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 authorized 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.

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 our colonies in 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 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 interests. The idea of taxing them never entered our heads. 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. 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 in the preceding war, they alone enabled us to make the treaty of Aix-laChapelle, 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 whole kingdom of Ireland.

In order to observe the strictest impartiality, it is but just for us to inquire 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 expenses are deducted which the natives would else have discharged themselves, the net revenue paid into the treasury

TRUE AND FALSE DIGNITY.

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to go in aid of the sinking fund, or to be employed in whatever public services parliament shall think fit, is eighty-five pounds. Eighty-five 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 wisdom and economy. 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 most alarming circumstances are 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 you could 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 I think you must necessarily perceive that it can not 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 more oppression. And to own the truth, my lords, we are not honest enough to trust ourselves with the power of shifting our own burdens 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 tranquillity 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.

Ex. XXI.-TRUE AND FALSE DIGNITY.

Speech in Parliament, April 19th, 1774.

EDMUND BURKE.'

THEY tell you, sir, that your dignity is tied to it. I know not how it happens, but this dignity of yours is a terrible in

* No name in English Parliamentary history shines with a purer lustre than that of Edmund Burke. His splendid intellect, great acquirements, and brilliant powers of oratory, were all enlisted on the side of the American colonists; while his exemplary private life, his disinterestedness, uprightness and

cumbrance to you; for it has of late been ever at war with your interest, your equity, and every idea of your policy. Show the thing you contend for to be reason; show it to be common sense; show it to be the means of attaining some useful end; and then I am content to allow it what dignity you please. But what dignity is derived from the perseverance in absurdity, is more than ever I could discern. The honorable gentleman has said well-indeed in most of his general observations I agree with him-he says that this subject does not stand as it did formerly. Oh, certainly not! every hour you continue on this ill-chosen ground, your difficulties thicken on you; and therefore my conclusion is, remove from a bad position as quickly as you can. The disgrace and the necessity of yielding, both of them, grow upon you every hour of your delay.

Let us, sir, embrace some system or other before we end the 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 murder, rob; if you kill, take possession; and do not appear in the character of madmen, as well as assassins, violent, vindictive, bloody, without an object. But may better counsels guide you!

Again I say it, revert to your old principles-seek peace and ensue it leave America, if she has taxable matter in her, to tax herself. Be content to bind her 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. 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, 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 packhorses of ev

nobleness of character make him a champion which any cause may be proud to own. His speeches are masterpieces of English composition which can not be too carefully studied by any one aspiring to excellence in oratory. But no oratory, though resting on a solid foundation of truth and justice, could restrain the madness of the British Government; and one year from the day when Burke uttered the thrilling speech of which this extract forms a part, the first blood of the Revolution was spilled on the field of Lexington !

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ery tax you choose to impose upon them, 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 will feel that this is slavery-that it is legal slavery, will be no compensation either to his feelings or to his understanding.

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 further-I will say no more.

Ex. XXII.-GREAT BRITAIN'S RIGHT TO TAX AMERICA.

Speech in Parliament, April 19th, 1774.

EDMUND BURKE,

BUT, Mr. Speaker, we have a right to tax America! Oh, inestimable right! Oh! wonderful, transcendent right, the assertion of which has cost this country thirteen provinces, six islands, one hundred thousand lives, and seventy millions of money! Oh, invaluable right! for the sake of which we have sacrificed our rank among nations, our importance abroad, and our happiness at home! Oh, right! more dear to us than our existence, which has already cost us so much, and which seems likely to cost us our all! Infatuated minister! miserable and undone country! not to know that the claim of right, without the power of enforcing it, is nugatory 'and idle. We have a right to tax America, the noble lord tells us; therefore we ought to tax America. This is the profound logic which comprises the whole chain of his reasoning.

Not inferior to this was the wisdom of him who resolved to shear the wolf. What! shear a wolf! Have you considered the resistance, the difficulty, the danger of the attempt?

No, says the madman, I have considered nothing but the right. Man has a right of dominion over the beasts of the forest; and therefore I will shear the wolf. How wonderful that a nation could be thus deluded! But the noble lord deals in cheats and delusions. They are the daily traffic of his invention; and he will continue to play off his cheats on this House, so long as he thinks them necessary to his purpose, and so long as he has money enough at command to bribe gentlemen to pretend that they believe him. But a black and bitter day of reckoning will surely come; and whenever that day does come, I trust I shall be able, by a parliamentary impeachment, to bring upon the heads of the authors of our calamities, the punishment they deserve.

Ex. XXIII.—ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF GREAT BRITAIN,

SEPT. 1774.

BY DELEGATES FROM THE AMERICAN CONGRESS.

FRIENDS and Fellow Subjects: When a nation, led to greatness by the hand of liberty, and possessed of all the glory that heroism, munificence and humanity can bestow, descends to the ungrateful task of forging chains for her children, and instead of giving support to freedom, turns advocate for slavery and oppression, there is reason to suspect she has either ceased to be virtuous, or been extremely negligent in the appointment of her rulers.

In almost every age, in repeated conflicts, in long and bloody wars, as well civil as foreign, against many and powerful nations, against the open assaults of enemies, and the more dangerous treachery of friends, have the inhabitants of your island, your great and glorious ancestors, maintained their independence, and transmitted the rights of men and the blessings of liberty, to you their posterity.

Be not surprised, therefore, that we, who are descended from the same common ancestors; that we, whose forefathers participated in all the rights, the liberties, and the constitution you so justly boast of, and who have carefully conveyed the same fair inheritance to us, guaranteed by the plighted faith of government and the most solemn compacts with British sovereigns, should refuse to surrender them to men who found their claims on no principles of reason, and who