s colors; and, still more discreditably, by most unmeasured profligacy of all kinds.  The consequence was that he soon became

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Constitutional History of England from 1760 to 1860 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.