opposed the measures that have produced the confusion, and may bring on the destruction, of this empire. I now go so far as to risk a proposal of my own. If I cannot give peace to my country, I give it to my con 5 science. 133. "But what," says the financier, "is peace to us without money? Your plan gives us no revenue. No! But it does-for it secures to the subject the power of REFUSAL, the first of all revenues. Experience is a 10 cheat, and fact a liar, if this power in the subject of proportioning his grant, or of not granting at all, has not been found the richest mine of revenue ever discovered by the skill or by the fortune of man. It does not indeed vote you £152,750: 11: 24ths, nor any other pal15 try limited sum, but it gives the strong box itself, the fund, the bank, from whence only revenues can arise amongst a people sensible of freedom: Posita luditur arca. Cannot you, in England; cannot you, at this time of day; cannot you, a House of Commons, trust to the 20 principle which has raised so mighty a revenue, and accumulated a debt of near 140 millions in this country? Is this principle to be true in England, and false everywhere else? Is it not true in Ireland? Has it not hitherto been true in the Colonies? Why should you pre25 sume that in any country a body duly constituted for any function will neglect to perform its duty, and abdicate its trust? Such a presumption would go against all governments in all modes. But, in truth, this dread of penury of supply from a free Assembly has no founda30 tion in nature. For first observe that, besides the desire which all men have naturally of supporting the honour of their own government, that sense of dignity and that security to property, which ever attends freedom, has a tendency to increase the stock of the free community. 35 Most may be taken where most is accumulated. And plentiful! what is the soil or climate where experience has not uniformly proved that the voluntary flow of heaped-up plenty, bursting from the weight of its own rich luxuri ance, has ever run with a more copious/stream of revenue than could be squeezed from the dry husks of oppressed '5 indigence, by the straining of all the politic machinery in the world of very p 134. Next, we know that parties must ever exist in a free country. We know, too, that the emulations of such The parties, their contradictions, their reciprocal necessities, 10 their hopes, and their fears, must send them all in their turns to him that holds the balance of the state. The parties are the gamesters; but government keeps the table, and is sure to be the winner in the end. When this game is played, I really think it is more to be feared 15 that the people will be exhausted than that government will not be supplied. Whereas, whatever is got by acts of absolute power ill obeyed, because odious, or by contracts ill kept, because constrained, will be narrow, feeble, uncertain, and precarious— Ease would retract Vows made in pain, as violent and void. mix 20 135. I, for one, protest against compounding our demands: I declare against compounding, for a poor limited sum, the immense, ever-growing, eternal debt, which is 25 due to generous government from protected freedom. And so may I speed in the great object I propose to you, as I think it would not only be an act of injustice, but would be the worst economy in the world, to compel the Colonies to a sum certain, either in the way of ransom, 30 or in the way of compulsory compact.ed 136. But to clear up my ideas on this subject: a revenue from America transmitted hither-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, when you attempted to extract revenue from Bengal, you were obliged to return in loan what you had taken in imposition, what can you expect 5 from North America? For certainly, 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, on which you lay 10 your duties here, and gives you, at the same time, a surplus by a foreign sale of her commodities to pay the duties on these objects, which you tax at home, she has performed her part to the British revenue. But with regard to her own internal establishments, she may-I 15 doubt not she will-contribute in moderation. I say in moderation; for she ought not to be permitted to exhaust herself. She ought to be reserved to a war; the weight of which, with the enemies that we are most likely to have, must be considerable in her quarter of 20 the globe. There she may serve you, and serye you essentially. =itre conclusio гароссове [Peroration.] 137. For that service, for all service, whether of revenue, trade, or empire, my trust is in her interest in the British Constitution. My hold of the Colonies is in the 25 close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties, which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the Colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights associated with your gov30 ernment-they will cling and grapple to you, and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them from their allegiance. But let it be once understood that your close: union government may be one thing, and their privileges another; that these two things may exist without any mutual relation-the cement is gone, the cohesion is loosened, and everything hastens to decay and dissolution. As long as you have the wisdom to keep the sov- 5 ereign authority of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of England worship freedom, they will turn their faces towards you. The more they multiply, the more friends you will have; 10 the more ardently they love liberty, the more perfect will be their obedience. Slavery they can have any where. It is a weed that grows in every soil. They may have it from Spain, they may have it from Prussia. But, until you become lost to all feeling of your true 15 interest and your natural dignity, freedom they can have from none but you. This is the commodity of price, of bee which you have the monopoly. This is the true Act of Navigation, which binds to you the commerce of the Colonies, and through them secures to you the wealth 20 of the world. Deny them this participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond, which originally made, and must still preserve, the unity of the empire. Do not entertain so weak an imagination as that your reg state,.. isters and your bonds, your affidavits and your suffer- 25 " feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies every part of the em pire, even down to the minutest member. 138. Is it not the same virtue which does everything for us here in England? Do you imagine then, that it 5 is the Land Tax Act which raises your revenue? that it is the annual vote in the Committee of Supply which gives you your army? or that it is the Mutiny Bill which inspires it with bravery and discipline? No! surely no! It is the love of the people; it is their attachment to 10 their government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which gives you your army and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience, without which your army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber. 15 139. All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical to the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians, who have no place among us; a of people who think that nothing exists but what is gross and material; and who therefore, far from being 20 qualified to be directors of the great movement of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine. But to men truly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master principles, which, in the opinion of such men as I have mentioned, have no substantial existence, are 25 in truth everything, and all in all. Magnanimity in Patisdom; pirit politics is not and a great empire and little minds go ill together. If we are conscious of our situation, and glow with zeal to fill our place as becomes our station and ourselves, we ought to 30 auspicate all our public proceedings on America with the old warning of the Church, Sursum corda! We ought to elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust to which the order of Providence has called us. By adverting to the dignity of this high calling, our ancestors 35 have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire, |