cuftom paid in America." All this, Sir, is very true. But this is the very folly and mifchief of the act. Incredible as it may feem, you know that you have deliberately thrown away a large duty which you held fecure and quiet in your hands, for the vain hope of getting one three-fourths lefs, through every hazard, through certain litigation, and poffibly through war.

The manner of proceeding in the duties on paper and glafs, impofed by the fame act, was exactly in the fame fpirit. There are heavy excifes on thofe articles when ufed in England. On export these excifes are drawn back. But inftead of withholding the draw-back, which might have been done, with eafe, without charge, without poffibility of smuggling; and inftead of applying the money (money already in your hands) according to your pleasure, you began your operations in finance by flinging away your revenue; you allowed the whole draw-back on export, and then you charged the duty, (which you had before discharged,) payable in the Colonies; where it was certain the collection would devour it to the bone; if any revenue were ever fuffered to be collected at all. One fpirit pervades and animates the whole mafs.

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Could any thing be a fubject of more alarm to America, than to fee you go out of the plain high road of finance, and give up

your most certain revenues and your clearet interefts, merely for the fake of infulting your Colonies? No man ever doubted that the commodity of Tea could bear an impofition of threepence. But no commodity will bear threepence, or will bear a penny, when the general feelings of men are irritated, and two millions of people are refolved not to pay. The feelings of the Colonies were formerly the feelings of Great Britain. Theirs were formerly the feelings of Mr. Hampden when called upon for the Payment of twenty fhillings. Would twenty fhillings have ruined Mr. Hampden's fortune? No! but the Payment of half twenty fhillings, on the principle it was demanded, would have made him a flave. It is the weight of that preamble, of which you are fo fond, and not the weight of the duty, that the Americans are unable and unwilling to bear.

It is then, Sir, upon the principle of this measure, and nothing elfe, that we are at iffue. It is a principle of political expediency. Your Act of 1767 afferts, that it is expedient to raise a revenue in America; your act of 1769, which takes away that revenue, contradicts the act of 1767; and, by fomething much stronger than words, afferts, that it is not expedient. It is a reflexion upon your wisdom to perfift in a folemn parliamentary declaration of the expediency of any object, for which, at the fame time, you make not

fort of provifion. And pray, Sir, let not this circumftance escape you; it is very material; that the preamble of this act, which we wish to repeal, is not declaratory of a right, as fome gentlemen feem to argue it; it is only a recital of the expediency of a certain exercife of a right fuppofed already to have been afferted; an exercife you are now contending for by ways and means, which you confefs, though they were obeyed, to be utterly infufficient for their purpofe. You are therefore at this moment in the aukward fituation of fighting for a phantom; a quiddity; a thing that wants, not only a fubftance, but even a name; for a thing, which is neither abftract right, nor profitable enjoyment.

They tell you, Sir, that your dignity is tied to it. I know not how it happens, but this dignity of yours is a terrible incumbrance to you; for it has of late been ever at war with your intereft, your equity, and every idea of your policy. Shew the thing you contend for to be reafon; fhew it to be common fenfe; fhew it to be the means of attaining fome useful end; and then I am content to allow it what dignity you please. But what dignity is derived from the perfeverance in abfurdity is more than ever I could difcern. The Hon. Gentleman has faid well-indeed, in most of his general obfervations I agree with him-he fays, that this fubject does not fland as it did formerly. Oh, certainly not! every hour you continue

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on

on this ill-chofen ground, your difficulties thicken on you; and therefore my conclufion is, remove from a bad pofition as quickly as you can. The difgrace, and the neceflity of yielding, both of them, grow upon you every hour of your delay.

But will you repeal the act, fays the Hon. Gentleman, at this inftant when America is in open refiftance to your authority, and that you have juft revived your fyftem of taxation? He thinks he has driven us into a corner. But thus pent up, I am content to meet him; because I enter the lifts fupported by my old authority, his new friends, the minifters themselves. The Hon. Gentleman remembers, that about five years ago as great disturbances as the prefent prevailed in America on account of the new taxes. The minifters reprefented thefe difturbances as treafonable; and this Houfe thought proper, on that reprefentation, to make a famous addrefs for a revival, and for a new application, of a statute of H. VIII. We befought the King, in that well-confidered addrefs, to inquire into treafons, and to bring the fuppofed traitors from America to Great Britain for trial. His Majefty was pleafed gracioufly to promise a compliance with our requeft. All the attempts from this fide of the Houfe to refift thefe viodences, and to bring about a repeal, were treated with the utmost scorn. An apprethenfion of the very confequences now stated

by the Hon. Gentleman, was then given as a reafon for shutting the door against all hope of fuch an alteration. And fo strong was the fpirit for fupporting the new taxes, that the feffion concluded with the following remarkable declaration. After ftating the vigorous meafures which had been purfued, the Speech from the throne proceeds;

You have affured me of your firm Support in the profecution of them. Nothing, in my opinion, could be more likely to enable the well-difpofed among my fubjects in that part of the world, effectually to difcourage and defeat the defigns of the factious and feditious, than the hearty concurrence of every branch of the Legislature, in maintaining the execution of the laws in every part of my dominions,

After this no man dreamt that a repeal under this miniftry could poffibly take place. The Hon. Gentleman knows as well as I, that the idea was utterly exploded by those who sway the House. This Speech was made on the ninth day of May, 1769. Five days after this Speech, that is, on the 13th of the fame month, the public circular Letter, a part of which I am going to read to you, was write ten by Lord Hillsborough, Secretary of State for the Colonies. After reciting the substance of the King's Speech, he goes on thus

of I can