America,
gentlemen say, is a noble object, - it is an object well
worth fighting for.
gentlemen say, is a noble object, - it is an object well
worth fighting for.
Edmund Burke
First, the House, in accepting the resolution moved by the noble lord, has
admitted, notwithstanding the menacing front of our
address, notwithstanding our heavy bill of pains and
penalties, that we do not think ourselves precluded
from all ideas of free grace and bounty.
The House has gone farther: it has declared conciliation admissible previous to any submission on the
part of America. It has even shot a good deal beyond that mark, and has admitted that the comsituation of such province or colony, for contributing their proportzon to. the common defence, (such proportion to be raised under the authority
of the general court or general assembly of such province or colony,
and disposable by Parliament,) and shall engage to make provision
also for the support of the civil government and the administration
of justice in such province or colony, it will be proper, if such proposal
shall be approved by his Majesty and the two Houses of Parliament, and
for so long as such provision shall be made accordingly, to forbear,
in respect of such province or colony, to levy any duty, tax, or assessment, or to impose any farther duty, tax, or assessment, except only
such duties, as it may be expedient to continue to levy or to impose
for thi regulation of commerce: the net produce of the duties last
mentioned to be carried to the account of such province or colony
respectively. " -Resolution moved by Lord North in the Committee,
and agreed to by the House, 27th February, 1775.
? ? ? ? 108 SPEECH ON, CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
plaints of our:former mode of exerting the right of
{taxatia n were not wholly'unfounded. That right
thus exerted is allowed to have had something reprehensible' in' it, -something unwise, or something
grievous; since, in'the midst of our heat and resentment,`'we, of. ourselves, have proposed a capital alteration, and, in order to get rid of what seemed so very exceptionable, have instituted a mode that is altogetlier new,- one that is, indeed, wholly alien from
all the ancient methods and forms of Parliament.
The'principle of this proceeding is large enough for
my purpose. The means proposed by the noble lord
for carrying his ideas into execution, I think, indeed,
are very indifferently suited to the end; and this I
shall endeavor to show you before I sit down. But,
for the present, I take my ground on the admitted
principle. I mean to give peace. Peace implies reconciliation; and where there has been a material dispute, reconciliation does in a manner always imply concession on the one part or on the other. In this
state of things I make no difficulty in affirming that
the proposal ought to originate from us. Great and
acknowledged force is not impaired, either in effect or
in opinion, by an unwillingness to exert itself. The
superior power may offer peace with honor and with
safety. Such an offer from such a power will be attributed to magnanimity. But the concessions of the weak are the' concessions of fear. When such a one
is disarmed, he is wholly;at the mercy of his superior; and he loses forever that time and those chances. which, as they happen to all men, are the strength and resources of all inferior power.
The capital leading questions on which you must this day decide are these two: First, whether you
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 109
ought to concede; and secondly, what your concession ought to be. On the first of these questions we
have gained (as I have just taken the liberty of observing to you) some ground. But I am sensible that
a good deal more is still to be done. Indeed, Sir, to
enable us to determine both on the one and the other
of these great questions with a firm and precise judgment, I think it may be necessary to consider distinctly the true nature and the peculiar circumstances of the object which we have before us: because, after
all our struggle, whether we will -or not, we must govern America according to that nature and to those
circumstances, and not according to our own imaginations, not according to abstract ideas of right, by
no means according to mere general theories of government, the resort to which appears to me, in our
present situation, no better than arrant trifling. I
shall therefore endeavor, with your leave, to lay before you some of the' most material of these circumstances in as full and as clear a manner as I am able to state them.
The first thing that we have to consider with regard to the nature of the object is the number of
people in the colonies. I have taken for some years
agood deal of pains on that point. I can by no calculation justify myself in placing the number below
two millions of inhabitants of our own European blood
and color, -besides at least 500,000 others, who form
no inconsiderable part of the strength and opulence
of the whole. This, Sir, is, I believe, about the true
number. There is no occasion to exaggerate, where
plain truth is of so much weight and importance.
But whether I put the present numbers too high or
too low is a matter of little'moment. Such is the
? ? ? ? 110 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
strength with which population shoots in that part of
the world, that, state the numbers as high as we will,
whilst the dispute continues, the exaggeration ends.
Whilst we are discussing any given magnitude, they
are grown to it. Whilst we spend our time in deliberating on the mode of governing two millions, we
shall find we have millions more to manage. Your
children do not grow faster from infancy to manhood than they spread from families to communities,
and from villages to nations. -
I put this consideration of the present and the
growing numbers in the front of our deliberation,
because, Sir, this consideration will make it evident
to a blunter discernment than yours, that no partial,
narrow, contracted, pinched, occasional system will
be at all suitable to such an object. It will show
you that it is not to be considered as one of those
minima which are out of the eye and consideration
of the law, - not a paltry excrescence of the state,not a mean dependant, who may be neglected with little. damage and provoked with little danger. It will prove that some degree of care and caution is required in the handling such an object; it will show
that you ought not,. in reason, to trifle with so large
a mass of the interests and feelings of the human
race. You could at no time do so without guilt;
and be assured you will not be able to do it long with
impunity.
But the population of this country, the great and
growing population, though a very important consideration, will lose much of its weight, if not combined
with other circumstances. The commerce of your
colonies is out of all proportion beyond the numbers
of the people. This ground of their commerce, in
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 111
deed, has been trod some days ago, and with great
ability, by a distinguished person, at your bar.
This. gentleman, after thirty-five years, - it is so long
since he first appeared at the same place to plead for
the commerce of Great Britain, -has come again before you to plead the same cause, without any other
effect of time than that to the fire of imagination
and extent of erudition, which even then marked
him as one of the first literary characters of his
age, he has added a consummate knowledge in the
commercial interest of his country, formed by a
long course of enlightened and discriminating experience.
Sir, I should be inexcusable in coming after such a
person with any detail, if a great part of the members who now fill the House had not the misfortune
to be absent when he appeared at your bar. Besides,
Sir, I propose to take the matter at'periods. of timesomewhat different from his. There is, if I mistake
not, a point of view from whence, if you will look at
this subject, it is impossible that it should not make
an impression upon you.
I have in my hand two accounts: one a comparative state of the export trade of England to its colo-:ties, as it stood in the year 1704, and as it stood in the year 1772; the other a state of the export
trade of this country to its colonies alone, as it stood'in 1772, compared with the whole trade of England
to all parts of the world (the colonies included) in
the year 1704. They are from good vouchers: the
latter period from the accounts on your table; the
earlier from an original manuscript of Davenant,
who first established the Inspector-General's office,
* Mr. Glover.
? ? ? ? 112. SPEECH ON-:CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
which has been ever since his time so abundant a
source of Parliamentary information.
The export trade. to the colonies consists of three
great branches: the African, which,- terminating
almost wholly in the colonies, must be put to the account of their commerce; the West Indian; and the North American. All these are so interwoven, that
the attempt to separate them would tear to pieces
the contexture of the whole, and, if not entirely destroy, would very much depreciate, the value of all the parts. I therefore consider these three denominations to be, what in effect they are, one trade. The trade to the colonies, taken on the export side,
at the beginning of this century, that is, in the year
1704, stood thus: -
Exports to North America and the West
Indies. . . . . . . . . . . 483,265
To Africa. . . . 86,665
~ 569,930
In the year 1772, which I take as a middle year
between the highest and lowest of those lately laid on
your table, the account was as follows: --
To North America and the West Indies ~ 4,791,734
To Africa. 866,398
To which if you add the export trade
from Scotland, which had in 1704 no
existence. 364,000
~ 6,024,171
From five hundred and odd thousand, it has grown
to six millions. It has increased no less than twelvefold. This is the state of the colony trade, as com
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 113 pared with itself at these two periods, within this century; - and this is matter for meditation. But
this is not all. Examine my second account. See
how the export trade to the colonies alone in 1772 stood in the other point of view, that is, as compared to the whole trade of England in 1704.
The whole export trade of England, including that to the colonies, in 1704 ~ 6,509,000 Export to the colonies alone, in 1772. 6,024,000
Difference ~ 485,000
The trade with America ~aeiqs now within less
than 500,0001. of being eqtfil to what this great commercial nation, England, carried on at the beginning of this century with the whole world! If I had taken
the largest year of those on your table, it would rather
have exceeded. But, it will be said, is not this American trade an unnatural protuberance, that has drawn the juices from the rest of the body? The reverse.
It is the very food that has nourished every other part
into its present magnitude. Our general trade has
been greatly augmented, and augmented more or
less in almost every part to which it ever extended,
but with this material difference: that of the six millions which in the beginning of the century constituted the whole mass of our export commerce the colony trade was but one twelfth part; it is now (as
a part of sixteen millions) considerably more than a
third of the whole. This is the relative proportion
of the importance of the colonies at these two periods: and all reasoning concerning our mode of treating them must have this proportion as its basis, or it is a reasoning weak, rotten, and sophistical.
Mr. Speaker, I cannot prevail on myself to hurry
VOL. II. 8
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over this great consideration. It is good for us to be
here. We stand where we have an immense view of
what is, and what is past. Clouds indeed, and darkness, rest upon the future. 'Let us, however, before
we -descend from this noble eminence, reflect that this
growth of our national prosperity has happened within the short period-of the life of man. It has happened within sixty-eight years. There are those alive whose memory might touch the two extremities. For
instance, my Lord Bathurst might remember all the
stages of the progress. He was in 1704 of an age at
least to be made to comprehend such things. He was
then old enough acta parentum jam leyere, et quce sit
poterit cognoscere virtus. Suppose, Sir, that the angel
of this auspicious youth, foreseeing the many virtues
which made him one of the most amiable, as he is one
of'the most fortunate men of his age, had opened to
him in vision, that, when, in the fourth generation,
the third prince of the House of Brunswick had sat
twelve years on the throne of that nation which (by
the happy issue of moderate and healing councils)
was. to be made Great Britain, he should see his son,
Lord Chancellor of England, turn back the current
of hereditary dignity to its fountain, and raise him
to an higher rank of peerage, whilst he enriched the
family with a new one, if, amidst these bright and
happy scenes of domestic honor and prosperity, that
angel should have drawn up the curtain, and unfolded the rising glories of his country, and whilst he
was gazing with admiration on the then. commercial
grandeur of England, the genius should point out
to him a little speck, scarce visible in the mass of the
national interest, a small seminal principle rather
than a formed body, and should tell him,-" Young
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 115,nanl, there is Amlerica, - which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage
men and uncouth manners, yet shall, before you
taste of death, show itself equal to the whole of that
commerce which now attracts the envy of the world.
Whatever England has been growing to by a progressive increase of improvement, brought in by varieties of people, by succession of civilizing conquests and
civilizing settlements in a series of'seventeen hundred
years, you shall see as much added to her by America
in the course of a single life! "'If this state of his
country had been foretold to'him, would it not require all the sanguine credulity of youth, and all the fervid glow of enthusiasm, to make him believe it?
Fortunate man, he has lived to see it! Fortunate indeed, if he lives to see nothing that shall vary the prospect, and cloud the setting of his day!
Excuse me, Sir, if, turning from such thoughts, I
resume this comparative view once more. You have
seen it on a large scale; look at it on a small one.
I will point out to your attention a particular instance of it in the single province of Pennsylvania.
In the year 1704, that province called for 11,4591. in
value of your commodities, native and foreign. This
was the whole. What did it demand in 1772? Why,
nearly fifty times as much'; for in that year the export to Pennsylvania was 507,9091. , nearly equal to
the export to all the colonies together in the first
period.
I choose, Sir, to enter into these minute and particular details; because generalities, which in all
other cases are apt to heighten and raise the subject,
have here a tendency to sink it. When we speak of
the -commerce with our colonies,:fiction lags after
? ? ? ? 116 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA-.
truth, invention is unfruitful, and imagination cold
and barren.
So far, Sir, as to the importance of the object in the
view of its commerce, as concerned in the exports
from England. If I were to detail the imports, I
could show: how,many enjoyments they procure
which deceive the burden of life, how many materials which invigorate the springs of national industry and extend and animate every part of our foreign and domestic commerce. This would be a curious
subject indeed, - but I must prescribe bounds to myself in a matter so vast and various.
I pass,therefore, to the colonies in another point ofview,-their agriculture. This they have prosecuted with such a spirit, that, besides feeding plentifully
their own growing multitude, their annual export of
grain, comprehending rice, has some years ago exceeded a million in value. Of their last harvest, I am persuaded, they will export much more. At the
beginning of the century some of these colonies imported corn from the mother country. For some time past the Old World has been fed from the New.
The scarcity which you have felt would have been
a desolating famine, if this child of your old age, with
a true filial piety, with a Roman charity, had not
put the full breast of its youthful exuberance to the
mouth of its exhausted parent.
As to the wealth which the colonies have drawn
from the sea by their fisheries, you had all that matter fully opened at your bar. You surely thought those acquisitions of value, for they seemed even to
excite your envy; and yet the spirit by which that
enterprising employment has been exercised ought
rather, in my opinion, to have raised your esteem and
? ? ? ? SPE. CH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 117
admiration. And pray, Sir, what in the world is equal
to it? Pass by the other parts, and look at the malner in which the people of New England have'of late
carried on the whale-fishery. Whilst we follow them
among the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold
thlem penetrating into the deepest frozen recesses of
Hudson's Bay and Davis's Straits, whilst we are looking for them beneath the arctic circle, we hear that
they have pierced into the opposite region of polar
cold,:that they are at the -antipodes, and engaged
under the frozen serpent of the South. Falkland
Island, which seemed too remote and romantic an
~object for the grasp of national ambition, is but a
stage and resting-place in the progress'of their victorious industry. Nor is the equinoctial heat more discouraging to them than the accumulated winter of both the poles. We know, that, whilst some of them
draw the line and strike the harpoon on the coast of
Africa, others run the longitude, and pursue their
gigantic game along the coast of Brazil. No sea butr
what is vexed by their fisheries. No climate that is
not witness to their toils. Neither the perseverance
of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dexterous and firm sagacity of English enterprise, ever
carried this most perilous mode of hardy industry to
the extent to which it has been pushed by this recent
people, --a people who are still, as it were, but in the
gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood. When I contemplate these things, -when I
know that the colonies in general owe little or nothing to any care of ours, and that they are not squeezed
into this happy form by the constraints of watchful
and suspicious government, but that, through a wise
and salutary neglect, a generous nature has been suf
? ? ? ? 118 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERPCA.
fered to take her own way to perfection, - when I reflect upon these effects, when I see how profitable they have been to us, I feel all the pride of power
sink, and all presumption in the wisdom of human
contrivances melt and die away within me, --my
rigor relents, -- I pardon something to the spirit of
liberty.
I am sensible, Sir, that all which I have asserted
in my detail is admitted in the gross, but that quite
a different conclusion is drawn from it.
America,
gentlemen say, is a noble object, - it is an object well
worth fighting for. Certainly it is, if fighting a people be the best way of gaining them. Gentlemen in this respect will be led to their choice of means by
their complexions and their habits. Those who understand the military art will of course have some predilection for it. Those who wield the thunder of
thle state may have more confidence in the efficacy of
arms. But I confess, possibly for want of this knowledge, my opinion is much more in favor of prudent management than of force; --considering force not as
an odious, but a feeble instrument, for preserving a
people so numerous, so active, so growing, so spirited
as this, in a profitable and subordinate connection
with us.
First, Sir, permit me to observe, that the use of
force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a
moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed which is perpetually to be conquered.
My next objection is its uncertainty,' Terror is not
always the effect of force, and an armament is not a
victory. If you do not succeed, you are without resource: for, conciliation failing, force remains; but,
? ? ? ? SPEECIH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 119
force failing, no further hope of reconciliation is left.
Power and authority are sometimes bought by kindness; but they can -never be begged as alms by an impoverished and defeated violence.
A further objection to force is, that you impair the
object by your very endeavors to preserve it. The
thing you fought for is not the thing which you recover, but depreciated, sunk, wasted, and consumed in the contest. Nothing less will content me than whole
America. I do not choose to consume its strength
along with our own; because in, all parts it is the
British strength that I consume. I do not choose to
be caught by a foreign enemy at the end of this exhausting conflict, and still less in the midst of it. I may escape, but I can make no insurance'against
such an event. Let me add, that I do not choose
wholly to break the American spirit; because it is the
spirit that has made the country.
Lastly, we have no sort of expedience in favor of
force as an instrument in the rule of our colonies.
Their growth and their utility has been owing to
methods altogether different. Our ancient indulgence
has been said to be pursued to a fault. It may be so;
but we know, if feeling is evidence, that our fault was
more tolerable than our attempt to mend it, and our
sin far more salutary than our penitence.
These, Sir, are my reasons for not entertaining that
high opinion of untried force by which many gentlemen, for whose sentiments in other particulars I have great respect, seem to be so greatly captivated. But
there is still behind a third consideration concerning
this object, which serves to determine my opinion on
the sort of policy which ought to be pursued in the
management of America, even more than its popula
? ? ? ? 120 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
tion and its commerce: I mean its temper and character.
In this character of the Americans a love of freedom is the predominating feature which marks and
distinguishes the whole: and as an ardent is always
a jealous affection, your colonies become suspicious,
restive, and untractable, whenever they see the least
attempt to wrest from them by force, or shuffle from
them by chicane, what they think the only advantage
worth living for. This fierce spirit of liberty is
stronger in the English colonies, probably, than in any
other people of the earth, and this from a great variety of powerful causes; which, to understand the
true temper of their minds, and the direction which
this spirit takes, it will not be amiss to lay open somewhat more largely.
First, the people of the colonies are descendants of
Englishmen. England, Sir, is a nation which still, I
hope, respects, and formerly adored, her freedom. The
colonists emigrated from you when this part of your
character was most predominant; and they took this
bias and direction the moment they parted from your
hands. They are therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideas and on
English principles. Abstract liberty, like other mere
abstractions, is not to be found. Liberty inheres in
some sensible object; and every nation has formed to
itself some favorite point, which by way of eminence
becomes the criterion of their happiness. It happened, you know, Sir, that the great contests for free. dom in this country were from the earliest times chiefly upon the question of taxing. Most of the contests in the ancient commonwealths turned primarily
on the right of election of magistrates, or on the bal
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 121
ance among the several orders of the state. The question of money was not with them so immediate. But in England it was otherwise. On this point of taxes the ablest pens and most eloquent tongues have been exercised, the greatest spirits have acted and suffered. In order to give the fullest satisfaction concerning the importance of this point, it was not only necessary for those who in argument defended the excellence of the! English Constitution to insist on this privilege'of granting money as a dry point of fact, and to prove that the right had been'acknowledged
in ancient parchments' and blind usages to reside in a'certain body called an House of Commons: they went much further: they attempted to prove, and they succeeded, that in theory it ought to be so, from the particular nature of a House of Commons, as an immediate representative of the people, whether the old records had delivered this oracle or not. They took infinite pains to inculcate, as a fundamental principle, that in all monarchies the people must in effect themselves, mediately or immediately, possess the power of granting their own money, or no shadow of liberty could subsist. The colonies draw from you, as with their life-blood, these ideas and principles. Their love of liberty, as with you, fixed and attached on this specific' point of taxing. Liberty might be
safe or might be endangered in twenty other particu.
lars without their being much pleased or alarmed.
Here they felt its pulse; and as they found that beat?
they thought themselves sick or sound. I do not say
whether they were right or wrong in applying your
general arguments to their - own case. It is not easy,
indeed;-to make a moniopoly of theorems and corollaries. : The fact is, that they. did thus apply those gen
? ? ? ? 122 SPEECH'ON CONCILIATION'WITH AMERICA.
eral arguments; and your mode of governing them,
whether through lenity or indolence, through wisdom
or mistake, confirmed them in the imagination, that
they, as well as you, had an interest in these common
principles.
They were further confirmed in this pleasing error
by the form of their provincial legislative assemblies.
Their governments are popular in an high degree:
some are merely popular; in all, the popular representative is the most weighty; and this share of the people in their ordinary government never fails to inspire them with lofty sentiments, and with a strong aversion from whatever tends to deprive them of their
chief importance.
If anything were wanting to this necessary operation of the form of government, religion would have given it a complete effect. Religion, always a principle of energy, in this new people is no way worn out or impaired; and their mode of professing it is also
one main cause of this free spirit. The people are
Protestants, and of that kind which is the most adverse to all implicit submission of mind and opinion. This is a persuasion not only favorable to liberty, but
built upon it. I do not think, Sir, that the reason of
this averseness in the dissenting churches from all
that looks'like absolute government is so much to be
sought in their religious tenets as ini their history.
Every one knows that the Roman Catholic religion is
at least coeval with most of the governments where it
prevails, that it has generally gone hand in hand
with them, and received great favor and every kind
of support from authority. The Church of England,
too, was formed from her cradle under the nursing
care of regular government. But the dissenting in
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 123
terests have sprung up in direct opposition to all the
ordinary powers of the world, arid could justify that
opposition only on a strong claim to natural liberty.
Their very existence depended on the powerful and
unremitted assertion of that claim. All Protestantism, even the most cold and passive, is a sort of dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principle of resistance:
it is the dissidence of dissent, alid the protestantism
of the Protestant religion. This religion, under a
variety of denominations agreeing in nothing but in
the communion of the spirit of liberty, is predominant in most of the northern provinces, where the
Church of England, notwithstanding its legal rights,
is in reality no more than a sort of private sect, not
composing, most probably, the tenth of the people.
The colonists left England when this spirit was high,
and in the emigrants was the highest of all; and even
that stream of foreigners which has been constantly
flowing into these colonies has, for the greatest part,
been composed of dissenters from the establishments
of their several countries, and have brought with them
a temper and character far from alien to that of the
people with whom they mixed.
Sir, I can perceive, by their manner, that some
gentlemen object to the latitude of this description,
because in the southern colonies the Church of England forms a large body, and has a regular establishment. It is certainly true. There is, however, a circumstance attending these colonies, which, in my
opinion, fully counterbalances this difference, and
makes the spirit of liberty still more high and haughty than in those to the northward. It is, that in Virginia and the Carolinas they have a vast multitude of
? ? ? ? 124 SPEECHI ON CONCILIATION WITH:AMERICA.
slaves. Where this is the case in any part of the
world, those who are'free are by far the most proud
and jealous of their freedom. Freedom is to them
not only an enjoyment, but a kind of rank and privilege. -Not seeing there, that freedom, as in countries where it is a common blessing, and as broad and general as the air, may be united with much abject toil, with great misery, with all the exterior of servitude,
liberty looks, amongst them, like something that is
more noble and liberal. I do not mean, Sir, to commend the superior morality of this sentiment, which has at least as much pride as virtue in it; but I cannot alter the nature of man. The fact is so; and these people of the southern colonies are much more
strongly, and with an higher and more stubborn spir
it, attached to liberty, than those to the northward.
Such were all the ancient commonwealths; such were
ouir Gothic ancestors; such in our days were the
Poles; and such will be all masters of slaves, who
are'not slaves themselves. In such a people, the
haughtiness of domination combines with the spirit
-of freedom, fortifies it, and renders it invincible.
Permit me, Sir, to add another circumstance in our.
colonies, which contributes no mean part towards the
growth and effect of this untractable spirit: I mean
their education. In no- country, perhaps, in the world
is the law so general a study. The profession itself
is numeirous and powerful, and in most provinces it
takes the lead. The greater number of the deputies
sent to the Congress were lawyers. But all who read,
and most do read, endeavor to obtain some smattering
in that science. I. have been told by an eminent
bookseller, that in no bralch of his business, after
tracts of popular devotion, were so many books as
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH -AMERICA. 125
those on the law exported to the plantations. The
colonists have now fallen into the way of printing
them for their own use. I liear that they have sold
nearly as many of Blackstone's " Commentaries " in
America as in England. General Gage marks out
this disposition very particularly in a letter on your
table, He states, that all the people in his government are lawyers, or smatterers in law,- and that in Boston they have been enabled, by successful- chicane,
wholly to evade many parts of one of your capital pe
nal constitutions. The smartness of debate will say,
that this knowledge ought to teach them more clearly
the rights of legislature, their obligations to obedience,
and the penalties of rebellion. All this is mighty well.
But my honorable and learned friend,* on the floor,
who condescends to mark what I say for animadversion, will disdain that iground. He has heard, as well as I, that, when great honors and great emoluments do not win over this knowledge to the service of the state, it is a formidable adversary to government. If the spirit be not tamed and broken by these happy methods, it is stubborn and litigious. Abeunt
studia in mores. This study renders men acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in defence, full of resources. In other countries, the people, more simple, and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance; here they anticipate the evil, and judge of the.
pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle. They augur misgovernment at a distance, and
snuff the approach of tyranny iin evei y tainted breeze.
The last cause of this disobedient! pirit in the colouies. i, hardly less powerful than th( rest, as it is not * The Attorney-General.
? ? ? ? 120 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
merely moral, but laid deep in the natural constitu.
tion of things. Three thousand miles of ocean lie between you and them. 'No contrivance can prevent
the effect of this distance in weakening government.
Seas roll, and months pass, between the order and the
execution; and the want of a speedy explanation of
a single point is enough to defeat an whole system.
You have, indeed, winged ministers of vengeance,
who carry your bolts'in their pounces to the remotest
verge of the sea: but there a power steps in, that
limits the arrogance of raging passions and furious
elements, and says, "So far shalt thou go, and no
farther. " Who are you, that should fret' and rage,
and bite the chains of Nature? Nothing worse happens to you than does to all nations who have extensive empire; and it happens in all the forms into which empire can be thrown. In large bodies, the circulation of power. must be less vigorous at the extremities. Nature has said it. The Turk cannot govern
Egypt, and Arabia, and Kurdistan, as he governs
Thrace; nor has he the same dominion in Crimea
and Algiers which he has at Brusa and Smyrna.
Despotism itself, is obliged to truck and huckster.
The Sultan gets such obedience as he can. He gov
erns with a loose rein, that he may govern at all;
and the whole of the force and vigor of his authority
in his centre is derived from a prudent relaxation in
all his borders. Spain, in her provinces, is perhaps
not so well obeyed as you are in yours. She complies, too; she submits; she'watches times. This is
the immutable condition, the eternal law, of extensive
and detached empire.
Then, Sir, from-. these six capital sources, of descent, of form of government, of religion in the
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION: WITH AMERICA. 127
northern provinces, of -manners in the southern, of
education, of the remoteness of situation from the
first mover of government, -from all these causes a
fierce spirit of liberty. has grown up. It has grown
with the growth of the people in your colonies, and
increased with the increase of their wealth: a spirit,
that, unhappily meeting with'an exercise of power in
England, which, however lawful, is not reconcilable
to any ideas of liberty, much less with theirs, has kindiled this flame that is ready to consume us. I do not mean to commend either the spirit in this
excess, or the moral causes which produce it. Perhaps a more smooth and accommodating spirit of freedom in them would be more acceptable to us.
Perhaps ideas of liberty might be desired more reconcilable with an arbitrary and boundless authority. Perhaps we might wish the colonists to be persuaded
that their liberty is more secure when held in trust
for them byus (as their guardians during a perpetnal minority) than with any part of it in their own hands. But the question is not, whether their spirit
deserves praise or blame, -- what, in the name of God,
shall we do with it? You have before you the object, such as it is, -- with all its glories, with all its imperfections on its head. You see the magnitude,
the importance, the temper, the habits, the disorders. By all these considerations we are strongly urged to determine something concerning it. We
are called upon to fix some rule and line for our future conduct, which may give a little stability to our politics, and prevent the return of such unhappy deliberations as the present. Every such return will bring the matter before us in'a still more untractable
form. For what astonishing and incredible things
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have we not seen already! What monsters have
not been generated from this unnatural contention!
Whilst every principle of authority and resistance
has been. pushed, upon both sides, as far as it would
go, there is nothing so solid and certain, either in
reasoning or in practice, that has not been shaken.
Until very lately, all authority in America seemed to
be nothing but an emanation from yours. Even the
popular part of the colony constitution derived all its
activity, and its first vital movement, from the pleasure of the crown. We thought, Sir, tlhat the utmost
which the discontented colonists could do was to disturb authority; we never dreamt they could of themselves supply it, knowing in general what an operose business it is to establish a government absolutely
new. But having, for our purposes in this contention, resolved that none but an obedient assembly should sit, the humors of the. people there, finding all
passage through the legal channel stopped, with great
violence broke out another way. Some provinces
have tried their experiment, as we have tried ours;
and theirs has succeeded. They have formed a government sufficient for its purposes, without the bustle of a revolution, or the troublesome formality of an election. Evidentnecessity and tacit consent have
done the business in an instant. So well they have
done it, that Lord Dunmore (the account is among
the fragments on your table) tells you that the new
institution is infinitely better obeyed than the ancient
government ever was in its most fortunate periods.
Obedience is what makes government, and not the
names by which it is called: not the name of Governor, as formerly; or Committee, as at present. This
new government has originated directly from the peo
? ? ? ?
admitted, notwithstanding the menacing front of our
address, notwithstanding our heavy bill of pains and
penalties, that we do not think ourselves precluded
from all ideas of free grace and bounty.
The House has gone farther: it has declared conciliation admissible previous to any submission on the
part of America. It has even shot a good deal beyond that mark, and has admitted that the comsituation of such province or colony, for contributing their proportzon to. the common defence, (such proportion to be raised under the authority
of the general court or general assembly of such province or colony,
and disposable by Parliament,) and shall engage to make provision
also for the support of the civil government and the administration
of justice in such province or colony, it will be proper, if such proposal
shall be approved by his Majesty and the two Houses of Parliament, and
for so long as such provision shall be made accordingly, to forbear,
in respect of such province or colony, to levy any duty, tax, or assessment, or to impose any farther duty, tax, or assessment, except only
such duties, as it may be expedient to continue to levy or to impose
for thi regulation of commerce: the net produce of the duties last
mentioned to be carried to the account of such province or colony
respectively. " -Resolution moved by Lord North in the Committee,
and agreed to by the House, 27th February, 1775.
? ? ? ? 108 SPEECH ON, CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
plaints of our:former mode of exerting the right of
{taxatia n were not wholly'unfounded. That right
thus exerted is allowed to have had something reprehensible' in' it, -something unwise, or something
grievous; since, in'the midst of our heat and resentment,`'we, of. ourselves, have proposed a capital alteration, and, in order to get rid of what seemed so very exceptionable, have instituted a mode that is altogetlier new,- one that is, indeed, wholly alien from
all the ancient methods and forms of Parliament.
The'principle of this proceeding is large enough for
my purpose. The means proposed by the noble lord
for carrying his ideas into execution, I think, indeed,
are very indifferently suited to the end; and this I
shall endeavor to show you before I sit down. But,
for the present, I take my ground on the admitted
principle. I mean to give peace. Peace implies reconciliation; and where there has been a material dispute, reconciliation does in a manner always imply concession on the one part or on the other. In this
state of things I make no difficulty in affirming that
the proposal ought to originate from us. Great and
acknowledged force is not impaired, either in effect or
in opinion, by an unwillingness to exert itself. The
superior power may offer peace with honor and with
safety. Such an offer from such a power will be attributed to magnanimity. But the concessions of the weak are the' concessions of fear. When such a one
is disarmed, he is wholly;at the mercy of his superior; and he loses forever that time and those chances. which, as they happen to all men, are the strength and resources of all inferior power.
The capital leading questions on which you must this day decide are these two: First, whether you
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 109
ought to concede; and secondly, what your concession ought to be. On the first of these questions we
have gained (as I have just taken the liberty of observing to you) some ground. But I am sensible that
a good deal more is still to be done. Indeed, Sir, to
enable us to determine both on the one and the other
of these great questions with a firm and precise judgment, I think it may be necessary to consider distinctly the true nature and the peculiar circumstances of the object which we have before us: because, after
all our struggle, whether we will -or not, we must govern America according to that nature and to those
circumstances, and not according to our own imaginations, not according to abstract ideas of right, by
no means according to mere general theories of government, the resort to which appears to me, in our
present situation, no better than arrant trifling. I
shall therefore endeavor, with your leave, to lay before you some of the' most material of these circumstances in as full and as clear a manner as I am able to state them.
The first thing that we have to consider with regard to the nature of the object is the number of
people in the colonies. I have taken for some years
agood deal of pains on that point. I can by no calculation justify myself in placing the number below
two millions of inhabitants of our own European blood
and color, -besides at least 500,000 others, who form
no inconsiderable part of the strength and opulence
of the whole. This, Sir, is, I believe, about the true
number. There is no occasion to exaggerate, where
plain truth is of so much weight and importance.
But whether I put the present numbers too high or
too low is a matter of little'moment. Such is the
? ? ? ? 110 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
strength with which population shoots in that part of
the world, that, state the numbers as high as we will,
whilst the dispute continues, the exaggeration ends.
Whilst we are discussing any given magnitude, they
are grown to it. Whilst we spend our time in deliberating on the mode of governing two millions, we
shall find we have millions more to manage. Your
children do not grow faster from infancy to manhood than they spread from families to communities,
and from villages to nations. -
I put this consideration of the present and the
growing numbers in the front of our deliberation,
because, Sir, this consideration will make it evident
to a blunter discernment than yours, that no partial,
narrow, contracted, pinched, occasional system will
be at all suitable to such an object. It will show
you that it is not to be considered as one of those
minima which are out of the eye and consideration
of the law, - not a paltry excrescence of the state,not a mean dependant, who may be neglected with little. damage and provoked with little danger. It will prove that some degree of care and caution is required in the handling such an object; it will show
that you ought not,. in reason, to trifle with so large
a mass of the interests and feelings of the human
race. You could at no time do so without guilt;
and be assured you will not be able to do it long with
impunity.
But the population of this country, the great and
growing population, though a very important consideration, will lose much of its weight, if not combined
with other circumstances. The commerce of your
colonies is out of all proportion beyond the numbers
of the people. This ground of their commerce, in
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deed, has been trod some days ago, and with great
ability, by a distinguished person, at your bar.
This. gentleman, after thirty-five years, - it is so long
since he first appeared at the same place to plead for
the commerce of Great Britain, -has come again before you to plead the same cause, without any other
effect of time than that to the fire of imagination
and extent of erudition, which even then marked
him as one of the first literary characters of his
age, he has added a consummate knowledge in the
commercial interest of his country, formed by a
long course of enlightened and discriminating experience.
Sir, I should be inexcusable in coming after such a
person with any detail, if a great part of the members who now fill the House had not the misfortune
to be absent when he appeared at your bar. Besides,
Sir, I propose to take the matter at'periods. of timesomewhat different from his. There is, if I mistake
not, a point of view from whence, if you will look at
this subject, it is impossible that it should not make
an impression upon you.
I have in my hand two accounts: one a comparative state of the export trade of England to its colo-:ties, as it stood in the year 1704, and as it stood in the year 1772; the other a state of the export
trade of this country to its colonies alone, as it stood'in 1772, compared with the whole trade of England
to all parts of the world (the colonies included) in
the year 1704. They are from good vouchers: the
latter period from the accounts on your table; the
earlier from an original manuscript of Davenant,
who first established the Inspector-General's office,
* Mr. Glover.
? ? ? ? 112. SPEECH ON-:CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
which has been ever since his time so abundant a
source of Parliamentary information.
The export trade. to the colonies consists of three
great branches: the African, which,- terminating
almost wholly in the colonies, must be put to the account of their commerce; the West Indian; and the North American. All these are so interwoven, that
the attempt to separate them would tear to pieces
the contexture of the whole, and, if not entirely destroy, would very much depreciate, the value of all the parts. I therefore consider these three denominations to be, what in effect they are, one trade. The trade to the colonies, taken on the export side,
at the beginning of this century, that is, in the year
1704, stood thus: -
Exports to North America and the West
Indies. . . . . . . . . . . 483,265
To Africa. . . . 86,665
~ 569,930
In the year 1772, which I take as a middle year
between the highest and lowest of those lately laid on
your table, the account was as follows: --
To North America and the West Indies ~ 4,791,734
To Africa. 866,398
To which if you add the export trade
from Scotland, which had in 1704 no
existence. 364,000
~ 6,024,171
From five hundred and odd thousand, it has grown
to six millions. It has increased no less than twelvefold. This is the state of the colony trade, as com
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 113 pared with itself at these two periods, within this century; - and this is matter for meditation. But
this is not all. Examine my second account. See
how the export trade to the colonies alone in 1772 stood in the other point of view, that is, as compared to the whole trade of England in 1704.
The whole export trade of England, including that to the colonies, in 1704 ~ 6,509,000 Export to the colonies alone, in 1772. 6,024,000
Difference ~ 485,000
The trade with America ~aeiqs now within less
than 500,0001. of being eqtfil to what this great commercial nation, England, carried on at the beginning of this century with the whole world! If I had taken
the largest year of those on your table, it would rather
have exceeded. But, it will be said, is not this American trade an unnatural protuberance, that has drawn the juices from the rest of the body? The reverse.
It is the very food that has nourished every other part
into its present magnitude. Our general trade has
been greatly augmented, and augmented more or
less in almost every part to which it ever extended,
but with this material difference: that of the six millions which in the beginning of the century constituted the whole mass of our export commerce the colony trade was but one twelfth part; it is now (as
a part of sixteen millions) considerably more than a
third of the whole. This is the relative proportion
of the importance of the colonies at these two periods: and all reasoning concerning our mode of treating them must have this proportion as its basis, or it is a reasoning weak, rotten, and sophistical.
Mr. Speaker, I cannot prevail on myself to hurry
VOL. II. 8
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over this great consideration. It is good for us to be
here. We stand where we have an immense view of
what is, and what is past. Clouds indeed, and darkness, rest upon the future. 'Let us, however, before
we -descend from this noble eminence, reflect that this
growth of our national prosperity has happened within the short period-of the life of man. It has happened within sixty-eight years. There are those alive whose memory might touch the two extremities. For
instance, my Lord Bathurst might remember all the
stages of the progress. He was in 1704 of an age at
least to be made to comprehend such things. He was
then old enough acta parentum jam leyere, et quce sit
poterit cognoscere virtus. Suppose, Sir, that the angel
of this auspicious youth, foreseeing the many virtues
which made him one of the most amiable, as he is one
of'the most fortunate men of his age, had opened to
him in vision, that, when, in the fourth generation,
the third prince of the House of Brunswick had sat
twelve years on the throne of that nation which (by
the happy issue of moderate and healing councils)
was. to be made Great Britain, he should see his son,
Lord Chancellor of England, turn back the current
of hereditary dignity to its fountain, and raise him
to an higher rank of peerage, whilst he enriched the
family with a new one, if, amidst these bright and
happy scenes of domestic honor and prosperity, that
angel should have drawn up the curtain, and unfolded the rising glories of his country, and whilst he
was gazing with admiration on the then. commercial
grandeur of England, the genius should point out
to him a little speck, scarce visible in the mass of the
national interest, a small seminal principle rather
than a formed body, and should tell him,-" Young
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 115,nanl, there is Amlerica, - which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage
men and uncouth manners, yet shall, before you
taste of death, show itself equal to the whole of that
commerce which now attracts the envy of the world.
Whatever England has been growing to by a progressive increase of improvement, brought in by varieties of people, by succession of civilizing conquests and
civilizing settlements in a series of'seventeen hundred
years, you shall see as much added to her by America
in the course of a single life! "'If this state of his
country had been foretold to'him, would it not require all the sanguine credulity of youth, and all the fervid glow of enthusiasm, to make him believe it?
Fortunate man, he has lived to see it! Fortunate indeed, if he lives to see nothing that shall vary the prospect, and cloud the setting of his day!
Excuse me, Sir, if, turning from such thoughts, I
resume this comparative view once more. You have
seen it on a large scale; look at it on a small one.
I will point out to your attention a particular instance of it in the single province of Pennsylvania.
In the year 1704, that province called for 11,4591. in
value of your commodities, native and foreign. This
was the whole. What did it demand in 1772? Why,
nearly fifty times as much'; for in that year the export to Pennsylvania was 507,9091. , nearly equal to
the export to all the colonies together in the first
period.
I choose, Sir, to enter into these minute and particular details; because generalities, which in all
other cases are apt to heighten and raise the subject,
have here a tendency to sink it. When we speak of
the -commerce with our colonies,:fiction lags after
? ? ? ? 116 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA-.
truth, invention is unfruitful, and imagination cold
and barren.
So far, Sir, as to the importance of the object in the
view of its commerce, as concerned in the exports
from England. If I were to detail the imports, I
could show: how,many enjoyments they procure
which deceive the burden of life, how many materials which invigorate the springs of national industry and extend and animate every part of our foreign and domestic commerce. This would be a curious
subject indeed, - but I must prescribe bounds to myself in a matter so vast and various.
I pass,therefore, to the colonies in another point ofview,-their agriculture. This they have prosecuted with such a spirit, that, besides feeding plentifully
their own growing multitude, their annual export of
grain, comprehending rice, has some years ago exceeded a million in value. Of their last harvest, I am persuaded, they will export much more. At the
beginning of the century some of these colonies imported corn from the mother country. For some time past the Old World has been fed from the New.
The scarcity which you have felt would have been
a desolating famine, if this child of your old age, with
a true filial piety, with a Roman charity, had not
put the full breast of its youthful exuberance to the
mouth of its exhausted parent.
As to the wealth which the colonies have drawn
from the sea by their fisheries, you had all that matter fully opened at your bar. You surely thought those acquisitions of value, for they seemed even to
excite your envy; and yet the spirit by which that
enterprising employment has been exercised ought
rather, in my opinion, to have raised your esteem and
? ? ? ? SPE. CH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 117
admiration. And pray, Sir, what in the world is equal
to it? Pass by the other parts, and look at the malner in which the people of New England have'of late
carried on the whale-fishery. Whilst we follow them
among the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold
thlem penetrating into the deepest frozen recesses of
Hudson's Bay and Davis's Straits, whilst we are looking for them beneath the arctic circle, we hear that
they have pierced into the opposite region of polar
cold,:that they are at the -antipodes, and engaged
under the frozen serpent of the South. Falkland
Island, which seemed too remote and romantic an
~object for the grasp of national ambition, is but a
stage and resting-place in the progress'of their victorious industry. Nor is the equinoctial heat more discouraging to them than the accumulated winter of both the poles. We know, that, whilst some of them
draw the line and strike the harpoon on the coast of
Africa, others run the longitude, and pursue their
gigantic game along the coast of Brazil. No sea butr
what is vexed by their fisheries. No climate that is
not witness to their toils. Neither the perseverance
of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dexterous and firm sagacity of English enterprise, ever
carried this most perilous mode of hardy industry to
the extent to which it has been pushed by this recent
people, --a people who are still, as it were, but in the
gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood. When I contemplate these things, -when I
know that the colonies in general owe little or nothing to any care of ours, and that they are not squeezed
into this happy form by the constraints of watchful
and suspicious government, but that, through a wise
and salutary neglect, a generous nature has been suf
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fered to take her own way to perfection, - when I reflect upon these effects, when I see how profitable they have been to us, I feel all the pride of power
sink, and all presumption in the wisdom of human
contrivances melt and die away within me, --my
rigor relents, -- I pardon something to the spirit of
liberty.
I am sensible, Sir, that all which I have asserted
in my detail is admitted in the gross, but that quite
a different conclusion is drawn from it.
America,
gentlemen say, is a noble object, - it is an object well
worth fighting for. Certainly it is, if fighting a people be the best way of gaining them. Gentlemen in this respect will be led to their choice of means by
their complexions and their habits. Those who understand the military art will of course have some predilection for it. Those who wield the thunder of
thle state may have more confidence in the efficacy of
arms. But I confess, possibly for want of this knowledge, my opinion is much more in favor of prudent management than of force; --considering force not as
an odious, but a feeble instrument, for preserving a
people so numerous, so active, so growing, so spirited
as this, in a profitable and subordinate connection
with us.
First, Sir, permit me to observe, that the use of
force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a
moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed which is perpetually to be conquered.
My next objection is its uncertainty,' Terror is not
always the effect of force, and an armament is not a
victory. If you do not succeed, you are without resource: for, conciliation failing, force remains; but,
? ? ? ? SPEECIH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 119
force failing, no further hope of reconciliation is left.
Power and authority are sometimes bought by kindness; but they can -never be begged as alms by an impoverished and defeated violence.
A further objection to force is, that you impair the
object by your very endeavors to preserve it. The
thing you fought for is not the thing which you recover, but depreciated, sunk, wasted, and consumed in the contest. Nothing less will content me than whole
America. I do not choose to consume its strength
along with our own; because in, all parts it is the
British strength that I consume. I do not choose to
be caught by a foreign enemy at the end of this exhausting conflict, and still less in the midst of it. I may escape, but I can make no insurance'against
such an event. Let me add, that I do not choose
wholly to break the American spirit; because it is the
spirit that has made the country.
Lastly, we have no sort of expedience in favor of
force as an instrument in the rule of our colonies.
Their growth and their utility has been owing to
methods altogether different. Our ancient indulgence
has been said to be pursued to a fault. It may be so;
but we know, if feeling is evidence, that our fault was
more tolerable than our attempt to mend it, and our
sin far more salutary than our penitence.
These, Sir, are my reasons for not entertaining that
high opinion of untried force by which many gentlemen, for whose sentiments in other particulars I have great respect, seem to be so greatly captivated. But
there is still behind a third consideration concerning
this object, which serves to determine my opinion on
the sort of policy which ought to be pursued in the
management of America, even more than its popula
? ? ? ? 120 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
tion and its commerce: I mean its temper and character.
In this character of the Americans a love of freedom is the predominating feature which marks and
distinguishes the whole: and as an ardent is always
a jealous affection, your colonies become suspicious,
restive, and untractable, whenever they see the least
attempt to wrest from them by force, or shuffle from
them by chicane, what they think the only advantage
worth living for. This fierce spirit of liberty is
stronger in the English colonies, probably, than in any
other people of the earth, and this from a great variety of powerful causes; which, to understand the
true temper of their minds, and the direction which
this spirit takes, it will not be amiss to lay open somewhat more largely.
First, the people of the colonies are descendants of
Englishmen. England, Sir, is a nation which still, I
hope, respects, and formerly adored, her freedom. The
colonists emigrated from you when this part of your
character was most predominant; and they took this
bias and direction the moment they parted from your
hands. They are therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideas and on
English principles. Abstract liberty, like other mere
abstractions, is not to be found. Liberty inheres in
some sensible object; and every nation has formed to
itself some favorite point, which by way of eminence
becomes the criterion of their happiness. It happened, you know, Sir, that the great contests for free. dom in this country were from the earliest times chiefly upon the question of taxing. Most of the contests in the ancient commonwealths turned primarily
on the right of election of magistrates, or on the bal
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 121
ance among the several orders of the state. The question of money was not with them so immediate. But in England it was otherwise. On this point of taxes the ablest pens and most eloquent tongues have been exercised, the greatest spirits have acted and suffered. In order to give the fullest satisfaction concerning the importance of this point, it was not only necessary for those who in argument defended the excellence of the! English Constitution to insist on this privilege'of granting money as a dry point of fact, and to prove that the right had been'acknowledged
in ancient parchments' and blind usages to reside in a'certain body called an House of Commons: they went much further: they attempted to prove, and they succeeded, that in theory it ought to be so, from the particular nature of a House of Commons, as an immediate representative of the people, whether the old records had delivered this oracle or not. They took infinite pains to inculcate, as a fundamental principle, that in all monarchies the people must in effect themselves, mediately or immediately, possess the power of granting their own money, or no shadow of liberty could subsist. The colonies draw from you, as with their life-blood, these ideas and principles. Their love of liberty, as with you, fixed and attached on this specific' point of taxing. Liberty might be
safe or might be endangered in twenty other particu.
lars without their being much pleased or alarmed.
Here they felt its pulse; and as they found that beat?
they thought themselves sick or sound. I do not say
whether they were right or wrong in applying your
general arguments to their - own case. It is not easy,
indeed;-to make a moniopoly of theorems and corollaries. : The fact is, that they. did thus apply those gen
? ? ? ? 122 SPEECH'ON CONCILIATION'WITH AMERICA.
eral arguments; and your mode of governing them,
whether through lenity or indolence, through wisdom
or mistake, confirmed them in the imagination, that
they, as well as you, had an interest in these common
principles.
They were further confirmed in this pleasing error
by the form of their provincial legislative assemblies.
Their governments are popular in an high degree:
some are merely popular; in all, the popular representative is the most weighty; and this share of the people in their ordinary government never fails to inspire them with lofty sentiments, and with a strong aversion from whatever tends to deprive them of their
chief importance.
If anything were wanting to this necessary operation of the form of government, religion would have given it a complete effect. Religion, always a principle of energy, in this new people is no way worn out or impaired; and their mode of professing it is also
one main cause of this free spirit. The people are
Protestants, and of that kind which is the most adverse to all implicit submission of mind and opinion. This is a persuasion not only favorable to liberty, but
built upon it. I do not think, Sir, that the reason of
this averseness in the dissenting churches from all
that looks'like absolute government is so much to be
sought in their religious tenets as ini their history.
Every one knows that the Roman Catholic religion is
at least coeval with most of the governments where it
prevails, that it has generally gone hand in hand
with them, and received great favor and every kind
of support from authority. The Church of England,
too, was formed from her cradle under the nursing
care of regular government. But the dissenting in
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terests have sprung up in direct opposition to all the
ordinary powers of the world, arid could justify that
opposition only on a strong claim to natural liberty.
Their very existence depended on the powerful and
unremitted assertion of that claim. All Protestantism, even the most cold and passive, is a sort of dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principle of resistance:
it is the dissidence of dissent, alid the protestantism
of the Protestant religion. This religion, under a
variety of denominations agreeing in nothing but in
the communion of the spirit of liberty, is predominant in most of the northern provinces, where the
Church of England, notwithstanding its legal rights,
is in reality no more than a sort of private sect, not
composing, most probably, the tenth of the people.
The colonists left England when this spirit was high,
and in the emigrants was the highest of all; and even
that stream of foreigners which has been constantly
flowing into these colonies has, for the greatest part,
been composed of dissenters from the establishments
of their several countries, and have brought with them
a temper and character far from alien to that of the
people with whom they mixed.
Sir, I can perceive, by their manner, that some
gentlemen object to the latitude of this description,
because in the southern colonies the Church of England forms a large body, and has a regular establishment. It is certainly true. There is, however, a circumstance attending these colonies, which, in my
opinion, fully counterbalances this difference, and
makes the spirit of liberty still more high and haughty than in those to the northward. It is, that in Virginia and the Carolinas they have a vast multitude of
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slaves. Where this is the case in any part of the
world, those who are'free are by far the most proud
and jealous of their freedom. Freedom is to them
not only an enjoyment, but a kind of rank and privilege. -Not seeing there, that freedom, as in countries where it is a common blessing, and as broad and general as the air, may be united with much abject toil, with great misery, with all the exterior of servitude,
liberty looks, amongst them, like something that is
more noble and liberal. I do not mean, Sir, to commend the superior morality of this sentiment, which has at least as much pride as virtue in it; but I cannot alter the nature of man. The fact is so; and these people of the southern colonies are much more
strongly, and with an higher and more stubborn spir
it, attached to liberty, than those to the northward.
Such were all the ancient commonwealths; such were
ouir Gothic ancestors; such in our days were the
Poles; and such will be all masters of slaves, who
are'not slaves themselves. In such a people, the
haughtiness of domination combines with the spirit
-of freedom, fortifies it, and renders it invincible.
Permit me, Sir, to add another circumstance in our.
colonies, which contributes no mean part towards the
growth and effect of this untractable spirit: I mean
their education. In no- country, perhaps, in the world
is the law so general a study. The profession itself
is numeirous and powerful, and in most provinces it
takes the lead. The greater number of the deputies
sent to the Congress were lawyers. But all who read,
and most do read, endeavor to obtain some smattering
in that science. I. have been told by an eminent
bookseller, that in no bralch of his business, after
tracts of popular devotion, were so many books as
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those on the law exported to the plantations. The
colonists have now fallen into the way of printing
them for their own use. I liear that they have sold
nearly as many of Blackstone's " Commentaries " in
America as in England. General Gage marks out
this disposition very particularly in a letter on your
table, He states, that all the people in his government are lawyers, or smatterers in law,- and that in Boston they have been enabled, by successful- chicane,
wholly to evade many parts of one of your capital pe
nal constitutions. The smartness of debate will say,
that this knowledge ought to teach them more clearly
the rights of legislature, their obligations to obedience,
and the penalties of rebellion. All this is mighty well.
But my honorable and learned friend,* on the floor,
who condescends to mark what I say for animadversion, will disdain that iground. He has heard, as well as I, that, when great honors and great emoluments do not win over this knowledge to the service of the state, it is a formidable adversary to government. If the spirit be not tamed and broken by these happy methods, it is stubborn and litigious. Abeunt
studia in mores. This study renders men acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in defence, full of resources. In other countries, the people, more simple, and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance; here they anticipate the evil, and judge of the.
pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle. They augur misgovernment at a distance, and
snuff the approach of tyranny iin evei y tainted breeze.
The last cause of this disobedient! pirit in the colouies. i, hardly less powerful than th( rest, as it is not * The Attorney-General.
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merely moral, but laid deep in the natural constitu.
tion of things. Three thousand miles of ocean lie between you and them. 'No contrivance can prevent
the effect of this distance in weakening government.
Seas roll, and months pass, between the order and the
execution; and the want of a speedy explanation of
a single point is enough to defeat an whole system.
You have, indeed, winged ministers of vengeance,
who carry your bolts'in their pounces to the remotest
verge of the sea: but there a power steps in, that
limits the arrogance of raging passions and furious
elements, and says, "So far shalt thou go, and no
farther. " Who are you, that should fret' and rage,
and bite the chains of Nature? Nothing worse happens to you than does to all nations who have extensive empire; and it happens in all the forms into which empire can be thrown. In large bodies, the circulation of power. must be less vigorous at the extremities. Nature has said it. The Turk cannot govern
Egypt, and Arabia, and Kurdistan, as he governs
Thrace; nor has he the same dominion in Crimea
and Algiers which he has at Brusa and Smyrna.
Despotism itself, is obliged to truck and huckster.
The Sultan gets such obedience as he can. He gov
erns with a loose rein, that he may govern at all;
and the whole of the force and vigor of his authority
in his centre is derived from a prudent relaxation in
all his borders. Spain, in her provinces, is perhaps
not so well obeyed as you are in yours. She complies, too; she submits; she'watches times. This is
the immutable condition, the eternal law, of extensive
and detached empire.
Then, Sir, from-. these six capital sources, of descent, of form of government, of religion in the
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northern provinces, of -manners in the southern, of
education, of the remoteness of situation from the
first mover of government, -from all these causes a
fierce spirit of liberty. has grown up. It has grown
with the growth of the people in your colonies, and
increased with the increase of their wealth: a spirit,
that, unhappily meeting with'an exercise of power in
England, which, however lawful, is not reconcilable
to any ideas of liberty, much less with theirs, has kindiled this flame that is ready to consume us. I do not mean to commend either the spirit in this
excess, or the moral causes which produce it. Perhaps a more smooth and accommodating spirit of freedom in them would be more acceptable to us.
Perhaps ideas of liberty might be desired more reconcilable with an arbitrary and boundless authority. Perhaps we might wish the colonists to be persuaded
that their liberty is more secure when held in trust
for them byus (as their guardians during a perpetnal minority) than with any part of it in their own hands. But the question is not, whether their spirit
deserves praise or blame, -- what, in the name of God,
shall we do with it? You have before you the object, such as it is, -- with all its glories, with all its imperfections on its head. You see the magnitude,
the importance, the temper, the habits, the disorders. By all these considerations we are strongly urged to determine something concerning it. We
are called upon to fix some rule and line for our future conduct, which may give a little stability to our politics, and prevent the return of such unhappy deliberations as the present. Every such return will bring the matter before us in'a still more untractable
form. For what astonishing and incredible things
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have we not seen already! What monsters have
not been generated from this unnatural contention!
Whilst every principle of authority and resistance
has been. pushed, upon both sides, as far as it would
go, there is nothing so solid and certain, either in
reasoning or in practice, that has not been shaken.
Until very lately, all authority in America seemed to
be nothing but an emanation from yours. Even the
popular part of the colony constitution derived all its
activity, and its first vital movement, from the pleasure of the crown. We thought, Sir, tlhat the utmost
which the discontented colonists could do was to disturb authority; we never dreamt they could of themselves supply it, knowing in general what an operose business it is to establish a government absolutely
new. But having, for our purposes in this contention, resolved that none but an obedient assembly should sit, the humors of the. people there, finding all
passage through the legal channel stopped, with great
violence broke out another way. Some provinces
have tried their experiment, as we have tried ours;
and theirs has succeeded. They have formed a government sufficient for its purposes, without the bustle of a revolution, or the troublesome formality of an election. Evidentnecessity and tacit consent have
done the business in an instant. So well they have
done it, that Lord Dunmore (the account is among
the fragments on your table) tells you that the new
institution is infinitely better obeyed than the ancient
government ever was in its most fortunate periods.
Obedience is what makes government, and not the
names by which it is called: not the name of Governor, as formerly; or Committee, as at present. This
new government has originated directly from the peo
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