with dislike. I think: sir, we have few American financiers. But our misfortune is, we are too acute; we are too exquisite in our conjectures of the future, for men oppressed with such great and present evils. The more moderate among the opposers of Parliamentary concession, freely confess that they hope no good from taxation; but they apprehend the Colonists have further views, and if this point were conceded, they would instantly attack the Trade laws. These gentlemen are convinced that this was the intention from the beginning; and the quarrel of the Americans with taxation was no more than a cloak and cover to this design. Such has been the language even of a gentleman (Mr. Rice) of real moderation, and of a natural temper so well adjusted to fair and equal Government. I am, however, sir, not a little surprised at this kind of discourse, whenever I hear it; and am the more surprised, on account of the arguments which I constantly find in company with it, and which are often urged from the same mouths, and on the same day.

For instance, when we allege that it is against reason to tax a people under so many restraints in trade as the Americans, the noble Lord (North) in the blue riband shall tell you, that the restraints on trade are futile and useless, of no advantage to us, and of no burthen to those on whom they are imposed; that the trade to America is not secured by the Acts of Navigation, but by the natural and irresistible advantage of a commercial preference.

Such is the merit of the Trade laws in this posture of the debate. But when strong internal circumstances are urged against the taxes; when the scheme is dissected; when experience and the nature of things are brought to prove, and do prove, the utter impossibility of obtaining an effective revenue from the Colonies; when these things are pressed, or rather press themselves, so as to drive the advocates of Colony taxes to a clear admission of the futility of the scheme, then, sir, the sleeping Trade laws revive from their trance, and this useless taxation is to be kept sacred, not for its own sake, but as a counter-guard and security of the laws of Trade.

Then, sir, you keep up Revenue laws which are mischievous, in order to preserve Trade laws that are useless. Such is the wisdom of our plan in both its members. They are separately given up as of no value, and yet one is always to be defended for the sake of the other. But I cannot agree with the noble Lord, nor with the Pamphlet from whence he seems to have borrowed these ideas concerning the inutility of the Trade laws. For, without idolizing them, I am sure they are still, in many ways, of great use to us, and in former times they have been of the greatest. They do confine, and they do greatly narrow, the market for the Americans. But my perfect conviction of this does not help me, in the least, to discern how the Revenue laws form any security whatsoever to the Commercial Regulations; or that these Commercial Regulations are the true ground of the quarrel; or, that the giving way in any one instance of authority, is to lose all that may remain unconceded.

One fact is clear and indisputable. The publick and avowed origin of this quarrel was on taxation. This quarrel has, indeed, brought on new disputes on new questions; but certainly the least bitter, and the fewest of all, on Trade laws. To judge which of the two be the real radical cause of quarrel, we have to see whether the commercial dispute did, in order of time, precede the dispute on taxation? There is not a shadow of evidence for it. Next, to enable us to judge whether at this moment a dislike to the Trade laws be the real cause of quarrel, it is absolutely necessary to put the taxes out of the question by a repeal. See how the Americans act in this position, and then you will be able to discern, correctly, what is the true object of the controversy, or whether any controversy at all will remain? Unless you consent to remove this cause of difference, it is impossible, with decency, to assert that the dispute is not upon what it is avowed to be. And I would, sir, recommend to your serious consideration, whether if be prudent to form a rule for punishing people, not on their own acts, but on your conjectures? Surely it is preposterous at the very best. It is not justifying your anger, by their misconduct; but it is converting your ill will into their delinquency.

But the Colonies will go further. Alas! alas! when will this speculating against fact and reason end? What will quiet these panick fears which we entertain of the hostile effect of the conciliatory conduct? Is it true, that no case can exist, in which it is proper for the Sovereign to accede to the desires of his discontented subjects? Is there any thing peculiar in this case, to make a rule for itself? Is all authority of course lost, when it is not pushed to the extreme? Is it a certain maxim, that, the fewer causes of dissatisfaction are left by Government, the more the subject will be inclined to resist and rebel?

All these objections being, in fact, no more than suspicions, conjectures, divinations, formed in defiance of fact and experience; they did not, sir, discourage me from entertaining the idea of a conciliatory concession, founded on the principles which I have just stated.

In forming a plan for this purpose, I endeavoured to put myself in that frame of mind, which was the most natural, and the most reasonable; and which was, certainly, the most probable means of securing me from all errour. I set out with a perfect distrust of my own abilities; a total renunciation of every speculation of my own; and with a profound reverence for the wisdom of our ancestors, who have left us the inheritance of so happy a Constitution, and so flourishing an Empire, and what is a thousand times more valuable, the treasury of the maxims and principles which formed the one, and obtained the other.

During the reigns of the Kings of Spain, of the Austrian family, whenever they were at a loss in the Spanish Councils, it was common for their Statesmen to say, that they ought to consult the genius of Philip the Second. The genius of Philip the Second might mislead them; and the issue of their affairs shewed, that they had not chosen the most perfect standard. But, sir, I am sure that I shall not be misled, when, in a case of constitutional difficulty, I consult the genius of the English Constitution. Consulting at that oracle, (it was with all due humility and piety,) I found four capital examples in a similar case before me; those of Ireland, Wales, Chester, and Durham.

Ireland, before the English conquest, though never governed by a despotick power, had no Parliament. How far the English Parliament itself was, at that time, modelled according to the present form, is disputed among antiquaries. But we have all the reason in the world to be assured, that a form of Parliament, such as England then enjoyed, she instantly communicated to Ireland; and we are equally sure, that almost every successive improvement in constitutional liberty, as fast as it was made here, was transmitted thither. The feudal Baronage, and the feudal Knighthood, the roots of our primitive Constitution, were early transplanted into that soil, and grew and flourished there. Magna Charta, if it did not give us originally the House of Commons, gave us at least a House of Common? of weight and consequence. But your ancestors did not, churlishly, sit down alone to the feast of Magna Charta. Ireland was made immediately a partaker. This benefit of English laws and liberties, I confess, was not, at first, extended to all Ireland. Mark the consequence. English authority and English liberty had exactly the same boundaries. Your Standard could never be advanced an inch before your privileges. Sir John Davis shews, beyond a doubt, that the refusal of a general communication of these rights, was the true cause why Ireland was five hundred years in subduing; and after the vain projects of a Military Government, attempted in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it was soon discovered, that nothing could make that country English in civility and allegiance, but your laws and your forms of Legislature. It was not English Arms, but the English Constitution, that conquered Ireland. From that time, Ireland has ever had a General Parliament, as she had before a Partial Parliament. You changed the people; you altered the religion; but you never touched the form or the vital substance of free government in that Kingdom. You deposed Kings; you restored them; you altered the succession to theirs, as well as to your own Crown; but you never altered their Constitution; the principle of which was respected by usurpation, restored with the restoration of monarchy, and established, I trust, forever, by the glorious Revolution. This has made Ireland the great and flourishing Kingdom that it is; and from a disgrace and a burthen, intolerable to this Nation, has rendered her a principal part of our strength arid ornament.