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pose our body, it is impossible, Mr. Speaker, not
to observe, that this house has a collective charac-
ter of its own. That character too, however im-
perfect, is not unamiable. Like all great publick
collections of men, you possess a marked love of
virtue, and an abhorrence of vice.
But among
vices, there is none which the house abhors in the
same degree with obstinacy. Obstinacy, Sir, is
certainly a great vice; and in the changeful state
of political affairs it is frequently the cause of great
mischief. It happens, however, very unfortunately,
that almost the whole line of the great and mas-
culine virtues, constancy, gravity, magnanimity,
fortitude, fidelity, and firmness, are closely allied to
this disagreeable quality, of which you have so just
an abhorrence; and, in their excess, all these vir-
tues very easily fall into it. He, who paid such a |
punctilious attention to all your feelings, certainly
took care not to shock them by that vice which is
the most disgustful to you.

That fear of displeasing those who ought most to be pleased betrayed him sometimes into the other extreme. He had voted, and, in the year 1765, had been an advocate, for the stamp-act. Things and the disposition of men's minds were changed. In short, the stamp-act began to be no favourite in this house. He therefore attended at the private meeting, in which the resolutions moved by a right honourable gentleman were settled; resolutions leading to the repeal. The next day he voted for that repeal; and he would have spoken for it too, if an illness, (not as was then given out, a political,) but to my knowledge, a very real illness, had not prevented it.

The very next session, as the fashion of this world passeth away, the repeal began to be in as bad an odour in this house as the stamp-act had been in the session before. To conform to the temper which began to prevail, and to prevail mostly amongst those most in power, he declared, very early in the winter, that a revenue must be had out of America. Instantly he was tied down to his engagements by some, who had no objection to such experiments, when made at the cost of persons for whom they had no particular regard. The whole body of courtiers drove him onward. They always talked as if the king stood in a sort of humiliated state, until something of the kind should be done.

Here this extraordinary man, then chancellor of the exchequer, found himself in great straits. To please universally was the object of his life; but to tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men. However, he attempted it. To render the tax palatable to the partisans of American revenue, he made a preamble stating the necessity of such a revenue. To close with the American distinction, this revenue was external or port-duty; but again, to soften it to the other party, it was a duty of supply. To gratify the colonists, it was laid on British manufactures; to satisfy the merchants of Britain, the duty was trivial, and (except that on tea, which touched only the devoted East India company) on none of the

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grand objects of commerce. To counterwork the American contraband, the duty on tea was reduced from a shilling to three-pence. But to secure the favour of those who would tax America, the scene of collection was changed, and, with the rest, it was levied in the colonies. What need I say more? This fine-spun scheme had the usual fate of all exquisite policy. But the original plan of the duties, and the mode of executing that plan, both arose singly and solely from a love of our applause. He was truly the child of the house. He never thought, did, or said any thing, but with a view to you. He every day adapted himself to your disposition; and adjusted himself before it as at a looking-glass.

He had observed (indeed it could not escape him) that several persons, infinitely his inferiours in all respects, had formerly rendered themselves considerable in this house by one method alone. They were a race of men (I hope in God the species is extinct) who, when they rose in their place, no man living could divine, from any known adherence to parties, to opinions, or to principles, from any order or system in their politicks, or from any sequel or connexion in their ideas, what part they were going to take in any debate. It's astonishing how much this uncertainty, especially at critical times, called the attention of all parties on such men. All eyes were fixed on them, all ears open to hear them; each party gaped, and looked alternately for their vote, almost to the end! of their speeches. While the house hung in this uncertainty, now the hear hims rose from this sid -now they rebellowed from the other; and tha party, to whom they fell at length from their tremulous and dancing balance, always received them in a tempest of applause. The fortune of such n was a temptation too great to be resisted by one to whom a single whiff of incense withheld ga much greater pain, than he received delight in th clouds of it, which daily rose about him from the prodigal superstition of innumerable admirers. H was a candidate for contradictory honours; ani his great aim was to make those agree in admiration of him who never agreed in any thing else.

Hence arose this unfortunate act, the subject of this day's debate; from a disposition which, aftr making an American revenue to please one, re pealed it to please others, and again revived it hopes of pleasing a third, and of catching sce thing in the ideas of all.

This revenue act of 1767, formed the four: period of American policy. How we have fa since then-what woeful variety of schemes have been adopted; what enforcing, and what repel ing; what bullying, and what submitting: what doing, and undoing; what straining, and what relaxing; what assemblies dissolved for not obeying, and called again without obedience; what tro sent out to quell resistance, and, on meeting that resistance, recalled; what shiftings, and changes and jumblings of all kinds of men at home, what left no possibility of order, consistency, vid or even so much as a decent unity of colour in any

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one publick measure.-It is a tedious, irksome |
task. My duty may call me to open it out some
other time; *
on a former occasion I tried your
temper on a part of it; for the present I shall
forbear.

After all these changes and agitations, your immediate situation upon the question on your paper is at length brought to this. You have an act of parliament, stating, that "it is expedient to raise revenue in America." By a partial repeal you nihilated the greatest part of that revenue, which is preamble declares to be so expedient. You have bstituted no other in the place of it. A secretary state has disclaimed, in the king's name, all oughts of such a substitution in future. The rinciple of this disclaimer goes to what has been ft, as well as what has been repealed. The tax hich lingers after its companions (under a preble declaring an American revenue expedient, and for the sole purpose of supporting the theory of that preamble) militates with the assurance authentically conveyed to the colonies; and is an exhaustless source of jealousy and animosity. On this state, which I take to be a fair one; not being able to discern any grounds of honour, advantage, peace, or power, for adhering, either to the act or to the preamble, I shall vote for the question which Aeads to the repeal of both.

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If you do not fall in with this motion, then Secure something to fight for, consistent in theory and valuable in practice. If you must employ your trength, employ it to uphold you in some honourable right, or some profitable wrong. If you are apprehensive that the concession recommended to you, though proper, should be a means of drawing on you further but unreasonable claims,-why then employ your force in supporting that reasonable concession against those unreasonable demands. You will employ it with more grace; with better effect; and with great probable concurrence of all the quiet and rational people in the provinces; who are now united with, and hurried away by, the violent; having indeed different dispositions, but a common interest. If you apprehend that on a concession you shall be pushed by metaphysical process to the extreme lines, and argued out of your whole authority, my advice is this; when you have recovered your old, your strong, your tenable position, then face about-stop short-do nothing more-reason not at all-oppose the ancient policy and practice of the empire as ramparts against the speculations of innovators on both sides of the question; and you will stand on great, manly, and sure ground. On this solid basis fix your machines, will draw worlds towards you.

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understood, as they and you understand it, when you please, to be not a distinction of geography, but of policy; that it is a power for regulating trade, and not for supporting establishments. The distinction, which is as nothing with regard to right, is of most weighty consideration in practice. Recover your old ground, and your old tranquillity-try it-I am persuaded the Americans will compromise with you. When confidence is once restored, the odious and suspicious summum jus will perish of course. The spirit of practicability, of moderation, and mutual convenience, will never call in geometrical exactness as the arbitrator of an amicable settlement. Consult and follow your experience. Let not the long story, with which I have exercised your patience, prove fruitless to your interests.

For my part, I should choose (if I could have my wish) that the proposition of the † honourable gentleman for the repeal could go to America without the attendance of the penal bills. Alone I could almost answer for its success. I cannot be certain of its reception in the bad company it may keep. In such heterogeneous assortments, the most innocent person will lose the effect of his innocency. Though you should send out this angel of peace, yet you are sending out a destroying angel too; and what would be the effect of the conflict of these two adverse spirits, or which would predominate in the end, is what I dare not say: whether the lenient measures would cause American passion to subside, or the severe would encrease its fury-all this is in the hand of Providence. Yet now, even now, I should confide in the prevailing virtue and efficacious operation of lenity. though working in darkness, and in chaos, in the

midst of all this unnatural and turbid combination:

I should hope it might produce order and beauty in the end.

Let us, Sir, embrace some system or other be

fore we end this session. Do you mean to tax America, and to draw a productive revenue from thence? If you do, speak out: name, fix, ascertain this revenue; settle its quantity; define its objects; provide for its collection; and then fight when you have something to fight for. If you murderrob; if you kill, take possession: and do not appear in the character of madmen, as well as assassins, violent, vindictive, bloody, and tyrannical, without an object. But may better counsels guide you!

Again, and again, revert to your old principlesseek peace and ensue it-leave America, if she has taxable matter in her, to tax herself. I am not here going into the distinctions of rights, not at

ministers, in their own and his majesty's tempting to mark their boundaries. I do not enter

ve

already adopted the American distinc-
and external duties. It is a distinc-

into these metaphysical distinctions; I hate the very sound of them. Leave the Americans as they

whatever merit it may have, that was origi- anciently stood, and these distinctions, born of our

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by the Americans themselves; and I acquiesce in it, if they are not pushtoo much logick and too little sense, in all onsequences. That is, if external taxation be

With

the

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Resolutions in May 1770.

unhappy contest, will die along with it. They and we, and their and our ancestors, have been happy under that system. Let the memory of all actions, in contradiction to that good old mode, on both

↑ Mr. Fuller.

If not, look to the consequences. Reflect how you are to govern a people, who think they ought to be free, and think they are not. Your scheme yields no revenue; it yields nothing but discontent, disorder, disobedience; and such is the state of America, that after wading up to your eyes in blood, you could only end just where you begun; that is, to tax where no revenue is to be found, to-my voice fails me; my inclination indeed carries me no farther-all is confusion beyond it.

Well, Sir, I have recovered a little, and before 1 sit down I must say something to another point with which gentlemen urge us. What is to become of the declaratory-act asserting the entireness of British legislative authority, if we abandon the practice of taxation?

sides, be extinguished for ever. Be content to bind | Will they be content in such a state of slavery? America by laws of trade; you have always done it. Let this be your reason for binding their trade. Do not burthen them by taxes; you were not used to do so from the beginning. Let this be your reason for not taxing. These are the arguments of states and kingdoms. Leave the rest to the schools; for there only they may be discussed with safety. But if, intemperately, unwisely, fatally, you sophisticate and poison the very source of government, by urging subtle deductions, and consequences odious to those you govern, from the unlimited and illimitable nature of supreme sovereignty, you will teach them by these means to call that sovereignty itself in question. When you drive him hard, the boar will surely turn upon the hunters. If that sovereignty and their freedom cannot be reconciled, which will they take? They will cast your sovereignty in your face. No body will be argued into slavery. Sir, let the gentlemen on the other side call forth all their ability; let the best of them get up, and tell me, what one character of liberty the Americans have, and what one brand of slavery they are free from, if they are bound in their property and industry, by all the restraints you can imagine on commerce, and at the same time are made pack-horses of every tax you choose to impose, without the least share in granting them. When they bear the burthens of unlimited monopoly, will you bring them to bear the burthens of unlimited revenue too? The Englishman in America will feel that this is slavery-that it is legal slavery, will be no compensation, either to his feelings or his under-riour legislatures, and guides and controuls them

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For my part I look upon the rights stated in that act, exactly in the manner in which I viewed them on its very first proposition, and which I have often taken the liberty, with great humility, to lay before you. I look, I say, on the imperial rights of Great Britain, and the privileges which the colonists ought to enjoy under these rights, to be just the most reconcilable things in the world. The parliament of Great Britain sits at the head of her extensive empire in two capacities: one as the local legislature of this island, providing for all things at home, immediately, and by no other instrument than the executive power.-The other, and I think her nobler capacity, is what I call her imperial character; in which, as from the throne of heaven, she superintends all the several infeall, without annihilating any. As all these provincial legislatures are only co-ordinate with each other, they ought all to be subordinate to her; else they can neither preserve mutual peace, nor hope for mutual justice, nor effectually afford mutual assistance. It is necessary to coerce the negligent, to restrain the violent, and to aid the weak and deficient, by the overruling plenitude of her power. She is never to intrude into the place of the others, whilst they are equal to the common ends of their institution. But in order to enable parliament to answer all these ends of provident and beneficent superintendence, her powers must be boundless. The gentlemen who think the powers of parliament limited, may please themselves to talk of requisitions. But suppose the requisitions are not obeyed? What! Shall there be no reserved power in the empire, to supply a deficiency which may weaken, divide, and dissi pate the whole? We are engaged in war-the secretary of state calls upon the colonies to contribute-some would do it, I think most would cheerfully furnish whatever is demanded-one or two, suppose, hang back, and, easing themselves, let the stress of the draft lie on the otherssurely it is proper, that some authority might leablegally say-" Tax yourselves for the common supply, or parliament will do it for you." This backwardness was, as I am told, actually the case of

A noble lord, who spoke some time ago, is full of the fire of ingenuous youth; and when he has modelled the ideas of a lively imagination by further experience, he will be an ornament to his country in either house. He has said, that the Americans are our children, and how can they revolt against their parent? He says, that if they are not free in their present state, England is not free; because Manchester, and other considerable places, are not represented. So then, because some towns in England are not represented, America is to have no representative at all. They our children;" but when children ask for bread we are not to give a stone. Is it because the natural resistance of things, and the various mutations of time, hinders our government, or any scheme of government, from being any more than a sort of approximation to the right, is it therefore that the colonies are to recede from it infinitely? When this child of ours wishes to assimilate to its parent, and to reflect with a true filial resemblance the beauteous countenance of British liberty; are we to turn to them the shameful parts of our constitution? are we to give them our weakness for their strength? our opprobrium for their glory? and the slough of slavery, which we are not to work off, to serve them for their freedom? If this be the case, ask yourselves this question,

• Lord Carmarthen.

Pennsylvania for some short time towards the | you made the stamp-act; and that you restored beginning of the last war, owing to some internal every thing to peace and order when you repealed dissensions in the colony. But whether the fact it. I have shewn that the revival of the system were so, or otherwise, the case is equally to be of taxation has produced the very worst effects; provided for by a competent sovereign power. and that the partial repeal has produced, not parBut then this ought to be no ordinary power; nor tial good, but universal evil. Let these considerever used in the first instance. This is what I ations, founded on facts, not one of which can be meant, when I have said at various times, that I denied, bring us back to our reason by the road consider the power of taxing in parliament as an of our experience. instrument of empire, and not as a means of supply.

Such, Sir, is my idea of the constitution of the British empire, as distinguished from the constitution of Britain; and on these grounds I think subordination and liberty may be sufficiently reconciled through the whole; whether to serve a refining speculatist, or a factious demagogue, I know not; but enough surely for the ease and happiness of man.

Sir, whilst we held this happy course, we drew more from the colonies than all the impotent violence of despotism ever could extort from them. We did this abundantly in the last war. It has never been once denied-and what reason have we to imagine that the colonies would not have proceeded in supplying government as liberally, if you had not stepped in and hindered them from contributing, by interrupting the channel in which their liberality flowed with so strong a course; by attempting to take, instead of being satisfied to receive? Sir William Temple says, that Holland has loaded itself with ten times the impositions which it revolted from Spain rather than submit 10. He says true. Tyranny is a poor provider. It knows neither how to accumulate, nor how to

extract.

I charge therefore to this new and unfortunate system the loss not only of peace, of union, and of commerce, but even of revenue, which its friends are contending for.-It is morally certain, that we have lost at least a million of free grants since the peace. I think we have lost a great deal more; and that those, who look for a revenue from the provinces, never could have pursued, ven in that light, a course more directly repugnant to their purposes.

Now, Sir, I trust I have shewn, first on that harrow ground which the honourable gentleman easured, that you are likely to lose nothing by complying with the motion, except what you have st already. I have shewn afterwards, that in time of peace you flourished in commerce, and, when war required it, had sufficient aid from the colonies, while you pursued your ancient policy; you threw every thing into confusion when

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Lord North.

I cannot, as I have said, answer for mixed measures: but surely this mixture of lenity would give the whole a better chance of success. When you once regain confidence, the way will be clear before you. Then you may enforce the act of navigation when it ought to be enforced. You will yourselves open it where it ought still further to be opened. Proceed in what you do, whatever you do, from policy, and not from rancour. us act like men, let us act like statesmen. us hold some sort of consistent conduct.—It is agreed that a revenue is not to be had in America. If we lose the profit, let us get rid of the odium.

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On this business of America, I confess I am serious, even to sadness. I have had but one opinion concerning it since I sat, and before I sat, in parliament. The noble lord* will, as usual, probably, attribute the part taken by me and my friends in this business, to a desire of getting his places. Let him enjoy this happy and original idea. If I deprived him of it, I should take away most of his wit, and all his argument. But I had rather bear the brunt of all his wit, and indeed blows much heavier, than stand answerable to God for embracing a system that tends to the destruction of some of the very best and fairest of his works. But I know the map of England, as well as the noble lord, or as any other person; and I know that the way I take is not the road to preferment. My excellent and honourable friend under me on the floor has trod that road with great toil for upwards of twenty years together. He is not yet arrived at the noble lord's destination. However, the tracks of my worthy friend are those I have ever wished to follow; because I know they lead to honour. Long may we tread the same road together; whoever may accompany us, or whoever may laugh at us on our journey! I honestly and solemnly declare, I have in all seasons adhered to the system of 1766, for no other reason, than that I think it laid deep in your truest interests-and that, by limiting the exercise, it fixes, on the firmest foundations, a real, consistent, well-grounded authority in parliament. Until you come back to that system, there will be no peace for England.

↑ Mr. Dowdeswell

SPEECHES

AT

MR. BURKE'S ARRIVAL AT BRISTOL,

AND AT

THE CONCLUSION OF THE POLL.

1774.

EDITOR'S ADVERTISEMENT.

We believe there is no need of an apology to the publick for offering to them any genuine Speeches of Mr. Burke: the two contained in this publication undoubtedly are so. The general approbation they met with (as we hear) from all parties at Bristol, persuades us that a good edition of them will not be unacceptable in London; which we own to be the inducement, and we hope is a justification, of our offering it.

We do not presume to descant on the merit of these Speeches; but as it is no less new, than honourable, to find a popular candidate, at a popular election, daring to avow his dissent from certain points that have been considered as very popular objects, and maintaining himself on the manly confidence of his own opinion; so, we must say, that it does great credit to the people of England, as it proves to the world, that, to insure their confidence, it is not necessary to flatter them, or to affect a subserviency to their passions or their prejudices.

It may be necessary to premise, that at the opening of the poll the candidates were Lord Clare, Mr. Brickdale, the two last members, and Mr. Cruger, a considerable merchant at Bristol. On the second day of the poll, Lord Clare declined;

and a considerable body of gentlemen, who had wished that the city of Bristol should, at this critical season, be represented by some gentleman of tried abilities and known commercial knowledge, immediately put Mr. Burke in nomination. Some of them set off express for London to apprize that gentleman of this event; but he was gone to Malton in Yorkshire. The spirit and active zeal of these gentlemen followed him to Malton. They arrived there just after Mr. Burke's election for that place, and invited him to Bristol.

Mr. Burke, as he tells us in his first Speech, acquainted his constituents with the honourable offer that was made him; and, with their consent. he immediately set off for Bristol on the Tuesday at six in the evening; he arrived at Bristol at bal past two in the afternoon on Thursday the 15th of October, being the sixth day of the poll.

He drove directly to the mayor's house, theney, the mayor not being at home, he proceeded to the Guildhall, where he ascended the hustings, and having saluted the electors, the sheriffs, and the two candidates, he reposed himself for a few minutes, and then addressed the electors in a speech which was received with great and universa applause and approbation.

GENTLEMEN,

AT HIS ARRIVAL AT BRISTOL.

I AM come hither to solicit in person, that favour which my friends have hitherto endeavoured to procure for me, by the most obliging, and to me the most honourable, exertions.

I have so high an opinion of the great trust which you have to confer on this occasion; and, by long experience, so just a diffidence in my abilities to fill it in a manner adequate even to my own ideas, that I should never have ventured of

myself to intrude into that awful situation. But since I am called upon by the desire of severs. respectable fellow-subjects, as I have done at other times, I give up my fears to their wishes. Whatever my other deficiencies may be, I do not know what it is to be wanting to my friends.

I am not fond of attempting to raise publici expectations by great promises. At this time, there is much cause to consider, and very little to presume.

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