We have experience that from remote
countries
it is not to be expected.
Edmund Burke
?
?
SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
169
ment and logical illation. We Englishmeir stop very
short of the principles upon which we support any
given part of our Constitution, or even the whole of
it together. I could easily, if I had not already tired
you, give you very striking and convincing instances
of it. This is nothing but what is natural and proper.
All government, indeed every human benefit and
enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act, is
founded on compromise and barter. We balance
inconveniences; we give and take; we remit some
rights, that we may enjoy others; and we choose
rather to be happy citizens than subtle disputants.
As we must give away some natural liberty, to enjoy,civil advantages, so we must sacrifice some civil lib-:erties, for the advantages to be derived from the commullion and fellowship of a great empire. But, in all fair dealings,the thing bought must bear some
proportion to the purchase paid. None will barter
away the immediate jewel of his soul. Though a
great: house is apt to make slaves haughty, yet it is. purchasing a part of the artificial importance of a. great empire too dear, to pay for it all essential rights,
and all the intrinsic dignity of human nature. None
6f'us who would not risk his life rather than fall
under a government purely arbitrary. But although
there are some amongst us who think our Constitution wants many improvements to make it a complete system of liberty, perhaps none who are of that
opinion would think it right to aim at such improvement by disturbing his country and risking everything that is dear to him. In every arduous enterprise,
we consider what we are to lose, as well as what we
are to gain; and the more and better stake of liberty
every people possess, the less they will hazard in a
? ? ? ? 170 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
vain attempt to make it more. These are the cordc
of man. Man acts from adequate motives relative to
his interest, and not on metaphysical speculations
Aristotle, the great master of reasoning, cautions us
and with great weight and propriety, against this spe
cies of delusive geometrical accuracy in moral argu
ments, a-sthe most fallacios-sof all sophistry.
The Americans will have no interest contrary to
the grandeur and glory of England, when they are
not oppressed by the weight of it; and they will
rather be inclined to respect the acts of a superintending legislature, when they see them the acts of that power which is itself the security, not the rival,
of their secondary importance. In this assurance my
mind most perfectly acquiesces, and I confess I feel
not the least alarm from the discontents which are to
arise from putting people at their ease; nor do I apprehend the destruction of this empire from giving, by an act of free grace and indulgence, to two millions of my fellow-citizens some share of those rights upon which I have always been taught to value myself.
It is said, indeed, that this power of granting, vested
in American assemblies, would dissolve the unity'of
the empire,-which was preserved entire, although
Wales, and Chester, and Durham were added to it.
Truly, Mr. Speaker, I do not know what this unity
means; nor has it ever been heard of, that I know.
in the constitutional policy of this country. The very
idea of subordination of parts excludes this notion of
simple and undivided unity. England is the head;
but she is not the head and the members too. Ireland has ever had from the beginning a separate, but not an independent legislature, which, far from dis
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 171
tracting, promoted the union of the whole. Everything was sweetly and harmoniously disposed through
both islands for the conservation of English dominion
and the communication of English liberties. I do not
see that the same principles might not be carried into
twenty islands, and. with the same good effect. This
is my model with regard to America, as far as the
internal circumstances of the. two'countries are the
same. I know no other unity of this empire than I
can draw from its example during these periods, when
it seemed to my poor understanding more united
than it is now, or than it is likely to be by the present,methods.
But since I speak of these methods, I recollect, Mr.
Speaker, almost too late, that I promised, before I finished, to say something of the proposition of the noble lord * on the floor, which has been so lately received, and stands on your journals. I must be
deeply concerned, whenever it is my misfortune to
continue a difference with the majority of this House. ,But as the reasons for that difference are my apology
for thus troubling you, suffer me to state them in a
very few words. I shall compress them into as small
a body as I possibly can, having already debated that
matter at large, when the question was before the
committee.
First, then, I cannot admit that proposition of a
ransom by auction, --because it is a mere project.
It is a thing new, unheard of, supported by no experience, justified by no analogy, without example
of our ancestors, or root in the Constitution. It is
neither regular Parliamentary taxation nor colony
grant. . Experimentum in corpore viii is a good rule,
* Lord North.
? ? ? ? :172 -SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. which will ever'make me adverse to any trial of ex periments on what is certainly the most valuable of all subjects, the peace of this empire.
Secondly, it is an experiment which must be fata
in the end to our Constitution. For what is it but a
scheme for taxing the colonies in the antechamber
of the noble lord and his successors? To settle the
quotas and proportions in this House is clearly impossible. You, Sir, may flatter yourself you shall sit
a state auctioneer, with your hammer in your hand,
and knock down to:each colony as it bids. But to
settle (on the plan laid down by the noble lord) the
true proportional payment for four or five and twenty
governments, according to the absolute and the relative wealth of each, and according to the British prom. portion of wealth and burden, is a wild and chimerical notion. This new taxation must therefore come
in by the back-door of the Constitution. Each quota
must be brought to this House ready formed. You
can neither add nor alter. You must register it.
You can do nothing further. For on what grounds
can you deliberate either before or after the proposDi
tion? You cannot hear the counsel for all thes'
provinces, quarrelling each on its own quantity of'
payment, and its proportion to others. If you should
attempt it, the Committee of Proviincial Ways and
Means, or by whatever other name it will delight to
be called, must swallow up all the time of Parliament.
Thirdly, it does not give satisfaction to the complaint of the colonies. They complain that they are
taxed without their consent. You answer, that you
will fix the sum at which they shall be taxed. That
is, you give them the very grievance for the remedy.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 173
You tell them, indeed, that you will leave the mode
to themselves. I really beg pardon; it gives me pain
to mention it; but you must be sensible that you will
not perform this part of the compact. For suppose'the. colonies were to lay the duties which furnished
their contingent upon' the importation of your manufactures; you know you would never suffer such a
tax to be laid. You know, -too, that you would not
suffer many other modes of taxation. So that, when
you come to'explain yourself, it -will be found that
you will. neither leave to themselves the quantum nor
the mode, nor indeed anything. The whole is delusion, from one end to the other.
Fourthly, this method: of ransom by auction, unless
it be universally accepted, will plunge you into great
and inextricable difficulties. In what'year of our
Lord are the proportions of payments to be settled?
To say nothing of the impossibility that colony agents
should have general powers of taxing the colonies at
their discretion, consider, I implore you, that the
communication by special messages and orders between. these agents and their constituents on each variation of the case, when the parties come to contend together, and to dispute on their relative proportions,
will be a matter of delay, perplexity, and confusion,
that never can have an end.
If all the colonies do not appear at the outcry, what
is the condition of those assemblies who offer, by
themselves or. their agents, to tax themselves up to
your ideas of their proportion? The refractory colonies, who refuse all composition, will remain taxed
only to your old impositions, which, however grievous
in principle, are trifling as to production. The obedient colonies in this scheme are heavily taxed; the
? ? ? ? 174 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. refractory remain unburdened. What will you do? Will you lay new and heavier taxes by Parliament
on the disobedient? Pray consider in what way you can do it. You are perfectly convinced, that, in the way of taxing, you can do nothing but at the ports Now suppose it is Virginia that refuses to appear at your auction, while Maryland and North Carolina bid handsomely:for their ransom, and are taxed to your; quota, how will you put these colonies on a par'? Will you tax the tobacco of Virginia? If you do,
you give its death-wound to your English revenue at
home, and to one of the very greatestarticles of your
own foreign trade. If you tax the import of that rebellious colony, what do you tax but your own manufactures, or the goods of some other obedient and already well-taxed colony? Who has said one word
on this labyrinth of detail, which bewilders you more
and more as you enter into it? Who has presented,
who can present, you with a clew to lead you out of
it? I think, Sir, it is impossible that you should not
recollect that the colony bounds are so implicated in
one another (you know it by your other experiments
in the bill for prohibiting the New England fishery
that you can lay no possible restraints on almost any
of them which may not be presently eluded, if you do
not confound the innocent with the guilty, and burden those whom upon every principle you ought to
exonerate. He must be grossly ignorant of America,
who thinks, that, without falling into this confusion
of all rules of equity and policy, you can restrain any
single colony, especially Virginia and Maryland, the
central, and most important of them all.
Let it also be considered, that either in the present confusion you settle a permanent'contingent,
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 175 which will and must be trifling, and then you have no effectual revenue, -or you change the quota at every exigency, and then on every new repartition you will have a new quarrel.
Reflect besides, that, when you have fixed a quota
for every colony, you have not provided for prompt
and punctual payment. Suppose one, two, five, ten
years' arrears. You cannot issue a Treasury extent
against the failing colony. You must make new
Boston port bills, new restraining laws, new acts for
dragging men to England for trial. You must send
out new fleets, new armies. . All is to begin again.
From this day forward the empire is never to know
an hour's tranquillity. , An intestine fire will be kept
alive in the bowels of the colonies, which one time or
other must consume this whole empire. I allow, indeed, that the Empire of Germany raises her revenue and her troops by quotas and contingents; but the
revenue of the Empire and the army of the Empire. is
the worst revenue and the worst army in the world.
Instead of a standing revenue, you will therefore:have a perpetual quarrel. Indeed, the noble lord'Who proposed this project of a ransom by auction seemed himself to be of that opinion. His project
was rather designed for breaking the union of the
colonies than for establishing a revenue. He confessed he apprehended that his proposal would not
be to their taste. I say, this scheme of disunion seems,
to be at the bottom of the project; for I will not suspect that the noble lord meant nothing but merely
to delude the nation by an airy phantom which he
never intended to realize. But whatever his views
may be, as I propose the peace and union of the
colonies as the very foundation of my plan, it can
? ? ? ? 176 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
not accord with one whose foundation is perpetual
discord.
Compare the two. This I offer to give you is plain
and simple: the other full of perplexed and intricate mazes. This is mild: that harsh. This is found
by experience effectual for its purposes: the other is
a new project. This is universal: the other calculat
ed for certain coloniies only. This is immediate in
its conciliatory operation: the other remote, contingent, full of hazard. Mine is what becomes the digiity of a ruling people: gratuitous, unconditional, and not held out as matter of bargain and sale.
I have done my duty in proposing it to you. I have,
indeed, tired you by a long discourse; but this is
the misfortune of those to whose influence nothing
will be conceded, and who must win every inch of
their ground by argument. You have heard me with
goodness. May you decide with wisdom! For my
part, I feel my mind greatly disburdened by what I
have done to-day. I: have been the less fearful of
trying your patience, because on this subject I mean
to spare it altogether in future. I have this comfort,
- that, in every stage of the American affairs, I
have steadily opposed the measures that have produced the confusion, and may bring on the destruction, of this empire. I now go so far as to risk a proposal of my own. If I cannot give peace to my
country, I give it to my conscience.
But what (says the financier) is peace to us without money? Your plan gives us no revenue. - No!
But it does: for it secures to the subject the power
of REFUSAL,- the first of all revenues. Experience
is a cheat, and fact a liar, if this power in the subject, of proportioning his grant, or of not granting
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 177
at all, has not been found the richest mine of revenue
ever discovered by the skill or by the fortune of man.
It does not, indeed, vote you ~152,750: 11: 2fths,
nor any other paltry limited sum; but it gives the
strong-box itself, the fund, the bank, from whence only
revenues can arise amongst a people sensible of freedom: Posita luditur area. Cannot you in England,
cannot you at this time of day, cannot you, an House
of Commons, trust to the principle -which has raised
so mighty a revenue, and accumulated a debt of near
140 millions in this country? Is this principle to be
true in England and false everywhere else? Is it
not true in Ireland? Has it not hitherto been true
in the colonies? . Why should you presume, that, in
any country, a body duly constituted for any function will neglect to perform its duty, and abdicate its
trust? Such a presumption would go against all
government in all modes. But, in truth, this dread
of penury of supply from a free assembly has no
foundation in Nature. For first observe, that, besides
the desire which all men have naturally of supporting the honor of their own government, that sense of
dignity, and that security to property, which ever attends freedom, has a tendency to increase the stock:of the free. community. Most may be taken where most is accumulated. And what is the soil or climate where experience has not uniformly proved
that the voluntary flow of heaped-up plenty, bursting
from the weight of its own rich luxuriance, has ever
run with a more copious stream of revenue than
could be squeezed from the dry husks of oppressed
indigence by the straining of all the politic machinery in the world?
Next, we know that parties must ever exist in a
VOL. II. 12
? ? ? ? 178 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
free country. We know, too, that the emulations
of such parties, their contradictions, their reciprocal
necessities, their hopes, and their fears, must send
them all in their turns to him that holds the balance
of the state. The parties are the gamesters; but
government keeps the table, and is sure to be the
winner in the end. When this game is played, T
really think it is more to be feared that the people
will be exhausted than that government will not be
supplied. Whereas whatever is got by acts of absolute power ill obeyed because odious, or by contracts ill kept because constrained, will be narrow, feeble,
uncertain, and precarious.
"Ease would retract
Vows made in pain, as violent and void. "
I, for one, protest against compounding our demands: I declare against compounding, for a poor
limited sum, the immense, ever-growing, eternal debt
which is due to generous government from protected
freedom. And so may I speed in the great object I propose to you, as I think it would not only be an act of injustice, but would be the worst economy in the world,
to compel the colonies to a sum certain, either in the
way of ransom, or in the way of compulsory compact.
But to clear up my ideas on this subject, -- a
revenue from America transmitted hither. Do not
delude yourselves: you can never receive it, --no,
not a shilling.
We have experience that from remote countries it is not to be expected. If, when
you attempted to extract revenue from Bengal, you
were obliged to return in loan what you had taken in
imposition, what can you expect from North America? For, certainly, if ever there was a country qualified to produce wealth, it is India; or an in
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 179
*stitution fit for the transmission, it is the East India
Company. America has none of these aptitudes. If
America gives you taxable objects on which you lay
your duties here, and gives you at the same time a
surplus by a foreign sale of her commodities to pay
the duties on these objects which you tax at home,
she has performed her part to the British revenue.
But w. ith regard to her own internal establishments,
she may, I doubt not she will, contribute in moderation. I say in moderation; for she ought not to be permitted to exhaust herself. She ought to be
reserved to a war; the weight of which, with the
enemies that We are most likely to have, must be. considerable in her quarter of the globe. There she
may serve you, and serve you essentially.
For that service, for all service, whether of revenue, trade, or empire, my trust is in her interest in:the British Constitution. My hold of the colonies is
in the close affection which grows from common
names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges,
and equal protection. These are ties which, though
light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the
colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights
associated with your government, --they will cling
ind grapple to you, and no force under heaven
will be of power to tear them from their allegiance.
But let it be once understood that your government'nay be one thing and their privileges another, that;hese two things may exist without any mutual reation,- the cement is gone, the cohesion is loosendd, and everything hastens to decay and. dissolution. ks long as you have the wisdom to keep the sover-;ign authority of this country as the sanctuary of
iberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common
? ? ? ? 180 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of EnglaLnd
worship freedom, they will turn their faces towards
you. The more they multiply, the more friends you
will have; the more ardently they love liberty, the
more perfect will be their obedience. Slavery they
can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in
every soil. They may have it from Spain, they maw
have it from Prussia. But, until you become lost to
all feeling of your true interest and your natural dignity, freedom they can have from none but you.
This is the commodity of price, of which you have
the monopoly. This is the true Act of Navigation,
which binds to you the commerce of the colonies.
and through them secures to you the wealth of the
world. Deny them this participation of freedom, and
you break that sole bond which originally made, and
must still preserve, the unity of the empire. Do not
entertain so weak an imagination as that your registers and your bonds, your affidavits and your sufferances, your cockets and your clearances, are what form the great securities of your commerce. Do not
dream that your letters of office, and your instruct
tions, and your suspending clauses are the things
that hold together the great contexture of this mys,
terious whole. These things do not make your government. Dead instruments, passive tools as they
are, it is the spirit of the English communion thal
gives all their life and efficacy to them. It is the
spirit of the English Constitution,' which, infused
through the mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, in
vigorates, vivifies every part of the empire, ever
down to the minutest' member.
Is it not the same,virtue which does everything foi
us here in England? Do you imagine, then, that i
? ? ? ? SPEECH. ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 181
is the Land-Tax Act which raises your revenue?
that it is the annual vote in the Committee of Supply
which gives you your army? or that it is the' Mutiny Bill which inspires it with bravery and discipline? No! surely, no! It is the love of the people; it is
their attachment to their government, from the sense. of the deep stake they have in such a glorious instituLion, which gives you your army and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience without which
your army would be a base rabble and. your navy
nothing but rotten timber.
All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical to the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians who have no place among us: a sort of people who think that nothing exists but what is gross and material, --and who, therefore, far from being qualified to be directors of the great movement of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine. But to men truly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master principles, which in the opinion of such men as I have mentioned have no substantial existence, are in truth everything, and all in all. Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together. If we are conscious of our situation, and glow with zeal to fill our place as becomes our station and ourselves, we ought to auspicate all our public proceedings on America with the old warning of the Church, Sursurm corda! We ought to elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust to which the order of Providence has called us. By adverting to the dignity of this high calling our ancestors have tirned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire, and have made the most extensive and the only hon
? ? ? ? 182 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
orable conquests, not by destroying, but by promoting
the wealth, the number, the lhappiness of the human
race. Let us get an American revenue as we have
got an American empire. English privileges have
made it all that it is; English privileges alone will
make it all it can be.
In full confidence of this unalterable truth, I now
(quodfelix faustumque sit! ) lay the first stone of the
Temple of Peace; and I move you, -
"That the colonies and plantations of Great Britain in North America, consisting of fourteen separate governments, and containing two millions and upwards of free inhabitants, have not had the liberty and privilege of electing and sending any knights and
burgesses, or others, to represent them in the high
court of Parliament. "
Upon this resolution the previous question was
put and. carried: for the previous' question, 270;
against it, 78.
As the propositions were opened separately in the
body of the speech, the reader perhaps may wish to
see the whole of them together, in the form in which
they were moved for.
" MOVED,
"That the colonies and plantations of Great Brit-:
ain 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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 183
and burgesses, or others, to represent them in the
high court of Parliament. "
"That the said colonies and plantations have been
made liable to, and bounden by, several subsidies,
payments, rates, and taxes, given and granted by
Parliament, though the said colonies and plantations
have not their knights and burgesses in the said high
court of Parliament, of their own election, to represent the condition of their country; by lack whereof
they have been oftentimes touched and grieved by subsidies, given, granted, and assented to, in the said court, in a manner prejudicial to the common wealth, quietness,
rest, and peace of the subjects inhabiting within tha
same. "
"That, from the distance of the said colonies, and
from other circumstances, no method hath hitherto
been devised for procuring a representation in Parliamept for the said colonies. " " That each of the said colonies hath within itself
a body, chosen, in part or in the whole, by the freemen, freeholders, or other free inhabitants thereof, commonly called the General Assembly, or General
Court, with powers legally to raise, levy, and assess,
according to the several usages of such colonies, duties and taxes towards defraying all sorts of public services. " *
"That the said general assemblies, general courts,
or other bodies legally qualified as aforesaid, have at
sundry times freely granted several large subsidies
* The first four motions and the last had the previous question put on them. The others were negatived.
The words in Italics were, by an amendment that was carried, left out of the motion; which will appear in the journals, though it is not the practice to insert such amendments in the votes.
? ? ? ? 184 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
and public aids for his Majesty's service, according
to their abilities, when required thereto by letter
from one of his Majesty's principal Secretaries of
State; and that their right to grant the same, and
their cheerfulness and sufficiency in the said grants,
have been at sundry times acknowledged by Parliament. "
"That it hath been found by experience, that the
manner of granting the said supplies and aids by the
said general assemblies hath been more agreeable to
the inhabitants of the said colonies, and more beneficial and conducive to the public service, than the
mode of giving and granting aids and subsidies in
Parliament, to be raised and paid in the said colonies. "
"That it may be proper to repeal an act, made in
the seventh year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled,'An act for granting certain duties in the Iritish colonies and plantations in America; for allowing a drawback of the duties of customs, upon the exportation from this kingdom, of coffee and cocoa-nuts, of
the produce of the said colonies or plantations; for
discontinuing the drawbacks payable on China earthen ware exported to America; and for more effectually preventing the clandestine running of goods in the said colonies and plantations. '"
"That it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the
fourteenth year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled,'An act to discontinue, in such manner and
for such time as are therein mentioned, the landing
and discharging, lading or shipping, of goods, wares,
and merchandise, at the town and within the harbor
of Boston, in the province of Massachusetts Bay, in
North America. '"
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 185
"That it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the
fourteenth year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled,' An act for the impartial administration of justice, in the cases of persons questioned for any acts done *by them, in the execution of the law, or for the suppression of riots and tumults, in the province of the
Massachusetts Bay, in New England. '"
" That it may be proper to repeal an act, made in
the fourteenth year of the reign of his present Majesty,
intituled,' An act for thle better regulating the government of the province of the Massachusetts Bay, in
New England. "'"
" That it may he proper to explain and amend an
act, made in the thirty-fifth year of the reign of King
Henry the Eighth, intituled,' An act for the trial of
treasons committed out of the king's dominions. '"
"That, from the time when the general assembly; or general court, of any colony or plantation in
North America, shall have appointed, by act of assembly duly confirmed, a settled salary to the offices
of the chief justice and other judges of the superior,courts, it may be proper that the said chief justice
and other judges of the superior courts of such colony shall hold his and their office and offices during
their good behavior, and shall not be removed therefrom, but when the said removal shall be adjudged
by his Majesty in council, upon a hearing on complaint from the general assembly, or on a complaint
from the governor, or the council, or the house of
representatives, severally, of the colony in which the
said'chief justice and other judges have exercised the
said offices. ". "That it may be proper to regulate the courts of
admiralty or vice-admiralty, authorized by the 15th
? ? ? ? 186 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
chapter of the 4th George the Third, in such a
manner as to make the same more commodious to
those who sue or are sued in the said courts; and
to provide for the more decent maintenance of the judges of the same. "
? ? ? ? A
LETTER
TO
JOHN FARR AND JOHN HARRIS, ESQRS. , SHERIFFS OF THE CITY OF BRISTOL, ON THE
AFFAIRS OF AMERICA.
I 777.
? ? ? ? LETTER.
GfENTLEMEN, -- I have the honor of sending
you the two last acts which have been passed
with regard to the troubles in America. These acts
are similar to all the rest which have been made on
the same subject. They operate by the same principle, and they are derived from the very same policy. I think they complete the number of this sort of statutes to nine. It affords no matter for very pleasing reflection to observe that our subjects diminish as our
laws increase.
If I have the misfortune of differing with some of
my fellow-citizens on this great and arduous subject,
it is no small consolation to me that I do not differ
from you. With you I am perfectly united. We are
heartily agreed in our detestation of a civil war. We
have ever expressed the most unqualified disapprobation of all the steps which have led to it, and of all those which tend to prolong it. And I have no doubt
that we feel exactly the same emotions of grief and
shame on all its miserable consequences, whether
they appear, on the one side or the other, in the
shape of victories or defeats, of captures made fromthe English on the continent or from the English in these islands, of legislative regulations which subvert the liberties of our brethren or which under-. mine our own.
Of the first of these statutes (that for the letter of
? ? ? ? 190 LETTER TO THE SHERIFFS OF BRISTOL.
marque) I shall say little. Exceptionable as it may
be, and as I think it is in some particulars, it seems
the natural, perhaps necessary, result of the measures
we have taken and the situation we are in. The other
(for a partial suspension of the Habeas Corpus) appears to me of a much deeper malignity. During its
progress through the House of Commons, it has been
amended, so as to express, more distinctly than at first
it did, the avowed sentiments of those who framed it;
and the main ground of my exception to it is, because
it does express, and does carry into execution, purposes
which appear to me so contradictory to all the principles, not only of the constitutional policy of Great
Britain, but even of that species of hostile justice
which no asperity of war wholly extinguishes in the
minds of a civilized people.
It seems to have in view two capital objects: the
first, to enable administration to confine, as long as it
shall think proper, those whom that act is pleased to
qualify by the- name of pirates. Those so qualified I
understand to be the commanders and mariners of
such privateers and ships of war belonging to the
colonies as in the course of this unhappy contest may
fall into the hands of the crown. They are therefore
to be detained in prison, under the criminal description of piracy, to a future trial and ignominious punishment, whenever circumstances shall make it convenient to execute vengeance on them, under the color of that odious and infamous offence.
To this first purpose of the law I have no small
dislike, because the act does not (as all laws and all
equitable transactions ought to do) fairly describe its
object. The persons who make a naval war upon us,
in; consequence of the present troubles, may be rebels;
? ? ? ? LETTER TO THE SHERIFFS OF BRISTOL. 191
out to call and treat them as pirates is confounding
not only the natural distinction of things, but the
order of crimes,- which, whether by putting them
from a higher part of the scale to the lower or from
the lower to the higher, is never done without dangerously disordering the whole frame of jurisprudence. Though piracy may be, in the eye of the law, a less offence than treason, yet, as both are, in effect,
punished with the same death, the same forfeiture,
and the same corruption of blood, I never would take
from any fellow-creature whatever any sort of advantage which he may derive to his safety from the pity
of mankind, or to his reputation from their general
feelings, by degrading his offence, when I cannot soften his punishment. The general sense of mankind
tells me that those offences which may possibly arise
from mistaken virtue are not in the class of infamous
actions. Lord Coke, the oracle of the English law,
conforms to that general sense,where he says that
"those things which are of the highest criminality
may be of the least disgrace. " The act prepares a
sort of masked proceeding, not honorable to the justice of the kingdom, and by no means, necessary for
its safety. I cannot enter into it. If Lord Balmerino, in the last rebellion, had driven off the cattle of
twenty clans, I should have thought it would have
been a scandalous and low juggle, utterly unworthy
of the manliness of an English judicature, to have
tried him for felony as a stealer of cows.
Besides, I must honestly tell you that I could not
vote for, or countenance in any way, a statute which
stigmatizes with the crime of piracy these men whomI
an act of Parliament had previously put out of the
protection of the law. When the legislature of this
? ? ? ? 192 LETTER TO THE SHERIFFS OF BRISTOL.
kingdom had ordered all their ships and goods, for
the mere new-created offence of exercising trade, to
be divided as a spoil among the seamen of the navy,
-- to consider the necessary reprisal of an unhappy,
proscribed, interdicted people, as the crime of piracy,
would have appeared, in any other legislature than
ours, a strain of the most insulting and most unnatural cruelty and injustice. I assure you I never remember to have heard of anything like it in any time or country.
The second professed purpose of the act is to detain
in England for trial those who shall commit high treason in America.
That you may be enabled to enter into the true
spirit of the present law, it is necessary, Gentlemen, to
apprise you that there is an act, made so long ago as
in the reign of Henry the Eighth. before the existence
or thought of any English colonies in America, for
the trial in this kingdom of treasons committed out
of the realm. In the year 1769 Parliament thought
proper to acquaint the crown with their construction
of that act in a formal address, wherein they entreated
his Majesty to cause persons charged with high treason in America to be brought into this kingdom for
trial. By this act of Henry the Eighth, so construed
and so applied, almost all that is substantial and beneficial in a trial by jury is taken away from the subject
in the colonies. This is,,however, saying too little; for
to try a man under that act is, in effect, to condemn
him unheard. A person is brought hither in the
dungeon of a ship's hold; thence he is vomited into
a dungeon on land, loaded with irons, unfurnished
with money, unsupported by friends, three thousand
miles from all means of calling upon or confronting
? ? ? ? LETTER TO THE SHERIFFS OF. BRISTOL. 193
evidence, where no one local circumstance that tends
to detect perjury can possibly be judged of; - such
a person may be executed according to form, but he
can never be tried according to justice.
I therefore could never reconcile myself to the bill
I send you, which is expressly provided to remove all
inconveniences from the establishment of a mode of
trial which has ever appeared to me most unjust and
most unconstitutional. Far from removing the difficulties which impede the execution of so mischievous
a project, II would heap new difficulties upon it, if it
were in my power. All the ancient, honest, juridical
principles and institutions of England are so many
clogs to check and retard the headlong course of violence and oppression. They were invented for this
one good purpose, that what was not just should not
be convenient. Convinced of this, I would leave
things as I found them. The old, cool-headed, general law is as good as any deviation dictated by present heat. I could see no fair, justifiable expedience pleaded
to favor this new suspension of the liberty of the subject. If the English in the colonies can support the independency to which they have been unfortunately
driven, I suppose nobody has such a fanatical zeal for
the criminal justice of Henry the Eighth that he will
contend for executions which must be retaliated tenfold on his own friends, or who has conceived so
strange an idea of English dignity as to think the
defeats in America compensated by the triumphs at
Tyburn. If, on the contrary, the colonies are reduced to the obedience of the crown, there must be,
under that authority, tribunals in the country itself
frilly competent to administer justice on all offenders
VOL. II. 13
? ? ? ? 194 LETTER TO THE SHERIFFS OF BRISTOL.
But if there are not, and that we must suppose a:thing so humiliating to our government as that all
-this vast continent should unanimously concur in
thinking that no ill fortune. can convert resistance to
the royal authority into a criminal act, we may call
the effect of our victory peace, or obedience, or what
we will, but the war is not ended; the hostile mind
continues in full vigor, and it continues under a
worse form. If your peace be nothing more than a
sullen pause from arms, if their quiet be nothing but
the meditation of revenge, where smitten pride smarting from its wounds festers into new rancor, neither the act of Henry the Eighth nor its handmaid of this
reign will answer any wise end of policy or justice.
For, if the bloody fields which they saw and felt are
not sufficient to subdue the reason of America, (to
use the expressive phrase of a great lord in office,) it
is not. the judicial slaughter which is made in another
hemisphere against their universal sense of justice
that will ever reconcile them to the British government.
ment and logical illation. We Englishmeir stop very
short of the principles upon which we support any
given part of our Constitution, or even the whole of
it together. I could easily, if I had not already tired
you, give you very striking and convincing instances
of it. This is nothing but what is natural and proper.
All government, indeed every human benefit and
enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act, is
founded on compromise and barter. We balance
inconveniences; we give and take; we remit some
rights, that we may enjoy others; and we choose
rather to be happy citizens than subtle disputants.
As we must give away some natural liberty, to enjoy,civil advantages, so we must sacrifice some civil lib-:erties, for the advantages to be derived from the commullion and fellowship of a great empire. But, in all fair dealings,the thing bought must bear some
proportion to the purchase paid. None will barter
away the immediate jewel of his soul. Though a
great: house is apt to make slaves haughty, yet it is. purchasing a part of the artificial importance of a. great empire too dear, to pay for it all essential rights,
and all the intrinsic dignity of human nature. None
6f'us who would not risk his life rather than fall
under a government purely arbitrary. But although
there are some amongst us who think our Constitution wants many improvements to make it a complete system of liberty, perhaps none who are of that
opinion would think it right to aim at such improvement by disturbing his country and risking everything that is dear to him. In every arduous enterprise,
we consider what we are to lose, as well as what we
are to gain; and the more and better stake of liberty
every people possess, the less they will hazard in a
? ? ? ? 170 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
vain attempt to make it more. These are the cordc
of man. Man acts from adequate motives relative to
his interest, and not on metaphysical speculations
Aristotle, the great master of reasoning, cautions us
and with great weight and propriety, against this spe
cies of delusive geometrical accuracy in moral argu
ments, a-sthe most fallacios-sof all sophistry.
The Americans will have no interest contrary to
the grandeur and glory of England, when they are
not oppressed by the weight of it; and they will
rather be inclined to respect the acts of a superintending legislature, when they see them the acts of that power which is itself the security, not the rival,
of their secondary importance. In this assurance my
mind most perfectly acquiesces, and I confess I feel
not the least alarm from the discontents which are to
arise from putting people at their ease; nor do I apprehend the destruction of this empire from giving, by an act of free grace and indulgence, to two millions of my fellow-citizens some share of those rights upon which I have always been taught to value myself.
It is said, indeed, that this power of granting, vested
in American assemblies, would dissolve the unity'of
the empire,-which was preserved entire, although
Wales, and Chester, and Durham were added to it.
Truly, Mr. Speaker, I do not know what this unity
means; nor has it ever been heard of, that I know.
in the constitutional policy of this country. The very
idea of subordination of parts excludes this notion of
simple and undivided unity. England is the head;
but she is not the head and the members too. Ireland has ever had from the beginning a separate, but not an independent legislature, which, far from dis
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 171
tracting, promoted the union of the whole. Everything was sweetly and harmoniously disposed through
both islands for the conservation of English dominion
and the communication of English liberties. I do not
see that the same principles might not be carried into
twenty islands, and. with the same good effect. This
is my model with regard to America, as far as the
internal circumstances of the. two'countries are the
same. I know no other unity of this empire than I
can draw from its example during these periods, when
it seemed to my poor understanding more united
than it is now, or than it is likely to be by the present,methods.
But since I speak of these methods, I recollect, Mr.
Speaker, almost too late, that I promised, before I finished, to say something of the proposition of the noble lord * on the floor, which has been so lately received, and stands on your journals. I must be
deeply concerned, whenever it is my misfortune to
continue a difference with the majority of this House. ,But as the reasons for that difference are my apology
for thus troubling you, suffer me to state them in a
very few words. I shall compress them into as small
a body as I possibly can, having already debated that
matter at large, when the question was before the
committee.
First, then, I cannot admit that proposition of a
ransom by auction, --because it is a mere project.
It is a thing new, unheard of, supported by no experience, justified by no analogy, without example
of our ancestors, or root in the Constitution. It is
neither regular Parliamentary taxation nor colony
grant. . Experimentum in corpore viii is a good rule,
* Lord North.
? ? ? ? :172 -SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. which will ever'make me adverse to any trial of ex periments on what is certainly the most valuable of all subjects, the peace of this empire.
Secondly, it is an experiment which must be fata
in the end to our Constitution. For what is it but a
scheme for taxing the colonies in the antechamber
of the noble lord and his successors? To settle the
quotas and proportions in this House is clearly impossible. You, Sir, may flatter yourself you shall sit
a state auctioneer, with your hammer in your hand,
and knock down to:each colony as it bids. But to
settle (on the plan laid down by the noble lord) the
true proportional payment for four or five and twenty
governments, according to the absolute and the relative wealth of each, and according to the British prom. portion of wealth and burden, is a wild and chimerical notion. This new taxation must therefore come
in by the back-door of the Constitution. Each quota
must be brought to this House ready formed. You
can neither add nor alter. You must register it.
You can do nothing further. For on what grounds
can you deliberate either before or after the proposDi
tion? You cannot hear the counsel for all thes'
provinces, quarrelling each on its own quantity of'
payment, and its proportion to others. If you should
attempt it, the Committee of Proviincial Ways and
Means, or by whatever other name it will delight to
be called, must swallow up all the time of Parliament.
Thirdly, it does not give satisfaction to the complaint of the colonies. They complain that they are
taxed without their consent. You answer, that you
will fix the sum at which they shall be taxed. That
is, you give them the very grievance for the remedy.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 173
You tell them, indeed, that you will leave the mode
to themselves. I really beg pardon; it gives me pain
to mention it; but you must be sensible that you will
not perform this part of the compact. For suppose'the. colonies were to lay the duties which furnished
their contingent upon' the importation of your manufactures; you know you would never suffer such a
tax to be laid. You know, -too, that you would not
suffer many other modes of taxation. So that, when
you come to'explain yourself, it -will be found that
you will. neither leave to themselves the quantum nor
the mode, nor indeed anything. The whole is delusion, from one end to the other.
Fourthly, this method: of ransom by auction, unless
it be universally accepted, will plunge you into great
and inextricable difficulties. In what'year of our
Lord are the proportions of payments to be settled?
To say nothing of the impossibility that colony agents
should have general powers of taxing the colonies at
their discretion, consider, I implore you, that the
communication by special messages and orders between. these agents and their constituents on each variation of the case, when the parties come to contend together, and to dispute on their relative proportions,
will be a matter of delay, perplexity, and confusion,
that never can have an end.
If all the colonies do not appear at the outcry, what
is the condition of those assemblies who offer, by
themselves or. their agents, to tax themselves up to
your ideas of their proportion? The refractory colonies, who refuse all composition, will remain taxed
only to your old impositions, which, however grievous
in principle, are trifling as to production. The obedient colonies in this scheme are heavily taxed; the
? ? ? ? 174 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. refractory remain unburdened. What will you do? Will you lay new and heavier taxes by Parliament
on the disobedient? Pray consider in what way you can do it. You are perfectly convinced, that, in the way of taxing, you can do nothing but at the ports Now suppose it is Virginia that refuses to appear at your auction, while Maryland and North Carolina bid handsomely:for their ransom, and are taxed to your; quota, how will you put these colonies on a par'? Will you tax the tobacco of Virginia? If you do,
you give its death-wound to your English revenue at
home, and to one of the very greatestarticles of your
own foreign trade. If you tax the import of that rebellious colony, what do you tax but your own manufactures, or the goods of some other obedient and already well-taxed colony? Who has said one word
on this labyrinth of detail, which bewilders you more
and more as you enter into it? Who has presented,
who can present, you with a clew to lead you out of
it? I think, Sir, it is impossible that you should not
recollect that the colony bounds are so implicated in
one another (you know it by your other experiments
in the bill for prohibiting the New England fishery
that you can lay no possible restraints on almost any
of them which may not be presently eluded, if you do
not confound the innocent with the guilty, and burden those whom upon every principle you ought to
exonerate. He must be grossly ignorant of America,
who thinks, that, without falling into this confusion
of all rules of equity and policy, you can restrain any
single colony, especially Virginia and Maryland, the
central, and most important of them all.
Let it also be considered, that either in the present confusion you settle a permanent'contingent,
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 175 which will and must be trifling, and then you have no effectual revenue, -or you change the quota at every exigency, and then on every new repartition you will have a new quarrel.
Reflect besides, that, when you have fixed a quota
for every colony, you have not provided for prompt
and punctual payment. Suppose one, two, five, ten
years' arrears. You cannot issue a Treasury extent
against the failing colony. You must make new
Boston port bills, new restraining laws, new acts for
dragging men to England for trial. You must send
out new fleets, new armies. . All is to begin again.
From this day forward the empire is never to know
an hour's tranquillity. , An intestine fire will be kept
alive in the bowels of the colonies, which one time or
other must consume this whole empire. I allow, indeed, that the Empire of Germany raises her revenue and her troops by quotas and contingents; but the
revenue of the Empire and the army of the Empire. is
the worst revenue and the worst army in the world.
Instead of a standing revenue, you will therefore:have a perpetual quarrel. Indeed, the noble lord'Who proposed this project of a ransom by auction seemed himself to be of that opinion. His project
was rather designed for breaking the union of the
colonies than for establishing a revenue. He confessed he apprehended that his proposal would not
be to their taste. I say, this scheme of disunion seems,
to be at the bottom of the project; for I will not suspect that the noble lord meant nothing but merely
to delude the nation by an airy phantom which he
never intended to realize. But whatever his views
may be, as I propose the peace and union of the
colonies as the very foundation of my plan, it can
? ? ? ? 176 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
not accord with one whose foundation is perpetual
discord.
Compare the two. This I offer to give you is plain
and simple: the other full of perplexed and intricate mazes. This is mild: that harsh. This is found
by experience effectual for its purposes: the other is
a new project. This is universal: the other calculat
ed for certain coloniies only. This is immediate in
its conciliatory operation: the other remote, contingent, full of hazard. Mine is what becomes the digiity of a ruling people: gratuitous, unconditional, and not held out as matter of bargain and sale.
I have done my duty in proposing it to you. I have,
indeed, tired you by a long discourse; but this is
the misfortune of those to whose influence nothing
will be conceded, and who must win every inch of
their ground by argument. You have heard me with
goodness. May you decide with wisdom! For my
part, I feel my mind greatly disburdened by what I
have done to-day. I: have been the less fearful of
trying your patience, because on this subject I mean
to spare it altogether in future. I have this comfort,
- that, in every stage of the American affairs, I
have steadily opposed the measures that have produced the confusion, and may bring on the destruction, of this empire. I now go so far as to risk a proposal of my own. If I cannot give peace to my
country, I give it to my conscience.
But what (says the financier) is peace to us without money? Your plan gives us no revenue. - No!
But it does: for it secures to the subject the power
of REFUSAL,- the first of all revenues. Experience
is a cheat, and fact a liar, if this power in the subject, of proportioning his grant, or of not granting
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 177
at all, has not been found the richest mine of revenue
ever discovered by the skill or by the fortune of man.
It does not, indeed, vote you ~152,750: 11: 2fths,
nor any other paltry limited sum; but it gives the
strong-box itself, the fund, the bank, from whence only
revenues can arise amongst a people sensible of freedom: Posita luditur area. Cannot you in England,
cannot you at this time of day, cannot you, an House
of Commons, trust to the principle -which has raised
so mighty a revenue, and accumulated a debt of near
140 millions in this country? Is this principle to be
true in England and false everywhere else? Is it
not true in Ireland? Has it not hitherto been true
in the colonies? . Why should you presume, that, in
any country, a body duly constituted for any function will neglect to perform its duty, and abdicate its
trust? Such a presumption would go against all
government in all modes. But, in truth, this dread
of penury of supply from a free assembly has no
foundation in Nature. For first observe, that, besides
the desire which all men have naturally of supporting the honor of their own government, that sense of
dignity, and that security to property, which ever attends freedom, has a tendency to increase the stock:of the free. community. Most may be taken where most is accumulated. And what is the soil or climate where experience has not uniformly proved
that the voluntary flow of heaped-up plenty, bursting
from the weight of its own rich luxuriance, has ever
run with a more copious stream of revenue than
could be squeezed from the dry husks of oppressed
indigence by the straining of all the politic machinery in the world?
Next, we know that parties must ever exist in a
VOL. II. 12
? ? ? ? 178 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
free country. We know, too, that the emulations
of such parties, their contradictions, their reciprocal
necessities, their hopes, and their fears, must send
them all in their turns to him that holds the balance
of the state. The parties are the gamesters; but
government keeps the table, and is sure to be the
winner in the end. When this game is played, T
really think it is more to be feared that the people
will be exhausted than that government will not be
supplied. Whereas whatever is got by acts of absolute power ill obeyed because odious, or by contracts ill kept because constrained, will be narrow, feeble,
uncertain, and precarious.
"Ease would retract
Vows made in pain, as violent and void. "
I, for one, protest against compounding our demands: I declare against compounding, for a poor
limited sum, the immense, ever-growing, eternal debt
which is due to generous government from protected
freedom. And so may I speed in the great object I propose to you, as I think it would not only be an act of injustice, but would be the worst economy in the world,
to compel the colonies to a sum certain, either in the
way of ransom, or in the way of compulsory compact.
But to clear up my ideas on this subject, -- a
revenue from America transmitted hither. Do not
delude yourselves: you can never receive it, --no,
not a shilling.
We have experience that from remote countries it is not to be expected. If, when
you attempted to extract revenue from Bengal, you
were obliged to return in loan what you had taken in
imposition, what can you expect from North America? For, certainly, if ever there was a country qualified to produce wealth, it is India; or an in
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 179
*stitution fit for the transmission, it is the East India
Company. America has none of these aptitudes. If
America gives you taxable objects on which you lay
your duties here, and gives you at the same time a
surplus by a foreign sale of her commodities to pay
the duties on these objects which you tax at home,
she has performed her part to the British revenue.
But w. ith regard to her own internal establishments,
she may, I doubt not she will, contribute in moderation. I say in moderation; for she ought not to be permitted to exhaust herself. She ought to be
reserved to a war; the weight of which, with the
enemies that We are most likely to have, must be. considerable in her quarter of the globe. There she
may serve you, and serve you essentially.
For that service, for all service, whether of revenue, trade, or empire, my trust is in her interest in:the British Constitution. My hold of the colonies is
in the close affection which grows from common
names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges,
and equal protection. These are ties which, though
light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the
colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights
associated with your government, --they will cling
ind grapple to you, and no force under heaven
will be of power to tear them from their allegiance.
But let it be once understood that your government'nay be one thing and their privileges another, that;hese two things may exist without any mutual reation,- the cement is gone, the cohesion is loosendd, and everything hastens to decay and. dissolution. ks long as you have the wisdom to keep the sover-;ign authority of this country as the sanctuary of
iberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common
? ? ? ? 180 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of EnglaLnd
worship freedom, they will turn their faces towards
you. The more they multiply, the more friends you
will have; the more ardently they love liberty, the
more perfect will be their obedience. Slavery they
can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in
every soil. They may have it from Spain, they maw
have it from Prussia. But, until you become lost to
all feeling of your true interest and your natural dignity, freedom they can have from none but you.
This is the commodity of price, of which you have
the monopoly. This is the true Act of Navigation,
which binds to you the commerce of the colonies.
and through them secures to you the wealth of the
world. Deny them this participation of freedom, and
you break that sole bond which originally made, and
must still preserve, the unity of the empire. Do not
entertain so weak an imagination as that your registers and your bonds, your affidavits and your sufferances, your cockets and your clearances, are what form the great securities of your commerce. Do not
dream that your letters of office, and your instruct
tions, and your suspending clauses are the things
that hold together the great contexture of this mys,
terious whole. These things do not make your government. Dead instruments, passive tools as they
are, it is the spirit of the English communion thal
gives all their life and efficacy to them. It is the
spirit of the English Constitution,' which, infused
through the mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, in
vigorates, vivifies every part of the empire, ever
down to the minutest' member.
Is it not the same,virtue which does everything foi
us here in England? Do you imagine, then, that i
? ? ? ? SPEECH. ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 181
is the Land-Tax Act which raises your revenue?
that it is the annual vote in the Committee of Supply
which gives you your army? or that it is the' Mutiny Bill which inspires it with bravery and discipline? No! surely, no! It is the love of the people; it is
their attachment to their government, from the sense. of the deep stake they have in such a glorious instituLion, which gives you your army and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience without which
your army would be a base rabble and. your navy
nothing but rotten timber.
All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical to the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians who have no place among us: a sort of people who think that nothing exists but what is gross and material, --and who, therefore, far from being qualified to be directors of the great movement of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine. But to men truly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master principles, which in the opinion of such men as I have mentioned have no substantial existence, are in truth everything, and all in all. Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together. If we are conscious of our situation, and glow with zeal to fill our place as becomes our station and ourselves, we ought to auspicate all our public proceedings on America with the old warning of the Church, Sursurm corda! We ought to elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust to which the order of Providence has called us. By adverting to the dignity of this high calling our ancestors have tirned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire, and have made the most extensive and the only hon
? ? ? ? 182 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
orable conquests, not by destroying, but by promoting
the wealth, the number, the lhappiness of the human
race. Let us get an American revenue as we have
got an American empire. English privileges have
made it all that it is; English privileges alone will
make it all it can be.
In full confidence of this unalterable truth, I now
(quodfelix faustumque sit! ) lay the first stone of the
Temple of Peace; and I move you, -
"That the colonies and plantations of Great Britain in North America, consisting of fourteen separate governments, and containing two millions and upwards of free inhabitants, have not had the liberty and privilege of electing and sending any knights and
burgesses, or others, to represent them in the high
court of Parliament. "
Upon this resolution the previous question was
put and. carried: for the previous' question, 270;
against it, 78.
As the propositions were opened separately in the
body of the speech, the reader perhaps may wish to
see the whole of them together, in the form in which
they were moved for.
" MOVED,
"That the colonies and plantations of Great Brit-:
ain 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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 183
and burgesses, or others, to represent them in the
high court of Parliament. "
"That the said colonies and plantations have been
made liable to, and bounden by, several subsidies,
payments, rates, and taxes, given and granted by
Parliament, though the said colonies and plantations
have not their knights and burgesses in the said high
court of Parliament, of their own election, to represent the condition of their country; by lack whereof
they have been oftentimes touched and grieved by subsidies, given, granted, and assented to, in the said court, in a manner prejudicial to the common wealth, quietness,
rest, and peace of the subjects inhabiting within tha
same. "
"That, from the distance of the said colonies, and
from other circumstances, no method hath hitherto
been devised for procuring a representation in Parliamept for the said colonies. " " That each of the said colonies hath within itself
a body, chosen, in part or in the whole, by the freemen, freeholders, or other free inhabitants thereof, commonly called the General Assembly, or General
Court, with powers legally to raise, levy, and assess,
according to the several usages of such colonies, duties and taxes towards defraying all sorts of public services. " *
"That the said general assemblies, general courts,
or other bodies legally qualified as aforesaid, have at
sundry times freely granted several large subsidies
* The first four motions and the last had the previous question put on them. The others were negatived.
The words in Italics were, by an amendment that was carried, left out of the motion; which will appear in the journals, though it is not the practice to insert such amendments in the votes.
? ? ? ? 184 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
and public aids for his Majesty's service, according
to their abilities, when required thereto by letter
from one of his Majesty's principal Secretaries of
State; and that their right to grant the same, and
their cheerfulness and sufficiency in the said grants,
have been at sundry times acknowledged by Parliament. "
"That it hath been found by experience, that the
manner of granting the said supplies and aids by the
said general assemblies hath been more agreeable to
the inhabitants of the said colonies, and more beneficial and conducive to the public service, than the
mode of giving and granting aids and subsidies in
Parliament, to be raised and paid in the said colonies. "
"That it may be proper to repeal an act, made in
the seventh year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled,'An act for granting certain duties in the Iritish colonies and plantations in America; for allowing a drawback of the duties of customs, upon the exportation from this kingdom, of coffee and cocoa-nuts, of
the produce of the said colonies or plantations; for
discontinuing the drawbacks payable on China earthen ware exported to America; and for more effectually preventing the clandestine running of goods in the said colonies and plantations. '"
"That it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the
fourteenth year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled,'An act to discontinue, in such manner and
for such time as are therein mentioned, the landing
and discharging, lading or shipping, of goods, wares,
and merchandise, at the town and within the harbor
of Boston, in the province of Massachusetts Bay, in
North America. '"
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 185
"That it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the
fourteenth year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled,' An act for the impartial administration of justice, in the cases of persons questioned for any acts done *by them, in the execution of the law, or for the suppression of riots and tumults, in the province of the
Massachusetts Bay, in New England. '"
" That it may be proper to repeal an act, made in
the fourteenth year of the reign of his present Majesty,
intituled,' An act for thle better regulating the government of the province of the Massachusetts Bay, in
New England. "'"
" That it may he proper to explain and amend an
act, made in the thirty-fifth year of the reign of King
Henry the Eighth, intituled,' An act for the trial of
treasons committed out of the king's dominions. '"
"That, from the time when the general assembly; or general court, of any colony or plantation in
North America, shall have appointed, by act of assembly duly confirmed, a settled salary to the offices
of the chief justice and other judges of the superior,courts, it may be proper that the said chief justice
and other judges of the superior courts of such colony shall hold his and their office and offices during
their good behavior, and shall not be removed therefrom, but when the said removal shall be adjudged
by his Majesty in council, upon a hearing on complaint from the general assembly, or on a complaint
from the governor, or the council, or the house of
representatives, severally, of the colony in which the
said'chief justice and other judges have exercised the
said offices. ". "That it may be proper to regulate the courts of
admiralty or vice-admiralty, authorized by the 15th
? ? ? ? 186 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
chapter of the 4th George the Third, in such a
manner as to make the same more commodious to
those who sue or are sued in the said courts; and
to provide for the more decent maintenance of the judges of the same. "
? ? ? ? A
LETTER
TO
JOHN FARR AND JOHN HARRIS, ESQRS. , SHERIFFS OF THE CITY OF BRISTOL, ON THE
AFFAIRS OF AMERICA.
I 777.
? ? ? ? LETTER.
GfENTLEMEN, -- I have the honor of sending
you the two last acts which have been passed
with regard to the troubles in America. These acts
are similar to all the rest which have been made on
the same subject. They operate by the same principle, and they are derived from the very same policy. I think they complete the number of this sort of statutes to nine. It affords no matter for very pleasing reflection to observe that our subjects diminish as our
laws increase.
If I have the misfortune of differing with some of
my fellow-citizens on this great and arduous subject,
it is no small consolation to me that I do not differ
from you. With you I am perfectly united. We are
heartily agreed in our detestation of a civil war. We
have ever expressed the most unqualified disapprobation of all the steps which have led to it, and of all those which tend to prolong it. And I have no doubt
that we feel exactly the same emotions of grief and
shame on all its miserable consequences, whether
they appear, on the one side or the other, in the
shape of victories or defeats, of captures made fromthe English on the continent or from the English in these islands, of legislative regulations which subvert the liberties of our brethren or which under-. mine our own.
Of the first of these statutes (that for the letter of
? ? ? ? 190 LETTER TO THE SHERIFFS OF BRISTOL.
marque) I shall say little. Exceptionable as it may
be, and as I think it is in some particulars, it seems
the natural, perhaps necessary, result of the measures
we have taken and the situation we are in. The other
(for a partial suspension of the Habeas Corpus) appears to me of a much deeper malignity. During its
progress through the House of Commons, it has been
amended, so as to express, more distinctly than at first
it did, the avowed sentiments of those who framed it;
and the main ground of my exception to it is, because
it does express, and does carry into execution, purposes
which appear to me so contradictory to all the principles, not only of the constitutional policy of Great
Britain, but even of that species of hostile justice
which no asperity of war wholly extinguishes in the
minds of a civilized people.
It seems to have in view two capital objects: the
first, to enable administration to confine, as long as it
shall think proper, those whom that act is pleased to
qualify by the- name of pirates. Those so qualified I
understand to be the commanders and mariners of
such privateers and ships of war belonging to the
colonies as in the course of this unhappy contest may
fall into the hands of the crown. They are therefore
to be detained in prison, under the criminal description of piracy, to a future trial and ignominious punishment, whenever circumstances shall make it convenient to execute vengeance on them, under the color of that odious and infamous offence.
To this first purpose of the law I have no small
dislike, because the act does not (as all laws and all
equitable transactions ought to do) fairly describe its
object. The persons who make a naval war upon us,
in; consequence of the present troubles, may be rebels;
? ? ? ? LETTER TO THE SHERIFFS OF BRISTOL. 191
out to call and treat them as pirates is confounding
not only the natural distinction of things, but the
order of crimes,- which, whether by putting them
from a higher part of the scale to the lower or from
the lower to the higher, is never done without dangerously disordering the whole frame of jurisprudence. Though piracy may be, in the eye of the law, a less offence than treason, yet, as both are, in effect,
punished with the same death, the same forfeiture,
and the same corruption of blood, I never would take
from any fellow-creature whatever any sort of advantage which he may derive to his safety from the pity
of mankind, or to his reputation from their general
feelings, by degrading his offence, when I cannot soften his punishment. The general sense of mankind
tells me that those offences which may possibly arise
from mistaken virtue are not in the class of infamous
actions. Lord Coke, the oracle of the English law,
conforms to that general sense,where he says that
"those things which are of the highest criminality
may be of the least disgrace. " The act prepares a
sort of masked proceeding, not honorable to the justice of the kingdom, and by no means, necessary for
its safety. I cannot enter into it. If Lord Balmerino, in the last rebellion, had driven off the cattle of
twenty clans, I should have thought it would have
been a scandalous and low juggle, utterly unworthy
of the manliness of an English judicature, to have
tried him for felony as a stealer of cows.
Besides, I must honestly tell you that I could not
vote for, or countenance in any way, a statute which
stigmatizes with the crime of piracy these men whomI
an act of Parliament had previously put out of the
protection of the law. When the legislature of this
? ? ? ? 192 LETTER TO THE SHERIFFS OF BRISTOL.
kingdom had ordered all their ships and goods, for
the mere new-created offence of exercising trade, to
be divided as a spoil among the seamen of the navy,
-- to consider the necessary reprisal of an unhappy,
proscribed, interdicted people, as the crime of piracy,
would have appeared, in any other legislature than
ours, a strain of the most insulting and most unnatural cruelty and injustice. I assure you I never remember to have heard of anything like it in any time or country.
The second professed purpose of the act is to detain
in England for trial those who shall commit high treason in America.
That you may be enabled to enter into the true
spirit of the present law, it is necessary, Gentlemen, to
apprise you that there is an act, made so long ago as
in the reign of Henry the Eighth. before the existence
or thought of any English colonies in America, for
the trial in this kingdom of treasons committed out
of the realm. In the year 1769 Parliament thought
proper to acquaint the crown with their construction
of that act in a formal address, wherein they entreated
his Majesty to cause persons charged with high treason in America to be brought into this kingdom for
trial. By this act of Henry the Eighth, so construed
and so applied, almost all that is substantial and beneficial in a trial by jury is taken away from the subject
in the colonies. This is,,however, saying too little; for
to try a man under that act is, in effect, to condemn
him unheard. A person is brought hither in the
dungeon of a ship's hold; thence he is vomited into
a dungeon on land, loaded with irons, unfurnished
with money, unsupported by friends, three thousand
miles from all means of calling upon or confronting
? ? ? ? LETTER TO THE SHERIFFS OF. BRISTOL. 193
evidence, where no one local circumstance that tends
to detect perjury can possibly be judged of; - such
a person may be executed according to form, but he
can never be tried according to justice.
I therefore could never reconcile myself to the bill
I send you, which is expressly provided to remove all
inconveniences from the establishment of a mode of
trial which has ever appeared to me most unjust and
most unconstitutional. Far from removing the difficulties which impede the execution of so mischievous
a project, II would heap new difficulties upon it, if it
were in my power. All the ancient, honest, juridical
principles and institutions of England are so many
clogs to check and retard the headlong course of violence and oppression. They were invented for this
one good purpose, that what was not just should not
be convenient. Convinced of this, I would leave
things as I found them. The old, cool-headed, general law is as good as any deviation dictated by present heat. I could see no fair, justifiable expedience pleaded
to favor this new suspension of the liberty of the subject. If the English in the colonies can support the independency to which they have been unfortunately
driven, I suppose nobody has such a fanatical zeal for
the criminal justice of Henry the Eighth that he will
contend for executions which must be retaliated tenfold on his own friends, or who has conceived so
strange an idea of English dignity as to think the
defeats in America compensated by the triumphs at
Tyburn. If, on the contrary, the colonies are reduced to the obedience of the crown, there must be,
under that authority, tribunals in the country itself
frilly competent to administer justice on all offenders
VOL. II. 13
? ? ? ? 194 LETTER TO THE SHERIFFS OF BRISTOL.
But if there are not, and that we must suppose a:thing so humiliating to our government as that all
-this vast continent should unanimously concur in
thinking that no ill fortune. can convert resistance to
the royal authority into a criminal act, we may call
the effect of our victory peace, or obedience, or what
we will, but the war is not ended; the hostile mind
continues in full vigor, and it continues under a
worse form. If your peace be nothing more than a
sullen pause from arms, if their quiet be nothing but
the meditation of revenge, where smitten pride smarting from its wounds festers into new rancor, neither the act of Henry the Eighth nor its handmaid of this
reign will answer any wise end of policy or justice.
For, if the bloody fields which they saw and felt are
not sufficient to subdue the reason of America, (to
use the expressive phrase of a great lord in office,) it
is not. the judicial slaughter which is made in another
hemisphere against their universal sense of justice
that will ever reconcile them to the British government.
