Neither Burke , as has been rather rashly claimed for him , nor any member of the ministry could be said to have a scheme of commercial reform .sx Burke was in any case of far too slight consequence to be a deciding factor in the policy of the party , but though he can claim no credit as a commercial reformer , in the working out of the ministerial policy he rose from obscurity and appeared , not yet as the prophet of the system , but instead , rather surprisingly , as one of its most practical organizers .sx By the end of the ministry , in spite of his occasional rashness he had become , together with Dowdeswell , the chancellor of the exchequer , the most noted man of his group .sx It was indeed said in the last months of the ministry that Burke , `not .sx .. Lord Rockingham's right hand , but .sx .. both his hands' , was a metaphysical visionary .sx But his success in organizing commercial propaganda , in keeping in touch with commercial leaders , in encouraging every sign of public support , for popularity , he remarked , ` is current coin , or it is nothing' , show that practical vigour , which , in the most fortunate periods of his political career , was the complement of his speculative genius .sx It was this which compensated in part for his lack of political finesse and judgement , and won him his place in the Rockingham connexion , more than his much greater intellectual claims .sx The evolution of the Rockingham commercial policy , which circumstances made their only consecutive policy , falls into three periods , which correspond also with definite stages in the growth of Burke's influence .sx Each centres in an aspect of the growing question of the claims of the American Trades .sx A general but still vague feeling that something should be done to revive the North American trade was characteristic of commercial opinion in the earlier months of the ministry .sx The new ministers were quite willing to satisfy these demands which , unless the measures adopted should clash with the interests of the West Indians , appeared uncontroversial .sx Fortunately , in so far as any one cause of complaint had become general , it was one on which the interests of the two trades were the same , the decline in the smuggling of bullion from the Spanish colonies in Spanish ships to the West Indian Islands .sx General commercial opinion put this down to the activities of the authorities against them under Grenville's new regulations .sx The prevalent commercial bullionism of the time laid the greatest importance on it , and it would even .sx seem that some effort at organized agitation had already been used to crystallize demands into this form ?sx No very active measures , however , were necessary , as the ministry almost at once set about providing a remedy , and their deliberations resulted in the treasury minute of 13 November 1765 , which Burke later praised as so notable a development , and which was received with satisfaction by the chief bodies of American merchants in the country .sx From the point of view of the ministry it was a satisfactory settlement of the claims upon them .sx ` It is ' , wrote Newcastle , `as strong an Article of Impeachment against George Grenville as can be formed ; and it will show you have been doing something .sx ' There is some irony in the fact that it did nothing at all ; more than a year before Grenville , approached by the West Indian merchants , had , though with the secrecy which relations with Spain made desirable , sent the same orders for exempting the Spanish ships from smuggling regulations .sx Both ministry and merchants were to find that something more was wrong with the situation than ` those fatal orders' of Mr. Grenville .sx Even without this further experience , however , the ministry began to find that commercial demands were not limited to one point .sx Before the end of October Rockingham had discovered that ` to admit the Spanish Bullion into any Part of our Dominions in America .sx .. would not quite do our Business' .sx A very definite breach in the Navigation Laws was suggested by the words , which a merchant must certainly have put into Newcastle's mouth , when he hoped that ` Liberty will also be given to Spanish vessels to return with certain Commodities .sx .. or otherwise the Great Stagnation of our Trade with North America and the Exportation of our Woollen Manufactures thither will not be put upon the Foot it was' .sx At this point , however , the lines of development of commercial problems were cut across by the sudden development of the great agitation for the repeal of the Stamp Act .sx If events had been able to develop naturally , there were two further demands which would certainly have been raised ; and had this happened the Rockingham ministry would have had to face at once a great commercial conflict , for they were the demands on which the North American and West Indian interests were at this time fundamentally opposed .sx The first , the demand by the North American interests for the further reduction of the duty on foreign molasses , though it had already been made , was not at this time raised ; the second their claim , on the analogy of the Spanish trade , for the legalization of certain forms of smuggling from the other foreign West Indies by the opening of ` free ports ' , to which the West Indians were strongly opposed as threatening indirectly the effectiveness of their monopoly was already being tentatively suggested .sx The common danger in which the American disturbances placed them , however , interrupted this development , and threw them suddenly into affiance .sx The commercial problems of the Rockingham ministry thus did not begin with the Stamp Act disturbances , though the latter completely changed their relative significance .sx Of Burke very little is known at this time , but he must have had opportunities , as his grip on affairs was growing , to learn lessons of the nature of the forces with which the ministry was in contact .sx That his influence began growing early is suggested by Lord Charlemont's story that it dated from Newcastle's attempt in the first days of the ministry to oust him in favour of another candidate by denouncing him to Rockingham as a papist and a Jacobite .sx By the beginning of December he was certainly carrying out most confidential work , and with the opening of parliament a new field was opened to him , for he was given a seat for Wendover , through the interest of Lord Verney .sx In the first period of the ministry commercial questions had been in considerable but not disproportionate prominence , and although the demands from without were growing under sympa- .sx thetic treatment , there was no sign of the sudden development which was to follow .sx The shock to trade from the American Stamp Act disturbances , however , brought to a head tendencies which might have developed much more slowly , and by causing a rapid growth of organization , brought the ministry into relation with a new and formidable extra-parliamentary force .sx The second period of the ministry , covering , in the months from December to March , the agitation in England for the repeal of the Stamp Act , was its turning-point .sx The movement among the wide sections of commercial opinion which were affected cut across the course of commercial unrest by diverting and concentrating its needs into one political demand ; after this had been satisfied , it intensified the earlier and more general grievances , because organization and experience had given commercial opinion a confidence and know-ledge of its own demands which it had not had before .sx It had also changed the position , however , for it had made considerable changes in the permanent relations of the West Indian and North American merchant interests .sx Though the Stamp Act disturbances in America were known in England by October , and though even earlier the colonial merchants through their correspondents were sending in appeals and denunciations , nothing was done until , a fortnight before the first parliamentary session of the new ministry , the first step was made in London towards a formidable commercial movement .sx On 4 December a meeting of London merchants trading to North America , with Barlow Trecothick , who was to be the organizer of .sx the movement , in the chair , chose a committee of twenty-eight prominent merchants to manage the business of a national commercial agitation .sx They began their work with energy , and henceforth there was a new and incalculable factor in the relations of the ministry with the commercial opinion from which they claimed support .sx The position of Rockingham and the majority of the ministry in view of this development of this active extra-parliamentary organization was a curious one , for their opponents were right in accusing them of deliberately supporting the agitation .sx A copy of the circular which the Committee sent out to thirty trading and manufacturing towns was among the Rockingham papers , endorsed by Burke , with enthusiasm `N .sx B. This letter concerted between the Marquis of R. and Mr. Trecothick , the principal instrument in the happy repeal of the Stamp Act .sx ' A few weeks later an elated American agent was reporting the complete support of the ministry , although Dowdeswell had definitely failed to carry his proposals for repeal in the meeting of the leaders of the connexion before Parliament opened .sx Later , Burke himself was in direct communication with the outports on details of the agitation .sx These facts accord ill with the generally accepted belief that the ministry made no effort to meet the situation , and that it was Pitt who forced the undecided ministry into action which conformed with public demands .sx Yet it is true that they did not declare themselves until well into the new year , and that even then , unlike Pitt , they compromised by laying heavy stress on the right , if not the expediency , of colonial taxation .sx The explanation of this apparent contradiction would seem to be that with Pitt dangerous , and commercial opinion becoming organized , as it had not been since Walpole's excise , they had in reality no alternative but to support the American claims for repeal .sx Nevertheless , since the court and a considerable part of the non-commercial opinion from which their party was drawn took a purely political view of the colonists' riots , and were totally out of sympathy with their claims , they were forced to act indirectly .sx There is no doubt that their intention was to force the hand both of the king and the large section of their party who thought that repeal was shortsighted cowardice , by alarming them by the ` clamour of the merchants .sx as a whig lord called the expression of commercial opinion , but that , to make this possible , as they made clear to their merchant supporters , certain concessions must be made , on the other hand , to conservative opinion .sx Under the skilful control of Trecothick , and with the knowledge of ministerial support ( a condition entirely new to commercial movements of this kind , which had in the past been bitterly anti-ministerial ) , the organization proved the most effective of the commercial agitations up to this date , and showed at the same time how widespread were the American trading interests , yet .sx how surprisingly easy to bring under centralized control from London .sx Barlow Trecothick , in an examination before the house , showed this in a frank account of their methods .sx Local bodies were formed in Liverpool , Bristol , Manchester , and Glasgow , with which the central committee kept in touch , and from which at a later stage witnesses were sent to represent their grievances .sx Twenty-three petitions were received by the house of commons between 17 and 29 January , all expressed in terms of concerted similarity , and even before they came in the first step was gained , for a parliamentary inquiry had been agreed to .sx This was a valuable advance , for here there was a further opportunity to show the nature and extent of the movement , and again the ministry and merchants' organizations worked together .sx Rose Fuller , a West Indian and a strong supporter of the ministry , was made chairman ; witnesses of every type were called together , members of the London committee of merchants , whose powers were expanding as the agitation grew , among them Trecothick , who also sent in written notes ; merchants from Glasgow , Liver-pool , Manchester , and Bristol ; manufacturers from Leeds , Brad-ford , and Manchester .sx