of taxing the colonies at their difcretion; confider, I implore you, that the communication by special meffages, and orders between thefe agents and their conftituents on each variation of the cafe, when the parties come to contend together, and to dispute on their relative proportions, will be a matter of delay, perplexity, and confufion, that never can have an end.

If all the colonies do not appear at the outcry, what is the condition of thofe affemblies, who offer, by themfelves or their agents, to tax themselves up to your ideas of their proportion? The refractory colonies, who refuse all compofition, will remain taxed only to your old impofitions, which, however grievous in principle, are trifling as to production. The obedient colonies in this fcheme are heavily taxed; the refractory remain unburthened. What will you do? Will you lay new and heavier taxes by parliament on the difobedient? Pray confider 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 fuppofe it is Virginia that refuses to appear at your auction, while Maryland and North Carolina bid handfomely 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 its death-wound to your English revenue at home, and to one of the very greatest articles of your own foreign trade. If you tax the import of that rebellious colony, what do you tax but your own manufactures, or the goods of fome other obedient, and already well-taxed colony? Who has faid one word on this labyrinth of detail, which bewilders you more and more as you enter into it? Who has presented, who can prefent you, with a clue, to lead you out of it? I think, Sir, it is impoffible, that you should not recollect that the colony bounds are fo implicated

in

in one another (you know it by your other experiments in the bill for prohibiting the New-England fishery) that you can lay no poffible restraints on almost any of them which may not be presently eluded, if you do not confound the innocent with the guilty, and burthen those whom upon every principle, you ought to exonerate. He muft be grofly ignorant of America, who thinks, that, without falling into this confufion of all rules of equity and policy, you can restrain any fingle colony, especially Virginia and Maryland, the central, and most important of them all.

Let it also be confidered, that, either in the prefent confufion you fettle a permanent contingent, which will and must be trifling; and then you have no effectual revenue: or you change the quota at every exigency; and then on every new repartition you will have a new quarrel.

Reflect befides, that when you have fixed a quota for every colony, you have not provided for prompt and punctual payment. Suppofe one, two, five, ten years arrears. You cannot iffue a treasury extent against the failing colony. You must make new Bofton port bills, new restraining laws, new acts for dragging men to England for trial. You must send out new fleets, new armies. All is to begin again. From this day forward the empire is never to know an hour's tranquillity. An inteftine fire will be kept alive in the bowels of the colonies, which one time or other must confume this whole empire. I allow indeed that the empire of Germany raises her revenue and her troops by quotas and contingents; but the revenue of the empire, and the army of the empire, is the worst revenue, and the worft army, in the world.

Instead of a standing revenue, you will therefore have a perpetual quarrel. Indeed the noble lord, who propofed VOL. II.

N

this

this project of a ransom by auction, feemed himself to be of that opinion. His project was rather defigned for breaking the union of the colonies, than for establishing a revenue. He confeffed, he apprehended that his propofal would not be to their taste. I fay, this scheme of difunion seems to be at the bottom of the project; for I will not fufpect that the noble lord meant nothing but merely to delude the nation by an airy phantom which he never intended to realize. But whatever his views may be; as I propofe the peace and union of the colonies as the very foundation of my plan, it cannot accord with one whofe foundation is perpetual discord.

Compare the two. This I offer to give you is plain and fimple. The other full of perplexed and intricate mazes. This is mild; that harsh. This is found by experience effectual for its purposes; the other is a new project. This is univerfal; the other 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 matter of bargain and sale. I have done my duty in propofing it to you. I have indeed tired you by a long discourse; but this is the misfortune of thofe to whose influence nothing will be conceded, and who must win every inch of their ground by argument. You have heard me with goodness. May you decide with wisdom! For my part, I feel my mind greatly difburthened by what I have done to-day. I have been the less fearful of trying your patience, because on this fubject I mean to spare it altogether in future. I have this comfort, that in every stage of the American affairs, I have fteadily opposed the meafures that have produced the confufion, and may bring on

the

the deftruction, of this empire. I now go fo far as to rifque a propofal of my own. If I cannot give peace to my country; I give it to my confcience.

But what (fays the financier) is peace to us without money? Your plan gives us no revenue. No! But it does -For it fecures to the fubject the power of REFUSAL; the first of all revenues. Experience is a cheat, and fact a liar, if this power in the fubject 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: II: 2 ths, nor any other paltry limited fum.-But it gives the strong box itfelf, the fund, the bank, from whence only revenues can arise amongst a people fenfible of freedom: Pofita luditur arca. Cannot you in England; cannot you at this time of day; cannot you, an house of commons, truft to the principle which has raised fo mighty a revenue, and accumulated a debt of near 140 millions in this country? Is this principle to be true in England, and false every where else? Is it not true in Ireland? Has it not hitherto been true in the colonies? Why should you presume that, in any country, a body duly conftituted for any function, will neglect to perform its duty, and abdicate its truft? Such a prefumption would go against all government in all modes. But, in truth, this dread of penury of fupply, from a free affembly, has no foundation in nature. For firft obferve, that, befides the defire which all men have naturally of fupporting the honour of their own government; that fenfe of dignity, and that fecurity to property, which ever attends freedom, has a tendency to increase the stock of the free community. Moft may be taken where moft is accumulated. And what is the foil or climate where experience has not uniformly proved, that the voluntary flow of heaped-up plenty, burst

ing from the weight of its own rich luxuriance, has ever run with a more copious ftream of revenue, than could be fqueezed from the dry husks of oppreffed indigence, by the ftraining of all the politic machinery in the world.

Next we know, that parties muft ever exift in a free country. We know too, that the emulations of fuch parties, their contradictions, their reciprocal neceffities, their hopes, and their fears, muft fend them all in their turns to him that holds the balance of the state. The parties are the gamefters; but government keeps the table, and is fure to be the winner in the end. When this game is played, I really think it is more to be feared, that the people will be exhausted, than that government will not be fupplied. Whereas, whatever is got by acts of abfolute power ill obeyed, because odious, or by contracts ill kept, because constrained; will be narrow, feeble, uncertain, and precarious. "Eafe would retract vows made in pain, as violent "and void."

I, for one, protest against compounding our demands: I declare against compounding, for a poor limited fum, the immenfe, evergrowing, eternal debt, which is due to generous government from protected freedom. And fo 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 œconomy in the world, to compel the colonies to a fum certain, either in the way of ranfom, or in the way of compulsory compact.

But to clear up my ideas on this subject—a revenue from America tranfmitted hither-do not delude yourfelvesyou never can receive it-No, not a fhilling. 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