IT is of such great importance to compose or even to mode­rate dissentions, which subsist at present between our unhappy country and her colonies, that I cannot help endeavouring, from the faint prospect I have of con­tributing something to so good an end, to overcome the inex­pressible reluctance I feel at ut­tering my thoughts before the most respectable of all audiences.

The true object of all our deli­beration on this occasion, which I hope we shall never lose sight of, is a full and cordial reconciliati­on with North America. Now I own my Lords, I have many doubts whether the terrors and punishments, we hang out to them at present, are the surest means of producing this reconci­liation. Let us at least do this justice to the people of North America, to own, that we can all remember a time when they were much better friends than at present to their mother country. They are neither our natural nor our determined enemies. Be­fore the Stamp Act, we consider­ed them in the light of as good subjects as the natives of any county in England.

It is worth while to enquiry by what steps we first gained their affection, and preserved it so long; and by what conduct we have lately lost it. Such an en­quiry may point out the means of restoring peace, and make the use of force unnecessary against a people, whom I cannot yet for­bear to consider as our brethren.

It has always been a most ar­duous task to govern distant pro­vinces, with even a tolerable ap­pearance of justice. The vice­roys and governors of other na­tions are usually temporary ty­rants, who think themselves ob­liged to make the most of their time; who not only plunder the people, but carry away their spoils, and dry up all the sources of commerce and industry. Tax­ation in their hands, is an un­limited power of oppression: but in whatever hands the pow­er of taxation is lodged, it im­plies and includes all other pow­ers. Arbitrary taxation is plun­der authorised by law: It is the support and the essence of ty­ranny; and has done more mis­chief to mankind, than those other three scourges from hea­ven, famine, pestilence and the sword. I need not carry your Lordships out of your own know­ledge, or out of your own domi­nions, to make you conceive what misery this right of taxa­tion is capable of producing in a [Page 3] provincial government. We need only recollect that our countrymen in India, have in the space of five or six years, in virtue of this right, destroyed, starved and driven away more inhabitants from Bengal, than are to be found at present in all our American Colonies; more than all those formidable num­bers which we have been nursing up for the space of 200 years, with so much care and success, to the astonishment of all Europe. This is no exaggeration, my Lords, but plain matter of fact, collected from the accounts sent over by Mr. Hastings, whose name I mention with honour and veneration. And I must own, such accounts have very much lessened the pleasure I used to feel in thinking myself an Eng­lishman. We ought surely not to hold our colonies totally inex­cusable for wishing to exempt themselves from a grievance, which has caused such unexam­pled devastation; and, my Lords, it would be too disgraceful to ourselves, to try so cruel an ex­periment more than once. Let us reflect, that before these inno­vations were thought of, by fol­lowing the line of good conduct which had been marked out by our ancestors, we governed North America with mutual benefit to them and ourselves It was a happy idea, that made us first consider them rather as instru­ments of commerce than as ob­jects of government. It was wise and generous to give them the form and the spirit of our own constitution; an assembly in which a greater equality of re­presentation has been preserved than at home; and councils and governors, such as were adapted to their situation, though they must be acknowledged to be very inferior copies of the dignity of this House, and the Majesty of the Crown.

But what is far more valuable than all the rest, we gave them liberty. We allowed them to use their own judgment in the management of their own inter­est. The idea of taxing them never entered our heads. On the contrary they have experi­enced our liberality on many public occasions: we have given them bounties to encourage their industry, and have demanded no return but what every state ex­act from its colonies, the advan­tages of an exclusive commerce, and the regulations that are ne­cessary to secure it. We made requisitions to them on great occasions, in the same manner as our princes formerly asked benevolences of their subjects; and as nothing was asked but what was visibly for the public good, it was always granted: and they sometimes did more than we expected. The matter of right was neither disputed, nor even considered. And let us not forget that the people of New-England were themselves, during the last war, the most forward of all in the national cause; that every year we voted them a con­siderable sum, in acknowledg­ment of their zeal and their ser­vices; that in the pr [...]ceeding war, they alone enabled us to make the treaty of Aix la Cha­pelle, by furnishing us with the only equivalent for the towns that were taken from our allies in Flanders; and that in times of peace, they alone have taken from us six times as much of our woollen manufactures, as the [Page 4] whole kingdom of Ireland. Such a colony, my Lords, not only from the justice, but from the gratitude we owe them, have a right to be heard in their de­fence; and if their crimes are not of the most inexpiable kind, I could almost say, they have a right to be forgiven.

But in the times we speak of, our public intercourse was car­ried on with ease and satisfacti­on. We regarded them as our friends and fellow-citizens, and relied as much upon their fideli­ty as on the inhabitants of our own country. They saw our power with pleasure; for they considered it only as their pro­tection. They inherited our laws, our language, and our cus­toms; they preferred our manu­factures, and followed our fashi­ons with a partiality, that secur­ed our exclusive trade with them more effectually than all the re­gulations and vigilance of the custom house. Had we suffered them to enrich us a little longer and to grow a little richer them­selves, their men of fortune, like the West-Indians, would undoubt­edly have made this country their place of education and re­sort. For they looked up to Eng­land with reverence and affection, as to the country of their friends and ancestors. They esteemed and they called it their home, and thought of it as the Jews once thought of the Land of Canaan.

Now, my Lords, consider with yourselves what were the chains and ties that united this people to their mother country, with so much warmth and affection, at so amazing a distance. The co­lonies of other nations have been discontented with their treat­ment, and not without sufficient cause; always murmuring at their grievances, and sometimes breaking out into acts of rebel­lion. Our subjects at home, with all their reasons for satisfaction, have never been entirely satis­fied. Since the beginning of this century we have had two rebellions, several plots and con­spiracies; and we ourselves have been witnesses to the most dan­gerous excesses of sedition. But the provinces in North-America have engaged in no party, have excited no opposition; they have been utter strangers even to the name of Whig and Tory. In all changes in all revolutions, they have quietly followed the fortunes and submitted to the government of England.

Now let me appeal to your Lordships as to men of enlarged and liberal minds, who have been led by your office and rank to the study of history. Can you find in the long succession of ages, in the whole extent of hu­man affairs, a single instance, where distant provinces have been preserved in so flourishing a state, and kept at the same time in such due subjection to their mother country? My Lords, there is no instance; the case never existed before. It is per­haps the most singular phaeno­menon in all civil history: and the cause of it well deserves your serious consideration. The true cause is, that a mother country never existed before, who placed her natives and her colonies on the same equal sooting; and joined with them in fairly carry­ing on one common interest.

You ought to consider this, my Lords, not as a mere historical fact, but as a most important and [Page 5] invaluable discovery. It enlarg­es our ideas of the power and energy of good government be­yond all former examples; and shews that it can act like grava­tation at the greatest distances. It proves to a demonstration that you may have good subjects in the remotest corners of the earth, if you will but treat them with kindness and equity. If you have any doubts of the truth of this kind of reasoning, the experi­ence we have had of a different kind will entirely remove them.

The good genius of our coun­try had led us to the simple and happy method of governing free­men, which I have endeavoured to describe. Our ministers re­ceived it from their predecessors, and for some time continued to observe it; but without knowing its value. At length, presuming on their own wisdom, and the quiet disposition of the Ameri­cans, they flattered themselves that we might reap great advan­tages from their prosperity by destroying the cause of it. They chose in an unlucky hour to treat them as other nations have tho't fit to treat their colonies; they threatened and they taxed them.

I do not now enquire whether taxation is matter of right; I only consider it as matter of ex­periment; for surely the art of government itself is founded on experience. I need not suggest what were the consequences of this change of measures. The evils produced by it were such as we still remember and still feel. We suffered more by our loss of trade with them than the wealth flowing in from India was able to recompence. The bankrupt­cy of the East India Company may be sufficiently accounted for by the rapine abroad and the knavery at home; but it certain­ly would have been delayed some years, had we continued our commerce with them in the sin­gle article of tea. But that and many other branches of trade have been diverted into other channels, and may probably ne­ver return intire to their old course. But what is worst of all, we have lost their confidence and friendship; we have ignorantly undermined the most solid foun­dation of our own power.

In order to observe the strictest impartiality, it is but just for us to enquire what we have gained by these taxes as well as what we have lost. I am assured that out of all the sums raised in America the last year but one, if the ex­pences are deducted, which the natives would else have discharg­ed themselves, the net revenue paid into the Treasury to go in aid of the sinking fund, or to be employed in whatever public ser­vices parliament shall think fit, is eighty five pounds. Eighty­five pounds, my Lords, is the whole equivalent, we have receiv­ed for all the hatred and mis­chief, and all the infinite losses this kingdom has suffered during that year in her disputes with North America. Money that is earned so dearly as this, ought to be expended with great aeconomy. My Lords, were you to take up but one thousand pounds more from North America upon the same terms, the nation itself would be a bankrupt. But the most amazing and the most alarming circumstances is still behind. It is that our case is so incurable, that all this experi­ence has made no impression up­on us. And yet, my Lords, if [Page 6] you could but keep these facts, which I have ventured to lay be­fore you, for a few moments in your minds, (supposing your right of taxation to be never so clear) yet [...] you must ne­cessarily perceive that it cannot be exercised in any manner that can be advantageous to ourselves or them. We have not always the wisdom to tax ourselves with propriety; and I am confident we could never tax a people at that distance, without infinite blunders and infinite operession. And to own the truth, my Lord, we are not honest enough to trust ourselves with the power of shift­ing our own burthens upon them. Allow me, therefore, to conclude, I think, unanswerably, that the inconvenience and dis­tress we have felt in this change of our conduct, no less than the ease and tranquility we formerly found in the pursuit of it, will force us, if we have any sense left, to return to the good old path we trod in so long, and found it the way of pleasantness.

I desire to have it understood, that I am opposing no rights that our legislature may think proper to claim: I am only comparing two different methods of govern­ment. By your old rational and generous administration, by treating the Americans as your friends and fellow-citizens, you made them the happiest of hu­man kind; and at the same time drew from them, by com­merce, more clear profit than Spain has drawn from its mines; and their growing numbers were a daily increasing addition to your strength. There was no room for improvement or altera­tion in so noble a system of poli­cy as this. It was sanctified by time by experience, by public [...]. I will venture to use a bold language, my Lords; I will assert, that if we had uniformly adopted this equitable admini­stration in all our distant pro­vinces as far as circumstances would admit, it would have placed this country, for ages, at the head of human affairs in eve­ry quarter of the world My Lords, this is no visionary or chi­merical doctrine. The idea of governing provinces and colo­nies by force is visionary and [...]. The experiment has often been tried and it has never succeeded. It ends infal­libly in the ruin of the one coun­try or the other, or in the last degree of wretchedness.

If there is any truth, my Lords, in what I have said, and I most firmly believe it all to be true: let me recommend it so you to resume that generous and bene­volent spirit in the discussion of our differences, which used to be the source of our union. We certainly did wrong in taxing them: when the Stamp Act was repealed, we did wrong in laying on other taxes, which tended only to keep alive a claim that was mischievous, impracticable and useless. We acted contrary to our own principles of liberty, and to the generous sentiments of our sovereign, when he desir­ed to have their judges depen­dant on the crown for their sti­pends as well as their continu­ance It was equally unwise to wish to make the governors, in­dependant of the people for their salaries. We ought to consi­der the governors not as spies in­trusted with the management of our interest, but as the servant of the people, recommended to [Page 7] them by us. Our ears ought to be open to very complaint against the governors; but we ought not to suffer the governors to complain of the people. We have taken a different method, to which no small part of our difficulties are owing. Our ears have been op­en to the governors and shut to the people. This must necessa­rily lead us to countenance the jobbs of interested men, under the pretence of defending the rights of the crown. But the people are certainly the best judges whether they are well governed; and the crown can have no rights inconsistent with the happiness of the people.

Now, my Lords, we ought to do what I have suggested, and many things more, out of pru­dence and justice, to win their affection, and to do them public service. If we have a right to go­vern them, let us exert it for the true ends of governments. But, my Lords, what we ought to do, from motives of reason and justice, is much more than is suffi­cient to being them to a reasona­ble accommodation. For thus, as I apprehend, stands the case. They petition for the repeal of an act of parliament, which they complain of as unjust and op­pressive. And there is not a man amongst us, not the warmest friend of administration, who does not sincerely wish that act had never been made. In fact, they only ask for what we wish to be rid of. Under such a dis­position of mind. one would im­agine there could be no occasion for fleets and armies to bring men to a good understanding But, my Lords, our difficulty lies in the point of honour. We must not let down the dignity of the mother-country; but preserve her sovereignty over all the parts of the British Empire. This language has something in at that sounds pleasant to the earn of Englishmen, but is otherwise of little weight. For, sure my Lords, there are methods of mak­ing reasonable concessions, and yet without injuring our dignity. Ministers are generally fruitful in expedients to reconcile diffi­culties of this kind, to escape the embarassment of forms, the com­petition of dignity and prece­dency; and to let clashing rights [...], while they transact their business. Now, my Lords, on this occasion can they find no excuse, no pretence, no inventi­on, no happy turn of language, not one colourable argument for doing the greatest service, they can ever render to their country? It must be something more than incapacity that makes men bar­ren of expedients at such a sea­son as this Do, but for once, remove this impracticable state­liness and dignity and treat the matter with a little common sense and a little good humour, and our reconciliation would not be the work of an hour But after all, my Lords, if there is any thing mortifying in undoing the errors of our ministers, it is a mortification we ought to submit to. If it was unjust to tax them, we ought to repeal it for their sakes; if it was unwise to tax them, we ought to repeal it for our own. A matter so trivial in it­self as a three penny duty upon tea, but which has given cause to so much national hatred and reproach, ought not to be suffer­ed to subsist an unnecessary day. Must the interest, the commerce and the union of this country and her colonies, be all of them sa­crificed to save the credit of one [Page 8] imprudent measure of admini­stration? I own I cannot com­prehend that there is any digni­ty either in being in the wrong, or in persisting in it. I have known friendship preserved and affection gained, but I never knew dignity lost, by the can­did acknowledgement of an er­ror. And, my Lords, let me ap­peal to your own experience of a few years backward (I will not mention particulars, because I would pass no censures and re­vive no unpleasant reflections) but I think every candid mini­ster must own, that administra­tion has suffered in more instan­ces than one, both in interest and credit, by not chusing to give up points, that could not be defended.

With regard to the people of Boston, I am free to own that I neither approve of their riots nor their punishment. And yet if we inflict it as we ought, with a consciousness that we were our­selves the aggressors, that we gave the provocation, and that their disobedience is the fruit of our own imprudent and imperi­ous conduct, I think the punish­ment cannot rise to any great degree of severity.

I own my Lords, I have read the report of the Lords Commit­tees of this house, with very dif­ferent sentiments from those with which it was drawn up. It seems to be designed, that we should consider their violent measures and speeches, as so ma­ny determined acts of opposition to the sovereignty of England, arising from the malignity of their own hearts. One would think the mother country had been totally silent and passive in the progress of the whole affair. I on the contrary consider these violences as the natural effects of such measures as ours on the minds of freemen. And this is the most useful point of view, in which government can consider them. In their situation, a wise man would expect to meet with the strongest marks of passion and imprudence, and be prepar­ed to forgive them. The first and easiest thing to be done is to correct our own errors; and I am confident we should find it the most effectual method to cor­rect theirs. At any rate let us put ourselves in the right; and then if we must contend with North America, we shall be una­nimous at home, and the wise and the moderate there will be our friends. At present we force every North American to be our enemy: and the wise and the moderate at home, and those im­mense multitudes, which must soon begin to suffer by the mad­ness of our rulers, will unite to oppose them. It is a strange idea we have taken up, to cure their resentments by increasing their provocations; to remove the effects of our own ill conduct, by multiplying the instances of it. But the spirit of blindness and infatuation is gone forth. We are hurrying wildly on with­out any fixed design, without any important object. We pur­sue a vain phantom of unlimit­ed sovereignty, which was not made for man; and reject the solid advantages of a moderate, useful and intelligible authority. That just God, whom we have all so deeply offended, can hard­ly inflict a severer national punishment, than by committing us to the natural consequences of our own conduct. Indeed, in my opinion a blacker cloud ne­ver hung over this Island.

[Page 9] To reason consistently with the principles of justice and na­tional friendship, which I have endeavoured to establish, or ra­ther to revive what was establish­ed by our ancestors, as our wisest rule of conduct for the govern­ment of America; I must ne­cessarily disapprove of the Bill before us; for it contradicts every one of them. In our pre­sent situation every act of the le­gislature, even our acts of severi­ty ought to be so many steps to­wards the reconciliation we wish for. But to change the govern­ment of a people, without their consent, is the highest and most arbitrary act of sovereignty, that one nation can exercise over ano­ther. The Romans hardly ever proceeded to this extremity even over a conquered nation, till its frequent revolts and insurrecti­ons had made them deem it in­corrigible The very idea of it im­plies a most total and abject, slavish dependency in the inferior state. Recollect that the Americans are men of like passions with our­selves, and think how deeply this treatment must affect them. They have the same veneration for their Charters, that we have for our Magna Charta, and they ought in reason to have greater. They are the title deeds to all their rights both public and pri­vate. What? my Lords, must these rights never acquire any legal assurance and stability? Can they derive no force from the peaceable possession of near two hundred years? And must the fundamental constitution of a powerful state, be forever sub­ject to as capricious alterations as you may think fit to make, in the charters of a little mercan­tile company or the corporation of a borough? This will un­doubtedly furnish matter for a more pernicious debate than has yet been moved. Every other colony will make the case its own. They will complain that their rights can never be ascer­tained; that every thing belong­ing to them depends upon our arbitrary will; and may think it better to run any hazard, than to submit to the violence of their mother country, in a matter in which they can see neither mo­deration nor end.

But let us coolly enquire, what is the reason of this unheard of innovation. Is it to make them peaceable? My Lords, it will make them mad. Will they be better governed if we introduce this change? Will they be more our friends? The least that such a measure can do, is to make them hate us. And would to God, my Lords, we had govern­ed ourselves with as much oeco­nomy, integrity and prudence as they have done. Let [...] continue to enjoy the liberty our fathers gave them. Gave them, did I say? They are co-heirs of liberty with ourselves; and their portion of the inheritance has been much better looked after than ours. Suffer them to en­joy a little longer that short pe­riod of public integrity and domestic happiness, which seems to be the portion allotted by Pro­vidence to young rising states. Instead of hoping that their con­stitution may receive improve­ment from our skill in govern­ment, the most useful wish I can form in their favour is, that hea­ven may long preserve them from our vices and our politics.

Let me add farther, that to make any changes in their go­vernment, [Page 10] without their consent would be to transgress the wisest rules of policy, and to wound our most important interests. As they increase in numbers and in riches, our comparative strength must lessen. In another age, when our power has begun to lose something of its superiority, we should be happy if we could support our authority by mutual good will and the habit of com­manding; but chiefly by those original establishments, which time and public honour might have rendered inviolable. Our posterity will then have reason to lament that they cannot avail themselves of those treasures of public friendship and confidence which our fathers had wisely boarded up, and we are throw­ing away. 'Tis hard, 'tis cruel, beside: all our debts and taxes, and those enormous expences which are multiplying upon us every year, to load our unhappy sons with the hatred and curses of North America. Indeed, my Lords, we are treating posterity very scurvily. We have mort­gaged all the lands; we have cut down all the oaks; we are now trampling down the fences, root­ing up the seedlings and samp­lers, and ruining all the resour­ces of another age. We shall send the next generation into the world, like the wretched heir of a worthless father, without mo­ney, credit or friend; with a stripped, incumbered, and per­haps untenanted estate.

Having spoke so largely against the principle of the bill, it is hardly necessary to enter in­to the merits of it. I shall only observe, that even if we had the consent of the people to alter their government, it would be unwise to make such alterations as these. To give the appoint­ment of the governor and coun­cil to the crown, and the dispo­sal of all places, even of the judges, and with a power of re­moving them, to the governor, is evidently calculating with a view to form a strong party in our favour. This I know has been done in other colonies; but still this is opening a source of perpe­tual discord, where it is our in­terest always to agree. If we mean any thing by this establish­ment, it is to support the govern­or and the council against the people, i e. to quarrel with our friends, that we may please their servants. This scheme of go­verning them by a party is not wisely imagined, it is much too premature, and at all events, must turn to our disadvantage. If it fails, it will only make us contemptible; if it succeeds, it will make us odius. It is our in­terest to take very little part in their domestic administration of government, but purely to watch over them for their good. We never gained so much by North-America as when we let them go­vern themselves, and were con­tent to trade with them and to protect them. One would think, my Lords, there was some statute law, prohibiting us, under the severest penalties, to profit by experience.

My Lords, I have ventured to lay my thoughts before you, on the greatest national concern that ever came under your deli­beration, with as much honesty as you will meet with from abler men, and with a melancholy as­surance, that not a word of it will be regarded. And yet, my Lords, with your permission, I [Page 11] will waste one short argument more on the same cause, one that I own I am fond of, and which contains in it, what I think, must affect every generous mind. My Lords, I look upon North-America as the only great nursery of free men now left upon the face of the earth. We have seen the liber­ties of Poland and Sweden swept away, in the course of one year, by treachery and usurpation. The free towns in Germany are like so many dying sparks, that go out one after another; and which must all be soon exting­uished under the destructive greatness of their neighbours. Holland is little more than a great trading company, with luxurious manners, and an exhausted re­venue; with little strength and with les spirit. Switzerland alone is free and happy within the narrow inclosure of its rocks and vallies. As for the state of this country, my Lords, I can only refer myself to your own secret thoughts. I am disposed to think and hope the best of public Liberty. Were I to des­cribe her according to my own ideas at present, I should say that she has a sickly countenance, but I trust she has a strong constitu­tion

But whatever may be our fu­ture fate, the greatest glory that attends this country, a greater than any other nation ever ac­quired, is to have formed and nursed up to such a state of hap­piness, those colonies whom we are now so eager to butcher. We ought to cherish them as the immortal monuments of our pub­lic justice and wisdom; as the heirs of our better days, of our old arts and manners, and of our expiring national virtues. What work of art, or power, or public utility has ever equalled the glo­ry of having peopled a continent without guilt or bloodshed, with a multitude of free and happy common wealths; to have given them the best arts of life and go­vernment; and to have suffered them under the shelter of our authority, to acquire in peace the skill to use them. In com­parison of this, the policy of go­verning by influence, and even the pride of war and victory are dishonest tricks and poor con­temptible pageantry.

We seem not to be sensible of the high and important trust which providence has committed to our charge. The most pre­cious remains of civil liberty, that the world can now boast of, are lodged in our hands; and God forbid that we should vio­late so sacred a deposit. By en­slaving your colonies, you not on­ly ruin the peace, commerce, and the fortunes of both coun­tries; but you extinguish the fairest hopes, shut up the last asylum of mankind. I think, my Lords without being weakly su­perstitions, that a good man may hope that heaven will take part against the execution of a plan which seems big, not only with mischief, but impiety.

Let us be content with the spoils and destruction of the east. If your Lordships can see no im­propriety in it, let the plunderer and the oppressor still go free But let not the love of lib [...] be the only crime you think [...] thy punishment. I fear [...] soon make it a part of [...] character, to ruin [...] that has the misfortune [...] pend upon us.

[Page 12] No nation has ever before con­trived, in so short a space of time without any war or public ca­lamity (unless unwise measures may be so called) to destroy such ample resources of commerce, wealth and power, as of late were ours, and which, if they had been rightly improved, might have raised us to a state of more honourable and more permanent greatness than the world has yet seen.

Let me remind the noble Lords in administration, that before the stamp act, they had power sufficient to answer all the just ends of government, and they were all compleatly answered. If that is the power they want, though we have lost much of it at present, a few kind words would recover it all.

But if the tendency of this bill is, as I own it appears to me, to acquire a power of governing them by influence and corrupti­on; in the first place my Lords, this is not true government, but a sophisticated kind, which coun­terfeits the appearance, but with­out the spirit or virtue of the true: and then, as it tends to debase their spirits and corrupt their manners to destroy all that is great and respectable in so con­siderable a part of the human species and by degrees to gather them together with the rest of the world. under the yoke of universal slavery; I think, for those reasons, it is the duty of every wise man, of every honest man, and of every Englishman, by all lawful means, to oppose it.