favour and partiality, but of wisdom and judgment. This is the spirit of our constitution. The people too have their prerogative, and I hope, the fine words of Dryden will be engraven on our hearts:

Freedom is the English subject's Prerogative.

(The North Briton, ed. Wilkes, Churchill and others, Lond., 1772. No. 45.)

CHAPTER XXVIII

AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE

202. The Question of Taxation

Grenville

The American Colonies, in their opposition to taxation without representation, gave much opportunity for parliamentary eloquence. The resulting speeches so well epitomise the contending opinions of the statesmen of England upon the current question, that four of them have been selected to place before the reader the views held by the English nation at large. The first of these speeches was delivered by Mr. George Grenville, who had recently been Premier. Only a brief extract has been given, but that contains the main argument of those who favoured taxation.

I cannot understand the difference between external and internal taxes. They are the same in effect, and differ only in name. That this kingdom has the sovereign, the supreme legislative power over America is granted; it cannot be denied; and taxation is a part of that sovereign power. It is one branch of the legislation. It is, it has been, exercised over those who are not, who were never represented. It is exercised over the India Company, the merchants of London, the proprietors of the stocks, and over many great manufacturing towns. It was exercised over the county palatine of Chester and the bishopric of Durham, before they sent any representatives to Parliament. I appeal for proof to the preambles of the Acts which gave them representatives: one in the reign of Henry VIII, the other in that of Charles II. When I proposed to tax America, I asked the House if any gentleman would object to the right; I repeatedly asked it, and no man would attempt to deny it. Protection and obedience are reciprocal. Great Britain protects America; America is bound to yield obedience. If not, tell me when the Americans were emancipated? When they want the protection of this kingdom they are always very ready to ask for it. That protection has always been afforded them in the most

full and ample manner. The nation has run herself into an immense debt to give them their protection; and now, when they are called upon to contribute a small share toward the public expense an expense arising from themselves - they renounce your authority, insult your officers, and break out I might almost say into open rebellion. The seditious spirit of the colonies owes its birth to the factions in this House. Gentlemen are careless of the consequences of what they say, provided it answers the purposes of opposition. We were told we trod on tender ground. We were bid to expect disobedience. What is this but telling the Americans to stand out against the law, to encourage their obstinacy with the expectation of support from hence? "Let us only hold out a little," they would say; "our friends will soon be in power." Ungrateful people of America! Bounties have been extended to them. When I had the honour of serving the Crown, while you yourselves were loaded with an enormous debt you gave bounties on their lumber, on their iron, their hemp, and many other articles. You have relaxed in their favour the Act of Navigation, that palladium of the British commerce; and yet I have been abused in all the public papers as an enemy to the trade of America. I have been particularly charged with giving orders and instructions to prevent the Spanish trade, and thereby stopping the channel by which alone North America used to be supplied with cash for remittances to this country. I defy any man to produce any such orders or instructions. I discouraged no trade but what was illicit, what was prohibited by an Act of Parliament. I desire a West India merchant, well known in the city, a gentleman of character, may be examined. He will tell you that I offered to do everything in my power to advance the trade of America. I was above giving an answer to anonymous calumnies; but in this place it becomes one to wipe off the aspersion.

(British Orations, ed. C. K. Adams, N. Y., 1897. I, 106.)

203. The Policy of Conciliation

Chatham

Lord Chatham was a consistent upholder of the rights of the American Colonies in their contention with Parliament. No one saw more clearly than he the possible consequences of persistence in oppression, and in his most famous speech on the subject, from which we have quoted a portion, he well sets forth the grievances of the Americans.

The gentleman asks, when were the colonies emancipated?

I desire to know, when were they made slaves? But I dwell not upon words. When I had the honour of serving his Majesty, I availed myself of the means of information which I derived from my office. I speak, therefore, from knowledge. My materials were good. I was at pains to collect, to digest, to consider them; and I will be bold to affirm that the profits to Great Britain from the trade of the colonies, through all its branches, is two millions a year. This is the fund that carried you triumphantly through the last war. The estates that were rented at two thousand pounds a year, threescore years ago,are at three thousand at present. Those estates sold then from fifteen to eighteen years' purchase; the same may now be sold for thirty. You owe this to America. This is the price America pays you for her protection. And shall a miserable financier come with a boast that he can bring "a pepper-corn" into the exchequer by the loss of millions to the nation? I dare not say how much higher these profits may be augmented. Omitting the immense increase of people, by natural population, in the northern colonies, and the emigration from every part of Europe, I am convinced on other grounds that the commercial system of America may be altered to advantage. You have prohibited where you ought to have encouraged. You have encouraged where you ought to have prohibited. Improper restraints have been laid on the continent in favour of the islands. You have but two nations to trade with in America. Would you had twenty! Let acts of Parliament in consequence of treaties remain; but let not an English minister become a custom-house officer for Spain, or for any foreign power. Much is wrong! Much may be amended for the general good of the whole...

A great deal has been said without doors of the power, of the strength of America. It is a topic that ought to be cautiously meddled with. In a good cause, on a 'sound bottom, the force of this country can crush America to atoms. I know the valour of your troops. I know the skill of your officers. There is not a company of foot that has served in America, out of which you may not pick a man of sufficient knowledge and experience to make a governor of a colony there. But on this ground, on the Stamp Act, which so many here will think a crying injustice, I am one who will lift up my hands against it.

In such a cause, your success would be hazardous. America, if she fell, would. fall like the strong man; she

would embrace the pillars of the State, and pull down the Constitution along with her. Is this your boasted peace — not to sheathe the sword in its scabbard, but to sheathe it in the bowels of your countrymen? Will you quarrel with yourselves, now the whole house of Bourbon is united against you while France disturbs your fisheries in Newfoundland, embarrasses your slave trade to Africa, and withholds from your subjects in Canada their property stipulated by treaty: while the ransom for the Manillas is denied by Spain, and its gallant conqueror basely traduced into a mean plunderer; a gentleman whose noble and generous spirit would do honour to the proudest grandee of the country? The Americans have not acted in all things with prudence and temper; they have been wronged; they have been driven to madness by injustice. Will you punish them for the madness you have occasioned? Rather let prudence and temper come first from this side. I will undertake for America that she will follow the example. There are two lines in a ballad of Prior's, of a man's behaviour to his wife, so applicable to you and your colonies that I cannot help repeating them:

"Be to her faults a little blind;

Be to her virtues very kind."

Upon the whole, I will beg leave to tell the House what is my opinion. It is, that the Stamp Act be repealed absolutely, totally, and immediately. That the reason for the repeal be assigned, namely, because it was founded on an erroneous principle. At the same time, let the sovereign authority of this country over the colonies be asserted in as strong terms as can be devised, and be made to extend to every point of legislation whatsoever; that we may bind their trade, confine their manufactures, and exercise every power whatsoever, except that of taking their money out of their pockets without their consent.

(British Orations, ed. cit., I, 113.)

204. The Right to Tax

Mansfield

In the speech from which the following selections have been made, Lord Mansfield delivered a most able argument upon the purely legal aspect of the question of taxing the colonies. The speech was declared by one of his opponents to be absolutely uncontrovertible as an argument on the law of the question at issue.

There can be no doubt, my Lords, but that the inhabitants