the budget on March 9, 1764, the first minister merely gave
notice that "it maybe proper to charge certain stamp duties in
the said colonies and plantations." Of all the plans for taxing
America, he said, this one seemed to him the best; yet he was not
wedded to it, and would willingly adopt any other preferred by
the colonists, if they could suggest any other of equal efficacy.
Meanwhile, he wished only to call upon honorable members of the
House to say now, if any were so minded, that Parliament had not
the right to impose any tax, external or internal, upon the
colonies; to which solemn question, asked in full house, there
was not one negative, nor any reply except Alderman Beckford
saying: "As we are stout, I hope we shall be merciful."

It soon appeared that Americans did have objections to a stamp
tax. Whether it were equitable or not, they would rather it
should not be laid, really preferring not to be dished up in any
sauce whatever, however fine. The tax might, as ministers said,
be easily collected, or its collection might perhaps be attended
with certain difficulties; in either case it would remain, for
reasons which they were ready to advance, a most objectionable
tax. Certain colonial agents then in England accordingly sought
an interview with the first minister in order to convince him, if
possible, of this fact. Grenville was very likely more than ready
to grant them an interview, relying upon the strength of his
position, on his "tenderness for the subjects in America," and
upon his well-known powers of persuasion, to bring them to his
way of thinking. To get from the colonial agents a kind of assent
to his measure would be to win a point of no slight strategic
value, there being at least a modicum of truth in the notion that
just government springs from the consent of the governed.