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.
virtual representation, however ample, to be totally
insufficient for the freedom of the inhabitants of territories that are so near, and comparatively so inconsiderable.
Edmund Burke
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 6onceded, they would instantly attack the
trade laws. These gentlemen are convinced that this
was the intention from the beginning, and the quar. .
rel 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 * 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
* Mr. Rice.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH - AMERICA. 143 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 * 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 counterguard 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
* Lord North.
? ? ? ? 144 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
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 convic*
tion 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 tliis 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 beithe 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.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 145 very best. It is not justifying your anger by their misconduct, but it is converting your ill-will into theor 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 rebely 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 AusVOL. II. 10
? ? ? ? 146 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH A MERICA. trian 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 Houseof 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
alt Ireland. Mark the consequence. English authority and English liberty had exactly the same
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 147
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 tlhe 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 e;xample. 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
? ? ? ? 148 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITA AMERICA.
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. T~his 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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 149'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 ineubus; 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
? ? ? ? 150 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 151
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,
alnd 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 ne 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
? ? ? ? 152 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
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
same 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 Americans
not as numerous? If we may trust the learned and
accurate Judge Barrington's account of North Wales,
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 153,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 colon'ies. Is America in rebellion? Wales was hardly yver 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, ChesI'ter, 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 neighbor-hood? 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 n'ot shortened; and there are often several means
? ? ? ? 154 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
to the same end. What Nature has disjoined in one,
way wisdom may unite in another. When we can-i
not 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? wha.
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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 155
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 s'id 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
? ? ? ? 156 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. '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 qun praecepit 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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITHE AMERICA. 157
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?
? ? ? ? 158 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
Is not the resolution of the noble lord in the blue rib.
and, 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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 159
some 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
teen 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,* a committee of this
House came to' the following resolution -
" Resolved, That it is the opinion of this commit* Journals of the House, Vol. XXV,
? ? ? ? 160 SPEECH' ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
tee, that it is just and reasonable, that the several provinces and colonies of Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island be reimbursed tile expenses they have been at in taking and securing to the crown of Great Britain the island of Cape
Breton and its dependencies. "
These expenses were immense for such colonies.
They were above 200,0001. sterling: money first
raised and advanced on their public credit.
On the 28th of January, 1756,* 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 a proper reward and encouragement. "
On the 3d of February, 1756,t 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 testi?
monies 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. -- 16thand 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.
* Journals of the House, Vol. XXVII. t Ibid.
? ? ? ? SPEECH, ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 161
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 le-;gally 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
whatyou 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
diisputes, one thing continually dinned in their ears:'that reason and justice demanded, that the Ameri-'cans, 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
ind fifty thousand a year. In fact, however, Mr
VOL. II. 11
? ? ? ? 162 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
Grenville was mistaken. The funds given for sink.
ing 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 am
plied? 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 silenit
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. "
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 163
This makes tile 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?
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 6onceded, they would instantly attack the
trade laws. These gentlemen are convinced that this
was the intention from the beginning, and the quar. .
rel 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 * 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
* Mr. Rice.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH - AMERICA. 143 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 * 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 counterguard 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
* Lord North.
? ? ? ? 144 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
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 convic*
tion 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 tliis 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 beithe 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.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 145 very best. It is not justifying your anger by their misconduct, but it is converting your ill-will into theor 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 rebely 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 AusVOL. II. 10
? ? ? ? 146 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH A MERICA. trian 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 Houseof 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
alt Ireland. Mark the consequence. English authority and English liberty had exactly the same
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 147
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 tlhe 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 e;xample. 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
? ? ? ? 148 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITA AMERICA.
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. T~his 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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 149'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 ineubus; 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
? ? ? ? 150 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 151
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,
alnd 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 ne 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
? ? ? ? 152 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
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
same 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 Americans
not as numerous? If we may trust the learned and
accurate Judge Barrington's account of North Wales,
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 153,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 colon'ies. Is America in rebellion? Wales was hardly yver 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, ChesI'ter, 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 neighbor-hood? 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 n'ot shortened; and there are often several means
? ? ? ? 154 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
to the same end. What Nature has disjoined in one,
way wisdom may unite in another. When we can-i
not 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? wha.
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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 155
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 s'id 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
? ? ? ? 156 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. '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 qun praecepit 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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITHE AMERICA. 157
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?
? ? ? ? 158 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
Is not the resolution of the noble lord in the blue rib.
and, 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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 159
some 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
teen 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,* a committee of this
House came to' the following resolution -
" Resolved, That it is the opinion of this commit* Journals of the House, Vol. XXV,
? ? ? ? 160 SPEECH' ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
tee, that it is just and reasonable, that the several provinces and colonies of Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island be reimbursed tile expenses they have been at in taking and securing to the crown of Great Britain the island of Cape
Breton and its dependencies. "
These expenses were immense for such colonies.
They were above 200,0001. sterling: money first
raised and advanced on their public credit.
On the 28th of January, 1756,* 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 a proper reward and encouragement. "
On the 3d of February, 1756,t 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 testi?
monies 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. -- 16thand 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.
* Journals of the House, Vol. XXVII. t Ibid.
? ? ? ? SPEECH, ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 161
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 le-;gally 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
whatyou 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
diisputes, one thing continually dinned in their ears:'that reason and justice demanded, that the Ameri-'cans, 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
ind fifty thousand a year. In fact, however, Mr
VOL. II. 11
? ? ? ? 162 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
Grenville was mistaken. The funds given for sink.
ing 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 am
plied? 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 silenit
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. "
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This makes tile 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?
