Note 275:1 — Chapter XIV

On account of his taxation system having caused the American Revolution, Grenville is now generally ranked with statesmen of despotic principles. He was, however, an avowed admirer of the democratic portions of the constitution; and it was in truth his ill-directed advocacy of popular rights, not an intentional departure from his avowed principles, that made his administration so disastrous. His zeal for the independent authority of Parliament, and for the curtailment of the prerogatives of the Crown, induced him to struggle for the exercise by parliament, in the colonies, of a power with which the crown could not compete,—that of taxation.