But
hereafter they may be of some use to you, in some
future form which your commonwealth may take.
hereafter they may be of some use to you, in some
future form which your commonwealth may take.
Edmund Burke
They cannot raise supplies; but they can
? ? ? ? 552 REFLECTIONS ON THE
raise mobs. Let them rejoice in the applauses of the
club at Dundee for their wisdom and patriotism in
having thus applied the plunder of the citizens to the
service of the state. I hear of no address upon this
subject from the directors of the Bank of England, -
though their approbation would be of a little more
weight in the scale of credit than that of the club at
Dundee. But to do justice to the club, I believe the
gentlemen who compose it to be wiser than they appear, -that they will be less liberal of their money
than of their addresses, and that they would not give
a dog's ear of their most rumpled and ragged Scotch
paper for twenty of your fairest assignats.
Early in this year the Assembly issued paper to
the amount of sixteen millions sterling. What must
have been the state into which the Assembly has
brought your affairs, that the relief afforded by so
vast a supply has been hardly perceptible? This
paper also felt an almost immediate depreciation of
five per cent, which in a little time came to about
seven. The effect of these assignats on the receipt
of the revenue is remarkable. M. Necker found that
the collectors of the revenue, who received in coin,
paid the treasury in assignats. The collectors made
seven per cent by thus receiving in money, and accounting in depreciated paper. It was not very difficult to foresee that this must be inevitable. It was, however, not the less embarrassing. M. Necker was
obliged (I believe, for a considerable part, in the
market of London) to buy gold and silver for the
mint, which amounted to about twelve thousand
pounds above the value of the commodity gained.
That minister was of opinion, that, whatever their
secret nutritive virtue might be, the state could not
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 553
live upon assignats alone, - that some real silver was
necessary, particularly for the satisfaction of those
who, having iron in their hands, were not likely to
distinguish themselves for patience, when they should
perceive, that, whilst an increase of pay was held out
to them in real money, it was again to be fraudulently drawn back by depreciated paper. The minister, in this very natural distress, applied to the Assembly,
that they should order the collectors to pay in specie
what in specie they had received. It could not escape him, that, if the Treasury paid three per cent
for the use of a currency which should be returned
seven per cent worse than the minister issued it,
such a dealing could not very greatly tend to enrich
the public. The Assembly took no notice of his recommendation. They were in this dilemma: If they continued to receive the assignats, cash must become
an alien to their Treasury; if the Treasury should
refuse those paper amulets, or should discountenance
them in any degree, they must destroy the credit of
their sole resource. They seem, then, to have made
their option, and to have given some sort of credit
to their paper by taking it themselves; at the same
time, in their speeches, they made a sort of swaggering declaration, something, I rather think, above legislative competence, - that is, that there is no difference in value between metallic money and their assignats. This was a good, stout, proof article of
faith, pronounced under an anathema by the venerable fathers of this philosophic synod. Credat who will, - certainly not Judceus Apella.
A noble indignation rises in the minds of your
popular leaders, on hearing the magic-lantern in
their show of finance compared to the fraudulent
? ? ? ? 554 REFLECTIONS ON THE
exhibitions of Mr. Law. They cannot bear to hear
the sands of his Mississippi compared with the rock
of the Church, on which they build their system.
Pray let them suppress this glorious spirit, until they
show to the world what piece of solid ground there is
for their assignats, which they have not preoccupied
by other charges. They do injustice to that great
mother fraud, to compare it with their degenerate
imitation. It is not true that Law built solely on a
speculation concerning the Mississippi. He added the
East India trade; he added the African trade; he
added the farms of all the farmed revenue of France.
All these together unquestionably could not support
the structure which the public enthusiasm, not he,
chose to build upon these bases. But these were,
however, in comparison, generous delusions. They
supposed, and they aimed at, an increase of the commerce of France. They opened to it the whole range
of the two hemispheres. They did not think of feeding France from its own substance. A grand imagination found in this flight of commerce something to captivate. It was wherewithal to dazzle the eye of
an eagle. It was not made to entice the smell of a
mole, nuzzling and burying himself in his mother
earth, as yours is. Men were not then quite shrunk
from their natural dimensions by a degrading and
sordid philosophy, and fitted for low and vulgar deceptions. Above all, remember, that, in imposing on
the imagination, the then managers of the system
made a compliment to the freedom of men. In their
fraud there was Ino mixture of force. This was
reserved to our time, to quench the little glimmerings of reason which might break in upon the solid
darkness of this enlightened age.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 555
On recollection, I have said nothing of a scheme
of finance which may be urged in favor of the abilities of these gentlemen, and which has been introduced with great pomp, though not yet finally adopted in the National Assembly. It comes with something
solid in aid of the credit of the paper circulation;
and much has been said of its utility and its elegance. I mean the project for coining into money
the bells of the suppressed churches. This is their
alchemy. There are some follies which baffle argument, which go beyond ridicule, and which excite
no feeling in us but disgust; and therefore I say no
more upon it.
It is as little worth remarking any farther upon all
their drawing and re-drawing, on their circulation for
putting off the evil day, on the play between the
Treasury and the Caisse d'Escompte, and on all these
old, exploded contrivances of mercantile fraud, now
exalted into policy of state. The revenue will not be
trifled with. The prattling about the rights of men
will not be accepted in payment of a biscuit or a
pound of gunpowder. Here, then, the metaphysicians
descend from their airy speculations, and faithfully
follow examples. What examples? The examples
of bankrupts. But defeated, baffled, disgraced, when
their breath, their strength, their inventions, their
fancies desert them, their confidence still maintains
its ground. In the manifest failure of their abilities,
they take credit for their benevolence. When the revenue disappears in their hands, they have the presumption, in. some of their late proceedings, to value themselves on the relief given to the people. They
did not relieve the people. If they entertained such
intentions, why did they order the obnoxious taxes
? ? ? ? 556 REFLECTIONS ON THE
to be paid? The people relieved themselves, in spite
of the Assembly.
But waiving all discussion on the parties who may
claim the merit of this fallacious relief, has there been,
in effect, any relief to the people in any form? M.
Bailly, one of the grand agents of paper circulation,
lets you into the nature of this relief. His speech to
the National Assembly contained a high and labored
panegyric on the inhabitants of Paris, for the constancy and unbroken resolution with which they have borne their distress and misery. A fine picture of
public felicity! What! great courage and unconquerable firmness of mind to endure benefits and sustain redress? One would think, from thle speech
of this learned lord mayor, that the Parisians, for
this twelvemonth past, had been suffering the straits
of some dreadful blockade,- that Henry the Fourth
had been stopping up the avenues to their supply,
and Sully thundering with his ordnance at the gates
of Paris, --when in reality they are besieged by no
other enemies than their own madness and folly, their
own credulity and perverseness. But M. Bailly will
sooner thaw the eternal ice of his Atlantic regions
than restore the central heat to Paris, whilst it remains " smitten'with the cold, dry, petrific mace " of a false and unfeeling philosophy. Some time after this
speech, that is, on the thirteenth of last August, the
same magistrate, giving an account of his government
at the bar of the same Assembly, expresses himself as
follows: -" In the month of July, 1789," (the period
of everlasting commemoration,) "' the finances of the
city of Paris were yet in good order; the expenditure
was counterbalanced by the receipt, and she had at
that time a million [forty thousand pounds sterling]
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 557
fn bank. The expenses which she has been constrained to incur, subsequent to the Revolution, amount
to 2,500,000 livres. From these expenses, and the
great falling off in the product of the free gifts, not
only a momentary, but a total, want of money has
taken place. " This is the Paris upon whose nourishment, in the course of the last year, such immense
sums, drawn from the vitals of all France, have been
expended. As long as Paris stands in the place of
ancient Rome, so long she will be maintained by the
subject provinces. It is an evil inevitably attendant
on the dominion of sovereign democratic republics.
As it happened in Rome, it may survive that republican domination which gave rise to it. In that case
despotism itself must submit to the vices of popularity.
Rome, under her emperors, united the evils of both
systems; and this unnatural combination was one
great cause of her ruin.
To tell the people that they are relieved by the
dilapidation of their public estate is a cruel and
insolent imposition. Statesmen, before they valued
themselves on the relief given to the people by the
destruction of their revenue, ought first to have carefully attended to the solution of this problem:Whether it be more advantageous to the people to pay considerably and to gain in proportion, or to
gain little or nothing and to be disburdened of all
contribution? My mind is made up to decide in favor
of the first proposition. Experience is withi me, and,
I believe, the best opinions also. To keep a balance
between the power of acquisition on the part of the
subject and the demands he is to answer on the part
of the state is the fundamental part of the skill of a
true politician. The means of acquisition are prior
? ? ? ? 558 REFLECTIONS ON THE
in time and in arrangement. Good order is the
foundation of all good things. To be enabled to
acquire, the people, without being servile, must be
tractable and obedient. The magistrate must have
his reverence, the laws their authority. The body
of the people must not find the principles of natural
subordination by art rooted out of their minds. They
must respect that property of which they cannot partake. They must labor to obtain what by labor can
be obtained; and when they find, as they commonly
do, the success disproportioned to the endeavor, they
must be taught their consolation in the final proportions of eternal justice. Of this consolation whoever
deprives them deadens their industry, and strikes at
the root of all acquisition as of all conservation. He
that does this is the cruel oppressor, the merciless
enemy of the poor and wretched; at the same time
that by his wicked speculations he exposes the fruits
of successful industry and the accumulations of fortune to the plunder of the negligent, the disappointed, and the unprosperous. Too many of the financiers by profession are apt to
see nothing in revenue but banks, and circulations,
and annuities on lives, and tontines, and perpetual
rents, and all the small wares of the shop. In a settled order of the state, these things are not to be
slighted, nor is the skill in them to be held of trivial
estimation. They are good, but then only good when
they assume the effects of that settled order, and
are built upon it. But when men think that these
beggarly contrivances may supply a resource for the
evils which result from breaking up the foundations of public order, and from causing or suffering
the principles of property to be subverted, they will,
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 559
m the ruin of their country, leave a melancholy and
lasting monument of the effect of preposterous politics, and presumptuous, short-sighted, narrow-minded
wisdom.
The effects of the incapacity shown by the popular leaders in all the great members of the commonwealth are to be covered with the " all-atoning name" of Liberty. In some people I see great liberty,
indeed; in many, if not in the most, an oppressive,
degrading servitude. But what is liberty without
wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of
all possible evils; for it is folly, vice,' and madness,
without tuition or restraint. Those who know what
virtuous liberty is cannot bear to see it disgraced
by incapable heads, on account of their having highsounding words in their mouths. Grand, swelling
sentiments of liberty I am sure I do not despise.
They warm the heart; they enlarge and liberalize
our minds; they animate our courage in a time of
conflict. Old as I am, I read the fine raptures of
Lucan and Corneille with pleasure. Neither do I
wholly condemn the little arts and devices of popularity. They facilitate the carrying of many points
of moment; they keep the people together; they
refresh the mind in its exertions; and they diffuse
occasional gayety over the severe brow of moral
freedom. Every politician ought to sacrifice to the
Graces, and to join compliance with reason. But
in such an undertaking as that in France all these
subsidiary sentiments and artifices are of little avail.
To make a government requires no great prudence.
Settle the seat of power, teach obedience, and the
work is done. To give freedom is still more easy.
It is not necessary to guide; it only requires to let
? ? ? ? 560 REFLECTIONS ON THE
go the rein. But to form a free government, that is,
to temper together these opposite elements of liberty
and restraint in one consistent work, requires much
thought, deep reflection, a sagacious, powerful, and
combining mind. This I do not find in those who
take the lead in the National Assembly. Perhaps
they are not so miserably deficient as they appear.
I rather believe it. It would put them below the
common level of human understanding. But when
the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an
auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will
become flatterers instead of legislators, --the instruments, not the guides of the people. If any of them
should happen to propose a scheme of liberty soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he
will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who
will produce something more splendidly popular.
Suspicions will be raised of his fidelity to his cause.
Moderation will be stigmatized as the virtue of cowards, and compromise as the prudence of traitors,until, in hopes of preserving the credit which may enable him to temper and moderate on some occasions, the popular leader is obliged to become active
in propagating doctrines and establishing powers that
will afterwards defeat any sober purpose at which he
ultimately might have aimed.
But am I so unreasonable as to see nothing at all
that deserves commendation in the indefatigable labors of this Assembly? I do not deny, that, among
an infinite number of acts of violence and folly, some
good may have been done. They who destroy everything certainly will remove some grievance. They
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 561
who make everything new have a chance that they
may establish something beneficial. To give them
credit for what they have done in virtue of the authority they have usurped, or to excuse them in the
crimes by which that authority has been acquired, it
must appear that the same things could not have
been accomplished without producing such a revolution. Most assuredly they might; because almost
every one of the regulations made by them, which is
not very equivocal, was either in the cession of the
king, voluntarily made at the meeting of the States,
or in the concurrent instructions to the orders.
Some usages have been abolished on just grounds;
but they were such, that, if they had stood as they
were to all eternity, they would little detract from
the happiness and prosperity of any state. The im,
rpyemet of th e National Assembly are superi cial,
their errors fundameit4a4-,, l
Whatever they are, I wish my countrymen rather
to recommend to our neighbors the example of the
British Constitution than to take models from them
for the improvement of our own. In the former they
have _t an invaluable treasure. They are not, I
think, without some causes of apprehension and complaint; but these they do not owe to their Constitution, but to their own conduct. I think our happy situation owing to our Constitution, - but owing to the whole of it, and not to any part singly, - owing in a
great measure to what we have left standing in oui
several reviews and reformations, as well as to what
we have altered or superadded. Our people will find
employment enough for a truly patriotic, free, and
independent spirit, in guarding what they possess
from violation. I would not exclude alteration neiVOL. III. 36
? ? ? ? 562 REFLECTIONS ON THE
ther; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve. I should be led to my remedy by a great grievance. In what I did, I should follow the example of our ancestors. I would make the reparation
as nearly as possible in the style of the building. A
politic caution, a guarded circumspection, a moral
rather than a complexional timidity, were among the
ruling principles of our forefathers in their most
decided conduct. Not being illuminated with the
light of which the gentlemen of France tell us they
have got so abundant a share, they acted under a
strong impression of the ignorance and fallibility of
mankind. He that had made them thus fallible rewarded them for having in their conduct attended to their nature. Let us imitate their caution, if we wish
to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests.
Let us add, if we please, but let us preserve what
they have left; and standing on the firm ground of
the British Constitution, let us be satisfied to admire,
rather than attempt to follow in their desperate-flights,
the aeronauts'of Frances er fg. . I hav'e"told you candidly my sentiments. I think
they are not likely to alter yours. I do not know
that they ought. You are young; you cannot guide,
but must follow, the fortune of your country.
But
hereafter they may be of some use to you, in some
future form which your commonwealth may take.
In the present it can hardly remain; but before its
final settlement, it may be obliged to pass, as one of
our poets says, " through great varieties of untried being," and in all its transmigrations to be purified by fire and blood.
I have little to recommend my opinions but long
observation and much impartiality. They come from
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 563
one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of
greatness, and who in his last acts does not wish to
belie the tenor of his life. They come from one almost the whole of whose public exertion has been a struggle for the liberty of others, - from one in whose
breast no anger durable or vehement has ever been
kindled but by what he considered as tyranny, and
who snatches from his share in the endeavors which
are used by good men to discredit opulent oppression
the hours he has employed on your affairs, and who
in so doing persuades himself he has not departed
from his usual office. They come from one who desires honors, distinctions, and emoluments but little, and who expects them not at all, -who has no con
tempt for fame, and no fear of obloquy, - who shuns
contention, though he will hazard an opinion; from
one who wishes to preserve consistency, but who
would preserve consistency by varying his means to
secure the unity of his end, - and, when the equipoise
of the vessel in which he sails may be endangered by
overloading it upon one side, is desirous of carrying
the small weight of his reasons to that which may
preserve its equipoise.
END OF VOL. III.
? ? ? The works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke.
Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797.
Boston : Little, Brown, and company, 1869.
http://hdl. handle. net/2027/miun. aba1206. 0002. 001
Public Domain
http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
We have determined this work to be in the public domain, meaning that it is not subject to copyright. Users are free to copy, use, and redistribute the work in part or in whole. It is possible that current copyright holders, heirs or the estate of the authors of individual portions of the work, such as illustrations or photographs, assert copyrights over these portions. Depending on the nature of subsequent use that is made, additional rights may need to be obtained independently of anything we can address.
? ? ? THE
WO RKS
OF
THE RIGHT HONORABLE
ED MUND BURKE.
THIRD EDITION.
VOL. II.
BOSTON:
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. I869.
? ? ? ? CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
PAGH
SPEECH ON AMERICAN TAXATION, April 19, 1774 1
SPEECHES ON ARRIVAL AT BRISTOL AND AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE POLL, October 13 and November 3, 1774. 81
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
T wo LETTERS TO GENTLEMEN OF BRISTOL, ON THE BILLS
DEPENDING IN PARLIAMENT RELATIVE TO THE TRADE
OF IRELAND, April 23 and May 2, 1778. . . 247
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
IHOUSE OF COMMONIS, June 14, 1784. . ~. 537
136739
? ? ? ? SPEECH
ON
AMERICAN TAXATION. APRIL I9, 1774.
VOL. 11. 1
? ? ? ? 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 speechl 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
? ? ? ? 4 PREFACE.
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.
DuRnG' 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
hispresent: 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 * who
spoke last, that this subject is not new in this
House. :: Very disagreeably to this House, very un-': Charles Wolfran Cornwall, Esq. , lately appointed one of the
Lords of the Treasury.
? ? ? ? 6 SPEECH ON AMERICAN TAXATION.
fortunately 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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON AMERICAN TAXATION. 7
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 condemIns 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 delil)eration he recommends is diametrically opposite to
? ? ? ? 8 SPEECH ON'AMERICAN TAXATION.
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 un'pitied 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 par 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!
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON AMERICAN TAXATION. 9
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 theiformer Parliamentary revenue which subsisted
in that: country, or even anyone 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 is preamble, that it was expedient to raiso a
? ? ? ? 1IJ SPEECH ON AMERICAN TAXATION.
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: * " Condemning, as you do, the repeal of the Stamp Act, why do
youventure 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 no* Lord North, then Chancellor of the Exchequer.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON AMERICAN TAXATION. 11
ble 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.
? ? ? ? 552 REFLECTIONS ON THE
raise mobs. Let them rejoice in the applauses of the
club at Dundee for their wisdom and patriotism in
having thus applied the plunder of the citizens to the
service of the state. I hear of no address upon this
subject from the directors of the Bank of England, -
though their approbation would be of a little more
weight in the scale of credit than that of the club at
Dundee. But to do justice to the club, I believe the
gentlemen who compose it to be wiser than they appear, -that they will be less liberal of their money
than of their addresses, and that they would not give
a dog's ear of their most rumpled and ragged Scotch
paper for twenty of your fairest assignats.
Early in this year the Assembly issued paper to
the amount of sixteen millions sterling. What must
have been the state into which the Assembly has
brought your affairs, that the relief afforded by so
vast a supply has been hardly perceptible? This
paper also felt an almost immediate depreciation of
five per cent, which in a little time came to about
seven. The effect of these assignats on the receipt
of the revenue is remarkable. M. Necker found that
the collectors of the revenue, who received in coin,
paid the treasury in assignats. The collectors made
seven per cent by thus receiving in money, and accounting in depreciated paper. It was not very difficult to foresee that this must be inevitable. It was, however, not the less embarrassing. M. Necker was
obliged (I believe, for a considerable part, in the
market of London) to buy gold and silver for the
mint, which amounted to about twelve thousand
pounds above the value of the commodity gained.
That minister was of opinion, that, whatever their
secret nutritive virtue might be, the state could not
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 553
live upon assignats alone, - that some real silver was
necessary, particularly for the satisfaction of those
who, having iron in their hands, were not likely to
distinguish themselves for patience, when they should
perceive, that, whilst an increase of pay was held out
to them in real money, it was again to be fraudulently drawn back by depreciated paper. The minister, in this very natural distress, applied to the Assembly,
that they should order the collectors to pay in specie
what in specie they had received. It could not escape him, that, if the Treasury paid three per cent
for the use of a currency which should be returned
seven per cent worse than the minister issued it,
such a dealing could not very greatly tend to enrich
the public. The Assembly took no notice of his recommendation. They were in this dilemma: If they continued to receive the assignats, cash must become
an alien to their Treasury; if the Treasury should
refuse those paper amulets, or should discountenance
them in any degree, they must destroy the credit of
their sole resource. They seem, then, to have made
their option, and to have given some sort of credit
to their paper by taking it themselves; at the same
time, in their speeches, they made a sort of swaggering declaration, something, I rather think, above legislative competence, - that is, that there is no difference in value between metallic money and their assignats. This was a good, stout, proof article of
faith, pronounced under an anathema by the venerable fathers of this philosophic synod. Credat who will, - certainly not Judceus Apella.
A noble indignation rises in the minds of your
popular leaders, on hearing the magic-lantern in
their show of finance compared to the fraudulent
? ? ? ? 554 REFLECTIONS ON THE
exhibitions of Mr. Law. They cannot bear to hear
the sands of his Mississippi compared with the rock
of the Church, on which they build their system.
Pray let them suppress this glorious spirit, until they
show to the world what piece of solid ground there is
for their assignats, which they have not preoccupied
by other charges. They do injustice to that great
mother fraud, to compare it with their degenerate
imitation. It is not true that Law built solely on a
speculation concerning the Mississippi. He added the
East India trade; he added the African trade; he
added the farms of all the farmed revenue of France.
All these together unquestionably could not support
the structure which the public enthusiasm, not he,
chose to build upon these bases. But these were,
however, in comparison, generous delusions. They
supposed, and they aimed at, an increase of the commerce of France. They opened to it the whole range
of the two hemispheres. They did not think of feeding France from its own substance. A grand imagination found in this flight of commerce something to captivate. It was wherewithal to dazzle the eye of
an eagle. It was not made to entice the smell of a
mole, nuzzling and burying himself in his mother
earth, as yours is. Men were not then quite shrunk
from their natural dimensions by a degrading and
sordid philosophy, and fitted for low and vulgar deceptions. Above all, remember, that, in imposing on
the imagination, the then managers of the system
made a compliment to the freedom of men. In their
fraud there was Ino mixture of force. This was
reserved to our time, to quench the little glimmerings of reason which might break in upon the solid
darkness of this enlightened age.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 555
On recollection, I have said nothing of a scheme
of finance which may be urged in favor of the abilities of these gentlemen, and which has been introduced with great pomp, though not yet finally adopted in the National Assembly. It comes with something
solid in aid of the credit of the paper circulation;
and much has been said of its utility and its elegance. I mean the project for coining into money
the bells of the suppressed churches. This is their
alchemy. There are some follies which baffle argument, which go beyond ridicule, and which excite
no feeling in us but disgust; and therefore I say no
more upon it.
It is as little worth remarking any farther upon all
their drawing and re-drawing, on their circulation for
putting off the evil day, on the play between the
Treasury and the Caisse d'Escompte, and on all these
old, exploded contrivances of mercantile fraud, now
exalted into policy of state. The revenue will not be
trifled with. The prattling about the rights of men
will not be accepted in payment of a biscuit or a
pound of gunpowder. Here, then, the metaphysicians
descend from their airy speculations, and faithfully
follow examples. What examples? The examples
of bankrupts. But defeated, baffled, disgraced, when
their breath, their strength, their inventions, their
fancies desert them, their confidence still maintains
its ground. In the manifest failure of their abilities,
they take credit for their benevolence. When the revenue disappears in their hands, they have the presumption, in. some of their late proceedings, to value themselves on the relief given to the people. They
did not relieve the people. If they entertained such
intentions, why did they order the obnoxious taxes
? ? ? ? 556 REFLECTIONS ON THE
to be paid? The people relieved themselves, in spite
of the Assembly.
But waiving all discussion on the parties who may
claim the merit of this fallacious relief, has there been,
in effect, any relief to the people in any form? M.
Bailly, one of the grand agents of paper circulation,
lets you into the nature of this relief. His speech to
the National Assembly contained a high and labored
panegyric on the inhabitants of Paris, for the constancy and unbroken resolution with which they have borne their distress and misery. A fine picture of
public felicity! What! great courage and unconquerable firmness of mind to endure benefits and sustain redress? One would think, from thle speech
of this learned lord mayor, that the Parisians, for
this twelvemonth past, had been suffering the straits
of some dreadful blockade,- that Henry the Fourth
had been stopping up the avenues to their supply,
and Sully thundering with his ordnance at the gates
of Paris, --when in reality they are besieged by no
other enemies than their own madness and folly, their
own credulity and perverseness. But M. Bailly will
sooner thaw the eternal ice of his Atlantic regions
than restore the central heat to Paris, whilst it remains " smitten'with the cold, dry, petrific mace " of a false and unfeeling philosophy. Some time after this
speech, that is, on the thirteenth of last August, the
same magistrate, giving an account of his government
at the bar of the same Assembly, expresses himself as
follows: -" In the month of July, 1789," (the period
of everlasting commemoration,) "' the finances of the
city of Paris were yet in good order; the expenditure
was counterbalanced by the receipt, and she had at
that time a million [forty thousand pounds sterling]
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 557
fn bank. The expenses which she has been constrained to incur, subsequent to the Revolution, amount
to 2,500,000 livres. From these expenses, and the
great falling off in the product of the free gifts, not
only a momentary, but a total, want of money has
taken place. " This is the Paris upon whose nourishment, in the course of the last year, such immense
sums, drawn from the vitals of all France, have been
expended. As long as Paris stands in the place of
ancient Rome, so long she will be maintained by the
subject provinces. It is an evil inevitably attendant
on the dominion of sovereign democratic republics.
As it happened in Rome, it may survive that republican domination which gave rise to it. In that case
despotism itself must submit to the vices of popularity.
Rome, under her emperors, united the evils of both
systems; and this unnatural combination was one
great cause of her ruin.
To tell the people that they are relieved by the
dilapidation of their public estate is a cruel and
insolent imposition. Statesmen, before they valued
themselves on the relief given to the people by the
destruction of their revenue, ought first to have carefully attended to the solution of this problem:Whether it be more advantageous to the people to pay considerably and to gain in proportion, or to
gain little or nothing and to be disburdened of all
contribution? My mind is made up to decide in favor
of the first proposition. Experience is withi me, and,
I believe, the best opinions also. To keep a balance
between the power of acquisition on the part of the
subject and the demands he is to answer on the part
of the state is the fundamental part of the skill of a
true politician. The means of acquisition are prior
? ? ? ? 558 REFLECTIONS ON THE
in time and in arrangement. Good order is the
foundation of all good things. To be enabled to
acquire, the people, without being servile, must be
tractable and obedient. The magistrate must have
his reverence, the laws their authority. The body
of the people must not find the principles of natural
subordination by art rooted out of their minds. They
must respect that property of which they cannot partake. They must labor to obtain what by labor can
be obtained; and when they find, as they commonly
do, the success disproportioned to the endeavor, they
must be taught their consolation in the final proportions of eternal justice. Of this consolation whoever
deprives them deadens their industry, and strikes at
the root of all acquisition as of all conservation. He
that does this is the cruel oppressor, the merciless
enemy of the poor and wretched; at the same time
that by his wicked speculations he exposes the fruits
of successful industry and the accumulations of fortune to the plunder of the negligent, the disappointed, and the unprosperous. Too many of the financiers by profession are apt to
see nothing in revenue but banks, and circulations,
and annuities on lives, and tontines, and perpetual
rents, and all the small wares of the shop. In a settled order of the state, these things are not to be
slighted, nor is the skill in them to be held of trivial
estimation. They are good, but then only good when
they assume the effects of that settled order, and
are built upon it. But when men think that these
beggarly contrivances may supply a resource for the
evils which result from breaking up the foundations of public order, and from causing or suffering
the principles of property to be subverted, they will,
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 559
m the ruin of their country, leave a melancholy and
lasting monument of the effect of preposterous politics, and presumptuous, short-sighted, narrow-minded
wisdom.
The effects of the incapacity shown by the popular leaders in all the great members of the commonwealth are to be covered with the " all-atoning name" of Liberty. In some people I see great liberty,
indeed; in many, if not in the most, an oppressive,
degrading servitude. But what is liberty without
wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of
all possible evils; for it is folly, vice,' and madness,
without tuition or restraint. Those who know what
virtuous liberty is cannot bear to see it disgraced
by incapable heads, on account of their having highsounding words in their mouths. Grand, swelling
sentiments of liberty I am sure I do not despise.
They warm the heart; they enlarge and liberalize
our minds; they animate our courage in a time of
conflict. Old as I am, I read the fine raptures of
Lucan and Corneille with pleasure. Neither do I
wholly condemn the little arts and devices of popularity. They facilitate the carrying of many points
of moment; they keep the people together; they
refresh the mind in its exertions; and they diffuse
occasional gayety over the severe brow of moral
freedom. Every politician ought to sacrifice to the
Graces, and to join compliance with reason. But
in such an undertaking as that in France all these
subsidiary sentiments and artifices are of little avail.
To make a government requires no great prudence.
Settle the seat of power, teach obedience, and the
work is done. To give freedom is still more easy.
It is not necessary to guide; it only requires to let
? ? ? ? 560 REFLECTIONS ON THE
go the rein. But to form a free government, that is,
to temper together these opposite elements of liberty
and restraint in one consistent work, requires much
thought, deep reflection, a sagacious, powerful, and
combining mind. This I do not find in those who
take the lead in the National Assembly. Perhaps
they are not so miserably deficient as they appear.
I rather believe it. It would put them below the
common level of human understanding. But when
the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an
auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will
become flatterers instead of legislators, --the instruments, not the guides of the people. If any of them
should happen to propose a scheme of liberty soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he
will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who
will produce something more splendidly popular.
Suspicions will be raised of his fidelity to his cause.
Moderation will be stigmatized as the virtue of cowards, and compromise as the prudence of traitors,until, in hopes of preserving the credit which may enable him to temper and moderate on some occasions, the popular leader is obliged to become active
in propagating doctrines and establishing powers that
will afterwards defeat any sober purpose at which he
ultimately might have aimed.
But am I so unreasonable as to see nothing at all
that deserves commendation in the indefatigable labors of this Assembly? I do not deny, that, among
an infinite number of acts of violence and folly, some
good may have been done. They who destroy everything certainly will remove some grievance. They
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 561
who make everything new have a chance that they
may establish something beneficial. To give them
credit for what they have done in virtue of the authority they have usurped, or to excuse them in the
crimes by which that authority has been acquired, it
must appear that the same things could not have
been accomplished without producing such a revolution. Most assuredly they might; because almost
every one of the regulations made by them, which is
not very equivocal, was either in the cession of the
king, voluntarily made at the meeting of the States,
or in the concurrent instructions to the orders.
Some usages have been abolished on just grounds;
but they were such, that, if they had stood as they
were to all eternity, they would little detract from
the happiness and prosperity of any state. The im,
rpyemet of th e National Assembly are superi cial,
their errors fundameit4a4-,, l
Whatever they are, I wish my countrymen rather
to recommend to our neighbors the example of the
British Constitution than to take models from them
for the improvement of our own. In the former they
have _t an invaluable treasure. They are not, I
think, without some causes of apprehension and complaint; but these they do not owe to their Constitution, but to their own conduct. I think our happy situation owing to our Constitution, - but owing to the whole of it, and not to any part singly, - owing in a
great measure to what we have left standing in oui
several reviews and reformations, as well as to what
we have altered or superadded. Our people will find
employment enough for a truly patriotic, free, and
independent spirit, in guarding what they possess
from violation. I would not exclude alteration neiVOL. III. 36
? ? ? ? 562 REFLECTIONS ON THE
ther; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve. I should be led to my remedy by a great grievance. In what I did, I should follow the example of our ancestors. I would make the reparation
as nearly as possible in the style of the building. A
politic caution, a guarded circumspection, a moral
rather than a complexional timidity, were among the
ruling principles of our forefathers in their most
decided conduct. Not being illuminated with the
light of which the gentlemen of France tell us they
have got so abundant a share, they acted under a
strong impression of the ignorance and fallibility of
mankind. He that had made them thus fallible rewarded them for having in their conduct attended to their nature. Let us imitate their caution, if we wish
to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests.
Let us add, if we please, but let us preserve what
they have left; and standing on the firm ground of
the British Constitution, let us be satisfied to admire,
rather than attempt to follow in their desperate-flights,
the aeronauts'of Frances er fg. . I hav'e"told you candidly my sentiments. I think
they are not likely to alter yours. I do not know
that they ought. You are young; you cannot guide,
but must follow, the fortune of your country.
But
hereafter they may be of some use to you, in some
future form which your commonwealth may take.
In the present it can hardly remain; but before its
final settlement, it may be obliged to pass, as one of
our poets says, " through great varieties of untried being," and in all its transmigrations to be purified by fire and blood.
I have little to recommend my opinions but long
observation and much impartiality. They come from
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 563
one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of
greatness, and who in his last acts does not wish to
belie the tenor of his life. They come from one almost the whole of whose public exertion has been a struggle for the liberty of others, - from one in whose
breast no anger durable or vehement has ever been
kindled but by what he considered as tyranny, and
who snatches from his share in the endeavors which
are used by good men to discredit opulent oppression
the hours he has employed on your affairs, and who
in so doing persuades himself he has not departed
from his usual office. They come from one who desires honors, distinctions, and emoluments but little, and who expects them not at all, -who has no con
tempt for fame, and no fear of obloquy, - who shuns
contention, though he will hazard an opinion; from
one who wishes to preserve consistency, but who
would preserve consistency by varying his means to
secure the unity of his end, - and, when the equipoise
of the vessel in which he sails may be endangered by
overloading it upon one side, is desirous of carrying
the small weight of his reasons to that which may
preserve its equipoise.
END OF VOL. III.
? ? ? The works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke.
Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797.
Boston : Little, Brown, and company, 1869.
http://hdl. handle. net/2027/miun. aba1206. 0002. 001
Public Domain
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? ? ? THE
WO RKS
OF
THE RIGHT HONORABLE
ED MUND BURKE.
THIRD EDITION.
VOL. II.
BOSTON:
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. I869.
? ? ? ? CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
PAGH
SPEECH ON AMERICAN TAXATION, April 19, 1774 1
SPEECHES ON ARRIVAL AT BRISTOL AND AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE POLL, October 13 and November 3, 1774. 81
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
T wo LETTERS TO GENTLEMEN OF BRISTOL, ON THE BILLS
DEPENDING IN PARLIAMENT RELATIVE TO THE TRADE
OF IRELAND, April 23 and May 2, 1778. . . 247
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
IHOUSE OF COMMONIS, June 14, 1784. . ~. 537
136739
? ? ? ? SPEECH
ON
AMERICAN TAXATION. APRIL I9, 1774.
VOL. 11. 1
? ? ? ? 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 speechl 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
? ? ? ? 4 PREFACE.
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.
DuRnG' 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
hispresent: 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 * who
spoke last, that this subject is not new in this
House. :: Very disagreeably to this House, very un-': Charles Wolfran Cornwall, Esq. , lately appointed one of the
Lords of the Treasury.
? ? ? ? 6 SPEECH ON AMERICAN TAXATION.
fortunately 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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON AMERICAN TAXATION. 7
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 condemIns 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 delil)eration he recommends is diametrically opposite to
? ? ? ? 8 SPEECH ON'AMERICAN TAXATION.
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 un'pitied 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 par 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!
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON AMERICAN TAXATION. 9
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 theiformer Parliamentary revenue which subsisted
in that: country, or even anyone 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 is preamble, that it was expedient to raiso a
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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: * " Condemning, as you do, the repeal of the Stamp Act, why do
youventure 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 no* Lord North, then Chancellor of the Exchequer.
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ble 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.
