Note 101 — 48.

The Stamp Act, charging stamp duties on all legal documents executed in the Colonies, received the royal assent March 22, 1765, and came into operation November 1, 1765. When Parliament reassembled on January 14, 1766, Pitt attacked the policy of the Act. General Conway, one of the Secretaries of State, who replied to him, said that the sentiments which he had expressed were substantially those of the ministers, and that, for his own part, he would gladly resign his office if Pitt would take it. Grenville, who followed, defended the Act, and it was in reply to him, on the same evening, that Pitt delivered one of the most eloquent and famous of his speeches. Ireland took a keen interest in the question, and the debate happens to be fully reported by two Irish gentlemen, Sir Robert Dean and Lord Charlemont; otherwise, like many others of the time, it might have passed without record. In the same session, February 24 to March 17, two resolutions were carried in both Houses, one declaring the right of Great Britain to tax the Colonies, the other repealing the Stamp Act. Two Acts of Parliament expressed these resolutions in legislative form.