duty of his particular office requires he fhould be fo, in all our revenue laws: and in the policy which is to be collected out of them. Now, Sir, when he had read this act of American revenue, and a little recovered from his aftonifhment, I fuppofe he made one step retrograde (it is but one) and looked at the act, which ftands juft before in the ftatute-book. The American revenue act is the forty-fifth chapter; the other to which I refer, is the forty-fourth of the fame feffion, Those two acts are both to the fame purpofe; both revenue acts; both taxing out of the kingdom; and both taxing British manufactures exported. As the 45th is an act for raifing a revenue in America, the 44th is an act for raifing a revenue in the Ifle of Man. The two acts perfectly agree in all refpects, except one. In the act for taxing the Isle of Man, the noble Lord will find (not, as in the American act, four or five articles) but almoft the whole body of British manufactures, taxed from two and an half to fifteen per cent. and fome articles, fuch as that of fpirits, a great deal higher. You did not think it uncommercial to tax the whole mafs of your manufactures, and let me add, your agriculture too; for, I now recollect, British corn is there alfo taxed up to ten per cent, and this too in the very head quarters the very citadel of fmuggling, the Ifle of Man. Now will the noble Lord condefcend to tell me why he repealed the taxes on your manufactures fent out to "America, and not the taxes on the manufactures exported to the lfle of Man? The principle was exactly the fame, the objects charged infinitely more extenfive, the duties without comparison higher. Why? why, notwithstanding all his childish pretexts, because the taxes were quietly fubmitted to in the Isle of Man ; and because they raised a flame in America. Your reasons were political, not commercial. The repeal was made, as Lord Hillf borough's letter well expreffes it, to regain "the confidence and "affection of the colonies, on which the glory and safety of the "British empire depend." A wife and juft motive furely, if ever there was fuch. But the mischief and difhonour is, that you have not done what you had given the colonies just cause to expect, when your minifters disclaimed the idea of taxes for a revenue. There is nothing fimple, nothing manly, nothing ingenuous, open, decifive, or fteady in the proceding, with regard either to the continuance or the repeal of the taxes. The whole has an air of littleness and fraud. The article of tea is flurred over in the circular letter, as it were by accident-nothing is faid of a refolution either to keep that tax, or to give it up. There is no fair dealing in any part of the tranfaction.

If you mean to follow your true motive and your public faith, give up your tax on tea for raising a revenue, the principle of

which

which has, in effect, been difclaimed in your name; and which produces you no advantage; no, not a penny. Or, if you choose to go on with a poor pretence instead of a folid reason, and will ftill adhere to your cant of commerce, you have ten thousand times more strong commercial reafons for giving up this duty on tea, than for abandoning the five others that you have already renounced.

The American confumption of teas is annually, I believe, worth 300,000 l. at the least farthing. If you urge the American violence as a juftification of your perfeverance in enforcing this tax, you know that you can never answer this plain questionWhy did you repeal the ethers given in the fame act, whilft the very fame violence fubfifted?-But you did not find the violence cease upon that conceffion.-No! Because the conceffion was far fhort of fatisfying the principle which Lord Hillsborough had abjured; or even the pretence on which the repeal of the other taxes was announced: and because, by enabling the East India' Company to open a fhop for defeating the American refolution not to pay that specific tax, you manifeftly fhewed a hankering after the principle of the act which you formerly had renounced. Whatever road you take leads to compliance with this motion. It opens to you at the end of every vifto. Your commerce, your policy, your promifes, your reafons, your pretences, your confiftency, your inconfiftency-all jointly oblige you to this repeal.

But ftill it fticks in our throats, if we go fo far, the Americans will go farther.-We do not know that. We ought, from experience, rather to prefume the contrary. Do we not know for certain, that the Americans are going on as faft as poffible, whilft we refufe to gratify them? Can they do more, or can they do worfe, if we yield this point? I think this conceffion will rather fix a turnpike to prevent their further progrefs. It is impoffible to answer for bodies of men. But I am fure the natural effect of fidelity, clemency, kindness in governors, is peace, good-will, order, and esteem, on the part of the governed. I would cer tainly, at leaft, give thefe fair principles a fair trial; which, fince the making of this act to this hour, they never have had.

Sir, the hon. gentleman having fpoken what he thought neceffary upon the narrow part of the fubject, I have given him, I hope, a fatisfactory anfwer. He next preffes me by a variety of direct challenges and oblique reflections to fay fomething on the hiftorical part. I fhall therefore, Sir, open myself fully on that important and delicate fubject; not for the fake of telling you a long story (which, I know, Mr. Speaker, you are not par

ticularly

ticularly fond of,) but for the fake of the weighty inftruction that, I flatter myself, will neceffarily refult from it." It fhall not be longer, if I can help it, than fo serious a matter requires.

Permit me then, Sir, to lead your attention very far back; back to the act of navigation; the corner-ftone of the policy of this country with regard to its colonies. Sir, that policy was, from the beginning, purely commercial; and the commercial fyftem was wholly reftrictive. It was the fyftem of a monopoly. No trade was let loofe from that constraint, but merely to enable the colonists to difpofe of what, in the courfe of your trade, you could not take; or to enable them to difpofe of fuch articles as we forced upon them, and for which, without fome degree of liberty, they could not pay. Hence all your specific and detailed enumerations: hence the ennumerable checks and counter-checks: hence that infinite variety of paper chains by which you bind together this complicated fyftem of the colonies. This principal of commercial monopoly runs through no less than twenty-nine acts of parliament, from the year 1660 to the unfortunate period of 1764.

In all thofe acts the fyftem of commerce is established, as that, from whence alone you propofed to make the colonies contribute (I mean directly and by the operation of your fuperintending legiflative power) to the ftrength of the empire. I venture to fay, that during that whole period, a parliamentary revenue from thence was never once in contemplation. Accordingly in all the number of laws paffed with regard to the plantations, the words which diftinguith revenue laws, fpecifically as fuch, were, I think, premeditately avoided. I do not fay, Sir, that a form of words alters the nature of the law, or abridges the power of the lawgiver. It certainly does not. However title, and formal preambles are not always idle words; and the lawyers frequently argue from them. I ftate these facts to fhew, not what was your right, but what has been your settled policy. Our revenue laws have usually a title, purporting their being grants, and the words give and grant ufually precede the enacting parts. Although duties were imposed on America in acts of King Charles the fecond, and in acts of King William, no one title of giving "an aid to his Majefty," or any other of the ufual titles to revenue acts, was to be found in any of them till 1764, nor were the words " "give and grant" in any preamble until the 6th of George the fecond. However the title of this act of George the fecond, notwithftanding the words of donation, confiders it merely as a regulation of trade," An act for the better fecuring of the trade of his "Majefty's fugar colonies in America." This act was made on

a com

a compromife of all, and at the exprefs defire of a part, of the colonies themselves. It was therefore in fome measure with their confent; and having a title directly purporting no more than a commercial regulation, and being in truth nothing more, the words were paffed by, at a time when no jealousy was entertained, and things were little fcrutinized. Even Governor Barnard in his fecond printed letter, dated in 1763, gives it as his opinion, that "it was an act of prohibition, not of revenue." This is certainly true; that no act avowedly for the purpose of revenue, and with the ordinary title and recital taken together, is found in the ftatute book until the year I have mentioned; that is the year 1764. All before this period ftood on commercial regulation and reftraint. The scheme of a colony revenue by British authority appeared therefore to the Americans in the light of a great innovation; the words of Governor Barnard's ninth letter, written in Nov. 1765, ftate this idea very strongly; " it muft," fays he, "have been supposed, fuch an innovation as a parliamentary taxa❝tion, would cause a great alarm, and meet with much oppofition "in moft parts of America; it was quite new to the people, and "had no vifible bounds fet to it." After ftating the weakness of government there, he says, was this a time to introduce fo great 66 a novelty as a parliamentary inland taxation in America ?" Whatever the right might have been, this mode of using it was abfolutely new in policy and practice.

Sir, they who are friends to the schemes of American revenue fay, that the commercial reftraint is full as hard a law for Ame rica to live under. I think fo too. I think it, if uncompensated, to be a condition of as rigorous fervitude as men can be fubject to.

But America bore it from the fundamental act of navigation until 1764.-Why? Because men do bear the inevitable conftitution of their original nature with all its infirmities. The act of navigation attended the colonies from their infancy, grew with their growth, and ftrengthened with their strength. They were confirmed in obedience to it, even more by ufage than by law. They scarcely had remembered a time when they were not subject to fuch a reftraint. Befides, they were indemnified for it by a pecuniary compenfation. Their monopolift happened to be one of the richest men in the world. By this immenfe capital (primarily employed, not for their benefit, but his own) they were enabled to proceed with their fifheries, their agriculture, their fhip-building (and their trade too within the limits,) in fuch a manner as got far the start of the flow languid operations of unaffifted nature. This capital was a hot bed to them. Nothing in the history of mankind is like their progrefs. For my part, I

1

never

never caft an eye on their flourishing commerce, and their cul tivated and commodious life, but they seem to me rather antient nations grown to perfection, through a long feries of fortunate events, and a train of fuccefsful induftry, accumulating wealth in many centuries, than the colonies of yesterday; than a fet of miferable out-cafts, a few years ago, not so much fent as thrown out, on the bleak and barren fhore of a defolate wilderness three thousand miles from all civilized intercourfe.

All this was done by England, whilft England pursued trade and forgot revenue. You not only acquired commerce, but you actually created the very objects of trade in America; and by that creation raised the trade of this kingdom at least four-fold. America had the compenfation of your capital, which made her bear her fervitude. She had another compenfation, which you are now going to take away from her. She had, except the commercial restraint, every charactereftic mark of a free people in all her internal concerns. She had the image of the British con ftitution. She had the substance. She was taxed by her own representatives. She chofe moft of her own magiftrates. She paid them all. She had in effect the fole difpofal of her own internal government. This whole state of commercial fervitude and civil liberty taken together, is certainly not perfect freedom; but comparing it with the ordinary circumstances of human na ture, it was an happy and a liberal condition.

I know, Sir, that great and not unfuccessful pains have been taken to inflame our minds by an outcry, in this house and out of it, that in America the act of navigation neither is, or ever was, obeyed. But if you take the colonies through, I affirm,' that its authority never was difputed; that it was no where difputed for any length of time; and on the whole, that it was well obferved. Wherever the act preffed hard, many individuals indeed evaded it. This is nothing. These scattered individuals never denied the law, and never obeyed it. Juft as it happens whenever the laws of trade, whenever the laws of revenue, prefs hard upon the people in England; in that cafe all your fhores are full of contraband. Your right to give a monopoly to the Eaft India Company, your right to lay immenfe duties on French brandy, are not difputed in England. You do not make this charge on any man. But you know that there is not a creek from Pentland Frith to the Ifle of Wight, in which they do not fmuggle immenfe quantities of teas, Eaft India goods, and brandies. I take it for granted, that the authority of Governor Barnard in this point is indifputable. Speaking of these laws, as they regarded that part of America now in fo unhappy a condition, he

fays,