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 take away, but to confine it to its proper bounds and originial intention; to make it expressly for trial of treasons, and the greatest treasons may be committed in places where the jurisdiction of the crown does not extend.

Having guarded the privileges of local legisla tion, I would next secure to the colonies a fair and unbiassed judicature; for which purpose, sir, I propose the following resolution: "That, from the time when the general assembly or general court of any colony or plantation in North America, shall have appointed, by act of assembly duly confirmed, a settled salary to the offices of the chief justice and other judges of the superior court, it may be proper that the said chief justice and other judges of the superior courts of such colony, shall hold his and their office and offices during their good behavior, and shall not be removed therefrom, but when the said removal shall be adjudged by his majesty, in council, upon a hearing or complaint from the general assembly, or on a complaint from the governor, or council, or the house of repre sentatives severally, of the colony in which the said chief justice and other judges have exercised the said offices."

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

Here, sir, I should close, but that I plainly perceive some objections remain, which I ought, if possible, to remove. The first will be, that, in resorting to the doctrine of our ancestors, as contained in the preamble to the Chester act, I prove too much; that the grievance from a want of representation, stated in that preamble, goes to the

whole of legislation as well as to taxation. And that the colonies, grounding themselves upon that doctrine, will apply it to all parts of legislative

authority.

To this objection, with all possible deference and humility, and wishing as little as any man living to impair the smallest particle of our supreme authority, 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; for I heartily disclaim any such inference. I have chosen the words of an act of parliament, which Mr. Grenville, surely a tolerably zealous and very judicious advocate for the sovereignty of parliament, formerly moved to have It is this. "That it may be proper to regulate the read at your table, in confirmation of his tenets. courts of admiralty, or vice admiralty, authorised It is true that lord Chatham considered these by the fifteenth chapter of the fourth of George preambles as declaring strongly in favor of his the third, in such a manner as to make the same opinion. He was a no less powerful advocate for more commodious to those who sue, or are sued in the said courts, and to provide for the more decent maintenance of the judges in the same.”

The next resolution relates to the courts of admiralty.

the privileges of the Americans. Ought I not from hence to presume, that these preambles are as favorable as possible to both, when properly understood; favorable both to the rights of parliament, and the privilege of the dependencies of this crown? But, sir, the object of grievance in my resolution, I have not taken from the Chester but from the Durbam act, which confines the hard

ship of want of representation to the case of subsidies; and which therefore falls in exactly with

These courts I do not wish to take away; they are in themselves proper establishments. This court is one of the capital securities of the act of navigation. The extent of its jurisdiction indeed has been increased; but this is altogether as pro per, and is indeed, on many accounts, more eligible, where new powers were wanted, than a court the case of the colonies. But whether the unreabsolutely new. But courts incommodiously presented counties were de jure or de facto bound, situated, in effect, deny justice; and a court, the preambles do not accurately distinguish; nor partaking in all the fruits of its own condemnation, indeed was it necessary, for, whether de jure or is a robber. The congress complain, and complain de facto, the legislature thought the exercise of justly, of this grievance."

*The solicitor general informed Mr. B. when the resolutions were separately moved, that the

grievance of the judges, par aking of the profits of some of the se zures, had been redressed by office; accordingly the resolution was amended.

the power of taxing as of right, or as fact with-great weight and propriety, against this species of out right, equally a grievance, and equally oppres-delusive geometrical accuracy in moral arguments, as the most fallacious of all sophistry.

Bive.

I do not know that the colonies have, in any ge- The Americans will have no interest contrary to neral way, or in any cool hour, gone much beyond the grandeur and glory of England, when they are the demand of immunity in relation to taxes. It not oppressed by the weight of it, and they will is not fair to judge of the temper or dispositions rather be inclined to respect the acts of a superinof any man, or any set of men, when they are com-ending legislature, when they see them the acts of posed and at rest, from their conduct or their ex-that power, which is itself the security, not the pressions in a state of disturbance and irritation. rival, of their secondary importance. In this assurIt is besides a very great mistake to imagine, that ance, my mind most perfectly acquiesces; and I mankind follow up practically any speculative confess I feel not the least alarm, from the disprinciple, either of government or of freedom, as contents which are to arise from putting people far as it will go in argument and logical ilation. at their ease; nor do I apprehend the destruction We Englishmen stop very short of the principles of this empire, from giving, by an act of free grace upon which we support any given part of our con- and indulgence, to two millions of my fellow citi. stitution, or even the whole of it together. I could easily, if I had not already tired you, give you very striking and convincing instances of it. This It is said indeed that this power of granting, is nothing but what is natural and proper. All go- vested in American assemblies, would dissolve the vernment, indeed every human benefit and enjoy. unity of the empire, which was preserved entire, ment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is although Wales, Chester, and Durham were added founded on compromise and barter. We balance to it. Truly, Mr. Speaker, I do not know what inconveniences, we give and take; we remit some this unity means; nor has it ever been heard of, rights that we may enjoy others; and we choose that I know, in the constitutional policy of this rather to be happy citizens than subtle disputants. And we must give away some natural liberty to enjoy civil advantages; so we must sacrifice some civil liberties, for the advantages to be derived from the communion and fellowship of a great em.

zens, some share of those rights upon which I have always been taught to value myself.

country. The very idea of subordination of parts excludes this notion of simple and undivided unity, England is the head; but she is not the head and the members too. Ireland has ever had, from the beginning, a separate, but not an independent, pire. But in all fair dealings, the thing bought legislature; which, far from distracting, promoted must bear some proportion to the purchase paid. the union of the whole. F.very thing was sweetly None will barter away the immediate jewel of his and harmoniously disposed through both islands soul. Though a great house is apt to make slaves for the conversation of English dominion, and the haughty, yet it is purchasing a part of the artificial communication of English liberties. I do not see importance of a great empire too dear, to pay for that the same principles might not be carried into it all essential rights, and all the intrinsic dignity twenty islands, and with the same good effect. of human nature. None of us who would not This is my model with regard to America, as far risque his life, rather than fall under a govern- as the internal circumstances of the two countries ment purely arbitrary. But, although there are are the same. I know no other unity of this em some amongst us who think our constitution wants pire, than I can draw from its example during these many improvements, to make it a complete sys-periods when it seemed, to my poor understanding, tem of liberty, perhaps none who are of that opi- more united than it is now, or than it is likely to be nion, would think it right to aim at such improve-by the present methods.

ment, by disturbing this country, and risquing

every thing that is dear to him. In every arduous But since I speak of these methods, I recollect, enterprize we consider what we are to lose, as Mr. Speaker, almost too late, that I promised, bewell as what we are to gain; and the more and fore I finished, to say something of the proposition better stake of liberty every people possess, the of the *noble lord on the floor, which has been so less they will hazard in a vain attempt to make it lately received, and stands on your journals. I more. These are the cords of man, must be deeply concerned, whenever it is my misfrom adequate motives relative to his interest, and fortue to continue a difference with the majority of not on metaphysical speculations. Aristotle, the great master of reasoning, cautions us, and with

Man acts

this house. But as the reasons for that difference

Lord North.

are my apology for thus troubling you, suffer me to were to lay the duties, which furnished their state them in a very few words. I shall compress contingent, upon the importation of your manuthem in as small a body as I possibly can, having factures, you know you would never suffer such a already debated that matter at large, when the ques-tax to be laid. You know too, that you would not tion was before the committee. suffer many other modes of taxation. So that, when you come to explain yourself, it will be First then, I cannot admit that proposition of a found that you will neither leave to themselves ransom by auction-because it is a mere project, the quantum, nor the mode, nor indeed any thing. It is a thing new, unheard of, supported by no ex-The whole is delusion from one end to the other. perience, justified by no analogy, without example

of our ancestors, or root in the constitution. It is neither regular parliamentary taxation, nor colony grant. Experimentum in corpore vile, is a good rule, which will ever make me adverse to any trial of experiments on what is certainly the most valuable of all subjects, the peace of this empire.

Fourthly, this method of ransom by auction (un. less it be universally accepted) will plunge you into great and inextricable difficulties. In what year of our Lord are the proportions of payments to be settled? To say nothing of the impossibility, that colony agents should have general powers of taxing the colonies at their discretion, consider, I implore you, that the communication, by special messages and orders, between these agents and their constituents, on each variation of the case, when the parties come to contend together, and to dispute on their relative proportions, will be a matter of delay, perplexity, and confusion that can never have an end.

Secondly, it is an experiment which must be fatal, in the end, to our constitution. For what is it but a scheme for taxing the colonies in the antichamber of the noble lord and his successors? To settle the quotas and proportions in this house is clearly impossible. You, sir, may flatter your self, you shall sit a state auctioneer, with your hammer in your hand, and knock down to each If all the colonies do not appear at the outery, colony as it bids. But to settle (on the plan laid what is the condition of those assemblies who offer, down by the noble lord) the true proportional pay. ment for four or five and twenty governments, by themselves or their agents, to tax themselves according to the absolute and relative wealth of up to your ideas of their proportion? The reeach, and according to the British proportion of fractory colonies, who refuse all composition, will wealth and burthen, is a wild and chimerical remain taxed only to your old impositiors; whicb, notion. This new taxation must therefore come in by the back door of the constitution. Each quota must be brought to this house ready formed; you can neither add nor alter. You must register it. You can do nothing farther. For on what grounds can you deliberate, either before or after the proposition? You cannot hear the counsel for all these provinces quarrelling each on its own quantity of payment, and its proportion to others.

If

should attempt it, the committee of provincial ways and means, or by whatever other name it will delight to be called, must swallow up all the time of parliament.

however grievous in principle, are trifling as to production. The obedient colonies in this scheme are heavily taxed. The refractory remain un. burthened. What will you do? Will you lay new and heavier taxes by parliament on the disobedient! Pray consider in what way you can do it? You are perfectly convinced that in the way of taxing you can do nothing but at the ports. Now suppose it you is Virginia that refuses to appear at your auction, while Maryland and North Carolina bid handsomely for their ransom, and are taxed to your quota? How will you put these colonies on a par? Will you tax the tobacco of Virginia? If you do, you give it its dead wound to your English revenue Thirdly, it does not give satisfaction to the at home, and to one of the very greatest articles complaint of the colonies. They complain that of your own foreign trade. If you tax the import they are taxed without their consent, you answer, of that rebellious colony, what do you tax but that you will fix the sum at which they shall be your own manufactures, or the goods of some other taxed. That is, you give them the very grievance obedient, and already well taxed colony? Who for the remedy. You tell them, indeed, that you has said one word on this labyrinth of detail, which will leave the mode to themselves. I really begbewilders you more and more as you enter into it? pardon-it gives me pain to mention it--but you must be sensible that you will not perform this part of the compact, For, suppose the colonies

Who has presented, who can present you with a clew to lead you out of it? I think, sir, it is im. possible that you should not recollect that the

colony bounds are so implicated in one another Compare the two. This I offer to give you is (you know it by your other experiments in the bill plain and simple; the other full of perplexed and for prohibiting the New England fishery) that you intricate mazes. This is mild, that harsh. This is can lay no possible restraints on almost any of found by experience effectual for its purposes; the them, which may not be presently eluded, if you other is a new object. This is universal, the other do not confound the innocent with the guilty, and burthen those whom upon every principle you ought to exonerate. He must be grossly ignorant of America, who thinks that, without falling into this confusion of all rules of equity and policy, you can restrain any single colony, especially Virginia and Maryland, the central and most important of to you. I have indeed tired you by a long dis them all.

calculated for certain colonies only. This is immediate in its conciliatory operation; the other remote, contingent, full of hazard. Mine is what becomes the dignity of a ruling people; gratuitous, unconditional, and not held out as a matter of bargain and sale. I have done my duty in proposing it

course; but this is the misfortune of those to whose influence nothing will be conceded, and who must Let it also be considered, that either in the pre- win every inch of their ground by argument. You sent confusion you settle a permanent contingent, have heard me with goodness; may you decide which will and must be trifling, (and then you have with wisdom! for my part, I feel my mind greatly no effectual revenue), or you change the quota at disburthened, by what I have done to day. I have every exigency, and then on every new reparation been the less fearful of trying your patience, beyou will have a new quarrel.

cause, on this subject, I mean to spare it altogether of the American affairs, I have steadily opposed in future. I have this comfort, that in every stage the measures that have produced the confusion, and may bring on the destruction of this empire. ▸ now go so far as to require a proposal of my own. If I cannot give peace to my country, I give it my conscience.

Reflect besides, that when you have fixed a quota for every colony, you have not provided for prompt and punctual payment. Suppose one, two, five, ten years arrears. You cannot issue a treasury extent against the failing colony. You must make new Boston ports bills, new restraining laws, new acts for dragging men to England for trial. You must send out new fleets, new armies. All is to But what (says the financier) is peace to us withbegin again. From this day forward the empire is out money? Your plan gives us no revenue. No! never to know an hour's tranquility. An intestine But it does-for it secures to the subject the fire will be kept alive in the bowels of the colonies, power of REFUSAL; the first of all revenues.— which one time or other must consume this whole Experience is a cheat, and fact a liar, if this power empire. I allow indeed that the empire of Germany in the subject of proportioning his grant, or of not raises her revenue and her troops by quotas and granting at all, has not been found the richest mine contingents; but the revenue of the empire, and of revenue ever discovered by the skill or by the the army of the empire, is the worst revenue and the worst army in the world.

fortune of man. It does not indeed vote you one hundred and fifty-two thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds eleven shillings and twopence three Instead of a standing revenue, you will there- farthings, nor any other paltry limited sum.—But fore have a perpetual quarrel. Indeed, the noble it gives the strong box itself, the fund, the bank lord, who proposed this project of a ransom by from whence only revenues can arise amongst auction, seemed himself to be of that opinion. His people sensible of freedom: Posita luditur arca. project was rather designed for breaking the union Cannot you in England, cannot you at this time of of the colonies, than for establishing a revenue.- day; cannot you (an house of commons) trust to He confessed, he apprehended, that his proposal the principle which bas raised so mighty & revenue, would not be to their taste. I say, this scheme and accumulated a debt of near one hundred and of disunion seems to be at the bottom of the pro- forty millions in this country! Is this principle ject; for I will not suspect that the noble lord to be true in England, and false every where else? meant nothing but merely to delude the nation by Is it not true in Ireland? Has it not hitherto been an airy phantom, which he never intended to true in the colonies? Why should you presume, realize. But whatever his views may be, as I pro- that in any country a body, duly constituted for pose the peace and union of the colonies as the any function, will neglect to perform its duty, and very foundation of my plan, it cannot with one, abdicate its trust? Such a presumption would go whose foundation is perpetual, descend. against all government, in all modes. But, in truth,

this dread of penury of supply, from a free assem India; or an institution fit for the transmission, it bly, has no foundation in nature. For, first observe, is the East-India company. America has none of that besides the desire which all men have naturally these aptitudes. If America gives you taxable obof supporting the honor of their own government, [jects, on which you lay your duties here, and gives that sense of dignity, and that security to pro- you, at the same time, a surplus by a foreign sale perty, which ever attends freedom, has a tendency of her commodities, to pay the duties on these obto increase the stock of the free community. Most jects, which you tax at home, she has performed may be taken where most is accumulated. And her part to the British revenue. But with regard what is the soil or climate where experience has to her own internal establishments, she may, I not uniformly proved, that the voluntary flow of doubt not she will, contribute in moderation. I say heaped up plenty, bursting from the weight of its in moderation; for she ought not to be permitted own rich luxuriance, has ever run with a more to exhaust herself. She ought to be reserved to a copious stream of revenue, than could be squeezed war; the weight of which, with the enemies that from the dry husks of oppressed indigence, by we are most likely to have, must be considerable the straining of all the political machinery in the in her quarter of the globe. There she may serve you, and serve you essentially.

world.

Next we know that parties must ever exist in a For that service, for all service, whether of refree country. We know too, that the emulations of venue, trade, or empire, my trust is in her interest such parties, their contradictions, their reciprocal in the British constitution. My hold of the colo necessities, their hopes, and their fears, must send nies is in the close affection which grows from them all in their turns to him that holds the balance common names, from kindred blood, from similar of the state. The parties are the gamsters; but privileges, and equal protection. These are ties government keeps the table, and is sure to be the which, though light as air, are as strong as links winner in the end. When this game is played, I really think it is more to be feared, that the peo. ple 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."

of iron. Let the colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights associated with your government; 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 once be understood, that your 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 every thing hastens to decay and dissolution. As long as you have

I, for one, protest against compounding our de-wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this mands; I declare against compounding, for a poor country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred limited sum, the immense, ever growing, eternal temple consecrated to our common faith, wherever debt, which is due to generous government from the chosen. ace and sons of England worship free protected freedom. And so may I speed in the dom, they will turn their faces towards you. 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 colo-will have; the more ardently they love liberty, the

nies to a certain sum, either in the way of ransom, or in the way of compulsory compact.

The mor they multiply, the more friends you

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 But to clear up my ideas on this subject, a may have it from Prussia. But until you become revenue from America transmitted hither-do not lost to all feeling of your true interest, and your delude yourselves-you never can receive it—no, natural dignity, freedom they can have from none not a shilling. We have experienced that, from but you. This is the commodity of price, of which remote countries, it is not to be expected. If, you have the monoply. This is the true act of when you attempted to extract a revenue from navigation, which binds to you the commerce of Bengal, you were obliged to return in iron what the colonies, and through them secures to you the you had taken in imposition, what can you expect wealth of the world. Deny them this participa from North America? For certainly, if ever there tion of freedom and you break that sole bond, was a country qualified to produce wealth, it is which originially made, and must still preserve,