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Title: The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 02 (of 12)

Author: Edmund Burke

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EDMUND BURKE, VOL. 02 (OF 12) ***

THE WORKS

OF

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

EDMUND BURKE

IN TWELVE VOLUMES

VOLUME THE SECOND

London

JOHN C. NIMMO

14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND, W.C.

MDCCCLXXXVII

CONTENTS OF VOL. II.

SPEECH ON AMERICAN TAXATION, April 19, 1774 1
PREFACE
SPEECH
SPEECHES ON ARRIVAL AT BRISTOL AND AT THE
CONCLUSION OF THE POLL, October 13 and
November 3, 1774 81
EDITOR'S ADVERTISEMENT.
SPEECH AT HIS ARRIVAL AT
BRISTOL.
SPEECH TO THE ELECTORS OF
BRISTOL, ON HIS BEING
DECLARED BY THE SHERIFFS
DULY ELECTED ONE OF THE
REPRESENTATIVES IN
PARLIAMENT FOR THAT CITY,
ON THURSDAY, THE 3D OF
NOVEMBER, 1774.
SPEECH ON MOVING RESOLUTIONS FOR
CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA, March 22, 1775 99
LETTER TO THE SHERIFFS OF BRISTOL, ON THE
AFFAIRS OF AMERICA, April 3, 1777 187
TWO LETTERS TO GENTLEMEN OF BRISTOL, ON
THE BILLS DEPENDING IN PARLIAMENT
RELATIVE TO THE TRADE OF IRELAND, April 23
and May 2, 1778 247

TO SAMUEL SPAN, ESQ., MASTER
OF THE SOCIETY OF
MERCHANTS ADVENTURERS
OF BRISTOL.
COPY OF A LETTER TO MESSRS.
———— AND CO., BRISTOL.
SPEECH ON PRESENTING TO THE HOUSE OF
COMMONS A PLAN FOR THE BETTER SECURITY
OF THE INDEPENDENCE OF PARLIAMENT, AND
THE ECONOMICAL REFORMATION OF THE CIVIL
AND OTHER ESTABLISHMENTS, February 11, 1780
265
SPEECH AT BRISTOL PREVIOUS TO THE ELECTION,
September 6, 1780 365
SPEECH AT BRISTOL ON DECLINING THE POLL,
September 9, 1780 425
SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL, December
1, 1783 431
A REPRESENTATION TO HIS MAJESTY, MOVED IN
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, June 14, 1784 537
PREFACE
MOTION

SPEECH

ON

AMERICAN TAXATION.

APRIL 19, 1774.

PREFACE.

The following speech has been much the subject of conversation, and the
desire of having it printed was last summer very general. The means of
gratifying the public curiosity were obligingly furnished from the notes of
some gentlemen, members of the last Parliament.

This piece has been for some months ready for the press. But a delicacy,
possibly over-scrupulous, has delayed the publication to this time. The
friends of administration have been used to attribute a great deal of the
opposition to their measures in America to the writings published in
England. The editor of this speech kept it back, until all the measures of
government have had their full operation, and can be no longer affected, if
ever they could have been affected, by any publication.

Most readers will recollect the uncommon pains taken at the beginning of
the last session of the last Parliament, and indeed during the whole course
of it, to asperse the characters and decry the measures of those who were
supposed to be friends to America, in order to weaken the effect of their
opposition to the acts of rigor then preparing against the colonies. The
speech contains a full refutation of the charges against that party with which
Mr. Burke has all along acted. In doing this, he has taken a review of the
effects of all the schemes which have been successively adopted in the
government of the plantations. The subject is interesting; the matters of
information various and important; and the publication at this time, the
editor hopes, will not be thought unseasonable.

SPEECH.

During the last session of the last Parliament, on the 19th of April,
1774, Mr. Rose Fuller, member for Rye, made the following motion:
—

"That an act made in the seventh year of the reign of his present
Majesty, intituled, 'An act for granting certain duties in the British
colonies and plantations in America; for allowing a drawback of the
duties of customs upon the exportation from this kingdom of coffee
and cocoa-nuts, of the produce of the said colonies or plantations;
for discontinuing the drawbacks payable on china earthenware
exported to America; and for more effectually preventing the
clandestine running of goods in the said colonies and plantations,
might be read."

And the same being read accordingly, he moved,—

"That this House will, upon this day sevennight, resolve itself into a
committee of the whole House, to take into consideration the duty
of three-pence per pound weight upon tea, payable in all his
Majesty's dominions in America, imposed by the said act; and also
the appropriation of the said duty."

On this latter motion a warm and interesting debate arose, in which
Mr. Burke spoke as follows.

Sir,—I agree with the honorable gentleman[1] who spoke last, that this
subject is not new in this House. Very disagreeably to this House, very
unfortunately to this nation, and to the peace and prosperity of this whole
empire, no topic has been more familiar to us. For nine long years, session
after session, we have been lashed round and round this miserable circle of
occasional arguments and temporary expedients. I am sure our heads must
turn and our stomachs nauseate with them. We have had them in every
shape; we have looked at them in every point of view. Invention is
exhausted; reason is fatigued; experience has given judgment; but obstinacy
is not yet conquered.

The honorable gentleman has made one endeavor more to diversify the
form of this disgusting argument. He has thrown out a speech composed
almost entirely of challenges. Challenges are serious things; and as he is a
man of prudence as well as resolution, I dare say he has very well weighed
those challenges before he delivered them. I had long the happiness to sit at
the same side of the House, and to agree with the honorable gentleman on
all the American questions. My sentiments, I am sure, are well known to
him; and I thought I had been perfectly acquainted with his. Though I find
myself mistaken, he will still permit me to use the privilege of an old
friendship; he will permit me to apply myself to the House under the
sanction of his authority, and, on the various grounds he has measured out,
to submit to you the poor opinions which I have formed upon a matter of
importance enough to demand the fullest consideration I could bestow upon
it.

He has stated to the House two grounds of deliberation: one narrow and
simple, and merely confined to the question on your paper; the other more
large and more complicated,—comprehending the whole series of the
Parliamentary proceedings with regard to America, their causes, and their
consequences. With regard to the latter ground, he states it as useless, and

thinks it may be even dangerous, to enter into so extensive a field of
inquiry. Yet, to my surprise, he had hardly laid down this restrictive
proposition, to which his authority would have given so much weight, when
directly, and with the same authority, he condemns it, and declares it
absolutely necessary to enter into the most ample historical detail. His zeal
has thrown him a little out of his usual accuracy. In this perplexity, what
shall we do, Sir, who are willing to submit to the law he gives us? He has
reprobated in one part of his speech the rule he had laid down for debate in
the other, and, after narrowing the ground for all those who are to speak
after him, he takes an excursion, himself, as unbounded as the subject and
the extent of his great abilities.

Sir, when I cannot obey all his laws, I will do the best I can. I will
endeavor to obey such of them as have the sanction of his example, and to
stick to that rule which, though not consistent with the other, is the most
rational. He was certainly in the right, when he took the matter largely. I
cannot prevail on myself to agree with him in his censure of his own
conduct. It is not, he will give me leave to say, either useless or dangerous.
He asserts, that retrospect is not wise; and the proper, the only proper
subject of inquiry, is "not how we got into this difficulty, but how we are to
get out of it." In other words, we are, according to him, to consult our
invention, and to reject our experience. The mode of deliberation he
recommends is diametrically opposite to every rule of reason and every
principle of good sense established amongst mankind. For that sense and
that reason I have always understood absolutely to prescribe, whenever we
are involved in difficulties from the measures we have pursued, that we
should take a strict review of those measures, in order to correct our errors,
if they should be corrigible,—or at least to avoid a dull uniformity in
mischief, and the unpitied calamity of being repeatedly caught in the same
snare.

Sir, I will freely follow the honorable gentleman in his historical
discussion, without the least management for men or measures, further than
as they shall seem to me to deserve it. But before I go into that large
consideration, because I would omit nothing that can give the House
satisfaction, I wish to tread the narrow ground to which alone the honorable
gentleman, in one part of his speech, has so strictly confined us.

He desires to know, whether, if we were to repeal this tax, agreeably to
the proposition of the honorable gentleman who made the motion, the
Americans would not take post on this concession, in order to make a new
attack on the next body of taxes; and whether they would not call for a
repeal of the duty on wine as loudly as they do now for the repeal of the
duty on tea. Sir, I can give no security on this subject. But I will do all that I
can, and all that can be fairly demanded. To the experience which the
honorable gentleman reprobates in one instant and reverts to in the next, to
that experience, without the least wavering or hesitation on my part, I
steadily appeal: and would to God there was no other arbiter to decide on
the vote with which the House is to conclude this day!

When Parliament repealed the Stamp Act in the year 1766, I affirm, first,
that the Americans did not in consequence of this measure call upon you to
give up the former Parliamentary revenue which subsisted in that country,
or even any one of the articles which compose it. I affirm also, that, when,
departing from the maxims of that repeal, you revived the scheme of
taxation, and thereby filled the minds of the colonists with new jealousy and
all sorts of apprehensions, then it was that they quarrelled with the old taxes
as well as the new; then it was, and not till then, that they questioned all the
parts of your legislative power, and by the battery of such questions have
shaken the solid structure of this empire to its deepest foundations.

Of those two propositions I shall, before I have done, give such
convincing, such damning proof, that, however the contrary may be
whispered in circles or bawled in newspapers, they never more will dare to
raise their voices in this House. I speak with great confidence. I have reason
for it. The ministers are with me. They at least are convinced that the repeal
of the Stamp Act had not, and that no repeal can have, the consequences
which the honorable gentleman who defends their measures is so much
alarmed at. To their conduct I refer him for a conclusive answer to his
objection. I carry my proof irresistibly into the very body of both Ministry
and Parliament: not on any general reasoning growing out of collateral
matter, but on the conduct of the honorable gentleman's ministerial friends
on the new revenue itself.

The act of 1767, which grants this tea-duty, sets forth in its preamble, that
it was expedient to raise a revenue in America for the support of the civil
government there, as well as for purposes still more extensive. To this
support the act assigns six branches of duties. About two years after this act
passed, the ministry, I mean the present ministry, thought it expedient to
repeal five of the duties, and to leave (for reasons best known to
themselves) only the sixth standing. Suppose any person, at the time of that
repeal, had thus addressed the minister:[2] "Condemning, as you do, the
repeal of the Stamp Act, why do you venture to repeal the duties upon glass,
paper, and painters' colors? Let your pretence for the repeal be what it will,
are you not thoroughly convinced that your concessions will produce, not
satisfaction, but insolence in the Americans, and that the giving up these
taxes will necessitate the giving up of all the rest?" This objection was as
palpable then as it is now; and it was as good for preserving the five duties
as for retaining the sixth. Besides, the minister will recollect that the repeal
of the Stamp Act had but just preceded his repeal; and the ill policy of that
measure, (had it been so impolitic as it has been represented,) and the
mischiefs it produced, were quite recent. Upon the principles, therefore, of

the honorable gentleman, upon the principles of the minister himself, the
minister has nothing at all to answer. He stands condemned by himself, and
by all his associates old and new, as a destroyer, in the first trust of finance,
of the revenues,—and in the first rank of honor, as a betrayer of the dignity
of his country.

Most men, especially great men, do not always know their well-wishers.
I come to rescue that noble lord out of the hands of those he calls his
friends, and even out of his own. I will do him the justice he is denied at
home. He has not been this wicked or imprudent man. He knew that a
repeal had no tendency to produce the mischiefs which give so much alarm
to his honorable friend. His work was not bad in its principle, but imperfect
in its execution; and the motion on your paper presses him only to complete
a proper plan, which, by some unfortunate and unaccountable error, he had
left unfinished.

I hope, Sir, the honorable gentleman who spoke last is thoroughly
satisfied, and satisfied out of the proceedings of ministry on their own
favorite act, that his fears from a repeal are groundless. If he is not, I leave
him, and the noble lord who sits by him, to settle the matter as well as they
can together; for, if the repeal of American taxes destroys all our
government in America,—he is the man!—and he is the worst of all the
repealers, because he is the last.

But I hear it rung continually in my ears, now and formerly,—"The
preamble! what will become of the preamble, if you repeal this tax?"—I am
sorry to be compelled so often to expose the calamities and disgraces of
Parliament. The preamble of this law, standing as it now stands, has the lie
direct given to it by the provisionary part of the act: if that can be called
provisionary which makes no provision. I should be afraid to express
myself in this manner, especially in the face of such a formidable array of

ability as is now drawn up before me, composed of the ancient household
troops of that side of the House and the new recruits from this, if the matter
were not clear and indisputable. Nothing but truth could give me this
firmness; but plain truth and clear evidence can be beat down by no ability.
The clerk will be so good as to turn to the act, and to read this favorite
preamble.

"Whereas it is expedient that a revenue should be raised in your Majesty's
dominions in America, for making a more certain and adequate provision
for defraying the charge of the administration of justice and support of civil
government in such provinces where it shall be found necessary, and
towards further defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and
securing the said dominions."

You have heard this pompous performance. Now where is the revenue
which is to do all these mighty things? Five sixths repealed,—abandoned,—
sunk,—gone,—lost forever. Does the poor solitary tea-duty support the
purposes of this preamble? Is not the supply there stated as effectually
abandoned as if the tea-duty had perished in the general wreck? Here, Mr.
Speaker, is a precious mockery:—a preamble without an act,—taxes
granted in order to be repealed,—and the reasons of the grant still carefully
kept up! This is raising a revenue in America! This is preserving dignity in
England! If you repeal this tax, in compliance with the motion, I readily
admit that you lose this fair preamble. Estimate your loss in it. The object of
the act is gone already; and all you suffer is the purging the statute-book of
the opprobrium of an empty, absurd, and false recital.

It has been said again and again, that the five taxes were repealed on
commercial principles. It is so said in the paper in my hand:[3] a paper
which I constantly carry about; which I have often used, and shall often use
again. What is got by this paltry pretence of commercial principles I know

not; for, if your government in America is destroyed by the repeal of taxes,
it is of no consequence upon what ideas the repeal is grounded. Repeal this
tax, too, upon commercial principles, if you please. These principles will
serve as well now as they did formerly. But you know that either your
objection to a repeal from these supposed consequences has no validity, or
that this pretence never could remove it. This commercial motive never was
believed by any man, either in America, which this letter is meant to soothe,
or in England, which it is meant to deceive. It was impossible it should:
because every man, in the least acquainted with the detail of commerce,
must know that several of the articles on which the tax was repealed were
fitter objects of duties than almost any other articles that could possibly be
chosen,—without comparison more so than the tea that was left taxed, as
infinitely less liable to be eluded by contraband. The tax upon red and white
lead was of this nature. You have in this kingdom an advantage in lead that
amounts to a monopoly. When you find yourself in this situation of
advantage, you sometimes venture to tax even your own export. You did so
soon after the last war, when, upon this principle, you ventured to impose a
duty on coals. In all the articles of American contraband trade, who ever
heard of the smuggling of red lead and white lead? You might, therefore,
well enough, without danger of contraband, and without injury to
commerce, (if this were the whole consideration,) have taxed these
commodities. The same may be said of glass. Besides, some of the things
taxed were so trivial, that the loss of the objects themselves, and their utter
annihilation out of American commerce, would have been comparatively as
nothing. But is the article of tea such an object in the trade of England, as
not to be felt, or felt but slightly, like white lead, and red lead, and painters'
colors? Tea is an object of far other importance. Tea is perhaps the most
important object, taking it with its necessary connections, of any in the
mighty circle of our commerce. If commercial principles had been the true

motives to the repeal, or had they been at all attended to, tea would have
been the last article we should have left taxed for a subject of controversy.

Sir, it is not a pleasant consideration, but nothing in the world can read so
awful and so instructive a lesson as the conduct of ministry in this business,
upon the mischief of not having large and liberal ideas in the management
of great affairs. Never have the servants of the state looked at the whole of
your complicated interests in one connected view. They have taken things
by bits and scraps, some at one time and one pretence, and some at another,
just as they pressed, without any sort of regard to their relations or
dependencies. They never had any kind of system, right or wrong; but only
invented occasionally some miserable tale for the day, in order meanly to
sneak out of difficulties into which they had proudly strutted. And they
were put to all these shifts and devices, full of meanness and full of
mischief, in order to pilfer piecemeal a repeal of an act which they had not
the generous courage, when they found and felt their error, honorably and
fairly to disclaim. By such management, by the irresistible operation of
feeble councils, so paltry a sum as three-pence in the eyes of a financier, so
insignificant an article as tea in the eyes of a philosopher, have shaken the
pillars of a commercial empire that circled the whole globe.

Do you forget that in the very last year you stood on the precipice of
general bankruptcy? Your danger was indeed great. You were distressed in
the affairs of the East India Company; and you well know what sort of
things are involved in the comprehensive energy of that significant
appellation. I am not called upon to enlarge to you on that danger, which
you thought proper yourselves to aggravate, and to display to the world
with all the parade of indiscreet declamation. The monopoly of the most
lucrative trades and the possession of imperial revenues had brought you to
the verge of beggary and ruin. Such was your representation; such, in some
measure, was your case. The vent of ten millions of pounds of this

commodity, now locked up by the operation of an injudicious tax, and
rotting in the warehouses of the Company, would have prevented all this
distress, and all that series of desperate measures which you thought
yourselves obliged to take in consequence of it. America would have
furnished that vent, which no other part of the world can furnish but
America, where tea is next to a necessary of life, and where the demand
grows upon the supply. I hope our dear-bought East India Committees have
done us at least so much good, as to let us know, that, without a more
extensive sale of that article, our East India revenues and acquisitions can
have no certain connection with this country. It is through the American
trade of tea that your East India conquests are to be prevented from
crushing you with their burden. They are ponderous indeed; and they must
have that great country to lean upon, or they tumble upon your head. It is
the same folly that has lost you at once the benefit of the West and of the
East. This folly has thrown open folding-doors to contraband, and will be
the means of giving the profits of the trade of your colonies to every nation
but yourselves. Never did a people suffer so much for the empty words of a
preamble. It must be given up. For on what principle does it stand? This
famous revenue stands, at this hour, on all the debate, as a description of
revenue not as yet known in all the comprehensive (but too
comprehensive!) vocabulary of finance,—a preambulary tax. It is, indeed, a
tax of sophistry, a tax of pedantry, a tax of disputation, a tax of war and
rebellion, a tax for anything but benefit to the imposers or satisfaction to the
subject.

Well! but whatever it is, gentlemen will force the colonists to take the
teas. You will force them? Has seven years' struggle been yet able to force
them? Oh, but it seems "we are in the right. The tax is trifling,—in effect it
is rather an exoneration than an imposition; three fourths of the duty
formerly payable on teas exported to America is taken off,—the place of
collection is only shifted; instead of the retention of a shilling from the

drawback here, it is three-pence custom paid in America." All this, Sir, is
very true. But this is the very folly and mischief of the act. Incredible as it
may seem, you know that you have deliberately thrown away a large duty,
which you held secure and quiet in your hands, for the vain hope of getting
one three fourths less, through every hazard, through certain litigation, and
possibly through war.

The manner of proceeding in the duties on paper and glass, imposed by
the same act, was exactly in the same spirit. There are heavy excises on
those articles, when used in England. On export, these excises are drawn
back. But instead of withholding the drawback, which might have been
done, with ease, without charge, without possibility of smuggling, and
instead of applying the money (money already in your hands) according to
your pleasure, you began your operations in finance by flinging away your
revenue; you allowed the whole drawback on export, and then you charged
the duty, (which you had before discharged,) payable in the colonies, where
it was certain the collection would devour it to the bone,—if any revenue
were ever suffered to be collected at all. One spirit pervades and animates
the whole mass.

Could anything be a subject of more just alarm to America than to see
you go out of the plain highroad of finance, and give up your most certain
revenues and your clearest interest, merely for the sake of insulting your
colonies? No man ever doubted that the commodity of tea could bear an
imposition of three-pence. But no commodity will bear three-pence, or will
bear a penny, when the general feelings of men are irritated, and two
millions of people are resolved not to pay. The feelings of the colonies were
formerly the feelings of Great Britain. Theirs were formerly the feelings of
Mr. Hampden, when called upon for the payment of twenty shillings. Would
twenty shillings have ruined Mr. Hampden's fortune? No! but the payment
of half twenty shillings, on the principle it was demanded, would have

made him a slave. It is the weight of that preamble, of which you are so
fond, and not the weight of the duty, that the Americans are unable and
unwilling to bear.

It is, then, Sir, upon the principle of this measure, and nothing else, that
we are at issue. It is a principle of political expediency. Your act of 1767
asserts that it is expedient to raise a revenue in America; your act of 1769,
which takes away that revenue, contradicts the act of 1767, and, by
something much stronger than words, asserts that it is not expedient. It is a
reflection upon your wisdom to persist in a solemn Parliamentary
declaration of the expediency of any object, for which, at the same time,
you make no sort of provision. And pray, Sir, let not this circumstance
escape you,—it is very material, —that the preamble of this act which we
wish to repeal is not declaratory of a right, as some gentlemen seem to
argue it: it is only a recital of the expediency of a certain exercise of a right
supposed already to have been asserted; an exercise you are now
contending for by ways and means which you confess, though they were
obeyed, to be utterly insufficient for their purpose. You are therefore at this
moment in the awkward situation of fighting for a phantom,—a quiddity,—
a thing that wants, not only a substance, but even a name,—for a thing
which is neither abstract right nor profitable enjoyment.

They tell you, Sir, that your dignity is tied to it. I know not how it
happens, but this dignify of yours is a terrible incumbrance to you; for it has
of late been ever at war with your interest, your equity, and every idea of
your policy. Show the thing you contend for to be reason, show it to be
common sense, show it to be the means of attaining some useful end, and
then I am content to allow it what dignity you please. But what dignity is
derived from the perseverance in absurdity is more than ever I could
discern. The honorable gentleman has said well,—indeed, in most of his
general observations I agree with him,—he says, that this subject does not

stand as it did formerly. Oh, certainly not! Every hour you continue on this
ill-chosen ground, your difficulties thicken on you; and therefore my
conclusion is, remove from a bad position as quickly as you can. The
disgrace, and the necessity of yielding, both of them, grow upon you every
hour of your delay.

But will you repeal the act, says the honorable gentleman, at this instant,
when America is in open resistance to your authority, and that you have just
revived your system of taxation? He thinks he has driven us into a corner.
But thus pent up, I am content to meet him; because I enter the lists
supported by my old authority, his new friends, the ministers themselves.
The honorable gentleman remembers that about five years ago as great
disturbances as the present prevailed in America on account of the new
taxes. The ministers represented these disturbances as treasonable; and this
House thought proper, on that representation, to make a famous address for
a revival and for a new application of a statute of Henry the Eighth. We
besought the king, in that well-considered address, to inquire into treasons,
and to bring the supposed traitors from America to Great Britain for trial.
His Majesty was pleased graciously to promise a compliance with our
request. All the attempts from this side of the House to resist these
violences, and to bring about a repeal, were treated with the utmost scorn.
An apprehension of the very consequences now stated by the honorable
gentleman was then given as a reason for shutting the door against all hope
of such an alteration. And so strong was the spirit for supporting the new
taxes, that the session concluded with the following remarkable declaration.
After stating the vigorous measures which had been pursued, the speech
from the throne proceeds:—

"You have assured me of your firm support in the prosecution of them.
Nothing, in my opinion, could be more likely to enable the well-disposed
among my subjects in that part of the world effectually to discourage and

defeat the designs of the factious and seditious than the hearty concurrence
of every branch of the legislature in the resolution of maintaining the
execution of the laws in every part of my dominions."

After this no man dreamt that a repeal under this ministry could possibly
take place. The honorable gentleman knows as well as I, that the idea was
utterly exploded by those who sway the House. This speech was made on
the ninth day of May, 1769. Five days after this speech, that is, on the
thirteenth of the same month, the public circular letter, a part of which I am
going to read to you, was written by Lord Hillsborough, Secretary of State
for the Colonies. After reciting the substance of the king's speech, he goes
on thus:—

"I can take upon me to assure you, notwithstanding insinuations to the
contrary from men with factious and seditious views, that his Majesty's
present administration have at no time entertained a design to propose to
Parliament to lay any further taxes upon America, for the purpose of
RAISING A REVENUE; and that it is at present their intention to propose,
the next session of Parliament, to take off the duties upon glass, paper, and
colors, upon consideration of such duties having been laid contrary to the
true principles of commerce.

"These have always been, and still are, the sentiments of his Majesty's
present servants, and by which their conduct in respect to America has been
governed. And his Majesty relies upon your prudence and fidelity for such
an explanation of his measures as may tend to remove the prejudices which
have been excited by the misrepresentations of those who are enemies to
the peace and prosperity of Great Britain and her colonies, and to
reëstablish that mutual confidence and affection upon which the glory and
safety of the British empire depend."

Here, Sir, is a canonical boot of ministerial scripture: the general epistle
to the Americans. What does the gentleman say to it? Here a repeal is
promised,—promised without condition,—and while your authority was
actually resisted. I pass by the public promise of a peer relative to the repeal
of taxes by this House. I pass by the use of the king's name in a matter of
supply, that sacred and reserved right of the Commons. I conceal the
ridiculous figure of Parliament hurling its thunders at the gigantic rebellion
of America, and then, five days after, prostrate at the feet of those
assemblies we affected to despise,—begging them, by the intervention of
our ministerial sureties, to receive our submission, and heartily promising
amendment. These might have been serious matters formerly; but we are
grown wiser than our fathers. Passing, therefore, from the Constitutional
consideration to the mere policy, does not this letter imply that the idea of
taxing America for the purpose of revenue is an abominable project, when
the ministry suppose none but factious men, and with seditious views, could
charge them with it? does not this letter adopt and sanctify the American
distinction of taxing for a revenue? does it not formally reject all future
taxation on that principle? does it not state the ministerial rejection of such
principle of taxation, not as the occasional, but the constant opinion of the
king's servants? does it not say, (I care not how consistently,) but does it not
say, that their conduct with regard to America has been always governed by
this policy? It goes a great deal further. These excellent and trusty servants
of the king, justly fearful lest they themselves should have lost all credit
with the world, bring out the image of their gracious sovereign from the
inmost and most sacred shrine, and they pawn him as a security for their
promises:—"His Majesty relies on your prudence and fidelity for such an
explanation of his measures." These sentiments of the minister and these
measures of his Majesty can only relate to the principle and practice of
taxing for a revenue; and accordingly Lord Botetourt, stating it as such, did,
with great propriety, and in the exact spirit of his instructions, endeavor to

remove the fears of the Virginian assembly lest the sentiments which it
seems (unknown to the world) had always been those of the ministers, and
by which their conduct in respect to America had been governed, should by
some possible revolution, favorable to wicked American taxers, be hereafter
counteracted. He addresses them in this manner:—

"It may possibly be objected, that, as his Majesty's present administration
are not immortal, their successors may be inclined to attempt to undo what
the present ministers shall have attempted to perform; and to that objection
I can give but this answer: that it is my firm opinion, that the plan I have
stated to you will certainly take place, and that it will never be departed
from; and so determined am I forever to abide by it, that I will be content to
be declared infamous, if I do not, to the last hour of my life, at all times, in
all places, and upon all occasions, exert every power with which I either am
or ever shall be legally invested, in order to obtain and maintain for the
continent of America that satisfaction which I have been authorized to
promise this day by the confidential servants of our gracious sovereign,
who to my certain knowledge rates his honor so high that he would rather
part with his crown than preserve it by deceit."[4]

A glorious and true character! which (since we suffer his ministers with
impunity to answer for his ideas of taxation) we ought to make it our
business to enable his Majesty to preserve in all its lustre. Let him have
character, since ours is no more! Let some part of government be kept in
respect!

This epistle was not the letter of Lord Hillsborough solely, though he
held the official pen. It was the letter of the noble lord upon the floor,[5] and
of all the king's then ministers, who (with, I think, the exception of two
only) are his ministers at this hour. The very first news that a British
Parliament heard of what it was to do with the duties which it had given and

granted to the king was by the publication of the votes of American
assemblies. It was in America that your resolutions were pre-declared. It
was from thence that we knew to a certainty how much exactly, and not a
scruple more nor less, we were to repeal. We were unworthy to be let into
the secret of our own conduct. The assemblies had confidential
communications from his Majesty's confidential servants. We were nothing
but instruments. Do you, after this, wonder that you have no weight and no
respect in the colonies? After this are you surprised that Parliament is every
day and everywhere losing (I feel it with sorrow, I utter it with reluctance)
that reverential affection which so endearing a name of authority ought ever
to carry with it? that you are obeyed solely from respect to the bayonet? and
that this House, the ground and pillar of freedom, is itself held up only by
the treacherous underpinning and clumsy buttresses of arbitrary power?

If this dignity, which is to stand in the place of just policy and common
sense, had been consulted, there was a time for preserving it, and for
reconciling it with any concession. If in the session of 1768, that session of
idle terror and empty menaces, you had, as you were often pressed to do,
repealed these taxes, then your strong operations would have come justified
and enforced, in case your concessions had been returned by outrages. But,
preposterously, you began with violence; and before terrors could have any
effect, either good or bad, your ministers immediately begged pardon, and
promised that repeal to the obstinate Americans which they had refused in
an easy, good-natured, complying British Parliament. The assemblies,
which had been publicly and avowedly dissolved for their contumacy, are
called together to receive your submission. Your ministerial directors
blustered like tragic tyrants here; and then went mumping with a sore leg in
America, canting, and whining, and complaining of faction, which
represented them as friends to a revenue from the colonies. I hope nobody
in this House will hereafter have the impudence to defend American taxes
in the name of ministry. The moment they do, with this letter of attorney in

my hand, I will tell them, in the authorized terms, they are wretches "with
factious and seditious views," "enemies to the peace and prosperity of the
mother country and the colonies," and subverters "of the mutual affection
and confidence on which the glory and safety of the British empire
depend."

After this letter, the question is no more on propriety or dignity. They are
gone already. The faith of your sovereign is pledged for the political
principle. The general declaration in the letter goes to the whole of it. You
must therefore either abandon the scheme of taxing, or you must send the
ministers tarred and feathered to America, who dared to hold out the royal
faith for a renunciation of all taxes for revenue. Them you must punish, or
this faith you must preserve. The preservation of this faith is of more
consequence than the duties on red lead, or white lead, or on broken glass,
or atlas-ordinary, or demy-fine, or blue-royal, or bastard, or fools cap,
which you have given up, or the three-pence on tea which you retained. The
letter went stamped with the public authority of this kingdom. The
instructions for the colony government go under no other sanction; and
America cannot believe, and will not obey you, if you do not preserve this
channel of communication sacred. You are now punishing the colonies for
acting on distinctions held out by that very ministry which is here shining in
riches, in favor, and in power, and urging the punishment of the very
offence to which they had themselves been the tempters.

Sir, if reasons respecting simply your own commerce, which is your own
convenience, were the sole grounds of the repeal of the five duties, why
does Lord Hillsborough, in disclaiming in the name of the king and ministry
their ever having had an intent to tax for revenue, mention it as the means
"of reëstablishing the confidence and affection of the colonies?" Is it a way
of soothing others, to assure them that you will take good care of yourself?
The medium, the only medium, for regaining their affection and confidence

is that you will take off something oppressive to their minds. Sir, the letter
strongly enforces that idea: for though the repeal of the taxes is promised on
commercial principles, yet the means of counteracting the "insinuations of
men with factious and seditious views" is by a disclaimer of the intention of
taxing for revenue, as a constant, invariable sentiment and rule of conduct
in the government of America.

I remember that the noble lord on the floor, not in a former debate to be
sure, (it would be disorderly to refer to it, I suppose I read it somewhere,)
but the noble lord was pleased to say, that he did not conceive how it could
enter into the head of man to impose such taxes as those of 1767: I mean
those taxes which he voted for imposing, and voted for repealing,—as being
taxes, contrary to all the principles of commerce, laid on British
manufactures.

I dare say the noble lord is perfectly well read, because the duty of his
particular office requires he should be so, in all our revenue laws, and in the
policy which is to be collected out of them. Now, Sir, when he had read this
act of American revenue, and a little recovered from his astonishment, I
suppose he made one step retrograde (it is but one) and looked at the act
which stands just before in the statute-book. The American revenue act is
the forty-fifth chapter; the other to which I refer is the forty-fourth of the
same session. These two acts are both to the same purpose: both revenue
acts; both taxing out of the kingdom; and both taxing British manufactures
exported. As the forty-fifth is an act for raising a revenue in America, the
forty-fourth is an act for raising a revenue in the Isle of Man. The two acts
perfectly agree in all respects, except one. In the act for taxing the Isle of
Man the noble lord will find, not, as in the American act, four or fire
articles, but almost the whole body of British manufactures, taxed from two
and a half to fifteen per cent, and some articles, such as that of spirits, a
great deal higher. You did not think it uncommercial to tax the whole mass

of your manufactures, and, let me add, your agriculture too; for, I now
recollect, British corn is there also taxed up to ten per cent, and this too in
the very head-quarters, the very citadel of smuggling, the Isle of Man. Now
will the noble lord condescend to tell me why he repealed the taxes on your
manufactures sent out to America, and not the taxes on the manufactures
exported to the Isle of Man? The principle was exactly the same, the objects
charged infinitely more extensive, the duties without comparison higher.
Why? Why, notwithstanding all his childish pretexts, because the taxes
were quietly submitted to in the Isle of Man, and because they raised a
flame in America. Your reasons were political, not commercial. The repeal
was made, as Lord Hillsborough's letter well expresses it, to regain "the
confidence and affection of the colonies, on which the glory and safety of
the British empire depend." A wise and just motive, surely, if ever there was
such. But the mischief and dishonor is, that you have not done what you
had given the colonies just cause to expect, when your ministers disclaimed
the idea of taxes for a revenue. There is nothing simple, nothing manly,
nothing ingenuous, open, decisive, or steady, in the proceeding, with regard
either to the continuance or the repeal of the taxes. The whole has an air of
littleness and fraud. The article of tea is slurred over in the circular letter, as
it were by accident: nothing is said of a resolution either to keep that tax or
to give it up. There is no fair dealing in any part of the transaction.

If you mean to follow your true motive and your public faith, give up
your tax on tea for raising a revenue, the principle of which has, in effect,
been disclaimed in your name, and which produces you no advantage,—no,
not a penny. Or, if you choose to go on with a poor pretence instead of a
solid reason, and will still adhere to your cant of commerce, you have ten
thousand times more strong commercial reasons for giving up this duty on
tea than for abandoning the five others that you have already renounced.

The American consumption of teas is annually, I believe, worth 300,000l.
at the least farthing. If you urge the American violence as a justification of
your perseverance in enforcing this tax, you know that you can never
answer this plain question,—Why did you repeal the others given in the
same act, whilst the very same violence subsisted?—But you did not find
the violence cease upon that concession.—No! because the concession was
far short of satisfying the principle which Lord Hillsborough had abjured,
or even the pretence on which the repeal of the other taxes was announced;
and because, by enabling the East India Company to open a shop for
defeating the American resolution not to pay that specific tax, you
manifestly showed a hankering after the principle of the act which you
formerly had renounced. Whatever road you take leads to a compliance
with this motion. It opens to you at the end of every visto. Your commerce,
your policy, your promises, your reasons, your pretences, your consistency,
your inconsistency,—all jointly oblige you to this repeal.

But still it sticks in our throats, if we go so far, the Americans will go
farther.—We do not know that. We ought, from experience, rather to
presume the contrary. Do we not know for certain, that the Americans are
going on as fast as possible, whilst we refuse to gratify them? Can they do
more, or can they do worse, if we yield this point? I think this concession
will rather fix a turnpike to prevent their further progress. It is impossible to
answer for bodies of men. But I am sure the natural effect of fidelity,
clemency, kindness in governors is peace, good-will, order, and esteem, on
the part of the governed. I would certainly, at least, give these fair principles
a fair trial; which, since the making of this act to this hour, they never have
had.

Sir, the honorable gentleman having spoken what he thought necessary
upon the narrow part of the subject, I have given him, I hope, a satisfactory
answer. He next presses me, by a variety of direct challenges and oblique

reflections, to say something on the historical part. I shall therefore, Sir,
open myself fully on that important and delicate subject: not for the sake of
telling you a long story, (which, I know, Mr. Speaker, you are not
particularly fond of,) but for the sake of the weighty instruction that, I
flatter myself, will necessarily result from it. It shall not be longer, if I can
help it, than so serious a matter requires.

Permit me then, Sir, to lead your attention very far back,—back to the
Act of Navigation, the cornerstone of the policy of this country with regard
to its colonies. Sir, that policy was, from the beginning, purely commercial;
and the commercial system was wholly restrictive. It was the system of a
monopoly. No trade was let loose from that constraint, but merely to enable
the colonists to dispose of what, in the course of your trade, you could not
take,—or to enable them to dispose of such articles as we forced upon them,
and for which, without some degree of liberty, they could not pay. Hence all
your specific and detailed enumerations; hence the innumerable checks and
counterchecks; hence that infinite variety of paper chains by which you
bind together this complicated system of the colonies. This principle of
commercial monopoly runs through no less than twenty-nine acts of
Parliament, from the year 1660 to the unfortunate period of 1764.

In all those acts the system of commerce is established as that from
whence alone you proposed to make the colonies contribute (I mean
directly and by the operation of your superintending legislative power) to
the strength of the empire. I venture to say, that, during that whole period, a
Parliamentary revenue from thence was never once in contemplation.
Accordingly, in all the number of laws passed with regard to the
plantations, the words which distinguish revenue laws specifically as such
were, I think, premeditately avoided. I do not say, Sir, that a form of words
alters the nature of the law, or abridges the power of the lawgiver. It
certainly does not. How ever, titles and formal preambles are not always

idle words; and the lawyers frequently argue from them. I state these facts
to show, not what was your right, but what has been your settled policy. Our
revenue laws have usually a title, purporting their being grants; and the
words "give and grant" usually precede the enacting parts. Although duties
were imposed on America in acts of King Charles the Second, and in acts of
King William, no one title of giving "an aid to his Majesty," or any other of
the usual titles to revenue acts, was to be found in any of them till 1764; nor
were the words "give and grant" in any preamble until the sixth of George
the Second. However, the title of this act of George the Second,
notwithstanding the words of donation, considers it merely as a regulation
of trade; "An act for the better securing of the trade of his Majesty's sugar
colonies in America." This act was made on a compromise of all, and at the
express desire of a part, of the colonies themselves. It was therefore in some
measure with their consent; and having a title directly purporting only a
commercial regulation, and being in truth nothing more, the words were
passed by, at a time when no jealousy was entertained, and things were little
scrutinized. Even Governor Bernard, in his second printed letter, dated in
1763, gives it as his opinion, that "it was an act of prohibition, not of
revenue." This is certainly true, that no act avowedly for the purpose of
revenue, and with the ordinary title and recital taken together, is found in
the statute-book until the year I have mentioned: that is, the year 1764. All
before this period stood on commercial regulation and restraint. The scheme
of a colony revenue by British authority appeared, therefore, to the
Americans in the light of a great innovation. The words of Governor
Bernard's ninth letter, written in November, 1765, state this idea very
strongly. "It must," says he, "have been supposed such an innovation as a
Parliamentary taxation would cause a great alarm, and meet with much
opposition in most parts of America; it was quite new to the people, and had
no visible bounds set to it." After stating the weakness of government there,
he says, "Was this a time to introduce so great a novelty as a Parliamentary

inland taxation in America?" Whatever the right might have been, this mode
of using it was absolutely new in policy and practice.

Sir, they who are friends to the schemes of American revenue say, that
the commercial restraint is full as hard a law for America to live under. I
think so, too. I think it, if uncompensated, to be a condition of as rigorous
servitude as men can be subject to. But America bore it from the
fundamental Act of Navigation until 1764. Why? Because men do bear the
inevitable constitution of their original nature with all its infirmities. The
Act of Navigation attended the colonies from their infancy, grow with their
growth, and strengthened with their strength They were confirmed in
obedience to it even more by usage than by law. They scarcely had
remembered a time when they were not subject to such restraint. Besides,
they were indemnified for it by a pecuniary compensation. Their
monopolist happened to be one of the richest men in the world. By his
immense capital (primarily employed, not for their benefit, but his own)
they were enabled to proceed with their fisheries, their agriculture, their
shipbuilding, (and their trade, too, within the limits,) in such a manner as
got far the start of the slow, languid operations of unassisted Nature. This
capital was a hot-bed to them. Nothing in the history of mankind is like
their progress. For my part, I never cast an eye on their flourishing
commerce, and their cultivated and commodious life, but they seem to me
rather ancient nations grown to perfection through a long series of fortunate
events, and a train of successful industry, accumulating wealth in many
centuries, than the colonies of yesterday,—than a set of miserable outcasts a
few years ago, not so much sent as thrown out on the bleak and barren
shore of a desolate wilderness three thousand miles from all civilized
intercourse.

All this was done by England whilst England pursued trade and forgot
revenue. You not only acquired commerce, but you actually created the very

objects of trade in America; and by that creation you raised the trade of this
kingdom at least fourfold. America had the compensation of your capital,
which made her bear her servitude. She had another compensation, which
you are now going to take away from her. She had, except the commercial
restraint, every characteristic mark of a free people in all her internal
concerns. She had the image of the British Constitution. She had the
substance. She was taxed by her own representatives. She chose most of her
own magistrates. She paid them all. She had in effect the sole disposal of
her own internal government. This whole state of commercial servitude and
civil liberty, taken together, is certainly not perfect freedom; but comparing
it with the ordinary circumstances of human nature, it was an happy and a
liberal condition.

I know, Sir, that great and not unsuccessful pains have been taken to
inflame our minds by an outcry, in this House, and out of it, that in America
the Act of Navigation neither is or never was obeyed. But if you take the
colonies through, I affirm that its authority never was disputed,—that it was
nowhere disputed for any length of time,—and, on the whole, that it was
well observed. Wherever the act pressed hard, many individuals, indeed,
evaded it. This is nothing. These scattered individuals never denied the law,
and never obeyed it. Just as it happens, whenever the laws of trade,
whenever the laws of revenue, press hard upon the people in England: in
that case all your shores are full of contraband. Your right to give a
monopoly to the East India Company, your right to lay immense duties on
French brandy, are not disputed in England. You do not make this charge on
any man. But you know that there is not a creek from Pentland Frith to the
Isle of Wight in which they do not smuggle immense quantities of teas, East
India goods, and brandies. I take it for granted that the authority of
Governor Bernard in this point is indisputable. Speaking of these laws, as
they regarded that part of America now in so unhappy a condition, he says,
"I believe they are nowhere better supported than in this province: I do not

pretend that it is entirely free from a breach of these laws, but that such a
breach, if discovered, is justly punished." What more can you say of the
obedience to any laws in any country? An obedience to these laws formed
the acknowledgment, instituted by yourselves, for your superiority, and was
the payment you originally imposed for your protection.

Whether you were right or wrong in establishing the colonies on the
principles of commercial monopoly, rather than on that of revenue, is at this
day a problem of mere speculation. You cannot have both by the same
authority. To join together the restraints of an universal internal and external
monopoly with an universal internal and external taxation is an unnatural
union,—perfect, uncompensated slavery. You have long since decided for
yourself and them; and you and they have prospered exceedingly under that
decision.

This nation, Sir, never thought of departing from that choice until the
period immediately on the close of the last war. Then a scheme of
government, new in many things, seemed to have been adopted. I saw, or
thought I saw, several symptoms of a great change, whilst I sat in your
gallery, a good while before I had the honor of a seat in this House. At that
period the necessity was established of keeping up no less than twenty new
regiments, with twenty colonels capable of seats in this House. This scheme
was adopted with very general applause from all sides, at the very time that,
by your conquests in America, your danger from foreign attempts in that
part of the world was much lessened, or indeed rather quite over. When this
huge increase of military establishment was resolved on, a revenue was to
be found to support so great a burden. Country gentlemen, the great patrons
of economy, and the great resisters of a standing armed force, would not
have entered with much alacrity into the vote for so large and so expensive
an army, if they had been very sure that they were to continue to pay for it.
But hopes of another kind were held out to them; and in particular, I well

remember that Mr. Townshend, in a brilliant harangue on this subject, did
dazzle them by playing before their eyes the image of a revenue to be raised
in America.

Here began to dawn the first glimmerings of this new colony system. It
appeared more distinctly afterwards, when it was devolved upon a person to
whom, on other accounts, this country owes very great obligations. I do
believe that he had a very serious desire to benefit the public. But with no
small study of the detail, he did not seem to have his view, at least equally,
carried to the total circuit of our affairs. He generally considered his objects
in lights that were rather too detached. Whether the business of an
American revenue was imposed upon him altogether,—whether it was
entirely the result of his own speculation, or, what is more probable, that his
own ideas rather coincided with the instructions he had received,—certain it
is, that, with the best intentions in the world, he first brought this fatal
scheme into form, and established it by Act of Parliament.

No man can believe, that, at this time of day, I mean to lean on the
venerable memory of a great man, whose loss we deplore in common. Our
little party differences have been long ago composed; and I have acted more
with him, and certainly with more pleasure with him, than ever I acted
against him. Undoubtedly Mr. Grenville was a first-rate figure in this
country. With a masculine understanding, and a stout and resolute heart, he
had an application undissipated and unwearied. He took public business,
not as a duty which he was to fulfil, but as a pleasure he was to enjoy; and
he seemed to have no delight out of this House, except in such things as
some way related to the business that was to be done within it. If he was
ambitious, I will say this for him, his ambition was of a noble and generous
strain. It was to raise himself, not by the low, pimping politics of a court,
but to win his way to power through the laborious gradations of public
service, and to secure himself a well-earned rank in Parliament by a

thorough knowledge of its constitution and a perfect practice in all its
business.

Sir, if such a man fell into errors, it must be from defects not intrinsical;
they must be rather sought in the particular habits of his life, which, though
they do not alter the groundwork of character, yet tinge it with their own
hue. He was bred in a profession. He was bred to the law, which is, in my
opinion, one of the first and noblest of human sciences,—a science which
does more to quicken and invigorate the understanding than all the other
kinds of learning put together; but it is not apt, except in persons very
happily born, to open and to liberalize the mind exactly in the same
proportion. Passing from that study, he did not go very largely into the
world, but plunged into business,—I mean into the business of office, and
the limited and fixed methods and forms established there. Much
knowledge is to be had, undoubtedly, in that line; and there is no knowledge
which is not valuable. But it may be truly said, that men too much
conversant in office are rarely minds of remarkable enlargement. Their
habits of office are apt to give them a turn to think the substance of business
not to be much more important than the forms in which it is conducted.
These forms are adapted to ordinary occasions; and therefore persons who
are nurtured in office do admirably well as long as things go on in their
common order; but when the high-roads are broken up, and the waters out,
when a new and troubled scene is opened, and the file affords no precedent,
then it is that a greater knowledge of mankind, and a far more extensive
comprehension of things is requisite, than ever office gave, or than office
can ever give. Mr. Grenville thought better of the wisdom and power of
human legislation than in truth it deserves. He conceived, and many
conceived along with him, that the flourishing trade of this country was
greatly owing to law and institution, and not quite so much to liberty; for
but too many are apt to believe regulation to be commerce, and taxes to be
revenue. Among regulations, that which stood first in reputation was his

idol: I mean the Act of Navigation. He has often professed it to be so. The
policy of that act is, I readily admit, in many respects well understood. But I
do say, that, if the act be suffered to run the full length of its principle, and
is not changed and modified according to the change of times and the
fluctuation of circumstances, it must do great mischief, and frequently even
defeat its own purpose.

After the war, and in the last years of it, the trade of America had
increased far beyond the speculations of the most sanguine imaginations. It
swelled out on every side. It filled all its proper channels to the brim. It
overflowed with a rich redundance, and breaking its banks on the right and
on the left, it spread out upon some places where it was indeed improper,
upon others where it was only irregular. It is the nature of all greatness not
to be exact; and great trade will always be attended with considerable
abuses. The contraband will always keep pace in some measure with the
fair trade. It should stand as a fundamental maxim, that no vulgar
precaution ought to be employed in the cure of evils which are closely
connected with the cause of our prosperity. Perhaps this great person turned
his eyes somewhat less than was just towards the incredible increase of the
fair trade, and looked with something of too exquisite a jealousy towards
the contraband. He certainly felt a singular degree of anxiety on the subject,
and even began to act from that passion earlier than is commonly imagined.
For whilst he was First Lord of the Admiralty, though not strictly called
upon in his official line, he presented a very strong memorial to the Lords
of the Treasury, (my Lord Bute was then at the head of the board,) heavily
complaining of the growth of the illicit commerce in America. Some
mischief happened even at that time from this over-earnest zeal. Much
greater happened afterwards, when it operated with greater power in the
highest department of the finances. The bonds of the Act of Navigation
were straitened so much that America was on the point of having no trade,
either contraband or legitimate. They found, under the construction and

execution then used, the act no longer tying, but actually strangling them.
All this coming with new enumerations of commodities, with regulations
which in a manner put a stop to the mutual coasting intercourse of the
colonies, with the appointment of courts of admiralty under various
improper circumstances, with a sudden extinction of the paper currencies,
with a compulsory provision for the quartering of soldiers,—the people of
America thought themselves proceeded against as delinquents, or, at best, as
people under suspicion of delinquency, and in such a manner as they
imagined their recent services in the war did not at all merit. Any of these
innumerable regulations, perhaps, would not have alarmed alone; some
might be thought reasonable; the multitude struck them with terror.

But the grand manoeuvre in that business of new regulating the colonies
was the fifteenth act of the fourth of George the Third, which, besides
containing several of the matters to which I have just alluded, opened a new
principle. And here properly began the second period of the policy of this
country with regard to the colonies, by which the scheme of a regular
plantation Parliamentary revenue was adopted in theory and settled in
practice: a revenue not substituted in the place of, but superadded to, a
monopoly; which monopoly was enforced at the same time with additional
strictness, and the execution put into military hands.

This act, Sir, had for the first time the title of "granting duties in the
colonies and plantations of America," and for the first time it was asserted
in the preamble "that it was just and necessary that a revenue should be
raised there"; then came the technical words of "giving and granting." And
thus a complete American revenue act was made in all the forms, and with a
full avowal of the right, equity, policy, and even necessity, of taxing the
colonies, without any formal consent of theirs. There are contained also in
the preamble to that act these very remarkable words,—the Commons, &c.,
"being desirous to make some provision in the present session of Parliament

towards raising the said revenue." By these words it appeared to the
colonies that this act was but a beginning of sorrows,—that every session
was to produce something of the same kind,—that we were to go on, from
day to day, in charging them with such taxes as we pleased, for such a
military force as we should think proper. Had this plan been pursued, it was
evident that the provincial assemblies, in which the Americans felt all their
portion of importance, and beheld their sole image of freedom, were ipso
facto annihilated. This ill prospect before them seemed to be boundless in
extent and endless in duration. Sir, they were not mistaken. The ministry
valued themselves when this act passed, and when they gave notice of the
Stamp Act, that both of the duties came very short of their ideas of
American taxation. Great was the applause of this measure here. In England
we cried out for new taxes on America, whilst they cried out that they were
nearly crushed with those which the war and their own grants had brought
upon them.

Sir, it has been said in the debate, that, when the first American revenue
act (the act in 1764, imposing the port-duties) passed, the Americans did not
object to the principle. It is true they touched it but very tenderly. It was not
a direct attack. They were, it is true, as yet novices,—as yet unaccustomed
to direct attacks upon any of the rights of Parliament. The duties were port-
duties, like those they had been accustomed to bear,—with this difference,
that the title was not the same, the preamble not the same, and the spirit
altogether unlike. But of what service is this observation to the cause of
those that make it? It is a full refutation of the pretence for their present
cruelty to America; for it shows, out of their own mouths, that our colonies
were backward to enter into the present vexatious and ruinous controversy.

There is also another circulation abroad, (spread with a malignant
intention, which I cannot attribute to those who say the same thing in this
House,) that Mr. Grenville gave the colony agents an option for their

assemblies to tax themselves, which they had refused. I find that much
stress is laid on this, as a fact. However, it happens neither to be true nor
possible. I will observe, first, that Mr. Grenville never thought fit to make
this apology for himself in the innumerable debates that were had upon the
subject. He might have proposed to the colony agents, that they should
agree in some mode of taxation as the ground of an act of Parliament. But
he never could have proposed that they should tax themselves on
requisition, which is, the assertion of the day. Indeed, Mr. Grenville well
knew that the colony agents could have no general powers to consent to it;
and they had no time to consult their assemblies for particular powers,
before he passed his first revenue act. If you compare dates, you will find it
impossible. Burdened as the agents knew the colonies were at that time,
they could not give the least hope of such grants. His own favorite governor
was of opinion that the Americans were not then taxable objects.

"Nor was the time less favorable to the equity of such a taxation. I don't
mean to dispute the reasonableness of America contributing to the charges
of Great Britain, when she is able; nor, I believe, would the Americans
themselves have disputed it at a proper time and season. But it should be
considered, that the American governments themselves have, in the
prosecution of the late war, contracted very large debts, which it will take
some years to pay off, and in the mean time occasion very burdensome
taxes for that purpose only. For instance, this government, which is as much
beforehand as any, raises every year 37,500l. sterling for sinking their debt,
and must continue it for four years longer at least before it will be clear."

These are the words of Governor Bernard's letter to a member of the old
ministry, and which he has since printed.

Mr. Grenville could not have made this proposition to the agents for
another reason. He was of opinion, which he has declared in this House an

hundred times, that the colonies could not legally grant any revenue to the
crown, and that infinite mischiefs would be the consequence of such a
power. When Mr. Grenville had passed the first revenue act, and in the same
session had made this House come to a resolution for laying a stamp-duty
on America, between that time and the passing the Stamp Act into a law he
told a considerable and most respectable merchant, a member of this House,
whom I am truly sorry I do not now see in his place, when he represented
against this proceeding, that, if the stamp-duty was disliked, he was willing
to exchange it for any other equally productive,—but that, if he objected to
the Americans being taxed by Parliament, he might save himself the trouble
of the discussion, as he was determined on the measure. This is the fact,
and, if you please, I will mention a very unquestionable authority for it.

Thus, Sir, I have disposed of this falsehood. But falsehood has a
perennial spring. It is said that no conjecture could be made of the dislike of
the colonies to the principle. This is as untrue as the other. After the
resolution of the House, and before the passing of the Stamp Act, the
colonies of Massachusetts Bay and New York did send remonstrances
objecting to this mode of Parliamentary taxation. What was the
consequence? They were suppressed, they were put under the table,
notwithstanding an order of Council to the contrary, by the ministry which
composed the very Council that had made the order; and thus the House
proceeded to its business of taxing without the least regular knowledge of
the objections which were made to it. But to give that House its due, it was
not over-desirous to receive information or to hear remonstrance. On the
15th of February, 1765, whilst the Stamp Act was under deliberation, they
refused with scorn even so much as to receive four petitions presented from
so respectable colonies as Connecticut, Rhode Island, Virginia, and
Carolina, besides one from the traders of Jamaica. As to the colonies, they
had no alternative left to them but to disobey, or to pay the taxes imposed

by that Parliament, which was not suffered, or did not suffer itself, even to
hear them remonstrate upon the subject.

This was the state of the colonies before his Majesty thought fit to change
his ministers. It stands upon no authority of mine. It is proved by
uncontrovertible records. The honorable gentleman has desired some of us
to lay our hands upon our hearts and answer to his queries upon the
historical part of this consideration, and by his manner (as well as my eyes
could discern it) he seemed to address himself to me.

Sir, I will answer him as clearly as I am able, and with great openness: I
have nothing to conceal. In the year sixty-five, being in a very private
station, far enough from any line of business, and not having the honor of a
seat in this House, it was my fortune, unknowing and unknown to the then
ministry, by the intervention of a common friend, to become connected with
a very noble person, and at the head of the Treasury Department. It was,
indeed, in a situation of little rank and no consequence, suitable to the
mediocrity of my talents and pretensions,—but a situation near enough to
enable me to see, as well as others, what was going on; and I did see in that
noble person such sound principles, such an enlargement of mind, such
clear and sagacious sense, and such unshaken fortitude, as have bound me,
as well as others much better than me, by an inviolable attachment to him
from that time forward. Sir, Lord Rockingham very early in that summer
received a strong representation from many weighty English merchants and
manufacturers, from governors of provinces and commanders of men-of-
war, against almost the whole of the American commercial regulations,—
and particularly with regard to the total ruin which was threatened to the
Spanish trade. I believe, Sir, the noble lord soon saw his way in this
business. But he did not rashly determine against acts which it might be
supposed were the result of much deliberation. However, Sir, he scarcely
began to open the ground, when the whole veteran body of office took the

alarm. A violent outcry of all (except those who knew and felt the mischief)
was raised against any alteration. On one hand, his attempt was a direct
violation of treaties and public law; on the other, the Act of Navigation and
all the corps of trade-laws were drawn up in array against it.

The first step the noble lord took was, to have the opinion of his
excellent, learned, and ever-lamented friend, the late Mr. Yorke, then
Attorney-General, on the point of law. When he knew that formally and
officially which in substance he had known before, he immediately
dispatched orders to redress the grievance. But I will say it for the then
minister, he is of that constitution of mind, that I know he would have
issued, on the same critical occasion, the very same orders, if the acts of
trade had been, as they were not, directly against him, and would have
cheerfully submitted to the equity of Parliament for his indemnity.

On the conclusion of this business of the Spanish trade, the news of the
troubles on account of the Stamp Act arrived in England. It was not until the
end of October that these accounts were received. No sooner had the sound
of that mighty tempest reached us in England, than the whole of the then
opposition, instead of feeling humbled by the unhappy issue of their
measures, seemed to be infinitely elated, and cried out, that the ministry,
from envy to the glory of their predecessors, were prepared to repeal the
Stamp Act. Near nine years after, the honorable gentleman takes quite
opposite ground, and now challenges me to put my hand to my heart and
say whether the ministry had resolved on the repeal till a considerable time
after the meeting of Parliament. Though I do not very well know what the
honorable gentleman wishes to infer from the admission or from the denial
of this fact on which he so earnestly adjures me, I do put my hand on my
heart and assure him that they did not come to a resolution directly to
repeal. They weighed this matter as its difficulty and importance required.
They considered maturely among themselves. They consulted with all who

could give advice or information. It was not determined until a little before
the meeting of Parliament; but it was determined, and the main lines of their
own plan marked out, before that meeting. Two questions arose. (I hope I
am not going into a narrative troublesome to the House.)

[A cry of "Go on, go on!"]

The first of the two considerations was, whether the repeal should be
total, or whether only partial,—taking out everything burdensome and
productive, and reserving only an empty acknowledgment, such as a stamp
on cards or dice. The other question was, on what principle the act should
be repealed. On this head also two principles were started. One, that the
legislative rights of this country with regard to America were not entire, but
had certain restrictions and limitations. The other principle was, that taxes
of this kind were contrary to the fundamental principles of commerce on
which the colonies were founded, and contrary to every idea of political
equity,—by which equity we are bound as much as possible to extend the
spirit and benefit of the British Constitution to every part of the British
dominions. The option, both of the measure and of the principle of repeal,
was made before the session; and I wonder how any one can read the king's
speech at the opening of that session, without seeing in that speech both the
repeal and the Declaratory Act very sufficiently crayoned out. Those who
cannot see this can see nothing.

Surely the honorable gentleman will not think that a great deal less time
than was then employed ought to have been spent in deliberation, when he
considers that the news of the troubles did not arrive till towards the end of
October. The Parliament sat to fill the vacancies on the 14th day of
December, and on business the 14th of the following January.

Sir, a partial repeal, or, as the bon-ton of the court then was, a
modification, would have satisfied a timid, unsystematic, procrastinating

ministry, as such a measure has since done such a ministry. A modification
is the constant resource of weak, undeciding minds. To repeal by a denial of
our right to tax in the preamble (and this, too, did not want advisers) would
have cut, in the heroic style, the Gordian knot with a sword. Either measure
would have cost no more than a day's debate. But when the total repeal was
adopted, and adopted on principles of policy, of equity, and of commerce,
this plan made it necessary to enter into many and difficult measures. It
became necessary to open a very largo field of evidence commensurate to
these extensive views. But then this labor did knights' service. It opened the
eyes of several to the true state of the American affairs; it enlarged their
ideas; it removed prejudices; and it conciliated the opinions and affections
of men. The noble lord who then took the lead in administration, my
honorable friend[6] under me, and a right honorable gentleman[7] (if he will
not reject his share, and it was a large one, of this business) exerted the
most laudable industry in bringing before you the fullest, most impartial,
and least garbled body of evidence that ever was produced to this House. I
think the inquiry lasted in the committee for six weeks; and at its
conclusion, this House, by an independent, noble, spirited, and unexpected
majority, by a majority that will redeem all the acts ever done by majorities
in Parliament, in the teeth of all the old mercenary Swiss of state, in despite
of all the speculators and augurs of political events, in defiance of the whole
embattled legion of veteran pensioners and practised instruments of a court,
gave a total repeal to the Stamp Act, and (if it had been so permitted) a
lasting peace to this whole empire.

I state, Sir, these particulars, because this act of spirit and fortitude has
lately been, in the circulation of the season, and in some hazarded
declamations in this House, attributed to timidity. If, Sir, the conduct of
ministry, in proposing the repeal, had arisen from timidity with regard to
themselves, it would have been greatly to be condemned. Interested timidity
disgraces as much in the cabinet as personal timidity does in the field. But

timidity with regard to the well-being of our country is heroic virtue. The
noble lord who then conducted affairs, and his worthy colleagues, whilst
they trembled at the prospect of such distresses as you have since brought
upon yourselves, were not afraid steadily to look in the face that glaring and
dazzling influence at which the eyes of eagles have blenched. He looked in
the face one of the ablest, and, let me say, not the most scrupulous
oppositions, that perhaps ever was in this House; and withstood it, unaided
by even one of the usual supports of administration. He did this, when he
repealed the Stamp Act. He looked in the face a person he had long
respected and regarded, and whose aid was then particularly wanting: I
mean Lord Chatham. He did this when he passed the Declaratory Act.

It is now given out, for the usual purposes, by the usual emissaries, that
Lord Rockingham did not consent to the repeal of this act until he was
bullied into it by Lord Chatham; and the reporters have gone so far as
publicly to assert, in an hundred companies, that the honorable gentleman
under the gallery,[8] who proposed the repeal in the American committee,
had another set of resolutions in his pocket, directly the reverse of those he
moved. These artifices of a desperate cause are at this time spread abroad,
with incredible care, in every part of the town, from the highest to the
lowest companies; as if the industry of the circulation were to make amends
for the absurdity of the report.

Sir, whether the noble lord is of a complexion to be bullied by Lord
Chatham, or by any man, I must submit to those who know him. I confess,
when I look back to that time, I consider him as placed in one of the most
trying situations in which, perhaps, any man ever stood. In the House of
Peers there were very few of the ministry, out of the noble lord's own
particular connection, (except Lord Egmont, who acted, as far as I could
discern, an honorable and manly part,) that did not look to some other
future arrangement, which warped his politics. There were in both Houses

new and menacing appearances, that might very naturally drive any other
than a most resolute minister from his measure or from his station. The
household troops openly revolted. The allies of ministry (those, I mean,
who supported some of their measures, but refused responsibility for any)
endeavored to undermine their credit, and to take ground that must be fatal
to the success of the very cause which they would be thought to
countenance. The question of the repeal was brought on by ministry in the
committee of this House in the very instant when it was known that more
than one court negotiation was carrying on with the heads of the opposition.
Everything, upon every side, was full of traps and mines. Earth below
shook; heaven above menaced; all the elements of ministerial safety were
dissolved. It was in the midst of this chaos of plots and counterplots, it was
in the midst of this complicated warfare against public opposition and
private treachery, that the firmness of that noble person was put to the
proof. He never stirred from his ground: no, not an inch. He remained fixed
and determined, in principle, in measure, and in conduct. He practised no
managements. He secured no retreat. He sought no apology.

I will likewise do justice—I ought to do it—to the honorable gentleman
who led us in this House.[9] Far from the duplicity wickedly charged on
him, he acted his part with alacrity and resolution. We all felt inspired by
the example he gave us, down even to myself, the weakest in that phalanx. I
declare for one, I knew well enough (it could not be concealed from
anybody) the true state of things; but, in my life, I never came with so much
spirits into this House. It was a time for a man to act in. We had powerful
enemies; but we had faithful and determined friends, and a glorious cause.
We had a great battle to fight; but we had the means of fighting: not as now,
when our arms are tied behind us. We did fight that day, and conquer.

I remember, Sir, with a melancholy pleasure, the situation of the
honorable gentleman[10] who made the motion for the repeal: in that crisis,

when the whole trading interest of this empire, crammed into your lobbies,
with a trembling and anxious expectation, waited, almost to a winter's
return of light, their fate from your resolutions. When at length you had
determined in their favor, and your doors thrown open showed them the
figure of their deliverer in the well-earned triumph of his important victory,
from the whole of that grave multitude there arose an involuntary burst of
gratitude and transport. They jumped upon him like children on a long
absent father. They clung about him as captives about their redeemer. All
England, all America, joined in his applause. Nor did he seem insensible to
the best of all earthly rewards, the love and admiration of his fellow-
citizens. Hope elevated and joy brightened his crest. I stood near him; and
his face, to use the expression of the Scripture of the first martyr, "his face
was as if it had been the face of an angel." I do not know how others feel;
but if I had stood in that situation, I never would have exchanged it for all
that kings in their profusion could bestow. I did hope that that day's danger
and honor would have been a bond to hold us all together forever. But, alas!
that, with other pleasing visions, is long since vanished.

Sir, this act of supreme magnanimity has been represented as if it had
been a measure of an administration that, having no scheme of their own,
took a middle line, pilfered a bit from one side and a bit from the other. Sir,
they took no middle lines. They differed fundamentally from the schemes of
both parties; but they preserved the objects of both. They preserved the
authority of Great Britain; they preserved the equity of Great Britain. They
made the Declaratory Act; they repealed the Stamp Act. They did both fully:
because the Declaratory Act was without qualification; and the repeal of the
Stamp Act total. This they did in the situation I have described.

Now, Sir, what will the adversary say to both these acts? If the principle
of the Declaratory Act was not good, the principle we are contending for
this day is monstrous. If the principle of the repeal was not good, why are

we not at war for a real, substantial, effective revenue? If both were bad,
why has this ministry incurred all the inconveniences of both and of all
schemes? why have they enacted, repealed, enforced, yielded, and now
attempt to enforce again?

Sir, I think I may as well now as at any other time speak to a certain
matter of fact not wholly unrelated to the question under your
consideration. We, who would persuade you to revert to the ancient policy
of this kingdom, labor under the effect of this short current phrase, which
the court leaders have given out to all their corps, in order to take away the
credit of those who would prevent you from that frantic war you are going
to wage upon your colonies. Their cant is this: "All the disturbances in
America have been created by the repeal of the Stamp Act." I suppress for a
moment my indignation at the falsehood, baseness, and absurdity of this
most audacious assertion. Instead of remarking on the motives and
character of those who have issued it for circulation, I will clearly lay
before you the state of America, antecedently to that repeal, after the repeal,
and since the renewal of the schemes of American taxation.

It is said, that the disturbances, if there were any before the repeal, were
slight, and without difficulty or inconvenience might have been suppressed.
For an answer to this assertion I will send you to the great author and patron
of the Stamp Act, who, certainly meaning well to the authority of this
country, and fully apprised of the state of that, made, before a repeal was so
much as agitated in this House, the motion which is on your journals, and
which, to save the clerk the trouble of turning to it, I will now read to you.
It was for an amendment to the address of the 17th of December, 1765.

"To express our just resentment and indignation at the outrageous tumults
and insurrections which have been excited and carried on in North
America, and at the resistance given, by open and rebellious force, to the

execution of the laws in that part of his Majesty's dominions; to assure his
Majesty, that his faithful Commons, animated with the warmest duty and
attachment to his royal person and government, ... will firmly and
effectually support his Majesty in all such measures as shall be necessary
for preserving and securing the legal dependence of the colonies upon this
their mother country," &c., &c.

Here was certainly a disturbance preceding the repeal,—such a
disturbance as Mr. Grenville thought necessary to qualify by the name of an
insurrection, and the epithet of a rebellious force: terms much stronger than
any by which those who then supported his motion have ever since thought
proper to distinguish the subsequent disturbances in America. They were
disturbances which seemed to him and his friends to justify as strong a
promise of support as hath been usual to give in the beginning of a war with
the most powerful and declared enemies. When the accounts of the
American governors came before the House, they appeared stronger even
than the warmth of public imagination had painted them: so much stronger,
that the papers on your table bear me out in saying that all the late
disturbances, which have been at one time the minister's motives for the
repeal of five out of six of the new court taxes, and are now his pretences
for refusing to repeal that sixth, did not amount—why do I compare them?
—no, not to a tenth part of the tumults and violence which prevailed long
before the repeal of that act.

Ministry cannot refuse the authority of the commander-in-chief, General
Gage, who, in his letter of the 4th of November, from New York, thus
represents the state of things:—

"It is difficult to say, from the highest to the lowest, who has not been
accessory to this insurrection, either by writing, or mutual agreements to
oppose the act, by what they are pleased to term all legal opposition to it.

Nothing effectual has been proposed, either to prevent or quell the tumult.
The rest of the provinces are in the same situation, as to a positive refusal to
take the stamps, and threatening those who shall take them to plunder and
murder them; and this affair stands in all the provinces, that, unless the act
from its own nature enforce itself, nothing but a very considerable military
force can do it."

It is remarkable, Sir, that the persons who formerly trumpeted forth the
most loudly the violent resolutions of assemblies, the universal
insurrections, the seizing and burning the stamped papers, the forcing stamp
officers to resign their commissions under the gallows, the rifling and
pulling down of the houses of magistrates, and the expulsion from their
country of all who dared to write or speak a single word in defence of the
powers of Parliament,—these very trumpeters are now the men that
represent the whole as a mere trifle, and choose to date all the disturbances
from the repeal of the Stamp Act, which put an end to them. Hear your
officers abroad, and let them refute this shameless falsehood, who, in all
their correspondence, state the disturbances as owing to their true causes,
the discontent of the people from the taxes. You have this evidence in your
own archives; and it will give you complete satisfaction, if you are not so
far lost to all Parliamentary ideas of information as rather to credit the lie of
the day than the records of your own House.

Sir, this vermin of court reporters, when they are forced into day upon
one point, are sure to burrow in another: but they shall have no refuge; I
will make them bolt out of all their holes. Conscious that they must be
baffled, when they attribute a precedent disturbance to a subsequent
measure, they take other ground, almost as absurd, but very common in
modern practice, and very wicked; which is, to attribute the ill effect of ill-
judged conduct to the arguments which had been used to dissuade us from
it. They say, that the opposition made in Parliament to the Stamp Act, at the

time of its passing, encouraged the Americans to their resistance. This has
even formally appeared in print in a regular volume from an advocate of
that faction,—a Dr. Tucker. This Dr. Tucker is already a dean, and his
earnest labors in this vineyard will, I suppose, raise him to a bishopric. But
this assertion, too, just like the rest, is false. In all the papers which have
loaded your table, in all the vast crowd of verbal witnesses that appeared at
your bar, witnesses which were indiscriminately produced from both sides
of the House, not the least hint of such a cause of disturbance has ever
appeared. As to the fact of a strenuous opposition to the Stamp Act, I sat as
a stranger in your gallery when the act was under consideration. Far from
anything inflammatory, I never heard a more languid debate in this House.
No more than two or three gentlemen, as I remember, spoke against the act,
and that with great reserve and remarkable temper. There was but one
division in the whole progress of the bill; and the minority did not reach to
more than 39 or 40. In the House of Lords I do not recollect that there was
any debate or division at all. I am sure there was no protest. In fact, the
affair passed with so very, very little noise, that in town they scarcely knew
the nature of what you were doing. The opposition to the bill in England
never could have done this mischief, because there scarcely ever was less of
opposition to a bill of consequence.

Sir, the agents and distributors of falsehoods have, with their usual
industry, circulated another lie, of the same nature with the former. It is this:
that the disturbances arose from the account which had been received in
America of the change in the ministry. No longer awed, it seems, with the
spirit of the former rulers, they thought themselves a match for what our
calumniators choose to qualify by the name of so feeble a ministry as
succeeded. Feeble in one sense these men certainly may be called: for, with
all their efforts, and they have made many, they have not been able to resist
the distempered vigor and insane alacrity with which you are rushing to

your ruin. But it does so happen, that the falsity of this circulation is (like
the rest) demonstrated by indisputable dates and records.

So little was the change known in America, that the letters of your
governors, giving an account of these disturbances long after they had
arrived at their highest pitch, were all directed to the old ministry, and
particularly to the Earl of Halifax, the Secretary of State corresponding with
the colonies, without once in the smallest degree intimating the slightest
suspicion of any ministerial revolution whatsoever. The ministry was not
changed in England until the 10th day of July, 1765. On the 14th of the
preceding June, Governor Fauquier, from Virginia, writes thus,—and writes
thus to the Earl of Halifax:—"Government is set at defiance, not having
strength enough in her hands to enforce obedience to the laws of the
community.—The private distress, which every man feels, increases the
general dissatisfaction at the duties laid by the Stamp Act, which breaks out
and shows itself upon every trifling occasion." The general dissatisfaction
had produced some time before, that is, on the 29th of May, several strong
public resolves against the Stamp Act; and those resolves are assigned by
Governor Bernard as the cause of the insurrections in Massachusetts Bay, in
his letter of the 15th of August, still addressed to the Earl of Halifax; and he
continued to address such accounts to that minister quite to the 7th of
September of the same year. Similar accounts, and of as late a date, were
sent from other governors, and all directed to Lord Halifax. Not one of
these letters indicates the slightest idea of a change, either known or even
apprehended.

Thus are blown away the insect race of courtly falsehoods! Thus perish
the miserable inventions of the wretched runners for a wretched cause,
which they have fly-blown into every weak and rotten part of the country,
in vain hopes, that, when their maggots had taken wing, their importunate
buzzing might sound something like the public voice!

Sir, I have troubled you sufficiently with the state of America before the
repeal. Now I turn to the honorable gentleman who so stoutly challenges us
to tell whether, after the repeal, the provinces were quiet. This is coming
home to the point. Here I meet him directly, and answer most readily, They
were quiet. And I, in my turn, challenge him to prove when, and where, and
by whom, and in what numbers, and with what violence, the other laws of
trade, as gentlemen assert, were violated in consequence of your
concession, or that even your other revenue laws were attacked. But I quit
the vantage-ground on which I stand, and where I might leave the burden of
the proof upon him: I walk down upon the open plain, and undertake to
show that they were not only quiet, but showed many unequivocal marks of
acknowledgment and gratitude. And to give him every advantage, I select
the obnoxious colony of Massachusetts Bay, which at this time (but without
hearing her) is so heavily a culprit before Parliament: I will select their
proceedings even under circumstances of no small irritation. For, a little
imprudently, I must say, Governor Bernard mixed in the administration of
the lenitive of the repeal no small acrimony arising from matters of a
separate nature. Yet see, Sir, the effect of that lenitive, though mixed with
these bitter ingredients,—and how this rugged people can express
themselves on a measure of concession.

"If it is not now in our power," (say they, in their address to Governor
Bernard,) "in so full a manner as will be expected, to show our respectful
gratitude to the mother country, or to make a dutiful, affectionate return to
the indulgence of the King and Parliament, it shall be no fault of ours; for
this we intend, and hope shall be able fully to effect."

Would to God that this temper had been cultivated, managed, and set in
action! Other effects than those which we have since felt would have
resulted from it. On the requisition for compensation to those who had
suffered from the violence of the populace, in the same address they say,

—"The recommendation enjoined by Mr. Secretary Conway's letter, and in
consequence thereof made to us, we shall embrace the first convenient
opportunity to consider and act upon." They did consider; they did act upon
it. They obeyed the requisition. I know the mode has been chicaned upon;
but it was substantially obeyed, and much better obeyed than I fear the
Parliamentary requisition of this session will be, though enforced by all
your rigor and backed with all your power. In a word, the damages of
popular fury were compensated by legislative gravity. Almost every other
part of America in various ways demonstrated their gratitude. I am bold to
say, that so sudden a calm recovered after so violent a storm is without
parallel in history. To say that no other disturbance should happen from any
other cause is folly. But as far as appearances went, by the judicious
sacrifice of one law you procured an acquiescence in all that remained.
After this experience, nobody shall persuade me, when an whole people are
concerned, that acts of lenity are not means of conciliation.

I hope the honorable gentleman has received a fair and full answer to his
question.

I have done with the third period of your policy,—that of your repeal, and
the return of your ancient system, and your ancient tranquillity and concord.
Sir, this period was not as long as it was happy. Another scene was opened,
and other actors appeared on the stage. The state, in the condition I have
described it, was delivered into the hands of Lord Chatham, a great and
celebrated name,—a name that keeps the name of this country respectable
in every other on the globe. It may be truly called

Clarum et venerabile nomen
Gentibus, et multum nostræ quod proderat urbi.

Sir, the venerable age of this great man, his merited rank, his superior
eloquence, his splendid qualities, his eminent services, the vast space he
fills in the eye of mankind, and, more than all the rest, his fall from power,
which, like death, canonizes and sanctifies a great character, will not suffer
me to censure any part of his conduct. I am afraid to flatter him; I am sure I
am not disposed to blame him. Let those who have betrayed him by their
adulation insult him with their malevolence. But what I do not presume to
censure I may have leave to lament. For a wise man, he seemed to me at
that time to be governed too much by general maxims. I speak with the
freedom of history, and I hope without offence. One or two of these
maxims, flowing from an opinion not the most indulgent to our unhappy
species, and surely a little too general, led him into measures that were
greatly mischievous to himself, and for that reason, among others, perhaps
fatal to his country,—measures, the effects of which, I am afraid, are
forever incurable. He made an administration so checkered and speckled, he
put together a piece of joinery so crossly indented and whimsically
dovetailed, a cabinet so variously inlaid, such a piece of diversified mosaic,
such a tessellated pavement without cement,—here a bit of black stone and
there a bit of white, patriots and courtiers, king's friends and republicans,
Whigs and Tories, treacherous friends and open enemies,—that it was,
indeed, a very curious show, but utterly unsafe to touch and unsure to stand
on. The colleagues whom he had assorted at the same boards stared at each
other, and were obliged to ask,—"Sir, your name?"—"Sir, you have the
advantage of me."—"Mr. Such-a-one."—"I beg a thousand pardons."—I
venture to say, it did so happen that persons had a single office divided
between them, who had never spoke to each other in their lives, until they
found themselves, they knew not how, pigging together, heads and points,
in the same truckle-bed.[11]

Sir, in consequence of this arrangement, having put so much the larger
part of his enemies and opposers into power, the confusion was such that

his own principles could not possibly have any effect or influence in the
conduct of affairs. If over he fell into a fit of the gout, or if any other cause
withdrew him from public cares, principles directly the contrary were sure
to predominate. When he had executed his plan, he had not an inch of
ground to stand upon. When he had accomplished his scheme of
administration, he was no longer a minister.

When his face was hid but for a moment, his whole system was on a
wide sea without chart or compass. The gentlemen, his particular friends,
who, with the names of various departments of ministry, were admitted to
seem as if they acted a part under him, with a modesty that becomes all
men, and with a confidence in him which was justified even in its
extravagance by his superior abilities, had never in any instance presumed
upon any opinion of their own. Deprived of his guiding influence, they
were whirled about, the sport of every gust, and easily driven into any port;
and as those who joined with them in manning the vessel were the most
directly opposite to his opinions, measures, and character, and far the most
artful and most powerful of the set, they easily prevailed, so as to seize
upon the vacant, unoccupied, and derelict minds of his friends, and instantly
they turned the vessel wholly out of the course of his policy. As if it were to
insult as well as to betray him, even long before the close of the first session
of his administration, when everything was publicly transacted, and with
great parade, in his name, they made an act declaring it highly just and
expedient to raise a revenue in America. For even then, Sir, even before this
splendid orb was entirely set, and while the western horizon was in a blaze
with his descending glory, on the opposite quarter of the heavens arose
another luminary, and for his hour became lord of the ascendant.

This light, too, is passed and set forever. You understand, to be sure, that
I speak of Charles Townshend, officially the reproducer of this fatal
scheme, whom I cannot even now remember without some degree of

sensibility. In truth, Sir, he was the delight and ornament of this House, and
the charm of every private society which he honored with his presence.
Perhaps there never arose in this country, nor in any country, a man of a
more pointed and finished wit, and (where his passions were not concerned)
of a more refined, exquisite, and penetrating judgment. If he had not so
great a stock as some have had, who flourished formerly, of knowledge
long treasured up, he knew, better by far than any man I ever was
acquainted with, how to bring together within a short time all that was
necessary to establish, to illustrate, and to decorate that side of the question
he supported. He stated his matter skilfully and powerfully. He particularly
excelled in a most luminous explanation and display of his subject. His
style of argument was neither trite and vulgar, nor subtle and abstruse. He
hit the House just between wind and water. And not being troubled with too
anxious a zeal for any matter in question, he was never more tedious or
more earnest than the preconceived opinions and present temper of his
hearers required, to whom he was always in perfect unison. He conformed
exactly to the temper of the House; and he seemed to guide, because he was
always sure to follow it.

I beg pardon, Sir, if, when I speak of this and of other great men, I appear
to digress in saying something of their characters. In this eventful history of
the revolutions of America, the characters of such men are of much
importance. Great men are the guideposts and landmarks in the state. The
credit of such men at court or in the nation is the sole cause of all the public
measures. It would be an invidious thing (most foreign, I trust, to what you
think my disposition) to remark the errors into which the authority of great
names has brought the nation, without doing justice at the same time to the
great qualities whence that authority arose. The subject is instructive to
those who wish to form themselves on whatever of excellence has gone
before them. There are many young members in the House (such of late has
been the rapid succession of public men) who never saw that prodigy,

Charles Townshend, nor of course know what a ferment he was able to
excite in everything by the violent ebullition of his mixed virtues and
failings. For failings he had undoubtedly,—many of us remember them; we
are this day considering the effect of them. But he had no failings which
were not owing to a noble cause,—to an ardent, generous, perhaps an
immoderate passion for fame: a passion which is the instinct of all great
souls. He worshipped that goddess, wheresoever she appeared; but he paid
his particular devotions to her in her favorite habitation, in her chosen
temple, the House of Commons. Besides the characters of the individuals
that compose our body, it is impossible, Mr. Speaker, not to observe that
this House has a collective character of its own. That character, too,
however imperfect, is not unamiable. Like all great public collections of
men, you possess a marked love of virtue and an abhorrence of vice. But
among vices there is none which the House abhors in the same degree with
obstinacy. Obstinacy, Sir, is certainly a great vice; and in the changeful state
of political affairs it is frequently the cause of great mischief. It happens,
however, very unfortunately, that almost the whole line of the great and
masculine virtues, constancy, gravity, magnanimity, fortitude, fidelity, and
firmness, are closely allied to this disagreeable quality, of which you have
so just an abhorrence; and, in their excess, all these virtues very easily fall
into it. He who paid such a punctilious attention to all your feelings
certainly took care not to shock them by that vice which is the most
disgustful to you.

That fear of displeasing those who ought most to be pleased betrayed him
sometimes into the other extreme. He had voted, and, in the year 1765, had
been an advocate for the Stamp Act. Things and the disposition of men's
minds were changed. In short, the Stamp Act began to be no favorite in this
House. He therefore attended at the private meeting in which the resolutions
moved by a right honorable gentleman were settled: resolutions leading to
the repeal. The next day he voted for that repeal; and he would have spoken

for it, too, if an illness (not, as was then given out, a political, but, to my
knowledge, a very real illness) had not prevented it.

The very next session, as the fashion of this world passeth away, the
repeal began to be in as bad an odor in this House as the Stamp Act had
been in the session before. To conform to the temper which began to
prevail, and to prevail mostly amongst those most in power, he declared,
very early in the winter, that a revenue must be had out of America.
Instantly he was tied down to his engagements by some, who had no
objection to such experiments, when made at the cost of persons for whom
they had no particular regard. The whole body of courtiers drove him
onward. They always talked as if the king stood in a sort of humiliated state,
until something of the kind should be done.

Here this extraordinary man, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, found
himself in great straits. To please universally was the object of his life; but
to tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to
men. However, he attempted it. To render the tax palatable to the partisans
of American revenue, he made a preamble stating the necessity of such a
revenue. To close with the American distinction, this revenue was external
or port-duty; but again, to soften it to the other party, it was a duty of
supply. To gratify the colonists, it was laid on British manufactures; to
satisfy the merchants of Britain, the duty was trivial, and (except that on
tea, which touched only the devoted East India Company) on none of the
grand objects of commerce. To counterwork the American contraband, the
duty on tea was reduced from a shilling to three-pence; but to secure the
favor of those who would tax America, the scene of collection was changed,
and, with the rest, it was levied in the colonies. What need I say more? This
fine-spun scheme had the usual fate of all exquisite policy. But the original
plan of the duties, and the mode of executing that plan, both arose singly
and solely from a love of our applause. He was truly the child of the House.

He never thought, did, or said anything, but with a view to you. He every
day adapted himself to your disposition, and adjusted himself before it as at
a looking-glass.

He had observed (indeed, it could not escape him) that several persons,
infinitely his inferiors in all respects, had formerly rendered themselves
considerable in this House by one method alone. They were a race of men (I
hope in God the species is extinct) who, when they rose in their place, no
man living could divine, from any known adherence to parties, to opinions,
or to principles, from any order or system in their politics, or from any
sequel or connection in their ideas, what part they were going to take in any
debate. It is astonishing how much this uncertainty, especially at critical
times, called the attention of all parties on such men. All eyes were fixed on
them, all ears open to hear them; each party gaped, and looked alternately
for their vote, almost to the end of their speeches. While the House hung in
this uncertainty, now the hear-hims rose from this side, now they
rebellowed from the other; and that party to whom they fell at length from
their tremulous and dancing balance always received them in a tempest of
applause. The fortune of such men was a temptation too great to be resisted
by one to whom a single whiff of incense withheld gave much greater pain
than he received delight in the clouds of it which daily rose about him from
the prodigal superstition of innumerable admirers. He was a candidate for
contradictory honors; and his great aim was, to make those agree in
admiration of him who never agreed in anything else.

Hence arose this unfortunate act, the subject of this day's debate: from a
disposition which, after making an American revenue to please one,
repealed it to please others, and again revived it in hopes of pleasing a third,
and of catching something in the ideas of all.

This revenue act of 1767 formed the fourth period of American policy.
How we have fared since then: what woful variety of schemes have been
adopted; what enforcing, and what repealing; what bullying, and what
submitting; what doing, and undoing; what straining, and what relaxing;
what assemblies dissolved for not obeying, and called again without
obedience; what troops sent out to quell resistance, and, on meeting that
resistance, recalled; what shiftings, and changes, and jumblings of all kinds
of men at home, which left no possibility of order, consistency, vigor, or
even so much as a decent unity of color, in anyone public measure—It is a
tedious, irksome task. My duty may call me to open it out some other time;
on a former occasion[12] I tried your temper on a part of it; for the present I
shall forbear.

After all these changes and agitations, your immediate situation upon the
question on your paper is at length brought to this. You have an act of
Parliament stating that "it is expedient to raise a revenue in America." By a
partial repeal you annihilated the greatest part of that revenue which this
preamble declares to be so expedient. You have substituted no other in the
place of it. A Secretary of State has disclaimed, in the king's name, all
thoughts of such a substitution in future. The principle of this disclaimer
goes to what has been left, as well as what has been repealed. The tax which
lingers after its companions (under a preamble declaring an American
revenue expedient, and for the sole purpose of supporting the theory of that
preamble) militates with the assurance authentically conveyed to the
colonies, and is an exhaustless source of jealousy and animosity. On this
state, which I take to be a fair one,—not being able to discern any grounds
of honor, advantage, peace, or power, for adhering, either to the act or to the
preamble, I shall vote for the question which leads to the repeal of both.

If you do not fall in with this motion, then secure something to fight for,
consistent in theory and valuable in practice. If you must employ your

strength, employ it to uphold you in some honorable right or some
profitable wrong. If you are apprehensive that the concession recommended
to you, though proper, should be a means of drawing on you further, but
unreasonable claims,—why, then employ your force in supporting that
reasonable concession against those unreasonable demands. You will
employ it with more grace, with better effect, and with great probable
concurrence of all the quiet and rational people in the provinces, who are
now united with and hurried away by the violent,—having, indeed, different
dispositions, but a common interest. If you apprehend that on a concession
you shall be pushed by metaphysical process to the extreme lines, and
argued out of your whole authority, my advice is this: when you have
recovered your old, your strong, your tenable position, then face about,—
stop short,—do nothing more,—reason not at all,—oppose the ancient
policy and practice of the empire as a rampart against the speculations of
innovators on both sides of the question,—and you will stand on great,
manly, and sure ground. On this solid basis fix your machines, and they will
draw worlds towards you.

Tour ministers, in their own and his Majesty's name, have already
adopted the American distinction of internal and external duties. It is a
distinction, whatever merit it may have, that was originally moved by the
Americans themselves; and I think they will acquiesce in it, if they are not
pushed with too much logic and too little sense, in all the consequences:
that is, if external taxation be understood, as they and you understand it,
when you please, to be not a distinction of geography, but of policy; that it
is a power for regulating trade, and not for supporting establishments. The
distinction, which is as nothing with regard to right, is of most weighty
consideration in practice. Recover your old ground, and your old
tranquillity; try it; I am persuaded the Americans will compromise with
you. When confidence is once restored, the odious and suspicious summum
jus will perish of course. The spirit of practicability, of moderation, and

mutual convenience will never call in geometrical exactness as the
arbitrator of an amicable settlement. Consult and follow your experience.
Let not the long story with which I have exercised your patience prove
fruitless to your interests.

For my part, I should choose (if I could have my wish) that the
proposition of the honorable gentleman[13] for the repeal could go to
America without the attendance of the penal bills. Alone I could almost
answer for its success. I cannot be certain of its reception in the bad
company it may keep. In such heterogeneous assortments, the most
innocent person will lose the effect of his innocency. Though you should
send out this angel of peace, yet you are sending out a destroying angel too;
and what would be the effect of the conflict of these two adverse spirits, or
which would predominate in the end, is what I dare not say: whether the
lenient measures would cause American passion to subside, or the severe
would increase its fury,—all this is in the hand of Providence. Yet now,
even now, I should confide in the prevailing virtue and efficacious operation
of lenity, though working in darkness and in chaos, in the midst of all this
unnatural and turbid combination: I should hope it might produce order and
beauty in the end.

Let us, Sir, embrace some system or other before we end this session. Do
you mean to tax America, and to draw a productive revenue from thence? If
you do, speak out: name, fix, ascertain this revenue; settle its quantity;
define its objects; provide for its collection; and then fight, when you have
something to fight for. If you murder, rob; if you kill, take possession; and
do not appear in the character of madmen as well as assassins, violent,
vindictive, bloody, and tyrannical, without an object. But may better
counsels guide you!

Again, and again, revert to your old principles,—seek peace and ensue it,
—leave America, if she has taxable matter in her, to tax herself. I am not
here going into the distinctions of rights, nor attempting to mark their
boundaries. I do not enter into these metaphysical distinctions; I hate the
very sound of them. Leave the Americans as they anciently stood, and these
distinctions, born of our unhappy contest, will die along with it. They and
we, and their and our ancestors, have been happy under that system. Let the
memory of all actions in contradiction to that good old mode, on both sides,
be extinguished forever. Be content to bind America by laws of trade: you
have always done it. Let this be your reason for binding their trade. Do not
burden them by taxes: you were not used to do so from the beginning. Let
this be your reason for not taxing. These are the arguments of states and
kingdoms. Leave the rest to the schools; for there only they may be
discussed with safety. But if, intemperately, unwisely, fatally, you
sophisticate and poison the very source of government, by urging subtle
deductions, and consequences odious to those you govern, from the
unlimited and illimitable nature of supreme sovereignty, you will teach
them by these means to call that sovereignty itself in question. When you
drive him hard, the boar will surely turn upon the hunters. If that
sovereignty and their freedom cannot be reconciled, which will they take?
They will cast your sovereignty in your face. Nobody will be argued into
slavery. Sir, let the gentlemen on the other side call forth all their ability; let
the best of them get up and tell me what one character of liberty the
Americans have, and what one brand of slavery they are free from, if they
are bound in their property and industry by all the restraints you can
imagine on commerce, and at the same time are made pack-horses of every
tax you choose to impose, without the least share in granting them. When
they bear the burdens of unlimited monopoly, will you bring them to bear
the burdens of unlimited revenue too? The Englishman in America will feel

that this is slavery: that it is legal slavery will be no compensation either to
his feelings or his understanding.

A noble lord,[14] who spoke some time ago, is full of the fire of
ingenuous youth; and when he has modelled the ideas of a lively
imagination by further experience, he will be an ornament to his country in
either House. He has said that the Americans are our children, and how can
they revolt against their parent? He says, that, if they are not free in their
present state, England is not free; because Manchester, and other
considerable places, are not represented. So, then, because some towns in
England are not represented, America is to have no representative at all.
They are "our children"; but when children ask for bread, we are not to give
a stone. Is it because the natural resistance of things, and the various
mutations of time, hinders our government, or any scheme of government,
from being any more than a sort of approximation to the right, is it therefore
that the colonies are to recede from it infinitely? When this child of ours
wishes to assimilate to its parent, and to reflect with a true filial
resemblance the beauteous countenance of British liberty, are we to turn to
them the shameful parts of our constitution? are we to give them our
weakness for their strength, our opprobrium for their glory, and the slough
of slavery, which we are not able to work off, to serve them for their
freedom?

If this be the case, ask yourselves this question: Will they be content in
such a state of slavery? If not, look to the consequences. Reflect how you
are to govern a people who think they ought to be free, and think they are
not. Your scheme yields no revenue; it yields nothing but discontent,
disorder, disobedience: and such is the state of America, that, after wading
up to your eyes in blood, you could only end just where you begun,—that
is, to tax where no revenue is to be found, to ---- My voice fails me: my
inclination, indeed, carries me no further; all is confusion beyond it.

Well, Sir, I have recovered a little, and before I sit down I must say
something to another point with which gentlemen urge us. What is to
become of the Declaratory Act, asserting the entireness of British legislative
authority, if we abandon the practice of taxation?

For my part, I look upon the rights stated in that act exactly in the manner
in which I viewed them on its very first proposition, and which I have often
taken the liberty, with great humility, to lay before you. I look, I say, on the
imperial rights of Great Britain, and the privileges which the colonists
ought to enjoy under these rights, to be just the most reconcilable things in
the world. The Parliament of Great Britain sits at the head of her extensive
empire in two capacities. One as the local legislature of this island,
providing for all things at home, immediately, and by no other instrument
than the executive power. The other, and I think her nobler capacity, is what
I call her imperial character; in which, as from the throne of heaven, she
superintends all the several inferior legislatures, and guides and controls
them all without annihilating any. As all these provincial legislatures are
only coördinate to each other, they ought all to be subordinate to her; else
they can neither preserve mutual peace, nor hope for mutual justice, nor
effectually afford mutual assistance. It is necessary to coerce the negligent,
to restrain the violent, and to aid the weak and deficient, by the overruling
plenitude of her power. She is never to intrude into the place of the others,
whilst they are equal to the common ends of their institution. But in order to
enable Parliament to answer all these ends of provident and beneficent
superintendence, her powers must be boundless. The gentlemen who think
the powers of Parliament limited may please themselves to talk of
requisitions. But suppose the requisitions are not obeyed? What! shall there
be no reserved power in the empire, to supply a deficiency which may
weaken, divide, and dissipate the whole? We are engaged in war,—the
Secretary of State calls upon the colonies to contribute,—some would do it,
I think most would cheerfully furnish whatever is demanded,—one or two,

suppose, hang back, and, easing themselves, let the stress of the draft lie on
the others,—surely it is proper that some authority might legally say, "Tax
yourselves for the common Supply, or Parliament will do it for you." This
backwardness was, as I am told, actually the case of Pennsylvania for some
short time towards the beginning of the last war, owing to some internal
dissensions in that colony. But whether the fact were so or otherwise, the
case is equally to be provided for by a competent sovereign power. But then
this ought to be no ordinary power, nor ever used in the first instance. This
is what I meant, when I have said, at various times, that I consider the
power of taxing in Parliament as an instrument of empire, and not as a
means of supply.

Such, Sir, is my idea of the Constitution of the British Empire, as
distinguished from the Constitution of Britain; and on these grounds I think
subordination and liberty may be sufficiently reconciled through the whole,
—whether to serve a refining speculatist or a factious demagogue I know
not, but enough surely for the ease and happiness of man.

Sir, whilst we hold this happy course, we drew more from the colonies
than all the impotent violence of despotism ever could extort from them. We
did this abundantly in the last war; it has never been once denied; and what
reason have we to imagine that the colonies would not have proceeded in
supplying government as liberally, if you had not stepped in and hindered
them from contributing, by interrupting the channel in which their liberality
flowed with so strong a course,—by attempting to take, instead of being
satisfied to receive? Sir William Temple says, that Holland has loaded itself
with ten times the impositions which it revolted from Spain rather than
submit to. He says true. Tyranny is a poor provider. It knows neither how to
accumulate nor how to extract.

I charge, therefore, to this new and unfortunate system the loss not only
of peace, of union, and of commerce, but even of revenue, which its friends
are contending for. It is morally certain that we have lost at least a million
of free grants since the peace. I think we have lost a great deal more; and
that those who look for a revenue from the provinces never could have
pursued, even in that light, a course more directly repugnant to their
purposes.

Now, Sir, I trust I have shown, first on that narrow ground which the
honorable gentleman measured, that you are like to lose nothing by
complying with the motion, except what you have lost already. I have
shown afterwards, that in time of peace you flourished in commerce, and,
when war required it, had sufficient aid from the colonies, while you
pursued your ancient policy; that you threw everything into confusion,
when you made the Stamp Act; and that you restored everything to peace
and order, when you repealed it. I have shown that the revival of the system
of taxation has produced the very worst effects; and that the partial repeal
has produced, not partial good, but universal evil. Let these considerations,
founded on facts, not one of which can be denied, bring us back to our
reason by the road of our experience.

I cannot, as I have said, answer for mixed measures: but surely this
mixture of lenity would give the whole a better chance of success. When
you once regain confidence, the way will be clear before you. Then you
may enforce the Act of Navigation, when it ought to be enforced. You will
yourselves open it, where it ought still further to be opened. Proceed in
what you do, whatever you do, from policy, and not from rancor. Let us act
like men, let us act like statesmen. Let us hold some sort of consistent
conduct. It is agreed that a revenue is not to be had in America. If we lose
the profit, let us get rid of the odium.

On this business of America, I confess I am serious, even to sadness. I
have had but one opinion concerning it, since I sat, and before I sat in
Parliament. The noble lord[15] will, as usual, probably, attribute the part
taken by me and my friends in this business to a desire of getting his places.
Let him enjoy this happy and original idea. If I deprived him of it, I should
take away most of his wit, and all his argument. But I had rather bear the
brunt of all his wit, and indeed blows much heavier, than stand answerable
to God for embracing a system that tends to the destruction of some of the
very best and fairest of His works. But I know the map of England as well
as the noble lord, or as any other person; and I know that the way I take is
not the road to preferment. My excellent and honorable friend under me on
the floor[16] has trod that road with great toil for upwards of twenty years
together. He is not yet arrived at the noble lord's destination. However, the
tracks of my worthy friend are those I have ever wished to follow; because I
know they lead to honor. Long may we tread the same road together,
whoever may accompany us, or whoever may laugh at us on our journey! I
honestly and solemnly declare, I have in all seasons adhered to the system
of 1766 for no other reason than, that I think it laid deep in your truest
interests,—and that, by limiting the exercise, it fixes on the firmest
foundations a real, consistent, well-grounded authority in Parliament. Until
you come back to that system, there will be no peace for England.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Charles Wolfran Cornwall, Esq., lately appointed one of the Lords of
the Treasury.

[2] Lord North, then Chancellor of the Exchequer.

[3] Lord Hillsborough's Circular Letter to the Governors of the Colonies,
concerning the repeal of some of the duties laid in the Act of 1767.

[4] A material point is omitted by Mr. Burke in this speech, viz. the manner
in which the continent received this royal assurance. The assembly of
Virginia, in their address in answer to Lord Botetourt's speech, express
themselves thus:—"We will not suffer our present hopes, arising from the
pleasing prospect your Lordship hath so kindly opened and displayed to us,
to be lashed by the bitter reflection that any future administration will
entertain a wish to depart from that plan which affords the surest and most
permanent foundation of public tranquillity and happiness. No, my Lord,
we are sure our most gracious sovereign, under whatever changes may
happen in his confidential servants, will remain immutable in the ways of
truth and justice, and that he is incapable of deceiving his faithful subjects;
and we esteem your Lordship's information not only as warranted, but even
sanctified by the royal word."

[5] Lord North.

[6] Mr. Dowdeswell.

[7] General Conway.

[8] General Conway.

[9] General Conway.

[10] General Conway.

[11] Supposed to allude to the Right Honorable Lord North, and George
Cooke, Esq., who were made joint paymasters in the summer of 1766, on
the removal of the Rockingham administration.

[12] Resolutions in May, 1770.

[13] Mr. Fuller.

[14] Lord Carmarthen.

[15] Lord North.

[16] Mr. Dowdeswell

SPEECHES

AT

HIS ARRIVAL AT BRISTOL,

AND AT THE

CONCLUSION OF THE POLL.

1774

EDITOR'S ADVERTISEMENT.

We believe there is no need of an apology to the public for offering to them
any genuine speeches of Mr. Burke: the two contained in this publication
undoubtedly are so. The general approbation they met with (as we hear)
from all parties at Bristol persuades us that a good edition of them will not
be unacceptable in London; which we own to be the inducement, and we
hope is a justification, of our offering it.

We do not presume to descant on the merit of these speeches; but as it is
no less new than honorable to find a popular candidate, at a popular
election, daring to avow his dissent to certain points that have been
considered as very popular objects, and maintaining himself on the manly
confidence of his own opinion, so we must say that it does great credit to
the people of England, as it proves to the world, that, to insure their
confidence, it is not necessary to flatter them, or to affect a subserviency to
their passions or their prejudices.

It may be necessary to promise, that at the opening of the poll the
candidates were Lord Clare, Mr. Brickdale, the two last members, and Mr.
Cruger, a considerable merchant at Bristol. On the second day of the poll,
Lord Clare declined; and a considerable body of gentlemen, who had
wished that the city of Bristol should, at this critical season, be represented
by some gentleman of tried abilities and known commercial knowledge,
immediately put Mr. Burke in nomination. Some of them set off express for
London to apprise that gentleman of this event; but he was gone to Malton,
in Yorkshire. The spirit and active zeal of these gentlemen followed him to

Malton. They arrived there just after Mr. Burke's election for that place, and
invited him to Bristol.

Mr. Burke, as he tells us in his first speech, acquainted his constituents
with the honorable offer that was made him, and, with their consent, he
immediately set off for Bristol, on the Tuesday, at six in the evening; he
arrived at Bristol at half past two in the afternoon, on Thursday, the 13th of
October, being the sixth day of the poll.

He drove directly to the mayor's house, who not being at home, he
proceeded to the Guildhall, where he ascended the hustings, and having
saluted the electors, the sheriffs, and the two candidates, he reposed himself
for a few minutes, and then addressed the electors in a speech which was
received with great and universal applause and approbation.

SPEECH

AT

HIS ARRIVAL AT BRISTOL.

Gentlemen,—I am come hither to solicit in person that favor which my
friends have hitherto endeavored to procure for me, by the most obliging,
and to me the most honorable exertions.

I have so high an opinion of the great trust which you have to confer on
this occasion, and, by long experience, so just a diffidence in my abilities to
fill it in a manner adequate even to my own ideas, that I should never have
ventured of myself to intrude into that awful situation. But since I am called
upon by the desire of several respectable fellow subjects, as I have done at
other times, I give up my fears to their wishes. Whatever my other
deficiencies may be, I do not know what it is to be wanting to my friends.

I am not fond of attempting to raise public expectations by great
promises. At this time, there is much cause to consider, and very little to
presume. We seem to be approaching to a great crisis in our affairs, which
calls for the whole wisdom of the wisest among us, without being able to
assure ourselves that any wisdom can preserve us from many and great
inconveniences. You know I speak of our unhappy contest with America. I
confess, it is a matter on which I look down as from a precipice. It is
difficult in itself, and it is rendered more intricate by a great variety of plans

of conduct. I do not mean to enter into them. I will not suspect a want of
good intention in framing them. But however pure the intentions of their
authors may have been, we all know that the event has been unfortunate.
The means of recovering our affairs are not obvious. So many great
questions of commerce, of finance, of constitution, and of policy are
involved in this American deliberation, that I dare engage for nothing, but
that I shall give it, without any predilection to former opinions, or any
sinister bias whatsoever, the most honest and impartial consideration of
which I am capable. The public has a full right to it; and this great city, a
main pillar in the commercial interest of Great Britain, must totter on its
base by the slightest mistake with regard to our American measures.

Thus much, however, I think it not amiss to lay before you,—that I am
not, I hope, apt to take up or lay down my opinions lightly. I have held, and
ever shall maintain, to the best of my power, unimpaired and undiminished,
the just, wise, and necessary constitutional superiority of Great Britain. This
is necessary for America as well as for us. I never mean to depart from it.
Whatever may be lost by it, I avow it. The forfeiture even of your favor, if
by such a declaration I could forfeit it, though the first object of my
ambition, never will make me disguise my sentiments on this subject.

But—I have ever had a clear opinion, and have ever held a constant
correspondent conduct, that this superiority is consistent with all the
liberties a sober and spirited American ought to desire. I never mean to put
any colonist, or any human creature, in a situation not becoming a free man.
To reconcile British superiority with American liberty shall be my great
object, as far as my little faculties extend. I am far from thinking that both,
even yet, may not be preserved.

When I first devoted myself to the public service, I considered how I
should render myself fit for it; and this I did by endeavoring to discover

what it was that gave this country the rank it holds in the world. I found that
our prosperity and dignity arose principally, if not solely, from two sources:
our Constitution, and commerce. Both these I have spared no study to
understand, and no endeavor to support.

The distinguishing part of our Constitution is its liberty. To preserve that
liberty inviolate seems the particular duty and proper trust of a member of
the House of Commons. But the liberty, the only liberty, I mean is a liberty
connected with order: that not only exists along with order and virtue, but
which cannot exist at all without them. It inheres in good and steady
government, as in its substance and vital principle.

The other source of our power is commerce, of which you are so large a
part, and which cannot exist, no more than your liberty, without a
connection with many virtues. It has ever been a very particular and a very
favorite object of my study, in its principles, and in its details. I think many
here are acquainted with the truth of what I say. This I know,—that I have
ever had my house open, and my poor services ready, for traders and
manufacturers of every denomination. My favorite ambition is, to have
those services acknowledged. I now appear before you to make trial,
whether my earnest endeavors have been so wholly oppressed by the
weakness of my abilities as to be rendered insignificant in the eyes of a
great trading city; or whether you choose to give a weight to humble
abilities, for the sake of the honest exertions with which they are
accompanied. This is my trial to-day. My industry is not on trial. Of my
industry I am sure, as far as my constitution of mind and body admitted.

When I was invited by many respectable merchants, freeholders, and
freemen of this city to offer them my services, I had just received the honor
of an election at another place, at a very great distance from this. I
immediately opened the matter to those of my worthy constituents who

were with me, and they unanimously advised me not to decline it. They told
me that they had elected me with a view to the public service; and as great
questions relative to our commerce and colonies were imminent that in such
matters I might derive authority and support from the representation of this
great commercial city: they desired me, therefore, to set off without delay,
very well persuaded that I never could forget my obligations to them or to
my friends, for the choice they had made of me. From that time to this
instant I have not slept; and if I should have the honor of being freely
chosen by you, I hope I shall be as far from slumbering or sleeping, when
your service requires me to be awake, as I have been in coming to offer
myself a candidate for your favor.

SPEECH

TO THE

ELECTORS OF BRISTOL,

ON HIS BEING DECLARED BY THE SHERIFFS DULY
ELECTED ONE OF THE
REPRESENTATIVES IN PARLIAMENT FOR THAT CITY,

ON THURSDAY, THE 3D OF NOVEMBER, 1774.

Gentlemen,—I cannot avoid sympathizing strongly with the feelings of the
gentleman who has received the same honor that you have conferred on me.
If he, who was bred and passed his whole life amongst you,—if he, who,
through the easy gradations of acquaintance, friendship, and esteem, has
obtained the honor which seems of itself, naturally and almost insensibly, to
meet with those who, by the even tenor of pleasing manners and social
virtues, slide into the love and confidence of their fellow-citizens,—if he
cannot speak but with great emotion on this subject, surrounded as he is on
all sides with his old friends,—you will have the goodness to excuse me, if
my real, unaffected embarrassment prevents me from expressing my
gratitude to you as I ought.

I was brought hither under the disadvantage of being unknown, even by
sight, to any of you. No previous canvass was made for me. I was put in
nomination after the poll was opened. I did not appear until it was far
advanced. If, under all these accumulated disadvantages, your good opinion
has carried me to this happy point of success, you will pardon me, if I can
only say to you collectively, as I said to you individually, simply and
plainly, I thank you,—I am obliged to you,—I am not insensible of your
kindness.

This is all that I am able to say for the inestimable favor you have
conferred upon me. But I cannot be satisfied without saying a little more in
defence of the right you have to confer such a favor. The person that
appeared here as counsel for the candidate who so long and so earnestly
solicited your votes thinks proper to deny that a very great part of you have
any votes to give. He fixes a standard period of time in his own
imagination, (not what the law defines, but merely what the convenience of
his client suggests,) by which he would cut off at one stroke all those
freedoms which are the dearest privileges of your corporation,—which the
Common Law authorizes,—which your magistrates are compelled to grant,
—which come duly authenticated into this court,—and are saved in the
clearest words, and with the most religious care and tenderness, in that very
act of Parliament which was made to regulate the elections by freemen, and
to prevent all possible abuses in making them.

I do not intend to argue the matter here. My learned counsel has
supported your cause with his usual ability; the worthy sheriffs have acted
with their usual equity; and I have no doubt that the same equity which
dictates the return will guide the final determination. I had the honor, in
conjunction with many far wiser men, to contribute a very small assistance,
but, however, some assistance, to the forming the judicature which is to try
such questions. It would be unnatural in me to doubt the justice of that

court, in the trial of my own cause, to which I have been so active to give
jurisdiction over every other.

I assure the worthy freemen, and this corporation, that, if the gentleman
perseveres in the intentions which his present warmth dictates to him, I will
attend their cause with diligence, and I hope with effect. For, if I know
anything of myself, it is not my own interest in it, but my full conviction,
that induces me to tell you, I think there is not a shadow of doubt in the
case.

I do not imagine that you find me rash in declaring myself, or very
forward in troubling you. From the beginning to the end of the election, I
have kept silence in all matters of discussion. I have never asked a question
of a voter on the other side, or supported a doubtful vote on my own. I
respected the abilities of my managers; I relied on the candor of the court. I
think the worthy sheriffs will bear me witness that I have never once made
an attempt to impose upon their reason, to surprise their justice, or to ruffle
their temper. I stood on the hustings (except when I gave my thanks to those
who favored me with their votes) less like a candidate than an unconcerned
spectator of a public proceeding. But here the face of things is altered. Here
is an attempt for a general massacre of suffrages,—an attempt, by a
promiscuous carnage of friends and foes, to exterminate above two
thousand votes, including seven hundred polled for the gentleman himself
who now complains, and who would destroy the friends whom he has
obtained, only because he cannot obtain as many of them as he wishes.

How he will be permitted, in another place, to stultify and disable
himself, and to plead against his own acts, is another question. The law will
decide it. I shall only speak of it as it concerns the propriety of public
conduct in this city. I do not pretend to lay down rules of decorum for other
gentlemen. They are best judges of the mode of proceeding that will

recommend them to the favor of their fellow-citizens. But I confess I should
look rather awkward, if I had been the very first to produce the new copies
of freedom,—if I had persisted in producing them to the last,—if I had
ransacked, with the most unremitting industry and the most penetrating
research, the remotest corners of the kingdom to discover them,—if I were
then, all at once, to turn short, and declare that I had been sporting all this
while with the right of election, and that I had been drawing out a poll, upon
no sort of rational grounds, which disturbed the peace of my fellow-citizens
for a month together;—I really, for my part, should appear awkward under
such circumstances.

It would be still more awkward in me, if I were gravely to look the
sheriffs in the face, and to tell them they were not to determine my cause on
my own principles, nor to make the return upon those votes upon which I
had rested my election. Such would be my appearance to the court and
magistrates.

But how should I appear to the voters themselves? If I had gone round to
the citizens entitled to freedom, and squeezed them by the hand,—"Sir, I
humbly beg your vote,—I shall be eternally thankful,—may I hope for the
honor of your support?—Well!—come,—we shall see you at the Council-
House."—If I were then to deliver them to my managers, pack them into
tallies, vote them off in court, and when I heard from the bar,—"Such a one
only! and such a one forever!—he's my man!"—"Thank you, good Sir,—
Hah! my worthy friend! thank you kindly,—that's an honest fellow,—how
is your good family?"—Whilst these words were hardly out of my mouth, if
I should have wheeled round at once, and told them,—"Get you gone, you
pack of worthless fellows! you have no votes,—you are usurpers! you are
intruders on the rights of real freemen! I will have nothing to do with you!
you ought never to have been produced at this election, and the sheriffs
ought not to have admitted you to poll!"—

Gentlemen, I should make a strange figure, if my conduct had been of
this sort. I am not so old an acquaintance of yours as the worthy gentleman.
Indeed, I could not have ventured on such kind of freedoms with you. But I
am bound, and I will endeavor, to have justice done to the rights of freemen,
—even though I should at the same time be obliged to vindicate the
former[17] part of my antagonist's conduct against his own present
inclinations.

I owe myself, in all things, to all the freemen of this city. My particular
friends have a demand on mo that I should not deceive their expectations.
Never was cause or man supported with more constancy, more activity,
more spirit. I have been supported with a zeal, indeed, and heartiness in my
friends, which (if their object had been at all proportioned to their
endeavors) could never be sufficiently commended. They supported me
upon the most liberal principles. They wished that the members for Bristol
should be chosen for the city, and for their country at large, and not for
themselves.

So far they are not disappointed. If I possess nothing else, I am sure I
possess the temper that is fit for your service. I know nothing of Bristol, but
by the favors I have received, and the virtues I have seen exerted in it.

I shall ever retain, what I now feel, the most perfect and grateful
attachment to my friends,—and I have no enmities, no resentments. I never
can consider fidelity to engagements and constancy in friendships but with
the highest approbation, even when those noble qualities are employed
against my own pretensions. The gentleman who is not so fortunate as I
have been in this contest enjoys, in this respect, a consolation full of honor
both to himself and to his friends. They have certainly left nothing undone
for his service.

As for the trifling petulance which the rage of party stirs up in little
minds, though it should show itself even in this court, it has not made the
slightest impression on me. The highest flight of such clamorous birds is
winged in an inferior region of the air. We hear them, and we look upon
them, just as you, Gentlemen, when you enjoy the serene air on your lofty
rocks, look down upon the gulls that skim the mud of your river, when it is
exhausted of its tide.

I am sorry I cannot conclude without saying a word on a topic touched
upon by my worthy colleague. I wish that topic had been passed by at a
time when I have so little leisure to discuss it. But since he has thought
proper to throw it out, I owe you a clear explanation of my poor sentiments
on that subject.

He tells you that "the topic of instructions has occasioned much
altercation and uneasiness in this city"; and he expresses himself (if I
understand him rightly) in favor of the coercive authority of such
instructions.

Certainly, Gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a
representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and
the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes
ought to have great weight with him; their opinions high respect; their
business unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his
pleasure, his satisfactions, to theirs,—and above all, ever, and in all cases,
to prefer their interest to his own.

But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened
conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of
men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure,—no, nor from the
law and the Constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of
which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his

industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he
sacrifices it to your opinion.

My worthy colleague says, his will ought to be subservient to yours. If
that be all, the thing is innocent. If government were a matter of will upon
any side, yours, without question, ought to be superior. But government and
legislation are matters of reason and judgment, and not of inclination; and
what sort of reason is that in which the determination precedes the
discussion, in which one set of men deliberate and another decide, and
where those who form the conclusion are perhaps three hundred miles
distant from those who hear the arguments?

To deliver an opinion is the right of all men; that of constituents is a
weighty and respectable opinion, which a representative ought always to
rejoice to hear, and which he ought always most seriously to consider. But
authoritative instructions, mandates issued, which the member is bound
blindly and implicitly to obey, to vote, and to argue for, though contrary to
the clearest conviction of his judgment and conscience,—these are things
utterly unknown to the laws of this land, and which arise from a
fundamental mistake of the whole order and tenor of our Constitution.

Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile
interests, which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate,
against other agents and advocates; but Parliament is a deliberative
assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole—where not
local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good,
resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member,
indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not member of Bristol, but he
is a member of Parliament. If the local constituent should have an interest
or should form an hasty opinion evidently opposite to the real good of the
rest of the community, the member for that place ought to be as far as any

other from any endeavor to give it effect. I beg pardon for saying so much
on this subject; I have been unwillingly drawn into it; but I shall ever use a
respectful frankness of communication with you. Your faithful friend, your
devoted servant, I shall be to the end of my life: a flatterer you do not wish
for. On this point of instructions, however, I think it scarcely possible we
ever can have any sort of difference. Perhaps I may give you too much,
rather than too little trouble.

From the first hour I was encouraged to court your favor, to this happy
day of obtaining it, I have never promised you anything but humble and
persevering endeavors to do my duty. The weight of that duty, I confess,
makes me tremble; and whoever well considers what it is, of all things in
the world, will fly from what has the least likeness to a positive and
precipitate engagement. To be a good member of Parliament is, let me tell
you, no easy task,—especially at this time, when there is so strong a
disposition to run into the perilous extremes of servile compliance or wild
popularity. To unite circumspection with vigor is absolutely necessary, but it
is extremely difficult. We are now members for a rich commercial city; this
city, however, is but a part of a rich commercial nation, the interests of
which are various, multiform, and intricate. We are members for that great
nation, which, however, is itself but part of a great empire, extended by our
virtue and our fortune to the farthest limits of the East and of the West. All
these wide-spread interests must be considered,—must be compared,—must
be reconciled, if possible. We are members for a free country; and surely we
all know that the machine of a free constitution is no simple thing, but as
intricate and as delicate as it is valuable. We are members in a great and
ancient monarchy; and we must preserve religiously the true, legal rights of
the sovereign, which form the keystone that binds together the noble and
well-constructed arch of our empire and our Constitution. A constitution
made up of balanced powers must ever be a critical thing. As such I mean to
touch that part of it which comes within my reach. I know my inability, and

I wish for support from every quarter. In particular I shall aim at the
friendship, and shall cultivate the best correspondence, of the worthy
colleague you have given me.

I trouble you no farther than once more to thank you all: you, Gentlemen,
for your favors; the candidates, for their temperate and polite behavior; and
the sheriffs, for a conduct which may give a model for all who are in public
stations.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] Mr. Brickdale opened his poll, it seems, with a tally of those very kind
of freemen, and voted many hundreds of them.

SPEECH

ON

MOVING HIS RESOLUTIONS FOR
CONCILIATION WITH THE COLONIES.

MARCH 22, 1775.

I hope, Sir, that, notwithstanding the austerity of the Chair, your good-
nature will incline you to some degree of indulgence towards human frailty.
You will not think it unnatural, that those who have an object depending,
which strongly engages their hopes and fears, should be somewhat inclined
to superstition. As I came into the House, full of anxiety about the event of
my motion, I found, to my infinite surprise, that the grand penal bill by
which we had passed sentence on the trade and sustenance of America is to
be returned to us from the other House.[18] I do confess, I could not help
looking on this event as a fortunate omen. I look upon it as a sort of
Providential favor, by which we are put once more in possession of our
deliberative capacity, upon a business so very questionable in its nature, so
very uncertain in its issue. By the return of this bill, which seemed to have
taken its flight forever, we are at this very instant nearly as free to choose a
plan for our American government as we were on the first day of the
session. If, Sir, we incline to the side of conciliation, we are not at all

embarrassed (unless we please to make ourselves so) by any incongruous
mixture of coercion and restraint. We are therefore called upon, as it were
by a superior warning voice, again to attend to America,—to attend to the
whole of it together,—and to review the subject with an unusual degree of
care and calmness.

Surely it is an awful subject,—or there is none so on this side of the
grave. When I first had the honor of a seat in this House, the affairs of that
continent pressed themselves upon us as the most important and most
delicate object of Parliamentary attention. My little share in this great
deliberation oppressed me. I found myself a partaker in a very high trust;
and having no sort of reason to rely on the strength of my natural abilities
for the proper execution of that trust, I was obliged to take more than
common pains to instruct myself in everything which relates to our
colonies. I was not less under the necessity of forming some fixed ideas
concerning the general policy of the British empire. Something of this sort
seemed to be indispensable, in order, amidst so vast a fluctuation of
passions and opinions, to concentre my thoughts, to ballast my conduct, to
preserve me from being blown about by every wind of fashionable doctrine.
I really did not think it safe or manly to have fresh principles to seek upon
every fresh mail which should arrive from America.

At that period I had the fortune to find myself in perfect concurrence with
a large majority in this House. Bowing under that high authority, and
penetrated with the sharpness and strength of that early impression, I have
continued ever since, without the least deviation, in my original sentiments.
Whether this be owing to an obstinate perseverance in error, or to a
religious adherence to what appears to me truth and reason, it is in your
equity to judge.

Sir, Parliament, having an enlarged view of objects, made, during this
interval, more frequent changes in their sentiments and their conduct than
could be justified in a particular person upon the contracted scale of private
information. But though I do not hazard anything approaching to a censure
on the motives of former Parliaments to all those alterations, one fact is
undoubted,—that under them the state of America has been kept in
continual agitation. Everything administered as remedy to the public
complaint, if it did not produce, was at least followed by, an heightening of
the distemper, until, by a variety of experiments, that important country has
been brought into her present situation,—a situation which I will not
miscall, which I dare not name, which I scarcely know how to comprehend
in the terms of any description.

In this posture, Sir, things stood at the beginning of the session. About
that time, a worthy member,[19] of great Parliamentary experience, who in
the year 1766 filled the chair of the American Committee with much ability,
took me aside, and, lamenting the present aspect of our politics, told me,
things were come to such a pass that our former methods of proceeding in
the House would be no longer tolerated,—that the public tribunal (never too
indulgent to a long and unsuccessful opposition) would now scrutinize our
conduct with unusual severity,—that the very vicissitudes and shiftings of
ministerial measures, instead of convicting their authors of inconstancy and
want of system, would be taken as an occasion of charging us with a
predetermined discontent which nothing could satisfy, whilst we accused
every measure of vigor as cruel and every proposal of lenity as weak and
irresolute. The public, he said, would not have patience to see us play the
game out with our adversaries; we must produce our hand: it would be
expected that those who for many years had been active in such affairs
should show that they had formed some clear and decided idea of the
principles of colony government, and were capable of drawing out

something like a platform of the ground which might be laid for future and
permanent tranquillity.

I felt the truth of what my honorable friend represented; but I felt my
situation, too. His application might have been made with far greater
propriety to many other gentlemen. No man was, indeed, ever better
disposed, or worse qualified, for such an undertaking, than myself. Though
I gave so far into his opinion, that I immediately threw my thoughts into a
sort of Parliamentary form, I was by no means equally ready to produce
them. It generally argues some degree of natural impotence of mind, or
some want of knowledge of the world, to hazard plans of government,
except from a seat of authority. Propositions are made, not only
ineffectually, but somewhat disreputably, when the minds of men are not
properly disposed for their reception; and for my part, I am not ambitious of
ridicule, not absolutely a candidate for disgrace.

Besides, Sir, to speak the plain truth, I have in general no very exalted
opinion of the virtue of paper government, nor of any polities in which the
plan is to be wholly separated from the execution. But when I saw that
anger and violence prevailed every day more and more, and that things
were hastening towards an incurable alienation of our colonies, I confess
my caution gave way. I felt this as one of those few moments in which
decorum yields to an higher duty. Public calamity is a mighty leveller; and
there are occasions when any, even the slightest, chance of doing good must
be laid hold on, even by the most inconsiderable person.

To restore order and repose to an empire so great and so distracted as
ours is, merely in the attempt, an undertaking that would ennoble the flights
of the highest genius, and obtain pardon for the efforts of the meanest
understanding. Struggling a good while with these thoughts, by degrees I
felt myself more firm. I derived, at length, some confidence from what in

other circumstances usually produces timidity. I grew less anxious, even
from the idea of my own insignificance. For, judging of what you are by
what you ought to be, I persuaded myself that you would not reject a
reasonable proposition because it had nothing but its reason to recommend
it. On the other hand, being totally destitute of all shadow of influence,
natural or adventitious, I was very sure, that, if my proposition were futile
or dangerous, if it were weakly conceived or improperly timed, there was
nothing exterior to it of power to awe, dazzle, or delude you. You will see it
just as it is, and you will treat it just as it deserves.

The proposition is peace. Not peace through the medium of war; not
peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and endless
negotiations; not peace to arise out of universal discord, fomented from
principle, in all parts of the empire; not peace to depend on the juridical
determination of perplexing questions, or the precise marking the shadowy
boundaries of a complex government. It is simple peace, sought in its
natural course and in its ordinary haunts. It is peace sought in the spirit of
peace, and laid in principles purely pacific. I propose, by removing the
ground of the difference, and by restoring the former unsuspecting
confidence of the colonies in the mother country, to give permanent
satisfaction to your people,—and (far from a scheme of ruling by discord)
to reconcile them to each other in the same act and by the bond of the very
same interest which reconciles them to British government.

My idea is nothing more. Refined policy ever has been the parent of
confusion,—and ever will be so, as long as the world endures. Plain good
intention, which is as easily discovered at the first view as fraud is surely
detected at last, is, let me say, of no mean force in the government of
mankind. Genuine simplicity of heart is an healing and cementing principle.
My plan, therefore, being formed upon the most simple grounds
imaginable, may disappoint some people, when they hear it. It has nothing

to recommend it to the pruriency of curious ears. There is nothing at all new
and captivating in it. It has nothing of the splendor of the project which has
been lately laid upon your table by the noble lord in the blue riband.[20] It
does not propose to fill your lobby with squabbling colony agents, who will
require the interposition of your mace at every instant to keep the peace
amongst them. It does not institute a magnificent auction of finance, where
captivated provinces come to general ransom by bidding against each other,
until you knock down the hammer, and determine a proportion of payments
beyond all the powers of algebra to equalize and settle.

The plan which I shall presume to suggest derives, however, one great
advantage from the proposition and registry of that noble lord's project. The
idea of conciliation is admissible. First, the House, in accepting the
resolution moved by the noble lord, has admitted, notwithstanding the
menacing front of our address, notwithstanding our heavy bill of pains and
penalties, that we do not think ourselves precluded from all ideas of free
grace and bounty.

The House has gone farther: it has declared conciliation admissible
previous to any submission on the part of America. It has even shot a good
deal beyond that mark, and has admitted that the complaints of our former
mode of exerting the right of taxation were not wholly unfounded. That
right thus exerted is allowed to have had something reprehensible in it,—
something unwise, or something grievous; since, in the midst of our heat
and resentment, we, of ourselves, have proposed a capital alteration, and, in
order to get rid of what seemed so very exceptionable, have instituted a
mode that is altogether new,—one that is, indeed, wholly alien from all the
ancient methods and forms of Parliament.

The principle of this proceeding is large enough for my purpose. The
means proposed by the noble lord for carrying his ideas into execution, I

think, indeed, are very indifferently suited to the end; and this I shall
endeavor to show you before I sit down. But, for the present, I take my
ground on the admitted principle. I mean to give peace. Peace implies
reconciliation; and where there has been a material dispute, reconciliation
does in a manner always imply concession on the one part or on the other.
In this state of things I make no difficulty in affirming that the proposal
ought to originate from us. Great and acknowledged force is not impaired,
either in effect or in opinion, by an unwillingness to exert itself. The
superior power may offer peace with honor and with safety. Such an offer
from such a power will be attributed to magnanimity. But the concessions
of the weak are the concessions of fear. When such a one is disarmed, he is
wholly at the mercy of his superior; and he loses forever that time and those
chances which, as they happen to all men, are the strength and resources of
all inferior power.

The capital leading questions on which you must this day decide are
these two: First, whether you ought to concede; and secondly, what your
concession ought to be. On the first of these questions we have gained (as I
have just taken the liberty of observing to you) some ground. But I am
sensible that a good deal more is still to be done. Indeed, Sir, to enable us to
determine both on the one and the other of these great questions with a firm
and precise judgment, I think it may be necessary to consider distinctly the
true nature and the peculiar circumstances of the object which we have
before us: because, after all our struggle, whether we will or not, we must
govern America according to that nature and to those circumstances, and
not according to our own imaginations, not according to abstract ideas of
right, by no means according to mere general theories of government, the
resort to which appears to me, in our present situation, no better than arrant
trifling. I shall therefore endeavor, with your leave, to lay before you some
of the most material of these circumstances in as full and as clear a manner
as I am able to state them.

The first thing that we have to consider with regard to the nature of the
object is the number of people in the colonies. I have taken for some years a
good deal of pains on that point. I can by no calculation justify myself in
placing the number below two millions of inhabitants of our own European
blood and color,—besides at least 500,000 others, who form no
inconsiderable part of the strength and opulence of the whole. This, Sir, is, I
believe, about the true number. There is no occasion to exaggerate, where
plain truth is of so much weight and importance. But whether I put the
present numbers too high or too low is a matter of little moment. Such is the
strength with which population shoots in that part of the world, that, state
the numbers as high as we will, whilst the dispute continues, the
exaggeration ends. Whilst we are discussing any given magnitude, they are
grown to it. Whilst we spend our time in deliberating on the mode of
governing two millions, we shall find we have millions more to manage.
Your children do not grow faster from infancy to manhood than they spread
from families to communities, and from villages to nations.

I put this consideration of the present and the growing numbers in the
front of our deliberation, because, Sir, this consideration will make it
evident to a blunter discernment than yours, that no partial, narrow,
contracted, pinched, occasional system will be at all suitable to such an
object. It will show you that it is not to be considered as one of those
minima which are out of the eye and consideration of the law,—not a paltry
excrescence of the state,—not a mean dependant, who may be neglected
with little damage and provoked with little danger. It will prove that some
degree of care and caution is required in the handling such an object; it will
show that you ought not, in reason, to trifle with so large a mass of the
interests and feelings of the human race. You could at no time do so without
guilt; and be assured you will not be able to do it long with impunity.

But the population of this country, the great and growing population,
though a very important consideration, will lose much of its weight, if not
combined with other circumstances. The commerce of your colonies is out
of all proportion beyond the numbers of the people. This ground of their
commerce, indeed, has been trod some days ago, and with great ability, by a
distinguished person,[21] at your bar. This gentleman, after thirty-five years,
—it is so long since he first appeared at the same place to plead for the
commerce of Great Britain,—has come again before you to plead the same
cause, without any other effect of time than that to the fire of imagination
and extent of erudition, which even then marked him as one of the first
literary characters of his age, he has added a consummate knowledge in the
commercial interest of his country, formed by a long course of enlightened
and discriminating experience.

Sir, I should be inexcusable in coming after such a person with any
detail, if a great part of the members who now fill the House had not the
misfortune to be absent when he appeared at your bar. Besides, Sir, I
propose to take the matter at periods of time somewhat different from his.
There is, if I mistake not, a point of view from whence, if you will look at
this subject, it is impossible that it should not make an impression upon
you.

I have in my hand two accounts: one a comparative state of the export
trade of England to its colonies, as it stood in the year 1704, and as it stood
in the year 1772; the other a state of the export trade of this country to its
colonies alone, as it stood in 1772, compared with the whole trade of
England to all parts of the world (the colonies included) in the year 1704.
They are from good vouchers: the latter period from the accounts on your
table; the earlier from an original manuscript of Davenant, who first
established the Inspector-General's office, which has been ever since his
time so abundant a source of Parliamentary information.

The export trade to the colonies consists of three great branches: the
African, which, terminating almost wholly in the colonies, must be put to
the account of their commerce; the West Indian; and the North American.
All these are so interwoven, that the attempt to separate them would tear to
pieces the contexture of the whole, and, if not entirely destroy, would very
much depreciate, the value of all the parts. I therefore consider these three
denominations to be, what in effect they are, one trade.

The trade to the colonies, taken on the export side, at the beginning of
this century, that is, in the year 1704, stood thus:—

Exports to North America and the West Indies £ 483,265
To Africa 86,665
£ 569,930

In the year 1772, which I take as a middle year between the highest and
lowest of those lately laid on your table, the account was as follows:—

£
To North America and the West Indies
4,791,734
To Africa 866,398
To which if you add the export trade from Scotland, which
364,000
had in 1704 no existence
£6,024,171

From five hundred and odd thousand, it has grown to six millions. It has
increased no less than twelve-fold. This is the state of the colony trade, as
compared with itself at these two periods, within this century;—and this is
matter for meditation. But this is not all. Examine my second account. See
how the export trade to the colonies alone in 1772 stood in the other point
of view, that is, as compared to the whole trade of England in 1704.

The whole export trade of England, including that to the
£6,509,000
colonies, in 1704
Export to the colonies alone, in 1772 6,024,000
Difference £485,000

The trade with America alone is now within less than 500,000l. of being
equal to what this great commercial nation, England, carried on at the
beginning of this century with the whole world! If I had taken the largest
year of those on your table, it would rather have exceeded. But, it will be
said, is not this American trade an unnatural protuberance, that has drawn
the juices from the rest of the body? The reverse. It is the very food that has
nourished every other part into its present magnitude. Our general trade has
been greatly augmented, and augmented more or less in almost every part to
which it ever extended, but with this material difference: that of the six
millions which in the beginning of the century constituted the whole mass
of our export commerce the colony trade was but one twelfth part; it is now
(as a part of sixteen millions) considerably more than a third of the whole.
This is the relative proportion of the importance of the colonies at these two
periods: and all reasoning concerning our mode of treating them must have
this proportion as its basis, or it is a reasoning weak, rotten, and sophistical.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot prevail on myself to hurry over this great
consideration. It is good for us to be here. We stand where we have an
immense view of what is, and what is past. Clouds indeed, and darkness,
rest upon the future. Let us, however, before we descend from this noble
eminence, reflect that this growth of our national prosperity has happened
within the short period of the life of man. It has happened within sixty-eight
years. There are those alive whose memory might touch the two
extremities. For instance, my Lord Bathurst might remember all the stages
of the progress. He was in 1704 of an age at least to be made to comprehend
such things. He was then old enough acta parentum jam legere, et quæ sit

poterit cognoscere virtus. Suppose, Sir, that the angel of this auspicious
youth, foreseeing the many virtues which made him one of the most
amiable, as he is one of the most fortunate men of his age, had opened to
him in vision, that, when, in the fourth generation, the third prince of the
House of Brunswick had sat twelve years on the throne of that nation which
(by the happy issue of moderate and healing councils) was to be made Great
Britain, he should see his son, Lord Chancellor of England, turn back the
current of hereditary dignity to its fountain, and raise him to an higher rank
of peerage, whilst he enriched the family with a new one,—if, amidst these
bright and happy scenes of domestic honor and prosperity, that angel should
have drawn up the curtain, and unfolded the rising glories of his country,
and whilst he was gazing with admiration on the then commercial grandeur
of England, the genius should point out to him a little speck, scarce visible
in the mass of the national interest, a small seminal principle rather than a
formed body, and should tell him,—"Young man, there is America,—which
at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage
men and uncouth manners, yet shall, before you taste of death, show itself
equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the
world. Whatever England has been growing to by a progressive increase of
improvement, brought in by varieties of people, by succession of civilizing
conquests and civilizing settlements in a series of seventeen hundred years,
you shall see as much added to her by America in the course of a single
life!" If this state of his country had been foretold to him, would it not
require all the sanguine credulity of youth, and all the fervid glow of
enthusiasm, to make him believe it? Fortunate man, he has lived to see it!
Fortunate indeed, if he lives to see nothing that shall vary the prospect, and
cloud the setting of his day!

Excuse me, Sir, if, turning from such thoughts, I resume this comparative
view once more. You have seen it on a large scale; look at it on a small one.
I will point out to your attention a particular instance of it in the single

province of Pennsylvania. In the year 1704, that province called for 11,459l.
in value of your commodities, native and foreign. This was the whole. What
did it demand in 1772! Why, nearly fifty times as much; for in that year the
export to Pennsylvania was 507,909l., nearly equal to the export to all the
colonies together in the first period.

I choose, Sir, to enter into these minute and particular details; because
generalities, which in all other cases are apt to heighten and raise the
subject, have here a tendency to sink it. When we speak of the commerce
with our colonies, fiction lags after truth, invention is unfruitful, and
imagination cold and barren.

So far, Sir, as to the importance of the object in the view of its commerce,
as concerned in the exports from England. If I were to detail the imports, I
could show how many enjoyments they procure which deceive the burden
of life, how many materials which invigorate the springs of national
industry and extend and animate every part of our foreign and domestic
commerce. This would be a curious subject indeed,—but I must prescribe
bounds to myself in a matter so vast and various.

I pass, therefore, to the colonies in another point of view,—their
agriculture. This they have prosecuted with such a spirit, that, besides
feeding plentifully their own growing multitude, their annual export of
grain, comprehending rice, has some years ago exceeded a million in value.
Of their last harvest, I am persuaded, they will export much more. At the
beginning of the century some of these colonies imported corn from the
mother country. For some time past the Old World has been fed from the
New. The scarcity which you have felt would have been a desolating
famine, if this child of your old age, with a true filial piety, with a Roman
charity, had not put the full breast of its youthful exuberance to the mouth
of its exhausted parent.

As to the wealth which the colonies have drawn from the sea by their
fisheries, you had all that matter fully opened at your bar. You surely
thought those acquisitions of value, for they seemed even to excite your
envy; and yet the spirit by which that enterprising employment has been
exercised ought rather, in my opinion, to have raised your esteem and
admiration. And pray, Sir, what in the world is equal to it? Pass by the other
parts, and look at the manner in which the people of New England have of
late carried on the whale-fishery. Whilst we follow them among the
tumbling mountains of ice, and behold them penetrating into the deepest
frozen recesses of Hudson's Bay and Davis's Straits, whilst we are looking
for them beneath the arctic circle, we hear that they have pierced into the
opposite region of polar cold, that they are at the antipodes, and engaged
under the frozen serpent of the South. Falkland Island, which seemed too
remote and romantic an object for the grasp of national ambition, is but a
stage and resting-place in the progress of their victorious industry. Nor is
the equinoctial heat more discouraging to them than the accumulated winter
of both the poles. We know, that, whilst some of them draw the line and
strike the harpoon on the coast of Africa, others run the longitude, and
pursue their gigantic game along the coast of Brazil. No sea but what is
vexed by their fisheries. No climate that is not witness to their toils. Neither
the perseverance of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dexterous
and firm sagacity of English enterprise, ever carried this most perilous
mode of hardy industry to the extent to which it has been pushed by this
recent people,—a people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not
yet hardened into the bone of manhood. When I contemplate these things,—
when I know that the colonies in general owe little or nothing to any care of
ours, and that they are not squeezed into this happy form by the constraints
of watchful and suspicious government, but that, through a wise and
salutary neglect, a generous nature has been suffered to take her own way to
perfection,—when I reflect upon these effects, when I see how profitable

they have been to us, I feel all the pride of power sink, and all presumption
in the wisdom of human contrivances melt and die away within me,—my
rigor relents,—I pardon something to the spirit of liberty.

I am sensible, Sir, that all which I have asserted in my detail is admitted
in the gross, but that quite a different conclusion is drawn from it. America,
gentlemen say, is a noble object,—it is an object well worth fighting for.
Certainly it is, if fighting a people be the best way of gaining them.
Gentlemen in this respect will be led to their choice of means by their
complexions and their habits. Those who understand the military art will of
course have some predilection for it. Those who wield the thunder of the
state may have more confidence in the efficacy of arms. But I confess,
possibly for want of this knowledge, my opinion is much more in favor of
prudent management than of force,—considering force not as an odious, but
a feeble instrument, for preserving a people so numerous, so active, so
growing, so spirited as this, in a profitable and subordinate connection with
us.

First, Sir, permit me to observe, that the use of force alone is but
temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the
necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed which is
perpetually to be conquered.

My next objection is its uncertainty. Terror is not always the effect of
force, and an armament is not a victory. If you do not succeed, you are
without resource: for, conciliation failing, force remains; but, force failing,
no further hope of reconciliation is left. Power and authority are sometimes
bought by kindness; but they can never be begged as alms by an
impoverished and defeated violence.

A further objection to force is, that you impair the object by your very
endeavors to preserve it. The thing you fought for is not the thing which

you recover, but depreciated, sunk, wasted, and consumed in the contest.
Nothing less will content me than whole America. I do not choose to
consume its strength along with our own; because in all parts it is the
British strength that I consume. I do not choose to be caught by a foreign
enemy at the end of this exhausting conflict, and still less in the midst of it.
I may escape, but I can make no insurance against such an event. Let me
add, that I do not choose wholly to break the American spirit; because it is
the spirit that has made the country.

Lastly, we have no sort of experience in favor of force as an instrument in
the rule of our colonies. Their growth and their utility has been owing to
methods altogether different. Our ancient indulgence has been said to be
pursued to a fault. It may be so; but we know, if feeling is evidence, that our
fault was more tolerable than our attempt to mend it, and our sin far more
salutary than our penitence.

These, Sir, are my reasons for not entertaining that high opinion of
untried force by which many gentlemen, for whose sentiments in other
particulars I have great respect, seem to be so greatly captivated. But there
is still behind a third consideration concerning this object, which serves to
determine my opinion on the sort of policy which ought to be pursued in the
management of America, even more than its population and its commerce: I
mean its temper and character.

In this character of the Americans a love of freedom is the predominating
feature which marks and distinguishes the whole: and as an ardent is always
a jealous affection, your colonies become suspicious, restive, and
untractable, whenever they see the least attempt to wrest from them by
force, or shuffle from them by chicane, what they think the only advantage
worth living for. This fierce spirit of liberty is stronger in the English
colonies, probably, than in any other people of the earth, and this from a

great variety of powerful causes; which, to understand the true temper of
their minds, and the direction which this spirit takes, it will not be amiss to
lay open somewhat more largely.

First, the people of the colonies are descendants of Englishmen. England,
Sir, is a nation which still, I hope, respects, and formerly adored, her
freedom. The colonists emigrated from you when this part of your character
was most predominant; and they took this bias and direction the moment
they parted from your hands. They are therefore not only devoted to liberty,
but to liberty according to English ideas and on English principles. Abstract
liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found. Liberty inheres in
some sensible object; and every nation has formed to itself some favorite
point, which by way of eminence becomes the criterion of their happiness.
It happened, you know, Sir, that the great contests for freedom in this
country were from the earliest times chiefly upon the question of taxing.
Most of the contests in the ancient commonwealths turned primarily on the
right of election of magistrates, or on the balance among the several orders
of the state. The question of money was not with them so immediate. But in
England it was otherwise. On this point of taxes the ablest pens and most
eloquent tongues have been exercised, the greatest spirits have acted and
suffered. In order to give the fullest satisfaction concerning the importance
of this point, it was not only necessary for those who in argument defended
the excellence of the English Constitution to insist on this privilege of
granting money as a dry point of fact, and to prove that the right had been
acknowledged in ancient parchments and blind usages to reside in a certain
body called an House of Commons: they went much further: they attempted
to prove, and they succeeded, that in theory it ought to be so, from the
particular nature of a House of Commons, as an immediate representative
of the people, whether the old records had delivered this oracle or not. They
took infinite pains to inculcate, as a fundamental principle, that in all
monarchies the people must in effect themselves, mediately or immediately,

possess the power of granting their own money, or no shadow of liberty
could subsist. The colonies draw from you, as with their life-blood, these
ideas and principles. Their love of liberty, as with you, fixed and attached
on this specific point of taxing. Liberty might be safe or might be
endangered in twenty other particulars without their being much pleased or
alarmed. Here they felt its pulse; and as they found that beat, they thought
themselves sick or sound. I do not say whether they were right or wrong in
applying your general arguments to their own case. It is not easy, indeed, to
make a monopoly of theorems and corollaries. The fact is, that they did thus
apply those general arguments; and your mode of governing them, whether
through lenity or indolence, through wisdom or mistake, confirmed them in
the imagination, that they, as well as you, had an interest in these common
principles.

They were further confirmed in this pleasing error by the form of their
provincial legislative assemblies. Their governments are popular in an high
degree: some are merely popular; in all, the popular representative is the
most weighty; and this share of the people in their ordinary government
never fails to inspire them with lofty sentiments, and with a strong aversion
from whatever tends to deprive them of their chief importance.

If anything were wanting to this necessary operation of the form of
government, religion would have given it a complete effect. Religion,
always a principle of energy, in this new people is no way worn out or
impaired; and their mode of professing it is also one main cause of this free
spirit. The people are Protestants, and of that kind which is the most adverse
to all implicit submission of mind and opinion. This is a persuasion not only
favorable to liberty, but built upon it. I do not think, Sir, that the reason of
this averseness in the dissenting churches from all that looks like absolute
government is so much to be sought in their religious tenets as in their
history. Every one knows that the Roman Catholic religion is at least coeval

with most of the governments where it prevails, that it has generally gone
hand in hand with them, and received great favor and every kind of support
from authority. The Church of England, too, was formed from her cradle
under the nursing care of regular government. But the dissenting interests
have sprung up in direct opposition to all the ordinary powers of the world,
and could justify that opposition only on a strong claim to natural liberty.
Their very existence depended on the powerful and unremitted assertion of
that claim. All Protestantism, even the most cold and passive, is a sort of
dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a
refinement on the principle of resistance: it is the dissidence of dissent, and
the protestantism of the Protestant religion. This religion, under a variety of
denominations agreeing in nothing but in the communion of the spirit of
liberty, is predominant in most of the northern provinces, where the Church
of England, notwithstanding its legal rights, is in reality no more than a sort
of private sect, not composing, most probably, the tenth of the people. The
colonists left England when this spirit was high, and in the emigrants was
the highest of all; and even that stream of foreigners which has been
constantly flowing into these colonies has, for the greatest part, been
composed of dissenters from the establishments of their several countries,
and have brought with them a temper and character far from alien to that of
the people with whom they mixed.

Sir, I can perceive, by their manner, that some gentlemen object to the
latitude of this description, because in the southern colonies the Church of
England forms a large body, and has a regular establishment. It is certainly
true. There is, however, a circumstance attending these colonies, which, in
my opinion, fully counterbalances this difference, and makes the spirit of
liberty still more high and haughty than in those to the northward. It is, that
in Virginia and the Carolinas they have a vast multitude of slaves. Where
this is the case in any part of the world, those who are free are by far the
most proud and jealous of their freedom. Freedom is to them not only an

enjoyment, but a kind of rank and privilege. Not seeing there, that freedom,
as in countries where it is a common blessing, and as broad and general as
the air, may be united with much abject toil, with great misery, with all the
exterior of servitude, liberty looks, amongst them, like something that is
more noble and liberal. I do not mean, Sir, to commend the superior
morality of this sentiment, which has at least as much pride as virtue in it;
but I cannot alter the nature of man. The fact is so; and these people of the
southern colonies are much more strongly, and with an higher and more
stubborn spirit, attached to liberty, than those to the northward. Such were
all the ancient commonwealths; such were our Gothic ancestors; such in our
days were the Poles; and such will be all masters of slaves, who are not
slaves themselves. In such a people, the haughtiness of domination
combines with the spirit of freedom, fortifies it, and renders it invincible.

Permit me, Sir, to add another circumstance in our colonies, which
contributes no mean part towards the growth and effect of this untractable
spirit: I mean their education. In no country, perhaps, in the world is the law
so general a study. The profession itself is numerous and powerful, and in
most provinces it takes the lead. The greater number of the deputies sent to
the Congress were lawyers. But all who read, and most do read, endeavor to
obtain some smattering in that science. I have been told by an eminent
bookseller, that in no branch of his business, after tracts of popular
devotion, were so many books as those on the law exported to the
plantations. The colonists have now fallen into the way of printing them for
their own use. I hear that they have sold nearly as many of Blackstone's
"Commentaries" in America as in England. General Gage marks out this
disposition very particularly in a letter on your table. He states, that all the
people in his government are lawyers, or smatterers in law,—and that in
Boston they have been enabled, by successful chicane, wholly to evade
many parts of one of your capital penal constitutions. The smartness of
debate will say, that this knowledge ought to teach them more clearly the

rights of legislature, their obligations to obedience, and the penalties of
rebellion. All this is mighty well. But my honorable and learned friend[22]
on the floor, who condescends to mark what I say for animadversion, will
disdain that ground. He has heard, as well as I, that, when great honors and
great emoluments do not win over this knowledge to the service of the state,
it is a formidable adversary to government. If the spirit be not tamed and
broken by these happy methods, it is stubborn and litigious. Abeunt studia
in mores. This study renders men acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in
attack, ready in defence, full of resources. In other countries, the people,
more simple, and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in
government only by an actual grievance; here they anticipate the evil, and
judge of the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle. They
augur misgovernment at a distance, and snuff the approach of tyranny in
every tainted breeze.

The last cause of this disobedient spirit in the colonies is hardly less
powerful than the rest, as it is not merely moral, but laid deep in the natural
constitution of things. Three thousand miles of ocean lie between you and
them. No contrivance can prevent the effect of this distance in weakening
government. Seas roll, and months pass, between the order and the
execution; and the want of a speedy explanation of a single point is enough
to defeat an whole system. You have, indeed, winged ministers of
vengeance, who carry your bolts in their pounces to the remotest verge of
the sea: but there a power steps in, that limits the arrogance of raging
passions and furious elements, and says, "So far shalt thou go, and no
farther." Who are you, that should fret and rage, and bite the chains of
Nature? Nothing worse happens to you than does to all nations who have
extensive empire; and it happens in all the forms into which empire can be
thrown. In large bodies, the circulation of power must be less vigorous at
the extremities. Nature has said it. The Turk cannot govern Egypt, and
Arabia, and Kurdistan, as he governs Thrace; nor has he the same dominion

in Crimea and Algiers which he has at Brusa and Smyrna. Despotism itself
is obliged to truck and huckster. The Sultan gets such obedience as he can.
He governs with a loose rein, that he may govern at all; and the whole of
the force and vigor of his authority in his centre is derived from a prudent
relaxation in all his borders. Spain, in her provinces, is perhaps not so well
obeyed as you are in yours. She complies, too; she submits; she watches
times. This is the immutable condition, the eternal law, of extensive and
detached empire.

Then, Sir, from these six capital sources, of descent, of form of
government, of religion in the northern provinces, of manners in the
southern, of education, of the remoteness of situation from the first mover
of government,—from all these causes a fierce spirit of liberty has grown
up. It has grown with the growth of the people in your colonies, and
increased with the increase of their wealth: a spirit, that, unhappily meeting
with an exercise of power in England, which, however lawful, is not
reconcilable to any ideas of liberty, much less with theirs, has kindled this
flame that is ready to consume us.

I do not mean to commend either the spirit in this excess, or the moral
causes which produce it. Perhaps a more smooth and accommodating spirit
of freedom in them would be more acceptable to us. Perhaps ideas of liberty
might be desired more reconcilable with an arbitrary and boundless
authority. Perhaps we might wish the colonists to be persuaded that their
liberty is more secure when held in trust for them by us (as their guardians
during a perpetual minority) than with any part of it in their own hands. But
the question is not, whether their spirit deserves praise or blame,—what, in
the name of God, shall we do with it? You have before you the object, such
as it is,—with all its glories, with all its imperfections on its head. You see
the magnitude, the importance, the temper, the habits, the disorders. By all
these considerations we are strongly urged to determine something

concerning it. We are called upon to fix some rule and line for our future
conduct, which may give a little stability to our politics, and prevent the
return of such unhappy deliberations as the present. Every such return will
bring the matter before us in a still more untractable form. For what
astonishing and incredible things have we not seen already! What monsters
have not been generated from this unnatural contention! Whilst every
principle of authority and resistance has been pushed, upon both sides, as
far as it would go, there is nothing so solid and certain, either in reasoning
or in practice, that has not been shaken. Until very lately, all authority in
America seemed to be nothing but an emanation from yours. Even the
popular part of the colony constitution derived all its activity, and its first
vital movement, from the pleasure of the crown. We thought, Sir, that the
utmost which the discontented colonists could do was to disturb authority;
we never dreamt they could of themselves supply it, knowing in general
what an operose business it is to establish a government absolutely new. But
having, for our purposes in this contention, resolved that none but an
obedient assembly should sit, the humors of the people there, finding all
passage through the legal channel stopped, with great violence broke out
another way. Some provinces have tried their experiment, as we have tried
ours; and theirs has succeeded. They have formed a government sufficient
for its purposes, without the bustle of a revolution, or the troublesome
formality of an election. Evident necessity and tacit consent have done the
business in an instant. So well they have done it, that Lord Dunmore (the
account is among the fragments on your table) tells you that the new
institution is infinitely better obeyed than the ancient government ever was
in its most fortunate periods. Obedience is what makes government, and not
the names by which it is called: not the name of Governor, as formerly, or
Committee, as at present. This new government has originated directly from
the people, and was not transmitted through any of the ordinary artificial
media of a positive constitution. It was not a manufacture ready formed,

and transmitted to them in that condition from England. The evil arising
from hence is this: that the colonists having once found the possibility of
enjoying the advantages of order in the midst of a struggle for liberty, such
struggles will not henceforward seem so terrible to the settled and sober
part of mankind as they had appeared before the trial.

Pursuing the same plan of punishing by the denial of the exercise of
government to still greater lengths, we wholly abrogated the ancient
government of Massachusetts. We were confident that the first feeling, if
not the very prospect of anarchy, would instantly enforce a complete
submission. The experiment was tried. A new, strange, unexpected face of
things appeared. Anarchy is found tolerable. A vast province has now
subsisted, and subsisted in a considerable degree of health and vigor, for
near a twelvemonth, without governor, without public council, without
judges, without executive magistrates. How long it will continue in this
state, or what may arise out of this unheard-of situation, how can the wisest
of us conjecture? Our late experience has taught us that many of those
fundamental principles formerly believed infallible are either not of the
importance they were imagined to be, or that we have not at all adverted to
some other far more important and far more powerful principles which
entirely overrule those we had considered as omnipotent. I am much against
any further experiments which tend to put to the proof any more of these
allowed opinions which contribute so much to the public tranquillity. In
effect, we suffer as much at home by this loosening of all ties, and this
concussion of all established opinions, as we do abroad. For, in order to
prove that the Americans have no right to their liberties, we are every day
endeavoring to subvert the maxims which preserve the whole spirit of our
own. To prove that the Americans ought not to be free, we are obliged to
depreciate the value of freedom itself; and we never seem to gain a paltry
advantage over them in debate, without attacking some of those principles,

or deriding some of those feelings, for which our ancestors have shed their
blood.

But, Sir, in wishing to put an end to pernicious experiments, I do not
mean to preclude the fullest inquiry. Far from it. Far from deciding on a
sudden or partial view, I would patiently go round and round the subject,
and survey it minutely in every possible aspect. Sir, if I were capable of
engaging you to an equal attention, I would state, that, as far as I am
capable of discerning, there are but three ways of proceeding relative to this
stubborn spirit which prevails in your colonies and disturbs your
government. These are,—to change that spirit, as inconvenient, by
removing the causes,—to prosecute it, as criminal,—or to comply with it, as
necessary. I would not be guilty of an imperfect enumeration; I can think of
but these three. Another has, indeed, been started,—that of giving up the
colonies; but it met so slight a reception that I do not think myself obliged
to dwell a great while upon it. It is nothing but a little sally of anger, like the
frowardness of peevish children, who, when they cannot get all they would
have, are resolved to take nothing.

The first of these plans—to change the spirit, as inconvenient, by
removing the causes—I think is the most like a systematic proceeding. It is
radical in its principle; but it is attended with great difficulties: some of
them little short, as I conceive, of impossibilities. This will appear by
examining into the plans which have been proposed.

As the growing population of the colonies is evidently one cause of their
resistance, it was last session mentioned in both Houses, by men of weight,
and received not without applause, that, in order to check this evil, it would
be proper for the crown to make no further grants of land. But to this
scheme there are two objections. The first, that there is already so much
unsettled land in private hands as to afford room for an immense future

population, although the crown not only withheld its grants, but annihilated
its soil. If this be the case, then the only effect of this avarice of desolation,
this hoarding of a royal wilderness, would be to raise the value of the
possessions in the hands of the great private monopolists, without any
adequate check to the growing and alarming mischief of population.

But if you stopped your grants, what would be the consequence? The
people would occupy without grants. They have already so occupied in
many places. You cannot station garrisons in every part of these deserts. If
you drive the people from one place, they will carry on their annual tillage,
and remove with their flocks and herds to another. Many of the people in
the back settlements are already little attached to particular situations.
Already they have topped the Appalachian mountains. From thence they
behold before them an immense plain, one vast, rich, level meadow: a
square of five hundred miles. Over this they would wander without a
possibility of restraint; they would change their manners with the habits of
their life; would soon forget a government by which they were disowned;
would become hordes of English Tartars, and, pouring down upon your
unfortified frontiers a fierce and irresistible cavalry, become masters of your
governors and your counsellors, your collectors and comptrollers, and of all
the slaves that adhered to them. Such would, and, in no long time, must be,
the effect of attempting to forbid as a crime, and to suppress as an evil, the
command and blessing of Providence, "Increase and multiply." Such would
be the happy result of an endeavor to keep as a lair of wild beasts that earth
which God by an express charter has given to the children of men. Far
different, and surely much wiser, has been our policy hitherto. Hitherto we
have invited our people, by every kind of bounty, to fixed establishments.
We have invited the husbandman to look to authority for his title. We have
taught him piously to believe in the mysterious virtue of wax and
parchment. We have thrown each tract of land, as it was peopled, into
districts, that the ruling power should never be wholly out of sight. We have

settled all we could; and we have carefully attended every settlement with
government.

Adhering, Sir, as I do, to this policy, as well as for the reasons I have just
given, I think this new project of hedging in population to be neither
prudent nor practicable.

To impoverish the colonies in general, and in particular to arrest the
noble course of their marine enterprises, would be a more easy task. I freely
confess it. We have shown a disposition to a system of this kind,—a
disposition even to continue the restraint after the offence,—looking on
ourselves as rivals to our colonies, and persuaded that of course we must
gain all that they shall lose. Much mischief we may certainly do. The power
inadequate to all other things is often more than sufficient for this. I do not
look on the direct and immediate power of the colonies to resist our
violence as very formidable. In this, however, I may be mistaken. But when
I consider that we have colonies for no purpose but to be serviceable to us,
it seems to my poor understanding a little preposterous to make them
unserviceable, in order to keep them obedient. It is, in truth, nothing more
than the old, and, as I thought, exploded problem of tyranny, which
proposes to beggar its subjects into submission. But remember, when you
have completed your system of impoverishment, that Nature still proceeds
in her ordinary course; that discontent will increase with misery; and that
there are critical moments in the fortune of all states, when they who are too
weak to contribute to your prosperity may be strong enough to complete
your ruin. Spoliatis arma supersunt.

The temper and character which prevail in our colonies are, I am afraid,
unalterable by any human art. We cannot, I fear, falsify the pedigree of this
fierce people, and persuade them that they are not sprung from a nation in
whose veins the blood of freedom circulates. The language in which they

would hear you tell them this tale would detect the imposition; your speech
would betray you. An Englishman is the unfittest person on earth to argue
another Englishman into slavery.

I think it is nearly as little in our power to change their republican
religion as their free descent, or to substitute the Roman Catholic as a
penalty, or the Church of England as an improvement. The mode of
inquisition and dragooning is going out of fashion in the Old World, and I
should not confide much to their efficacy in the New. The education of the
Americans is also on the same unalterable bottom with their religion. You
cannot persuade them to burn their books of curious science, to banish their
lawyers from their courts of law, or to quench the lights of their assemblies
by refusing to choose those persons who are best read in their privileges. It
would be no less impracticable to think of wholly annihilating the popular
assemblies in which these lawyers sit. The army, by which we must govern
in their place, would be far more chargeable to us, not quite so effectual,
and perhaps, in the end, full as difficult to be kept in obedience.

With regard to the high aristocratic spirit of Virginia and the southern
colonies, it has been proposed, I know, to reduce it by declaring a general
enfranchisement of their slaves. This project has had its advocates and
panegyrists; yet I never could argue myself into any opinion of it. Slaves are
often much attached to their masters. A general wild offer of liberty would
not always be accepted. History furnishes few instances of it. It is
sometimes as hard to persuade slaves to be free as it is to compel freemen to
be slaves; and in this auspicious scheme we should have both these pleasing
tasks on our hands at once. But when we talk of enfranchisement, do we not
perceive that the American master may enfranchise, too, and arm servile
hands in defence of freedom?—a measure to which other people have had
recourse more than once, and not without success, in a desperate situation
of their affairs.

Slaves as these unfortunate black people are, and dull as all men are from
slavery, must they not a little suspect the offer of freedom from that very
nation which has sold them to their present masters,—from that nation, one
of whose causes of quarrel with those masters is their refusal to deal any
more in that inhuman traffic? An offer of freedom from England would
come rather oddly, shipped to them in an African vessel, which is refused an
entry into the ports of Virginia or Carolina, with a cargo of three hundred
Angola negroes. It would be curious to see the Guinea captain attempting at
the same instant to publish his proclamation of liberty and to advertise his
sale of slaves.

But let us suppose all these moral difficulties got over. The ocean
remains. You cannot pump this dry; and as long as it continues in its present
bed, so long all the causes which weaken authority by distance will
continue.

"Ye Gods! annihilate but space and time,
And make two lovers happy,"

was a pious and passionate prayer,—but just as reasonable as many of the
serious wishes of very grave and solemn politicians.

If, then, Sir, it seems almost desperate to think of any alterative course
for changing the moral causes (and not quite easy to remove the natural)
which produce prejudices irreconcilable to the late exercise of our authority,
but that the spirit infallibly will continue, and, continuing, will produce
such effects as now embarrass us,—the second mode under consideration is,
to prosecute that spirit in its overt acts, as criminal.

At this proposition I must pause a moment. The thing seems a great deal
too big for my ideas of jurisprudence. It should seem, to my way of
conceiving such matters, that there is a very wide difference, in reason and

policy, between the mode of proceeding on the irregular conduct of
scattered individuals, or even of bands of men, who disturb order within the
state, and the civil dissensions which may, from time to time, on great
questions, agitate the several communities which compose a great empire. It
looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of
criminal justice to this great public contest. I do not know the method of
drawing up an indictment against an whole people. I cannot insult and
ridicule the feelings of millions of my fellow-creatures as Sir Edward Coke
insulted one excellent individual (Sir Walter Raleigh) at the bar. I am not
ripe to pass sentence on the gravest public bodies, intrusted with
magistracies of great authority and dignity, and charged with the safety of
their fellow-citizens, upon the very same title that I am. I really think that
for wise men this is not judicious, for sober men not decent, for minds
tinctured with humanity not mild and merciful.

Perhaps, Sir, I am mistaken in my idea of an empire, as distinguished
from a single state or kingdom. But my idea of it is this: that an empire is
the aggregate of many states under one common head, whether this head be
a monarch or a presiding republic. It does, in such constitutions, frequently
happen (and nothing but the dismal, cold, dead uniformity of servitude can
prevent its happening) that the subordinate parts have many local privileges
and immunities. Between these privileges and the supreme common
authority the line may be extremely nice. Of course disputes, often, too,
very bitter disputes, and much ill blood, will arise. But though every
privilege is an exemption (in the case) from the ordinary exercise of the
supreme authority, it is no denial of it. The claim of a privilege seems
rather, ex vi termini, to imply a superior power: for to talk of the privileges
of a state or of a person who has no superior is hardly any better than
speaking nonsense. Now in such unfortunate quarrels among the component
parts of a great political union of communities, I can scarcely conceive
anything more completely imprudent than for the head of the empire to

insist, that if any privilege is pleaded against his will or his acts, that his
whole authority is denied,—instantly to proclaim rebellion, to beat to arms,
and to put the offending provinces under the ban. Will not this, Sir, very
soon teach the provinces to make no distinctions on their part? Will it not
teach them that the government against which a claim of liberty is
tantamount to high treason is a government to which submission is
equivalent to slavery? It may not always be quite convenient to impress
dependent communities with such an idea.

We are, indeed, in all disputes with the colonies, by the necessity of
things, the judge. It is true, Sir. But I confess that the character of judge in
my own cause is a thing that frightens me. Instead of filling me with pride, I
am exceedingly humbled by it. I cannot proceed with a stern, assured
judicial confidence, until I find myself in something more like a judicial
character. I must have these hesitations as long as I am compelled to
recollect, that, in my little reading upon such contests as these, the sense of
mankind has at least as often decided against the superior as the subordinate
power. Sir, let me add, too, that the opinion of my having some abstract
right in my favor would not put me much at my ease in passing sentence,
unless I could be sure that there were no rights which, in their exercise
under certain circumstances, were not the most odious of all wrongs and the
most vexatious of all injustice. Sir, these considerations have great weight
with me, when I find things so circumstanced that I see the same party at
once a civil litigant against me in a point of right and a culprit before me,
while I sit as criminal judge on acts of his whose moral quality is to be
decided upon the merits of that very litigation. Men are every now and then
put, by the complexity of human affairs, into strange situations; but justice
is the same, let the judge be in what situation he will.

There is, Sir, also a circumstance which convinces me that this mode of
criminal proceeding is not (at least in the present stage of our contest)

altogether expedient,—which is nothing less than the conduct of those very
persons who have seemed to adopt that mode, by lately declaring a
rebellion in Massachusetts Bay, as they had formerly addressed to have
traitors brought hither, under an act of Henry the Eighth, for trial. For,
though rebellion is declared, it is not proceeded against as such; nor have
any steps been taken towards the apprehension or conviction of any
individual offender, either on our late or our former address; but modes of
public coercion have been adopted, and such as have much more
resemblance to a sort of qualified hostility towards an independent power
than the punishment of rebellious subjects. All this seems rather
inconsistent; but it shows how difficult it is to apply these juridical ideas to
our present case.

In this situation, let us seriously and coolly ponder. What is it we have
got by all our menaces, which have been many and ferocious? What
advantage have we derived from the penal laws we have passed, and which,
for the time, have been severe and numerous? What advances have we
made towards our object, by the sending of a force, which, by land and sea,
is no contemptible strength? Has the disorder abated? Nothing less.—When
I see things in this situation, after such confident hopes, bold promises, and
active exertions, I cannot, for my life, avoid a suspicion that the plan itself
is not correctly right.

If, then, the removal of the causes of this spirit of American liberty be,
for the greater part, or rather entirely, impracticable,—if the ideas of
criminal process be inapplicable, or, if applicable, are in the highest degree
inexpedient, what way yet remains? No way is open, but the third and last,
—to comply with the American spirit as necessary, or, if you please, to
submit, to it as a necessary evil.

If we adopt this mode, if we mean to conciliate and concede, let us see of
what nature the concession ought to be. To ascertain the nature of our
concession, we must look at their complaint. The colonies complain that
they have not the characteristic mark and seal of British freedom. They
complain that they are taxed in a Parliament in which they are not
represented. If you mean to satisfy them at all, you must satisfy them with
regard to this complaint. If you mean to please any people, you must give
them the boon which they ask,—not what you may think better for them,
but of a kind totally different. Such an act may be a wise regulation, but it is
no concession; whereas our present theme is the mode of giving
satisfaction.

Sir, I think you must perceive that I am resolved this day to have nothing
at all to do with the question of the right of taxation. Some gentlemen
startle,—but it is true: I put it totally out of the question. It is less than
nothing in my consideration. I do not indeed wonder, nor will you, Sir, that
gentlemen of profound learning are fond of displaying it on this profound
subject. But my consideration is narrow, confined, and wholly limited to the
policy of the question. I do not examine whether the giving away a man's
money be a power excepted and reserved out of the general trust of
government, and how far all mankind, in all forms of polity, are entitled to
an exercise of that right by the charter of Nature,—or whether, on the
contrary, a right of taxation is necessarily involved in the general principle
of legislation, and inseparable from the ordinary supreme power. These are
deep questions, where great names militate against each other, where reason
is perplexed, and an appeal to authorities only thickens the confusion: for
high and reverend authorities lift up their heads on both sides, and there is
no sure footing in the middle. This point is the great Serbonian bog, betwixt
Damiata and Mount Casius old, where armies whole have sunk. I do not
intend to be overwhelmed in that bog, though in such respectable company.
The question with me is, not whether you have a right to render your people

miserable, but whether it is not your interest to make them happy. It is not
what a lawyer tells me I may do, but what humanity, reason, and justice tell
me I ought to do. Is a politic act the worse for being a generous one? Is no
concession proper, but that which is made from your want of right to keep
what you grant? Or does it lessen the grace or dignity of relaxing in the
exercise of an odious claim, because you have your evidence-room full of
titles, and your magazines stuffed with arms to enforce them? What signify
all those titles and all those arms? Of what avail are they, when the reason
of the thing tells me that the assertion of my title is the loss of my suit, and
that I could do nothing but wound myself by the use of my own weapons?

Such is steadfastly my opinion of the absolute necessity of keeping up
the concord of this empire by a unity of spirit, though in a diversity of
operations, that, if I were sure the colonists had, at their leaving this
country, sealed a regular compact of servitude, that they had solemnly
abjured all the rights of citizens, that they had made a vow to renounce all
ideas of liberty for them and their posterity to all generations, yet I should
hold myself obliged to conform to the temper I found universally prevalent
in my own day, and to govern two million of men, impatient of servitude,
on the principles of freedom. I am not determining a point of law; I am
restoring tranquillity: and the general character and situation of a people
must determine what sort of government is fitted for them. That point
nothing else can or ought to determine.

My idea, therefore, without considering whether we yield as matter of
right or grant as matter of favor, is, to admit the people of our colonies into
an interest in the Constitution, and, by recording that admission in the
journals of Parliament, to give them as strong an assurance as the nature of
the thing will admit that we mean forever to adhere to that solemn
declaration of systematic indulgence.

Some years ago, the repeal of a revenue act, upon its understood
principle, might have served to show that we intended an unconditional
abatement of the exercise of a taxing power. Such a measure was then
sufficient to remove all suspicion and to give perfect content. But
unfortunate events since that time may make something further necessary,
—and not more necessary for the satisfaction of the colonies than for the
dignity and consistency of our own future proceedings.

I have taken a very incorrect measure of the disposition of the House, if
this proposal in itself would be received with dislike. I think, Sir, we have
few American financiers. But our misfortune is, we are too acute, we are
too exquisite in our conjectures of the future, for men oppressed with such
great and present evils. The more moderate among the opposers of
Parliamentary concession freely confess that they hope no good from
taxation; but they apprehend the colonists have further views, and if this
point were conceded, they would instantly attack the trade laws. These
gentlemen are convinced that this was the intention from the beginning, and
the quarrel of the Americans with taxation was no more than a cloak and
cover to this design. Such has been the language even of a gentleman[23] of
real moderation, and of a natural temper well adjusted to fair and equal
government. I am, however, Sir, not a little surprised at this kind of
discourse, whenever I hear it; and I am the more surprised on account of the
arguments which I constantly find in company with it, and which are often
urged from the same mouths and on the same day.

For instance, when we allege that it is against reason to tax a people
under so many restraints in trade as the Americans, the noble lord[24] in the
blue riband shall tell you that the restraints on trade are futile and useless, of
no advantage to us, and of no burden to those on whom they are imposed,—
that the trade to America is not secured by the Acts of Navigation, but by
the natural and irresistible advantage of a commercial preference.

Such is the merit of the trade laws in this posture of the debate. But when
strong internal circumstances are urged against the taxes,—when the
scheme is dissected,—when experience and the nature of things are brought
to prove, and do prove, the utter impossibility of obtaining an effective
revenue from the colonies,—when these things are pressed, or rather press
themselves, so as to drive the advocates of colony taxes to a clear admission
of the futility of the scheme,—then, Sir, the sleeping trade laws revive from
their trance, and this useless taxation is to be kept sacred, not for its own
sake, but as a counter-guard and security of the laws of trade.

Then, Sir, you keep up revenue laws which are mischievous in order to
preserve trade laws that are useless. Such is the wisdom of our plan in both
its members. They are separately given up as of no value; and yet one is
always to be defended for the sake of the other. But I cannot agree with the
noble lord, nor with the pamphlet from whence he seems to have borrowed
these ideas concerning the inutility of the trade laws. For, without idolizing
them, I am sure they are still, in many ways, of great use to us; and in
former times they have been of the greatest. They do confine, and they do
greatly narrow, the market for the Americans. But my perfect conviction of
this does not help me in the least to discern how the revenue laws form any
security whatsoever to the commercial regulations,—or that these
commercial regulations are the true ground of the quarrel,—or that the
giving way, in any one instance, of authority is to lose all that may remain
unconceded.

One fact is clear and indisputable: the public and avowed origin of this
quarrel was on taxation. This quarrel has, indeed, brought on new disputes
on new questions, but certainly the least bitter, and the fewest of all, on the
trade laws. To judge which of the two be the real, radical cause of quarrel,
we have to see whether the commercial dispute did, in order of time,
precede the dispute on taxation. There is not a shadow of evidence for it.

Next, to enable us to judge whether at this moment a dislike to the trade
laws be the real cause of quarrel, it is absolutely necessary to put the taxes
out of the question by a repeal. See how the Americans act in this position,
and then you will be able to discern correctly what is the true object of the
controversy, or whether any controversy at all will remain. Unless you
consent to remove this cause of difference, it is impossible, with decency, to
assert that the dispute is not upon what it is avowed to be. And I would, Sir,
recommend to your serious consideration, whether it be prudent to form a
rule for punishing people, not on their own acts, but on your conjectures.
Surely it is preposterous, at the very best. It is not justifying your anger by
their misconduct, but it is converting your ill-will into their delinquency.

But the colonies will go further.—Alas! alas! when will this speculating
against fact and reason end? What will quiet these panic fears which we
entertain of the hostile effect of a conciliatory conduct? Is it true that no
case can exist in which it is proper for the sovereign to accede to the desires
of his discontented subjects? Is there anything peculiar in this case, to make
a rule for itself? Is all authority of course lost, when it is not pushed to the
extreme? Is it a certain maxim, that, the fewer causes of dissatisfaction are
left by government, the more the subject will be inclined to resist and rebel?

All these objections being in fact no more than suspicions, conjectures,
divinations, formed in defiance of fact and experience, they did not, Sir,
discourage me from entertaining the idea of a conciliatory concession,
founded on the principles which I have just stated.

In forming a plan for this purpose, I endeavored to put myself in that
frame of mind which was the most natural and the most reasonable, and
which was certainly the most probable means of securing me from all error.
I set out with a perfect distrust of my own abilities, a total renunciation of
every speculation of my own, and with a profound reverence for the

wisdom of our ancestors, who have left us the inheritance of so happy a
Constitution and so flourishing an empire, and, what is a thousand times
more valuable, the treasury of the maxims and principles which formed the
one and obtained the other.

During the reigns of the kings of Spain of the Austrian family, whenever
they were at a loss in the Spanish councils, it was common for their
statesmen to say that they ought to consult the genius of Philip the Second.
The genius of Philip the Second might mislead them; and the issue of their
affairs showed that they had not chosen the most perfect standard. But, Sir,
I am sure that I shall not be misled, when, in a case of constitutional
difficulty, I consult the genius of the English Constitution. Consulting at
that oracle, (it was with all due humility and piety,) I found four capital
examples in a similar case before me: those of Ireland, Wales, Chester, and
Durham.

Ireland, before the English conquest, though never governed by a
despotic power, had no Parliament. How far the English Parliament itself
was at that time modelled according to the present form is disputed among
antiquarians. But we have all the reason in the world to be assured, that a
form of Parliament, such as England then enjoyed, she instantly
communicated to Ireland; and we are equally sure that almost every
successive improvement in constitutional liberty, as fast as it was made
here, was transmitted thither. The feudal baronage, and the feudal
knighthood, the roots of our primitive Constitution, were early transplanted
into that soil, and grew and flourished there. Magna Charta, if it did not
give us originally the House of Commons, gave us at least an House of
Commons of weight and consequence. But your ancestors did not churlishly
sit down alone to the feast of Magna Charta. Ireland was made immediately
a partaker. This benefit of English laws and liberties, I confess, was not at
first extended to all Ireland. Mark the consequence. English authority and

English liberty had exactly the same boundaries. Your standard could never
be advanced an inch before your privileges. Sir John Davies shows beyond
a doubt, that the refusal of a general communication of these rights was the
true cause why Ireland was five hundred years in subduing; and after the
vain projects of a military government, attempted in the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, it was soon discovered that nothing could make that country
English, in civility and allegiance, but your laws and your forms of
legislature. It was not English arms, but the English Constitution, that
conquered Ireland. From that time, Ireland has ever had a general
Parliament, as she had before a partial Parliament. You changed the people,
you altered the religion, but you never touched the form or the vital
substance of free government in that kingdom. You deposed kings; you
restored them; you altered the succession to theirs, as well as to your own
crown; but you never altered their Constitution, the principle of which was
respected by usurpation, restored with the restoration of monarchy, and
established, I trust, forever by the glorious Revolution. This has made
Ireland the great and flourishing kingdom that it is, and, from a disgrace and
a burden intolerable to this nation, has rendered her a principal part of our
strength and ornament. This country cannot be said to have ever formally
taxed her. The irregular things done in the confusion of mighty troubles, and
on the hinge of great revolutions, even if all were done that is said to have
been done, form no example. If they have any effect in argument, they
make an exception to prove the rule. None of your own liberties could stand
a moment, if the casual deviations from them, at such times, were suffered
to be used as proofs of their nullity. By the lucrative amount of such casual
breaches in the Constitution, judge what the stated and fixed rule of supply
has been in that kingdom. Your Irish pensioners would starve, if they had no
other fund to live on than taxes granted by English authority. Turn your
eyes to those popular grants from whence all your great supplies are come,
and learn to respect that only source of public wealth in the British empire.

My next example is Wales. This country was said to be reduced by Henry
the Third. It was said more truly to be so by Edward the First. But though
then conquered, it was not looked upon as any part of the realm of England.
Its old Constitution, whatever that might have been, was destroyed; and no
good one was substituted in its place. The care of that tract was put into the
hands of Lords Marchers: a form of government of a very singular kind; a
strange, heterogeneous monster, something between hostility and
government: perhaps it has a sort of resemblance, according to the modes of
those times, to that of commander-in-chief at present, to whom all civil
power is granted as secondary. The manners of the Welsh nation followed
the genius of the government: the people were ferocious, restive, savage,
and uncultivated; sometimes composed, never pacified. Wales, within itself,
was in perpetual disorder; and it kept the frontier of England in perpetual
alarm. Benefits from it to the state there were none. Wales was only known
to England by incursion and invasion.

Sir, during that state of things, Parliament was not idle. They attempted to
subdue the fierce spirit of the Welsh by all sorts of rigorous laws. They
prohibited by statute the sending all sorts of arms into Wales, as you
prohibit by proclamation (with something more of doubt on the legality) the
sending arms to America. They disarmed the Welsh by statute, as you
attempted (but still with more question on the legality) to disarm New
England by an instruction. They made an act to drag offenders from Wales
into England for trial, as you have done (but with more hardship) with
regard to America. By another act, where one of the parties was an
Englishman, they ordained that his trial should be always by English. They
made acts to restrain trade, as you do; and they prevented the Welsh from
the use of fairs and markets, as you do the Americans from fisheries and
foreign ports. In short, when the statute-book was not quite so much
swelled as it is now, you find no less than fifteen acts of penal regulation on
the subject of Wales.

Here we rub our hands,—A fine body of precedents for the authority of
Parliament and the use of it!—I admit it fully; and pray add likewise to
these precedents, that all the while Wales rid this kingdom like an incubus;
that it was an unprofitable and oppressive burden; and that an Englishman
travelling in that country could not go six yards from the highroad without
being murdered.

The march of the human mind is slow. Sir, it was not until after two
hundred years discovered, that, by an eternal law, Providence had decreed
vexation to violence, and poverty to rapine. Your ancestors did, however, at
length open their eyes to the ill husbandry of injustice. They found that the
tyranny of a free people could of all tyrannies the least be endured, and that
laws made against an whole nation were not the most effectual methods for
securing its obedience. Accordingly, in the twenty-seventh year of Henry
the Eighth the course was entirely altered. With a preamble stating the
entire and perfect rights of the crown of England, it gave to the Welsh all
the rights and privileges of English subjects. A political order was
established; the military power gave way to the civil; the marches were
turned into counties. But that a nation should have a right to English
liberties, and yet no share at all in the fundamental security of these
liberties,—the grant of their own property,—seemed a thing so
incongruous, that eight years after, that is, in the thirty-fifth of that reign, a
complete and not ill-proportioned representation by counties and boroughs
was bestowed upon Wales by act of Parliament. From that moment, as by a
charm, the tumults subsided; obedience was restored; peace, order, and
civilization followed in the train of liberty. When the day-star of the English
Constitution had arisen in their hearts, all was harmony within and without:
—

Simul alba nautis
Stella refulsit,

Defluit saxis agitatus humor,
Concidunt venti, fugiuntque nubes,
Et minax (quod sic voluere) ponto
Unda recumbit.

The very same year the County Palatine of Chester received the same
relief from its oppressions, and the same remedy to its disorders. Before this
time Chester was little less distempered than Wales. The inhabitants,
without rights themselves, were the fittest to destroy the rights of others;
and from thence Richard the Second drew the standing army of archers with
which for a time he oppressed England. The people of Chester applied to
Parliament in a petition penned as I shall read to you.

"To the king our sovereign lord, in most humble wise shown unto your
most excellent Majesty, the inhabitants of your Grace's County Palatine of
Chester: That where the said County Palatine of Chester is and hath been
alway hitherto exempt, excluded, and separated out and from your high
court of Parliament, to have any knights and burgesses within the said
court; by reason whereof the said inhabitants have hitherto sustained
manifold disherisons, losses, and damages, as well in their lands, goods,
and bodies, as in the good, civil, and politic governance and maintenance of
the common wealth of their said country: And forasmuch as the said
inhabitants have always hitherto been bound by the acts and statutes made
and ordained by your said Highness, and your most noble progenitors, by
authority of the said court, as far forth as other counties, cities, and
boroughs have been, that have had their knights and burgesses within your
said court of Parliament, and yet have had neither knight no burgess there
for the said County Palatine; the said inhabitants, for lack thereof, have
been oftentimes touched and grieved with acts and statutes made within the
said court, as well derogatory unto the most ancient jurisdictions, liberties,
and privileges of your said County Palatine, as prejudicial unto the common

wealth, quietness, rest, and peace of your Grace's most bounden subjects
inhabiting within the same."

What did Parliament with this audacious address?—Reject it as a libel?
Treat it as an affront to government? Spurn it as a derogation from the
rights of legislature? Did they toss it over the table? Did they burn it by the
hands of the common hangman?—They took the petition of grievance, all
rugged as it was, without softening or temperament, unpurged of the
original bitterness and indignation of complaint; they made it the very
preamble to their act of redress, and consecrated its principle to all ages in
the sanctuary of legislation.

Here is my third example. It was attended with the success of the two
former. Chester, civilized as well as Wales, has demonstrated that freedom,
and not servitude, is the cure of anarchy; as religion, and not atheism, is the
true remedy for superstition. Sir, this pattern of Chester was followed in the
reign of Charles the Second with regard to the County Palatine of Durham,
which is my fourth example. This county had long lain out of the pale of
free legislation. So scrupulously was the example of Chester followed, that
the style of the preamble is nearly the came with that of the Chester act;
and, without affecting the abstract extent of the authority of Parliament, it
recognizes the equity of not suffering any considerable district, in which the
British subjects may act as a body, to be taxed without their own voice in
the grant.

Now if the doctrines of policy contained in these preambles, and the
force of these examples in the acts of Parliament, avail anything, what can
be said against applying them with regard to America? Are not the people of
America as much Englishmen as the Welsh? The preamble of the act of
Henry the Eighth says, the Welsh speak a language no way resembling that
of his Majesty's English subjects. Are the Americana not as numerous? If

we may trust the learned and accurate Judge Barrington's account of North
Wales, and take that as a standard to measure the rest, there is no
comparison. The people cannot amount to above 200,000: not a tenth part
of the number in the colonies. Is America in rebellion? Wales was hardly
ever free from it. Have you attempted to govern America by penal statutes?
You made fifteen for Wales. But your legislative authority is perfect with
regard to America: was it less perfect in Wales, Chester, and Durham? But
America is virtually represented. What! does the electric force of virtual
representation more easily pass over the Atlantic than pervade Wales, which
lies in your neighborhood? or than Chester and Durham, surrounded by
abundance of representation that is actual and palpable? But, Sir, your
ancestors thought this sort of virtual representation, however ample, to be
totally insufficient for the freedom of the inhabitants of territories that are
so near, and comparatively so inconsiderable. How, then, can I think it
sufficient for those which are infinitely greater, and infinitely more remote?

You will now, Sir, perhaps imagine that I am on the point of proposing to
you a scheme for a representation of the colonies in Parliament. Perhaps I
might be inclined to entertain some such thought; but a great flood stops me
in my course. Opposuit Natura. I cannot remove the eternal barriers of the
creation. The thing, in that mode, I do not know to be possible. As I meddle
with no theory, I do not absolutely assert the impracticability of such a
representation; but I do not see my way to it; and those who have been more
confident have not been more successful. However, the arm of public
benevolence is not shortened; and there are often several means to the same
end. What Nature has disjoined in one way wisdom may unite in another.
When we cannot give the benefit as we would wish, let us not refuse it
altogether. If we cannot give the principal, let us find a substitute. But how?
where? what substitute?

Fortunately, I am not obliged, for the ways and means of this substitute,
to tax my own unproductive invention. I am not even obliged to go to the
rich treasury of the fertile framers of imaginary commonwealths: not to the
Republic of Plato, not to the Utopia of More, not to the Oceana of
Harrington. It is before me,—it is at my feet,—

"And the rude swain
Treads daily on it with his clouted shoon."

I only wish you to recognize, for the theory, the ancient constitutional
policy of this kingdom with regard to representation, as that policy has been
declared in acts of Parliament,—and as to the practice, to return to that
mode which an uniform experience has marked out to you as best, and in
which you walked with security, advantage, and honor, until the year 1763.

My resolutions, therefore, mean to establish the equity and justice of a
taxation of America by grant, and not by imposition; to mark the legal
competency of the colony assemblies for the support of their government in
peace, and for public aids in time of war; to acknowledge that this legal
competency has had a dutiful and beneficial exercise, and that experience
has shown the benefit of their grants, and the futility of Parliamentary
taxation, as a method of supply.

These solid truths compose six fundamental propositions. There are three
more resolutions corollary to these. If you admit the first set, you can hardly
reject the others. But if you admit the first, I shall be far from solicitous
whether you accept or refuse the last. I think these six massive pillars will
be of strength sufficient to support the temple of British concord. I have no
more doubt than I entertain of my existence, that, if you admitted these, you
would command an immediate peace, and, with but tolerable future
management, a lasting obedience in America. I am not arrogant in this
confident assurance. The propositions are all mere matters of fact; and if

they are such facts as draw irresistible conclusions even in the stating, this
is the power of truth, and not any management of mine.

Sir, I shall open the whole plan to you together, with such observations
on the motions as may tend to illustrate them, where they may want
explanation.

The first is a resolution,—"That the colonies and plantations of Great
Britain in North America, consisting of fourteen separate governments, and
containing two millions and upwards of free inhabitants, have not had the
liberty and privilege of electing and sending any knights and burgesses, or
others, to represent them in the high court of Parliament."

This is a plain matter of fact, necessary to be laid down, and (excepting
the description) it is laid down in the language of the Constitution; it is
taken nearly verbatim from acts of Parliament.

The second is like unto the first,—"That the said colonies and plantations
have been made liable to, and bounden by, several subsidies, payments,
rates, and taxes, given and granted by Parliament, though the said colonies
and plantations have not their knights and burgesses in the said high court
of Parliament, of their own election, to represent the condition of their
country; by lack whereof they have been oftentimes touched and grieved by
subsidies, given, granted, and assented to, in the said court, in a manner
prejudicial to the common wealth, quietness, rest, and peace of the subjects
inhabiting within the same."

Is this description too hot or too cold, too strong or too weak? Does it
arrogate too much to the supreme legislature? Does it lean too much to the
claims of the people? If it runs into any of these errors, the fault is not mine.
It is the language of your own ancient acts of Parliament.

Non meus hic sermo, sed quæ præcepit Ofellus
Rusticus, abnormis sapiens.

It is the genuine produce of the ancient, rustic, manly, home-bred sense of
this country. I did not dare to rub off a particle of the venerable rust that
rather adorns and preserves than destroys the metal. It would be a
profanation to touch with a tool the stones which construct the sacred altar
of peace. I would not violate with modern polish the ingenuous and noble
roughness of these truly constitutional materials. Above all things, I was
resolved not to be guilty of tampering,—the odious vice of restless and
unstable minds. I put my foot in the tracks of our forefathers, where I can
neither wander nor stumble. Determining to fix articles of peace, I was
resolved not to be wise beyond what was written; I was resolved to use
nothing else than the form of sound words, to let others abound in their own
sense, and carefully to abstain from all expressions of my own. What the
law has said, I say. In all things else I am silent. I have no organ but for her
words. This, if it be not ingenious, I am sure is safe.

There are, indeed, words expressive of grievance in this second
resolution, which those who are resolved always to be in the right will deny
to contain matter of fact, as applied to the present case; although Parliament
thought them true with regard to the Counties of Chester and Durham. They
will deny that the Americans were ever "touched and grieved" with the
taxes. If they consider nothing in taxes but their weight as pecuniary
impositions, there might be some pretence for this denial. But men may be
sorely touched and deeply grieved in their privileges, as well as in their
purses. Men may lose little in property by the act which takes away all their
freedom. When a man is robbed of a trifle on the highway, it is not the
twopence lost that constitutes the capital outrage. This is not confined to
privileges. Even ancient indulgences withdrawn, without offence on the part
of those who enjoyed such favors, operate as grievances. But were the

Americans, then, not touched and grieved by the taxes, in some measure,
merely as taxes? If so, why were they almost all either wholly repealed or
exceedingly reduced? Were they not touched and grieved even by the
regulating duties of the sixth of George the Second? Else why were the
duties first reduced to one third in 1764, and afterwards to a third of that
third in the year 1766? Were they not touched and grieved by the Stamp
Act? I shall say they were, until that tax is revived. Were they not touched
and grieved by the duties of 1767, which were likewise repealed, and which
Lord Hillsborough tells you (for the ministry) were laid contrary to the true
principle of commerce? Is not the assurance given by that noble person to
the colonies of a resolution to lay no more taxes on them an admission that
taxes would touch and grieve them? Is not the resolution of the noble lord
in the blue riband, now standing on your journals, the strongest of all proofs
that Parliamentary subsidies really touched and grieved them? Else why all
these changes, modifications, repeals, assurances, and resolutions?

The next proposition is,—"That, from the distance of the said colonies,
and from other circumstances, no method hath hitherto been devised for
procuring a representation in Parliament for the said colonies."

This is an assertion of a fact. I go no further on the paper; though, in my
private judgment, an useful representation is impossible; I am sure it is not
desired by them, nor ought it, perhaps, by us: but I abstain from opinions.

The fourth resolution is,—"That each of the said colonies hath within
itself a body, chosen, in part or in the whole, by the freemen, freeholders, or
other free inhabitants thereof, commonly called the General Assembly, or
General Court, with powers legally to raise, levy, and assess, according to
the several usages of such colonies, duties and taxes towards defraying all
sorts of public services."

This competence in the colony assemblies is certain. It is proved by the
whole tenor of their acts of supply in all the assemblies, in which the
constant style of granting is, "An aid to his Majesty"; and acts granting to
the crown have regularly, for near a century, passed the public offices
without dispute. Those who have been pleased paradoxically to deny this
right, holding that none but the British Parliament can grant to the crown,
are wished to look to what is done, not only in the colonies, but in Ireland,
in one uniform, unbroken tenor, every session. Sir, I am surprised that this
doctrine should come from Rome of the law servants of the crown. I say,
that, if the crown could be responsible, his Majesty,—but certainly the
ministers, and even these law officers themselves, through whose hands the
acts pass biennially in Ireland, or annually in the colonies, are in an habitual
course of committing impeachable offences. What habitual offenders have
been all Presidents of the Council, all Secretaries of State, all First Lords of
Trade, all Attorneys and all Solicitors General! However, they are safe, as
no one impeaches them; and there is no ground of charge against them,
except in their own unfounded theories.

The fifth resolution is also a resolution of fact,—"That the said general
assemblies, general courts, or other bodies legally qualified as aforesaid,
have at sundry times freely granted several large subsidies and public aids
for his Majesty's service, according to their abilities, when required thereto
by letter from one of his Majesty's principal Secretaries of State; and that
their right to grant the same, and their cheerfulness and sufficiency in the
said grants, have been at sundry times acknowledged by Parliament."

To say nothing of their great expenses in the Indian wars, and not to take
their exertion in foreign ones, so high as the supplies in the year 1695, not
to go back to their public contributions in the year 1710, I shall begin to
travel only where the journals give me light,—resolving to deal in nothing

but fact authenticated by Parliamentary record, and to build myself wholly
on that solid basis.

On the 4th of April, 1748,[25] a committee of this House came to the
following resolution:—

"Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee, that it is just and
reasonable, that the several provinces and colonies of Massachusetts Bay,
New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island be reimbursed the
expenses they have been at in taking and securing to the crown of Great
Britain the island of Caps Breton and its dependencies."

These expenses were immense for such colonies. They were above
200,000l. sterling: money first raised and advanced on their public credit.

On the 28th of January, 1756,[26] a message from the king came to us, to
this effect:—"His Majesty, being sensible of the zeal and vigor with which
his faithful subjects of certain colonies in North America have exerted
themselves in defence of his Majesty's just rights and possessions,
recommends it to this House to take the same into their consideration, and
to enable his Majesty to give them such assistance as may be proper reward
and encouragement."

On the 3d of February, 1756,[27] the House came to a suitable resolution,
expressed in words nearly the same as those of the message; but with the
further addition, that the money then voted was as an encouragement to the
colonies to exert themselves with vigor. It will not be necessary to go
through all the testimonies which your own records have given to the truth
of my resolutions. I will only refer you to the places in the journals:—

Vol. XXVII—16th and 19th May, 1757.

Vol. XXVIII.—June 1st, 1758,—April 26th and 30th, 1759,—
March 26th and 31st, and April 28th, 1760,—Jan. 9th and 20th,
1761.

Vol. XXIX.—Jan. 22d and 26th, 1762,—March 14th and 17th,
1763.

Sir, here is the repeated acknowledgment of Parliament, that the colonies
not only gave, but gave to satiety. This nation has formally acknowledged
two things: first, that the colonies had gone beyond their abilities,
Parliament having thought it necessary to reimburse them; secondly, that
they had acted legally and laudably in their grants of money, and their
maintenance of troops, since the compensation is expressly given as reward
and encouragement. Reward is not bestowed for acts that are unlawful; and
encouragement is not held out to things that deserve reprehension. My
resolution, therefore, does nothing more than collect into one proposition
what is scattered through your journals. I give you nothing but your own;
and you cannot refuse in the gross what you have so often acknowledged in
detail. The admission of this, which will be so honorable to them and to
you, will, indeed, be mortal to all the miserable stories by which the
passions of the misguided people have been engaged in an unhappy system.
The people heard, indeed, from the beginning of these disputes, one thing
continually dinned in their ears: that reason and justice demanded, that the
Americans, who paid no taxes, should be compelled to contribute. How did
that fact, of their paying nothing, stand, when the taxing system began?
When Mr. Grenville began to form his system of American revenue, he
stated in this House that the colonies were then in debt two million six
hundred thousand pounds sterling money, and was of opinion they would
discharge that debt in four years. On this state, those untaxed people were

actually subject to the payment of taxes to the amount of six hundred and
fifty thousand a year. In fact, however, Mr. Grenville was mistaken. The
funds given for sinking the debt did not prove quite so ample as both the
colonies and he expected. The calculation was too sanguine: the reduction
was not completed till some years after, and at different times in different
colonies. However, the taxes after the war continued too great to bear any
addition, with prudence or propriety; and when the burdens imposed in
consequence of former requisitions were discharged, our tone became too
high to resort again to requisition. No colony, since that time, ever has had
any requisition whatsoever made to it.

We see the sense of the crown, and the sense of Parliament, on the
productive nature of a revenue by grant. Now search the same journals for
the produce of the revenue by imposition. Where is it?—let us know the
volume and the page. What is the gross, what is the net produce? To what
service is it applied? How have you appropriated its surplus?—What! can
none of the many skilful index-makers that we are now employing find any
trace of it?—Well, let them and that rest together.—But are the journals,
which say nothing of the revenue, as silent on the discontent?—Oh, no! a
child may find it. It is the melancholy burden and blot of every page.

I think, then, I am, from those journals, justified in the sixth and last
resolution, which is,—"That it hath been found by experience, that the
manner of granting the said supplies and aids by the said general assemblies
hath been more agreeable to the inhabitants of the said colonies, and more
beneficial and conducive to the public service, than the mode of giving and
granting aids and subsidies in Parliament, to be raised and paid in the said
colonies."

This makes the whole of the fundamental part of the plan. The conclusion
is irresistible. You cannot say that you were driven by any necessity to an

exercise of the utmost rights of legislature. You cannot assert that you took
on yourselves the task of imposing colony taxes, from the want of another
legal body that is competent to the purpose of supplying the exigencies of
the state without wounding the prejudices of the people. Neither is it true,
that the body so qualified, and having that competence, had neglected the
duty.

The question now, on all this accumulated matter, is,—Whether you will
choose to abide by a profitable experience or a mischievous theory?
whether you choose to build on imagination or fact? whether you prefer
enjoyment or hope? satisfaction in your subjects, or discontent?

If these propositions are accepted, everything which has been made to
enforce a contrary system must, I take it for granted, fall along with it. On
that ground, I have drawn the following resolution, which, when it comes to
be moved, will naturally be divided in a proper manner:—"That it may be
proper to repeal an act, made in the seventh year of the reign of his present
Majesty, intituled, 'An act for granting certain duties in the British colonies
and plantations in America; for allowing a drawback of the duties of
customs, upon the exportation from this kingdom, of coffee and cocoa-nuts,
of the produce of the said colonies or plantations; for discontinuing the
drawbacks payable on China earthen ware exported to America; and for
more effectually preventing the clandestine running of goods in the said
colonies and plantations.'—And also, that it may be proper to repeal an act,
made in the fourteenth year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled,
'An act to discontinue, in such manner and for such time as are therein
mentioned, the landing and discharging, lading or shipping, of goods,
wares, and merchandise, at the town and within the harbor of Boston, in the
province of Massachusetts Bay, in North America.'—And also, that it may
be proper to repeal an act, made in the fourteenth year of the reign of his
present Majesty, intituled, 'An act for the impartial administration of justice,

in the cases of persons questioned for any acts done by them, in the
execution of the law, or for the suppression of riots and tumults, in the
province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England.'—And also, that it
may be proper to repeal an act, made in the fourteenth year of the reign of
his present Majesty, intituled,' An act for the better regulating the
government of the province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England.'—
And also, that it may be proper to explain and amend an act, made in the
thirty-fifth year of the reign of King Henry the Eighth, intituled, 'An act for
the trial of treasons committed out of the king's dominions.'"

I wish, Sir, to repeal the Boston Port Bill, because (independently of the
dangerous precedent of suspending the rights of the subject during the
king's pleasure) it was passed, as I apprehend, with less regularity, and on
more partial principles, than it ought. The corporation of Boston was not
heard before it was condemned. Other towns, full as guilty as she was, have
not had their ports blocked up. Even the Restraining Bill of the present
session does not go to the length of the Boston Port Act. The same ideas of
prudence, which induced you not to extend equal punishment to equal guilt,
even when you were punishing, induce me, who mean not to chastise, but to
reconcile, to be satisfied with the punishment already partially inflicted.

Ideas of prudence and accommodation to circumstances prevent you
from taking away the charters of Connecticut and Rhode Island, as you
have taken away that of Massachusetts Colony, though the crown has far
less power in the two former provinces than it enjoyed in the latter, and
though the abuses have bean full as great and as flagrant in the exempted as
in the punished. The same reasons of prudence and accommodation have
weight with me in restoring the charter of Massachusetts Bay. Besides, Sir,
the act which changes the charter of Massachusetts is in many particulars so
exceptionable, that, if I did not wish absolutely to repeal, I would by all
means desire to alter it; as several of its provisions tend to the subversion of

all public and private justice. Such, among others, is the power in the
governor to change the sheriff at his pleasure, and to make a new returning
officer for every special cause. It is shameful to behold such a regulation
standing among English laws.

The act for bringing persons accused of committing murder under the
orders of government to England for trial is but temporary. That act has
calculated the probable duration of our quarrel with the colonies, and is
accommodated to that supposed duration. I would hasten the happy moment
of reconciliation, and therefore must, on my principle, get rid of that most
justly obnoxious act.

The act of Henry the Eighth for the trial of treasons I do not mean to take
away, but to confine it to its proper bounds and original intention: to make it
expressly for trial of treasons (and the greatest treasons may be committed)
in places where the jurisdiction of the crown does not extend.

Having guarded the privileges of local legislature, I would next secure to
the colonies a fair and unbiased judicature; for which purpose, Sir, I
propose the following resolution:—"That, from the time when the general
assembly, or general court, of any colony or plantation in North America
shall have appointed, by act of assembly duly confirmed, a settled salary to
the offices of the chief justice and other judges of the superior courts, it may
be proper that the said chief justice and other judges of the superior courts
of such colony shall hold his and their office and offices during their good
behavior, and shall not be removed therefrom, but when the said removal
shall be adjudged by his Majesty in council, upon a hearing on complaint
from the general assembly, or on a complaint from the governor, or the
council, or the house of representatives, severally, of the colony in which
the said chief justice and other judges have exercised the said offices."

The next resolution relates to the courts of admiralty. It is this:—"That it
may be proper to regulate the courts of admiralty or vice-admiralty,
authorized by the 15th chapter of the 4th George the Third, in such a
manner as to make the same more commodious to those who sue or are
sued in the said courts, and to provide for the more decent maintenance of
the judges of the same."

These courts I do not wish to take away: they are in themselves proper
establishments. This court is one of the capital securities of the Act of
Navigation. The extent of its jurisdiction, indeed, has been increased; but
this is altogether as proper, and is, indeed, on many accounts, more eligible,
where new powers were wanted, than a court absolutely new. But courts
incommodiously situated, in effect, deny justice; and a court partaking in
the fruits of its own condemnation is a robber. The Congress complain, and
complain justly, of this grievance.[28]

These are the three consequential propositions. I have thought of two or
three more; but they come rather too near detail, and to the province of
executive government, which I wish Parliament always to superintend,
never to assume. If the first six are granted, congruity will carry the latter
three. If not, the things that remain unrepealed will be, I hope, rather
unseemly incumbrances on the building than very materially detrimental to
its strength and stability.

Here, Sir, I should close, but that I plainly perceive some objections
remain, which I ought, if possible, to remove. The first will be, that, in
resorting to the doctrine of our ancestors, as contained in the preamble to
the Chester act, I prove too much: that the grievance from a want of
representation, stated in that preamble, goes to the whole of legislation as
well as to taxation; and that the colonies, grounding themselves upon that
doctrine, will apply it to all parts of legislative authority.

To this objection, with all possible deference and humility, and wishing
as little as any man living to impair the smallest particle of our supreme
authority, I answer, that the words are the words of Parliament, and not
mine; and that all false and inconclusive inferences drawn from them are
not mine; for I heartily disclaim any such inference. I have chosen the
words of an act of Parliament, which Mr. Grenville, surely a tolerably
zealous and very judicious advocate for the sovereignty of Parliament,
formerly moved to have read at your table in confirmation of his tenets. It is
true that Lord Chatham considered these preambles as declaring strongly in
favor of his opinions. He was a no less powerful advocate for the privileges
of the Americans. Ought I not from hence to presume that these preambles
are as favorable as possible to both, when properly understood: favorable
both to the rights of Parliament, and to the privilege of the dependencies of
this crown? But, Sir, the object of grievance in my resolution I have not
taken from the Chester, but from the Durham act, which confines the
hardship of want of representation to the case of subsidies, and which
therefore falls in exactly with the case of the colonies. But whether the
unrepresented counties were de jure or de facto bound the preambles do not
accurately distinguish; nor, indeed, was it necessary: for, whether de jure or
de facto, the legislature thought the exercise of the power of taxing, as of
right, or as of fact without right, equally a grievance, and equally
oppressive.

I do not know that the colonies have, in any general way, or in any cool
hour, gone much beyond the demand of immunity in relation to taxes. It is
not fair to judge of the temper or dispositions of any man or any set of men,
when they are composed and at rest, from their conduct or their expressions
in a state of disturbance and irritation. It is, besides, a very great mistake to
imagine that mankind follow up practically any speculative principle, either
of government or of freedom, as far as it will go in argument and logical
illation. We Englishmen stop very short of the principles upon which we

support any given part of our Constitution, or even the whole of it together.
I could easily, if I had not already tired you, give you very striking and
convincing instances of it. This is nothing but what is natural and proper.
All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue
and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter. We balance
inconveniences; we give and take; we remit some rights, that we may enjoy
others; and we choose rather to be happy citizens than subtle disputants. As
we must give away some natural liberty, to enjoy civil advantages, so we
must sacrifice some civil liberties, for the advantages to be derived from the
communion and fellowship of a great empire. But, in all fair dealings, the
thing bought must bear some proportion to the purchase paid. None will
barter away the immediate jewel of his soul. Though a great house is apt to
make slaves haughty, yet it is purchasing a part of the artificial importance
of a great empire too dear, to pay for it all essential rights, and all the
intrinsic dignity of human nature. None of us who would not risk his life
rather than fall under a government purely arbitrary. But although there are
some amongst us who think our Constitution wants many improvements to
make it a complete system of liberty, perhaps none who are of that opinion
would think it right to aim at such improvement by disturbing his country
and risking everything that is dear to him. In every arduous enterprise, we
consider what we are to lose, as well as what we are to gain; and the more
and better stake of liberty every people possess, the less they will hazard in
a vain attempt to make it more. These are the cords of man. Man acts from
adequate motives relative to his interest, and not on metaphysical
speculations. Aristotle, the great master of reasoning, cautions us, and with
great weight and propriety, against this species of delusive geometrical
accuracy in moral arguments, as the most fallacious of all sophistry.

The Americans will have no interest contrary to the grandeur and glory of
England, when they are not oppressed by the weight of it; and they will
rather be inclined to respect the acts of a superintending legislature, when

they see them the acts of that power which is itself the security, not the
rival, of their secondary importance. In this assurance my mind most
perfectly acquiesces, and I confess I feel not the least alarm from the
discontents which are to arise from putting people at their ease; nor do I
apprehend the destruction of this empire from giving, by an act of free
grace and indulgence, to two millions of my fellow-citizens some share of
those rights upon which I have always been taught to value myself.

It is said, indeed, that this power of granting, vested in American
assemblies, would dissolve the unity of the empire,—which was preserved
entire, although Wales, and Chester, and Durham were added to it. Truly,
Mr. Speaker, I do not know what this unity means; nor has it ever been
heard of, that I know, in the constitutional policy of this country. The very
idea of subordination of parts excludes this notion of simple and undivided
unity. England is the head; but she is not the head and the members too.
Ireland has ever had from the beginning a separate, but not an independent
legislature, which, far from distracting, promoted the union of the whole.
Everything was sweetly and harmoniously disposed through both islands
for the conservation of English dominion and the communication of English
liberties. I do not see that the same principles might not be carried into
twenty islands, and with the same good effect. This is my model with
regard to America, as far as the internal circumstances of the two countries
are the same. I know no other unity of this empire than I can draw from its
example during these periods, when it seemed to my poor understanding
more united than it is now, or than it is likely to be by the present methods.

But since I speak of these methods, I recollect, Mr. Speaker, almost too
late, that I promised, before I finished, to say something of the proposition
of the noble lord[29] on the floor, which has been so lately received, and
stands on your journals. I must be deeply concerned, whenever it is my
misfortune to continue a difference with the majority of this House. But as

the reasons for that difference are my apology for thus troubling you, suffer
me to state them in a very few words. I shall compress them into as small a
body as I possibly can, having already debated that matter at large, when
the question was before the committee.

First, then, I cannot admit that proposition of a ransom by auction,—
because it is a mere project. It is a thing new, unheard of, supported by no
experience, justified by no analogy, without example of our ancestors, or
root in the Constitution. It is neither regular Parliamentary taxation nor
colony grant. Experimentum in corpore vili is a good rule, which will ever
make me adverse to any trial of experiments on what is certainly the most
valuable of all subjects, the peace of this empire.

Secondly, it is an experiment which must be fatal in the end to our
Constitution. For what is it but a scheme for taxing the colonies in the
antechamber of the noble lord and his successors? To settle the quotas and
proportions in this House is clearly impossible. You, Sir, may flatter
yourself you shall sit a state auctioneer, with your hammer in your hand,
and knock down to each colony as it bids. But to settle (on the plan laid
down by the noble lord) the true proportional payment for four or five and
twenty governments, according to the absolute and the relative wealth of
each, and according to the British proportion of wealth and burden, is a wild
and chimerical notion. This new taxation must therefore come in by the
back-door of the Constitution. Each quota must be brought to this House
ready formed. You can neither add nor alter. You must register it. You can
do nothing further. For on what grounds can you deliberate either before or
after the proposition? You cannot hear the counsel for all these provinces,
quarrelling each on its own quantity of payment, and its proportion to
others. If you should attempt it, the Committee of Provincial Ways and
Means, or by whatever other name it will delight to be called, must swallow
up all the time of Parliament.

Thirdly, it does not give satisfaction to the complaint of the colonies.
They complain that they are taxed without their consent. You answer, that
you will fix the sum at which they shall be taxed. That is, you give them the
very grievance for the remedy. You tell them, indeed, that you will leave the
mode to themselves. I really beg pardon; it gives me pain to mention it; but
you must be sensible that you will not perform this part of the compact. For
suppose the colonies were to lay the duties which furnished their contingent
upon the importation of your manufactures; you know you would never
suffer such a tax to be laid. You know, too, that you would not suffer many
other modes of taxation. So that, when you come to explain yourself, it will
be found that you will neither leave to themselves the quantum nor the
mode, nor indeed anything. The whole is delusion, from one end to the
other.

Fourthly, this method of ransom by auction, unless it be universally
accepted, will plunge you into great and inextricable difficulties. In what
year of our Lord are the proportions of payments to be settled? To say
nothing of the impossibility that colony agents should have general powers
of taxing the colonies at their discretion, consider, I implore you, that the
communication by special messages and orders between these agents and
their constituents on each variation of the case, when the parties come to
contend together, and to dispute on their relative proportions, will be a
matter of delay, perplexity, and confusion, that never can have an end.

If all the colonies do not appear at the outcry, what is the condition of
those assemblies who offer, by themselves or their agents, to tax themselves
up to your ideas of their proportion? The refractory colonies, who refuse all
composition, will remain taxed only to your old impositions, which,
however grievous in principle, are trifling as to production. The obedient
colonies in this scheme are heavily taxed; the refractory remain
unburdened. What will you do? Will you lay new and heavier taxes by

Parliament on the disobedient? Pray consider in what way you can do it.
You are perfectly convinced, that, in the way of taxing, you can do nothing
but at the ports. Now suppose it is Virginia that refuses to appear at your
auction, while Maryland and North Carolina bid handsomely for their
ransom, and are taxed to your quota, how will you put these colonies on a
par? Will you tax the tobacco of Virginia? If you do, you give its death-
wound to your English revenue at home, and to one of the very greatest
articles of your own foreign trade. If you tax the import of that rebellious
colony, what do you tax but your own manufactures, or the goods of some
other obedient and already well-taxed colony? Who has said one word on
this labyrinth of detail, which bewilders you more and more as you enter
into it? Who has presented, who can present, you with a clew to lead you
out of it? I think, Sir, it is impossible that you should not recollect that the
colony bounds are so implicated in one another (you know it by your other
experiments in the bill for prohibiting the New England fishery) that you
can lay no possible restraints on almost any of them which may not be
presently eluded, if you do not confound the innocent with the guilty, and
burden those whom upon every principle you ought to exonerate. He must
be grossly ignorant of America, who thinks, that, without falling into this
confusion of all rules of equity and policy, you can restrain any single
colony, especially Virginia and Maryland, the central, and most important of
them all.

Let it also be considered, that either in the present confusion you settle a
permanent contingent, which will and must be trifling, and then you have
no effectual revenue,—or you change the quota at every exigency, and then
on every new repartition you will have a new quarrel.

Reflect besides, that, when you have fixed a quota for every colony, you
have not provided for prompt and punctual payment. Suppose one, two,
five, ten years' arrears. You cannot issue a Treasury extent against the

failing colony. You must make new Boston port bills, new restraining laws,
new acts for dragging men to England for trial. You must send out new
fleets, new armies. All is to begin again. From this day forward the empire
is never to know an hour's tranquillity. An intestine fire will be kept alive in
the bowels of the colonies, which one time or other must consume this
whole empire. I allow, indeed, that the Empire of Germany raises her
revenue and her troops by quotas and contingents; but the revenue of the
Empire and the army of the Empire is the worst revenue and the worst army
in the world.

Instead of a standing revenue, you will therefore have a perpetual quarrel.
Indeed, the noble lord who proposed this project of a ransom by auction
seemed himself to be of that opinion. His project was rather designed for
breaking the union of the colonies than for establishing a revenue. He
confessed he apprehended that his proposal would not be to their taste. I
say, this scheme of disunion seems to be at the bottom of the project; for I
will not suspect that the noble lord meant nothing but merely to delude the
nation by an airy phantom which he never intended to realize. But whatever
his views may be, as I propose the peace and union of the colonies as the
very foundation of my plan, it cannot accord with one whose foundation is
perpetual discord.

Compare the two. This I offer to give you is plain and simple: the other
full of perplexed and intricate mazes. This is mild: that harsh. This is found
by experience effectual for its purposes: the other is a new project. This is
universal: the other calculated for certain colonies only. This is immediate
in its conciliatory operation: the other remote, contingent, full of hazard.
Mine is what becomes the dignity of a ruling people: gratuitous,
unconditional, and not held out as matter of bargain and sale. I have done
my duty in proposing it to you. I have, indeed, tired you by a long
discourse; but this is the misfortune of those to whose influence nothing

will be conceded, and who must win every inch of their ground by
argument. You have heard me with goodness. May you decide with
wisdom! For my part, I feel my mind greatly disburdened by what I have
done to-day. I have been the less fearful of trying your patience, because on
this subject I mean to spare it altogether in future. I have this comfort,—
that, in every stage of the American affairs, I have steadily opposed the
measures that have produced the confusion, and may bring on the
destruction, of this empire. I now go so far as to risk a proposal of my own.
If I cannot give peace to my country, I give it to my conscience.

But what (says the financier) is peace to us without money? Your plan
gives us no revenue.—No! But it does: for it secures to the subject the
power of REFUSAL,—the first of all revenues. Experience is a cheat, and
fact a liar, if this power in the subject, of proportioning his grant, or of not
granting at all, has not been found the richest mine of revenue ever
discovered by the skill or by the fortune of man. It does not, indeed, vote
you £152,750: 11: 2-3/4ths, nor any other paltry limited sum; but it gives
the strong-box itself, the fund, the bank, from whence only revenues can
arise amongst a people sensible of freedom: Posita luditur arca. Cannot you
in England, cannot you at this time of day, cannot you, an House of
Commons, trust to the principle which has raised so mighty a revenue, and
accumulated a debt of near 140 millions in this country? Is this principle to
be true in England and false everywhere else? Is it not true in Ireland? Has
it not hitherto been true in the colonies? Why should you presume, that, in
any country, a body duly constituted for any function will neglect to
perform its duty, and abdicate its trust? Such a presumption would go
against all government in all modes. But, in truth, this dread of penury of
supply from a free assembly has no foundation in Nature. For first, observe,
that, besides the desire which all men have naturally of supporting the
honor of their own government, that sense of dignity, and that security to
property, which ever attends freedom, has a tendency to increase the stock

of the free community. Most may be taken where most is accumulated. And
what is the soil or climate where experience has not uniformly proved that
the voluntary flow of heaped-up plenty, bursting from the weight of its own
rich luxuriance, has ever run with a more copious stream of revenue than
could be squeezed from the dry husks of oppressed indigence by the
straining of all the politic machinery in the world?

Next, we know that parties must ever exist in a free country. We know,
too, that the emulations of such parties, their contradictions, their reciprocal
necessities, their hopes, and their fears, must send them all in their turns to
him that holds the balance of the state. The parties are the gamesters; but
government keeps the table, and is sure to be the winner in the end. When
this game is played, I really think it is more to be feared that the people will
be exhausted than that government will not be supplied. Whereas whatever
is got by acts of absolute power ill obeyed because odious, or by contracts
ill kept because constrained, will be narrow, feeble, uncertain, and
precarious.

"Ease would retract
Vows made in pain, as violent and void."

I, for one, protest against compounding our demands: I declare against
compounding, for a poor limited sum, the immense, ever-growing, eternal
debt which is due to generous government from protected freedom. And so
may I speed in the great object I propose to you, as I think it would not only
be an act of injustice, but would be the worst economy in the world, to
compel the colonies to a sum certain, either in the way of ransom, or in the
way of compulsory compact.

But to clear up my ideas on this subject,—a revenue from America
transmitted hither. Do not delude yourselves: you can never receive it,—no,
not a shilling. We have experience that from remote countries it is not to be

expected. If, when you attempted to extract revenue from Bengal, you were
obliged to return in loan what you had taken in imposition, what can you
expect from North America? For, certainly, if ever there was a country
qualified to produce wealth, it is India; or an institution fit for the
transmission, it is the East India Company. America has none of these
aptitudes. If America gives you taxable objects on which you lay your
duties here, and gives you at the same time a surplus by a foreign sale of her
commodities to pay the duties on these objects which you tax at home, she
has performed her part to the British revenue. But with regard to her own
internal establishments, she may, I doubt not she will, contribute in
moderation. I say in moderation; for she ought not to be permitted to
exhaust herself. She ought to be reserved to a war; the weight of which,
with the enemies that we are most likely to have, must be considerable in
her quarter of the globe. There she may serve you, and serve you
essentially.

For that service, for all service, whether of revenue, trade, or empire, my
trust is in her interest in the British Constitution. My hold of the colonies is
in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred
blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties which,
though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the colonies always
keep the idea of their civil rights associated with your government,—they
will cling and grapple to you, and no force under heaven will be of power to
tear them from their allegiance. But let it be once understood that your
government may be one thing and their privileges another, that these two
things may exist without any mutual relation,—the cement is gone, the
cohesion is loosened, and everything hastens to decay and dissolution. As
long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country
as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common
faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of England worship freedom, they
will turn their faces towards you. The more they multiply, the more friends

you will have; the more ardently they love liberty, the more perfect will be
their obedience. Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in
every soil. They may have it from Spain, they may have it from Prussia.
But, until you become lost to all feeling of your true interest and your
natural dignity, freedom they can have from none but you. This is the
commodity of price, of which you have the monopoly. This is the true Act
of Navigation, which binds to you the commerce of the colonies, and
through them secures to you the wealth of the world. Deny them this
participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond which originally
made, and must still preserve, the unity of the empire. Do not entertain so
weak an imagination as that your registers and your bonds, your affidavits
and your sufferances, your cockets and your clearances, are what form the
great securities of your commerce. Do not dream that your letters of office,
and your instructions, and your suspending clauses are the things that hold
together the great contexture of this mysterious whole. These things do not
make your government. Dead instruments, passive tools as they are, it is the
spirit of the English communion that gives all their life and efficacy to
them. It is the spirit of the English Constitution, which, infused through the
mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies every part of the
empire, even down to the minutest member.

Is it not the same virtue which does everything for us here in England?
Do you imagine, then, that it is the Land-Tax Act which raises your
revenue? that it is the annual vote in the Committee of Supply which gives
you your army? or that it is the Mutiny Bill which inspires it with bravery
and discipline? No! surely, no! It is the love of the people; it is their
attachment to their government, from the sense of the deep stake they have
in such a glorious institution, which gives you your army and your navy,
and infuses into both that liberal obedience without which your army would
be a base rabble and your navy nothing but rotten timber.

All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical to the
profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians who have no place
among us: a sort of people who think that nothing exists but what is gross
and material,—and who, therefore, far from being qualified to be directors
of the great movement of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine.
But to men truly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master
principles, which in the opinion of such men as I have mentioned have no
substantial existence, are in truth everything, and all in all. Magnanimity in
politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds
go ill together. If we are conscious of our situation, and glow with zeal to
fill our place as becomes our station and ourselves, we ought to auspicate
all our public proceedings on America with the old warning of the Church,
Sursum corda! We ought to elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust
to which the order of Providence has called us. By adverting to the dignity
of this high calling our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a
glorious empire, and have made the most extensive and the only honorable
conquests, not by destroying, but by promoting the wealth, the number, the
happiness of the human race. Let us get an American revenue as we have
got an American empire. English privileges have made it all that it is;
English privileges alone will make it all it can be.

In full confidence of this unalterable truth, I now (quod felix faustumque
sit!) lay the first stone of the Temple of Peace; and I move you,—

"That the colonies and plantations of Great Britain in North America,
consisting of fourteen separate governments, and containing two millions
and upwards of free inhabitants, have not had the liberty and privilege of
electing and sending any knights and burgesses, or others, to represent them
in the high court of Parliament."

Upon this resolution the previous question was put and carried: for the
previous question, 270; against it, 78.

As the propositions were opened separately in the body of the speech, the
reader perhaps may wish to see the whole of them together, in the form in
which they were moved for.

"MOVED,

"That the colonies and plantations of Great Britain in North America,
consisting of fourteen separate governments, and containing two millions
and upwards of free inhabitants, have not had the liberty and privilege of
electing and sending any knights and burgesses, or others, to represent them
in the high court of Parliament."

"That the said colonies and plantations have been made liable to, and
bounden by, several subsidies, payments, rates, and taxes, given and granted
by Parliament, though the said colonies and plantations have not their
knights and burgesses in the said high court of Parliament, of their own
election, to represent the condition of their country; by lack whereof they
have been oftentimes touched and grieved by subsidies, given, granted, and
amended to, in the said, court, in a manner prejudicial to the common
wealth, quietness, rest, and peace of the subjects inhabiting within the
same."

"That, from the distance of the said colonies, and from other
circumstances, no method hath hitherto been devised for procuring a
representation in Parliament for the said colonies."

"That each of the said colonies hath within itself a body, chosen, in part
or in the whole, by the freemen, freeholders, or other free inhabitants

thereof, commonly called the General Assembly, or General Court, with
powers legally to raise, levy, and assess, according to the several usages of
such colonies, duties and taxes towards defraying all sorts of public
services."[30]

"That the said general assemblies, general courts, or other bodies legally
qualified as aforesaid, have at sundry times freely granted several large
subsidies and public aids for his Majesty's service, according to their
abilities, when required thereto by letter from one of his Majesty's principal
Secretaries of State; and that their right to grant the same, and their
cheerfulness and sufficiency in the said grants, have been at sundry times
acknowledged by Parliament."

"That it hath been found by experience, that the manner of granting the
said supplies and aids by the said general assemblies hath been more
agreeable to the inhabitants of the said colonies, and more beneficial and
conducive to the public service, than the mode of giving and granting aids
and subsidies in Parliament, to be raised and paid in the said colonies."

"That it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the seventh year of the
reign of his present Majesty, intituled, 'An act for granting certain duties in
the British colonies and plantations in America; for allowing a drawback of
the duties of customs, upon the exportation from this kingdom, of coffee
and cocoa-nuts, of the produce of the said colonies or plantations; for
discontinuing the drawbacks payable on China earthen ware exported to
America; and for more effectually preventing the clandestine running of
goods in the said colonies and plantations.'"

"That it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the fourteenth year of the
reign of his present Majesty, intituled, 'An act to discontinue, in such
manner and for such time as are therein mentioned, the landing and
discharging, lading or chipping, of goods, wares, and merchandise, at the

town and within the harbor of Boston, in the province of Massachusetts
Bay, in North America.'"

"That it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the fourteenth year of the
reign of his present Majesty, intituled, 'An act for the impartial
administration of justice, in the cases of persons questioned for any acts
done by them, in the execution of the law, or for the suppression of riots and
tumults, in the province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England.'"

"That it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the fourteenth year of the
reign of his present Majesty, intituled, 'An act for the better regulating the
government of the province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England.'"

"That it may be proper to explain and amend an act, made in the thirty-
fifth year of the reign of King Henry the Eighth, intituled, 'An act for the
trial of treasons committed out of the king's dominions.'"

"That, from the time when the general assembly, or general court, of any
colony or plantation in North America, shall have appointed, by act of
assembly duly confirmed, a settled salary to the offices of the chief justice
and other judges of the superior courts, it may be proper that the said chief
justice and other judges of the superior courts of such colony shall hold his
and their office and offices during their good behavior, and shall not be
removed therefrom, but when the said removal shall be adjudged by his
Majesty in council, upon a hearing on complaint from the general assembly,
or on a complaint from the governor, or the council, or the house of
representatives, severally, of the colony in which the said chief justice and
other judges have exercised the said offices."

"That it may be proper to regulate the courts of admiralty or vice-
admiralty, authorized by the 15th chapter of the 4th George the Third, in
such a manner as to make the same more commodious to those who sue or

are sued in the said courts; and to provide for the mere decent maintenance
of the judges of the same."

FOOTNOTES:

[18] The act to restrain the trade and commerce of the provinces of
Massachusetts Bay and New Hampshire, and colonies of Connecticut and
Rhode Island and Providence Plantation, in North America, to Great
Britain, Ireland, and the British Islands in the West Indies; and to prohibit
such provinces and colonies from carrying on any fishery on the banks of
Newfoundland, and other places therein mentioned, under certain
conditions and limitations.

[19] Mr. Rose Fuller.

[20] "That when the governor, council, and assembly, or general court, of
any of his Majesty's provinces or colonies in America shall propose to
make provision, according to the condition, circumstances, and situation of
such province or colony, for contributing their proportion to the common
defence, (such proportion to be raised under the authority of the general
court or general assembly of such province or colony, and disposable by
Parliament,) and shall engage to make provision, also for the support of the
civil government and the administration, of justice in such province or
colony, it will be proper, if such proposal shall be approved by his Majesty
and the two Houses of Parliament, and for so long as such provision shall
be made accordingly, to forbear, in respect of such province or colony, to
levy any duty, tax, or assessment, or to impose any farther duty, tax, or
assessment, except only such duties as it may be expedient to continue to
levy or to impose for the regulation of commerce: the net produce of the
duties last mentioned to be carried to the account of such province or

colony respectively."—Resolution moved by Lord North in the Committee,
and agreed to by the House, 27th February, 1775.

[21] Mr. Glover.

[22] The Attorney-General.

[23] Mr. Rice.

[24] Lord North.

[25] Journals of the House, Vol. XXV.

[26] Journals of the House, Vol. XXVII.

[27] Ibid.

[28] The Solicitor-General informed Mr. B., when the resolutions were
separately moved, that the grievance of the judges partaking of the profits
of the seizure had been redressed by office; accordingly the resolution was
amended.

[29] Lord North.

[30] The first four motions and the last had the previous question put on
them. The others were negatived.

The words in Italics were, by an amendment that was carried, left out of the
motion; which will appear in the journals, though it is not the practice to
insert such amendments in the votes.

A

LETTER

TO

JOHN FARR AND JOHN HARRIS, ESQRS.,

SHERIFFS OF THE CITY OF BRISTOL,

ON THE

AFFAIRS OF AMERICA.

1777.

Gentlemen,—I have the honor of sending you the two last acts which
have been passed with regard to the troubles in America. These acts are
similar to all the rest which have been made on the same subject. They
operate by the same principle, and they are derived from the very same
policy. I think they complete the number of this sort of statutes to nine. It

affords no matter for very pleasing reflection to observe that our subjects
diminish as our laws increase.

If I have the misfortune of differing with some of my fellow-citizens on
this great and arduous subject, it is no small consolation to me that I do not
differ from you. With you I am perfectly united. We are heartily agreed in
our detestation of a civil war. We have ever expressed the most unqualified
disapprobation of all the steps which have led to it, and of all those which
tend to prolong it. And I have no doubt that we feel exactly the same
emotions of grief and shame on all its miserable consequences, whether
they appear, on the one side or the other, in the shape of victories or defeats,
of captures made from the English on the continent or from the English in
these islands, of legislative regulations which subvert the liberties of our
brethren or which undermine our own.

Of the first of these statutes (that for the letter of marque) I shall say
little. Exceptionable as it may be, and as I think it is in some particulars, it
seems the natural, perhaps necessary, result of the measures we have taken
and the situation we are in. The other (for a partial suspension of the
Habeas Corpus) appears to me of a much deeper malignity. During its
progress through the House of Commons, it has been amended, so as to
express, more distinctly than at first it did, the avowed sentiments of those
who framed it; and the main ground of my exception to it is, because it does
express, and does carry into execution, purposes which appear to me so
contradictory to all the principles, not only of the constitutional policy of
Great Britain, but even of that species of hostile justice which no asperity of
war wholly extinguishes in the minds of a civilized people.

It seems to have in view two capital objects: the first, to enable
administration to confine, as long as it shall think proper, those whom that
act is pleased to qualify by the name of pirates. Those so qualified I

understand to be the commanders and mariners of such privateers and ships
of war belonging to the colonies as in the course of this unhappy contest
may fall into the hands of the crown. They are therefore to be detained in
prison, under the criminal description of piracy, to a future trial and
ignominious punishment, whenever circumstances shall make it convenient
to execute vengeance on them, under the color of that odious and infamous
offence.

To this first purpose of the law I have no small dislike, because the act
does not (as all laws and all equitable transactions ought to do) fairly
describe its object. The persons who make a naval war upon us, in
consequence of the present troubles, may be rebels; but to call and treat
them as pirates is confounding not only the natural distinction of things, but
the order of crimes,—which, whether by putting them from a higher part of
the scale to the lower or from the lower to the higher, is never done without
dangerously disordering the whole frame of jurisprudence. Though piracy
may be, in the eye of the law, a less offence than treason, yet, as both are, in
effect, punished with the same death, the same forfeiture, and the same
corruption of blood, I never would take from any fellow-creature whatever
any sort of advantage which he may derive to his safety from the pity of
mankind, or to his reputation from their general feelings, by degrading his
offence, when I cannot soften his punishment. The general sense of
mankind tells me that those offences which may possibly arise from
mistaken virtue are not in the class of infamous actions. Lord Coke, the
oracle of the English law, conforms to that general sense, where he says that
"those things which are of the highest criminality may be of the least
disgrace." The act prepares a sort of masked proceeding, not honorable to
the justice of the kingdom, and by no means necessary for its safety. I
cannot enter into it. If Lord Balmerino, in the last rebellion, had driven off
the cattle of twenty clans, I should have thought it would have been a

scandalous and low juggle, utterly unworthy of the manliness of an English
judicature, to have tried him for felony as a stealer of cows.

Besides, I must honestly tell you that I could not vote for, or countenance
in any way, a statute which stigmatizes with the crime of piracy these men
whom an act of Parliament had previously put out of the protection of the
law. When the legislature of this kingdom had ordered all their ships and
goods, for the mere new-created offence of exercising trade, to be divided
as a spoil among the seamen, of the navy,—to consider the necessary
reprisal of an unhappy, proscribed, interdicted people, as the crime of
piracy, would have appeared, in any other legislature than ours, a strain of
the most insulting and most unnatural cruelty and injustice. I assure you I
never remember to have heard of anything like it in any time or country.

The second professed purpose of the act is to detain in England for trial
those who shall commit high treason in America.

That you may be enabled to enter into the true spirit of the present law, it
is necessary, Gentlemen, to apprise you that there is an act, made so long
ago as in the reign of Henry the Eighth, before the existence or thought of
any English colonies in America, for the trial in this kingdom of treasons
committed out of the realm. In the year 1769 Parliament thought proper to
acquaint the crown with their construction of that act in a formal address,
wherein they entreated his Majesty to cause persons charged with high
treason in America to be brought into this kingdom for trial. By this act of
Henry the Eighth, so construed and so applied, almost all that is substantial
and beneficial in a trial by jury is taken away from the subject in the
colonies. This is, however, saying too little; for to try a man under that act
is, in effect, to condemn him unheard. A person is brought hither in the
dungeon of a ship's hold; thence he is vomited into a dungeon on land,
loaded with irons, unfurnished with money, unsupported by friends, three

thousand miles from all means of calling upon or confronting evidence,
where no one local circumstance that tends to detect perjury can possibly be
judged of;—such a person may be executed according to form, but he can
never be tried according to justice.

I therefore could never reconcile myself to the bill I send you, which is
expressly provided to remove all inconveniences from the establishment of
a mode of trial which has ever appeared to me most unjust and most
unconstitutional. Far from removing the difficulties which impede the
execution of so mischievous a project, I would heap new difficulties upon
it, if it were in my power. All the ancient, honest, juridical principles and
institutions of England are so many clogs to check and retard the headlong
course of violence and oppression. They were invented for this one good
purpose, that what was not just should not be convenient. Convinced of this,
I would leave things as I found them. The old, cool-headed, general law is
as good as any deviation dictated by present heat.

I could see no fair, justifiable expedience pleaded to favor this new
suspension of the liberty of the subject. If the English in the colonies can
support the independency to which they have been unfortunately driven, I
suppose nobody has such a fanatical zeal for the criminal justice of Henry
the Eighth that he will contend for executions which must be retaliated
tenfold on his own friends, or who has conceived so strange an idea of
English dignity as to think the defeats in America compensated by the
triumphs at Tyburn. If, on the contrary, the colonies are reduced to the
obedience of the crown, there must be, under that authority, tribunals in the
country itself fully competent to administer justice on all offenders. But if
there are not, and that we must suppose a thing so humiliating to our
government as that all this vast continent should unanimously concur in
thinking that no ill fortune can convert resistance to the royal authority into
a criminal act, we may call the effect of our victory peace, or obedience, or

what we will, but the war is not ended; the hostile mind continues in full
vigor, and it continues under a worse form. If your peace be nothing more
than a sullen pause from arms, if their quiet be nothing but the meditation of
revenge, where smitten pride smarting from its wounds festers into new
rancor, neither the act of Henry the Eighth nor its handmaid of this reign
will answer any wise end of policy or justice. For, if the bloody fields which
they saw and felt are not sufficient to subdue the reason of America, (to use
the expressive phrase of a great lord in office,) it is not the judicial slaughter
which is made in another hemisphere against their universal sense of justice
that will ever reconcile them to the British government.

I take it for granted, Gentlemen, that we sympathize in a proper horror of
all punishment further than as it serves for an example. To whom, then does
the example of an execution in England for this American rebellion apply?
Remember, you are told every day, that the present is a contest between the
two countries, and that we in England are at war for our own dignity against
our rebellious children. Is this true? If it be, it is surely among such
rebellious children that examples for disobedience should be made, to be in
any degree instructive: for who ever thought of teaching parents their duty
by an example from the punishment of an undutiful son? As well might the
execution of a fugitive negro in the plantations be considered as a lesson to
teach masters humanity to their slaves. Such executions may, indeed, satiate
our revenge; they may harden our hearts, and puff us up with pride and
arrogance. Alas! this is not instruction.

If anything can be drawn from such examples by a parity of the case, it is
to show how deep their crime and how heavy their punishment will be, who
shall at any time dare to resist a distant power actually disposing of their
property without their voice or consent to the disposition, and overturning
their franchises without charge or hearing. God forbid that England should
ever read this lesson written in the blood of any of her offspring!

War is at present carried on between the king's natural and foreign troops,
on one side, and the English in America, on the other, upon the usual
footing of other wars; and accordingly an exchange of prisoners has been
regularly made from the beginning. If, notwithstanding this hitherto equal
procedure, upon some prospect of ending the war with success (which,
however, may be delusive) administration prepares to act against those as
traitors who remain in their hands at the end of the troubles, in my opinion
we shall exhibit to the world as indecent a piece of injustice as ever civil
fury has produced. If the prisoners who have been exchanged have not by
that exchange been virtually pardoned, the cartel (whether avowed or
understood) is a cruel fraud; for you have received the life of a man, and
you ought to return a life for it, or there is no parity or fairness in the
transaction.

If, on the other hand, we admit that they who are actually exchanged are
pardoned, but contend that you may justly reserve for vengeance those who
remain unexchanged, then this unpleasant and unhandsome consequence
will follow: that you judge of the delinquency of men merely by the time of
their guilt, and not by the heinousness of it; and you make fortune and
accidents, and not the moral qualities of human action, the rule of your
justice.

These strange incongruities must ever perplex those who confound the
unhappiness of civil dissension with the crime of treason. Whenever a
rebellion really and truly exists, which is as easily known in fact as it is
difficult to define in words, government has not entered into such military
conventions, but has ever declined all intermediate treaty which should put
rebels in possession of the law of nations with regard to war. Commanders
would receive no benefits at their hands, because they could make no return
for them. Who has ever heard of capitulation, and parole of honor, and
exchange of prisoners in the late rebellions in this kingdom? The answer to

all demands of that sort was, "We can engage for nothing; you are at the
king's pleasure." We ought to remember, that, if our present enemies be in
reality and truth rebels, the king's generals have no right to release them
upon any conditions whatsoever; and they are themselves answerable to the
law, and as much in want of a pardon, for doing so, as the rebels whom they
release.

Lawyers, I know, cannot make the distinction for which I contend;
because they have their strict rule to go by. But legislators ought to do what
lawyers cannot; for they have no other rules to bind them but the great
principles of reason and equity and the general sense of mankind. These
they are bound to obey and follow, and rather to enlarge and enlighten law
by the liberality of legislative reason than to fetter and bind their higher
capacity by the narrow constructions of subordinate, artificial justice. If we
had adverted to this, we never could consider the convulsions of a great
empire, not disturbed by a little disseminated faction, but divided by whole
communities and provinces, and entire legal representatives of a people, as
fit matter of discussion under a commission of Oyer and Terminer. It is as
opposite to reason and prudence as it is to humanity and justice.

This act, proceeding on these principles, that is, preparing to end the
present troubles by a trial of one sort of hostility under the name of piracy,
and of another by the name of treason, and executing the act of Henry the
Eighth according to a new and unconstitutional interpretation, I have
thought evil and dangerous, even though the instruments of effecting such
purposes had been merely of a neutral quality.

But it really appears to me that the means which this act employs are at
least as exceptionable as the end. Permit me to open myself a little upon this
subject; because it is of importance to me, when I am obliged to submit to
the power without acquiescing in the reason of an act of legislature, that I

should justify my dissent by such arguments as may be supposed to have
weight with a sober man.

The main operative regulation of the act is to suspend the Common Law
and the statute Habeas Corpus (the sole securities either for liberty or
justice) with regard to all those who have been out of the realm, or on the
high seas, within a given time. The rest of the people, as I understand, are to
continue as they stood before.

I confess, Gentlemen, that this appears to me as bad in the principle, and
far worse in its consequence, than an universal suspension of the Habeas
Corpus Act; and the limiting qualification, instead of taking out the sting,
does in my humble opinion sharpen and envenom it to a greater degree.
Liberty, if I understand it at all, is a general principle, and the clear right of
all the subjects within the realm, or of none. Partial freedom seems to me a
most invidious mode of slavery. But, unfortunately, it is the kind of slavery
the most easily admitted in times of civil discord: for parties are but too apt
to forget their own future safety in their desire of sacrificing their enemies.
People without much difficulty admit the entrance of that injustice of which
they are not to be the immediate victims. In times of high proceeding it is
never the faction of the predominant power that is in danger: for no tyranny
chastises its own instruments. It is the obnoxious and the suspected who
want the protection of law; and there is nothing to bridle the partial violence
of state factions but this,—"that, whenever an act is made for a cessation of
law and justice, the whole people should be universally subjected to the
same suspension of their franchises." The alarm of such a proceeding would
then be universal. It would operate as a sort of call of the nation. It would
become every man's immediate and instant concern to be made very
sensible of the absolute necessity of this total eclipse of liberty. They would
more carefully advert to every renewal, and more powerfully resist it. These
great determined measures are not commonly so dangerous to freedom.

They are marked with too strong lines to slide into use. No plea, nor
pretence, of inconvenience or evil example (which must in their nature be
daily and ordinary incidents) can be admitted as a reason for such mighty
operations. But the true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for
expedients, and by parts. The Habeas Corpus Act supposes, contrary to the
genius of most other laws, that the lawful magistrate may see particular men
with a malignant eye, and it provides for that identical case. But when men,
in particular descriptions, marked out by the magistrate himself, are
delivered over by Parliament to this possible malignity, it is not the Habeas
Corpus that is occasionally suspended, but its spirit that is mistaken, and its
principle that is subverted. Indeed, nothing is security to any individual but
the common interest of all.

This act, therefore, has this distinguished evil in it, that it is the first
partial suspension of the Habeas Corpus that has been made. The
precedent, which is always of very great importance, is now established.
For the first time a distinction is made among the people within this realm.
Before this act, every man putting his foot on English ground, every
stranger owing only a local and temporary allegiance, even negro slaves
who had been sold in the colonies and under an act of Parliament, became
as free as every other man who breathed the same air with them. Now a line
is drawn, which may be advanced further and further at pleasure, on the
same argument of mere expedience on which it was first described. There is
no equality among us; we are not fellow-citizens, if the mariner who lands
on the quay does not rest on as firm legal ground as the merchant who sits
in his counting-house. Other laws may injure the community; this dissolves
it. As things now stand, every man in the West Indies, every one inhabitant
of three unoffending provinces on the continent, every person coming from
the East Indies, every gentleman who has travelled for his health or
education, every mariner who has navigated the seas, is, for no other
offence, under a temporary proscription. Let any of these facts (now

become presumptions of guilt) be proved against him, and the bare
suspicion of the crown puts him out of the law. It is even by no means clear
to me whether the negative proof does not lie upon the person apprehended
on suspicion, to the subversion of all justice.

I have not debated against this bill in its progress through the House;
because it would have been vain to oppose, and impossible to correct it. It is
some time since I have been clearly convinced, that, in the present state of
things, all opposition to any measures proposed by ministers, where the
name of America appears, is vain and frivolous. You may be sure that I do
not speak of my opposition, which in all circumstances must be so, but that
of men of the greatest wisdom and authority in the nation. Everything
proposed against America is supposed of course to be in favor of Great
Britain. Good and ill success are equally admitted as reasons for
persevering in the present methods. Several very prudent and very well-
intentioned persons were of opinion, that, during the prevalence of such
dispositions, all struggle rather inflamed than lessened the distemper of the
public counsels. Finding such resistance to be considered as factious by
most within doors and by very many without, I cannot conscientiously
support what is against my opinion, nor prudently contend with what I
know is irresistible. Preserving my principles unshaken, I reserve my
activity for rational endeavors; and I hope that my past conduct has given
sufficient evidence, that, if I am a single day from my place, it is not owing
to indolence or love of dissipation. The slightest hope of doing good is
sufficient to recall me to what I quitted with regret In declining for some
time my usual strict attendance, I do not in the least condemn the spirit of
those gentlemen who, with a just confidence in their abilities, (in which I
claim a sort of share from my love and admiration of them,) were of
opinion that their exertions in this desperate case might be of some service.
They thought that by contracting the sphere of its application they might
lessen the malignity of an evil principle. Perhaps they were in the right. But

when my opinion was so very clearly to the contrary, for the reasons I have
just stated, I am sure my attendance would have been ridiculous.

I must add, in further explanation of my conduct, that, far from softening
the features of such a principle, and thereby removing any part of the
popular odium or natural terrors attending it, I should be sorry that anything
framed in contradiction to the spirit of our Constitution did not instantly
produce, in fact, the grossest of the evils with which it was pregnant in its
nature. It is by lying dormant a long time, or being at first very rarely
exercised, that arbitrary power steals upon a people. On the next
unconstitutional act, all the fashionable world will be ready to say, "Your
prophecies are ridiculous, your fears are vain, you see how little of the
mischiefs which you formerly foreboded are come to pass." Thus, by
degrees, that artful softening of all arbitrary power, the alleged infrequency
or narrow extent of its operation, will be received as a sort of aphorism,—
and Mr. Hume will not be singular in telling us, that the felicity of mankind
is no more disturbed by it than by earthquakes or thunder, or the other more
unusual accidents of Nature.

The act of which I speak is among the fruits of the American war,—a war
in my humble opinion productive of many mischiefs, of a kind which
distinguish it from all others. Not only our policy is deranged, and our
empire distracted, but our laws and our legislative spirit appear to have been
totally perverted by it. We have made war on our colonies, not by arms
only, but by laws. As hostility and law are not very concordant ideas, every
step we have taken in this business has been made by trampling on some
maxim of justice or some capital principle of wise government. What
precedents were established, and what principles overturned, (I will not say
of English privilege, but of general justice,) in the Boston Port, the
Massachusetts Charter, the Military Bill, and all that long array of hostile
acts of Parliament by which the war with America has been begun and

supported! Had the principles of any of these acts been first exerted on
English ground, they would probably have expired as soon as they touched
it. But by being removed from our persons, they have rooted in our laws,
and the latest posterity will taste the fruits of them.

Nor is it the worst effect of this unnatural contention, that our laws are
corrupted. Whilst manners remain entire, they will correct the vices of law,
and soften it at length to their own temper. But we have to lament that in
most of the late proceedings we see very few traces of that generosity,
humanity, and dignity of mind, which formerly characterized this nation.
War suspends the rules of moral obligation, and what is long suspended is
in danger of being totally abrogated. Civil wars strike deepest of all into the
manners of the people. They vitiate their politics; they corrupt their morals;
they pervert even the natural taste and relish of equity and justice. By
teaching us to consider our fellow-citizens in an hostile light, the whole
body of our nation becomes gradually less dear to us. The very names of
affection and kindred, which were the bond of charity whilst we agreed,
become new incentives to hatred and rage when the communion of our
country is dissolved. We may flatter ourselves that we shall not fall into this
misfortune. But we have no charter of exemption, that I know of, from the
ordinary frailties of our nature.

What but that blindness of heart which arises from the frenzy of civil
contention could have made any persons conceive the present situation of
the British affairs as an object of triumph to themselves or of congratulation
to their sovereign? Nothing surely could be more lamentable to those who
remember the flourishing days of this kingdom than to see the insane joy of
several unhappy people, amidst the sad spectacle which our affairs and
conduct exhibit to the scorn of Europe. We behold (and it seems some
people rejoice in beholding) our native land, which used to sit the envied
arbiter of all her neighbors, reduced to a servile dependence on their mercy,

—acquiescing in assurances of friendship which she does not trust,—
complaining of hostilities which she dares not resent,—deficient to her
allies, lofty to her subjects, and submissive to her enemies,—whilst the
liberal government of this free nation is supported by the hireling sword of
German boors and vassals, and three millions of the subjects of Great
Britain are seeking for protection to English privileges in the arms of
France!

These circumstances appear to me more like shocking prodigies than
natural changes in human affairs. Men of firmer minds may see them
without staggering or astonishment. Some may think them matters of
congratulation and complimentary addresses; but I trust your candor will be
so indulgent to my weakness as not to have the worse opinion of me for my
declining to participate in this joy, and my rejecting all share whatsoever in
such a triumph. I am too old, too stiff in my inveterate partialities, to be
ready at all the fashionable evolutions of opinion. I scarcely know how to
adapt my mind to the feelings with which the Court Gazettes mean to
impress the people. It is not instantly that I can be brought to rejoice, when I
hear of the slaughter and captivity of long lists of those names which have
been familiar to my ears from my infancy, and to rejoice that they have
fallen under the sword of strangers, whose barbarous appellations I scarcely
know how to pronounce. The glory acquired at the White Plains by Colonel
Rahl has no charms for me, and I fairly acknowledge that I have not yet
learned to delight in finding Fort Kniphausen in the heart of the British
dominions.

It might be some consolation for the loss of our old regards, if our reason
were enlightened in proportion as our honest prejudices are removed.
Wanting feelings for the honor of our country, we might then in cold blood
be brought to think a little of our interests as individual citizens and our
private conscience as moral agents.

Indeed, our affairs are in a bad condition. I do assure those gentlemen
who have prayed for war, and obtained the blessing they have sought, that
they are at this instant in very great straits. The abused wealth of this
country continues a little longer to feed its distemper. As yet they, and their
German allies of twenty hireling states, have contended only with the
unprepared strength of our own infant colonies. But America is not
subdued. Not one unattacked village which was originally adverse
throughout that vast continent has yet submitted from love or terror. You
have the ground you encamp on, and you have no more. The cantonments
of your troops and your dominions are exactly of the same extent. You
spread devastation, but you do not enlarge the sphere of authority.

The events of this war are of so much greater magnitude than those who
either wished or feared it ever looked for, that this alone ought to fill every
considerate mind with anxiety and diffidence. Wise men often tremble at
the very things which fill the thoughtless with security. For many reasons I
do not choose to expose to public view all the particulars of the state in
which you stood with regard to foreign powers during the whole course of
the last year. Whether you are yet wholly out of danger from them is more
than I know, or than your rulers can divine. But even if I were certain of my
safety, I could not easily forgive those who had brought me into the most
dreadful perils, because by accidents, unforeseen by them or me, I have
escaped.

Believe me, Gentlemen, the way still before you is intricate, dark, and
full of perplexed and treacherous mazes. Those who think they have the
clew may lead us out of this labyrinth. We may trust them as amply as we
think proper; but as they have most certainly a call for all the reason which
their stock can furnish, why should we think it proper to disturb its
operation by inflaming their passions? I may be unable to lend an helping
hand to those who direct the state; but I should be ashamed to make myself

one of a noisy multitude to halloo and hearten them into doubtful and
dangerous courses. A conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in
blood. He would feel some apprehension at being called to a tremendous
account for engaging in so deep a play without any sort of knowledge of the
game. It is no excuse for presumptuous ignorance, that it is directed by
insolent passion. The poorest being that crawls on earth, contending to save
itself from injustice and oppression, is an object respectable in the eyes of
God and man. But I cannot conceive any existence under heaven (which in
the depths of its wisdom tolerates all sorts of things) that is more truly
odious and disgusting than an impotent, helpless creature, without civil
wisdom or military skill, without a consciousness of any other qualification
for power but his servility to it, bloated with pride and arrogance, calling for
battles which he is not to fight, contending for a violent dominion which he
can never exercise, and satisfied to be himself mean and miserable, in order
to render others contemptible and wretched.

If you and I find our talents not of the great and ruling kind, our conduct,
at least, is conformable to our faculties. No man's life pays the forfeit of our
rashness. No desolate widow weeps tears of blood over our ignorance.
Scrupulous and sober in a well-grounded distrust of ourselves, we would
keep in the port of peace and security; and perhaps in recommending to
others something of the same diffidence, we should show ourselves more
charitable to their welfare than injurious to their abilities.

There are many circumstances in the zeal shown for civil war which
seem to discover but little of real magnanimity. The addressers offer their
own persons, and they are satisfied with hiring Germans. They promise
their private fortunes, and they mortgage their country. They have all the
merit of volunteers, without risk of person or charge of contribution; and
when the unfeeling arm of a foreign soldiery pours out their kindred blood
like water, they exult and triumph as if they themselves had performed

some notable exploit. I am really ashamed of the fashionable language
which has been held for some time past, which, to say the best of it, is full
of levity. You know that I allude to the general cry against the cowardice of
the Americans, as if we despised them for not making the king's soldiery
purchase the advantage they have obtained at a dearer rate. It is not,
Gentlemen, it is not to respect the dispensations of Providence, nor to
provide any decent retreat in the mutability of human affairs. It leaves no
medium between insolent victory and infamous defeat. It tends to alienate
our minds further and further from our natural regards, and to make an
eternal rent and schism in the British nation. Those who do not wish for
such a separation would not dissolve that cement of reciprocal esteem and
regard which can alone bind together the parts of this great fabric. It ought
to be our wish, as it is our duty, not only to forbear this style of outrage
ourselves, but to make every one as sensible as we can of the impropriety
and unworthiness of the tempers which give rise to it, and which designing
men are laboring with such malignant industry to diffuse amongst us. It is
our business to counteract them, if possible,—if possible, to awake our
natural regards, and to revive the old partiality to the English name. Without
something of this kind I do not see how it is ever practicable really to
reconcile with those whose affection, after all, must be the surest hold of
our government, and which is a thousand times more worth to us than the
mercenary zeal of all the circles of Germany.

I can well conceive a country completely overrun, and miserably wasted,
without approaching in the least to settlement. In my apprehension, as long
as English government is attempted to be supported over Englishmen by the
sword alone, things will thus continue. I anticipate in my mind the moment
of the final triumph of foreign military force. When that hour arrives, (for it
may arrive,) then it is that all this mass of weakness and violence will
appear in its full light. If we should be expelled from America, the delusion
of the partisans of military government might still continue. They might still

feed their imaginations with the possible good consequences which might
have attended success. Nobody could prove the contrary by facts. But in
case the sword should do all that the sword can do, the success of their arms
and the defeat of their policy will be one and the same thing. You will never
see any revenue from America. Some increase of the means of corruption,
without ease of the public burdens, is the very best that can happen. Is it for
this that we are at war,—and in such a war?

As to the difficulties of laying once more the foundations of that
government which, for the sake of conquering what was our own, has been
voluntarily and wantonly pulled down by a court faction here, I tremble to
look at them. Has any of these gentlemen who are so eager to govern all
mankind shown himself possessed of the first qualification towards
government, some knowledge of the object, and of the difficulties which
occur in the task they have undertaken?

I assure you, that, on the most prosperous issue of your arms, you will
not be where you stood when you called in war to supply the defects of
your political establishment. Nor would any disorder or disobedience to
government which could arise from the most abject concession on our part
ever equal those which will be felt after the most triumphant violence. You
have got all the intermediate evils of war into the bargain.

I think I know America,—if I do not, my ignorance is incurable, for I
have spared no pains to understand it,—and I do most solemnly assure
those of my constituents who put any sort of confidence in my industry and
integrity, that everything that has been done there has arisen from a total
misconception of the object: that our means of originally holding America,
that our means of reconciling with it after quarrel, of recovering it after
separation, of keeping it after victory, did depend, and must depend, in their
several stages and periods, upon a total renunciation of that unconditional

submission which has taken such possession of the minds of violent men.
The whole of those maxims upon which we have made and continued this
war must be abandoned. Nothing, indeed, (for I would not deceive you,)
can place us in our former situation. That hope must be laid aside. But there
is a difference between bad and the worst of all. Terms relative to the cause
of the war ought to be offered by the authority of Parliament. An
arrangement at home promising some security for them ought to be made.
By doing this, without the least impairing of our strength, we add to the
credit of our moderation, which, in itself, is always strength more or less.

I know many have been taught to think that moderation in a case like this
is a sort of treason,—and that all arguments for it are sufficiently answered
by railing at rebels and rebellion, and by charging all the present or future
miseries which we may suffer on the resistance of our brethren. But I would
wish them, in this grave matter, and if peace is not wholly removed from
their hearts, to consider seriously, first, that to criminate and recriminate
never yet was the road to reconciliation, in any difference amongst men. In
the next place, it would be right to reflect that the American English (whom
they may abuse, if they think it honorable to revile the absent) can, as things
now stand, neither be provoked at our railing or bettered by our instruction.
All communication is cut off between us. But this we know with certainty,
that, though we cannot reclaim them, we may reform ourselves. If measures
of peace are necessary, they must begin somewhere; and a conciliatory
temper must precede and prepare every plan of reconciliation. Nor do I
conceive that we suffer anything by thus regulating our own minds. We are
not disarmed by being disencumbered of our passions. Declaiming on
rebellion never added a bayonet or a charge of powder to your military
force; but I am afraid that it has been the means of taking up many muskets
against you.

This outrageous language, which has been encouraged and kept alive by
every art, has already done incredible mischief. For a long time, even
amidst the desolations of war, and the insults of hostile laws daily
accumulated on one another, the American leaders seem to have had the
greatest difficulty in bringing up their people to a declaration of total
independence. But the Court Gazette accomplished what the abettors of
independence had attempted in vain. When that disingenuous compilation
and strange medley of railing and flattery was adduced as a proof of the
united sentiments of the people of Great Britain, there was a great change
throughout all America. The tide of popular affection, which had still set
towards the parent country, began immediately to turn, and to flow with
great rapidity in a contrary course. Par from concealing these wild
declarations of enmity, the author of the celebrated pamphlet which
prepared the minds of the people for independence insists largely on the
multitude and the spirit of these addresses; and he draws an argument from
them, which, if the fact were as he supposes, must be irresistible. For I
never knew a writer on the theory of government so partial to authority as
not to allow that the hostile mind of the rulers to their people did fully
justify a change of government; nor can any reason whatever be given why
one people should voluntarily yield any degree of preëminence to another
but on a supposition of great affection and benevolence towards them.
Unfortunately, your rulers, trusting to other things, took no notice of this
great principle of connection. From the beginning of this affair, they have
done all they could to alienate your minds from your own kindred; and if
they could excite hatred enough in one of the parties towards the other, they
seemed to be of opinion that they had gone half the way towards
reconciling the quarrel.

I know it is said, that your kindness is only alienated on account of their
resistance, and therefore, if the colonies surrender at discretion, all sort of
regard, and even much indulgence, is meant towards them in future. But can

those who are partisans for continuing a war to enforce such a surrender be
responsible (after all that has passed) for such a future use of a power that is
bound by no compacts and restrained by no terror? Will they tell us what
they call indulgences? Do they not at this instant call the present war and all
its horrors a lenient and merciful proceeding?

No conqueror that I ever heard of has professed to make a cruel, harsh,
and insolent use of his conquest. No! The man of the most declared pride
scarcely dares to trust his own heart with this dreadful secret of ambition.
But it will appear in its time; and no man who professes to reduce another
to the insolent mercy of a foreign arm ever had any sort of good-will
towards him. The profession of kindness, with that sword in his hand, and
that demand of surrender, is one of the most provoking acts of his hostility.
I shall be told that all this is lenient as against rebellious adversaries. But
are the leaders of their faction more lenient to those who submit? Lord
Howe and General Howe have powers, under an act of Parliament, to
restore to the king's peace and to free trade any men or district which shall
submit. Is this done? We have been over and over informed by the
authorized gazette, that the city of New York and the countries of Staten and
Long Island have submitted voluntarily and cheerfully, and that many are
very full of zeal to the cause of administration. Were they instantly restored
to trade? Are they yet restored to it? Is not the benignity of two
commissioners, naturally most humane and generous men, some way
fettered by instructions, equally against their dispositions and the spirit of
Parliamentary faith, when Mr. Tryon, vaunting of the fidelity of the city in
which he is governor, is obliged to apply to ministry for leave to protect the
King's loyal subjects, and to grant to them, not the disputed rights and
privileges of freedom, but the common rights of men, by the name of
graces? Why do not the commissioners restore them on the spot? Were they
not named as commissioners for that express purpose? But we see well
enough to what the whole leads. The trade of America is to be dealt out in

private indulgences and grants,—that is, in jobs to recompense the
incendiaries of war. They will be informed of the proper time in which to
send out their merchandise. From a national, the American trade is to be
turned into a personal monopoly, and one set of merchants are to be
rewarded for the pretended zeal of which another set are the dupes; and
thus, between craft and credulity, the voice of reason is stifled, and all the
misconduct, all the calamities of the war are covered and continued.

If I had not lived long enough to be little surprised at anything, I should
have been in some degree astonished at the continued rage of several
gentlemen, who, not satisfied with carrying fire and sword into America,
are animated nearly with the same fury against those neighbors of theirs
whose only crime it is, that they have charitably and humanely wished them
to entertain more reasonable sentiments, and not always to sacrifice their
interest to their passion. All this rage against unresisting dissent convinces
me, that, at bottom, they are far from satisfied they are in the right. For what
is it they would have? A war? They certainly have at this moment the
blessing of something that is very like one; and if the war they enjoy at
present be not sufficiently hot and extensive, they may shortly have it as
warm and as spreading as their hearts can desire. Is it the force of the
kingdom they call for? They have it already; and if they choose to fight
their battles in their own person, nobody prevents their setting sail to
America in the next transports. Do they think that the service is stinted for
want of liberal supplies? Indeed they complain without reason. The table of
the House of Commons will glut them, let their appetite for expense be
never so keen. And I assure them further, that those who think with them in
the House of Commons are full as easy in the control as they are liberal in
the vote of these expenses. If this be not supply or confidence sufficient, let
them open their own private purse-strings, and give, from what is left to
them, as largely and with as little care as they think proper.

Tolerated in their passions, let them learn not to persecute the moderation
of their fellow-citizens. If all the world joined them in a full cry against
rebellion, and were as hotly inflamed against the whole theory and
enjoyment of freedom as those who are the most factious for servitude, it
could not, in my opinion, answer any one end whatsoever in this contest.
The leaders of this war could not hire (to gratify their friends) one German
more than they do, or inspire him with less feeling for the persons or less
value for the privileges of their revolted brethren. If we all adopted their
sentiments to a man, their allies, the savage Indians, could not be more
ferocious than they are: they could not murder one more helpless woman or
child, or with more exquisite refinements of cruelty torment to death one
more of their English flesh and blood, than they do already. The public
money is given to purchase this alliance;—and they have their bargain.

They are continually boasting of unanimity, or calling for it. But before
this unanimity can be matter either of wish or congratulation, we ought to
be pretty sure that we are engaged in a rational pursuit. Frenzy does not
become a slighter distemper on account of the number of those who may be
infected with it. Delusion and weakness produce not one mischief the less
because they are universal. I declare that I cannot discern the least
advantage which could accrue to us, if we were able to persuade our
colonies that they had not a single friend in Great Britain. On the contrary,
if the affections and opinions of mankind be not exploded as principles of
connection, I conceive it would be happy for us, if they were taught to
believe that there was even a formed American party in England, to whom
they could always look for support. Happy would it be for us, if, in all
tempers, they might turn their eyes to the parent state, so that their very
turbulence and sedition should find vent in no other place than this! I
believe there is not a man (except those who prefer the interest of some
paltry faction to the very being of their country) who would not wish that
the Americans should from time to time carry many points, and even some

of them not quite reasonable, by the aid of any denomination of men here,
rather than they should be driven to seek for protection against the fury of
foreign mercenaries and the waste of savages in the arms of France.

When any community is subordinately connected with another, the great
danger of the connection is the extreme pride and self-complacency of the
superior, which in all matters of controversy will probably decide in its own
favor. It is a powerful corrective to such a very rational cause of fear, if the
inferior body can be made to believe that the party inclination or political
views of several in the principal state will induce them in some degree to
counteract this blind and tyrannical partiality. There is no danger that any
one acquiring consideration or power in the presiding state should carry this
leaning to the inferior too far. The fault of human nature is not of that sort.
Power, in whatever hands, is rarely guilty of too strict limitations on itself.
But one great advantage to the support of authority attends such an
amicable and protecting connection: that those who have conferred favors
obtain influence, and from the foresight of future events can persuade men
who have received obligations sometimes to return them. Thus, by the
mediation of those healing principles, (call them good or evil,) troublesome
discussions are brought to some sort of adjustment, and every hot
controversy is not a civil war.

But, if the colonies (to bring the general matter home to us) could see that
in Great Britain the mass of the people is melted into its government, and
that every dispute with the ministry must of necessity be always a quarrel
with the nation, they can stand no longer in the equal and friendly relation
of fellow-citizens to the subjects of this kingdom. Humble as this relation
may appear to some, when it is once broken, a strong tie is dissolved. Other
sort of connections will be sought. For there are very few in the world who
will not prefer an useful ally to an insolent master.

Such discord has been the effect of the unanimity into which so many
have of late been seduced or bullied, or into the appearance of which they
have sunk through mere despair. They have been told that their dissent from
violent measures is an encouragement to rebellion. Men of great
presumption and little knowledge will hold a language which is
contradicted by the whole course of history. General rebellions and revolts
of an whole people never were encouraged, now or at any time. They are
always provoked. But if this unheard-of doctrine of the encouragement of
rebellion were true, if it were true that an assurance of the friendship of
numbers in this country towards the colonies could become an
encouragement to them to break off all connection with it, what is the
inference? Does anybody seriously maintain, that, charged with my share of
the public councils, I am obliged not to resist projects which I think
mischievous, lest men who suffer should be encouraged to resist? The very
tendency of such projects to produce rebellion is one of the chief reasons
against them. Shall that reason not be given? Is it, then, a rule, that no man
in this nation shall open his mouth in favor of the colonies, shall defend
their rights, or complain of their sufferings,—or when war finally breaks
out, no man shall express his desires of peace? Has this been the law of our
past, or is it to be the terms of our future connection? Even looking no
further than ourselves, can it be true loyalty to any government, or true
patriotism towards any country, to degrade their solemn councils into
servile drawing-rooms, to flatter their pride and passions rather than to
enlighten their reason, and to prevent them from being cautioned against
violence lest others should be encouraged to resistance? By such
acquiescence great kings and mighty nations have been undone; and if any
are at this day in a perilous situation from rejecting truth and listening to
flattery, it would rather become them to reform the errors under which they
suffer than to reproach those who forewarned them of their danger.

But the rebels looked for assistance from this country.—They did so, in
the beginning of this controversy, most certainly; and they sought it by
earnest supplications to government, which dignity rejected, and by a
suspension of commerce, which the wealth of this nation enabled you to
despise. When they found that neither prayers nor menaces had any sort of
weight, but that a firm resolution was taken to reduce them to unconditional
obedience by a military force, they came to the last extremity. Despairing of
us, they trusted in themselves. Not strong enough themselves, they sought
succor in France. In proportion as all encouragement here lessened, their
distance from this country increased. The encouragement is over; the
alienation is complete.

In order to produce this favorite unanimity in delusion, and to prevent all
possibility of a return to our ancient happy concord, arguments for our
continuance in this course are drawn from the wretched situation itself into
which we have been betrayed. It is said, that, being at war with the colonies,
whatever our sentiments might have been before, all ties between us are
now dissolved, and all the policy we have left is to strengthen the hands of
government to reduce them. On the principle of this argument, the more
mischiefs we suffer from any administration, the more our trust in it is to be
confirmed. Let them but once get us into a war, and then their power is safe,
and an act of oblivion passed for all their misconduct.

But is it really true that government is always to be strengthened with the
instruments of war, but never furnished with the means of peace? In former
times, ministers, I allow, have been sometimes driven by the popular voice
to assert by arms the national honor against foreign powers. But the wisdom
of the nation has been far more clear, when those ministers have been
compelled to consult its interests by treaty. We all know that the sense of the
nation obliged the court of Charles the Second to abandon the Dutch war: a
war, next to the present, the most impolitic which we ever carried on. The

good people of England considered Holland as a sort of dependency on this
kingdom; they dreaded to drive it to the protection or subject it to the power
of France by their own inconsiderate hostility. They paid but little respect to
the court jargon of that day; nor were they inflamed by the pretended
rivalship of the Dutch in trade,—by the massacre at Amboyna, acted on the
stage to provoke the public vengeance,—nor by declamations against the
ingratitude of the United Provinces for the benefits England had conferred
upon them in their infant state. They were not moved from their evident
interest by all these arts; nor was it enough to tell them, they were at war,
that they must go through with it, and that the cause of the dispute was lost
in the consequences. The people of England were then, as they are now,
called upon to make government strong. They thought it a great deal better
to make it wise and honest.

When I was amongst my constituents at the last summer assizes, I
remember that men of all descriptions did then express a very strong desire
for peace, and no slight hopes of attaining it from the commission sent out
by my Lord Howe. And it is not a little remarkable, that, in proportion as
every person showed a zeal for the court measures, he was then earnest in
circulating an opinion of the extent of the supposed powers of that
commission. When I told them that Lord Howe had no powers to treat, or to
promise satisfaction on any point whatsoever of the controversy, I was
hardly credited,—so strong and general was the desire of terminating this
war by the method of accommodation. As far as I could discover, this was
the temper then prevalent through the kingdom. The king's forces, it must
be observed, had at that time been obliged to evacuate Boston. The
superiority of the former campaign rested wholly with the colonists. If such
powers of treaty were to be wished whilst success was very doubtful, how
came they to be less so, since his Majesty's arms have been crowned with
many considerable advantages? Have these successes induced us to alter
our mind, as thinking the season of victory not the time for treating with

honor or advantage? Whatever changes have happened in the national
character, it can scarcely be our wish that terms of accommodation never
should be proposed to our enemy, except when they must be attributed
solely to our fears. It has happened, let me say unfortunately, that we read
of his Majesty's commission for making peace, and his troops evacuating
his last town in the Thirteen Colonies, at the same hour and in the same
gazette. It was still more unfortunate that no commission went to America
to settle the troubles there, until several months after an act had been passed
to put the colonies out of the protection of this government, and to divide
their trading property, without a possibility of restitution, as spoil among the
seamen of the navy. The most abject submission on the part of the colonies
could not redeem them. There was no man on that whole continent, or
within three thousand miles of it, qualified by law to follow allegiance with
protection or submission with pardon. A proceeding of this kind has no
example in history. Independency, and independency with an enmity,
(which, putting ourselves out of the question, would be called natural and
much provoked,) was the inevitable consequence. How this came to pass
the nation may be one day in an humor to inquire.

All the attempts made this session to give fuller powers of peace to the
commanders in America were stifled by the fatal confidence of victory and
the wild hopes of unconditional submission. There was a moment favorable
to the king's arms, when, if any powers of concession had existed on the
other side of the Atlantic, even after all our errors, peace in all probability
might have been restored. But calamity is unhappily the usual season of
reflection; and the pride of men will not often suffer reason to have any
scope, until it can be no longer of service.

I have always wished, that as the dispute had its apparent origin from
things done in Parliament, and as the acts passed there had provoked the
war, that the foundations of peace should be laid in Parliament also. I have

been astonished to find that those whose zeal for the dignity of our body
was so hot as to light up the flames of civil war should even publicly
declare that these delicate points ought to be wholly left to the crown.
Poorly as I may be thought affected to the authority of Parliament, I shall
never admit that our constitutional rights can ever become a matter of
ministerial negotiation.

I am charged with being an American. If warm affection towards those
over whom I claim any share of authority be a crime, I am guilty of this
charge. But I do assure you, (and they who know me publicly and privately
will bear witness to me,) that, if ever one man lived more zealous than
another for the supremacy of Parliament and the rights of this imperial
crown, it was myself. Many others, indeed, might be more knowing in the
extent of the foundation of these rights. I do not pretend to be an antiquary,
a lawyer, or qualified for the chair of professor in metaphysics. I never
ventured to put your solid interests upon speculative grounds. My having
constantly declined to do so has been attributed to my incapacity for such
disquisitions; and I am inclined to believe it is partly the cause. I never shall
be ashamed to confess, that, where I am ignorant, I am diffident. I am,
indeed, not very solicitous to clear myself of this imputed incapacity;
because men even less conversant than I am in this kind of subtleties, and
placed in stations to which I ought not to aspire, have, by the mere force of
civil discretion, often conducted the affairs of great nations with
distinguished felicity and glory.

When I first came into a public trust, I found your Parliament in
possession of an unlimited legislative power over the colonies. I could not
open the statute-book without seeing the actual exercise of it, more or less,
in all cases whatsoever. This possession passed with me for a title. It does
so in all human affairs. No man examines into the defects of his title to his
paternal estate or to his established government. Indeed, common sense

taught me that a legislative authority not actually limited by the express
terms of its foundation, or by its own subsequent acts, cannot have its
powers parcelled out by argumentative distinctions, so as to enable us to say
that here they can and there they cannot bind. Nobody was so obliging as to
produce to me any record of such distinctions, by compact or otherwise,
either at the successive formation of the several colonies or during the
existence of any of them. If any gentlemen were able to see how one power
could be given up (merely on abstract reasoning) without giving up the rest,
I can only say that they saw further than I could. Nor did I ever presume to
condemn any one for being clear-sighted when I was blind. I praise their
penetration and learning, and hope that their practice has been
correspondent to their theory.

I had, indeed, very earnest wishes to keep the whole body of this
authority perfect and entire as I found it,—and to keep it so, not for our
advantage solely, but principally for the sake of those on whose account all
just authority exists: I mean the people to be governed. For I thought I saw
that many cases might well happen in which the exercise of every power
comprehended in the broadest idea of legislature might become, in its time
and circumstances, not a little expedient for the peace and union of the
colonies amongst themselves, as well as for their perfect harmony with
Great Britain. Thinking so, (perhaps erroneously, but being honestly of that
opinion,) I was at the same time very sure that the authority of which I was
so jealous could not, under the actual circumstances of our plantations, be at
all preserved in any of its members, but by the greatest reserve in its
application, particularly in those delicate points in which the feelings of
mankind are the most irritable. They who thought otherwise have found a
few more difficulties in their work than (I hope) they were thoroughly
aware of, when they undertook the present business. I must beg leave to
observe, that it is not only the invidious branch of taxation that will be
resisted, but that no other given part of legislative rights can be exercised,

without regard to the general opinion of those who are to be governed. That
general opinion is the vehicle and organ of legislative omnipotence.
Without this, it may be a theory to entertain the mind, but it is nothing in the
direction of affairs. The completeness of the legislative authority of
Parliament over this kingdom is not questioned; and yet many things
indubitably included in the abstract idea of that power, and which carry no
absolute injustice in themselves, yet being contrary to the opinions and
feelings of the people, can as little be exercised as if Parliament in that case
had been possessed of no right at all. I see no abstract reason, which can be
given, why the same power which made and repealed the High Commission
Court and the Star-Chamber might not revive them again; and these courts,
warned by their former fate, might possibly exercise their powers with
some degree of justice. But the madness would be as unquestionable as the
competence of that Parliament which should attempt such things. If
anything can be supposed out of the power of human legislature, it is
religion; I admit, however, that the established religion of this country has
been three or four times altered by act of Parliament, and therefore that a
statute binds even in that case. But we may very safely affirm, that,
notwithstanding this apparent omnipotence, it would be now found as
impossible for King and Parliament to alter the established religion of this
country as it was to King James alone, when he attempted to make such an
alteration without a Parliament. In effect, to follow, not to force, the public
inclination,—to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific
sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the true end of
legislature.

It is so with regard to the exercise of all the powers which our
Constitution knows in any of its parts, and indeed to the substantial
existence of any of the parts themselves. The king's negative to bills is one
of the most indisputed of the royal prerogatives; and it extends to all cases
whatsoever. I am far from certain, that if several laws, which I know, had

fallen under the stroke of that sceptre, that the public would have had a very
heavy loss. But it is not the propriety of the exercise which is in question.
The exercise itself is wisely forborne. Its repose may be the preservation of
its existence; and its existence may be the means of saying the Constitution
itself, on an occasion worthy of bringing it forth.

As the disputants whose accurate and logical reasonings have brought us
into our present condition think it absurd that powers or members of any
constitution should exist, rarely, if ever, to be exercised, I hope I shall be
excused in mentioning another instance that is material. We know that the
Convocation of the Clergy had formerly been called, and sat with nearly as
much regularity to business as Parliament itself. It is now called for form
only. It sits for the purpose of making some polite ecclesiastical
compliments to the king, and, when that grace is said, retires and is heard of
no more. It is, however, a part of the Constitution, and may be called out
into act and energy, whenever there is occasion, and whenever those who
conjure up that spirit will choose to abide the consequences. It is wise to
permit its legal existence: it is much wiser to continue it a legal existence
only. So truly has prudence (constituted as the god of this lower world) the
entire dominion over every exercise of power committed into its hands!
And yet I have lived to see prudence and conformity to circumstances
wholly set at nought in our late controversies, and treated as if they were the
most contemptible and irrational of all things. I have heard it an hundred
times very gravely alleged, that, in order to keep power in wind, it was
necessary, by preference, to exert it in those very points in which it was
most likely to be resisted and the least likely to be productive of any
advantage.

These were the considerations, Gentlemen, which led me early to think,
that, in the comprehensive dominion which the Divine Providence had put
into our hands, instead of troubling our understandings with speculations

concerning the unity of empire and the identity or distinction of legislative
powers, and inflaming our passions with the heat and pride of controversy,
it was our duty, in all soberness, to conform our government to the character
and circumstances of the several people who composed this mighty and
strangely diversified mass. I never was wild enough to conceive that one
method would serve for the whole, that the natives of Hindostan and those
of Virginia could be ordered in the same manner, or that the Cutchery court
and the grand jury of Salem could be regulated on a similar plan. I was
persuaded that government was a practical thing, made for the happiness of
mankind, and not to furnish out a spectacle of uniformity to gratify the
schemes of visionary politicians. Our business was to rule, not to wrangle;
and it would have been a poor compensation that we had triumphed in a
dispute, whilst we lost an empire.

If there be one fact in the world perfectly clear, it is this,—"that the
disposition of the people of America is wholly averse to any other than a
free government"; and this is indication enough to any honest statesman
how he ought to adapt whatever power he finds in his hands to their case. If
any ask me what a free government is, I answer, that, for any practical
purpose, it is what the people think so,—and that they, and not I, are the
natural, lawful, and competent judges of this matter. If they practically
allow me a greater degree of authority over them than is consistent with any
correct ideas of perfect freedom, I ought to thank them for so great a trust,
and not to endeavor to prove from thence that they have reasoned amiss,
and that, having gone so far, by analogy they must hereafter have no
enjoyment but by my pleasure.

If we had seen this done by any others, we should have concluded them
far gone in madness. It is melancholy, as well as ridiculous, to observe the
kind of reasoning with which the public has been amused, in order to divert
our minds from the common sense of our American policy. There are

people who have split and anatomized the doctrine of free government, as if
it were an abstract question concerning metaphysical liberty and necessity,
and not a matter of moral prudence and natural feeling. They have disputed
whether liberty be a positive or a negative idea; whether it does not consist
in being governed by laws, without considering what are the laws, or who
are the makers; whether man has any rights by Nature; and whether all the
property he enjoys be not the alms of his government, and his life itself
their favor and indulgence. Others, corrupting religion as these have
perverted philosophy, contend that Christians are redeemed into captivity,
and the blood of the Saviour of mankind has been shed to make them the
slaves of a few proud and insolent sinners. These shocking extremes
provoking to extremes of another kind, speculations are let loose as
destructive to all authority as the former are to all freedom; and every
government is called tyranny and usurpation which is not formed on their
fancies. In this manner the stirrers-up of this contention, not satisfied with
distracting our dependencies and filling them with blood and slaughter, are
corrupting our understandings: they are endeavoring to tear up, along with
practical liberty, all the foundations of human society, all equity and justice,
religion and order.

Civil freedom, Gentlemen, is not, as many have endeavored to persuade
you, a thing that lies hid in the depth of abstruse science. It is a blessing and
a benefit, not an abstract speculation; and all the just reasoning that can be
upon it is of so coarse a texture as perfectly to suit the ordinary capacities of
those who are to enjoy, and of those who are to defend it. Far from any
resemblance to those propositions in geometry and metaphysics which
admit no medium, but must be true or false in all their latitude, social and
civil freedom, like all other things in common life, are variously mixed and
modified, enjoyed in very different degrees, and shaped into an infinite
diversity of forms, according to the temper and circumstances of every
community. The extreme of liberty (which is its abstract perfection, but its

real fault) obtains nowhere, nor ought to obtain anywhere; because
extremes, as we all know, in every point which relates either to our duties or
satisfactions in life, are destructive both to virtue and enjoyment. Liberty,
too, must be limited in order to be possessed. The degree of restraint it is
impossible in any case to settle precisely. But it ought to be the constant aim
of every wise public counsel to find out by cautious experiments, and
rational, cool endeavors, with how little, not how much, of this restraint the
community can subsist: for liberty is a good to be improved, and not an evil
to be lessened. It is not only a private blessing of the first order, but the vital
spring and energy of the state itself, which has just so much life and vigor
as there is liberty in it. But whether liberty be advantageous or not, (for I
know it is a fashion to decry the very principle,) none will dispute that
peace is a blessing; and peace must, in the course of human affairs, be
frequently bought by some indulgence and toleration at least to liberty: for,
as the Sabbath (though of divine institution) was made for man, not man for
the Sabbath, government, which can claim no higher origin or authority, in
its exercise at least, ought to conform to the exigencies of the time, and the
temper and character of the people with whom it is concerned, and not
always to attempt violently to bend the people to their theories of
subjection. The bulk of mankind, on their part, are not excessively curious
concerning any theories whilst they are really happy; and one sure symptom
of an ill-conducted state is the propensity of the people to resort to them.

But when subjects, by a long course of such ill conduct, are once
thoroughly inflamed, and the state itself violently distempered, the people
must have some satisfaction to their feelings more solid than a sophistical
speculation on law and government. Such was our situation: and such a
satisfaction was necessary to prevent recourse to arms; it was necessary
towards laying them down; it will be necessary to prevent the taking them
up again and again. Of what nature this satisfaction ought to be I wish it had

been the disposition of Parliament seriously to consider. It was certainly a
deliberation that called for the exertion of all their wisdom.

I am, and ever have been, deeply sensible of the difficulty of reconciling
the strong presiding power, that is so useful towards the conservation of a
vast, disconnected, infinitely diversified empire, with that liberty and safety
of the provinces which they must enjoy, (in opinion and practice at least,) or
they will not be provinces at all. I know, and have long felt, the difficulty of
reconciling the unwieldy haughtiness of a great ruling nation, habituated to
command, pampered by enormous wealth, and confident from a long course
of prosperity and victory, to the high spirit of free dependencies, animated
with the first glow and activity of juvenile heat, and assuming to
themselves, as their birthright, some part of that very pride which oppresses
them. They who perceive no difficulty in reconciling these tempers (which,
however, to make peace, must some way or other be reconciled) are much
above my capacity, or much below the magnitude of the business. Of one
thing I am perfectly clear: that it is not by deciding the suit, but by
compromising the difference, that peace can be restored or kept. They who
would put an end to such quarrels by declaring roundly in favor of the
whole demands of either party have mistaken, in my humble opinion, the
office of a mediator.

The war is now of full two years' standing: the controversy of many
more. In different periods of the dispute, different methods of reconciliation
were to be pursued. I mean to trouble you with a short state of things at the
most important of these periods, in order to give you a more distinct idea of
our policy with regard to this most delicate of all objects. The colonies were
from the beginning subject to the legislature of Great Britain on principles
which they never examined; and we permitted to them many local
privileges, without asking how they agreed with that legislative authority.
Modes of administration were formed in an insensible and very

unsystematic manner. But they gradually adapted themselves to the varying
condition of things. What was first a single kingdom stretched into an
empire; and an imperial superintendence, of some kind or other, became
necessary. Parliament, from a mere representative of the people, and a
guardian of popular privileges for its own immediate constituents, grew into
a mighty sovereign. Instead of being a control on the crown on its own
behalf, it communicated a sort of strength to the royal authority, which was
wanted for the conservation of a new object, but which could not be safely
trusted to the crown alone. On the other hand, the colonies, advancing by
equal steps, and governed by the same necessity, had formed within
themselves, either by royal instruction or royal charter, assemblies so
exceedingly resembling a parliament, in all their forms, functions, and
powers, that it was impossible they should not imbibe some opinion of a
similar authority.

At the first designation of these assemblies, they were probably not
intended for anything more (nor perhaps did they think themselves much
higher) than the municipal corporations within this island, to which some at
present love to compare them. But nothing in progression can rest on its
original plan. We may as well think of rocking a grown man in the cradle of
an infant. Therefore, as the colonies prospered and increased to a numerous
and mighty people, spreading over a very great tract of the globe, it was
natural that they should attribute to assemblies so respectable in their formal
constitution some part of the dignity of the great nations which they
represented. No longer tied to by-laws, these assemblies made acts of all
sorts and in all cases whatsoever. They levied money, not for parochial
purposes, but upon regular grants to the crown, following all the rules and
principles of a parliament, to which they approached every day more and
more nearly. Those who think themselves wiser than Providence and
stronger than the course of Nature may complain of all this variation, on the
one side or the other, as their several humors and prejudices may lead them.

But things could not be otherwise; and English colonies must be had on
these terms, or not had at all. In the mean time neither party felt any
inconvenience from this double legislature, to which they had been formed
by imperceptible habits, and old custom, the great support of all the
governments in the world. Though these two legislatures were sometimes
found perhaps performing the very same functions, they did not very
grossly or systematically clash. In all likelihood this arose from mere
neglect, possibly from the natural operation of things, which, left to
themselves, generally fall into their proper order. But whatever was the
cause, it is certain that a regular revenue, by the authority of Parliament, for
the support of civil and military establishments, seems not to have been
thought of until the colonies were too proud to submit, too strong to be
forced, too enlightened not to see all the consequences which must arise
from such a system.

If ever this scheme of taxation was to be pushed against the inclinations
of the people, it was evident that discussions must arise, which would let
loose all the elements that composed this double constitution, would show
how much each of their members had departed from its original principles,
and would discover contradictions in each legislature, as well to its own
first principles as to its relation to the other, very difficult, if not absolutely
impossible, to be reconciled.

Therefore, at the first fatal opening of this contest, the wisest course
seemed to be to put an end as soon as possible to the immediate causes of
the dispute, and to quiet a discussion, not easily settled upon clear
principles, and arising from claims which pride would permit neither party
to abandon, by resorting as nearly as possible to the old, successful course.
A mere repeal of the obnoxious tax, with a declaration of the legislative
authority of this kingdom, was then fully sufficient to procure peace to both
sides. Man is a creature of habit, and, the first breach being of very short

continuance, the colonies fell back exactly into their ancient state. The
Congress has used an expression with regard to this pacification which
appears to me truly significant. After the repeal of the Stamp Act, "the
colonies fell," says this assembly, "into their ancient state of unsuspecting
confidence in the mother country." This unsuspecting confidence is the true
centre of gravity amongst mankind, about which all the parts are at rest. It is
this unsuspecting confidence that removes all difficulties, and reconciles all
the contradictions which occur in the complexity of all ancient puzzled
political establishments. Happy are the rulers which have the secret of
preserving it!

The whole empire has reason to remember with eternal gratitude the
wisdom and temper of that man and his excellent associates, who, to
recover this confidence, formed a plan of pacification in 1766. That plan,
being built upon the nature of man, and the circumstances and habits of the
two countries, and not on any visionary speculations, perfectly answered its
end, as long as it was thought proper to adhere to it. Without giving a rude
shock to the dignity (well or ill understood) of this Parliament, they gave
perfect content to our dependencies. Had it not been for the mediatorial
spirit and talents of that great man between such clashing pretensions and
passions, we should then have rushed headlong (I know what I say) into the
calamities of that civil war in which, by departing from his system, we are
at length involved; and we should have been precipitated into that war at a
time when circumstances both at home and abroad were far, very far, more
unfavorable unto us than they were at the breaking out of the present
troubles.

I had the happiness of giving my first votes in Parliament for that
pacification. I was one of those almost unanimous members who, in the
necessary concessions of Parliament, would as much as possible have
preserved its authority and respected its honor. I could not at once tear from

my heart prejudices which were dear to me, and which bore a resemblance
to virtue. I had then, and I have still, my partialities. What Parliament gave
up I wished to be given as of grace and favor and affection, and not as a
restitution of stolen goods. High dignity relented as it was soothed; and a
benignity from old acknowledged greatness had its full effect on our
dependencies. Our unlimited declaration of legislative authority produced
not a single murmur. If this undefined power has become odious since that
time, and full of horror to the colonies, it is because the unsuspicious
confidence is lost, and the parental affection, in the bosom of whose
boundless authority they reposed their privileges, is become estranged and
hostile.

It will be asked, if such was then my opinion of the mode of pacification,
how I came to be the very person who moved, not only for a repeal of all
the late coercive statutes, but for mutilating, by a positive law, the
entireness of the legislative power of Parliament, and cutting off from it the
whole right of taxation. I answer, Because a different state of things
requires a different conduct. When the dispute had gone to these last
extremities, (which no man labored more to prevent than I did,) the
concessions which had satisfied in the beginning could satisfy no longer;
because the violation of tacit faith required explicit security. The same
cause which has introduced all formal compacts and covenants among men
made it necessary: I mean, habits of soreness, jealousy, and distrust. I parted
with it as with a limb, but as a limb to save the body: and I would have
parted with more, if more had been necessary; anything rather than a
fruitless, hopeless, unnatural civil war. This mode of yielding would, it is
said, give way to independency without a war. I am persuaded, from the
nature of things, and from every information, that it would have had a
directly contrary effect. But if it had this effect, I confess that I should
prefer independency without war to independency with it; and I have so
much trust in the inclinations and prejudices of mankind, and so little in

anything else, that I should expect ten times more benefit to this kingdom
from the affection of America, though under a separate establishment, than
from her perfect submission to the crown and Parliament, accompanied
with her terror, disgust, and abhorrence. Bodies tied together by so
unnatural a bond of union as mutual hatred are only connected to their ruin.

One hundred and ten respectable members of Parliament voted for that
concession. Many not present when the motion was made were of the
sentiments of those who voted. I knew it would then have made peace. I am
not without hopes that it would do so at present, if it were adopted. No
benefit, no revenue, could be lost by it; something might possibly be gained
by its consequences. For be fully assured, that, of all the phantoms that ever
deluded the fond hopes of a credulous world, a Parliamentary revenue in the
colonies is the most perfectly chimerical. Your breaking them to any
subjection, far from relieving your burdens, (the pretext for this war,) will
never pay that military force which will be kept up to the destruction of
their liberties and yours. I risk nothing in this prophecy.

Gentlemen, you have my opinions on the present state of public affairs.
Mean as they may be in themselves, your partiality has made them of some
importance. Without troubling myself to inquire whether I am under a
formal obligation to it, I have a pleasure in accounting for my conduct to
my constituents. I feel warmly on this subject, and I express myself as I
feel. If I presume to blame any public proceeding, I cannot be supposed to
be personal. Would to God I could be suspected of it! My fault might be
greater, but the public calamity would be less extensive. If my conduct has
not been able to make any impression on the warm part of that ancient and
powerful party with whose support I was not honored at my election, on my
side, my respect, regard, and duty to them is not at all lessened. I owe the
gentlemen who compose it my most humble service in everything. I hope

that whenever any of them were pleased to command me, that they found
me perfectly equal in my obedience. But flattery and friendship are very
different things; and to mislead is not to serve them. I cannot purchase the
favor of any man by concealing from him what I think his ruin.

By the favor of my fellow-citizens, I am the representative of an honest,
well-ordered, virtuous city,—of a people who preserve more of the original
English simplicity and purity of manners than perhaps any other. You
possess among you several men and magistrates of large and cultivated
understandings, fit for any employment in any sphere. I do, to the best of
my power, act so as to make myself worthy of so honorable a choice. If I
were ready, on any call of my own vanity or interest, or to answer any
election purpose, to forsake principles (whatever they are) which I had
formed at a mature age, on full reflection, and which had been confirmed by
long experience, I should forfeit the only thing which makes you pardon so
many errors and imperfections in me.

Not that I think it fit for any one to rely too much on his own
understanding, or to be filled with a presumption not becoming a Christian
man in his own personal stability and rectitude. I hope I am far from that
vain confidence which almost always fails in trial. I know my weakness in
all respects, as much at least as any enemy I have; and I attempt to take
security against it. The only method which has ever been found effectual to
preserve any man against the corruption of nature and example is an habit
of life and communication of councils with the most virtuous and public-
spirited men of the age you live in. Such a society cannot be kept without
advantage, or deserted without shame. For this rule of conduct I may be
called in reproach a party man; but I am little affected with such aspersions.
In the way which they call party I worship the Constitution of your fathers;
and I shall never blush for my political company. All reverence to honor, all
idea of what it is, will be lost out of the world, before it can be imputed as a

fault to any man, that he has been closely connected with those
incomparable persons, living and dead, with whom for eleven years I have
constantly thought and acted. If I have wandered out of the paths of
rectitude into those of interested faction, it was in company with the
Saviles, the Dowdeswells, the Wentworths, the Bentincks; with the
Lenoxes, the Manchesters, the Keppels, the Saunderses; with the temperate,
permanent, hereditary virtue of the whole house of Cavendish: names,
among which, some have extended your fame and empire in arms, and all
have fought the battle of your liberties in fields not less glorious. These, and
many more like these, grafting public principles on private honor, have
redeemed the present age, and would have adorned the most splendid
period in your history. Where could any man, conscious of his own inability
to act alone, and willing to act as he ought to do, have arranged himself
better? If any one thinks this kind of society to be taken up as the best
method of gratifying low personal pride or ambitious interest, he is
mistaken, and knows nothing of the world.

Preferring this connection, I do not mean to detract in the slightest degree
from others. There are some of those whom I admire at something of a
greater distance, with whom I have had the happiness also perfectly to
agree, in almost all the particulars in which I have differed with some
successive administrations; and they are such as it never can be reputable to
any government to reckon among its enemies.

I hope there are none of you corrupted with the doctrine taught by wicked
men for the worst purposes, and received by the malignant credulity of envy
and ignorance, which is, that the men who act upon the public stage are all
alike, all equally corrupt, all influenced by no other views than the sordid
lure of salary and pension. The thing I know by experience to be false.
Never expecting to find perfection in men, and not looking for divine
attributes in created beings, in my commerce with my contemporaries I

have found much human virtue. I have seen not a little public spirit, a real
subordination of interest to duty, and a decent and regulated sensibility to
honest fame and reputation. The age unquestionably produces (whether in a
greater or less number than former times I know not) daring profligates and
insidious hypocrites. What then? Am I not to avail myself of whatever good
is to be found in the world, because of the mixture of evil that will always
be in it? The smallness of the quantity in currency only heightens the value.
They who raise suspicions on the good on account of the behavior of ill
men are of the party of the latter. The common cant is no justification for
taking this party. I have been deceived, say they, by Titius and Mævius; I
have been the dupe of this pretender or of that mountebank; and I can trust
appearances no longer. But my credulity and want of discernment cannot, as
I conceive, amount to a fair presumption against any man's integrity. A
conscientious person would rather doubt his own judgment than condemn
his species. He would say, "I have observed without attention, or judged
upon erroneous maxims; I trusted to profession, when I ought to have
attended to conduct." Such a man will grow wise, not malignant, by his
acquaintance with the world. But he that accuses all mankind of corruption
ought to remember that he is sure to convict only one. In truth, I should
much rather admit those whom at any time I have disrelished the most to be
patterns of perfection than seek a consolation to my own unworthiness in a
general communion of depravity with all about me.

That this ill-natured doctrine should be preached by the missionaries of a
court I do not wonder. It answers their purpose. But that it should be heard
among those who pretend to be strong assertors of liberty is not only
surprising, but hardly natural. This moral levelling is a servile principle. It
leads to practical passive obedience far better than all the doctrines which
the pliant accommodation of theology to power has ever produced. It cuts
up by the roots, not only all idea of forcible resistance, but even of civil
opposition. It disposes men to an abject submission, not by opinion, which

may be shaken by argument or altered by passion, but by the strong ties of
public and private interest. For, if all men who act in a public situation are
equally selfish, corrupt, and venal, what reason can be given for desiring
any sort of change, which, besides the evils which must attend all changes,
can be productive of no possible advantage? The active men in the state are
true samples of the mass. If they are universally depraved, the
commonwealth itself is not sound. We may amuse ourselves with talking as
much as we please of the virtue of middle or humble life; that is, we may
place our confidence in the virtue of those who have never been tried. But if
the persons who are continually emerging out of that sphere be no better
than those whom birth has placed above it, what hopes are there in the
remainder of the body which is to furnish the perpetual succession of the
state? All who have ever written on government are unanimous, that among
a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist. And, indeed, how is it
possible, when those who are to make the laws, to guard, to enforce, or to
obey them, are, by a tacit confederacy of manners, indisposed to the spirit
of all generous and noble institutions?

I am aware that the age is not what we all wish. But I am sure that the
only means of checking its precipitate degeneracy is heartily to concur with
whatever is the best in our time, and to have some more correct standard of
judging what that best is than the transient and uncertain favor of a court. If
once we are able to find, and can prevail on ourselves to strengthen an
union of such men, whatever accidentally becomes indisposed to ill-
exercised power, even by the ordinary operation of human passions, must
join with that society, and cannot long be joined without in some degree
assimilating to it. Virtue will catch as well as vice by contact; and the public
stock of honest, manly principle will daily accumulate. We are not too
nicely to scrutinize motives as long as action is irreproachable. It is enough
(and for a worthy man perhaps too much) to deal out its infamy to
convicted guilt and declared apostasy.

This, Gentlemen, has been from the beginning the rule of my conduct;
and I mean to continue it, as long as such a body as I have described can by
any possibility be kept together; for I should think it the most dreadful of all
offences, not only towards the present generation, but to all the future, if I
were to do anything which could make the minutest breach in this great
conservatory of free principles. Those who perhaps have the same
intentions, but are separated by some little political animosities, will, I
hope, discern at last how little conducive it is to any rational purpose to
lower its reputation. For my part, Gentlemen, from much experience, from
no little thinking, and from comparing a great variety of things, I am
thoroughly persuaded that the last hopes of preserving the spirit of the
English Constitution, or of reuniting the dissipated members of the English
race upon a common plan of tranquillity and liberty, does entirely depend
on their firm and lasting union, and above all on their keeping themselves
from that despair which is so very apt to fall on those whom a violence of
character and a mixture of ambitious views do not support through a long,
painful, and unsuccessful struggle.

There never, Gentlemen, was a period in which the steadfastness of some
men has been put to so sore a trial. It is not very difficult for well-formed
minds to abandon their interest; but the separation of fame and virtue is an
harsh divorce. Liberty is in danger of being made unpopular to Englishmen.
Contending for an imaginary power, we begin to acquire the spirit of
domination, and to lose the relish of honest equality. The principles of our
forefathers become suspected to us, because we see them animating the
present opposition of our children. The faults which grow out of the
luxuriance of freedom appear much more shocking to us than the base vices
which are generated from the rankness of servitude. Accordingly, the least
resistance to power appears more inexcusable in our eyes than the greatest
abuses of authority. All dread of a standing military force is looked upon as
a superstitious panic. All shame of calling in foreigners and savages in a

civil contest is worn off. We grow indifferent to the consequences inevitable
to ourselves from the plan of ruling half the empire by a mercenary sword.
We are taught to believe that a desire of domineering over our countrymen
is love to our country, that those who hate civil war abet rebellion, and that
the amiable and conciliatory virtues of lenity, moderation, and tenderness to
the privileges of those who depend on this kingdom are a sort of treason to
the state.

It is impossible that we should remain long in a situation which breeds
such notions and dispositions without some great alteration in the national
character. Those ingenuous and feeling minds who are so fortified against
all other things, and so unarmed to whatever approaches in the shape of
disgrace, finding these principles, which they considered as sure means of
honor, to be grown into disrepute, will retire disheartened and disgusted.
Those of a more robust make, the bold, able, ambitious men, who pay some
of their court to power through the people, and substitute the voice of
transient opinion in the place of true glory, will give into the general mode;
and those superior understandings which ought to correct vulgar prejudice
will confirm and aggravate its errors. Many things have been long operating
towards a gradual change in our principles; but this American war has done
more in a very few years than all the other causes could have effected in a
century. It is therefore not on its own separate account, but because of its
attendant circumstances, that I consider its continuance, or its ending in any
way but that of an honorable and liberal accommodation, as the greatest
evils which can befall us. For that reason I have troubled you with this long
letter. For that reason I entreat you, again and again, neither to be
persuaded, shamed, or frighted out of the principles that have hitherto led so
many of you to abhor the war, its cause, and its consequences. Let us not be
amongst the first who renounce the maxims of our forefathers.

I have the honor to be,

Gentlemen,

Your most obedient and faithful humble servant,

EDMUND BURKE.

BEACONSFIELD, April 3, 1777.

P.S. You may communicate this letter in any manner you think proper to
my constituents.

TWO LETTERS

TO

GENTLEMEN IN THE CITY OF BRISTOL.

ON THE

BILLS DEPENDING IN PARLIAMENT
RELATIVE TO THE TRADE OF IRELAND.

1778.

LETTERS.

TO SAMUEL SPAN, ESQ., MASTER OF THE SOCIETY OF
MERCHANTS ADVENTURERS OF BRISTOL.

Sir,—I am honored with your letter of the 13th, in answer to mine, which
accompanied the resolutions of the House relative to the trade of Ireland.

You will be so good as to present my best respects to the Society, and to
assure them that it was altogether unnecessary to remind me of the interest
of the constituents. I have never regarded anything else since I had a seat in
Parliament. Having frequently and maturely considered that interest, and
stated it to myself in almost every point of view, I am persuaded, that, under
the present circumstances, I cannot more effectually pursue it than by
giving all the support in my power to the propositions which I lately
transmitted to the Hall.

The fault I find in the scheme is, that it falls extremely short of that
liberality in the commercial system which I trust will one day be adopted. If
I had not considered the present resolutions merely as preparatory to better
things, and as a means of showing, experimentally, that justice to others is
not always folly to ourselves, I should have contented myself with receiving
them in a cold and silent acquiescence. Separately considered, they are
matters of no very great importance. But they aim, however imperfectly, at
a right principle. I submit to the restraint to appease prejudice; I accept the
enlargement, so far as it goes, as the result of reason and of sound policy.

We cannot be insensible of the calamities which have been brought upon
this nation by an obstinate adherence to narrow and restrictive plans of

government. I confess, I cannot prevail on myself to take them up precisely
at a time when the most decisive experience has taught the rest of the world
to lay them down. The propositions in question did not originate from me,
or from my particular friends. But when things are so right in themselves, I
hold it my duty not to inquire from what hands they come. I opposed the
American measures upon the very same principle on which I support those
that relate to Ireland. I was convinced that the evils which have arisen from
the adoption of the former would be infinitely aggravated by the rejection
of the latter.

Perhaps gentlemen are not yet fully aware of the situation of their
country, and what its exigencies absolutely require. I find that we are still
disposed to talk at our ease, and as if all things were to be regulated by our
good pleasure. I should consider it as a fatal symptom, if, in our present
distressed and adverse circumstances, we should persist in the errors which
are natural only to prosperity. One cannot, indeed, sufficiently lament the
continuance of that spirit of delusion, by which, for a long time past, we
have thought fit to measure our necessities by our inclinations. Moderation,
prudence, and equity are far more suitable to our condition than loftiness,
and confidence, and rigor. We are threatened by enemies of no small
magnitude, whom, if we think fit, we may despise, as we have despised
others; but they are enemies who can only cease to be truly formidable by
our entertaining a due respect for their power. Our danger will not be
lessened by our shutting our eyes to it; nor will our force abroad be
increased by rendering ourselves feeble and divided at home.

There is a dreadful schism in the British nation. Since we are not able to
reunite the empire, it is our business to give all possible vigor and
soundness to those parts of it which are still content to be governed by our
councils. Sir, it is proper to inform you that our measures must be healing.
Such a degree of strength must be communicated to all the members of the

state as may enable them to defend themselves, and to coöperate in the
defence of the whole. Their temper, too, must be managed, and their good
affections cultivated. They may then be disposed to bear the load with
cheerfulness, as a contribution towards what may be called with truth and
propriety, and not by an empty form of words, a common cause. Too little
dependence cannot be had, at this time of day, on names and prejudices.
The eyes of mankind are opened, and communities must be held together by
an evident and solid interest. God forbid that our conduct should
demonstrate to the world that Great Britain can in no instance whatsoever
be brought to a sense of rational and equitable policy but by coercion and
force of arms!

I wish you to recollect with what powers of concession, relatively to
commerce, as well as to legislation, his Majesty's commissioners to the
United Colonies have sailed from England within this week. Whether these
powers are sufficient for their purposes it is not now my business to
examine. But we all know that our resolutions in favor of Ireland are trifling
and insignificant, when compared with the concessions to the Americans.
At such a juncture, I would implore every man, who retains the least spark
of regard to the yet remaining honor and security of this country, not to
compel others to an imitation of their conduct, or by passion and violence to
force them to seek in the territories of the separation that freedom and those
advantages which they are not to look for whilst they remain under the
wings of their ancient government.

After all, what are the matters we dispute with so much warmth? Do we
in these resolutions bestow anything upon Ireland? Not a shilling. We only
consent to leave to them, in two or three instances, the use of the natural
faculties which God has given to them, and to all mankind. Is Ireland united
to the crown of Great Britain for no other purpose than that we should
counteract the bounty of Providence in her favor? and in proportion as that

bounty has been liberal, that we are to regard it as an evil, which is to be
met with in every sort of corrective? To say that Ireland interferes with us,
and therefore must be checked, is, in my opinion, a very mistaken, and a
very dangerous principle. I must beg leave to repeat, what I took the liberty
of suggesting to you in my last letter, that Ireland is a country in the same
climate and of the same natural qualities and productions with this, and has
consequently no other means of growing wealthy in herself, or, in other
words, of being useful to us, but by doing the very same things which we do
for the same purposes. I hope that in Great Britain we shall always pursue,
without exception, every means of prosperity, and, of course, that Ireland
will interfere with us in something or other: for either, in order to limit her,
we must restrain ourselves, or we must fall into that shocking conclusion,
that we are to keep our yet remaining dependency under a general and
indiscriminate restraint for the mere purpose of oppression. Indeed, Sir,
England and Ireland may flourish together. The world is large enough for us
both. Let it be our care not to make ourselves too little for it.

I know it is said, that the people of Ireland do not pay the same taxes, and
therefore ought not in equity to enjoy the same benefits with this. I had
hopes that the unhappy phantom of a compulsory equal taxation had
haunted us long enough. I do assure you, that, until it is entirely banished
from our imaginations, (where alone it has, or can have, any existence,) we
shall never cease to do ourselves the most substantial injuries. To that
argument of equal taxation I can only say, that Ireland pays as many taxes
as those who are the best judges of her powers are of opinion she can bear.
To bear more, she must have more ability; and, in the order of Nature, the
advantage must precede the charge. This disposition of things being the law
of God, neither you nor I can alter it. So that, if you will have more help
from Ireland, you must previously supply her with more means. I believe it
will be found, that, if men are suffered freely to cultivate their natural
advantages, a virtual equality of contribution will come in its own time, and

will flow by an easy descent through its own proper and natural channels.
An attempt to disturb that course, and to force Nature, will only bring on
universal discontent, distress, and confusion.

You tell me, Sir, that you prefer an union with Ireland to the little
regulations which are proposed in Parliament. This union is a great question
of state, to which, when it comes properly before me in my Parliamentary
capacity, I shall give an honest and unprejudiced consideration. However, it
is a settled rule with me, to make the most of my actual situation, and not to
refuse to do a proper thing because there is something else more proper
which I am not able to do. This union is a business of difficulty, and, on the
principles of your letter, a business impracticable. Until it can be matured
into a feasible and desirable scheme, I wish to have as close an union of
interest and affection with Ireland as I can have; and that, I am sure, is a far
better thing than any nominal union of government.

France, and indeed most extensive empires, which by various designs
and fortunes have grown into one great mass, contain many provinces that
are very different from each other in privileges and modes of government;
and they raise their supplies in different ways, in different proportions, and
under different authorities: yet none of them are for this reason curtailed of
their natural rights; but they carry on trade and manufactures with perfect
equality. In some way or other the true balance is found; and all of them are
properly poised and harmonized. How much have you lost by the
participation of Scotland in all your commerce? The external trade of
England has more than doubled since that period; and I believe your
internal (which is the most advantageous) has been augmented at least
fourfold. Such virtue there is in liberality of sentiment, that you have grown
richer even by the partnership of poverty.

If you think that this participation was a loss, commercially considered,
but that it has been compensated by the share which Scotland has taken in
defraying the public charge, I believe you have not very carefully looked at
the public accounts. Ireland, Sir, pays a great deal more than Scotland, and
is perhaps as much and as effectually united to England as Scotland is. But
if Scotland, instead of paying little, had paid nothing at all, we should be
gainers, not losers, by acquiring the hearty coöperation of an active,
intelligent people towards the increase of the common stock, instead of our
being employed in watching and counteracting them, and their being
employed in watching and counteracting us, with the peevish and churlish
jealousy of rivals and enemies on both sides.

I am sure, Sir, that the commercial experience of the merchants of Bristol
will soon disabuse them of the prejudice, that they can trade no longer, if
countries more lightly taxed are permitted to deal in the same commodities
at the same markets. You know, that, in fact, you trade very largely where
you are met by the goods of all nations. You even pay high duties on the
import of your goods, and afterwards undersell nations less taxed, at their
own markets, and where goods of the same kind are not charged at all. If it
were otherwise, you could trade very little. You know that the price of all
sorts of manufacture is not a great deal enhanced (except to the domestic
consumer) by any taxes paid in this country. This I might very easily prove.

The same consideration will relieve you from the apprehension you
express with relation to sugars, and the difference of the duties paid here
and in Ireland. Those duties affect the interior consumer only, and for
obvious reasons, relative to the interest of revenue itself, they must be
proportioned to his ability of payment; but in all cases in which sugar can
be an object of commerce, and therefore (in this view) of rivalship, you are
sensible that you are at least on a par with Ireland. As to your apprehensions
concerning the more advantageous situation of Ireland for some branches of

commerce, (for it is so but for some,) I trust you will not find them more
serious. Milford Haven, which is at your door, may serve to show you that
the mere advantage of ports, is not the thing which shifts the seat of
commerce from one part of the world to the other. If I thought you inclined
to take up this matter on local considerations, I should state to you, that I do
not know any part of the kingdom so well situated for an advantageous
commerce with Ireland as Bristol, and that none would be so likely to profit
of its prosperity as our city. But your profit and theirs must concur. Beggary
and bankruptcy are not the circumstances which invite to an intercourse
with that or with any country; and I believe it will be found invariably true,
that the superfluities of a rich nation furnish a better object of trade than the
necessities of a poor one. It is the interest of the commercial world that
wealth should be found everywhere.

The true ground of fear, in my opinion, is this: that Ireland, from the
vicious system of its internal polity, will be a long time before it can derive
any benefit from the liberty now granted, or from any thing else. But, as I
do not vote advantages in hopes that they may not be enjoyed, I will not lay
any stress upon this consideration. I rather wish that the Parliament of
Ireland may, in its own wisdom, remove these impediments, and put their
country in a condition to avail itself of its natural advantages. If they do not,
the fault is with them, and not with us.

I have written this long letter in order to give all possible satisfaction to
my constituents with regard to the part I have taken in this affair. It gave me
inexpressible concern to find that my conduct had been a cause of
uneasiness to any of them. Next to my honor and conscience, I have nothing
so near and dear to me as their approbation. However, I had much rather run
the risk of displeasing than of injuring them,—if I am driven to make such
an option. You obligingly lament that you are not to have me for your
advocate; but if I had been capable of acting as an advocate in opposition to

a plan so perfectly consonant to my known principles, and to the opinions I
had publicly declared on an hundred occasions, I should only disgrace
myself, without supporting, with the smallest degree of credit or effect, the
cause you wished me to undertake. I should have lost the only thing which
can make such abilities as mine of any use to the world now or hereafter: I
mean that authority which is derived from an opinion that a member speaks
the language of truth and sincerity, and that he is not ready to take up or lay
down a great political system for the convenience of the hour, that he is in
Parliament to support his opinion of the public good, and does not form his
opinion in order to get into Parliament, or to continue in it. It is in a great
measure for your sake that I wish to preserve this character. Without it, I am
sure, I should be ill able to discharge, by any service, the smallest part of
that debt of gratitude and affection which I owe you for the great and
honorable trust you have reposed in me.

I am, with the highest regard and esteem, Sir,

Your most obedient and humble servant,

E.B.

BEACONSFIELD, 23rd April, 1778.

COPY OF A LETTER TO MESSRS. ******* ****** AND
CO., BRISTOL.

Gentlemen,—

It gives me the most sensible concern to find that my vote on the
resolutions relative to the trade of Ireland has not been fortunate enough to
meet with your approbation. I have explained at large the grounds of my
conduct on that occasion in my letters to the Merchants' Hall; but my very
sincere regard and esteem for you will not permit me to let the matter pass
without an explanation which is particular to yourselves, and which I hope
will prove satisfactory to you.

You tell me that the conduct of your late member is not much wondered
at; but you seem to be at a loss to account for mine; and you lament that I
have taken so decided a part against my constituents.

This is rather an heavy imputation. Does it, then, really appear to you that
the propositions to which you refer are, on the face of them, so manifestly
wrong, and so certainly injurious to the trade and manufactures of Great
Britain, and particularly to yours, that no man could think of proposing or
supporting them, except from resentment to you, or from some other
oblique motive? If you suppose your late member, or if you suppose me, to
act upon other reasons than we choose to avow, to what do you attribute the
conduct of the other members, who in the beginning almost unanimously
adopted those resolutions? To what do you attribute the strong part taken by
the ministers, and, along with the ministers, by several of their most

declared opponents? This does not indicate a ministerial job, a party design,
or a provincial or local purpose. It is, therefore, not so absolutely clear that
the measure is wrong, or likely to be injurious to the true interests of any
place or any person.

The reason, Gentlemen, for taking this step, at this time, is but too
obvious and too urgent. I cannot imagine that you forget the great war
which has been carried on with so little success (and, as I thought, with so
little policy) in America, or that you are not aware of the other great wars
which are impending. Ireland has been called upon to repel the attacks of
enemies of no small power, brought upon her by councils in which she has
had no share. The very purpose and declared object of that original war,
which has brought other wars and other enemies on Ireland, was not very
flattering to her dignity, her interest, or to the very principle of her liberty.
Yet she submitted patiently to the evils she suffered from an attempt to
subdue to your obedience countries whose very commerce was not open to
her. America was to be conquered in order that Ireland should not trade
thither; whilst the miserable trade which she is permitted to carry on to
other places has been torn to pieces in the struggle. In this situation, are we
neither to suffer her to have any real interest in our quarrel, or to be flattered
with the hope of any future means of bearing the burdens which she is to
incur in defending herself against enemies which we have brought upon
her?

I cannot set my face against such arguments. Is it quite fair to suppose
that I have no other motive for yielding to them but a desire of acting
against my constituents? It is for you, and for your interest, as a dear,
cherished, and respected part of a valuable whole, that I have taken my
share in this question. You do not, you cannot, suffer by it. If honesty be
true policy with regard to the transient interest of individuals, it is much
more certainly so with regard to the permanent interests of communities. I

know that it is but too natural for us to see our own certain ruin in the
possible prosperity of other people. It is hard to persuade us that everything
which is got by another is not taken from ourselves. But it is fit that We
should get the better of these suggestions, which come from what is not the
best and soundest part of our nature, and that we should form to ourselves a
way of thinking, more rational, more just, and more religious. Trade is not a
limited thing: as if the objects of mutual demand and consumption could
not stretch beyond the bounds of our jealousies. God has given the earth to
the children of men, and He has undoubtedly, in giving it to them, given
them what is abundantly sufficient for all their exigencies: not a scanty, but
a most liberal, provision for them all. The Author of our nature has written
it strongly in that nature, and has promulgated the same law in His written
word, that man shall eat his bread by his labor; and I am persuaded that no
man, and no combination of men, for their own ideas of their particular
profit, can, without great impiety, undertake to say that he shall not do so,—
that they have no sort of right either to prevent the labor or to withhold the
bread. Ireland having received no compensation, directly or indirectly, for
any restraints on their trade, ought not, in justice or common honesty, to be
made subject to such restraints. I do not mean to impeach the right of the
Parliament of Great Britain to make laws for the trade of Ireland: I only
speak of what laws it is right for Parliament to make.

It is nothing to an oppressed people, to say that in part they are protected
at our charge. The military force which shall be kept up in order to cramp
the natural faculties of a people, and to prevent their arrival to their utmost
prosperity, is the instrument of their servitude, not the means of their
protection. To protect men is to forward, and not to restrain, their
improvement. Else, what is it more than to avow to them, and to the world,
that you guard them from others only to make them a prey to yourself? This
fundamental nature of protection does not belong to free, but to all
governments, and is as valid in Turkey as in Great Britain. No government

ought to own that it exists for the purpose of checking the prosperity of its
people, or that there is such a principle involved in its policy.

Under the impression of these sentiments, (and not as wanting every
attention to my constituents which affection and gratitude could inspire,) I
voted for these bills which give you so much trouble. I voted for them, not
as doing complete justice to Ireland, but as being something less unjust than
the general prohibition which has hitherto prevailed. I hear some discourse
as if, in one or two paltry duties on materials, Ireland had a preference, and
that those who set themselves against this act of scanty justice assert that
they are only contending for an equality. What equality? Do they forget that
the whole woollen manufacture of Ireland, the most extensive and
profitable of any, and the natural staple of that kingdom, has been in a
manner so destroyed by restrictive laws of ours, and (at our persuasion, and
on our promises) by restrictive laws of their own, that in a few years, it is
probable, they will not be able to wear a coat of their own fabric? Is this
equality? Do gentlemen forget that the understood faith upon which they
were persuaded to such an unnatural act has not been kept,—but a linen-
manufacture has been set up, and highly encouraged, against them? Is this
equality? Do they forget the state of the trade of Ireland in beer, so great an
article of consumption, and which now stands in so mischievous a position
with regard to their revenue, their manufacture, and their agriculture? Do
they find any equality in all this? Yet, if the least step is taken towards doing
them common justice in the slightest articles for the most limited markets, a
cry is raised, as if we were going to be ruined by partiality to Ireland.

Gentlemen, I know that the deficiency in these arguments is made up (not
by you, but by others) by the usual resource on such occasions, the
confidence in military force and superior power. But that ground of
confidence, which at no time was perfectly just, or the avowal of it tolerably
decent, is at this time very unseasonable. Late experience has shown that it

cannot be altogether relied upon; and many, if not all, of our present
difficulties have arisen from putting our trust in what may very possibly
fail, and, if it should fail, leaves those who are hurt by such a reliance
without pity. Whereas honesty and justice, reason and equity, go a very
great way in securing prosperity to those who use them, and, in case of
failure, secure the best retreat and the most honorable consolations.

It is very unfortunate that we should consider those as rivals, whom we
ought to regard as fellow-laborers in a common cause. Ireland has never
made a single step in its progress towards prosperity, by which you have not
had a share, and perhaps the greatest share, in the benefit. That progress has
been chiefly owing to her own natural advantages, and her own efforts,
which, after a long time, and by slow degrees, have prevailed in some
measure over the mischievous systems which have been adopted. Far
enough she is still from having arrived even at an ordinary state of
perfection; and if our jealousies were to be converted into politics as
systematically as some would have them, the trade of Ireland would vanish
out of the system of commerce. But, believe me, if Ireland is beneficial to
you, it is so not from the parts in which it is restrained, but from those in
which it is left free, though not left unrivalled. The greater its freedom, the
greater must be your advantage. If you should lose in one way, you will
gain in twenty.

Whilst I remain under this unalterable and powerful conviction, you will
not wonder at the decided part I take. It is my custom so to do, when I see
my way clearly before me, and when I know that I am not misled by any
passion or any personal interest, which in this case I am very sure I am not.
I find that disagreeable things are circulated among my constituents; and I
wish my sentiments, which form my justification, may be equally general
with the circulation against me. I have the honor to be, with the greatest
regard and esteem, Gentlemen,

Your most obedient and humble servant,

E.B.

Westminster, May 2, 1778.

I send the bills.

SPEECH

ON PRESENTING TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

(ON THE 11TH FEBRUARY, 1780)

A PLAN

FOR

THE BETTER SECURITY OF THE INDEPENDENCE OF
PARLIAMENT, AND THE ECONOMICAL REFORMATION
OF THE CIVIL AND OTHER ESTABLISHMENTS

Mr. Speaker,—I rise, in acquittal of my engagement to the House, in
obedience to the strong and just requisition of my constituents, and, I am
persuaded, in conformity to the unanimous wishes of the whole nation, to
submit to the wisdom of Parliament "A Plan of Reform in the Constitution
of Several Parts of the Public Economy."

I have endeavored that this plan should include, in its execution, a
considerable reduction of improper expense; that it should effect a
conversion of unprofitable titles into a productive estate; that it should lead

to, and indeed almost compel, a provident administration of such sums of
public money as must remain under discretionary trusts; that it should
render the incurring debts on the civil establishment (which must ultimately
affect national strength and national credit) so very difficult as to become
next to impracticable.

But what, I confess, was uppermost with me, what I bent the whole force
of my mind to, was the reduction of that corrupt influence which is itself the
perennial spring of all prodigality and of all disorder,—which loads us more
than millions of debt,—which takes away vigor from our arms, wisdom
from our councils, and every shadow of authority and credit from the most
venerable parts of our Constitution.

Sir, I assure you very solemnly, and with a very clear conscience, that
nothing in the world has led me to such an undertaking but my zeal for the
honor of this House, and the settled, habitual, systematic affection I bear to
the cause and to the principles of government.

I enter perfectly into the nature and consequences of my attempt, and I
advance to it with a tremor that shakes me to the inmost fibre of my frame. I
feel that I engage in a business, in itself most ungracious, totally wide of the
course of prudent conduct, and, I really think, the most completely adverse
that can be imagined to the natural turn and temper of my own mind. I
know that all parsimony is of a quality approaching to unkindness, and that
(on some person or other) every reform must operate as a sort of
punishment. Indeed, the whole class of the severe and restrictive virtues are
at a market almost too high for humanity. What is worse, there are very few
of those virtues which are not capable of being imitated, and even outdone
in many of their most striking effects, by the worst of vices. Malignity and
envy will carve much more deeply, and finish much more sharply, in the
work of retrenchment, than frugality and providence. I do not, therefore,

wonder that gentlemen have kept away from such a task, as well from
good-nature as from prudence. Private feeling might, indeed, be overborne
by legislative reason; and a man of a long-sighted and a strong-nerved
humanity might bring himself not so much to consider from whom he takes
a superfluous enjoyment as for whom in the end he may preserve the
absolute necessaries of life.

But it is much more easy to reconcile this measure in humanity than to
bring it to any agreement with prudence. I do not mean that little, selfish,
pitiful, bastard thing which sometimes goes by the name of a family in
which it is not legitimate and to which it is a disgrace;—I mean even that
public and enlarged prudence, which, apprehensive of being disabled from
rendering acceptable services to the world, withholds itself from those that
are invidious. Gentlemen who are, with me, verging towards the decline of
life, and are apt to form their ideas of kings from kings of former times,
might dread the anger of a reigning prince;—they who are more provident
of the future, or by being young are more interested in it, might tremble at
the resentment of the successor; they might see a long, dull, dreary,
unvaried visto of despair and exclusion, for half a century, before them.
This is no pleasant prospect at the outset of a political journey.

Besides this, Sir, the private enemies to be made in all attempts of this
kind are innumerable; and their enmity will be the more bitter, and the more
dangerous too, because a sense of dignity will oblige them to conceal the
cause of their resentment. Very few men of great families and extensive
connections but will feel the smart of a cutting reform, in some close
relation, some bosom friend, some pleasant acquaintance, some dear,
protected dependant. Emolument is taken from some; patronage from
others; objects of pursuit from all. Men forced into an involuntary
independence will abhor the authors of a blessing which in their eyes has so
very near a resemblance to a curse. When officers are removed, and the

offices remain, you may set the gratitude of some against the anger of
others, you may oppose the friends you oblige against the enemies you
provoke. But services of the present sort create no attachments. The
individual good felt in a public benefit is comparatively so small, comes
round through such an involved labyrinth of intricate and tedious
revolutions, whilst a present personal detriment is so heavy, where it falls,
and so instant in its operation, that the cold commendation of a public
advantage never was and never will be a match for the quick sensibility of a
private loss; and you may depend upon it, Sir, that, when many people have
an interest in railing, sooner or later, they will bring a considerable degree
of unpopularity upon any measure. So that, for the present at least, the
reformation will operate against the reformers; and revenge (as against
them at the least) will produce all the effects of corruption.

This, Sir, is almost always the case, where the plan has complete success.
But how stands the matter in the mere attempt? Nothing, you know, is more
common than for men to wish, and call loudly too, for a reformation, who,
when it arrives, do by no means like the severity of its aspect. Reformation
is one of those pieces which must be put at some distance in order to please.
Its greatest favorers love it better in the abstract than in the substance. When
any old prejudice of their own, or any interest that they value, is touched,
they become scrupulous, they become captious; and every man has his
separate exception. Some pluck out the black hairs, some the gray; one
point must be given up to one, another point must be yielded to another;
nothing is suffered to prevail upon its own principle; the whole is so
frittered down and disjointed, that scarcely a trace of the original scheme
remains. Thus, between the resistance of power, and the unsystematical
process of popularity, the undertaker and the undertaking are both exposed,
and the poor reformer is hissed off the stags both by friends and foes.

Observe, Sir, that the apology for my undertaking (an apology which,
though long, is no longer than necessary) is not grounded on my want of the
fullest sense of the difficult and invidious nature of the task I undertake. I
risk odium, if I succeed, and contempt, if I fail. My excuse must rest in
mine and your conviction of the absolute, urgent necessity there is that
something of the kind should be done. If there is any sacrifice to be made,
either of estimation or of fortune, the smallest is the best. Commanders-in-
chief are not to be put upon the forlorn hope. But, indeed, it is necessary
that the attempt should be made. It is necessary from our own political
circumstances; it is necessary from the operations of the enemy; it is
necessary from the demands of the people, whose desires, when they do not
militate with the stable and eternal rules of justice and reason, (rules which
are above us and above them,) ought to be as a law to a House of
Commons.

As to our circumstances, I do not mean to aggravate the difficulties of
them by the strength of any coloring whatsoever. On the contrary, I observe,
and observe with pleasure, that our affairs rather wear a more promising
aspect than they did on the opening of this session. We have had some
leading successes. But those who rate them at the highest (higher a great
deal, indeed, than I dare to do) are of opinion, that, upon the ground of such
advantages, we cannot at this time hope to make any treaty of peace which
would not be ruinous and completely disgraceful. In such an anxious state
of things, if dawnings of success serve to animate our diligence, they are
good; if they tend to increase our presumption, they are worse than defeats.
The state of our affairs shall, then, be as promising as any one may choose
to conceive it: it is, however, but promising. We must recollect, that, with
but half of our natural strength, we are at war against confederated powers
who have singly threatened us with ruin; we must recollect, that, whilst we
are left naked on one side, our other flank is uncovered by any alliance;
that, whilst we are weighing and balancing our successes against our losses,

we are accumulating debt to the amount of at least fourteen millions in the
year. That loss is certain.

I have no wish to deny that our successes are as brilliant as any one
chooses to make them; our resources, too, may, for me, be as unfathomable
as they are represented. Indeed, they are just whatever the people possess
and will submit to pay. Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can
contrive new impositions; any bungler can add to the old. But is it
altogether wise to have no other bounds to your impositions than the
patience of those who are to bear them?

All I claim upon the subject of your resources is this: that they are not
likely to be increased by wasting them. I think I shall be permitted to
assume that a system of frugality will not lessen your riches, whatever they
may be. I believe it will not be hotly disputed, that those resources which lie
heavy on the subject ought not to be objects of preference,—that they ought
not to be the very first choice, to an honest representative of the people.

This is all, Sir, that I shall say upon our circumstances and our resources:
I mean to say a little more on the operations of the enemy, because this
matter seems to me very natural in our present deliberation. When I look to
the other side of the water, I cannot help recollecting what Pyrrhus said, on
reconnoitring the Roman camp:—"These barbarians have nothing
barbarous in their discipline." When I look, as I have pretty carefully
looked, into the proceedings of the French king, I am sorry to say it, I see
nothing of the character and genius of arbitrary finance, none of the bold
frauds of bankrupt power, none of the wild struggles and plunges of
despotism in distress,—no lopping off from the capital of debt, no
suspension of interest, no robbery under the name of loan, no raising the
value, no debasing the substance of the coin. I see neither Louis the
Fourteenth nor Louis the Fifteenth. On the contrary, I behold, with

astonishment, rising before me, by the very hands of arbitrary power, and in
the very midst of war and confusion, a regular, methodical system of public
credit; I behold a fabric laid on the natural and solid foundations of trust
and confidence among men, and rising, by fair gradations, order over order,
according to the just rules of symmetry and art. What a reverse of things!
Principle, method, regularity, economy, frugality, justice to individuals, and
care of the people are the resources with which France makes war upon
Great Britain. God avert the omen! But if we should see any genius in war
and politics arise in France to second what is done in the bureau!—I turn
my eyes from the consequences.

The noble lord in the blue ribbon, last year, treated all this with contempt.
He never could conceive it possible that the French minister of finance
could go through that year with a loan of but seventeen hundred thousand
pounds, and that he should be able to fund that loan without any tax. The
second year, however, opens the very same scene. A small loan, a loan of no
more than two millions five hundred thousand pounds, is to carry our
enemies through the service of this year also. No tax is raised to fund that
debt; no tax is raised for the current services. I am credibly informed that
there is no anticipation whatsoever. Compensations[31] are correctly made.
Old debts continue to be sunk as in the time of profound peace. Even
payments which their treasury had been authorized to suspend during the
time of war are not suspended.

A general reform, executed through every department of the revenue,
creates an annual income of more than half a million, whilst it facilitates
and simplifies all the functions of administration. The king's household—at
the remotest avenues to which all reformation has been hitherto stopped,
that household which has been the stronghold of prodigality, the virgin
fortress which was never before attacked—has been not only not defended,
but it has, even in the forms, been surrendered by the king to the economy

of his minister. No capitulation; no reserve. Economy has entered in
triumph into the public splendor of the monarch, into his private
amusements, into the appointments of his nearest and highest relations.
Economy and public spirit have made a beneficent and an honest spoil: they
have plundered from extravagance and luxury, for the use of substantial
service, a revenue of near four hundred thousand pounds. The reform of the
finances, joined to this reform of the court, gives to the public nine hundred
thousand pounds a year, and upwards.

The minister who does these things is a great man; but the king who
desires that they should be done is a far greater. We must do justice to our
enemies: these are the acts of a patriot king. I am not in dread of the vast
armies of France; I am not in dread of the gallant spirit of its brave and
numerous nobility; I am not alarmed even at the great navy which has been
so miraculously created. All these things Louis the Fourteenth had before.
With all these things, the French monarchy has more than once fallen
prostrate at the feet of the public faith of Great Britain. It was the want of
public credit which disabled France from recovering after her defeats, or
recovering even from her victories and triumphs. It was a prodigal court, it
was an ill-ordered revenue, that sapped the foundations of all her greatness.
Credit cannot exist under the arm of necessity. Necessity strikes at credit, I
allow, with a heavier and quicker blow under an arbitrary monarchy than
under a limited and balanced government; but still necessity and credit are
natural enemies, and cannot be long reconciled in any situation. From
necessity and corruption, a free state may lose the spirit of that complex
constitution which is the foundation of confidence. On the other hand, I am
far from being sure that a monarchy, when once it is properly regulated,
may not for a long time furnish a foundation for credit upon the solidity of
its maxims, though it affords no ground of trust in its institutions. I am
afraid I see in England, and in France, something like a beginning of both
these things. I wish I may be found in a mistake.

This very short and very imperfect state of what is now going on in
France (the last circumstances of which I received in about eight days after
the registry of the edict[32]) I do not, Sir, lay before you for any invidious
purpose. It is in order to excite in us the spirit of a noble emulation. Let the
nations make war upon each other, (since we must make war,) not with a
low and vulgar malignity, but by a competition of virtues. This is the only
way by which both parties can gain by war. The French have imitated us: let
us, through them, imitate ourselves,—ourselves in our better and happier
days. If public frugality, under whatever men, or in whatever mode of
government, is national strength, it is a strength which our enemies are in
possession of before us.

Sir, I am well aware that the state and the result of the French economy
which I have laid before you are even now lightly treated by some who
ought never to speak but from information. Pains have not been spared to
represent them as impositions on the public. Let me tell you, Sir, that the
creation of a navy, and a two years' war without taxing, are a very singular
species of imposture. But be it so. For what end does Necker carry on this
delusion? Is it to lower the estimation of the crown he serves, and to render
his own administration contemptible? No! No! He is conscious that the
sense of mankind is so clear and decided in favor of economy, and of the
weight and value of its resources, that he turns himself to every species of
fraud and artifice to obtain the mere reputation of it. Men do not affect a
conduct that tends to their discredit. Let us, then, get the better of Monsieur
Necker in his own way; let us do in reality what he does only in pretence;
let us turn his French tinsel into English gold. Is, then, the mere opinion and
appearance of frugality and good management of such use to France, and is
the substance to be so mischievous to England? Is the very constitution of
Nature so altered by a sea of twenty miles, that economy should give power
on the Continent, and that profusion should give it here? For God's sake, let
not this be the only fashion of France which we refuse to copy!

To the last kind of necessity, the desires of the people, I have but a very
few words to say. The ministers seem to contest this point, and affect to
doubt whether the people do really desire a plan of economy in the civil
government. Sir, this is too ridiculous. It is impossible that they should not
desire it. It is impossible that a prodigality which draws its resources from
their indigence should be pleasing to them. Little factions of pensioners,
and their dependants, may talk another language. But the voice of Nature is
against them, and it will be heard. The people of England will not, they
cannot, take it kindly, that representatives should refuse to their constituents
what an absolute sovereign voluntarily offers to his subjects. The
expression of the petitions is, that, "before any new burdens are laid upon
this country, effectual measures be taken by this House to inquire into and
correct the gross abuses in the expenditure of public money."

This has been treated by the noble lord in the blue ribbon as a wild,
factious language. It happens, however, that the people, in their address to
us, use, almost word for word, the same terms as the king of France uses in
addressing himself to his people; and it differs only as it falls short of the
French king's idea of what is due to his subjects. "To convince," says he,
"our faithful subjects of the desire we entertain not to recur to new
impositions, until we have first exhausted all the resources which order and
economy can possibly supply," &c., &c.

These desires of the people of England, which come far short of the
voluntary concessions of the king of France, are moderate indeed. They
only contend that we should interweave some economy with the taxes with
which we have chosen to begin the war. They request, not that you should
rely upon economy exclusively, but that you should give it rank and
precedence, in the order of the ways and means of this single session.

But if it were possible that the desires of our constituents, desires which
are at once so natural and so very much tempered and subdued, should have
no weight with an House of Commons which has its eye elsewhere, I would
turn my eyes to the very quarter to which theirs are directed. I would reason
this matter with the House on the mere policy of the question; and I would
undertake to prove that an early dereliction of abuse is the direct interest of
government,—of government taken abstractedly from its duties, and
considered merely as a system intending its own conservation.

If there is any one eminent criterion which above all the rest
distinguishes a wise government from an administration weak and
improvident, it is this: "well to know the best time and manner of yielding
what it is impossible to keep." There have been, Sir, and there are, many
who choose to chicane with their situation rather than be instructed by it.
Those gentlemen argue against every desire of reformation upon the
principles of a criminal prosecution. It is enough for them to justify their
adherence to a pernicious system, that it is not of their contrivance,—that it
is an inheritance of absurdity, derived to them from their ancestors,—that
they can make out a long and unbroken pedigree of mismanagers that have
gone before them. They are proud of the antiquity of their house; and they
defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance, afraid of
derogating from their nobility, and carefully avoiding a sort of blot in their
scutcheon, which they think would degrade them forever.

It was thus that the unfortunate Charles the First defended himself on the
practice of the Stuart who went before him, and of all the Tudors. His
partisans might have gone to the Plantagenets. They might have found bad
examples enough, both abroad and at home, that could have shown an
ancient and illustrious descent. But there is a time when men will not suffer
bad things because their ancestors have suffered worse. There is a time
when the hoary head of inveterate abuse will neither draw reverence nor

obtain protection. If the noble lord in the blue ribbon pleads, "Not guilty," to
the charges brought against the present system of public economy, it is not
possible to give a fair verdict by which he will not stand acquitted. But
pleading is not our present business. His plea or his traverse may be
allowed as an answer to a charge, when a charge is made. But if he puts
himself in the way to obstruct reformation, then the faults of his office
instantly become his own. Instead of a public officer in an abusive
department, whose province is an object to be regulated, he becomes a
criminal who is to be punished. I do most seriously put it to administration
to consider the wisdom of a timely reform. Early reformations are amicable
arrangements with a friend in power; late reformations are terms imposed
upon a conquered enemy: early reformations are made in cool blood; late
reformations are made under a state of inflammation. In that state of things
the people behold in government nothing that is respectable. They see the
abuse, and they will see nothing else. They fall into the temper of a furious
populace provoked at the disorder of a house of ill-fame; they never attempt
to correct or regulate; they go to work by the shortest way: they abate the
nuisance, they pull down the house.

This is my opinion with regard to the true interest of government. But as
it is the interest of government that reformation should be early, it is the
interest of the people that it should be temperate. It is their interest, because
a temperate reform is permanent, and because it has a principle of growth.
Whenever we improve, it is right to leave room for a further improvement.
It is right to consider, to look about us, to examine the effect of what we
have done. Then we can proceed with confidence, because we can proceed
with intelligence. Whereas in hot reformations, in what men more zealous
than considerate call making clear work, the whole is generally so crude, so
harsh, so indigested, mixed with so much imprudence and so much
injustice, so contrary to the whole course of human nature and human
institutions, that the very people who are most eager for it are among the

first to grow disgusted at what they have done. Then some part of the
abdicated grievance is recalled from its exile in order to become a
corrective of the correction. Then the abuse assumes all the credit and
popularity of a reform. The very idea of purity and disinterestedness in
politics falls into disrepute, and is considered as a vision of hot and
inexperienced men; and thus disorders become incurable, not by the
virulence of their own quality, but by the unapt and violent nature of the
remedies. A great part, therefore, of my idea of reform is meant to operate
gradually: some benefits will come at a nearer, some at a more remote
period. We must no more make haste to be rich by parsimony than by
intemperate acquisition.

In my opinion, it is our duty, when we have the desires of the people
before us, to pursue them, not in the spirit of literal obedience, which may
militate with their very principle,—much less to treat them with a peevish
and contentious litigation, as if we were adverse parties in a suit. It would,
Sir, be most dishonorable for a faithful representative of the Commons to
take advantage of any inartificial expression of the people's wishes, in order
to frustrate their attainment of what they have an undoubted right to expect.
We are under infinite obligations to our constituents, who have raised us to
so distinguished a trust, and have imparted such a degree of sanctity to
common characters. We ought to walk before them with purity, plainness,
and integrity of heart,—with filial love, and not with slavish fear, which is
always a low and tricking thing. For my own part, in what I have meditated
upon that subject, I cannot, indeed, take upon me to say I have the honor to
follow the sense of the people. The truth is, I met it on the way, while I was
pursuing their interest according to my own ideas. I am happy beyond
expression to find that my intentions have so far coincided with theirs, that I
have not had, cause to be in the least scrupulous to sign their petition,
conceiving it to express my own opinions, as nearly as general terms can
express the object of particular arrangements.

I am therefore satisfied to act as a fair mediator between government and
the people, endeavoring to form a plan which should have both an early and
a temperate operation. I mean, that it should be substantial, that it should be
systematic, that it should rather strike at the first cause of prodigality and
corrupt influence than attempt to follow them in all their effects.

It was to fulfil the first of these objects (the proposal of something
substantial) that I found myself obliged, at the outset, to reject a plan
proposed by an honorable and attentive member of Parliament,[33] with very
good intentions on his part, about a year or two ago. Sir, the plan I speak of
was the tax of twenty-five per cent moved upon places and pensions during
the continuance of the American war. Nothing, Sir, could have met my ideas
more than such a tax, if it was considered as a practical satire on that war,
and as a penalty upon those who led us into it; but in any other view it
appeared to me very liable to objections. I considered the scheme as neither
substantial, nor permanent, nor systematical, nor likely to be a corrective of
evil influence. I have always thought employments a very proper subject of
regulation, but a very ill-chosen subject for a tax. An equal tax upon
property is reasonable; because the object is of the same quality throughout.
The species is the same; it differs only in its quantity. But a tax upon
salaries is totally of a different nature; there can be no equality, and
consequently no justice, in taxing them by the hundred in the gross.

We have, Sir, on our establishment several offices which perform real
service: we have also places that provide large rewards for no service at all.
We have stations which are made for the public decorum, made for
preserving the grace and majesty of a great people: we have likewise
expensive formalities, which tend rather to the disgrace than the ornament
of the state and the court. This, Sir, is the real condition of our
establishments. To fall with the same severity on objects so perfectly
dissimilar is the very reverse of a reformation,—I mean a reformation

framed, as all serious things ought to be, in number, weight, and measure.—
Suppose, for instance, that two men receive a salary of 800l. a year each. In
the office of one there is nothing at all to be done; in the other, the occupier
is oppressed by its duties. Strike off twenty-five per cent from these two
offices, you take from one man 200l. which in justice he ought to have, and
you give in effect to the other 600l. which he ought not to receive. The
public robs the former, and the latter robs the public; and this mode of
mutual robbery is the only way in which the office and the public can make
up their accounts.

But the balance, in settling the account of this double injustice, is much
against the state. The result is short. You purchase a saving of two hundred
pounds by a profusion of six. Besides, Sir, whilst you leave a supply of
unsecured money behind, wholly at the discretion of ministers, they make
up the tax to such places as they wish to favor, or in such new places as they
may choose to create. Thus the civil list becomes oppressed with debt; and
the public is obliged to repay, and to repay with an heavy interest, what it
has taken by an injudicious tax. Such has been the effect of the taxes
hitherto laid on pensions and employments, and it is no encouragement to
recur again to the same expedient.

In effect, such a scheme is not calculated to produce, but to prevent
reformation. It holds out a shadow of present gain to a greedy and
necessitous public, to divert their attention from those abuses which in
reality are the great causes of their wants. It is a composition to stay
inquiry; it is a fine paid by mismanagement for the renewal of its lease;
what is worse, it is a fine paid by industry and merit for an indemnity to the
idle and the worthless. But I shall say no more upon this topic, because
(whatever may be given out to the contrary) I know that the noble lord in
the blue ribbon perfectly agrees with me in these sentiments.

After all that I have said on this subject, I am so sensible that it is our
duty to try everything which may contribute to the relief of the nation, that I
do not attempt wholly to reprobate the idea even of a tax. Whenever, Sir, the
incumbrance of useless office (which lies no less a dead weight upon the
service of the state than upon its revenues) shall be removed,—when the
remaining offices shall be classed according to the just proportion of their
rewards and services, so as to admit the application of an equal rule to their
taxation,—when the discretionary power over the civil list cash shall be so
regulated that a minister shall no longer have the means of repaying with a
private what is taken by a public hand,—if, after all these preliminary
regulations, it should be thought that a tax on places is an object worthy of
the public attention, I shall be very ready to lend my hand to a reduction of
their emoluments.

Having thus, Sir, not so much absolutely rejected as postponed the plan
of a taxation of office, my next business was to find something which might
be really substantial and effectual. I am quite clear, that, if we do not go to
the very origin and first ruling cause of grievances, we do nothing. What
does it signify to turn abuses out of one door, if we are to let them in at
another? What does it signify to promote economy upon a measure, and to
suffer it to be subverted in the principle? Our ministers are far from being
wholly to blame for the present ill order which prevails. Whilst institutions
directly repugnant to good management are suffered to remain, no effectual
or lasting reform can be introduced.

I therefore thought it necessary, as soon as I conceived thoughts of
submitting to you some plan of reform, to take a comprehensive view of the
state of this country,—to make a sort of survey of its jurisdictions, its
estates, and its establishments. Something in every one of them seemed to
me to stand in the way of all economy in their administration, and
prevented every possibility of methodizing the system. But being, as I ought

to be, doubtful of myself, I was resolved not to proceed in an arbitrary
manner in any particular which tended to change the settled state of things,
or in any degree to affect the fortune or situation, the interest or the
importance, of any individual. By an arbitrary proceeding I mean one
conducted by the private opinions, tastes, or feelings of the man who
attempts to regulate. These private measures are not standards of the
exchequer, nor balances of the sanctuary. General principles cannot be
debauched or corrupted by interest or caprice; and by those principles I was
resolved to work.

Sir, before I proceed further, I will lay these principles fairly before you,
that afterwards you may be in a condition to judge whether every object of
regulation, as I propose it, comes fairly under its rule. This will exceedingly
shorten all discussion between us, if we are perfectly in earnest in
establishing a system of good management. I therefore lay down to myself
seven fundamental rules: they might, indeed, be reduced to two or three
simple maxims; but they would be too general, and their application to the
several heads of the business before us would not be so distinct and visible.
I conceive, then,

First, That all jurisdictions which furnish more matter of expense,
more temptation to oppression, or more means and instruments of
corrupt influence, than advantage to justice or political
administration, ought to be abolished.

Secondly, That all public estates which are more subservient to the
purposes of vexing, overawing, and influencing those who hold
under them, and to the expense of perception and management, than
of benefit to the revenue, ought, upon every principle both of
revenue and of freedom, to be disposed of.

Thirdly, That all offices which bring more charge than proportional
advantage to the state, that all offices which may be engrafted on
others, uniting and simplifying their duties, ought, in the first case,
to be taken away, and, in the second, to be consolidated.

Fourthly, That all such offices ought to be abolished as obstruct the
prospect of the general superintendent of finance, which destroy his
superintendency, which disable him from foreseeing and providing
for charges as they may occur, from preventing expense in its origin,
checking it in its progress, or securing its application to its proper
purposes. A minister, under whom expenses can be made without
his knowledge, can never say what it is that he can spend, or what it
is that he can save.

Fifthly, That it is proper to establish an invariable order in all
payments, which will prevent partiality, which will give preference
to services, not according to the importunity of the demandant, but
the rank and order of their utility or their justice.

Sixthly, That it is right to reduce every establishment and every part
of an establishment (as nearly as possible) to certainty, the life of all
order and good management.

Seventhly, That all subordinate treasuries, as the nurseries of
mismanagement, and as naturally drawing to themselves as much
money as they can, keeping it as long as they can, and accounting
for it as late as they can, ought to be dissolved. They have a
tendency to perplex and distract the public accounts, and to excite a
suspicion of government even beyond the extent of their abuse.

Under the authority and with the guidance of those principles I proceed,
—wishing that nothing in any establishment may be changed, where I am
not able to make a strong, direct, and solid application of those principles,
or of some one of them. An economical constitution is a necessary basis for
an economical administration.

First, with regard to the sovereign jurisdictions, I must observe, Sir, that
whoever takes a view of this kingdom in a cursory manner will imagine that
he beholds a solid, compacted, uniform system of monarchy, in which all
inferior jurisdictions are but as rays diverging from one centre. But on
examining it more nearly, you find much eccentricity and confusion. It is
not a monarchy in strictness. But, as in the Saxon times this country was an
heptarchy, it is now a strange sort of pentarchy. It is divided into five
several distinct principalities, besides the supreme. There is, indeed, this
difference from the Saxon times,—that, as in the itinerant exhibitions of the
stage, for want of a complete company, they are obliged to throw a variety
of parts on their chief performer, so our sovereign condescends himself to
act not only the principal, but all the subordinate parts in the play. He
condescends to dissipate the royal character, and to trifle with those light,
subordinate, lacquered sceptres in those hands that sustain the ball

representing the world, or which wield the trident that commands the ocean.
Cross a brook, and you lose the King of England; but you have some
comfort in coming again under his Majesty, though "shorn of his beams,"
and no more than Prince of Wales. Go to the north, and you find him
dwindled to a Duke of Lancaster; turn to the west of that north, and he pops
upon you in the humble character of Earl of Chester. Travel a few miles on,
the Earl of Chester disappears, and the king surprises you again as Count
Palatine of Lancaster. If you travel beyond Mount Edgecombe, you find
him ones more in his incognito, and he is Duke of Cornwall. So that, quite
fatigued and satiated with this dull variety, you are infinitely refreshed
when you return to the sphere of his proper splendor, and behold your
amiable sovereign in his true, simple, undisguised, native character of
Majesty.

In every one of these five principalities, duchies, palatinates, there is a
regular establishment of considerable expense and most domineering
influence. As his Majesty submits to appear in this state of subordination to
himself, his loyal peers and faithful commons attend his royal
transformations, and are not so nice as to refuse to nibble at those crumbs of
emoluments which console their petty metamorphoses. Thus every one of
those principalities has the apparatus of a kingdom for the jurisdiction over
a few private estates, and the formality and charge of the Exchequer of
Great Britain for collecting the rents of a country squire. Cornwall is the
best of them; but when you compare the charge with the receipt, you will
find that it furnishes no exception to the general rule. The Duchy and
County Palatine of Lancaster do not yield, as I have reason to believe, on an
average of twenty years, four thousand pounds a year clear to the crown. As
to Wales, and the County Palatine of Chester, I have my doubts whether
their productive exchequer yields any returns at all. Yet one may say, that
this revenue is more faithfully applied to its purposes than any of the rest;

as it exists for the sole purpose of multiplying offices and extending
influence.

An attempt was lately made to improve this branch of local influence,
and to transfer it to the fund of general corruption. I have on the seat behind
me the constitution of Mr. John Probert, a knight-errant dubbed by the
noble lord in the blue ribbon, and sent to search for revenues and
adventures upon the mountains of Wales. The commission is remarkable,
and the event not less so. The commission sets forth, that, "upon a report of
the deputy-auditor" (for there is a deputy-auditor) "of the Principality of
Wales, it appeared that his Majesty's land revenues in the said principality
are greatly diminished";—and "that upon a report of the surveyor-general
of his Majesty's land revenues, upon a memorial of the auditor of his
Majesty's revenues, within the said principality, that his mines and forests
have produced very little profit either to the public revenue or to
individuals";—and therefore they appoint Mr. Probert, with a pension of
three hundred pounds a year from the said principality, to try whether he
can make anything more of that very little which is stated to be so greatly
diminished. "A beggarly account of empty boxes." And yet, Sir, you will
remark, that this diminution from littleness (which serves only to prove the
infinite divisibility of matter) was not for want of the tender and officious
care (as we see) of surveyors general and surveyors particular, of auditors
and deputy-auditors,—not for want of memorials, and remonstrances, and
reports, and commissions, and constitutions, and inquisitions, and pensions.

Probert, thus armed, and accoutred,—and paid,—proceeded on his
adventure; but he was no sooner arrived on the confines of Wales than all
Wales was in arms to meet him. That nation is brave and full of spirit. Since
the invasion of King Edward, and the massacre of the bards, there never
was such a tumult and alarm and uproar through the region of Prestatyn.
Snowdon shook to its base; Cader-Idris was loosened from its foundations.

The fury of litigious war blew her horn on the mountains. The rocks poured
down their goatherds, and the deep caverns vomited out their miners.
Everything above ground and everything under ground was in arms.

In short, Sir, to alight from my Welsh Pegasus, and to come to level
ground, the Preux Chevalier Probert went to look for revenue, like his
masters upon other occasions, and, like his masters, he found rebellion. But
we were grown cautious by experience. A civil war of paper might end in a
more serious war; for now remonstrance met remonstrance, and memorial
was opposed to memorial. The wise Britons thought it more reasonable that
the poor, wasted, decrepit revenue of the principality should die a natural
than a violent death. In truth, Sir, the attempt was no less an affront upon
the understanding of that respectable people than it was an attack on their
property. They chose rather that their ancient, moss-grown castles should
moulder into decay, under the silent touches of time, and the slow formality
of an oblivious and drowsy exchequer, than that they should be battered
down all at once by the lively efforts of a pensioned engineer. As it is the
fortune of the noble lord to whom the auspices of this campaign belonged
frequently to provoke resistance, so it is his rule and nature to yield to that
resistance in all cases whatsoever. He was true to himself on this occasion.
He submitted with spirit to the spirited remonstrances of the Welsh. Mr.
Probert gave up his adventure, and keeps his pension; and so ends "the
famous history of the revenue adventures of the bold Baron North and the
good Knight Probert upon the mountains of Venodotia."

In such a state is the exchequer of Wales at present, that, upon the report
of the Treasury itself, its little revenue is greatly diminished; and we see, by
the whole of this strange transaction, that an attempt to improve it produces
resistance, the resistance produces submission, and the whole ends in
pension.[34]

It is nearly the same with the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster. To do
nothing with them is extinction; to improve them is oppression. Indeed, the
whole of the estates which support these minor principalities is made up,
not of revenues, and rents, and profitable fines, but of claims, of
pretensions, of vexations, of litigations. They are exchequers of unfrequent
receipt and constant charge: a system of finances not fit for an economist
who would be rich, not fit for a prince who would govern his subjects with
equity and justice.

It is not only between prince and subject that these mock jurisdictions
and mimic revenues produce great mischief. They excite among the people
a spirit of informing and delating, a spirit of supplanting and undermining
one another: so that many, in such circumstances, conceive it advantageous
to them rather to continue subject to vexation themselves than to give up the
means and chance of vexing others. It is exceedingly common for men to
contract their love to their country into an attachment to its petty
subdivisions; and they sometimes even cling to their provincial abuses, as if
they were franchises and local privileges. Accordingly, in places where
there is much of this kind of estate, persons will be always found who
would rather trust to their talents in recommending themselves to power for
the renewal of their interests, than to incumber their purses, though never so
lightly, in order to transmit independence to their posterity. It is a great
mistake, that the desire of securing property is universal among mankind.
Gaming is a principle inherent in human nature. It belongs to us all. I would
therefore break those tables; I would furnish no evil occupation for that
spirit. I would make every man look everywhere, except to the intrigue of a
court, for the improvement of his circumstances or the security of his
fortune. I have in my eye a very strong case in the Duchy of Lancaster
(which lately occupied Westminster Hall and the House of Lords) as my
voucher for many of these reflections.[35]

For what plausible reason are these principalities suffered to exist? When
a government is rendered complex, (which in itself is no desirable thing,) it
ought to be for some political end which cannot be answered otherwise.
Subdivisions in government are only admissible in favor of the dignity of
inferior princes and high nobility, or for the support of an aristocratic
confederacy under some head, or for the conservation of the franchises of
the people in some privileged province. For the two former of these ends,
such are the subdivisions in favor of the electoral and other princes in the
Empire; for the latter of these purposes are the jurisdictions of the Imperial
cities and the Hanse towns. For the latter of these ends are also the countries
of the States (Pays d'États) and certain cities and orders in France. These
are all regulations with an object, and some of them with a very good
object. But how are the principles of any of these subdivisions applicable in
the case before us?

Do they answer any purpose to the king? The Principality of Wales was
given by patent to Edward the Black Prince on the ground on which it has
since stood. Lord Coke sagaciously observes upon it, "That in the charter of
creating the Black Prince Edward Prince of Wales there is a great mystery:
for less than an estate of inheritance so great a prince could not have, and
an absolute estate of inheritance in so great a principality as Wales (this
principality being so dear to him) he should not have; and therefore it was
made sibi et heredibus suis regibus Angliæ, that by his decease, or attaining
to the crown, it might be extinguished in the crown."

For the sake of this foolish mystery, of what a great prince could not have
less and should not have so much, of a principality which was too dear to
be given and too great to be kept,—and for no other cause that ever I could
find,—this form and shadow of a principality, without any substance, has
been maintained. That you may judge in this instance (and it serves for the
rest) of the difference between a great and a little economy, you will please

to recollect, Sir, that Wales may be about the tenth part of England in size
and population, and certainly not a hundredth part in opulence. Twelve
judges perform the whole of the business, both of the stationary and the
itinerant justice of this kingdom; but for Wales there are eight judges. There
is in Wales an exchequer, as well as in all the duchies, according to the very
best and most authentic absurdity of form. There are in all of them a
hundred more difficult trifles and laborious fooleries, which serve no other
purpose than to keep alive corrupt hope and servile dependence.

These principalities are so far from contributing to the ease of the king, to
his wealth, or his dignity, that they render both his supreme and his
subordinate authority perfectly ridiculous. It was but the other day, that that
pert, factious fellow, the Duke of Lancaster, presumed to fly in the face of
his liege lord, our gracious sovereign, and, associating with a parcel of
lawyers as factious as himself, to the destruction of all law and order, and
in committees leading directly to rebellion, presumed to go to law with the
king. The object is neither your business nor mine. Which of the parties got
the better I really forget. I think it was (as it ought to be) the king. The
material point is, that the suit cost about fifteen thousand pounds. But as the
Duke of Lancaster is but a sort of Duke Humphrey, and not worth a groat,
our sovereign was obliged to pay the costs of both. Indeed, this art of
converting a great monarch into a little prince, this royal masquerading, is a
very dangerous and expensive amusement, and one of the king's menus
plaisirs, which ought to be reformed. This duchy, which is not worth four
thousand pounds a year at best to revenue, is worth forty or fifty thousand
to influence.

The Duchy of Lancaster and the County Palatine of Lancaster answered,
I admit, some purpose in their original creation. They tended to make a
subject imitate a prince. When Henry the Fourth from that stair ascended
the throne, high-minded as he was, he was not willing to kick away the

ladder. To prevent that principality from being extinguished in the crown,
he severed it by act of Parliament. He had a motive, such as it was: he
thought his title to the crown unsound, and his possession insecure. He
therefore managed a retreat in his duchy, which Lord Coke calls (I do not
know why) "par multis regnis." He flattered himself that it was practicable
to make a projecting point half way down, to break his fall from the
precipice of royalty; as if it were possible for one who had lost a kingdom
to keep anything else. However, it is evident that he thought so. When
Henry the Fifth united, by act of Parliament, the estates of his mother to the
duchy, he had the same predilection with his father to the root of his family
honors, and the same policy in enlarging the sphere of a possible retreat
from the slippery royalty of the two great crowns he held. All this was
changed by Edward the Fourth. He had no such family partialities, and his
policy was the reverse of that of Henry the Fourth and Henry the Fifth. He
accordingly again united the Duchy of Lancaster to the crown. But when
Henry the Seventh, who chose to consider himself as of the House of
Lancaster, came to the throne, he brought with him the old pretensions and
the old politics of that house. A new act of Parliament, a second time,
dissevered the Duchy of Lancaster from the crown; and in that line tilings
continued until the subversion of the monarchy, when principalities and
powers fell along with the throne. The Duchy of Lancaster must have been
extinguished, if Cromwell, who began to form ideas of aggrandizing his
house and raising the several branches of it, had not caused the duchy to be
again separated from the commonwealth, by an act of the Parliament of
those times.

What partiality, what objects of the politics of the House of Lancaster, or
of Cromwell, has his present Majesty, or his Majesty's family? What power
have they within any of these principalities, which they have not within
their kingdom? In what manner is the dignity of the nobility concerned in
these principalities? What rights have the subject there, which they have not

at least equally in every other part of the nation? These distinctions exist for
no good end to the king, to the nobility, or to the people. They ought not to
exist at all. If the crown (contrary to its nature, but most conformably to the
whole tenor of the advice that has been lately given) should so far forget its
dignity as to contend that these jurisdictions and revenues are estates of
private property, I am rather for acting as if that groundless claim were of
some weight than for giving up that essential part of the reform. I would
value the clear income, and give a clear annuity to the crown, taken on the
medium produce for twenty years.

If the crown has any favorite name or title, if the subject has any matter
of local accommodation within any of these jurisdictions, it is meant to
preserve them,—and to improve them, if any improvement can be
suggested. As to the crown reversions or titles upon the property of the
people there, it is proposed to convert them from a snare to their
independence into a relief from their burdens. I propose, therefore, to unite
all the five principalities to the crown, and to its ordinary jurisdiction,—to
abolish all those offices that produce an useless and chargeable separation
from the body of the people,—to compensate those who do not hold their
offices (if any such there are) at the pleasure of the crown,—to extinguish
vexatious titles by an act of short limitation,—to sell those unprofitable
estates which support useless jurisdictions,—and to turn the tenant-right
into a fee, on such moderate terms as will be better for the state than its
present right, and which it is impossible for any rational tenant to refuse.

As to the duchies, their judicial economy may be provided for without
charge. They have only to fall of course into the common county
administration. A commission more or less, made or omitted, settles the
matter fully. As to Wales, it has been proposed to add a judge to the several
courts of Westminster Hall; and it has been considered as an improvement
in itself. For my part, I cannot pretend to speak upon it with clearness or

with decision; but certainly this arrangement would be more than sufficient
for Wales. My original thought was, to suppress five of the eight judges;
and to leave the chief-justice of Chester, with the two senior judges; and, to
facilitate the business, to throw the twelve counties into six districts,
holding the sessions alternately in the counties of which each district shall
be composed. But on this I shall be more clear, when I come to the
particular bill.

Sir, the House will now see, whether, in praying for judgment against the
minor principalities, I do not act in conformity to the laws that I had laid to
myself: of getting rid of every jurisdiction more subservient to oppression
and expense than to any end of justice or honest policy; of abolishing
offices more expensive than useful; of combining duties improperly
separated; of changing revenues more vexatious than productive into ready
money; of suppressing offices which stand in the way of economy; and of
cutting off lurking subordinate treasuries. Dispute the rules, controvert the
application, or give your hands to this salutary measure.

Most of the same rules will be found applicable to my second object,—
the landed estate of the crown. A landed estate is certainly the very worst
which the crown can possess. All minute and dispersed possessions,
possessions that are often of indeterminate value, and which require a
continued personal attendance, are of a nature more proper for private
management than public administration. They are fitter for the care of a
frugal land-steward than of an office in the state. Whatever they may
possibly have been in other times or in other countries, they are not of
magnitude enough with us to occupy a public department, nor to provide for
a public object. They are already given up to Parliament, and the gift is not
of great value. Common prudence dictates, even in the management of
private affairs, that all dispersed and chargeable estates should be sacrificed
to the relief of estates more compact and better circumstanced.

If it be objected, that these lands at present would sell at a low market,
this is answered by showing that money is at a high price. The one balances
the other. Lands sell at the current rate; and nothing can sell for more. But
be the price what it may, a great object is always answered, whenever any
property is transferred from hands that are not fit for that property to those
that are. The buyer and seller must mutually profit by such a bargain; and,
what rarely happens in matters of revenue, the relief of the subject will go
hand in hand with the profit of the Exchequer.

As to the forest lands, in which the crown has (where they are not
granted or prescriptively held) the dominion of the soil, and the vert and
venison, that is to say, the timber and the game, and in which the people
have a variety of rights, in common of herbage, and other commons,
according to the usage of the several forests,—I propose to have those
rights of the crown valued as manorial rights are valued on an inclosure,
and a defined portion of land to be given for them, which land is to be sold
for the public benefit.

As to the timber, I propose a survey of the whole. What is useless for the
naval purposes of the kingdom I would condemn and dispose of for the
security of what may be useful, and to inclose such other parts as may be
most fit to furnish a perpetual supply,—wholly extinguishing, for a very
obvious reason, all right of venison in those parts.

The forest rights which extend over the lands and possessions of others,
being of no profit to the crown, and a grievance, as far as it goes, to the
subject,—these I propose to extinguish without charge to the proprietors.
The several commons are to be allotted and compensated for, upon ideas
which I shall hereafter explain. They are nearly the same with the principles
upon which you have acted in private inclosures. I shall never quit
precedents, where I find them applicable. For those regulations and

compensations, and for every other part of the detail, you will be so
indulgent as to give me credit for the present.

The revenue to be obtained from the sale of the forest lands and rights
will not be so considerable, I believe, as many people have imagined; and I
conceive it would be unwise to screw it up to the utmost, or even to suffer
bidders to enhance, according to their eagerness, the purchase of objects
wherein the expense of that purchase may weaken the capital to be
employed in their cultivation. This, I am well aware, might give room for
partiality in the disposal. In my opinion it would be the lesser evil of the
two. But I really conceive that a rule of fair preference might be established,
which would take away all sort of unjust and corrupt partiality. The
principal revenue which I propose to draw from these uncultivated wastes is
to spring from the improvement and population of the kingdom,—which
never can happen without producing an improvement more advantageous to
the revenues of the crown than the rents of the best landed estate which it
can hold. I believe, Sir, it will hardly be necessary for me to add, that in this
sale I naturally except all the houses, gardens, and parks belonging to the
crown, and such one forest as shall be chosen by his Majesty as best
accommodated to his pleasures.

By means of this part of the reform will fall the expensive office of
surveyor-general, with all the influence that attends it. By this will fall two
chief-justices in Eyre, with all their train of dependants. You need be under
no apprehension, Sir, that your office is to be touched in its emoluments.
They are yours by law; and they are but a moderate part of the
compensation which is given to you for the ability with which you execute
an office of quite another sort of importance: it is far from overpaying your
diligence, or more than sufficient for sustaining the high rank you stand in
as the first gentleman of England. As to the duties of your chief-justiceship,
they are very different from those for which you have received the office.

Your dignity is too high for a jurisdiction over wild beasts, and your
learning and talents too valuable to be wasted as chief-justice of a desert. I
cannot reconcile it to myself, that you, Sir, should be stuck up as a useless
piece of antiquity.

I have now disposed of the unprofitable landed estates of the crown, and
thrown them into the mass of private property; by which they will come,
through the course of circulation, and through the political secretions of the
state, into our better understood and better ordered revenues.

I come next to the great supreme body of the civil government itself. I
approach it with that awe and reverence with which a young physician
approaches to the cure of the disorders of his parent. Disorders, Sir, and
infirmities, there are,—such disorders, that all attempts towards method,
prudence, and frugality will be perfectly vain, whilst a system of confusion
remains, which is not only alien, but adverse to all economy; a system
which is not only prodigal in its very essence, but causes everything else
which belongs to it to be prodigally conducted.

It is impossible, Sir, for any person to be an economist, where no order in
payments is established; it is impossible for a man to be an economist, who
is not able to take a comparative view of his means and of his expenses for
the year which lies before him; it is impossible for a man to be an
economist, under whom various officers in their several departments may
spend—even just what they please,—and often with an emulation of
expense, as contributing to the importance, if not profit of their several
departments. Thus much is certain: that neither the present nor any other
First Lord of the Treasury has been ever able to take a survey, or to make
even a tolerable guess, of the expenses of government for any one year, so
as to enable him with the least degree of certainty, or even probability, to
bring his affairs within compass. Whatever scheme may be formed upon