416

ion-perfect uncompensated slavery. You have long since decided for yourself and them; and you and they have prospered exceedingly under that decision.

Attempts to

rame a revente

from America. war.

out of this House, except in such things as in some way related to the business that was to be done within it. If he was ambitious, I will say this for him, his ambition was of a noble and generous strain. It was to raise himself, not by the low, pimping politics of a court, but to win his way to power through the laborious gradations of public service, and to secure himself a well-earned rank in Parliament by a thorough knowledge of its constitution, and a perfect practice in all its business.

(2.) This nation, sir, never thought of departSecond Period. ing from that choice until the period immediately on the close of the last Then a scheme of government new in many things seemed to have been adopted. I saw, or thought I saw, several symptoms of a great change, while I sat in your gallery, a good while before I had the honor of a seat in this House. At that period the necessity was established of keeping up no less than twenty new regiments, with twenty colonels capable of seats in this House. This scheme was adopted with very general applause from all sides, at the very time that, by your conquests in America, your danger from foreign attempts in that part of the world was much lessened, or, indeed, rather quite over. When this huge increase of military establishment was resolved on, a revenue was to be found to support so great a burden. Country gentlemen, the great patrons of economy, and the great resisters of a standing armed force, would not have entered with much alacrity into the vote for so large and expensive an army, if they had been very sure that they were to continue to pay for it. But hopes of another kind were held out to them; and in particular, I well remember that Mr. Townsend, in a brilliant halangue on this subject, did dazzle them, by play-office are rarely minds of remarkable enlarge. ing before their eyes the image of a revenue to be raised in America.

Here began to dawn the first glimmerings of this new colony system. It appeared more distinctly afterward, when it was devolved upon a person [Mr. Grenville] to whom, on other accounts, this country owes very great obligations. I do believe that he had a very serius desire to benefit the public. But with no small study of the detail, he did not seem to have his view, at least equally, carried to the total circuit of our affairs. He generally considered his objects in lights that were rather too detached. Whether the business of an American revenue was imposed upon him altogether; whether it was entirely the result of his own speculation; or, what is more probable, that his own ideas rather coincided with the instructions he had received, certain it is, that, with the best intentions in the world, he first brought this fatal scheme into form, and established it by act of Parliament.

Sir, if such a man fell into errors, it must be from defects not intrinsical; they must be rather sought in the particular habits of his life, which, though they do not alter the groundwork of character, yet tinge it with their own hue. He was bred in a profession. He was bred to the law, which is, in my opinion, one of the first and noblest of human sciences-a science which does more to quicken and invigorate the understanding than all the other kinds of learning put together; but it is not apt, except in persons very happily born, to open and to liberalize the mind exactly in the same proportion. Passing from that study, he did not go very largely into the world, but plunged into business; I mean, into the business of office, and the limited and fixed methods and forms established there. Much knowledge is to be had undoubtedly in that line; and there is no knowledge which is not valuable. But it may be truly said that men too much conversant in

ment. Their habits of office are apt to give them a turn to think the substance of business not to be much more important than the forms in which it is conducted. These forms are adapted to ordinary occasions; and, therefore, persons who are nurtured in office do admirably well, as long as things go on in their common order; but when the high-roads are broken up, and the waters out, when a new and troubled scene is opened, and the file affords no precedent, then it is that a greater knowledge of mankind, and a far more extensive comprehension of things is requisite than ever office gave, or than office can ever give.12 Mr. Grenville thought better of the wisdom and power of human legislation than in truth it deserves. He conceived, and many conceived along with him, that the flourishing trade of this country was greatly owing to law and institution, and not quite so much to liberty; for but too many are apt to believe regulation to be commerce, and taxes to be rev

No man can believe that at this time of day I 12 This admirable sketch has one peculiarity which mean to lean on the venerable memory of a great is highly characteristic of Mr. Burke. It does not so man, whose loss we deplore in common. Our much describe the objective qualities of the man, as little party differences have been long ago com- the formative principles of his character. The traits posed; and I have acted more with him, and cer- mentioned were causes of his being what he was, and tainly with more pleasure with him, than ever I doing what he did. They account (and for this rea acted against him. Undoubtedly Mr. Grenville son they are brought forward) for the course he took was a first-rate figure in this country. With a in respect to America. The same, also, is true re. masculine understanding, and a stout and reso- lows, and, to some extent, respecting the sketch of specting the sketch of Charles Townsend which fol late heart, he had an application undissipated Lord Chatham. This is one of the thousand exhibi. and unwearied. He took public business, not as tions of the philosophical tendencies of Mr. Burke's a duty which he was to fulfill, but as a pleasure he mind, his absorption in the idea of cause ar 1 effect, was to enjoy; and he seemed to have no delight of the action and reaction of principles and feelings

enue. Among regulations, that which stood first | sory provision for the quartering of soldiers, the in reputation was his dol. I mean the Act of people of America thought themselves proceed. Navigation. He has often professed it to be so. ed against as delinquents, or at best as people The policy of that act is, I readily admit, in under suspicion of delinquency, and in such a many respects well understood. But I do say, manner as they imagined their recent services that if the act be suffered to run the full length in the war did not at all merit.15 Any of these of its principle, and is not changed and modified innumerable regulations, perhaps, would not have according to the change of times and the fluctu- alarmed alone; some might be thought reason ation of circumstances, it must do great mischief, able; the multitude struck them with terror. and frequently even defeat its own purpose.

country with regard to the colonies, by which the scheme of a regular plantation parliamentary revenue was adopted in theory and settled in practice. A revenue, not substituted in the place of, but superadded to a monopoly; which monopoly was enforced at the same time with additional strictness, and the execution put inte military hands.

But the grand maneuver in that business of After the [French] war, and in the last years new regulating the colonies was the 15th act of of it, the trade of America had increased far be- the fourth of George III., which, besides containyond the speculations of the most sanguine imaging several of the matters to which I have just inations. It swelled out on every side. It filled alluded, opened a new principle; and here propall its proper channels to the brim. It over-erly began the second period of the policy of this flowed with a rich redundance, and, breaking its banks on the right and on the left, it spread out upon some places where it was indeed improper, upon others where it was only irregular. It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact; and great trade will always be attended with considerable abuses. The contraband will always keep pace in some measure with the fair trade. It should stand as a fundamental maxim, This act, sir, had for the first time the title of that no vulgar precaution ought to be employed "granting duties in the colonies and plantations in the cure of evils which are closely connected of America;" and for the first time it was aswith the cause of our prosperity. Perhaps this serted in the preamble, "that it was just and necgreat person turned his eye somewhat less than essary that a revenue should be raised there." was just toward the incredible increase of the Then came the technical words of "giving and fair trade, and looked with something of too ex- granting ;" and thus a complete American revquisite a jealousy toward the contraband. He enue act was made in all the forms, and with a certainly felt a singular degree of anxiety on the full avowal of the right, equity, policy, and even subject, and even began to act from that passion necessity of taxing the colonies, without any earlier than is commonly imagined. For, while formal consent of theirs. There are contained he was first Lord of the Admiralty, though not also in the preamble to that act these very restrictly called upon in his official line, he pre-markable words: the Commons, &c.-" being sented a very strong memorial to the Lords of desirous to make some provision in the present the Treasury (my Lord Bute was then at the head session of Parliament toward raising the said revof the board), heavily complaining of the growth enue." By these words it appeared to the colof the illicit commerce in America. Some mis-onies that this act was but a beginning of sorchief happened even at that time from this over- rows; that every session was to produce someearnest zeal. Much greater happened after-thing of the same kind; that we were to go on ward, when it operated with greater power in from day to day, in charging them with such taxthe highest department of the finances. The es as we pleased, for such a military force as we bonds of the Act of Navigation were straitened should think proper. Had this plan been purso much, that America was on the point of hav-sued, it was evident that the provincial asseming no trade, either contraband or legitimate.13 blies, in which the Americans felt all their porThey found, under the construction and execution of importance, and beheld their sole image tion then used, the act no longer tying, but actu- | of freedom, were ipso facto annihilated. This ally strangling them. All this coming with new ill prospect before them seemed to be boundless enumerations of commodities; with regulations in extent, and endless in duration. Sir, they which in a manner put a stop to the mutual coasting intercourse of the colonies; with the appointment of Courts of Admiralty under various improper circumstances; with a sudden extinction of the paper currencies;14 with a compul13 For some years previous to the peace of 1763, the American colonies carried on an extensive trade in British manufactured articles with the colonies of Spain and France. This, though not against the spirit of the Navigation Act, was a violation of its letter, and was stopped for a time, though afterward allowed under duties amounting to a prohibition. In carrying out these regulations, the accused were to be prosecuted in the Admiralty Courts, and thus deprived of a trial by jury.

14 Paper money was issued by most of the colc

were not mistaken. The ministry valued themselves when this act passed, and when they gave notice of the Stamp Act, that both of the duties came very short of their ideas of American taxation. Great was the applause of this measure here. In England we cried out for new taxes

nies to supply a currency, when the coin was withdrawn in the course or trade to England. Regulations putting a sudden stop to this currency produced great trouble in America.

15 The colonies had entered warmly into the war against France; and such was their zeal, that of their own accord they advanced for carrying it on, much larger sums than were allotted as their quots by the British government.

on America, while they cried out that they were nearly crushed with those which the war and their own grants had brought upon them.

did not at first

taxed.

Sir, it has been said in the debate, that when Pretense that the first American revenue act (the the Americans act in 1764, imposing the port duobject to being ties) passed, the Americans did not object to the principle.16 It is true they touched it but very tenderly. It was not a direct attack. They were, it is true, as yet novices; as yet unaccustomed to direct attacks upon any of the rights of Parliament. The duties were port duties, like those they had been accustomed to bear, with this difference, that the title was not the same, the preamble not the same, and the spirit altogether unlike. But of what service is this observation to the cause of those that make it? It is a full refutation of the pretense for their present cruelty to America; for it shows, out of their own mouths, that our colonies were backward to enter into the present vexatious and ruinous controversy.

16 It is far from being true that "the Americans did not object to the principle" of the act of 1764; nor is Mr. Burke correct in saying they "touched it very tenderly." The first act of the British Parliament for the avowed purpose of raising a revenue in America was passed April 5th, 1764. Within a month aft er the news reached Boston, the General Court of

Massachusetts met, and on the 13th of June, 1764, ad

dressed a letter to Mr. Mauduit, their agent in England, giving him spirited and decisive instructions on the subject. It seems he had misconstrued their silence respecting another law, and had not, therefore, come forward in their behalf against the act. They say, "No agent of the province has power to make concessions in any case without express or ders; and that the silence of the province should

have been imputed to any cause, even to despair,

is laid on this as a fact. However, it happens neither to be true nor possible. I will observe, first, that Mr. Grenville never thought fit to make this apology for himself in the innumerable debates that were had upon the subjec He might have proposed to the colony agents that they should agree in some mode of taxation as the ground of an act of Parliament, but he never could have proposed that they should tax themselves on requisition, which is the assertion of the day. Indeed, Mr. Grenville well knew that the colony agents could have no general powers to consent to it; and they had no time to consult their assemblies for particular powers before he passed his first revenue act. If you compare dates, you will find it impossible. Burdened as the agents knew the colonies were at that time, they could not give the least hope of such grants. His own favorite governor was of opinion that the Americans were not then taxable objects.

"Nor was the time less favorable to the equity of such a taxation. I don't mean to dispute the reasonableness of America contributing to the charges of Great Britain when she is able; nor, I believe, would the Americans themselves have disputed it, at a proper time and season. But it should be considered that the American governments themselves have, in the prosecution of the late war, contracted very large debts, which it will take some years to pay off, and in the mean time, occasion very burdensome taxes for that purpose only. For instance, this government, which is as much beforehand as any, raises every year £37,500 sterling for sinking their debt, and must continue it for four years longer at least before it will clear."

These are the words of Governor Bernard's

letter to a member of the old ministry, and which he has since printed. Mr. Grenville could not have made this proposition to the agents for an- • other reason. He was of opinion, which he has declared in this House a hundred times, that the colonies could not legally grant any revenue to the crown; and that infinite mischiefs would be Grenville had passed the first revenue act, and the consequence of such a power. When Mr. rather than to have been construed into a tacit cession of their rights, or an acknowledgment of a right in the same session had made this House come in Parliament to impose duties and taxes upon a peo- to a resolution for laying a stamp duty on Amerple who are not represented in the House of Comica, between that time and the passing the Stamp mons." A committee was also chosen with power Act into a law, he told a considerable and most to sit in the recess of the General Court, and direct respectable merchant, a member of this House, ed to correspond with the other provinces on the sub- whom I am truly sorry I do not now see in his ject, acquainting them with the instructions sent to Mr. Mauduit, and requesting the concurrence of the place, when he represented against this proceedother provincial assemblies in resisting "any impo- ing, that if the stamp duty was disliked, he was sitions and taxes upon this and the other American willing to exchange it for any other equally proprovinces." Accordingly, in November of the same ductive; but that, if he objected to the Ameriyear, the House of Burgesses in Virginia sent an ad- cans being taxed by Parliament, he might save dress to the House of Lords and a remonstrance to himself the trouble of the discussion, as he was the House of Commons on the same subject. Re- determined on the measure. This is the fact, monstrances were likewise sent from Massachusetts and, if you please, I will mention a very unques. and New York to the Privy Council. James Otis tionable authority for it. also published during this year his pamphlet against the right of Parliament to tax the colonies while unrepresented in the House of Commons. This was printed in London in 1765, about the time when the Stamp Act was passed.-See Holmes's American Annals, 2d ed., vol. ii., p 125-6.

Pretense that the opposition caus could not

Thus, sir, I have disposed of this falsehood But falsehood has a perennial spring. It is said that no conjecture could be made of the dislike of the colonies to the principle. This is as untrue as

of the Ameri

be foreseet.

the other. After the resolution of the House, and before the passing of the Stamp Act, the colonies of Massachusetts Bay and New York did send remonstrances, objecting to this mode of parliamentary taxation. What was the consequence? They were suppressed; they were put under the table-notwithstanding an order of council to the contrary-by the ministry which composed the very council that had made the order; and thus the House proceeded to its business of taxing without the least regular knowledge of the objections which were made to it. But, to give that House its due, it was not over-ray against it. desirous to receive information or to hear remonstrance. On the 15th of February, 1765, while the Stamp Act was under deliberation, they refused with scorn even so much as to receive four petitions presented from so respectable colonies as Connecticut, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Carolina, besides one from the traders of Jamaica. As to the colonies, they had no alternative left to them but to disobey, or to pay the taxes imposed by that Parliament which was not suffered, or did not suffer itself, even to hear them remonstrate upon the subject.

L

tial; taking out every thing burdensome and pro- | despite of all the old speculators and augurs of ductive, and reserving only an empty acknowl-political events, in defiance of the whole embatedgment, such as a stamp on cards or dice. The tled legion of veteran pensioners and practiced other question was, on what principle the act instruments of a court, gave a total repeal to the should be repealed. On this head, also, two prin- Stamp Act, and (if it had been so perrnitted) a ciples were started: one, that the legislative lasting peace to this whole empire. rights of this country, with regard to America, were not entire, but had certain restrictions and limitations. The other principle was, that taxes of this kind were contrary to the fundamental principles of commerce on which the colonies were founded, and contrary to every idea of political equity; by which equity we are bound as much as possible to extend the spirit and benefit of the British Constitution to every part of the British dominions. The option, oth of the measure and of the principle of repeal, was made before the session; and I wonder how any one can read the King's speech at the opening of that session without seeing in that speech both the repeal and the Declaratory Act very sufficiently crayoned out. Those who can not see this can see nothing.

Surely the honorable gentleman will not think that a great deal less time than was then employed ought to have been spent in deliberation, when he considers that the news of the troubles did not arrive till toward the end of October. The Parliament sat to fill the vacancies on the 14th day of December, and on business the 14th of the following January.

I state, sir, these particulars, because this act of spirit and fortitude has lately been, in the circulation of the season, and in some hazarded decclamations in this House, attributed to timidity. If, sir, the conduct of ministry, in proposing the repeal, had arisen from timidity with regard to themselves, it would have been greatly to be condemned. Interested timidity disgraces as much in the cabinet as personal timidity does in the field. But timidity, with regard to the wellbeing of our country, is heroic virtue. The no ble Lord who then conducted affairs, and his worthy colleagues, while they trembled at the prospect of such distresses as you have since brought upon yourselves, were not afraid steadily to look in the face that glaring and dazzling influence at which the eyes of eagles have blenched. He looked in the face of one of the ablest, and, let me say, not the most scrupulous Oppositions that, perhaps, ever was in this House, and withstood it, unaided by even one of the usual supporters of administration. He did this when he repealed the Stamp Act. He looked in the face of a person he had long respected and regarded, and whose aid was then particularly wanting. I mean Lord Chatham. He did this when he passed the Declaratory Act.19

It is now given out, for the usual purposes, by the usual emissaries, that Lord Rockingham did not consent to the repeal of this act until he was bullied into it by Lord Chatham; and the reporters have gone so far as publicly to assert, in a hundred companies, that the honorable gentleman under the gallery [General Conway], who proposed the repeal in the American committee, had another set of resolutions in his pocket directly the reverse of those he moved. These artifices of a desperate cause are, at this time, spread abroad with incredible care, in every part of the town, from the highest to the lowest companies; as if the industry of the circulation were to make amends for the absurdity of the report.

Sir, a partial repeal, or, as the bon ton of the Court then was, a modification, would have satisfied a timid, unsystematic, procrastinating ministry, as such a measure has since done such a ministry [Lord North's]. A modification is the constant resource of weak, undeciding minds. To repeal by a denial of our right to tax in the preamble (and this, too, did not want advisers), would have cut, in the heroic style, the Gordian knot with a sword. Either measure would have cost no more than a day's debate. But when the total repeal was adopted, and adopted on principles of policy, of equity, and of commerce, this plan made it necessary to enter into many and difficult measures. It became necessary to open a very large field of evidence commensurate to these extensive views. But then this labor did knight's service. It opened the eyes of several to the true state of American affairs; it enlarged their ideas, it removed their prejudices, and it conciliated the opinions and affections of men. The noble Lord who then took the lead in the administration, my honorable friend. [Mr. Dowdeswell] under me, and a right honorable gentleman General Conway] (if he will not reject his share, and it was a large one, of this business), exerted the most laudable industry in bringing before you the fullest, most impartial, and least garbled body of evidence that was ever produced to this House.ment, which warped his politics. There were in I think the inquiry lasted in the committee for six weeks; and, at its conclusion, this House, by an independent, noble, spirited, and unexpected majority-by a majority that will redeem all the acts ever done by majorities in Parliament, in the teeth of all the old mercenary Swiss of s ate, in

Sir, whether the noble Lord is of a complexion to be bullied by Lord Chatham, or by any man, I must submit to those who know him. I confess, when I look back at that time, I consider him as placed in one of the most trying situations in which, perhaps, any man ever stood. In the House of Peers there were very few of the ministry, out of the noble Lord's particular connection (except Lord Egmont, who acted, as far as I could discern, an honorable and manly part), that did not look to some other future arrange

both Houses new and menacing appearances, that might very naturally drive any other than a most

19 See Lord Chatham's speech on the Stamp Act, page 103, in which he explicitly declared to Lord Rockingham and his associates that he could not give them his support.