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བམ་ཨས་

4V4

བཔལ,

From this day

ew armies. All is to begin again. rward the Empire is never to know an hour's tranaillity. An intestine fire will be kept alive in the wels of the Colonies, which one time or other must nsume this whole Empire. I allow indeed that the npire of Germany raises her revenue and her troops by notas and contingents; but the revenue of the empire, nd the army of the empire, is the worst revenue and Le worst army in the world.

Instead of a standing revenue, you will therefore have perpetual quarrel. Indeed, the noble lord who proosed this project of a ransom by auction seems himself be of that opinion. His project was rather designed r breaking the union of the Colonies than for establishg a revenue. He confessed he apprehended that his oposal would not be to their taste. I say this scheme disunion seems to be at the bottom of the project; for will not suspect that the noble lord meant nothing but erely to delude the nation by an airy phantom which - never intended to realize. But whatever his views ay be, as I propose the peace and union of the Colonies the very foundation of my plan, it cannot accord with e whose foundation is perpetual discord.

Compare the two. This I offer to give you is plain d simple. The other full of perplexed and intricate azes. This is mild; that harsh. This is found by exrience effectual for its purposes; the other is a new oject. This is universal; the other calculated for cer

nothing will be conceded, and who must win every of their ground by argument. You have heard me goodness. May you decide with wisdom! For my I feel my mind greatly disburthened by what I done to-day. I have been the less fearful of trying patience, because on this subject I mean to spare it a gether in future. I have this comfort, that in every s of the American affairs I have steadily opposed the m ures that have produced the confusion, and may bring the destruction, of this Empire. I now go so far a risk a proposal of my own. If I cannot give peac my country, I give it to my conscience.

But what, says the financier, is peace to us wit money? Your plan gives us no revenue. No! Bu does ; for it secures to the subject the power of refu the first of all revenues. Experience is a cheat, and a liar, if this power in the subject of proportioning grant, or of not granting at all, has not been found. richest mine of revenue ever discovered by the skill by the fortune of man. It does not indeed vote 152,7507. 11s. 2ąd., nor any other paltry limited s but it gives the strong box itself, the fund, the ban from whence only revenues can arise amongst a pe sensible of freedom. Posita luditur arca. Cannot in England cannot you, at this time of day a House of Commons, trust to the principle which raised so mighty a revenue, and accumulated a deb near 140,000,000 in this country? Is this principle

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be true in England, and false everywhere 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 constituted for any function will 5 neglect to perform its duty and abdicate its trust? Such a presumption would go against all governments in all modes. But, in truth, this dread of penury of supply from a free assembly has no foundation in nature; for first, observe that, besides the desire which all men have 10 naturally of supporting the honor of their own government, that sense of dignity and that security to property which ever attends freedom has a tendency to increase the stock of the free community. Most may be taken where most is accumulated. And what is the soil or 15 climate where experience has not uniformly proved that the voluntary flow of heaped-up plenty, bursting from the weight of its own rich luxuriance, has ever run with a more copious stream of revenue than could be squeezed from the dry husks of oppressed indigence by the strain20 ing of all the politic machinery in the world?

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Next, we know that parties must ever exist in a free country. We know, too, that the emulations of such parties their contradictions, their reciprocal necessities, their hopes, and their fears must send them all 25 in their turns to him that holds the balance of the State. The parties are the gamesters; but Government keeps the table, and is sure to be the winner in the end. this game is played, I really think it is more to be feared that the people will be exhausted, than that government 30 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.

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"Ease 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 sum, the immense, ever-growing, eternal debt which is due to generous government from protected freedom. And so may I speed in the great object I propose to you, as I 5 think it would not only be an act of injustice, but would be the worst economy in the world, to compel the Colonies to a sum certain, either in the way of ransom or in the way of compulsory compact.

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But to clear up my ideas on this subject: a revenue 10 from America transmitted hither do not delude yourselves - you never can receive it; no, not a shilling. 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 15 you had taken in imposition, what can you expect from North America? For certainly, if ever there was a country qualified to produce wealth, it is India; or an institution fit for the transmission, it is the East India Company. America has none of these aptitudes. If 20 America gives you taxable objects on which you lay your duties here, and gives you, at the same time, a surplus by a foreign sale of her commodities to pay the duties on these objects which you tax at home, she has performed her part to the British revenue. But with regard 25 to her own internal establishments, she may, I doubt not she will, contribute in moderation. I say in moderation, for she ought not to be permitted to exhaust herself. She ought to be reserved to a war, the weight of which, with the enemies that we are most likely to have, must 30 be considerable in her quarter of the globe. There she may serve you, and serve you essentially.

For that service for all service, whether of revenue, trade, or empire- my trust is in her interest in the British Constitution. My hold of the Colonies is in the 35

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close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the Colonists always keep 5 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 be once understood that your government may be one thing, and their privileges 10 another, that these two things may exist without any mutual relation, the cement is gone - the cohesion is loosened and everything hastens to decay and dissolution. As long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country as the sanctuary of 15 liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of England worship freedom, they will turn their faces towards you. The more they multiply, the more friends you will have; the more ardently they love liberty, the more perfect 20 will be their obedience. Slavery they can have anywhere it is a weed that grows in every soil. They may have it from Spain; they may have it from Prussia. But, until you become lost to all feeling of your true interest and your natural dignity, freedom they can have 25 from none but you. This is the commodity of price of which you have the monopoly. This is the true Act of Navigation which binds to you the commerce of the Colonies, and through them secures to you the wealth of the world. Deny them this participation of freedom, 30 and you break that sole bond which originally made, and must still preserve, the unity of the Empire. Do not entertain so weak an imagination as that your registers and your bonds, your affidavits and your sufferances, your cockets and your clearances, are what form the 35 great securities of your commerce. Do not dream that

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