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The house resolutions included ringing phrases which would become familiar in the 1760's: The Rights of the Subject are so secured by Law, that they cannot be deprived of the least Part of their Property, but by their own Consent; Upon this excellent Principle is our Constitution founded ... That the said Demand is illegal and arbitrary, contrary to the Charters of this Colony, to his Majesty's and his Royal Predecessor's Instructions to the several Governors, and the Express Order of his Majesty King William of Glorious Memory ... That whoever shall hereafter pay a Pistole ... shall be deemed a betrayer of the Rights and Privileges of the People.
What these frequent changes suggest is that at the height of the American crisis in the 1760's, when the real seeds of the Revolution were being sown, the instability of the British parliamentary government precluded a consistent and rational approach to American problems. Lacking internal cohesion, the English government could not meet the threat of external division.
A third observation, among many which can be made, is that for the first time a sovereign state prevented itself and its own legislature from infringing on the basic liberties of its peoples. The possible assault on popular rights by an elected legislature had been made all too vivid by parliament in the 1760's and 1770's.
There came to power in the 1760's an entirely new political leadership in England. The most important change was the kingship itself. Unlike the first two Georges, the third George could not achieve the political stability which Robert Walpole and the Duke of Newcastle had imposed on parliament from 1720 to 1754.
Nevertheless they had done so with a consistent governmental program in mind and in a period of peace. By the 1760's the Whigs had deteriorated into factions quarreling over patronage, spoils, and contracts, not policy. They became thoroughly corrupt and interested in power primarily for personal gain.
In the 1760's three new groups joined the prevailing Robinson-Randolph leadership. The first was the generation born in the 1730's and 1740's which would reach maturity in the 1760's and be waiting to enter the "tobacco club" as a matter of birth.
Such a favorable balance of economic factors did not exist in the 1760's. The European market could not absorb continued annual increases in the good, cheap tobacco Virginia produced. Prices fell. With an oversupply of tobacco in the warehouses, English and Scots merchants limited further credit extensions and called for repayment of long-outstanding loans.
He was a dedicated man of limited abilities in an age demanding greatness if the separation of the American colonies from the empire was to have been prevented. Perhaps even greatness could not have prevented what some have come to believe was inevitable. Leadership also changed dramatically in Virginia in the 1760's. This was partially due to changing economic conditions.
The declining fortunes of the Tidewater planters and the crises of the 1760's accelerated the rise to power of all three of these new elements in the House of Burgesses. The Political Philosophy of Virginia, 1763
Hundreds of English military officers, many of whom would achieve positions of political influence in the 1760's and 1770's, were surprised to find Virginia and other American colonies to be economically prosperous, socially mature, and attractive places in which to live. Englishman after Englishman wrote about Virginians who lived in a style befitting English country gentry and London merchants.
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