BURKE'S SPEECH

ON

CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA

EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES

BY

SIDNEY CARLETON NEWSOM

TEACHER OF ENGLISH, MANUAL TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA

PREFACE

The introduction to this edition of Burke's speech on Conciliation with Americais intended to supply the needs of those students who do not have access to awell-stocked library, or who, for any reason, are unable to do the collateralreading necessary for a complete understanding of the text. 

The sources from which information has been drawn in preparing this edition arementioned under "Bibliography. " The editor wishes to acknowledge indebtedness tomany of the excellent older editions of the speech, and also to Mr. A. P. Winston, of the Manual Training High School, for valuable suggestions. 

CONTENTS

 POLITICAL SITUATION

 EDMUND BURKE

 BURKE AS A STATESMAN

 BURKE IN LITERATURE

 TOPICS FOR SPECIAL REPORTS

 BIBLIOGRAPHY

 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA

 NOTES

 INDEX

INTRODUCTION

POLITICAL SITUATION

In 1651 originated the policy which caused the American Revolution. That policywas one of taxation, indirect, it is true, but none the less taxation. The firstNavigation Act required that colonial exports should be shipped to England inAmerican or English vessels. This was followed by a long series of acts, regulating and restricting the American trade. Colonists were not allowed toexchange certain articles without paying duties thereon, and custom houses wereestablished and officers appointed. Opposition to these proceedings wasineffectual; and in 1696, in order to expedite the business of taxation, and toestablish a better method of ruling the colonies, a board was appointed, calledthe Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations. The royal governors found inthis board ready sympathizers, and were not slow to report their grievances, andto insist upon more stringent regulations for enforcing obedience. Some of theretaliative measures employed were the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, the abridgment of the freedom of the press and the prohibition of elections. Butthe colonists generally succeeded in having their own way in the end, and werenot wholly without encouragement and sympathy in the English Parliament. It maybe that the war with France, which ended with the fall of Quebec, had much to dowith this rather generous treatment. The Americans, too, were favored by theWhigs, who had been in power for more than seventy years. The policy of thisgreat party was not opposed to the sentiments and ideas of political freedomthat had grown up in the colonies; and, although more than half of theNavigation Acts were passed by Whig governments, the leaders had known how towink at the violation of nearly all of them. 

Immediately after the close of the French war, and after George III. Hadascended the throne of England, it was decided to enforce the Navigation Actsrigidly. There was to be no more smuggling, and, to prevent this, Writs ofAssistance were issued. Armed with such authority, a servant of the king mightenter the home of any citizen, and make a thorough search for smuggled goods. Itis needless to say the measure was resisted vigorously, and its reception by thecolonists, and its effect upon them, has been called the opening scene of theAmerican Revolution. As a matter of fact, this sudden change in the attitude ofEngland toward the colonies, marks the beginning of the policy of George III. Which, had it been successful, would have made him the ruler of an absoluteinstead of a limited monarchy. He hated the Tories only less than the Whigs, andwhen he bestowed a favor upon either, it was for the purpose of weakening theother. The first task he set himself was that of crushing the Whigs. Since theRevolution of 1688, they had dictated the policy of the English government, andthrough wise leaders had become supreme in authority. They were particularlyobnoxious to him because of their republican spirit, and he regarded theirascendency as a constant menace to his kingly power. Fortune seemed to favor himin the dissensions which arose. There grew up two factions in the Whig party. There were old Whigs and new Whigs. George played one against the other, advanced his favorites when opportunity offered, and in the end succeeded informing a ministry composed of his friends and obedient to his will. 

With the ministry safely in hand, he turned his attention to the House ofCommons. The old Whigs had set an example, which George was shrewd enough tofollow. Walpole and Newcastle had succeeded in giving England one of the mostpeaceful and prosperous governments within in the previous history of thenation, but their methods were corrupt. With much of the judgment, penetrationand wise forbearance which marks a statesman, Walpole's distinctive qualities ofmind eminently fitted him for political intrigue; Newcastle was still worse, andhas the distinction of being the premier under whose administration the revoltagainst official corruption first received the support of the public. 

For near a hundred years, the territorial distribution of seats in the House hadremained the same, while the centres of population had shifted along with thoseof trade and new industries. Great towns were without representation, whileboroughs, such as Old Sarum, without a single voter, still claimed, and had, aseat in Parliament. Such districts, or "rotten boroughs, " were owned andcontrolled by many of the great landowners. Both Walpole and Newcastle resortedto the outright purchase of these seats, and when the time came George did notshrink from doing the same thing. He went even further. All preferments ofwhatsoever sort were bestowed upon those who would do his bidding, and thebusiness of bribery assumed such proportions that an office was opened at theTreasury for this purpose, from which twenty-five thousand pounds are said tohave passed in a single day. Parliament had been for a long time only partiallyrepresentative of the people; it now ceased to be so almost completely. 

With, the support which such methods secured, along with encouragement from hisministers, the king was prepared to put in operation his policy for regulatingthe affairs of America. Writs of Assistance (1761) were followed by the passageof the Stamp Act (1765). The ostensible object of both these measures was tohelp pay the debt incurred by the French war, but the real purpose lay deeper, and was nothing more or less than the ultimate extension of parliamentary rule, in great things as well as small, to America. At this crisis, so momentous forthe colonists, the Rockingham ministry was formed, and Burke, together withPitt, supported a motion for the unconditional repeal of the Stamp Act. Aftermuch wrangling, the motion was carried, and the first blunder of the mothercountry seemed to have been smoothed over. 

Only a few months elapsed, however, when the question of taxing the colonies wasrevived. Pitt lay ill, and could take no part in the proposed measure. Throughthe influence of other members of his party, --notably Townshend, --a series ofacts were passed, imposing duties on several exports to America. This wasfollowed by a suspension of the New York Assembly, because it had disregardedinstructions in the matter of supplies for the troops. The colonists werefurious. Matters went from bad to worse. To withdraw as far as possible withoutyielding the principle at stake, the duties on all the exports mentioned in thebill were removed, except that on tea. But it was precisely the principle forwhich the colonists were contending. They were not in the humor for compromise, when they believed their freedom was endangered, and the strength anddetermination of their resistance found a climax in the Boston Tea Party. 

In the meantime, Lord North, who was absolutely obedient to the king, had becomeprime minister. Five bills were prepared, the tenor of which, it was thought, would overawe the colonists. Of these, the Boston Port Bill and the RegulatingAct are perhaps the most famous, though the ultimate tendency of all was blindlycoercive. 

While the king and his friends were busy with these, the opposition proposed anunconditional repeal of the Tea Act. The bill was introduced only to beoverwhelmingly defeated by the same Parliament that passed the five measures ofLord North. 

In America, the effect of these proceedings was such as might have been expectedby thinking men. The colonies were as a unit in their support of Massachusetts. The Regulating Act was set at defiance, public officers in the king's servicewere forced to resign, town meetings were held, and preparations for war werebegun in dead earnest. To avert this, some of England's greatest statesmen--Pittamong the number--asked for a reconsideration. On February the first, 1775, abill was introduced, which would have gone far toward bringing peace. One monthlater, Burke delivered his speech on Conciliation with the Colonies. 

EDMUND BURKE

There is nothing unusual in Burke's early life. He was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1729. His father was a successful lawyer and a Protestant, his mother, aCatholic. At the age of twelve, he became a pupil of Abraham Shackleton, aQuaker, who had been teaching some fifteen years at Ballitore, a small townthirty miles from Dublin. In after years Burke was always pleased to speak ofhis old friend in the kindest way: "If I am anything, " he declares, "it is theeducation I had there that has made me so. " And again at Shackleton's death, when Burke was near the zenith of his fame and popularity, he writes: "I had atrue honor and affection for that excellent man. I feel something like asatisfaction in the midst of my concern, that I was fortunate enough to have himunder my roof before his departure. " It can hardly be doubted that the oldQuaker schoolmaster succeeded with his pupil who was already so favorablyinclined, and it is more than probable that the daily example of one who livedout his precepts was strong in its influence upon a young and generous mind. 

Burke attended school at Ballitore two years; then, at the age of fourteen, hebecame a student at Trinity College, Dublin, and remained there five years. Atcollege he was unsystematic and careless of routine. He seems to have donepretty much as he pleased, and, however methodical he became in after life, hisstudy during these five years was rambling and spasmodic. The only definiteknowledge we have of this period is given by Burke himself in letters to hisformer friend Richard Shackleton, son of his old schoolmaster. What he did wasdone with a zest that at times became a feverish impatience: "First I wasgreatly taken with natural philosophy, which, while I should have given my mindto logic, employed me incessantly. This I call my FUROR MATHEMATICUS. " Followingin succession come his FUROR LOGICUS, FUROR HISTORICUS, and FUROR PEOTICUS, eachof which absorbed him for the time being. It would be wrong, however, to thinkof Burke as a trifler even in his youth. He read in the library three hoursevery day and we may be sure he read as intelligently as eagerly. It is morethan probable that like a few other great minds he did not need a rigid systemto guide him. If he chose his subjects of study at pleasure, there is everyreason to believe he mastered them. 

Of intimate friends at the University we hear nothing. Goldsmith came one yearlater, but there is no evidence that they knew each other. It is probable thatBurke, always reserved, had little in common with his young associates. His ownmusings, with occasional attempts at writing poetry, long walks through thecountry, and frequent letters to and from Richard Shackleton, employed him whennot at his books. 

Two years after taking his degree, Burke went to London and established himselfat the Middle Temple for the usual routine course in law. Another long periodpasses of which there is next to nothing known. His father, an irascible, hot-tempered man, had wished him to begin the practice of law, but Burke seems tohave continued in a rather irregular way pretty much as when an undergraduate atDublin. His inclinations were not toward the law, but literature. His father, angered at such a turn of affairs, promptly reduced his allowance and left himto follow his natural bent in perfect freedom. In 1756, six years after hisarrival in London, and almost immediately following the rupture with his father, he married a Miss Nugent. At about the same time he published his first twobooks, [Footnote: A Vindication of Natural Society and Philosophical Inquiryinto the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful] and began in earnestthe life of an author. 

He attracted the attention of literary men. Dr. Johnson had just completed hisfamous dictionary, and was the centre of a group of writers who accepted him athis own valuation. Burke did not want for company, and wrotecopiously. [Footnote: Hints for an Essay on the Drama. Abridgement of the Historyof England] He became associated with Dodsley, a bookseller, who beganpublishing the Annual Register in 1759, and was paid a hundred pounds a year forwriting upon current events. He spent two years (1761-63) in Ireland in theemployment of William Hamilton, but at the end of that time returned, chagrinedand disgusted with his would-be patron, who utterly failed to recognize Burke'sworth, and persisted in the most unreasonable demands upon his time and energy. 

For once Burke's independence served him well. In 1765 Lord Rockingham becameprime minister, and Burke, widely known as the chief writer for the AnnualRegister, was free to accept the position of private secretary, which LordRockingham was glad to offer him. His services here were invaluable. The newrelations thus established did not end with the performance of the immediateduties of his office, but a warm friendship grew up between the two, whichlasted till the death of Lord Rockingham. While yet private secretary, Burke waselected to Parliament from the borough of Wendover. It was through the influenceof his friend, or perhaps relative, William Burke, that his election wassecured. 

Only a few days after taking his seat in the House of Commons, Burke made hisfirst speech, January 27, 1766. He followed this in a very short time withanother upon the same subject--the Taxation of the American Colonies. Notwithstanding the great honor and distinction which these first speechesbrought Burke, his party was dismissed at the close of the session and theChatham ministry formed. He remained with his friends, and employed himself inrefuting [Footnote: Observations on the Present State of the Nation] the chargesof the former minister, George Grenville, who wrote a pamphlet accusing hissuccessors of gross neglect of public duties. 

At this point in his life comes the much-discussed matter of Beaconsfield. HowBurke became rich enough to purchase such expensive property is a question thathas never been answered by his friends or enemies. There are mysterious hints ofsuccessful speculation in East India stock, of money borrowed, and Burkehimself, in a letter to Shackleton, speaks of aid from his friends and "all [themoney] he could collect of his own. " However much we may regret the air ofmystery surrounding the matter, and the opportunity given those ever ready tosmirch a great man's character, it is not probable that any one ever reallydoubted Burke's integrity in this or any other transaction. Perhaps the trueexplanation of his seemingly reckless extravagance (if any explanation isneeded) is that the conventional standards of his time forced it upon him; andit may be that Burke himself sympathized to some extent with these standards, and felt a certain satisfaction in maintaining a proper attitude before thepublic. 

The celebrated case of Wilkes offered an opportunity for discussing the narrowand corrupt policy pursued by George III. And his followers. Wilkes, outlawedfor libel and protected in the meantime through legal technicalities, wasreturned to Parliament by Middlesex. The House expelled him. He was repeatedlyelected and as many times expelled, and finally the returns were altered, theHouse voting its approval by a large majority. In 1770 Burke published hispamphlet [Footnote: Present Discontents] in which he discussed the situation. For the first time he showed the full sweep and breadth of his understanding. His tract was in the interest of his party, but it was written in a spirit farremoved from narrow partisanship. He pointed out with absolute clearness thecause of dissatisfaction and unrest among the people and charged George III. Andhis councillors with gross indifference to the welfare of the nation andcorresponding devotion to selfish interests. He contended that Parliament wasusurping privileges when it presumed to expel any one, that the people had aright to send whomsoever they pleased to Parliament, and finally that "in alldisputes between them and their rulers, the presumption was at least upon a parin favor of the people. " From this time until the American Revolution, Burkeused every opportunity to denounce the policy which the king was pursuing athome and abroad. He doubtless knew beforehand that what he might say would passunnoticed, but he never faltered in a steadfast adherence to his ideas ofgovernment, founded, as he believed, upon the soundest principles. Bristolelected him as its representative in Parliament. It was a great honor and Burkefelt its significance, yet he did not flinch when the time came for him to takea stand. He voted for the removal of some of the restrictions upon Irish trade. His constituents, representing one of the most prosperous mercantile districts, angered and disappointed at what they held to be a betrayal of trust, refused toreelect him. 

Lord North's ministry came to an end in 1782, immediately after the battle ofYorktown, and Lord Rockingham was chosen prime minister. Burke's past serviceswarranted him in expecting an important place in the cabinet, but he wasignored. Various things have been suggested as reasons for this: he was poor;some of his relations and intimate associates were objectionable; there weredark hints of speculations; he was an Irishman. It is possible that any one ofthese facts, or all of them, furnished a good excuse for not giving him animportant position in the new government. But it seems more probable thatBurke's abilities were not appreciated so justly as they have been since. Themen with whom he associated saw some of his greatness but not all of it. He wasassigned the office of Paymaster of Forces, a place of secondary importance. 

Lord Rockingham died in three months and the party went to pieces. Burke refusedto work under Shelburne, and, with Fox, joined Lord North in forming thecoalition which overthrew the Whig party. Burke has been severely censured forthe part he took in this. Perhaps there is little excuse for his desertion, andit is certainly true that his course raises the question of his sincere devotionto principles. His personal dislike of Shelburne was so intense that he may haveyielded to his feelings. He felt hurt, too, we may be sure, at the dispositionmade of him by his friends. In replying to a letter asking him for a place inthe new government, he writes that his correspondent has been misinformed. "Imake no part of the ministerial arrangement, " he writes, and adds, "Something inthe official line may be thought fit for my measure. "

As a supporter of the coalition, Burke was one of the framers of the India Bill. This was directed against the wholesale robbery and corruption which the EastIndia Company had been guilty of in its government of the country. Both Fox andBurke defended the measure with all the force and power which a thorough masteryof facts, a keen sense of the injustice done an unhappy people, and a splendidrhetoric can give. But it was doomed from the first. The people at large wereindifferent, many had profitable business relations with the company, and theking used his personal influence against it. The bill failed to pass, thecoalition was dismissed, and the party, which had in Burke its greatestrepresentative, was utterly ruined. 

The failure of the India Bill marked a victory for the king, and it alsoprepared the way for one of the most famous transactions of Burke's life. Macaulay has told how impressive and magnificent was the scene at the trial ofWarren Hastings. There were political reasons for the impeachment, but the chiefmotive that stirred Burke was far removed from this. He saw and understood thereal state of affairs in India. The mismanagement, the brutal methods, and thecrimes committed there in the name of the English government, moved himprofoundly, and when he rose before the magnificent audience at Westminster, foropening the cause, he forced his hearers, by his own mighty passion, to see withhis own eyes, and to feel his own righteous anger. "When he came to his twonarratives, " says Miss Burney, "when he related the particulars of thosedreadful murders, he interested, he engaged, he at last overpowered me; I feltmy cause lost. I could hardly keep my seat. My eyes dreaded a single glancetoward a man so accused as Mr. Hastings; I wanted to sink on the floor, thatthey might be saved so painful a sight. I had no hope he could clear himself;not another wish in his favor remained. " The trial lasted for six years andended with the acquittal of Hastings. The result was not a surprise, and leastof all to Burke. The fate of the India Bill had taught him how completelyindifferent the popular mind was to issues touching deep moral questions. Thougha seeming failure, he regarded the impeachment as the greatest work of his life. It did much to arouse and stimulate the national sense of justice. It made clearthe cruel methods sometimes pursued under the guise of civilization andprogress. The moral victory is claimed for Burke, and without a doubt the claimis valid. 

The second of the great social and political problems, which employed Englishstatesmen in the last half of the eighteenth century, was settled in theimpeachment of Warren Hastings. The affairs of America and India were nowovershadowed by the French Revolution, and Burke, with the far-sighted vision ofa veteran statesman, watched the progress of events and their influence upon theestablished order. In 1773 he had visited France, and had returned displeased. It is remarkable with what accuracy he pointed out the ultimate tendency of muchthat he saw. A close observer of current phases of society, and on the alert toexplain them in the light of broad and fundamental principles of human progress, he had every opportunity for studying social life at the French capital. Unlikethe younger men of his times, he was doubtful, and held his judgment insuspense. The enthusiasm of even Fox seemed premature, and he held himself alooffrom the popular demonstrations of admiration and approval that were everywheregoing on. The fact is, Burke was growing old, and with his years he was becomingmore conservative. He dreaded change, and was suspicious of the wisdom of thosewho set about such widespread innovations, and made such brilliant promises forthe future. But the time rapidly approached for him to declare himself, and in1790 his Reflections on the Revolution in France was issued. His friends hadlong waited its appearance, and were not wholly surprised at the position taken. What did surprise them was the eagerness with which the people seized upon thebook, and its effect upon them. The Tories, with the king, applauded long andloud; the Whigs were disappointed, for Burke condemned the Revolutionunreservedly, and with a bitterness out of all proportion to the cause of hisanxiety and fear. As the Revolution progressed, he grew fiercer in hisdenunciation. He broke with his lifelong associates, and declared that no onewho sympathized with the work of the Assembly could be his friend. His otherwritings on the Revolution [Footnote: Letter to a Member of the NationalAssembly and Letters on a Regicide Peace. ] were in a still more violent strain, and it is hard to think of them as coming from the author of the Speech onConciliation. 

Three years before his death, at the conclusion of the trial of Warren Hastings, Burke's last term in Parliament expired. He did not wish office again andwithdrew to his estate. Through the influence of friends, and because of hiseminent services, it was proposed to make him peer, with the title of LordBeacons field. But the death of his son prevented, and a pension of twenty-fivehundred pounds a year was given instead. It was a signal for his enemies, andduring his last days he was busy with his reply. The "Letter to a Noble Lord, "though written little more than a year before his death, is considered one ofthe most perfect of his papers. Saddened by the loss of his son, and broken inspirits, there is yet left him enough old-time energy and fire to answer hisdetractors. But his wonderful career was near its close. His last months werespent in writing about the French Revolution, and the third letter on a RegicidePeace--a fragment--was doubtless composed just before his death. On the 9th ofJuly, 1797, he passed away. His friends claimed for him a place in Westminster, but his last wish was respected, and he was buried at Beaconsfield. 

BURKE AS A STATESMAN

There is hardly a political tract or pamphlet of Burke's in which he does notstate, in terms more or less clear, the fundamental principle in his theory ofgovernment. "Circumstances, " he says in one place, "give, in reality, to everypolitical principle, its distinguishing color and discriminating effect. Thecircumstances are what renders every civil and political scheme beneficial orobnoxious to mankind. " At another time he exclaims: "This is the true touchstoneof all theories which regard man and the affairs of men; does it suit his naturein general, does it suit his nature as modified by his habits?" And again heextends his system to affairs outside the realm of politics. "All government, "he declares, "indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and everyprudent act, is founded on compromise and barter. "

It is clear that Burke thought the State existed for the people, and not thepeople for the State. The doctrine is old to us, but it was not so in Burke'stime, and it required courage to expound it. The great parties had forgotten thereason for their existence, and one of them had become hardened and blinded bythat corruption which seems to follow long tenure of office. The affairs ofIndia, Ireland, and America gave excellent opportunity for an exhibition ofEnglish statesmanship, but in each case the policy pursued was dictated, not bya clear perception of what was needed in these countries, but by narrowselfishness, not unmixed with dogmatism of the most challenging sort. Thesituation in India, as regards climate, character, and institutions, counted forlittle in the minds of those who were growing rich as agents of the East IndiaCompany. Much the same may be said of America and Ireland. The sense ofParliament, influenced by the king, was to use these parts of the British Empirein raising a revenue, and in strengthening party organization at home. Inopposing this policy, Burke lost his seat as representative for Bristol, thenthe second city of England; spent fourteen of the best years of his life inconducting the impeachment of Warren Hastings, Governor-General of India; and, greatest of all, delivered his famous speeches on Taxation and Conciliation, inbehalf of the American colonists. 

Notwithstanding the distinctly modern tone of Burke's ideas, it would be wrongto think of him as a thoroughgoing reformer. He has been called the GreatConservative, and the title is appropriate. He would have shrunk from a purelyrepublican form of government, such as our own, and it is, perhaps, a fact thathe was suspicious of a government by the people. The trouble, as he saw it, laywith the representatives of the people. Upon them, as guardians of a trust, rested the responsibility of protecting those whom they were chosen to serve. While he bitterly opposed any measures involving radical change in theConstitution, he was no less ardent in denouncing political corruptions of allkinds whatsoever. In his Economical Reform he sought to curtail the enormousextravagance of the royal household, and to withdraw the means of wholesalebribery, which offices at the disposal of the king created. He did not believethat a more effective means than this lay in the proposed plan for aredistribution of seats in the House of Commons. In one place, he declared itmight be well to lessen the number of voters, in order to add to their weightand independence; at another, he asks that the people be stimulated to a morecareful scrutiny of the conduct of their representatives; and on every occasionhe demands that the legislators give their support to those measures only whichhave for their object the good of the whole people. 

It is obvious, however, that Burke's policy had grievous faults. His reverencefor the past, and his respect for existing institutions as the heritage of thepast, made him timid and overcautious in dealing with abuses. Although he stoodwith Pitt in defending the American colonies, he had no confidence in thethoroughgoing reforms which the great Commoner proposed. When the Stamp Act wasrepealed, Pitt would have gone even further. He would have acknowledged theabsolute injustice of taxation without representation. Burke held tenaciously tothe opposing theory, and warmly supported the Declaratory Act, which "assertedthe supreme authority of Parliament over the colonies, in all cases whatsoever. "His support of the bill for the repeal of the Stamp Act, as well as his plea forreconciliation, ten years later, were not prompted by a firm belief in theinjustice of England's course. He expressly states, in both cases that toenforce measures so repugnant to the Americans, would be detrimental to the homegovernment. It would result in confusion and disorder, and would bring, perhaps, in the end, open rebellion. All of his speeches on American affairs show hiswillingness to "barter and compromise" in order to avoid this, but nowhere isthere a hint of fundamental error in the Constitution. This was sacred to him, and he resented to the last any proposition looking to an organic change in itsstructure. "The lines of morality, " he declared, "are not like ideal lines ofmathematics. They are broad and deep, as well as long. They admit of exceptions;they demand modifications. These exceptions and modifications are made, not bythe process of logic, but the rules of prudence. Prudence is not only first inrank of all the virtues, political and moral, but she is the director, theregulator, the standard of them all. "

The chief characteristics, then, of Burke's political philosophy are opposed tomuch that is fundamental in modern systems. His doctrine is better than that ofGeorge III, because it is more generous, and affords opportunity for superficialreadjustment and adaptation. It is this last, or rather the proof it gives ofhis insight, that has secured Burke so high a place among English statesmen. 

A GROUP OF WRITERS COMING IMMEDIATELY BEFORE BURKE

Addison. . . . 1672-1719Steele . . . . 1672-1729Defoe. . . . . 1661-1731Swift. . . . . 1667-1745Pope . . . . . 1688-1744Richardson . . 1689-1761

A GROUP OF WRITERS CONTEMPORARY WITH BURKE

Johnson . . . . 1709-1784Goldsmith . . . 1728-1774Fielding. . . . 1707-1754Sterne. . . . . 1713-1768Smollett. . . . 1721-1771Gray. . . . . . 1716-1771Boswell . . . . 1740-1795

BURKE IN LITERATURE

It has become almost trite to speak of the breadth of Burke's sympathies. Weshould examine the statement, however, and understand its significance and seeits justice. While he must always be regarded first as a statesman of one of thehighest types, he had other interests than those directly suggested by hisoffice, and in one of these, at least, he affords an interesting and profitablestudy. 

To the student of literature Burke's name must always suggest that of Johnsonand Goldsmith. It was eight years after Burke's first appearance as an author, that the famous Literary Club was formed. At first it was the intention to limitthe club to a membership of nine, and for a time this was adhered to. Theoriginal members were Johnson, Burke, Goldsmith, Reynolds, and Hawkins. Garrick, Pox, and Boswell came in later. Macaulay declares that the influence of the clubwas so great that its verdict made and unmade reputations; but the thing mostinteresting to us does not lie in the consideration of such literarydictatorship. To Boswell we owe a biography of Johnson which has immortalizedits subject, and shed lustre upon all associated with him. The literary historyof the last third of the eighteenth century, with Johnson as a central figure, is told nowhere else with such accuracy, or with better effect. 

Although a Tory, Johnson was a great one, and his lasting friendship for Burkeis an enduring evidence of his generosity and great-mindedness. For twentyyears, and longer, they were eminent men in opposing parties, yet their mutualrespect and admiration continued to the last. To Burke, Johnson was a writer of"eminent literary merit" and entitled to a pension "solely on that account. " ToJohnson, Burke was the greatest man of his age, wrong politically, to be sure, yet the only one "whose common conversation corresponded to the general famewhich he had in the world"--the only one "who was ready, whatever subject waschosen, to meet you on your own ground. " Here and there in the Life areallusions to Burke, and admirable estimates of his many-sided character. 

Coming directly to an estimate of Burke from the purely literary point of view, it must be borne in mind that the greater part of his writings was prepared foran audience. Like Macaulay, his prevailing style suggests the speaker, and hismethods throughout are suited to declamation and oratory. He lacks the ease anddelicacy that we are accustomed to look for in the best prose writers, andoccasionally one feels the justice of Johnson's stricture, that "he sometimestalked partly from ostentation", or of Hazlitt's criticism that he seemed to be"perpetually calling the speaker out to dance a minuet with him before hebegins. "

There may be passages here and there that warrant such censure. Burke iscertainly ornate, and at times he is extremely self-conscious, but the dominantquality of his style, and the one which forever contradicts the idea of mereshowiness, is passion. In his method of approaching a subject, he may be, andperhaps is, rather tedious, but when once he has come to the matter really inhand, he is no longer the rhetorician, dealing in fine phrases, but the greatseer, clothing his thoughts in words suitable and becoming. The most magnificentpassages in his writings--the Conciliation is rich in them--owe their charm andeffectiveness to this emotional capacity. They were evidently written in momentsof absolute abandonment to feeling--in moments when he was absorbed in thecontemplation of some great truth, made luminous by his own unrivalled powers. 

Closely allied to this intensity of passion, is a splendid imaginative quality. Few writers of English prose have such command of figurative expression. It mustbe said, however, that Burke was not entirely free from the faults whichgenerally accompany an excessive use of figures. Like other great masters of adecorative style, he frequently becomes pompous and grandiloquent. His thought, too, is obscured, where we would expect great clearness of statement, accompanied by a dignified simplicity; and occasionally we feel that he forgetshis subject in an anxious effort to make an impression. Though there arepassages in his writings that justify such observations, they are few in number, when compared with those which are really masterpieces of their kind. 

Some great crisis, or threatening state of affairs, seems to furnish thenecessary condition for the exercise of a great mind, and Burke is never soeffective as when thoroughly aroused. His imagination needed the chasteningwhich only a great moment or critical situation could give. Two of his greatestspeeches--Conciliation, and Impeachment of Warren Hastings--were delivered underthe restraining effect of such circumstances, and in each the figurativeexpression is subdued and not less beautiful in itself than, appropriate for theoccasion. 

Finally, it must be observed that no other writer of English prose has a bettercommand of words. His ideas, as multifarious as they are, always find fittingexpression. He does not grope for a term; it stands ready for his thought, andone feels that he had opportunity for choice. It is the exuberance of his fancy, already mentioned, coupled with this richness of vocabulary, that helped to makeBurke a tiresome speaker. His mind was too comprehensive to allow any phase ofhis subject to pass without illumination. He followed where his subject led him, without any great attention to the patience of his audience. But he receivesfull credit when his speeches are read. It is then that his mastery of thesubject and the splendid qualities of his style are apparent, and appreciated attheir worth. 

In conclusion, it is worth while observing that in the study of a greatcharacter, joined with an attempt to estimate it by conventional standards, something must always be left unsaid. Much may be learned of Burke by knowinghis record as a partisan, more by a minute inspection of his style as a writer, but beyond all this is the moral tone or attitude of the man himself. To astudent of Burke this is the greatest thing about him. It colored every line hewrote, and to it, more than anything else, is due the immense force of the manas a speaker and writer. It was this, more than Burke's great abilities, thatjustifies Dr. Johnson's famous eulogy: "He is not only the first man in theHouse of Commons, he is the first man everywhere. "

A GROUP OF WRITERS COMING IMMEDIATELY AFTER BURKE

Wordsworth . . . . 1770-1850

Coleridge . . . . . 1772-1834

Byron . . . . . . . 1788-1824

Shelley . . . . . . 1792-1822

Keats . . . . . . . 1795-1821

Scott . . . . . . . 1771-1832

TOPICS FOR SPECIAL REPORTS

1. "Like Goldsmith, though in a different sphere, Burke belongs both to the oldorder and the new. " Discuss that statement. 

2. Burke and the Literary Club. (Boswell's Life of Johnson. )

3. Lives of Burke and Goldsmith. Contrast. 

4. An interpretation of ten apothegms selected from the Speech on Conciliation. 

5. A study of figures in the Speech on Conciliation. 

6. A definition of the terms: "colloquialism" and "idiom" Instances of their usein the Speech on Conciliation. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Burke's Life. John Morley. English Men of Letters Series. 

2. Burke. John Morley. An Historical Study. 

3. Burke. John Morley. Encyclopaedia Britannica. 

4. History of the English People. Green. Vol. IV. , pp 193-271. 

5 History of Civilization in England. Buckle. Vol I, pp. 326-338

6. The American Revolution. Fiske. Vol. I, Chaps. I. , II. 

7. Life of Johnson. Boswell. (Use the Index)

EDMUND BURKE

ON MOVING HIS RESOLUTIONS FOR CONCILIATION WITH THE COLONIES. HOUSE OF COMMONS, MARCH 22, 1775

I hope, Sir, that notwithstanding the austerity of the Chair, your good naturewill incline you to some degree of indulgence towards human frailty. You willnot think it unnatural that those who have an object depending, which stronglyengages their hopes and fears, should be somewhat inclined to superstition. As Icame into the House full of anxiety about the event of my motion, I found, to myinfinite surprise, that the grand penal bill, [Footnote: 1] by which we hadpassed sentence on the trade and sustenance of America, is to be returned to usfrom the other House. I do confess I could not help looking on this event as afortunate omen. I look upon it as a sort of providential favor, by which we areput once more in possession of our deliberative capacity upon a business so veryquestionable in its nature, so very uncertain in its issue. By the return ofthis bill, which seemed to have taken its flight forever, we are at this veryinstant nearly as free to choose a plan for our American Government as we wereon the first day of the session. If, Sir, we incline to the side ofconciliation, we are not at all embarrassed (unless we please to make ourselvesso) by any incongruous mixture of coercion and restraint. We are thereforecalled upon, as it were by a superior warning voice, again to attend to America;to attend to the whole of it together; and to review the subject with an unusualdegree of care and calmness. 

Surely it is an awful subject, or there is none so on this side of the grave. When I first had the honor [Footnote: 2] of a seat in this House, the affairs ofthat continent pressed themselves upon us as the most important and mostdelicate object of Parliamentary attention. My little share in this greatdeliberation oppressed me. I found myself a partaker in a very high trust; and, having no sort of reason to rely on the strength of my natural abilities for theproper execution of that trust, I was obliged to take more than common pains toinstruct myself in everything which relates to our Colonies. I was not lessunder the necessity of forming some fixed ideas concerning the general policy ofthe British Empire. Something of this sort seemed to be indispensable, in order, amidst so vast a fluctuation of passions and opinions, to concentre my thoughts, to ballast my conduct, to preserve me from being blown about by every wind offashionable doctrine. I really did not think it safe or manly to have freshprinciples to seek upon every fresh mail which should arrive from America. 

At that period I had the fortune to find myself in perfect concurrence with alarge majority in this House. Bowing under that high authority, and penetratedwith the sharpness and strength of that early impression, I have continued eversince, without the least deviation, in my original sentiments. [Footnote: 3]Whether this be owing to an obstinate perseverance in error, or to a religiousadherence to what appears to me truth, and reason, it is in your equity tojudge. 

Sir, Parliament having an enlarged view of objects, made, during this interval, more frequent changes in their sentiments and their conduct than could bejustified in a particular person upon the contracted scale of privateinformation. But though I do not hazard anything approaching to a censure on themotives of former Parliaments to all those alterations, one fact is undoubted--that under them the state of America has been kept in continual agitation. [Footnote: 4] Everything administered as remedy to the public complaint, if itdid not produce, was at least followed by, an heightening of the distemper;until, by a variety of experiments, that important country has been brought intoher present situation--a situation which I will not miscall, which I dare notname, which I scarcely know how to comprehend in the terms of any description. 

In this posture, Sir, things stood at the beginning of the session. About thattime, a worthy member [Footnote: 5] of great Parliamentary experience, who, inthe year 1766, filled the chair of the American committee with much ability, took me aside; and, lamenting the present aspect of our politics, told me thingswere come to such a pass that our former [Footnote: 6] methods of proceeding inthe House would be no longer tolerated: that the public tribunal (never tooindulgent to a long and unsuccessful opposition) would now scrutinize ourconduct with unusual severity: that the very vicissitudes and shiftings ofMinisterial measures, instead of convicting their authors of inconstancy andwant of system, would be taken as an occasion of charging us with apredetermined discontent, which nothing could satisfy; whilst we accused everymeasure of vigor as cruel, and every proposal of lenity as weak and irresolute. The public, he said, would not have patience to see us play the game out withour adversaries; we must produce our hand. It would be expected that those whofor many years had been active in such affairs should show that they had formedsome clear and decided idea of the principles of Colony government; and werecapable of drawing out something like a platform of the ground which might belaid for future and permanent tranquillity. 

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

Besides, Sir, to speak the plain truth, I have in general no very exaltedopinion of the virtue of paper government; [Footnote: 7] nor of any politics inwhich the plan is to be wholly separated from the execution. But when I saw thatanger and violence prevailed every day more and more, and that things werehastening towards an incurable alienation of our Colonies, I confess my cautiongave way. I felt this as one of those few moments in which decorum yields to ahigher duty. Public calamity is a mighty leveller; and there are occasions whenany, even the slightest, chance of doing good must be laid hold on, even by themost inconsiderable person. 

To restore order and repose to an empire so great and so distracted as ours, is, merely in the attempt, an undertaking that would ennoble the flights of thehighest genius, and obtain pardon for the efforts of the meanest understanding. Struggling a good while with these thoughts, by degrees I felt myself more firm. I derived, at length, some confidence from what in other circumstances usuallyproduces timidity. I grew less anxious, even from the idea of my owninsignificance. For, judging of what you are by what you ought to be, Ipersuaded myself that you would not reject a reasonable proposition because ithad nothing but its reason to recommend it. On the other hand, being totallydestitute of all shadow of influence, natural or adventitious, I was very surethat, if my proposition were futile or dangerous--if it were weakly conceived, or improperly timed--there was nothing exterior to it of power to awe, dazzle, or delude you. You will see it just as it is; and you will treat it just as itdeserves. 

The proposition is peace. Not peace through the medium of war; not peace to behunted through the labyrinth of intricate and endless negotiations; not peace toarise out of universal discord fomented, from principle, in all parts of theEmpire, not peace to depend on the juridical determination of perplexingquestions, or the precise marking the shadowy boundaries of a complexgovernment. It is simple peace; sought in its natural course, and in itsordinary haunts. It is peace sought in the spirit of peace, and laid inprinciples purely pacific. I propose, by removing the ground of the difference, and by restoring the former unsuspecting confidence of the Colonies in theMother Country, to give permanent satisfaction to your people; and (far from ascheme of ruling by discord) to reconcile them to each other in the same act andby the bond of the very same interest which reconciles them to Britishgovernment. 

My idea is nothing more. Refined policy [Footnote: 8] ever has been, the parentof confusion; and ever will be so, as long as the world endures. Plain goodintention, which is as easily discovered at the first view as fraud is surelydetected at last, is, let me say, of no mean force in the government of mankind. Genuine simplicity of heart is an healing and cementing principle. My plan, therefore, being formed upon the most simple grounds imaginable, may disappointsome people when they hear it. It has nothing to recommend it to the pruriencyof curious ears. There is nothing at all new and captivating in it. It hasnothing of the splendor of the project [Footnote: 9] which has been lately laidupon your table by the noble lord in the blue ribbon. [Footnote: 10] It does notpropose to fill your lobby with squabbling Colony agents, [Footnote: 11] whowill require the interposition of your mace, at every instant, to keep the peaceamongst them. It does not institute a magnificent auction of finance, wherecaptivated provinces come to general ransom by bidding against each other, untilyou knock down the hammer, and determine a proportion of payments beyond all thepowers of algebra to equalize and settle. 

The plan which I shall presume to suggest derives, however, one great advantagefrom the proposition and registry of that noble lord's project. The idea ofconciliation is admissible. First, the House, in accepting the resolution movedby the noble lord, has admitted, notwithstanding the menacing front of ouraddress, [Footnote: 12] notwithstanding our heavy bills of pains and penalties--that we do not think ourselves precluded from all ideas of free grace andbounty. 

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

The principle of this proceeding is large enough for my purpose. The meansproposed 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 toshow you before I sit down. But, for the present, I take my ground on theadmitted principle. I mean to give peace. Peace implies reconciliation; andwhere there has been a material dispute, reconciliation does in a manner alwaysimply concession on the one part or on the other. In this state of things, Imake 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, byan unwillingness to exert itself. The superior power may offer peace with honorand with safety. Such an offer from such a power will be attributed tomagnanimity. But the concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear. Whensuch a one is disarmed, he is wholly at the mercy of his superior; and he losesforever that time and those chances, [Footnote: 13] which, as they happen to allmen, are the strength and resources of all inferior power. 

The capital leading questions on which you must this day decide are these two:First, whether you ought to concede; and secondly, what your concession ought tobe. On the first of these questions we have gained, as I have just taken theliberty of observing to you, some ground. But I am sensible that a good dealmore is still to be done. Indeed, Sir, to enable us to determine both on the oneand the other of these great questions with a firm and precise judgment, I thinkit may be necessary to consider distinctly the true nature and the peculiarcircumstances of the object which we have before us; because after all ourstruggle, whether we will or not, we must govern America according to thatnature and to those circumstances, [Footnote: 14] and not according to our ownimaginations, nor according to abstract ideas of right--by no means according tomere general theories of government, the resort to which appears to me, in ourpresent situation, no better than arrant trifling. I shall therefore endeavor, with your leave, to lay before you some of the most material of thesecircumstances 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 objectis--the number of people in the Colonies. I have taken for some years a gooddeal of pains on that point. I can by no calculation justify myself in placingthe number below two millions of inhabitants of our own European blood andcolor, besides at least five hundred thousand others, who form no inconsiderablepart of the strength and opulence of the whole. This, Sir, is, I believe, aboutthe true number. There is no occasion to exaggerate where plain truth is of somuch weight and importance. But whether I put the present numbers too high ortoo low is a matter of little moment. Such is the strength with which populationshoots 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 discussingany given magnitude, they are grown to it. Whilst we spend our time indeliberating on the mode of governing two millions, we shall find we havemillions more to manage. Your children do not grow faster from infancy tomanhood than they spread from families to communities, and from villages tonations. 

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

But the population of this country, the great and growing population, though avery important consideration, will lose much of its weight if not combined withother circumstances. The commerce of your Colonies is out of all proportionbeyond the numbers of the people. This ground of their commerce indeed has beentrod some days ago, and with great ability, by a distinguished person at yourbar. This gentleman, after thirty-five years--it is so long since he firstappeared at the same place to plead for the commerce of Great Britain--has comeagain before you to plead the same cause, without any other effect of time, thanthat to the fire of imagination and extent of erudition which even then markedhim as one of the first literary characters of his age, he has added aconsummate knowledge in the commercial interest of his country, formed by a longcourse of enlightened and discriminating experience. 

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

I have in my hand two accounts; one a comparative state of the export trade ofEngland to its Colonies, as it stood in the year 1704, and as it stood in theyear 1772; the other a state of the export trade of this country to its Coloniesalone, as it stood in 1772, compared with the whole trade of England to allparts of the world (the Colonies included) in the year 1704. They are from goodvouchers; the latter period from the accounts on your table, the earlier from anoriginal manuscript of Davenant, who first established the Inspector-General'soffice, which has been ever since his time so abundant a source of Parliamentaryinformation. 

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 oftheir commerce, --the West Indian, and the North American. All these are sointerwoven that the attempt to separate them would tear to pieces the contextureof the whole; and, if not entirely destroy, would very much depreciate the valueof all the parts. I therefore consider these three denominations to be, what ineffect they are, one trade. [Footnote: 15]

The trade to the Colonies, taken on the export side, at the beginning of thiscentury, that is, in the year 1704, stood thus:--

 Exports to North America and the West Indies. L483, 265 To Africa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86, 665 -------- L569, 930

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

 To North America and the West Indies . . . . . . L4, 791, 734 To Africa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 866, 398 To which, if you add the export trade from Scotland, which had in 1704 no existence . . 364, 000 ---------- L6, 022, 132

From five hundred and odd thousand, it has grown to six millions. It hasincreased no less than twelve-fold. This is the state of the Colony trade ascompared with itself at these two periods within this century;--and this ismatter for meditation. But this is not all. Examine my second account. See howthe 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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . L6, 509, 000 Export to the Colonies alone, in 1772 . . . . . . . . . 6, 024, 000 ---------- Difference, L485, 000

The trade with America alone is now within less than L500, 000 of being equal towhat this great commercial nation, England, carried on at the beginning of thiscentury with the whole world! If I had taken the largest year of those on yourtable, it would rather have exceeded. But, it will be said, is not this Americantrade an unnatural protuberance, that has drawn the juices from the rest of thebody? The reverse. It is the very food that has nourished every other part intoits present magnitude. Our general trade has been greatly augmented, andaugmented more or less in almost every part to which it ever extended; but withthis material difference, that of the six millions which in the beginning of thecentury constituted the whole mass of our export commerce, the Colony trade wasbut one-twelfth part, it is now (as a part of sixteen millions) considerablymore than a third of the whole. This is the relative proportion of theimportance of the Colonies at these two periods, and all reasoning concerningour mode of treating them must have this proportion as its basis, or it is areasoning weak, rotten, and sophistical. 

Mr. Speaker, I cannot prevail on myself to hurry over this great consideration. [Footnote: 15] IT IS GOOD FOR US TO BE HERE. [Footnote: 16] We stand where wehave 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 nobleeminence, reflect that this growth of our national prosperity has happenedwithin the short period of the life of man. It has happened within sixty-eightyears. There are those alive whose memory might touch the two extremities. Forinstance, my Lord Bathurst might remember all the stages of the progress. He wasin 1704 of an age at least to be made to comprehend such things. He was then oldenough acta parentum jam legere, et quae sit potuit cognoscere virtus. [Footnote: 17] Suppose, Sir, that the angel of this auspicious youth, foreseeingthe many virtues which made him one of the most amiable, as he is one of themost fortunate, men of his age, had opened to him in vision that when in thefourth generation the third Prince of the House of Brunswick had sat twelveyears on the throne of that nation which, by the happy issue of moderate andhealing counsels, was to be made Great Britain, he should see his son, LordChancellor of England, turn back the current of hereditary dignity to itsfountain, and raise him to a higher rank of peerage, whilst he enriched thefamily with a new one--if, amidst these bright and happy scenes of domestichonor and prosperity, that angel should have drawn up the curtain, and unfoldedthe rising glories of his country, and, whilst he was gazing with admiration onthe then commercial grandeur of England, the genius should point out to him alittle speck, scarcely visible in the mass of the national interest, a smallseminal principle, rather than a formed body, and should tell him: "Young man, there is America--which at this day serves for little more than to amuse youwith stories of savage men, and uncouth manners; yet shall, before you taste ofdeath, [Footnote: 18] show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which nowattracts the envy of the world. Whatever England has been growing to by aprogressive increase of improvement, brought in by varieties of people, bysuccession of civilizing conquests and civilizing settlements in a series ofseventeen hundred years, you shall see as much added to her by America in thecourse 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 fervidglow of enthusiasm, to make him believe it? Fortunate man, he has lived to seeit! 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 viewonce more. You have seen it on a large scale; look at it on a small one. I willpoint out to your attention a particular instance of it in the single provinceof Pennsylvania. In the year 1704 that province called for L11, 459 in value ofyour commodities, native and foreign. This was the whole. What did it demand in1772? Why, nearly fifty times as much; for in that year the export toPennsylvania was L507, 909, nearly equal to the export to all the Coloniestogether in the first period. 

I choose, Sir, to enter into these minute and particular details, becausegeneralities, which in all other cases are apt to heighten and raise thesubject, have here a tendency to sink it. When we speak of the commerce with ourColonies, fiction lags after truth, invention is unfruitful, and imaginationcold and barren. 

So far, Sir, as to the importance of the object, in view of its commerce, asconcerned in the exports from England. If I were to detail the imports, I couldshow how many enjoyments they procure which deceive the burthen of life; howmany materials which invigorate the springs of national industry, and extend andanimate every part of our foreign and domestic commerce. This would be a curioussubject indeed; but I must prescribe bounds to myself in a matter so vast andvarious. 

I pass, therefore, to the Colonies in another point of view, their agriculture. This they have prosecuted with such a spirit, that, besides feeding plentifullytheir own growing multitude, their annual export of grain, comprehending rice, has some years ago exceeded a million in value. Of their last harvest I ampersuaded they will export much more. At the beginning of the century some ofthese Colonies imported corn from the Mother Country. For some time past the OldWorld has been fed from the New. The scarcity which you have felt would havebeen a desolating famine, if this child of your old age, with a true filialpiety, with a Roman charity, [Footnote: 19] had not put the full breast of itsyouthful 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 thoseacquisitions of value, for they seemed even to excite your envy; and yet thespirit by which that enterprising employment has been exercised ought rather, inmy opinion, to have raised your esteem and admiration. And pray, Sir, what inthe world is equal to it? Pass by the other parts, and look at the manner inwhich 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 thempenetrating into the deepest frozen recesses of Hudson's Bay and Davis'sStraits, whilst we are looking for them beneath the arctic circle, we hear thatthey have pierced into the opposite region of polar cold, that they are at theantipodes, and engaged under the frozen Serpent of the south. Falkland Island, which seemed too remote and romantic an object for the grasp of nationalambition, is but a stage and resting-place in the progress of their victoriousindustry. Nor is the equinoctial heat more discouraging to them than theaccumulated winter of both the poles. We know that whilst some of them draw theline and strike the harpoon on the coast of Africa, others run the longitude andpursue their gigantic game along the coast of Brazil. No sea but what is vexedby their fisheries; no climate that is not witness to their toils. Neither theperseverance of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dexterous and firmsagacity of English enterprise ever carried this most perilous mode of hardyindustry to the extent to which it has been pushed by this recent people; apeople who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened intothe bone of manhood. When I contemplate these things; when I know that theColonies in general owe little or nothing to any care of ours, and that they arenot squeezed into this happy form by the constraints of watchful and suspiciousgovernment, but that, through a wise and salutary neglect, a generous nature hasbeen suffered to take her own way to perfection; when I reflect upon theseeffects, when I see how profitable they have been to us, I feel all the pride ofpower sink, and all presumption in the wisdom of human contrivances melt and dieaway 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 inthe 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. Gentlemenin this respect will be led to their choice of means by their complexions[Footnote: 20] and their habits. Those who understand the military art will ofcourse have some predilection for it. Those who wield the thunder of the state[Footnote: 21] 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 prudentmanagement than of force; considering force not as an odious, but a feebleinstrument for preserving a people so numerous, so active, so growing, sospirited 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 subduingagain; and a nation is not governed [Footnote: 22] which is perpetually to beconquered. 

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 withoutresource; for, conciliation failing, force remains; but, force failing, nofurther hope of reconciliation is left. Power and authority are sometimes boughtby kindness; but they can never be begged as alms by an impoverished anddefeated violence. 

A further objection to force is, that you impair the object by your veryendeavors to preserve it. The thing you fought for is not the thing which yourecover; but depreciated, sunk, wasted, and consumed in the contest. Nothingless will content me than WHOLE AMERICA. I do not choose to consume its strengthalong with our own, because in all parts it is the British strength that Iconsume. I do not choose to be caught by a foreign enemy at the end of thisexhausting conflict; and still less in the midst of it. I may escape; but I canmake no insurance against such an event. Let me add, that I do not choose whollyto break the American spirit; because it is the spirit that has made thecountry. 

Lastly, we have no sort of experience in favor of force as an instrument in therule of our Colonies. Their growth and their utility has been owing to methodsaltogether different. Our ancient indulgence [Footnote: 23] has been said to bepursued to a fault. It may be so. But we know if feeling is evidence, that ourfault was more tolerable than our attempt to mend it; and our sin far moresalutary than our penitence. 

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

In this character of the Americans, a love of freedom is the predominatingfeature which marks and distinguishes the whole; and as an ardent is always ajealous affection, your Colonies become suspicious, restive, and untractablewhenever they see the least attempt to wrest from them by force, or shuffle fromthem by chicane, what they think the only advantage worth living for. Thisfierce spirit of liberty is stronger in the English Colonies probably than inany 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 thisspirit 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. TheColonists emigrated from you when this part of your character was mostpredominant; and they took this bias and direction the moment they parted fromyour hands. They are therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to libertyaccording to English ideas, and on English principles. Abstract liberty, likeother mere abstractions, is not to be found. Liberty inheres in some sensibleobject; and every nation has formed to itself some favorite point, which by wayof eminence becomes the criterion of their happiness. It happened, you know, Sir, that the great contests [Footnote: 24] for freedom in this country werefrom the earliest times chiefly upon the question of taxing. Most of thecontests in the ancient commonwealths turned primarily on the right of electionof magistrates; or on the balance among the several orders of the state. Thequestion of money was not with them so immediate. But in England it wasotherwise. On this point of taxes the ablest pens, and most eloquent tongues, have been exercised; the greatest spirits have acted and suffered. In order togive the fullest satisfaction concerning the importance of this point, it wasnot only necessary for those who in argument defended the excellence of theEnglish Constitution to insist on this privilege of granting money as a drypoint of fact, and to prove that the right had been acknowledged in ancientparchments and blind usages to reside in a certain body called a House ofCommons. They went much farther; they attempted to prove, and they succeeded, that in theory it ought to be so, from the particular nature of a House ofCommons as an immediate representative of the people, whether the old recordshad delivered this oracle or not. They took infinite pains to inculcate, as afundamental principle, that in all monarchies the people must in effectthemselves, mediately or immediately, possess the power of granting their ownmoney, or no shadow of liberty can subsist. The Colonies draw from you, as withtheir life-blood, these ideas and principles. Their love of liberty, as withyou, fixed and attached on this specific point of taxing. Liberty might be safe, or might be endangered, in twenty other particulars, without their being muchpleased or alarmed. Here they felt its pulse; and as they found that beat, theythought themselves sick or sound. I do not say whether they were right or wrongin applying your general arguments to their own case. It is not easy, indeed, tomake a monopoly of theorems and corollaries. The fact is, that they did thusapply those general arguments; and your mode of governing them, whether throughlenity or indolence, through wisdom or mistake, confirmed them in theimagination that they, as well as you, had an interest in these commonprinciples. 

They were further confirmed in this pleasing error by the form of theirprovincial legislative assemblies. Their governments are popular in an highdegree; some are merely popular; in all, the popular representative is the mostweighty; and this share of the people in their ordinary government never failsto inspire them with lofty sentiments, and with a strong aversion from whatevertends 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 ofenergy, in this new people is no way worn out or impaired; and their mode ofprofessing it is also one main cause of this free spirit. The people areProtestants; and of that kind which is the most adverse to all implicitsubmission of mind and opinion. This is a persuasion not only favorable toliberty, but built upon it. I do not think, Sir, that the reason of thisaverseness in the dissenting churches from all that looks like absolutegovernment is so much to be sought in their religious tenets, as in theirhistory. Every one knows that the Roman Catholic religion is at least co-evalwith most of the governments where it prevails; that it has generally gone handin hand with them, and received great favor and every kind of support fromauthority. The Church of England too was formed from her cradle under thenursing care of regular government. But the dissenting interests have sprung upin direct opposition to all the ordinary powers of the world, and could justifythat opposition only on a strong claim to natural liberty. Their very existencedepended on the powerful and unremitted assertion of that claim. AllProtestantism, even the most cold and passive, is a sort of dissent. But thereligion most prevalent in our Northern Colonies is a refinement on theprinciple of resistance; it is the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantismof the Protestant religion. This religion, under a variety of denominationsagreeing in nothing but in the communion of the spirit of liberty, ispredominant in most of the Northern Provinces, where the Church of England, notwithstanding its legal rights, is in reality no more than a sort of privatesect, not composing most probably the tenth of the people. The Colonists leftEngland 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 theseColonies has, for the greatest part, been composed of dissenters from theestablishments of their several countries, who have brought with them a temperand 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 latitudeof this description, because in the Southern Colonies the Church of Englandforms a large body, and has a regular establishment. It is certainly true. Thereis, however, a circumstance attending these Colonies which, in my opinion, fullycounterbalances this difference, and makes the spirit of liberty still more highand haughty than in those to the northward. It is that in Virginia and theCarolinas they have a vast multitude of slaves. Where this is the case in anypart of the world, those who are free are by far the most proud and jealous oftheir freedom. Freedom is to them [Footnote: 25] not only an enjoyment, but akind of rank and privilege. Not seeing there, that freedom, as in countrieswhere it is a common blessing and as broad and general as the air, may be unitedwith 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 donot mean, Sir, to commend the superior morality of this sentiment, which has atleast as much pride as virtue in it; but I cannot alter the nature of man. Thefact is so; and these people of the Southern Colonies are much more strongly, and with an higher and more stubborn spirit, attached to liberty than those tothe northward. Such were all the ancient commonwealths; such were our Gothicancestors; such in our days were the Poles; and such will be all masters ofslaves, who are not slaves themselves. In such a people the haughtiness ofdomination combines with the spirit of freedom, fortifies it, and renders itinvincible. 

Permit me, Sir, to add another circumstance in our Colonies which contributes nomean part towards the growth and effect of this untractable spirit. I mean theireducation. In no country perhaps in the world is the law so general a study. Theprofession itself is numerous and powerful; and in most provinces it takes thelead. The greater number of the deputies sent to the Congress were lawyers. Butall who read, and most do read, endeavor to obtain some smattering in thatscience. I have been told by an eminent bookseller, that in no branch of hisbusiness, after tracts of popular devotion, were so many books as those on thelaw exported to the Plantations. The Colonists have now fallen into the way ofprinting them for their own use. I hear that they have sold nearly as many ofBlackstone's Commentaries in America as in England. General Gage marks out thisdisposition very particularly in a letter on your table. He states that all thepeople in his government are lawyers, or smatterers in law; and that in Bostonthey have been enabled, by successful chicane, wholly to evade many parts of oneof your capital penal constitutions. The smartness of debate will say that thisknowledge ought to teach them more clearly the rights of legislature, theirobligations to obedience, and the penalties of rebellion. All this is mightywell. But my honorable and learned friend on the floor, who condescends to markwhat I say for animadversion, will disdain that ground. He has heard, as well asI, that when great honors and great emoluments do not win over this knowledge tothe service of the state, it is a formidable adversary to government. If thespirit be not tamed and broken by these happy methods, it is stubborn andlitigious. Abeunt studia in mores. [Footnote: 26] This study readers 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, judgeof an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance; here theyanticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the badnessof the principle. They augur misgovernment at a distance, and snuff the approachof tyranny in every tainted breeze. 

The last cause of this disobedient spirit in the Colonies is hardly lesspowerful than the rest, as it is not merely moral, but laid deep in the naturalconstitution 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 ofa speedy explanation of a single point is enough to defeat a whole system. Youhave, indeed, winged ministers of vengeance, [Footnote: 27] who carry your boltsin their pounces to the remotest verge of the sea. But there a power steps inthat limits the arrogance of raging passions and furious elements, and says, SOFAR SHALL THOU GO, AND NO FARTHER. Who are you, that you should fret and rage, and bite the chains of nature? Nothing worse happens to you than does to allnations who have extensive empire; and it happens in all the forms into whichempire can be thrown. In large bodies the circulation [Footnote: 28] of powermust be less vigorous at the extremities. Nature has said it. The Turk cannotgovern Egypt and Arabia and Kurdistan as he governs Thrace; nor has he the samedominion in Crimea and Algiers which he has at Brusa and Smyrna. Despotismitself is obliged to truck and huckster. The Sultan gets such obedience as hecan. He governs with a loose rein, that he may govern at all; and the whole ofthe force and vigor of his authority in his centre is derived from a prudentrelaxation in all his borders. Spain, in her provinces, is, perhaps, not so wellobeyed as you are in yours. She complies, too; she submits; she watches times. This is the immutable condition, the eternal law of extensive and detachedempire. 

Then, Sir, from these six capital sources--of descent, of form of government, ofreligion in the Northern Provinces, of manners in the Southern, of education, ofthe remoteness of situation from the first mover of government--from all thesecauses a fierce spirit of liberty has grown up. It has grown with the growth ofthe people in your Colonies, and increased with the increase of their wealth; aspirit that unhappily meeting with an exercise of power in England which, however lawful, is not reconcilable to any ideas of liberty, much less withtheirs, has kindled this flame that is ready to consume us. 

I do not mean to commend either the spirit in this excess, or the moral causeswhich produce it. Perhaps a more smooth and accommodating spirit of freedom inthem would be more acceptable to us. Perhaps ideas of liberty might be desiredmore reconcilable with an arbitrary and boundless authority. Perhaps we mightwish the Colonists to be persuaded that their liberty is more secure when heldin trust for them by us, as their guardians during a perpetual minority, thanwith any part of it in their own hands. The question is, not whether theirspirit deserves praise or blame, but--what, in the name of God, shall we do withit? You have before you the object, such as it is, with all its glories, withall its imperfections [Footnote: 29] on its head. You see the magnitude, theimportance, the temper, the habits, the disorders. By all these considerationswe are strongly urged to determine something concerning it. We are called uponto fix some rule and line for our future conduct which may give a littlestability to our politics, and prevent the return of such unhappy deliberationsas the present. Every such return will bring the matter before us in a stillmore untractable form. For, what astonishing and incredible things have we notseen already! What monsters have not been generated from this unnaturalcontention! 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 latelyall 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 itsfirst vital movement from the pleasure of the Crown. We thought, Sir, that theutmost which the discontented Colonies could do was to disturb authority; wenever dreamt they could of themselves supply it--knowing in general what anoperose business it is to establish a government absolutely new. But having, forour purposes in this contention, resolved that none but an obedient Assemblyshould sit, the humors of the people there, finding all passage through thelegal channel stopped, with great violence broke out another way. Some provinceshave tried their experiment, as we have tried ours; and theirs has succeeded. They have formed a government sufficient for its purposes, without the bustle ofa revolution or the formality of an election. Evident necessity and tacitconsent have done the business in an instant. So well they have done it, thatLord Dunmore--the account is among the fragments on your table--tells you thatthe new institution is infinitely better obeyed than the ancient government everwas in its most fortunate periods. Obedience is what makes government, and notthe names by which it is called; not the name of Governor, as formerly, orCommittee, as at present. This new government has originated directly from thepeople, and was not transmitted through any of the ordinary artificial media ofa positive constitution. It was not a manufacture ready formed, and transmittedto them in that condition from England. The evil arising from hence is this;that the Colonists having once found the possibility of enjoying the advantagesof order in the midst of a struggle for liberty, such struggles will nothenceforward seem so terrible to the settled and sober part of mankind as theyhad appeared before the trial. Pursuing the same plan [Footnote: 30] ofpunishing by the denial of the exercise of government to still greater lengths, we wholly abrogated the ancient government of Massachusetts. We were confidentthat the first feeling if not the very prospect, of anarchy would instantlyenforce a complete submission. The experiment was tried. A new, strange, unexpected face of things appeared. Anarchy is found tolerable. A vast provincehas now subsisted, and subsisted in a considerable degree of health and vigorfor near a twelvemonth, without Governor, without public Council, withoutjudges, without executive magistrates. How long it will continue in this state, or what may arise out of this unheard-of situation, how can the wisest of usconjecture? Our late experience has taught us that many of those fundamentalprinciples, formerly believed infallible, are either not of the importance theywere imagined to be, or that we have not at all adverted to some other far moreimportant and far more powerful principles, which entirely overrule those we hadconsidered as omnipotent. I am much against any further experiments which tendto put to the proof any more of these allowed opinions which contribute so muchto the public tranquillity. In effect we suffer as much at home by thisloosening of all ties, and this concussion of all established opinions as we doabroad; for in order to prove that the Americans have no right to theirliberties, we are every day endeavoring to subvert the maxims which preserve thewhole spirit of our own. To prove that the Americans ought not to be free, weare obliged to depreciate the value of freedom itself; and we never seem to gaina paltry advantage over them in debate without attacking some of thoseprinciples, or deriding some of those feelings, for which our ancestors haveshed their blood. 

But, Sir, in wishing to put an end to pernicious experiments, I do not mean topreclude the fullest inquiry. Far from it. Far from deciding on a sudden orpartial view, [Footnote: 31] I would patiently go round and round the subject, and survey it minutely in every possible aspect. Sir, if I were capable ofengaging you to an equal attention, I would state that, as far as I am capableof discerning, there are but three ways [Footnote: 32] of proceeding relative tothis stubborn spirit which prevails in your Colonies, and disturbs yourgovernment. These are--to change that spirit, as inconvenient, by removing thecauses; to prosecute it as criminal; or to comply with it as necessary. I wouldnot be guilty of an imperfect enumeration; I can think of but these three. Another has indeed been started, --that of giving up the Colonies; but it met soslight a reception that I do not think myself obliged to dwell a great whileupon it. It is nothing but a little sally of anger, like the forwardness ofpeevish children who, when they cannot get all they would have, are resolved totake nothing. 

The first of these plans--to change the spirit, as inconvenient, by removing thecauses--I think is the most like a systematic proceeding. It is radical in itsprinciple; but it is attended with great difficulties, some of them littleshort, as I conceive, of impossibilities. This will appear by examining into theplans which have been proposed. 

As the growing population in the Colonies is evidently one cause of theirresistance, it was last session mentioned in both Houses, by men of weight, andreceived not without applause, that in order to check this evil it would beproper for the Crown to make no further grants of land. But to this scheme thereare two objections. The first, that there is already so much unsettled land inprivate hands as to afford room for an immense future population, although theCrown not only withheld its grants, but annihilated its soil. If this be thecase, then the only effect of this avarice of desolation, this hoarding of aroyal wilderness, would be to raise the value of the possessions in the hands ofthe great private monopolists without any adequate cheek to the growing andalarming mischief of population. 

But if you stopped your grants, what would be the consequence? The people wouldoccupy without grants. They have already so occupied in many places. You cannotstation garrisons in every part of these deserts. If you drive the people fromone place, they will carry on their annual tillage, and remove with their flocksand herds to another. Many of the people in the back settlements are alreadylittle attached to particular situations. Already they have topped theAppalachian Mountains. From thence they behold before them an immense plain, onevast, rich, level meadow; a square of five hundred miles. Over this they wouldwander without a possibility of restraint; they would change their manners withthe habits of their life; would soon forget a government by which they weredisowned; would become hordes of English Tartars; and, pouring down upon yourunfortified frontiers a fierce and irresistible cavalry, become masters of yourgovernors and your counsellors, your collectors and comptrollers, and of all theslaves that adhered to them. Such would, and in no long time must be, the effectof attempting to forbid as a crime and to suppress as an evil the command andblessing of providence, INCREASE AND MULTIPLY. Such would be the happy result ofthe endeavor to keep as a lair of wild beasts that earth which God, by anexpress charter, has given to the children of men. Far different, and surelymuch wiser, has been our policy hitherto. Hitherto we have invited our people, by every kind of bounty, to fixed establishments. We have invited the husbandmanto look to authority for his title. We have taught him piously to believe in themysterious virtue of wax and parchment. We have thrown each tract of land, as itwas peopled, into districts, that the ruling power should never be wholly out ofsight. We have settled all we could; and we have carefully attended everysettlement with government. 

Adhering, Sir, as I do, to this policy, as well as for the reasons I have justgiven, I think this new project of hedging-in population to be neither prudentnor practicable. 

To impoverish the Colonies in general, and in particular to arrest the noblecourse of their marine enterprises, would be a more easy task. I freely confessit. We have shown a disposition to a system of this kind, a disposition even tocontinue the restraint after the offence, looking on ourselves as rivals to ourColonies, and persuaded that of course we must gain all that they shall lose. Much mischief we may certainly do. The power inadequate to all other things isoften more than sufficient for this. I do not look on the direct and immediatepower of the Colonies to resist our violence as very formidable. In this, however, I may be mistaken. But when I consider that we have Colonies for nopurpose but to be serviceable to us, it seems to my poor understanding a littlepreposterous to make them unserviceable in order to keep them obedient. It is, in truth, nothing more than the old and, as I thought, exploded problem oftyranny, which proposes to beggar its subjects into submission. But remember, when you have completed your system of impoverishment, that nature stillproceeds in her ordinary course; that discontent will increase with misery; andthat there are critical moments in the fortune of all states when they who aretoo weak to contribute to your prosperity may be strong enough to complete yourruin. Spoliatis arma supersunt. [Footnote: 34]

The temper and character which prevail in our Colonies are, I am afraid, unalterable by any human art. We cannot, I fear, falsify the pedigree of thisfierce people, and persuade them that they are not sprung from a nation in whoseveins the blood of freedom circulates. The language in which they would hear youtell them this tale would detect the imposition; your speech would betray you. [Footnote: 35] An Englishman is the unfittest person on earth to argue anotherEnglishman into slavery. 

I think it is nearly as little in our power to change their republican religionas their free descent; or to substitute the Roman Catholic as a penalty, or theChurch of England as an improvement. The mode of inquisition and dragooning isgoing out of fashion in the Old World, and I should not confide much to theirefficacy in the New. The education of the Americans is also on the sameunalterable bottom with their religion. You cannot persuade them to burn theirbooks of curious science; to banish their lawyers from their courts of laws; orto quench the lights of their assemblies by refusing to choose those persons whoare best read in their privileges. It would be no less impracticable to think ofwholly annihilating the popular assemblies in which these lawyers sit. The army, by which we must govern in their place, would be far more chargeable to us, notquite so effectual, and perhaps in the end full as difficult to be kept inobedience. With regard to the high aristocratic spirit of Virginia and theSouthern Colonies, it has been proposed, I know, to reduce it by declaring ageneral enfranchisement of their slaves. This object has had its advocates andpanegyrists; yet I never could argue myself into any opinion of it. Slaves areoften much attached to their masters. A general wild offer of liberty would notalways be accepted. History furnishes few instances of it. It is sometimes ashard to persuade slaves [Footnote: 36] to be free, as it is to compel freemen tobe slaves; and in this auspicious scheme we should have both these pleasingtasks on our hands at once. But when we talk of enfranchisement, do we notperceive that the American master may enfranchise too, and arm servile hands indefence of freedom?--a measure to which other people have had recourse more thanonce, and not without success, in a desperate situation of their affairs. 

Slaves as these unfortunate black people are, and dull as all men are fromslavery, must they not a little suspect the offer of freedom from that verynation which has sold them to their present masters?--from that nation, one ofwhose causes of quarrel [Footnote: 37] with those masters is their refusal todeal any more in that inhuman traffic? An offer of freedom from England wouldcome rather oddly, shipped to them in an African vessel which is refused anentry into the ports of Virginia or Carolina with a cargo of three hundredAngola negroes. It would be curious to see the Guinea captain attempting at thesame instant to publish his proclamation of liberty, and to advertise his saleof slaves. 

But let us suppose all these moral difficulties got over. The ocean remains. Youcannot pump this dry; and as long as it continues in its present bed, so longall the causes which weaken authority by distance will continue. 

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

was a pious and passionate prayer; but just as reasonable as many of the seriouswishes of grave and solemn politicians. 

If then, Sir, it seems almost desperate to think of any alterative course forchanging the moral causes, and not quite easy to remove the natural, whichproduce prejudices irreconcilable to the late exercise of our authority--butthat the spirit infallibly will continue, and, continuing, will produce sucheffects as now embarrass us--the second mode under consideration is to prosecutethat spirit in its overt acts as criminal. 

At this proposition I must pause a moment. The thing seems a great deal too bigfor my ideas of jurisprudence. It should seem to my way of conceiving suchmatters that there is a very wide difference, in reason and policy, between themode of proceeding on the irregular conduct of scattered individuals, or even ofbands of men who disturb order within the state, and the civil dissensions whichmay, from time to time, on great questions, agitate the several communitieswhich compose a great empire. It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to applythe ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest. I do notknow the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people. I cannotinsult and ridicule the feelings of millions of my fellow-creatures as SirEdward Coke insulted one excellent individual (Sir Walter Raleigh) at the bar. Ihope I am not ripe to pass sentence on the gravest public bodies, intrusted withmagistracies of great authority and dignity, and charged with the safety oftheir fellow-citizens, upon the very same title that I am. I really think that, for wise men, this is not judicious; for sober men, not decent; for mindstinctured with humanity, not mild and merciful. 

Perhaps, Sir, I am mistaken in my idea of an empire, as distinguished from asingle state or kingdom. But my idea of it is this; that an empire is theaggregate of many states under one common head, whether this head be a monarchor a presiding republic. It does, in such constitutions, frequently happen--andnothing but the dismal, cold, dead uniformity of servitude can prevent itshappening--that the subordinate parts have many local privileges and immunities. Between these privileges and the supreme common authority the line may beextremely nice. Of course disputes, often, too, very bitter disputes, and muchill blood, will arise. But though every privilege is an exemption, in the case, from the ordinary exercise of the supreme authority, it is no denial of it. Theclaim of a privilege seems rather, ex vi termini, [Footnote: 38] to imply asuperior power; for to talk of the privileges of a state or of a person who hasno superior is hardly any better than speaking nonsense. Now, in suchunfortunate quarrels among the component parts of a great political union ofcommunities, I can scarcely conceive anything more completely imprudent than forthe head of the empire to insist that, if any privilege is pleaded against hiswill or his acts, his whole authority is denied; instantly to proclaimrebellion, to beat to arms, and to put the offending provinces under the ban. Will not this, Sir, very soon teach the provinces to make no distinctions ontheir part? Will it not teach them that the government, against which a claim ofliberty is tantamount to high treason, is a government to which submission isequivalent to slavery? It may not always be quite convenient to impressdependent communities with such an idea. 

We are, indeed, in all disputes with the Colonies, by the necessity of things, the judge. It is true, Sir. But I confess that the character of judge in my owncause is a thing that frightens me. Instead of filling me with pride, I amexceedingly humbled by it. I cannot proceed with a stern, assured, judicialconfidence, until I find myself in something more like a judicial character. Imust have these hesitations as long as I am compelled to recollect that, in mylittle reading upon such contests as these, the sense of mankind has at least asoften decided against the superior as the subordinate power. Sir, let me add, too, that the opinion of my having some abstract right [Footnote: 39] in myfavor would not put me much at my ease in passing sentence, unless I could besure that there were no rights which, in their exercise under certaincircumstances, were not the most odious of all wrongs and the most vexatious ofall injustice. Sir, these considerations have great weight with me when I findthings so circumstanced, that I see the same party at once a civil litigantagainst me in point of right and a culprit before me, while I sit as a criminaljudge on acts of his whose moral quality is to be decided upon the merits ofthat very litigation. Men are every now and then put, by the complexity of humanaffairs, into strange situations; but justice is the same, let the judge be inwhat situation he will. 

There is, Sir, also a circumstance which convinces me that this mode of criminalproceeding is not, at least in the present stage of our contest, altogetherexpedient; which is nothing less than the conduct of those very persons who haveseemed to adopt that mode by lately declaring a rebellion in Massachusetts Bay, as they had formerly addressed to have traitors brought hither, under an Act ofHenry the Eighth, [Footnote: 40] for trial. For though rebellion is declared, itis not proceeded against as such, nor have any steps been taken towards theapprehension or conviction of any individual offender, either on our late or ourformer Address; but modes of public coercion have been adopted, and such as havemuch more resemblance to a sort of qualified hostility towards an independentpower than the punishment of rebellious subjects. All this seems ratherinconsistent; but it shows how difficult it is to apply these juridical ideas toour present case. 

In this situation, let us seriously and coolly ponder. What is it we have got byall our menaces, which have been many and ferocious? What advantage have wederived from the penal laws we have passed, and which, for the time, have beensevere and numerous? What advances have we made towards our object by thesending of a force which, by land and sea, is no contemptible strength? Has thedisorder abated? Nothing less. When I see things in this situation after suchconfident hopes, bold promises, and active exertions, I cannot, for my life, avoid a suspicion that the plan itself is not correctly right. [Footnote: 41]

If, then, the removal of the causes of this spirit of American liberty be forthe greater part, or rather entirely, impracticable; if the ideas of criminalprocess be inapplicable--or, if applicable, are in the highest degreeinexpedient; what way yet remains? No way is open but the third and last, --tocomply with the American spirit as necessary; or, if you please, to submit to itas a necessary evil. 

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

Sir, I think you must perceive that I am resolved this day to have nothing atall to do with the question of the right of taxation. Some gentlemen start--butit is true; I put it totally out of the question. It is less than nothing in myconsideration. I do not indeed wonder, nor will you, Sir, that gentlemen ofprofound learning are fond of displaying it on this profound subject. But myconsideration is narrow, confined, and wholly limited to the policy of thequestion. I do not examine whether the giving away a man's money be a powerexcepted and reserved out of the general trust of government, and how far allmankind, in all forms of polity, are entitled to an exercise of that right bythe charter of nature; or whether, on the contrary, a right of taxation isnecessarily involved in the general principle of legislation, and inseparablefrom the ordinary supreme power. These are deep questions, where great namesmilitate against each other, where reason is perplexed, and an appeal toauthorities only thickens the confusion; for high and reverend authorities liftup their heads on both sides, and there is no sure footing in the middle. Thispoint is the great

 "Serbonian bog, Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old, Where armies whole have sunk. " [Footnote: 42]

I do not intend to be overwhelmed in that bog, though in such respectablecompany. The question [Footnote: 43] with me is, not whether you have a right torender your people miserable, but whether it is not your interest to make themhappy. It is not what a lawyer tells me I MAY do, but what humanity, reason, andjustice tell me I OUGHT to do. Is a politic act the worse for being a generousone? Is no concession proper but that which is made from your want of right tokeep what you grant? Or does it lessen the grace or dignity of relaxing in theexercise of an odious claim because you have your evidence-room full of titles, and your magazines stuffed with arms to enforce them? What signify all thosetitles, and all those arms? Of what avail are they, when the reason of the thingtells me that the assertion of my title is the loss of my suit, and that I coulddo nothing but wound myself by the use of my own weapons?

Such is steadfastly my opinion of the absolute necessity of keeping up theconcord of this Empire by an unity of spirit, though in a diversity ofoperations, that, if I were sure the Colonists had, at their leaving thiscountry, sealed a regular compact of servitude; that they had solemnly abjuredall the rights of citizens; that they had made a vow to renounce all ideas ofliberty for them and their posterity to all generations; yet I should holdmyself obliged to conform to the temper I found universally prevalent in my ownday, and to govern two million of men, impatient of servitude, on the principlesof freedom. I am not determining a point of law, I am restoring tranquillity;and the general character and situation of a people must determine what sort ofgovernment is fitted for them. That point nothing else can or ought todetermine. 

My idea, therefore, without considering whether we yield as matter of right, orgrant as matter of favor, is to admit the people of our Colonies into aninterest in the Constitution; and, by recording that admission in the journalsof Parliament, to give them as strong an assurance as the nature of the thingwill admit, that we mean forever to adhere to that solemn declaration ofsystematic indulgence. 

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

I have taken a very incorrect measure of the disposition of the House if thisproposal in itself would be received with dislike. I think, Sir, we have fewAmerican financiers. But our misfortune is, we are too acute, we are tooexquisite [Footnote: 44] in our conjectures of the future, for men oppressedwith such great and present evils. The more moderate among the opposers ofParliamentary concession freely confess that they hope no good from taxation, but they apprehend the Colonists have further views; and if this point wereconceded, they would instantly attack the trade laws. [Footnote: 45] Thesegentlemen are convinced that this was the intention from the beginning, and thequarrel of the Americans with taxation was no more than a cloak and cover tothis design. Such has been the language even of a gentleman of real moderation, and of a natural temper well adjusted to fair and equal government. I am, however, Sir, not a little surprised at this kind of discourse, whenever I hearit; and I am the more surprised on account of the arguments which I constantlyfind in company with it, and which are often urged from the same mouths and onthe same day. 

For instance, when we allege that it is against reason to tax a people under somany restraints in trade as the Americans, the noble lord in the blue ribbonshall tell you that the restraints on trade are futile and useless--of noadvantage to us, and of no burthen to those on whom they are imposed; that thetrade to America is not secured by the Acts of Navigation, but by the naturaland irresistible advantage of a commercial preference. 

Such is the merit of the trade laws in this posture of the debate. But whenstrong internal circumstances are urged against the taxes; when the scheme isdissected; when experience and the nature of things are brought to prove, and doprove, the utter impossibility of obtaining an effective revenue from theColonies; when these things are pressed, or rather press themselves, so as todrive the advocates of Colony taxes to a clear admission of the futility of thescheme; then, Sir, the sleeping trade laws revive from their trance, and thisuseless taxation is to be kept sacred, not for its own sake, but as acounterguard and security of the laws of trade. 

Then, Sir, you keep up revenue laws which are mischievous, in order to preservetrade laws that are useless. Such is the wisdom of our plan in both its members. They are separately given up as of no value, and yet one is always to bedefended for the sake of the other; but I cannot agree with the noble lord, norwith the pamphlet from whence he seems to have borrowed these ideas concerningthe inutility of the trade laws. For, without idolizing them, I am sure they arestill, in many ways, of great use to us; and in former times they have been ofthe greatest. They do confine, and they do greatly narrow, the market for theAmericans; but my perfect conviction of this does not help me in the least todiscern how the revenue laws form any security whatsoever to the commercialregulations, or that these commercial regulations are the true ground of thequarrel, or that the giving way, in any one instance of authority, is to loseall that may remain unconceded. 

One fact is clear and indisputable. The public and avowed origin of this quarrelwas on taxation. This quarrel has indeed brought on new disputes on newquestions; but certainly the least bitter, and the fewest of all, on the tradelaws. To judge which of the two be the real radical cause of quarrel, we have tosee whether the commercial dispute did, in order of time, precede the dispute ontaxation? There is not a shadow of evidence for it. Next, to enable us to judgewhether at this moment a dislike to the trade laws be the real cause of quarrel, it is absolutely necessary to put the taxes out of the question by a repeal. Seehow the Americans act in this position, and then you will be able to discerncorrectly what is the true object of the controversy, or whether any controversyat all will remain. Unless you consent to remove this cause of difference, it isimpossible, with decency, to assert that the dispute is not upon what it isavowed to be. And I would, Sir, recommend to your serious consideration whetherit be prudent to form a rule for punishing people, not on their own acts, but onyour conjectures? Surely it is preposterous at the very best. It is notjustifying your anger by their misconduct, but it is converting your ill-willinto their delinquency. 

But the Colonies will go further. Alas! alas! when will this speculation againstfact and reason end? What will quiet these panic fears which we entertain of thehostile effect of a conciliatory conduct? Is it true that no case can exist inwhich it is proper for the sovereign to accede to the desires of hisdiscontented subjects? Is there anything peculiar in this case to make a rulefor itself? Is all authority of course lost when it is not pushed to theextreme? Is it a certain maxim that the fewer causes of dissatisfaction are leftby government, the more the subject will be inclined to resist and rebel?

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

In forming a plan for this purpose, I endeavored to put myself in that frame ofmind which was the most natural and the most reasonable, and which was certainlythe most probable means of securing me from all error. I set out with a perfectdistrust of my own abilities, a total renunciation of every speculation of myown, and with a profound reverence for the wisdom of our ancestors who have leftus the inheritance of so happy a constitution and so flourishing an empire, and, what is a thousand times more valuable, the treasury of the maxims andprinciples which formed the one and obtained the other. 

During the reigns of the kings of Spain of the Austrian family, whenever theywere at a loss in the Spanish councils, it was common for their statesmen to saythat they ought to consult the genius of Philip the Second. The genius of Philipthe Second might mislead them, and the issue of their affairs showed that theyhad not chosen the most perfect standard; but, Sir, I am sure that I shall notbe misled when, in a case of constitutional difficulty, I consult the genius ofthe English Constitution. Consulting at that oracle--it was with all duehumility and piety--I found four capital examples in a similar case before me;those of Ireland, Wales, Chester, and Durham. 

Ireland, before the English conquest, [Footnote: 46] though never governed by adespotic power, had no Parliament. How far the English Parliament itself was atthat time modelled according to the present form is disputed among antiquaries;but we have all the reason in the world to be assured that a form of Parliamentsuch as England then enjoyed she instantly communicated to Ireland, and we areequally sure that almost every successive improvement in constitutional liberty, as fast as it was made here, was transmitted thither. The feudal baronage andthe feudal knighthood, the roots of our primitive Constitution, were earlytransplanted into that soil, and grew and flourished there. Magna Charta, if itdid not give us originally the House of Commons, gave us at least a House ofCommons of weight and consequence. But your ancestors did not churlishly sitdown alone to the feast of Magna Charta. Ireland was made immediately apartaker. This benefit of English laws and liberties, I confess, was not atfirst extended to all Ireland. Mark the consequence. English authority andEnglish liberties had exactly the same boundaries. Your standard could never beadvanced an inch before your privileges. Sir John Davis shows beyond a doubtthat the refusal of a general communication of these rights was the true causewhy Ireland was five hundred years in subduing; and after the vain projects of amilitary government, attempted in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it was soondiscovered that nothing could make that country English, in civility andallegiance, but your laws and your forms of legislature. It was not Englisharms, but the English Constitution, that conquered Ireland. From that timeIreland has ever had a general Parliament, as she had before a partialParliament. You changed the people; you altered the religion; but you nevertouched the form or the vital substance of free government in that kingdom. Youdeposed kings; [Footnote: 47] you restored them; you altered the succession totheirs, as well as to your own Crown; but you never altered their Constitution, the principle of which was respected by usurpation, restored with therestoration of monarchy, and established, I trust, forever, by the gloriousRevolution. This has made Ireland the great and flourishing kingdom that it is, and, from a disgrace and a burthen intolerable to this nation, has rendered hera principal part of our strength and ornament. This country cannot be said tohave ever formally taxed her. The irregular things done in the confusion ofmighty troubles and on the hinge of great revolutions, even if all were donethat is said to have been done, form no example. If they have any effect inargument, they make an exception to prove the rule. None of your own libertiescould stand a moment, if the casual deviations from them at such times weresuffered to be used as proofs of their nullity. By the lucrative amount of suchcasual breaches in the Constitution, judge what the stated and fixed rule ofsupply has been in that kingdom. Your Irish pensioners would starve, if they hadno other fund to live on than taxes granted by English authority. Turn your eyesto those popular grants from whence all your great supplies are come, and learnto respect that only source of public wealth in the British Empire. 

My next example is Wales. This country was said to be reduced by Henry theThird. It was said more truly to be so by Edward the First. But though thenconquered, it was not looked upon as any part of the realm of England. Its oldConstitution, whatever that might have been, was destroyed, and no good one wassubstituted in its place. The care of that tract was put into the hands of LordsMarchers [Footnote: 48]--a form of government of a very singular kind; a strangeheterogeneous monster, something between hostility and government; perhaps ithas a sort of resemblance, according to the modes of those terms, to that ofCommander-in-chief at present, to whom all civil power is granted as secondary. The manners of the Welsh nation followed the genius of the government. Thepeople were ferocious, restive, savage, and uncultivated; sometimes composed, never pacified. Wales, within itself, was in perpetual disorder, and it kept thefrontier of England in perpetual alarm. Benefits from it to the state there werenone. Wales was only known to England by incursion and invasion. 

Sir, during that state of things, Parliament was not idle. They attempted tosubdue the fierce spirit of the Welsh by all sorts of rigorous laws. Theyprohibited by statute the sending all sorts of arms into Wales, as you prohibitby proclamation (with something more of doubt on the legality) the sending armsto America. They disarmed the Welsh by statute, as you attempted (but still withmore question on the legality) to disarm New England by an instruction. Theymade an Act to drag offenders from Wales into England for trial, as you havedone (but with more hardship) with regard to America. By another Act, where oneof the parties was an Englishman, they ordained that his trial should be alwaysby English. They made Acts to restrain trade, as you do; and they prevented theWelsh from the use of fairs and markets, as you do the Americans from fisheriesand foreign ports. In short, when the Statute Book was not quite so much swelledas it is now, you find no less than fifteen acts of penal regulation on thesubject of Wales. 

Here we rub our hands. --A fine body of precedents for the authority ofParliament and the use of it!--I admit it fully; and pray add likewise to theseprecedents that all the while Wales rid this Kingdom like an incubus, that itwas an unprofitable and oppressive burthen, and that an Englishman travelling inthat country could not go six yards from the high road without being murdered. 

The march of the human mind is slow. Sir, it was not until after two hundredyears discovered that, by an eternal law, providence had decreed vexation toviolence, and poverty to rapine. Your ancestors did however at length open theireyes to the ill-husbandry of injustice. They found that the tyranny of a freepeople could of all tyrannies the least be endured, and that laws made against awhole nation were not the most effectual methods of securing its obedience. Accordingly, in the twenty-seventh year of Henry the Eighth the course wasentirely altered. With a preamble stating the entire and perfect rights of theCrown of England, it gave to the Welsh all the rights and privileges of Englishsubjects. A political order was established; the military power gave way to thecivil; the Marches were turned into Counties. But that a nation should have aright to English liberties, and yet no share at all in the fundamental securityof these liberties--the grant of their own property--seemed a thing soincongruous that, eight years after, that is, in the thirty-fifth of that reign, a complete and not ill-proportioned representation by counties and boroughs wasbestowed upon Wales by Act of Parliament. From that moment, as by a charm, thetumults subsided; obedience was restored; peace, order, and civilizationfollowed in the train of liberty. When the day-star of the English Constitutionhad arisen in their hearts, all was harmony within and without--

 "--simul alba nautis Stella refulsit, Defluit saxis agitatus humor; Concidunt venti, fugiuntque nubes, Et minax (quod sic voluere) ponto Unda recumbit. " [Footnote: 49]

The very same year the County Palatine of Chester received the same relief fromits oppressions and the same remedy to its disorders. Before this time Chesterwas little less distempered than Wales. The inhabitants, without rightsthemselves, were the fittest to destroy the rights of others; and from thenceRichard the Second drew the standing army of archers with which for a time heoppressed England. The people of Chester applied to Parliament in a petitionpenned as I shall read to you:

 "To the King, our Sovereign Lord, in most hunible wise shewen unto your excellent Majesty the inhabitants of your Grace's County Palatine of Chester: (1) That where the said County Palatine of Chester is and hath been always hitherto exempt, excluded, and separated out and from your High Court of Parliament, to have any Knights and Burgesses within the said Court; by reason whereof the said inhabitants have hitherto sustained manifold disherisons, losses, and damages, as well in their lands, goods, and bodies, as in the good, civil, and politic governance and maintenance of the commonwealth of their said county; (2) And forasmuch as the said inhabitants have always hitherto been bound by the Acts and Statutes made and ordained by your said Highness and your most noble progenitors, by authority of the said Court, as far forth as other counties, cities, and boroughs have been, that have had their Knights and Burgesses within your said Court of Parliament, and yet have had neither Knight ne Burgess there for the said County Palatine, the said inhabitants, for lack thereof, have been oftentime touched and grieved with Acts and Statutes made within the said Court, as well derogatory unto the most ancient jurisdictions, liberties, and privileges of your said County Palatine, as prejudicial unto the commonwealth, quietness, rest, and peace of your Grace's most bounden subjects inhabiting within the same. "

What did Parliament with this audacious address?--Reject it as a libel? Treat itas an affront to Government? Spurn it as a derogation from the rights oflegislature? Did they toss it over the table? Did they burn it by the hands ofthe common hangman?--They took the petition of grievance, all rugged as it was, without softening or temperament, unpurged of the original bitterness andindignation of complaint--they made it the very preamble to their Act ofredress, and consecrated its principle to all ages in the sanctuary oflegislation. 

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

Now if the doctrines of policy contained in these preambles, and the force ofthese examples in the Acts of Parliaments, avail anything, what can be saidagainst applying them with regard to America? Are not the people of America asmuch Englishmen as the Welsh? The preamble of the Act of Henry the Eighth saysthe Welsh speak a language no way resembling that of his Majesty's Englishsubjects. Are the Americans not as numerous? If we may trust the learned andaccurate Judge Barrington's account of North Wales, and take that as a standardto measure the rest, there is no comparison. The people cannot amount to above200, 000; not a tenth part of the number in the Colonies. Is America inrebellion? Wales was hardly ever free from it. Have you at tempted to governAmerica by penal statutes? You made fifteen for Wales. But your legislativeauthority is perfect with regard to America. Was it less perfect in Wales, Chester, and Durham? But America is virtually represented. What! does theelectric force of virtual representation more easily pass over the Atlantic thanpervade Wales, --which lies in your neighborhood--or than Chester and Durham, surrounded by abundance of representation that is actual and palpable? But, Sir, your ancestors thought this sort of virtual representation, however ample, to betotally insufficient for the freedom of the inhabitants of territories that areso near, and comparatively so inconsiderable. How then can I think it sufficientfor those which are infinitely greater, and infinitely more remote?

You will now, Sir, perhaps imagine that I am on the point of proposing to you ascheme for a representation of the Colonies in Parliament. Perhaps I might beinclined to entertain some such thought; but a great flood stops me in mycourse. Opposuit natura. [Footnote: 50 ]--I cannot remove the eternal barriersof the creation. The thing, in that mode, I do not know to be possible. As Imeddle with no theory, [Footnote: 51] I do not absolutely assert theimpracticability of such a representation; but I do not see my way to it, andthose who have been more confident have not been more successful. However, thearm of public benevolence is not shortened, and there are often several means tothe same end. What nature has disjoined in one way, wisdom may unite in another. When we cannot give the benefit as we would wish, let us not refuse italtogether. If we cannot give the principal, let us find a substitute. But how?Where? What substitute?

Fortunately I am not obliged, for the ways and means of this substitute, to taxmy own unproductive invention. I am not even obliged to go to the rich treasuryof the fertile framers of imaginary commonwealths--not to the Republic of Plato, [Footnote: 52] not to the Utopia of More, [Footnote: 52] not to the Oceana ofHarrington. It is before me--it is at my feet, "And the rude swain Treads daily on it with his clouted shoon. " [Footnote: 53]

I only wish you to recognize, for the theory, the ancient constitutional policyof this kingdom with regard to representation, as that policy has been declaredin Acts of Parliament; and as to the practice, to return to that mode which auniform experience has marked out to you as best, and in which you walked withsecurity, advantage, and honor, until the year 1763. [Footnote: 54]

My Resolutions therefore mean to establish the equity and justice of a taxationof America by GRANT, and not by IMPOSITION; to mark the LEGAL COMPETENCY[Footnote: 55] of the Colony Assemblies for the support of their government inpeace, and for public aids in time of war; to acknowledge that this legalcompetency has had a DUTIFUL AND BENEFICIAL EXERCISE; and that experience hasshown the BENEFIT OF THEIR GRANTS and the FUTILITY OF PARLIAMENTARY TAXATION asa method of supply. 

These solid truths compose six fundamental propositions. There are three moreResolutions corollary to these. If you admit the first set, you can hardlyreject the others. But if you admit the first, I shall be far from solicitouswhether you accept or refuse the last. I think these six massive pillars will beof strength sufficient to support the temple of British concord. I have no moredoubt than I entertain of my existence that, if you admitted these, you wouldcommand an immediate peace, and, with but tolerable future management, a lastingobedience in America. I am not arrogant in this confident assurance. Thepropositions are all mere matters of fact, and if they are such facts as drawirresistible conclusions even in the stating, this is the power of truth, andnot any management of mine. 

Sir, I shall open the whole plan to you, together with such observations on themotions as may tend to illustrate them where they may want explanation. Thefirst is a Resolution--

"That the Colonies and Plantations of Great Britain in North America, consistingof fourteen separate Governments, and containing two millions and upwards offree inhabitants, have not had the liberty and privilege of electing and sendingany Knights and Burgesses, or others, to represent them in the High Court ofParliament. "

This is a plain matter of fact, necessary to be laid down, and, excepting thedescription, it is laid down in the language of the Constitution; it is takennearly verbatim from Acts of Parliament. 

The second is like unto the first--

"That the said Colonies and Plantations have been 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 inthe said High Court of Parliament, of their own election, to represent thecondition of their country; by lack whereof they have been oftentimes touchedand grieved by subsidies given, granted, and assented to, in the said Court, ina manner prejudicial to the commonwealth, quietness, rest, and peace of thesubjects inhabiting within the same. "

Is this description too hot, or too cold; too strong, or too weak? Does itarrogate too much to the supreme legislature? Does it lean too much to theclaims of the people? If it runs into any of these errors, the fault is notmine. It is the language of your own ancient Acts of Parliament. 

 "Non meus hic sermo, sed quae praecepit Ofellus, Rusticus, abnormis sapiens. " [Footnote: 56]

It is the genuine produce of the ancient, rustic, manly, homebred sense of thiscountry. --I did not dare to rub off a particle of the venerable rust that ratheradorns and preserves, than destroys, the metal. It would be a profanation totouch with a tool the stones which construct the sacred altar of peace. I wouldnot violate with modern polish the ingenuous and noble roughness of these trulyConstitutional materials. Above all things, I was resolved not to be guilty oftampering, the odious vice of restless and unstable minds. I put my foot in thetracks of our forefathers, where I can neither wander nor stumble. Determiningto fix articles of peace, I was resolved not to be wise beyond what was written;I was resolved to use nothing else than the form of sound words, to let othersabound in their own sense, and carefully to abstain from all expressions of myown. What the law has said, I say. In all things else I am silent. I have noorgan but for her words. This, if it be not ingenious, I am sure is safe. [Footnote: 57]

There are indeed words expressive of grievance in this second Resolution, whichthose who are resolved always to be in the right will deny to contain matter offact, as applied to the present case, although Parliament thought them true withregard to the counties of Chester and Durham. They will deny that the Americanswere ever "touched and grieved" with the taxes. If they consider nothing intaxes but their weight as pecuniary impositions, there might be some pretencefor this denial; but men may be sorely touched and deeply grieved in theirprivileges, as well as in their purses. Men may lose little in property by theact which takes away all their freedom. When a man is robbed of a trifle on thehighway, it is not the twopence lost that constitutes the capital outrage. Thisis not confined to privileges. Even ancient indulgences, withdrawn withoutoffence on the part of those who enjoyed such favors, operate as grievances. Butwere the Americans then not touched and grieved by the taxes, in some measure, merely as taxes? If so, why were they almost all either wholly repealed, orexceedingly reduced? Were they not touched and grieved even by the regulatingduties of the sixth of George the Second? Else, why were the duties firstreduced to one third in 1764, and afterwards to a third of that third in theyear 1766? Were they not touched and grieved by the Stamp Act? I shall say theywere, until that tax is revived. Were they not touched and grieved by the dutiesof 1767, which were likewise repealed, and which Lord Hillsborough tells you, for the Ministry, were laid contrary to the true principle of commerce? Is notthe assurance given by that noble person to the Colonies of a resolution to layno more taxes on them an admission that taxes would touch and grieve them? Isnot the Resolution of the noble lord in the blue ribbon, now standing on yourJournals, the strongest of all proofs that Parliamentary subsidies reallytouched and grieved them? Else why all these changes, modifications, repeals, assurances, and resolutions?

The next proposition is--

"That, from the distance of the said Colonies, and from other circumstances, nomethod hath hitherto been devised for procuring a representation in Parliamentfor the said Colonies"

This is an assertion of a fact, I go no further on the paper, though, in myprivate judgment, a useful representation is impossible--I am sure it is notdesired by them, nor ought it perhaps by us--but I abstain from opinions

The fourth Resolution is--

"That each of the said Colonies hath within itself a body, chosen in part, or inthe whole, by the freemen, free-holders, or other free inhabitants thereof, commonly called the General Assembly, or General Court, with powers legally toraise, levy, and assess, according to the several usage of such Colonies dutiesand taxes towards defraying all sorts of public services"

This competence in the Colony Assemblies is certain. It is proved by the wholetenor of their Acts of Supply in all the Assemblies, in which the constant styleof granting is, "an aid to his Majesty", and Acts granting to the Crown haveregularly for near a century passed the public offices without dispute. Thosewho have been pleased paradoxically to deny this right, holding that none butthe British Parliament can grant to the Crown, are wished to look to what isdone, not only in the Colonies, but in Ireland, in one uniform unbroken tenorevery session. Sir, I am surprised that this doctrine should come from some ofthe law servants of the Crown. I say that if the Crown could be responsible, hisMajesty--but certainly the Ministers, --and even these law officers themselvesthrough whose hands the Acts passed, biennially in Ireland, or annually in theColonies--are in an habitual course of committing impeachable offences. Whathabitual offenders have been all Presidents of the Council, all Secretaries ofState, all First Lords of Trade, all Attorneys and all Solicitors General!However, they are safe, as no one impeaches them; and there is no ground ofcharge against them except in their own unfounded theories. 

The fifth Resolution is also a resolution of fact--

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

To say nothing of their great expenses in the Indian wars, and not to take theirexertion in foreign ones so high as the supplies in the year 1695--not to goback to their public contributions in the year 1710--I shall begin to travelonly where the journals give me light, resolving to deal in nothing but fact, authenticated by Parliamentary record, and to build myself wholly on that solidbasis. 

On the 4th of April, 1748, a Committee of this House came to the followingresolution:

 "Resolved: That it is the opinion of this Committee that it is just and reasonable that the several Provinces and Colonies of Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, be reimbursed the expenses they have been at in taking and securing to the Crown of Great Britain, the Island of Cape Breton and its dependencies. "

The expenses were immense for such Colonies. They were above L200, 000 sterling;money first raised and advanced on their public credit. 

On the 28th of January, 1756, a message from the King came to us, to thiseffect:

 "His Majesty, being sensible of the zeal and vigor with which his faithful subjects of certain Colonies in North America have exerted themselves in defence of his Majesty's just rights and possessions, recommends it to this House to take the same into their consideration, and to enable his Majesty to give them such assistance as may be a proper reward and encouragement. "

On the 3d of February, 1756, the House came to a suitable Resolution, expressedin words nearly the same as those of the message, but with the further addition, that the money then voted was as an encouragement to the Colonies to exertthemselves with vigor. It will not be necessary to go through all thetestimonies which your own records have given to the truth of my Resolutions. Iwill only refer you to the places in the Journals:

 Vol. Xxvii. --16th and 19th May, 1757. Vol. Xxviii. --June 1st, 1758; April 26th and 30th, 1759; March 26th and 31st, and April 28th, 1760; Jan. 9th and 20th, 1761. Vol. Xxix. --Jan. 22d and 26th, 1762; March 14th and 17th, 1763. 

Sir, here is the repeated acknowledgment of Parliament that the Colonies notonly gave, but gave to satiety. This nation has formally acknowledged twothings: first, that the Colonies had gone beyond their abilities, Parliamenthaving thought it necessary to reimburse them; secondly, that they had actedlegally and laudably in their grants of money, and their maintenance of troops, since the compensation is expressly given as reward and encouragement. Reward isnot bestowed for acts that are unlawful; and encouragement is not held out tothings that deserve reprehension. My Resolution therefore does nothing more thancollect into one proposition what is scattered through your Journals. I give younothing but your own; and you cannot refuse in the gross what you have so oftenacknowledged in detail. The admission of this, which will be so honorable tothem and to you, will, indeed, be mortal to all the miserable stories by whichthe passions of the misguided people [Footnote: 58] have been engaged in anunhappy system. The people heard, indeed, from the beginning of these disputes, one thing continually dinned in their ears, that reason and justice demandedthat the Americans, who paid no taxes, should be compelled to contribute. Howdid that fact of their paying nothing stand when the taxing system began? WhenMr. Grenville began to form his system of American revenue, he stated in thisHouse that the Colonies were then in debt two millions six hundred thousandpounds sterling money, and was of opinion they would discharge that debt in fouryears. On this state, those untaxed people were actually subject to the paymentof taxes to the amount of six hundred and fifty thousand a year. In fact, however, Mr. Grenville was mistaken. The funds given for sinking the debt didnot prove quite so ample as both the Colonies and he expected. The calculationwas too sanguine; the reduction was not completed till some years after, and atdifferent times in different Colonies. However, the taxes after the warcontinued too great to bear any addition, with prudence or propriety; and whenthe burthens imposed in consequence of former requisitions were discharged, ourtone became too high to resort again to requisition. No Colony, since that time, ever has had any requisition whatsoever made to it. 

We see the sense of the Crown, and the sense of Parliament, on the productivenature of a REVENUE BY GRANT. Now search the same Journals for the produce ofthe REVENUE BY IMPOSITION. Where is it? Let us know the volume and the page. What is the gross, what is the net produce? To what service is it applied? Howhave you appropriated its surplus? What! Can none of the many skilful index-makers that we are now employing find any trace of it?--Well, let them and thatrest together. But are the Journals, which say nothing of the revenue, as silenton the discontent? Oh no! a child may find it. It is the melancholy burthen andblot of every page. 

I think, then, I am, from those Journals, justified in the sixth and lastResolution, which is---

"That it hath been found by experience that the manner of granting the saidsupplies and aids, by the said General Assemblies, hath been more agreeable tothe said Colonies, and more beneficial and conducive to the public service, thanthe mode of giving and granting aids in Parliament, to be raised and paid in thesaid Colonies. "

This makes the whole of the fundamental part of the plan. The conclusion isirresistible. You cannot say that you were driven by any necessity to anexercise of the utmost rights of legislature. You cannot assert that you took onyourselves the task of imposing Colony taxes from the want of another legal bodythat is competent to the purpose of supplying the exigencies of the statewithout wounding the prejudices of the people. Neither is it true that the bodyso qualified, and having that competence, had neglected the duty. 

The question now, on all this accumulated matter, is: whether you will choose toabide by a profitable experience, or a mischievous theory; whether you choose tobuild on imagination, or fact; whether you prefer enjoyment, or hope;satisfaction in your subjects, or discontent?

If these propositions are accepted, everything which has been made to enforce acontrary system must, I take it for granted, fall along with it. On that ground, I have drawn the following Resolution, which, when it comes to be moved, willnaturally be divided in a proper manner:

"That it may be proper to repeal an Act [Footnote: 59] made in the seventh yearof the reign of his present Majesty, entitled, An Act for granting certainduties in the British Colonies and Plantations in America; for allowing adrawback of the duties of customs upon the exportation from this Kingdom ofcoffee and cocoa-nuts of the produce of the said Colonies or Plantations; fordiscontinuing the drawbacks payable on china earthenware exported to America;and for more effectually preventing the clandestine running of goods in the saidColonies and Plantations. And that it may be proper to repeal an Act [Footnote:60] made in the fourteenth year of the reign of his present Majesty, entitled, An Act to discontinue, in such manner and for such time as are thereinmentioned, the landing and discharging, lading or shipping of goods, wares, andmerchandise at the town and within the harbor of Boston, in the Province ofMassachusetts Bay, in North America. And that it may be proper to repeal an Actmade in the fourteenth year of the reign of his present Majesty, entitled, AnAct for the impartial administration of justice [Footnote: 61] in the cases ofpersons questioned for any acts done by them in the execution of the law, or forthe suppression of riots and tumults, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, inNew England. And that it may be proper to repeal an Act made in the fourteenthyear of the reign of his present Majesty, entitled, An Act for the betterregulating [Footnote: 62] of the Government of the Province of the MassachusettsBay, in New England. And also that it may be proper to explain and amend an Actmade in the thirty-fifth year of the reign of King Henry the Eighth, entitled, An Act for the Trial of Treasons [Footnote: 63] committed out of the King'sDominions. "

I wish, Sir, to repeal the Boston Port Bill, because--independently of thedangerous precedent of suspending the rights of the subject during the King'spleasure--it was passed, as I apprehend, with less regularity and on morepartial principles than it ought. The corporation of Boston was not heard beforeit was condemned. Other towns, full as guilty as she was, have not had theirports blocked up. Even the Restraining Bill of the present session does not goto the length of the Boston Port Act. The same ideas of prudence which inducedyou not to extend equal punishment to equal guilt, even when you were punishing, induced me, who mean not to chastise, but to reconcile, to be satisfied with thepunishment already partially inflicted. 

Ideas of prudence and accommodation to circumstances prevent you from takingaway the charters of Connecticut and Rhode Island, as you have taken away thatof Massachusetts Bay, though the Crown has far less power in the two formerprovinces than it enjoyed in the latter, and though the abuses have been full asgreat, and as flagrant, in the exempted as in the punished. The same reasons ofprudence and accommodation have weight with me in restoring the charter ofMassachusetts Bay. Besides, Sir, the Act which changes the charter ofMassachusetts is in many particulars so exceptionable that if I did not wishabsolutely to repeal, I would by all means desire to alter it, as several of itsprovisions tend to the subversion of all public and private justice. Such, amongothers, is the power in the Governor to change the sheriff at his pleasure, andto make a new returning officer for every special cause. It is shameful tobehold such a regulation standing among English laws. 

The Act for bringing persons accused of committing murder, under the orders ofGovernment to England for trial, is but temporary. That Act has calculated theprobable duration of our quarrel with the Colonies, and is accommodated to thatsupposed duration. I would hasten the happy moment of reconciliation, andtherefore must, on my principle, get rid of that most justly obnoxious Act. 

The Act of Henry the Eighth, for the Trial of Treasons, I do not mean to takeaway, but to confine it to its proper bounds and original intention; to make itexpressly for trial of treasons--and the greatest treasons may be committed--inplaces where the jurisdiction of the Crown does not extend. 

Having guarded the privileges of local legislature, I would next secure to theColonies a fair and unbiassed judicature, for which purpose, Sir, I propose thefollowing Resolution:

"That, from the time when the General Assembly or General Court of any Colony orPlantation in North America shall have appointed by Act of Assembly, dulyconfirmed, a settled salary to the offices of the Chief Justice and other Judgesof the Superior Court, it may be proper that the said Chief Justice and otherJudges of the Superior Courts of such Colony shall hold his and their office andoffices during their good behavior, and shall not be removed therefrom but whenthe said removal shall be adjudged by his Majesty in Council, upon a hearing oncomplaint from the General Assembly, or on a complaint from the Governor, orCouncil, or the House of Representatives severally, or of the Colony in whichthe said Chief Justice and other Judges have exercised the said offices"

The next Resolution relates to the Courts of Admiralty. It is this. 

"That it may be proper to regulate the Courts of Admiralty or Vice Admiraltyauthorized by the fifteenth Chapter of the Fourth of George the Third, in such amanner as to make the same more commodious to those who sue, or are sued, in thesaid Courts, and to provide for the more decent maintenance of the Judges in thesame. "

These courts I do not wish to take away, they are in themselves properestablishments. This court is one of the capital securities of the Act ofNavigation. The extent of its jurisdiction, indeed, has been increased, but thisis altogether as proper, and is indeed on many accounts more eligible, where newpowers were wanted, than a court absolutely new. But courts incommodiouslysituated, in effect, deny justice, and a court partaking in the fruits of itsown condemnation is a robber. The Congress complain, and complain justly, ofthis grievance. 

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

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

To this objection, with all possible deference and humility, and wishing aslittle as any man living to impair the smallest particle of our supremeauthority, I answer, that the words are the words of Parliament, and not mine, and that all false and inconclusive inferences drawn from them are not mine, forI heartily disclaim any such inference. I have chosen the words of an Act ofParliament which Mr. Grenville, surely a tolerably zealous and very judiciousadvocate for the sovereignty of Parliament, formerly moved to have read at yourtable in confirmation of his tenets. It is true that Lord Chatham consideredthese preambles as declaring strongly in favor of his opinions. He was a no lesspowerful advocate for the privileges of the Americans. Ought I not from hence topresume that these preambles are as favorable as possible to both, when properlyunderstood; favorable both to the rights of Parliament, and to the privilege ofthe dependencies of this Crown? But, Sir, the object of grievance in myResolution I have not taken from the Chester, but from the Durham Act, whichconfines the hardship of want of representation to the case of subsidies, andwhich therefore falls in exactly with the case of the Colonies. But whether theunrepresented counties were de jure or de facto [Footnote: 64] bound, thepreambles do not accurately distinguish, nor indeed was it necessary; for, whether de jure or de facto, the Legislature thought the exercise of the powerof taxing as of right, or as of fact without right, equally a grievance, andequally oppressive. 

I do not know that the Colonies have, in any general way, or in any cool hour, gone much beyond the demand of humanity in relation to taxes. It is not fair tojudge of the temper or dispositions of any man, or any set of men, when they arecomposed and at rest, from their conduct or their expressions in a state ofdisturbance and irritation. It is besides a very great mistake to imagine thatmankind follow up practically any speculative principle, either of government orof freedom, as far as it will go in argument and logical illation. We Englishmenstop very short of the principles upon which we support any given part of ourConstitution, or even the whole of it together. I could easily, if I had notalready tired you, give you very striking and convincing instances of it. Thisis nothing but what is natural and proper. All government, indeed every humanbenefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded oncompromise and barter. We balance inconveniences; we give and take; we remitsome rights, that we may enjoy others; and we choose rather to be happy citizensthan subtle disputants. As we must give away some natural liberty to enjoy civiladvantages, so we must sacrifice some civil liberties for the advantages to bederived from the communion and fellowship of a great empire. But, in all fairdealings, the thing bought must bear some proportion to the purchase paid. Nonewill barter away the immediate jewel of his soul. [Footnote: 65] Though a greathouse is apt to make slaves haughty, yet it is purchasing a part of theartificial importance of a great empire too dear to pay for it all essentialrights and all the intrinsic dignity of human nature. None of us who would notrisk his life rather than fall under a government purely arbitrary. But althoughthere are some amongst us who think our Constitution wants many improvements tomake it a complete system of liberty, perhaps none who are of that opinion wouldthink it right to aim at such improvement by disturbing his country, and riskingeverything that is dear to him. In every arduous enterprise we consider what weare to lose, as well as what we are to gain; and the more and better stake ofliberty every people possess, the less they will hazard in a vain attempt tomake it more. These are the cords of man. Man acts from adequate motivesrelative to his interest, and not on metaphysical speculations. Aristotle, thegreat master of reasoning, cautions us, and with great weight and propriety, against this species of delusive geometrical accuracy in moral arguments as themost fallacious of all sophistry. 

The Americans will have no interest contrary to the grandeur and glory ofEngland, when they are not oppressed by the weight of it; and they will ratherbe inclined to respect the acts of a superintending legislature when they seethem the acts of that power which is itself the security, not the rival, oftheir 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 arisefrom putting people at their ease, nor do I apprehend the destruction of thisEmpire from giving, by an act of free grace and indulgence, to two millions ofmy fellow-citizens some share of those rights upon which. I have always beentaught 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, althoughWales, and Chester, and Durham were added to it. Truly, Mr. Speaker, I do notknow what this unity means, nor has it ever been heard of, that I know, in theconstitutional policy of this country. The very idea of subordination of partsexcludes this notion of simple and undivided unity. England is the head; but sheis not the head and the members too. Ireland has ever had from the beginning aseparate, but not an independent, legislature, which, far from distracting, promoted the union of the whole. Everything was sweetly and harmoniouslydisposed through both islands for the conservation of English dominion, and thecommunication of English liberties. I do not see that the same principles mightnot be carried into twenty islands and with the same good effect. This is mymodel with regard to America, as far as the internal circumstances of the twocountries are the same. I know no other unity of this Empire than I can drawfrom its example during these periods, when it seemed to my poor understandingmore 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 thenoble lord on the floor, which has been so lately received and stands on yourJournals. I must be deeply concerned whenever it is my misfortune to continue adifference with the majority of this House; but as the reasons for thatdifference are my apology for thus troubling you, suffer me to state them in avery 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 theCommittee. 

First, then, I cannot admit that proposition of a ransom [Footnote: 66] byauction; because it is a mere project. It is a thing new, unheard of; supportedby no experience; justified by no analogy; without example of our ancestors, orroot in the Constitution. It is neither regular Parliamentary taxation, norColony grant. Experimentum in corpore vili [Footnote: 67] is a good rule, whichwill ever make me adverse to any trial of experiments on what is certainly themost valuable of all subjects, the peace of this Empire. 

Secondly, it is an experiment which must be fatal in the end to ourConstitution. For what is it but a scheme for taxing the Colonies in the ante-chamber of the noble lord and his successors? To settle the quotas andproportions in this House is clearly impossible. You, Sir, may flatter yourselfyou shall sit a state auctioneer, with your hammer in your hand, and knock downto each Colony as it bids. But to settle, on the plan laid down by the noblelord, the true proportional payment for four or five and twenty governmentsaccording to the absolute and the relative wealth of each, and according to theBritish proportion of wealth and burthen, is a wild and chimerical notion. Thisnew taxation must therefore come in by the back door of the Constitution. Eachquota 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 youdeliberate either before or after the proposition? You cannot hear the counselfor all these provinces, quarrelling each on its own quantity of payment, andits proportion to others If you should attempt it, the Committee of ProvincialWays and Means, or by whatever other name it will delight to be called, mustswallow up all the time of Parliament. 

Thirdly, it does not give satisfaction to the complaint of the Colonies. Theycomplain that they are taxed without their consent, you answer, that you willfix the sum at which they shall be taxed. That is, you give them the verygrievance for the remedy. You tell them, indeed, that you will leave the mode tothemselves. I really beg pardon--it gives me pain to mention it--but you must besensible that you will not perform this part of the compact. For, suppose theColonies were to lay the duties, which furnished their contingent, upon theimportation of your manufactures, you know you would never suffer such a tax tobe 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 willneither leave to themselves the quantum nor the mode, nor indeed anything. Thewhole 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 ourLord are the proportions of payments to be settled? To say nothing of theimpossibility that Colony agents should have general powers of taxing theColonies at their discretion, consider, I implore you, that the communication byspecial messages and orders between these agents and their constituents, on eachvariation of the case, when the parties come to contend together and to disputeon their relative proportions, will be a matter of delay, perplexity, andconfusion that never can have an end. 

If all the Colonies do not appear at the outcry, what is the condition of thoseassemblies who offer, by themselves or their agents, to tax themselves up toyour ideas of their proportion? The refractory Colonies who refuse allcomposition will remain taxed only to your old impositions, which, howevergrievous in principle, are trifling as to production. The obedient Colonies inthis scheme are heavily taxed, the refractory remain unburdened. What will youdo? Will you lay new and heavier taxes by Parliament on the disobedient? Prayconsider in what way you can do it. You are perfectly convinced that, in the wayof taxing, you can do nothing but at the ports. Now suppose it is Virginia thatrefuses to appear at your auction, while Maryland and North Carolina bidhandsomely for their ransom, and are taxed to your quota, how will you put theseColonies on a par? Will you tax the tobacco of Virginia? If you do, you give itsdeath-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 rebelliousColony, what do you tax but your own manufactures, or the goods of some otherobedient and already well-taxed Colony? Who has said one word on this labyrinthof detail, which bewilders you more and more as you enter into it? Who haspresented, who can present you with a clue to lead you out of it? I think, Sir, it is impossible that you should not recollect that the Colony bounds are soimplicated in one another, --you know it by your other experiments in the billfor prohibiting the New England fishery, --that you can lay no possiblerestraints on almost any of them which may not be presently eluded, if you donot confound the innocent with the guilty, and burthen those whom, upon everyprinciple, you ought to exonerate. He must be grossly ignorant of America whothinks that, without falling into this confusion of all rules of equity andpolicy, 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 apermanent contingent, which will and must be trifling, and then you have noeffectual revenue; or you change the quota at every exigency, and then on everynew repartition you will have a new quarrel. 

Reflect, besides, that when you have fixed a quota for every Colony, you havenot provided for prompt and punctual payment. Suppose one, two, five, ten years'arrears. You cannot issue a Treasury Extent against the failing Colony. You mustmake new Boston Port Bills, new restraining laws, new acts for dragging men toEngland for trial. You must send out new fleets, new armies. All is to beginagain. 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 onetime or other must consume this whole Empire. I allow indeed that the empire ofGermany raises her revenue and her troops by quotas and contingents; but therevenue of the empire, and the army of the empire, is the worst revenue and theworst 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 seemshimself to be of that opinion. His project was rather designed for breaking theunion of the Colonies than for establishing a revenue. He confessed heapprehended that his proposal would not be to their taste. I say this scheme ofdisunion seems to be at the bottom of the project; for I will not suspect thatthe noble lord meant nothing but merely to delude the nation by an airy phantomwhich he never intended to realize. But whatever his views may be, as I proposethe peace and union of the Colonies as the very foundation of my plan, it cannotaccord with one whose foundation is perpetual discord. 

Compare the two. This I offer to give you is plain and simple. The other full ofperplexed and intricate mazes. This is mild; that harsh. This is found byexperience effectual for its purposes; the other is a new project. This isuniversal; the other calculated for certain Colonies only. This is immediate inits conciliatory operation; the other remote, contingent, full of hazard. Mineis what becomes the dignity of a ruling people--gratuitous, unconditional, andnot held out as a matter of bargain and sale. I have done my duty in proposingit to you. I have indeed tired you by a long discourse; but this is themisfortune of those to whose influence nothing will be conceded, and who mustwin every inch of their ground by argument. You have heard me with goodness. Mayyou decide with wisdom! For my part, I feel my mind greatly disburthened by whatI 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 thiscomfort, that in every stage of the American affairs I have steadily opposed themeasures that have produced the confusion, and may bring on the destruction, ofthis Empire. I now go so far as to risk a proposal of my own. If I cannot givepeace to my country, I give it to my conscience. 

But what, says the financier, is peace to us without money? Your plan gives usno revenue. No! But it does; for it secures to the subject the power or refusal, the first of all revenues. Experience is a cheat, and fact a liar, if this powerin the subject of proportioning his grant, or of not granting at all, has notbeen found the richest mine of revenue ever discovered by the skill or by thefortune of man. It does not indeed vote you L152, 750 11s. 23/4d, nor any otherpaltry limited sum; but it gives the strong box itself, the fund, the bank--fromwhence only revenues can arise amongst a people sensible of freedom. Positaluditur arca. [Footnote: 68] Cannot you, in England--cannot you, at this time ofday--cannot you, a House of Commons, trust to the principle which has raised somighty a revenue, and accumulated a debt of near 140, 000, 000 in this country? Isthis principle to be true in England, and false everywhere else? Is it not truein Ireland? Has it not hitherto been true in the Colonies? Why should youpresume that, in any country, a body duly constituted for any function willneglect to perform its duty and abdicate its trust? Such a presumption[Footnote: 69] would go against all governments 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 ofsupporting the honor of their own government, that sense of dignity and thatsecurity to property which ever attends freedom has a tendency to increase thestock of the free community. Most may be taken where most is accumulated. Andwhat is the soil or climate where experience has not uniformly proved that thevoluntary flow of heaped-up plenty, bursting from the weight of its own richluxuriance, has ever run with a more copious stream of revenue than could besqueezed from the dry husks of oppressed indigence by the straining of all thepolitic machinery in the world? [Footnote: 70]

Next, we know that parties must ever exist in a free country. We know, too, thatthe emulations of such parties--their contradictions, their reciprocalnecessities, their hopes, and their fears--must send them all in their turns tohim that holds the balance of the State. The parties are the gamesters; butGovernment keeps the table, and is sure to be the winner in the end. When thisgame is played, I really think it is more to be feared that the people will beexhausted, than that Government will not be supplied; whereas, whatever is gotby 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 againstcompounding, for a poor limited sum, the immense, ever-growing, eternal debtwhich is due to generous government from protected freedom. And so may I speedin the great object I propose to you, as I think it would not only be an act ofinjustice, but would be the worst economy in the world, to compel the Coloniesto a sum certain, either in the way of ransom or in the way of compulsorycompact. 

But to clear up my ideas on this subject: a revenue from America transmittedhither--do not delude yourselves--you never can receive it; no, not a shilling. We have experience that from remote countries it is not to be expected. If, whenyou attempted to extract revenue from Bengal, you were obliged to return in loanwhat you had taken in imposition, what can you expect from North America? Forcertainly, if ever there was a country qualified to produce wealth, it is India;or an institution fit for the transmission, it is the East India Company. America has none of these aptitudes. If America gives you taxable objects onwhich you lay your duties here, and gives you, at the same time, a surplus by aforeign sale of her commodities to pay the duties on these objects which you taxat home, she has performed her part to the British revenue. But with regard toher own internal establishments, she may, I doubt not she will, contribute inmoderation. I say in moderation, for she ought not to be permitted to exhaustherself. She ought to be reserved to a war, the weight of which, with theenemies [Footnote: 71] that we are most likely to have, must be considerable inher 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--mytrust is in her interest in the British Constitution. My hold of the Colonies isin the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, fromsimilar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties which, though light asair, [Footnote: 72] are as strong as links of iron. Let the Colonists alwayskeep the idea of their civil rights associated with your government, --they willcling and grapple to you, [Footnote: 73] and no force under heaven will be ofpower to tear them from their allegiance. But let it be once understood thatyour government may be one thing, and their privileges another, that these twothings may exist without any mutual relation, the cement is gone [Footnote: 74]--the cohesion is loosened--and everything hastens to decay and dissolution. Aslong as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country asthe sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of England worship freedom, they will turntheir 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 mayhave it from Spain; they may have it from Prussia. But, until you become lost toall feeling of your true interest and your natural dignity, freedom they canhave from none but you. This is the commodity of price of which you have themonopoly. This is the true Act of Navigation which binds to you the commerce ofthe Colonies, and through them secures to you the wealth of the world. Deny themthis participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond which originallymade, and must still preserve, the unity of the Empire. Do not entertain so weakan imagination as that your registers and your bonds, your affidavits and yoursufferances, your cockets and your clearances, are what form the greatsecurities of your commerce. Do not dream that your letters of office, and yourinstructions, and your suspending clauses, are the things that hold together thegreat contexture of the mysterious whole. These things do not make yourgovernment. Dead instruments, passive tools as they are, it is the spirit of theEnglish communion that gives all their life and efficacy to them. It is thespirit of the English Constitution which, infused through the mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies every part of the Empire, evendown to the minutest member. 

Is it not the same virtue which does everything for us here in England? Do youimagine, then, that it is the Land Tax Act which raises your revenue? that it isthe annual vote in the Committee of Supply which gives you your army? or that itis 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, fromthe sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, whichgives you your army and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obediencewithout which your army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rottentimber. 

All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical to the profane herd[Footnote: 75] of those vulgar and mechanical politicians who have no placeamong us; a sort of people who think that nothing exists but what is gross andmaterial, and who, therefore, far from being qualified to be directors of thegreat movement of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine. But to mentruly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master principles which, inthe opinion of such men as I have mentioned, have no substantial existence, arein truth everything, and all in all. Magnanimity [Footnote: 76] in politics isnot seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go illtogether. If we are conscious of our station, and glow with zeal to fill ourplaces as becomes our situation and ourselves, we ought to auspicate [Footnote:77] all our public proceedings on America with the old warning of the church, Sursum corda! [Footnote: 78] We ought to elevate our minds to the greatness ofthat trust to which the order of providence has called us. By adverting to thedignity of this high calling our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness intoa glorious empire, and have made the most extensive and the only honorableconquests--not by destroying, but by promoting the wealth, the number, thehappiness, of the human race. Let us get an American revenue as we have got anAmerican empire. English privileges have made it all that it is; Englishprivileges alone will make it all it can be. 

In full confidence of this unalterable truth, I now, quod felix faustumque sit, [Footnote: 79] lay the first stone of the Temple of Peace; and I move you--

"That the Colonies and Plantations of Great Britain in North America, consistingof fourteen separate governments, and containing two millions and upwards offree inhabitants, have not had the liberty and privilege of electing and sendingany Knights and Burgesses, or others, to represent them in the High Court ofParliament. "

FOOTNOTES

[Footnote: 1. Grand penal bill. This bill originated with Lord North. Itrestricted the trade of the New England colonies to England and herdependencies. It also placed serious limitations upon the Newfoundlandfisheries. The House of Lords was dissatisfied with the measure because it didnot include all the colonies. ]

[Footnote: 2. When I first had the honor. Burke was first elected to ParliamentDec. 26, 1765. He was at the time secretary to Lord Rockingham, Prime Minister. Previous to this he had made himself thoroughly familiar with England's policyin dealing with her dependencies--notably Ireland. ]

[Footnote: 3. My original sentiments. After many demonstrations both in Americaand England the Stamp Act became a law in 1765. One of the first tasks theRockingham ministry set itself was to bring about a repeal of this act. Burkemade his first speech in support of his party. He argued that the abstract andtheoretical rights claimed by England in matters of government should be setaside when they were unfavorable to the happiness and prosperity of her coloniesand herself. His speech was complimented by Pitt, and Dr. Johnson wrote that nonew member had ever before attracted such attention. ]

[Footnote: 4. America has been kept in agitation. For a period of nearly onehundred years the affairs of the colonies had been intrusted to a standingcommittee appointed by Parliament. This committee was called "The Lords ofTrade. " From its members came many if not the majority of the propositions forthe regulation of the American trade. To them the colonial governors, who wereappointed by the king, gave full accounts of the proceedings of the coloniallegislatures. These reports, often colored by personal prejudice, did not alwaysrepresent the colonists in the best light. It was mainly through the influenceof one of the former Lords of Trade, Charles Townshend, who afterwards becamethe leading voice in the Pitt ministry, that the Stamp Act was passed. ]

[Footnote: 5. A worthy member. Mr. Rose Fuller. ]

[Footnote: 6. Former methods. Condense the thought in this paragraph. Are such"methods" practised nowadays?]

[Footnote: 7. Paper government. Burke possibly had in mind the constitutionprepared for the Carolinas by John Locke and Earl of Shaftesbury. The scheme wasutterly impracticable and gave cause for endless dissatisfaction. ]

[Footnote: 8. Refined policy. After a careful reading of the paragraph determinewhat Burke means by "refined policy. "]

[Footnote: 9. The project. The bill referred to had been passed by the House onFeb. 27. It provided that those colonies which voluntarily voted contributionsfor the common defence and support of the English government, and in additionmade provision for the administration of their own civil affairs, should beexempt from taxation, except such as was necessary for the regulation of trade. It has been declared by some that the measure was meant m good faith and thatits recognition and acceptance by the colonies would have brought good results. Burke, along with others of the opposition, argued that the intention of thebill was to cause dissension and division among the colonies. Compare 7, 11-12. State your opinion and give reasons. ]

[Footnote: 10. The noble lord in the blue ribbon Lord North (1732-1792) Heentered Parliament at the age of twenty-two, served as Lord of the Treasury, 1759; was removed by Rockingham, 1765; was again appointed by Pitt to the officeof Joint Paymaster of the Forces, became Prime Minister, 1770, and resigned, 1781 Lord North is described both by his contemporaries and later histonaus asan easy-going, indolent man, short-sighted and rather stupid, though obstinateand courageous. He was the willing servant of George III, and believed in theprinciple of authority as opposed to that of conciliation. The blue ribbon wasthe badge of the Order of the Garter instituted by Edward III Lord North wasmade a Knight of the Garter, 1772. Burke often mentions the "blue ribbon" inspeaking of the Prime Minister. Why?]

[Footnote: 11. Colony agents. It was customary for colonies to select some oneto represent them in important matters of legislation. Burke himself served asthe agent of New York. Do you think this tact accounts in any way for hisattitude in this speech?]

[Footnote: 12. Our address Parliament had prepared an address to the king somemonths previous, in which Massachusetts was declared to be in a state ofrebellion. The immediate cause of this address was the Boston Tea Party. Thelives and fortunes of his Majesty's subjects were represented as being indanger, and he was asked to deal vigorously not only with Massachusetts but withher sympathizers. ]

[Footnote: 13. Those chances. Suggested perhaps by lines in Julius Caesar, IV. , iii. , 216-219:--

 "There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. "]

[Footnote: 14. According to that nature and to those circumstances. Compare with8. Point out the connection between the thought here expressed and Burke's ideaof "expediency. "]

[Footnote: 15. Great consideration. This paragraph has been censured for its tooflorid style. It may be rather gorgeous and rhetorical when considered as partof an argument, yet it is very characteristic of Burke as a writer. In no otherpassage of the speech is there such vivid clear-cut imagery. Note thepicturesque quality of the lines and detect if you can any confusion infigures. ]

[Footnote: 16. It is good for us to be here. Burke's favorite books wereShakespeare, Milton, and the Bible. Trace the above sentence to one of these. ]

[Footnote: 17. "Facta parentun Jam legere et quae sit poteris cognoscere virtus. " --VIRGIL'S Eclogues, IV. , 26, 27]

Notice the alteration. Already old enough to study the deeds of his father andto know what virtue is. 

[Footnote: 18. Before you taste of death. Compare 16. ]

[Footnote: 19. Roman charity. This suggests the more famous "Ancient Romanhonor" (Merchant of Venice, III. , 11, 291). The incident referred to by Burke istold by several writers. A father condemned to death by starvation is visited inprison by his daughter, who secretly nourishes him with milk from her breasts. ]

[Footnote: 20. Complexions. "Mislike me not for my COMPLEXION. "--M. V. Is theword used in the same sense by Burke?]

[Footnote: 21. The thunder of the state. What is the classical allusion?]

[Footnote: 22. A nation is not governed. 

 "Who overcomes By force hath overcome but half his foe" --Paradise Lost, 1, 648, 649. ]

[Footnote: 23. Our ancient indulgence. "The wise and salutary neglect, " whichBurke has just mentioned, was the result of (a) the struggle of Charles I. WithParliament, (b) the confusion and readjustment at the Restoration, (c) theRevolution of 1688, (d) the attitude of France in favoring the cause of theStuarts, (e) the ascendency of the Whigs. England had her hands full inattending to affairs at home. As a result of this the colonies were practicallytheir own masters in matters of government. Also the political party known asthe Whigs had its origin shortly before William and Mary ascended the throne. This party favored the colonies and respected their ideas of liberty andgovernment. ]

[Footnote: 24. Great contests. One instance of this is Magna Charta. Suggestothers. ]

[Footnote: 25. Freedom is to them Such keen analysis and subtle reasoning ischaracteristic of Burke It is this tendency that justifies some of his admirersin calling him "Philosopher Statesman". Consider his thought attentively anddetermine whether or not his argument is entirely sound. Is he correct inspeaking of our Gothic ancestors?]

[Footnote: 26. Abeunt studia in mores. Studies become a part of character. ]

[Footnote: 27. Winged ministers of vengeance. A figure suggested perhaps byHorace, Odes, Bk. IV. , 4: "Ministrum fulmims alitem"--the thunder's wingedmessenger. ]

[Footnote: 28. The circulation. The Conciliation, as all of Burke's writings, isrich in such figurative expressions. In every instance the student shoulddiscover the source of the figure and determine definitely whether or not hisauthor is accurate and suggestive. ]

[Footnote: 29. Its imperfections. 

 "But sent to my account With all my imperfections upon my head. " --Hamlet, I, v, 78, 79. ]

[Footnote: 30. Same plan. The act referred to, known as the Regulating Act, became a law May 10, 1774. It provided (a) that the council, or the higherbranch of the legislature, should be appointed by the Crown (the popularassemblies had previously selected the members of the council); (b) thatofficers of the common courts should be chosen by the royal governors, and (c)that public meetings (except for elections) should not be held without thesanction of the king. These measures were practically ignored. By means ofcircular letters the colonies were fully instructed through theirrepresentatives. As a direct result of the Regulating Act, along with otherhigh-handed proceedings of the same sort, delegates were secretly appointed forthe Continental Congress on Sept. 1 at Philadelphia. The delegates fromMassachusetts were Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Paine, and Thomas Cushing. ]

[Footnote: 31. Their liberties. Compare 24]

[Footnote: 32. Sudden or partial view. Goodrich, in his Select BritishEloquence, speaking of Burke's comprehensiveness in discussing his subject, compares him to one standing upon an eminence, taking a large and rounded viewof it on every side. The justice of this observation is seen in such instancesas the above. It is this breadth and clearness of vision more than anything elsethat distinguishes Burke so sharply from his contemporaries. ]

[Footnote: 33. Three ways. How does the first differ from the third?]

[Footnote: 34. Spoliatis arma supersunt. Though plundered their arms stillremain. ]

[Footnote: 35. Your speech would betray you. "Thy speech bewrayeth thee"--Matt. Xxvi 73. There is much justice in the observation that Burke is often verbose, yet such paragraphs as this prove how well he knew to condense and prune hisexpression. It is an excellent plan to select from day to day passages of thissort and commit them to memory for recitation when the speech has beenfinished. ]

[Footnote: 36. To persuade slaves. Does this suggest one of Byron's poems?]

[Footnote: 37. Causes of quarrel. The Assembly of Virginia in 1770 attempted torestrict the slave trade. Other colonies made the same effort, but Parliamentvetoed these measures, accompanying its action with the blunt statement that theslave trade was profitable to England. Observe how effectively Burke uses hiswide knowledge of history. ]

[Footnote: 38. Ex vi termini. From the force of the word. ]

[Footnote: 39. Abstract right. Compare with 14; also 8. Point out connection inthought. ]

[Footnote: 40. Act of Henry the Eighth. Burke alludes to this in his letter tothe sheriffs of Bristol in the following terms: "To try a man under this Act isto condemn him unheard. A person is brought hither in the dungeon of a shiphold; thence he is vomited into a dungeon on land, loaded with irons, unfurnished with money, unsupported by friends, three thousand miles from allmeans of calling upon or confronting evidence, where no one local circumstancethat tends to detect perjury can possibly be judged of;--such a person may beexecuted according to form, but he can never be tried according to justice. "]

[Footnote: 41. Correctly right. Explain. ]

[Footnote: 42. Paradise Lost, II. , 392-394. ]

[Footnote: 43. This passage should be carefully studied. Burke's theory ofgovernment is given in the Conciliation by just such lines as these. Refer toother instances of principles which he considers fundamental in matters ofgovernment. ]

[Footnote: 44. Exquisite. Exact meaning?]

[Footnote: 45. Trade laws. What would have been the nature of a changebeneficial to the colonies?]

[Footnote: 46. English conquest. At Henry II. 's accession, 1154, Ireland hadfallen from the civilization which had once flourished upon her soil and whichhad been introduced by her missionaries into England during the seventh century. Henry II. Obtained the sanction of the Pope, invaded the island, and partiallysubdued the inhabitants. For an interesting account of England's relations toIreland the student should consult Green's Short History of the English People. ]

[Footnote: 47. You deposed kings. What English kings have been deposed?]

[Footnote: 48. Lords Marchers. March, boundary. These lords were givenpermission by the English kings to take from the Welsh as much land as theycould. They built their castles on the boundary line between the two countries, and when they were not quarrelling among themselves waged a guerilla warfareagainst the Welsh. The Lords Marchers, because of special privileges and thepeculiar circumstances of their life, were virtually kings--petty kings, ofcourse. ]

[Footnote: 49. "When the clear star has shone upon the sailors, the troubledwater flows down from the rocks, the winds fall, the clouds fade away, and, since they (Castor and Pollux) have so willed it, the threatening waves settleon the deep. "--HORACE, Odes, I. , 12, 27-32. ]

[Footnote: 50. Opposuit natura. Nature opposed. ]

[Footnote: 51. No theory. Select other instances of Burke's impatience withfine-spun theories in statescraft]

[Footnote: 52. Republic of Plato Utopia of More Ideal states Consult the Century Dictionary]

[Footnote: 53. "And the DULL swain Treads daily on it with his clouted shoon" --MILTON'S Comus, 6, 34, 35. ]

[Footnote: 54. The year 1763 The date marks the beginning of the active strugglebetween England and the American colonies. The Stamp Act was the first definitestep taken by the English Parliament in the attempt to tax the colonies withouttheir consent. ]

[Footnote: 55. Legal competency. This had been practically recognized byParliament prior to the passage of the Stamp Act. In Massachusetts the ColonialAssembly had made grants from year to year to the governor, both for his salaryand the incidental expenses of his office. Notwithstanding the fact that he wasappointed (in most cases) by the Crown, and invariably had the ear of the Lordsof Trade, the colonies generally had things their own way and enjoyed apolitical freedom greater, perhaps, than did the people of England. ]

[Footnote: 56. This is not my doctrine, but that of Ofellus; a rustic, yetunusually wise]

[Footnote: 57. Compare in point of style with 43, 22-25; 44, 1-6 In what way dosuch passages differ from Burke's prevailng style? What is the central thoughtin each paragraph?]

[Footnote: 58. Misguided people. There is little doubt that the colonists m manyinstances were misrepresented by the Lords of Trade and by the royal governors. See an interesting account of this in Fiske's American Revolution. ]

[Footnote: 59. An Act. Passed in 1767. It provided for a duty on imports, including tea, glass, and paper. ]

[Footnote: 60 An Act. Boston Post Bill. ]

[Footnote: 61. Impartial administration of justice. This provided that if anyperson in Massachusetts were charged with murder, or any other capital offence, he should be tried either in some other colony or in Great Britain]

[Footnote: 62. An Act for the better regulating See 87, 23. ]

[Footnote: 63. Trial of Treasons See 50, 20. ]

[Footnote: 64. De jure. According to law. De facto. According to fact. ]

[Footnote: 65. Jewel of his soul. 

 "Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls" --Othello, III, iii, 155, 156. ]

[Footnote: 66. Proposition of a ransom. See 8, 13. ]

[Footnote: 67. An experiment upon something of no value. ]

[Footnote: 68. They stake their fortune and play. ]

[Footnote: 69. Such a presumption Is Burke right in this? Select instances whichseem to warrant rest such a presumption. Discuss the political parties ofBurke's own day from this point of view. ]

[Footnote: 70. What can you say about the style of this passage? Note thefigure, sentence structure, and diction. Does it seem artificial andoverwrought? Compare it with 43, 22-25; 44. 1-6; also with 90, 23-25, 91, 1-25, 92, 1-23. ]

[Footnote: 71. Enemies. France and Spain. ]

[Footnote: 72. Light as air. 

 "Trifles light as air Are to the jealous confirmations strong As proofs of holy writ" --Othello, III, iii, 322-324]

[Footnote: 73. Grapple to you. "The friends thou hast and their adoption tried Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel" --Hamlet, I. , iii, 62, 63. ]

[Footnote: 74. The cement is gone. Figure?]

[Footnote: 75. Profane herd. 

 "Odi profanum volgus et arceo" I hate the vulgar herd and keep it from me --Horace, Odes, III, 1, 1]

[Footnote: 76. Magnanimity. Etymology?]

[Footnote: 77. Auspicate Etymology and derivation?]

[Footnote: 78. Sursum corda. Lift up your hearts. ]

[Footnote: 79. Quod felix faustumque sit. May it be happy and fortunate. ]