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Townsend, officially the reproducer of this fatal | imperfect, is not unamiable. Like all great pub scheme, whom I can not even now remember lic collection of men, you possess a marked love without some degree of sensibility. In truth, of virtue, and an abhorrence of vice. But among sir, he was the delight and ornament of this vices, there is none which the House abhors in the House, and the charm of every society which he same degree with obstinacy. Obstinacy, sir, is honored with his presence. Perhaps there never certainly a great vice; and, in the changeful arose in this country, nor in any country, a man state of political affairs, it is frequently the cause of a more pointed and finished wit, and (where his of great mischief. It happens, however, very unpassions were not concerned) of a more refined, fortunately, that almost the whole line of the great 9xquisite, and penetrating judgment. If he had and masculine virtues, constancy, gravity, magnot so great a stock as some have had who flour- nanimity, fortitude, fidelity, and firmness, are ished formerly, of knowledge long treasured up, closely allied to this disagreeable quality, of he knew better by far, than any man I ever was which you have so just an abhorrence; and, in acquainted with, how to bring together within a their excess, all these virtues very easily fall ir.tc short time all that was necessary to establish, to it. He who paid such a punctilious attention to illustrate, and to decorate that side of the ques- all your feelings, certainly took care not to shock tion he supported. He stated his matter skill- them by that vice which is the most disgustful fully and powerfully. He particularly excelled to you. in a most luminous explanation and display of his subject. His style of argument was neither trite and vulgar, nor subtle and abstruse. hit the House just between wind and water; and, not being troubled with too anxious a zeal for any matter in question, he was never more tedious or more earnest than the preconceived opinions and present temper of his hearers required, to whom he was always in perfect unison. He conformed exactly to the temper of the House; and he seemed to guide, because he was always sure to follow it.

state.

That fear of displeasing those who ought most to be pleased, betrayed him sometimes into the He 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 favorite in this House. He therefore attended at the private meeting in which the resolutions moved by a right honorable gentleman were settled-resolutions leading to the repeal. 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

I beg pardon, sir, if, when I speak of this and other great men, I appear to digress in saying something of their characters. In this eventful The very next session, as the fashion of this history of the revolutions of America, the charac- world passeth away, the repeal began to be in lers of such men are of much importance. Great as bad an odor in this House as the Stamp Act men are the guide-posts and land-marks in the had been in the session before. To conform to The credit of such men at court, or in the the temper which began to prevail, and to prenation, is the sole cause of all the public meas- vail mostly among those most in power, he deures. It would be an invidious thing (most for-clared, very early in the winter, that a revenue eign, I trust, to what you think my disposition) to remark the errors into which the authority of great names has brought the nation, without doing justice at the same time to the great qualities whence that authority arose. is instructive to those who wish to form themselves on whatever of excellence has gone before them. There are many young members in the House (such of late has been the rapid succession of public men) who never saw that prodigy, Charles Townsend, nor, of course, know what a ferment he was able to excite in every thing, by the violent ebullition of his mixed virtues and failings. For failings he had, undoubtedly. Many of us remember them. We are this day considering the effect of them. But he had no failings which were not owing to a noble cause-to an ardent, generous, perhaps an immoderate passion for fame a passion which is the instinct of all great souls. He worshiped that goddess wheresoever she appeared; but he paid his particular devotions to her in her favorite habitation, in her chosen temple, the House of Commons. Be sides the characters of the individuals that compose our body, it is impossible, Mr. Speaker, not to observe, that this House has a collective character of its own. That character, too, however

must be had out of America. Instantly he was tied down to his engagements by some who had no objections to such experiments, when made at the cost of persons for whom they had no par24 The subject ticular 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 merchantı of Britain, the duty was trivial, and, except tha on tea, which touched only the devoted East India Company, on none of the grand objects of

24 See the introduction to Lord Chatham's speech touching America, p. 126, where the circumstancer of this engagement are stated.

commerce. To counterwork the American con-
traband, the duty on tea was reduced from a shil-
ling to threepence. But, to secure the favor of
those who would tax America, the scene of col-
lection 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 ap-
plause. 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
is at a looking-glass."

He had observed (indeed, it could not escape ha) that several persons, infinitely his inferiors mall respects, had formerly rendered themselves ensulerable in this House by one method alone. ley were a race of men (I hope in God the speees is extinct) who, when they rose in their place, man living could divine, from any known adherence to parties, to opinions, or to principles, from any order or system in their politics, or from any sequel or connection in their ideas, what part fiey were going to take in any debate. It is as tonishing 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 hing in this uncertainty, now the hear-him's rose from this side-now they rebellowed from the other; and that 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 men was a temptation too great to be resisted by one to whom a single whiff of incense withheld gave much greater pain than he received delight in the clouds of it which daily rose about him, from the prodigal superstition of innumerable admirers. He was a candidate for contradictory honors, and 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, after making an American revenue to please one, repealed it to please others, and again revived it in hopes of pleasing a third, and of catching something in the ideas of all.

(5.) The revenue act of 1767 formed the fourth period of American policy. How we have fared since then; what woeful variety of schemes have been adopted; what enforcing and what repealing; 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 troops sent out to quell resistance, and, on meeting that resistance, recalled; what shiftings, and changes, and jumblings of all kinds of men at home, which left no possibility of order, consistency, vigor, or even so much as a decent unity of color in any one public 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;26 for the present I shall forbear.

A final and tota

manded.

After all these changes and agitations, your immediate situation upon the question on your paper is at length brought to repeal now de this. You have an act of Parliament, stating that "it is expedient to raise a revenue in America." By a partial repeal you annihilated the greatest part of that revenue, which this preamble declares to be so expedient. You have substituted no other in the place of it. A secretary of state has disclaimed, in the King's name, all thoughts of such a substitution in future. The principle of this disclaimer goes to what has been left as well as what has been repealed. The tax which lingers after its companions (under a preamble 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 J take to be a fair one, not being able to discern any grounds of honor, advantage, peace, or power, for adhering either to the act or to the preamble, I shall vote for the question which leads to the repeal of both.

25 Mr. Burke has here touched with great tender ness and forbearance on the peculiar faults of Townsend. Horace Walpole has given them with per- If you do not fall in with this motion, then sebaps too much prominence in the following sketch: cure something to fight for, consistent in theory "He had almost every great talent and every little and valuable in practice. If you must employ quality. His vanity exceeded even his abilities, and his suspicions seemed to make him doubt whether he your strength, employ it to uphold you in soms had any. With such a capacity, he must have been honorable right or some profitable wrong. If the greatest man of his age, and perhaps inferior to you are apprehensive that the concession recomman in any age, had his faults been only in a mod-mended to you, though proper, should be a means erate proportion-in short, if he had had but common truth, common sincerity, common honesty, common modesty, common steadiness, common courage, and common sense." Sir Dennis Le Marchant remarks in a note: "This portrait has the broad lines of truth, and is more to be depended upon than Mr. Burke's splendid and affectionate panegyric (Speech on American Taxation); and yet, who can blame the warmth with which this great man claims admiration for a genius which in some points resembled bis own?"

of drawing on you farther but unreasonable claims, why then employ your force in support. ing 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

26 By moving certain resolutions relative to the disturbances in America, in May, 1770.

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 punished 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 morereason not at all-oppose the ancient policy and practice of the empire as a rampart 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, and they will draw worlds toward you. Your ministers, in their own and his Majesty's name, have already adopted the American distinction of internal and external duties. It is a distinction, whatever merit it may have, that was originally moved by the Americans themselves; and I think they will acquiesce in it, if they are not pushed with too much logic and too little sense in all the consequences; that is, if external taxation be 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 jus27 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 inter

ests.

For my part, I should choose (if I could have my wish) that the proposition of the honorable gentleman [Mr. Fuller] for the repeal could go to America without the attendance of the penal bills. Alone, I could almost answer for its sucress. I can not be certain of its reception in the bad company it may keep. In such heterogeneous assortments, the most innocent person will ose 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 increase 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.

27 Referring to the adage, “Summum jus est sum ma injuria"--Right, when pressed to an extreme, beomes the height of injustice.

Let us, sir, embrace some system or other be fore we end this session. Do you mear Perora: Da 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 murder, rob! If you kill, take pos session; 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!

ever.

Again and again revert to your old principles Seek 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, nor attempting to mark their boundaries. I do not enter into these metaphysical distinctions. I hate the very sound of them. Leave the Americans as they anciently stood, and these distine tions, born of our 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 sides, be extinguished forBe content to bind America by laws of trade; you have always done it. Let this be your reason for binding their trade. Do not burden them with 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, fa tally, 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. you drive him hard, the boar will surely turn upon the hunters. If that sovereignty and their freedom can not be reconciled, which will they take? They will cast your sovereignty in your face Nobody 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 mad pack-horses of every tax you choose to impose, without the least share in granting them? When they bear the burdens of unlimited monopoly, will you bring them to bear the burdens of unlimited revenue too? The Englishman in America wil. feel that this is slavery-that it is legal slavery will be no compensation either to his feelings or his understanding.

When

A noble Lord [Lord Carmarthen], who spoke some time ago, is full of the fire of ingenuous youth; and when he has modeled the ideas of a lively imagination by farther experience, he will be an ornament to his country in either House He has said that the Americans are our childreL

And how can they revolt against their parent? | ually afford mutual assistance. It is necessary le says that if they are not free in their present to coerce the negligent, to restrain the violent, state, England is not free, because Manchester, and to aid the weak and deficient by the over. and other considerable places, are not represent- ruling plenitude of her power. She is never to ed. So, then, because some towns in England are intrude into the place of others while they are not represented, America is to have no represent- equal to the common ends of their institution ative at all. They are "our children;" but when But, in order to enable Parliament to answer all children ask for bread, we are not to give a stone. these ends of provident and beneficent superinIs it because the natural resistance of things, and tendence, her powers must be boundless. The the various mutations of time, hinders our govern- gentlemen who think the powers of Parliament ment, or any scheme of government, from being limited, may please themselves to talk of requi any more than a sort of approximation to the sitions. But suppose the requisitions are not right, is it therefore that the colonies are to re- obeyed. What! shall there be no reserved cede from it infinitely? When this child of ours power in the empire to supply a deficiency wishes to assimilate to its parent, and to reflect which may weaken, divide, and dissipate the with a true filial resemblance the beauteous coun- whole? We are engaged in war; the Secretenance of British liberty, are we to turn to them tary of State calls upon the colonies to contrib. the shameful parts of our Constitution? Are we ute; some would do it-I think most would to give them our weakness for their strength-cheerfully furnish whatever is demanded; one our opprobrium for their glory; and the slough of slavery, which we are not able to work off, to serve them for their freedom?

If this be the case, ask yourselves this question: Will they be content in such a state of slavery? If not, look to the consequences. Reflect how you ought 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 began; 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. [Here Mr. Burke was compelled by illness to stop for a short time, after which he proceeded :]

Well, sir, I have recovered a little, and, before I 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?

repeal of the Tea

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For my part, I look upon the rights stated in Declaratory Act that act exactly in the manner in otsade by a 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 or all things at home, immediately, and by no other instrument than the executive power. The ́ther, 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 sever11 inferior Legislatures, and guides and controls them all without annihilating any. As all these provincia! Legislatures are only co-ordinate to Each other they ought all to be subordinate to her; else they can neither preserve mutual peace, nor hope for mutual justice, nor effect

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or two, suppose, hang back, and, easing them. selves, let the stress of the draught lie on the others surely it is proper that some authority might legally 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 Pennsylvania for some short time toward the beginning of the last war, ow. ing to some internal dissensions in the colony. But, whether the fact were so or otherwise, the case is equally to be provided for by a competent sovereign power. But then this ought tc be no ordinary power, nor ever used in the first instance. This is what I meant when I have said at various times that I consider the power of taxing in Parliament as an instrument of em pire, 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 rec onciled through the whole; whether to serve a refining speculatist or a factious demagogue, 1 know not; but enough, surely, for the ease and happiness of man.

Sir, while 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 nave proceeded in supplying government as hoerally, 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 satisfie to receive? Sir William Temple says, that Hol land has loaded itself with ten times the imposi tions which it revolted from Spain rather that submit to. 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 umon, and of commerce, but even of revenue, which it friends are contending for. It is morally certain that we have lost at least a million of free giants

ince the peace. I think we have lost a great laid deep in vour truest interests; and that, by deal more; and that those who look for a rev-limiting the exercise, it fixes on the firmest foun enue from the provinces, never could have pur-dations a real, consistent, well-grounded author. sued, even in that light, a course more directly ity in Parliament. Until you come back to that repugnant to their purposes. system, there will be no peace for England.

Now, sir, I trust I have shown, first, on that narrow ground which the honorable gentleman measured, that you are like to lose nothing by complying with the motion except what you have lost already. I have shown afterward, 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; that you threw every thing into confusion when you made the Stamp Act; and that you restored every thing to peace and order when you repealed it. I have shown that the revival of the system of taxation has produced the very worst effects; and that the partial repeal has produced, not partial good, but universal evil. Let these considerations, founded on facts, not one of which can be denied, bring us back to our reason by the road of our experience.

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I can not, 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 farther to be opened. Proceed in what you do, whatever you do, from policy, and not froin ranLet us act like men, let us act like statesmen. Let 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.

cor.

On this business of America, I confess I am erious even to sadness. I have had but one opinion concerning it since I sat, and before I sat, in Parliament. The noble Lord [Lord North] 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 honorable friend under me on the floor [Mr. Dowdeswell] has trod that road with great toil for upward 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 honor. 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

Mr. Burke's motion was negatived by a vote of 182 to 49. The ministry were bent on vio lent measures, and the act for quartering troope in Boston was passed about a month after.

The name of Lord North occurs so often in this speech and in other parts of this volume, that the reader will be interested in a brief notice of his life and character. He was the eldest son of the Earl of Guilford, and was born in 1732. Having completed his education at Oxford, and traveled extensively on the Continent, he became a member of Parliament in 1754, and in 1759 was brought into office by Lord Chatham as a Commissioner of the Treasury. This office he continued to hold during Lord Bute's administration, and at the close of it was made head of the board by Mr. Grenville, who could always rely on him as a determined advocate of American taxation. He was thrown out of office in 1766, when Lord Rockingham came into power; but the next year was made Paymaster of the Forces by Lord Chatham, in his third administration, so graphically described in this speech. In 1767 he became Chancellor of the Exchequer under the Duke of Grafton, and when the latter resigned in 1770, took his place as First Lord of the Treasury and prime minister. The King felt greatly indebted to Lord North for thus saving him the necessity of going back to the Whigs under Lord Chatham and Lord Rockingham; and Lord North, on his part, yielded implicitly to the King's wishes, and carried on the war long after he was convinced that the contest was hopeless. At the end of twelve years he was defeated on this subject in the House of Commons, and, although urged by the King to persevere, he resigned his office on the 19th of March, 1782. Within a year from this time he formed his coalition with Mr. Fox, and came again into power as joint Secretary of State with his old opponent. They were dismissed, however, within less than nine months, and from this time Lord North held no responsible office under government.

As leader of the House of Commons, he showed much more talent than his early opponents, especially Junius, supposed him to possess. He never rose into high eloquence, but he succeeded admirably in managing the House. He had extraordinary tact, perfect self-command, and inflexible courage. To these was added a great fund of wit, which he used with much effect in allaying the violence of debate, when rendered almost savage, as it was at times, by the impetuous attacks of Mr. Fox and his other opponents. Often, when assailed with the bitterest invectives threatened with impeachment, or held out as a fit object of popular violence, he would rise at the close of a debate and turn the laugh on his opponents by his good-humored pleasantry while he

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