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 CANADA. 
 
 EMANCIPATE 
 
 YOUR 
 
 COLONIES! 
 
 AN UNPUBLISHED ARGUMENT, 
 
 BY 
 
 C' i!^^ 
 
 JEREMY BENTHAM. 
 
 ^ 
 
 ') 
 
 
 -:\f^^':- V. LONDON:^ "' ^ '^ 
 
 EFFINGHAM WILSON, ROYAL EXCHANGE. 
 
 1838. 
 
 ^^.^^ 
 
 One Shilling. 
 
■iVi 
 
 li 
 
 
 \ 
 
 " The expectation of a rupture with the Colonies has struck the people 
 of Great Britain with more terror than they ever felt for a Spanish Armada, 
 or a French invasion. Under tile present system of management Great 
 Britain derives nothing but loss from the dominion which she assumes over her 
 Colonics."— SMITH. Wealth of Nations, chap. vii. Colonial Policy, 
 A.D. 1776. ^ r y, 
 
 " That England has benefited immensely by the loss of her North American 
 Colonies, is a fact no one has attempted to deny. Yet she spent the incredible 
 sum of £75,000,000 in attempting to retain possession ; a monstrous error in 
 policy indeed ; for she might have enjoyed the same benefits, that is to say, 
 emancipated her Colonies, without expending a sixpence ; besides saving a 
 profusion of blood, and gaining credit for generosity, in the eyes of Europe 
 and posterity."— SAY. Political Economij, chap. xix. Of Colonies and 
 their Products, M.D. 1820, Paris. 
 
 " Colonies are the offspring of Monopoly. They add nothing to the wealth, 
 and nothing- to the strength of an empire. They are WAR-BREEDERS !"— 
 DR. THOMAS COOPER. Elements of Political Economy, chap. xii. 
 On Colonies. Columbia, U.S. 1829. 
 
 " The state of the Trade with CANADA may be referred to in proof of 
 what has now been stated. It employs a large number of ships and seamen : 
 and seems to a superficial observer' highly valuable. In truth and reality, 
 however, it is very much the reverse. Two-thirds and more of the trade 
 with CANADA Is forced and factitious; originating in the oppressive dis- 
 criminating duty of forty shillings a load imposed on timber from the north of 
 Europe, over and above what is imposed on that brought from a British Settle- 
 ment in North America. This obliges us to resort to CANADA, whence we im- 
 port an inferior article at a higher price ! The disadvantages of this impolitic 
 system are numerous and glaring."— MACULLOCH. Statistical Account 
 of the British Empire, 1837, chap. iii. Colonies and Dependencies. 
 
 marchant, printer, ingram-court. 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 To the Ri^lit Honorable Lord Viscount Melbourne, 
 First Lord of the Treasury, &c. &c. 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 I dedicate to your Lordship's instruction the 
 following admirable argument of Bentham — " Emancipate 
 your Colonies" — at a critical moment of your Lordship's 
 personal reputation and political power. Canada may be 
 the grave of your Lordship's Cabinet, if this second War by 
 Great Britain to perpetuate Colonial dependence and mis- 
 governrnent is unwisely prosecuted. 
 
 Start not, my Lord, at the boldness of the advice : it is the 
 sage counsel of the most profound writer on Political Science, 
 enforced by the most enlightened Economists of Europe and 
 America. 
 
 Revolutionized France, in 1789, conferred on Bentham 
 the honorary distinction of Citizenship. In January 1790, 
 the new Citizen acknowledged the compliment paid to his 
 political character, not by any fulsome panegyric on the 
 French Revolution, but by the following Address to the Con- 
 vention, demonstrating the vital truths of his precept, — 
 " Emancipate your Colonies." M. Talleyrand (then 
 a zealous Republican) can inform your Lordship, that this 
 Address was mortifying to the pride and military spirit of 
 France, at war with her West-India Colonies^ and was there- 
 fore suppressed. St. Domingo was lost, and profitably lost 
 to the French Nation. The Negro even burst asunder the 
 fetters imposed upon him by the Galilean Whites, and with 
 fearful indignation announced his independence; declaring 
 that the natives of Africa were a species of the human race, 
 not different from nor inferior in body or mind to the White 
 
IV 
 
 inhabitants of Europe. *' I am a man," eloquently writes 
 the Black Legislator of Hayti, Dr-: Vastey, emancipated and 
 self-governed. " I feel it in the whole of my beinj^. I 
 possess the faculties, mental and corporeal, which mark my 
 affinity to a Divine ori<^inal, and I feel humbled at finding 
 myself compelled to enter into a serious refutation of such 
 puerilities, such idle sophisms, to convince men like myself 
 that I am their fellow. My soul, indignant at this excess of 
 irrationality and falsehood, compels me, in my turn, to doubt 
 the claims of those to the appellation of men, who can dare 
 to enter upon the discussion of a question no less impious and 
 immoral than absurd."* 
 
 Did France suffer by the emancipation of her sable-coloured 
 colonists, except in the loss of blood and treasure sacrificed 
 in an unsuccessful contest? M. Say, the most celebrated of 
 French Economists, in drawing the parallel with the English 
 Colonies of North America, will answer the question. — 
 
 " That England has benefited immensely by the loss of her North American 
 colonies, is a fact no one has attempted to deny. Yet she spent the incredible 
 sum of 1,800,000, 000 yV. in attempting to retain possession; a monstrous 
 error in policy indeed ; for she might have enjoyed the same benefits, that is 
 to say, have emancipated her colonies, without expending a sixpence ; besides 
 saving a profusion of gallant blood, and gaining credit for generosity in the 
 eyes of Europe and of posterity. 
 
 " The blunders committed by the ministers of George III. during the whole 
 course of the first American war, in which, indeed, they were unhappily 
 abetted, by the corruption of the parliament and the pride of the nation, were 
 imitated by Napoleon, in his attempt to reduce the revolted negroes of St. 
 Domingo. Nothing but its distance and maritime position prevented that 
 scheme from proving equally disastrous with the war of Spain. Yet, compara- 
 tively, the independence of that fine island might have been made equally pro- 
 ductive of commercial benefit to France, as that of America had been to Eng- 
 land. It is high time to drop our absurd lamentations for the loss of our colo- 
 nies, considered as a source of national prosperity. For, in the first place, 
 France now enjoys a greater degree of prosperity, than while she retained her 
 colonies ; witness the increase of her population. Before the revolution, her 
 revenues could maintain but twenty-five millions of people : they now support 
 thirty millions, (1819). In the second place, the first principles of political 
 economy will teach us, that the loss of colonies by no means implies a loss of 
 the trade with them. Wherewith did France before buy the colonial products ? 
 with her own domestic products to be sure. Has she not since continued to 
 buy them in the same way, though sometimes of a neutral, or even an 
 enemy?" 
 
 * Reflections on Blacks and Whites, by De Vastey, in answer to the 
 Ex-Colonist Mazeres against Sismondi. 
 
Your Lordyhip may further advaiitaofoously consider M. 
 Say's general reflections on Colonial Policy, and on the 
 dangers to which every minister is exposed in its guidance. — 
 
 " The anc'ionta, by their system of colonization, made tlioniselvos friends 
 all over tlie known world ; tlie moderns have souolit to make .subjects, and 
 therefore have made enemies. Governors, deputed by the mother-country, 
 feel not the slightest interest in the diffusion of happiness and real wealth 
 amongst a people, with whom they do not propose to spend their lives, to sink 
 into privacy and retirement, or to conciliate popularity. They know their con- 
 sideration in the mother-country will depend upon the fortune they return 
 with, not upon their behaviour in otflce. Add to this the larf^-e discretionary 
 power, that must unavoidably be vested in the deputed rulers of distant posses- 
 sions, and there will be every ingredient towards the composition of a truly 
 detestable f;-overnment. 
 
 '* It is to bo feared, that men in power, like the rest of mankind, are too little 
 disposed to moderation, too slow in their intellectual progress, embarrassed as 
 it is at every step by the unceasing manoeuvres of innumerable retainers, civil, 
 military, financial, and commercial, all impelled, by interested motives, to pre- 
 sent things in false colours, and involve the simplest questions in obscurity, to 
 allow any reasonable hope of accelerating" the downfall of a system, which for 
 the last three or four hundred years must have wonderfully abridged the ines- 
 timable benefits, that mankind at large, in all the five great divisions of the 
 globe, have, or ought to have derived from the rapid piogress of discovery, and 
 the prodigious impulse given to human industry since the commencement of 
 the sixteenth century. The silent advances of intelligence, and the irresistible 
 tide of human affairs will alone 60*601 its subversion."* 
 
 Adam S.mitii, in his Wealth of Nations, an authority, as 
 professor of Logic and Mornl P'lilosophy in the University of 
 Glasgow, not underrated by your Lordship, has clearly ex- 
 pounded the principles, an adherence to which would quickly 
 dispel your Lordship's Canadian embarrassments. In the 
 chapter on Colonial Policy, published in 177G, in the me- 
 morable year of the Declaration of Independence by the 
 United States, Adam Smith thus endeavoured to awaken 
 his generation to the fictitiousness of the value set upon 
 Colonial dominion. — 
 
 " The monopoly of the colony trade besides, by forcing towards it a much 
 greater proportion of the capital of Great Britain than what would naturally 
 have gone to it, seems to have broken altogether that natural balance which 
 would otherwise have taken place among all the different branches of British 
 industry. The industry of Great Britain, instead of being accommodated to 
 a great number of small markets, has been principally suited to one great 
 market. Her commerce, instead of running in a .;; rnt number of small chan- 
 nels, has been taught to run principally in one great channel. But the whole 
 system of her industry and commerce has thereby been rendered less secure ; 
 
 * Say, Traitc d'Economie Politique, torn. i. 
 
VI 
 
 tlio whole slate of her hody politic less healthful than it otherwise would have 
 been. In hor present condition, Great Britain resembles one of those un- 
 wholesome bodies in which some of the vital parts are overgrown, and which, 
 upon that account, are liable to many dangerous disorders scarce incident to 
 those in which all the parts are more properly proportioned. A small step in 
 that great blood-vessel, which has been artilicially swelled beyond its natural 
 dimensions, and through which an unnatural proportion of the industry and 
 commerce of the country has been forced to circulate, is very likely to bring 
 on the most dangerous disorders upon the whole body politic. The expecta- 
 tion of a rupture with the colonies, accordingly, has struck the people of 
 Great Britain with more terror than they ever felt for a Spanish armada, or a 
 French invasion. It was this terror, whether well or ill grounded, which ren- 
 dered the repeal of the stamp-act, among the merchants at least, a popular 
 measure. In the total exclusion from the colony market, was it to last only 
 for a few years, the greater part of our merchants used to fancy that they 
 foresaw an entire stop to their trade ; the greater part of our master manufac- 
 turers, the entire ruin of tlieir business ; and the greater part of our workmen, 
 an end of their employment." 
 
 " The monopoly of the colony trade, therefore, like all the other mean and 
 malignant expedients of the mercantile system, depresses the industry of all 
 other countries, but chiefly that of the colonies, without in the least increasing, 
 but OD the contrary diminishing, that of the country in whose favour it ia 
 established."* 
 
 After treating of the evils of colonial possessions, Adam 
 Smt II candidly admits the difficulties of a parent government 
 in conceding emancipation in the face of the prejudices which 
 then gave support to sinister interests, but hesitates not to 
 shew the peace, the profit, and the honour to the whole 
 nation to be obtained by such a course, were those prejudices 
 dispelled, as now happily they are. — 
 
 " Under the present system of management, therefore. Great Britain de- 
 rives nothing but loss from the dominion which she assumes over her colonies. 
 
 " To propose that Great Britain should voluntarily give up all authority 
 over her colonies, and leave them to elect their own magistrates, to enact their 
 own laws, and to make peace and war as they might think proper, would be 
 to propose such a measure as never was, and never will be adopted, by any 
 nation in the world. No nation ever voluntarily gave up the dominion of any 
 province, how troublesome soever it might be to govern it, and how small 
 soever the revenue which it afforded might be in proportion to the expense 
 which it occasioned. Such sacrifices, though they might frequently be agree- 
 able to the interest, are always mortifying to the pride of every nation ; and, 
 what is perhaps of still greater consequence, they are always contrary to the 
 private interest of the governing part of it, who would thereby be deprived of 
 the disposal of many places of trust and profit, of many opportunities of acqui- 
 ring wealth and distinction, which the possession of the most turbulent, and, 
 to the great body of the people, the most unprofitable province seldom fails to 
 afford. The most visionary enthusiast would scarce be capable of proposing 
 
 * Smith, Wealth of Nations, M'Culloch's ed. vol. iii. c. 7, p. 26. 27. 36. 
 
VII 
 
 such a meftsure, with any serious hojxirt at lenst of its over being adopted. If 
 it was adopted, however, Cheat Britain would not only be iinmediattly freed 
 from the whole annual expense of the peace establishment of the colonies, hut 
 might settle with them such a treaty of commerce as would cft'ectually secure 
 to her a free trade, more advantageous to the great body of the pcoploj though 
 less so to the merchants, than the monopoly which she at ])reHent enjoys, liy 
 thus parting good friends, the natural affection of the colomes to the mother- 
 country, which, perhaps, our late dissensions have well nigh extinguished, 
 would quickly revive. It might dispose them not only to respect, for whole 
 centuries together, that treaty of commerce which they liad concluded with us 
 at parting, but to favour us in war as well as in trade, and, instead of turbulent 
 and factious subjects, to become our most faithful, aff(!Ctionate, and generous 
 allies ; and the same sort of parental affection on the one side, and filial respect 
 on the other, might revive between Great Britain and her colonies, which used 
 to subsist between those of ancient Greece and the mother city from which 
 they descended."* 
 
 Your Lordship was educated under the personal tutorage of 
 Professor Mi llar ; and in the halls of the Glasgow University 
 imbibed the principles of civil liberty and political science 
 from the public lectures of the most eminent men in Scot- 
 land. Your Lordship is also conversant with the works of the 
 eminent class of writers created by the intellectual labours of 
 Smith and Millar. Consider, then, the question of Canada 
 only in reference to British trade. Mr. M'Cullocii, in his 
 valuable Statistical Account of the British Empire, exposes the 
 comparative value of our commercial intercourse with the 
 Baltic and the Canadas. — 
 
 " A country which founds a colony on the liberal principle of allowing it to 
 trade freely Avith all the world, necessarily possesses considerable advantages 
 in its markets from identity of language, religion, customs, &c. These are 
 natural and legitimate sources of preference of which it cannot be deprived ; 
 and these, combined with equal or greater cheapness of the products suitable 
 for the colonial markets, will give its merchants the complete command of 
 them. But all attempts at forcing a trade with colonies are sure to be perni- 
 cious alike to the mother country and the colony ; and make that intercourse 
 a source of poverty and ill-will, which, if let alone, would be a source of 
 reciprocal advantage. 
 
 " The state of the trade with Canada may be referred to in proof of what 
 has now been stated. It employs a large number of ships and seamen ; and 
 seems, to a superficial observer, highly valuable. In truth and reality, how- 
 ever, it is very much the reverse. Two thirds, and more, of the trade with 
 Canada is forced and factitious ; originating in the oppressive discriminating 
 duty of 40s. a load imposed on timber from the north of Europe, over and 
 above what is imposed on that brought from a British settlement in North 
 America. This obliges us to resort to Canada, whence we import an inferior 
 
 * Idem. p. 45-7. 
 
VIII 
 
 iirticio nt a nnicli lii<j,hcr price. Tho (lisiulvuiitiiG;o9 of tlii.s impolitic system 
 art! immcroiis ami f^lurinj;'. To u Hmiuifiictiiiing ('(nmfiy, Imving u ji,r«»u 
 niorciintilo and warlike naWi timber is an iyirlispcnsnh/e ntic.casary ; and yet, 
 instead of supplyinp^ ourselves with it wlioro it may he found best and clieapest, 
 we load the superior and cheaper article with an exorbitant duty, and thus 
 do the most wo can to make our houses and ships he built, and our machinery 
 constructed, of what is inferior and dear ! JUit tlic njiscliief does not stop 
 h(!rc. 15y rcfusin<? to import tho timber of tho North of Europe, wo propor- 
 tionally limit tho power of the llussians, Prussians, Swedes, and Norwegians, 
 to buy our manufactured goods; while, by forcinjj tiie importation of timber 
 from Canada, wo withdraw the attention of its inhabitants from tho most 
 proiltablo employment they cnn carry on ; that is, from the cultivation of the 
 soil, and make them waste their energies in comparatively disadvantageous 
 pursuits ! Such, cither in a less or a greater degree, is the uniform result of 
 all attempts to interfere witli the natural order of things, and to force a trade 
 — whether with a colony or a foreign country, matters not — that would not 
 otherwise bo carried on."* 
 
 A member of your Lordsliip's government, Sir lii.;NRY 
 Parnell, in his practical work on FhuDicial Reforniy when 
 out of office, will bear testimony to the price paid by this 
 <rreatest of commercial nations for the extraordinary privilege 
 of resorting to the worst market.— 
 
 " With respect to Canada (including our other possessions on the continent 
 of North America) no case can be made out to show that we should not have 
 every commercial advantage we are supposed now to have, if it were made 
 an independent state. Neither our manufactures, foreign commerce, nor 
 shipping, would be injured by such a measure. On the other hand, what has 
 the nation lost by Canada ? Fifty or sixty millions have already been 
 expended : the annual charge on the British treasury is full £600,000 a 
 year ; and we learn from the Second Report of the Committee of Finance, 
 that a plan of fortifying Canada has been for two or three years in progress, 
 which is to cost £3,000,000 !" 
 
 I could multiply authorities, home and foreign ; I could 
 cite Turcot, Franklin, Talleyrand, Storch, Char- 
 Dozo, Dr. Thomas Cooper, Malthus, Brougham, Hus- 
 KissoN, Baring, Ricardo, Torrens, Senior, (even 
 Mrs. Marcet or Miss Martineau might awaken Lord 
 Glenelg to a recollection of the elements of colonial policy); 
 but I will close these quotations by the conclusive demon- 
 stration by James Mill of the real use and purpose of 
 Colo lial Possessions, — to produce or prolong bad government. 
 
 ** If colonies are so little calculated to yield any advantage to the countries 
 that hold them, a very important question suggests itself. What is the reason 
 
 * Statistical Account of the British Empire, ed. 1837, vol. i. p. ''95. 
 
IX 
 
 
 mt. 
 
 tlmt nntions, \\w nntioii!* of nioilcrn l"".iiro[«', at least, diirovor so j;n':it iiii 
 nft'octioii for them ( In thi^4 aH'fctiou »o be whollij asciibcil to mistaken views 
 of tlieir utility, or partly to other causes ? 
 
 ** It n(!.cr oujjfht to be foiffottoii, that, in every country, there is * a Few,* 
 and there is ' a .\lany; ' that in all c.mntries in which the p;ov((rnnient is not 
 very good, the interest of * tin; I'ew' prevails over the interest of ' the iMany," 
 and is promoted at their expense. ' The I'ew' is the part that ffoverns; ' the 
 Many' the part that is pfoverned. It is according- to tlu* interest of ' the I'Y'w' 
 that colonies should be cultivated. This, if it is true, accounts for the attach- 
 ment to colonies, which most of the countries, that is, of the goven.nients of 
 modern I'Ujrope, have displayed. In what way it is true, a short explanation 
 will Hufhciently disclose?. 
 
 ■' Sancho Panza had a scheme for deriving advantafro from the government 
 of an island. He would sell the people for slaves, and put the money in his 
 pocket. ' The Few,' in some countries, find in (vdonies a thing which is very 
 dear to them; they find, the one part of them, the precious matter with 
 which to influence; the other, the precious matter with which to he influ- 
 enced ;— the one, the precious matter with which to make political depen- 
 dents; the other, the precious matter with which they are made political de- 
 pendents;— the one, the precious matter by which they augment their power; 
 the other, the precious matter by which they augnient »heir riches. Both 
 portions of the ' ruling' Few,' therefore, find Mieir account in the possession of 
 colonies. There is not one of the colonies but what ar.gmcnts the number of 
 places. There are governorships and judgeships, and a long train of ct cetcnis; 
 and above all, there is not one of them but what retpiires an additional number 
 of troops, and an additional portion of navy. In every additional portion of 
 army and navy, beside the glory of the thing, there are generalships, and 
 colonclships, and captainships, and lieutcnantships, and in the equipping and 
 supplying of additional portions of army and navy, there are always gains, 
 which may be thrown in the way of a friend. All this is enough to account 
 for a very considerable (juantity of affection maintained towards colonies. 
 
 " But beside all this, there is another thing of still greater importance ; a 
 thing, indeed, to which, in whatever point of viev/ we regard it, hardly any 
 thing else can be esteemed of equal importance. The colonies are a grand 
 source of wars. Now wars, even in countries completely arbitrary and despo- 
 tical, have so many things agreeable to the ruling few, that the ruling few 
 hardly ever seem to be happy, except when engaged in them. There is 
 nothing to which history bears so invariable a testimony as this. Nothing is 
 more remarkable than the frivolous causes which almost always suffice for 
 going to war, even when there is little or no prospect of gaining, often when 
 there is the greatest prospect of losing by it, and that even in their own 
 sense of losing. But if the motives for being as much as possible in war are 
 so very strong", even to governments which are already perfectly despotic, they 
 are much stronger in the case of governments which are not yet perfectly 
 despotic, of governments of which the power is still, in any considerable 
 degree, limited and restrained. 
 
 •' There is nothing in the world, where a government is, in any degree, 
 limited and restrained, so useful for getting rid of all limit and restraint as 
 wars. The power of almost all governments is greater during war than during 
 peace. But :n ti.e case of limited governments, it is so in a very remarkable 
 degree. 
 
 " In the first place, there is the physical force of the army, and the terror 
 
 13 
 
and awe which it impresses upon the minds of men. In the next place, there 
 is the splendour and parade, which captivate and subdue the imagination, and 
 make men contented, one would almost say happy, to be slaves. All this 
 surely is not of small importance. Then there is an additional power with 
 which the gf 'ernment is entrusted during war. And, far above ail, when the 
 government is limited by the will of only a certain portion of the people ; as 
 it is, under the British government, by the will of those who supply with 
 members the two Houses of Parliament ; war affords the greatest portion of 
 the precious matter with which that will may be guided and secured. Nothing 
 augments so much the quantity f / that portion of the national wealth which 
 is placed at the command of the government as war. Of course, nothing puts 
 it in the power of government to create so great a number of dependents, so 
 great a number of persons, bound by their hopes and fears to do and say 
 whatever it wishes them to do and say. 
 
 *' Of the proposition, that colonies are a grand source of wars, and of 
 additional expanse in wars ; that expense, by which the ruling few always 
 profit at the cost of the subject many; it is not probable that much of proof 
 will be required. 
 
 " With regard to additional expense, it can hardly appear to be less than 
 self-evident. Whenever a war breaks out, additional troops and an additional 
 portion of navy are always required for the protection of the colonies. Even 
 during peace, the colonies afford the pretext for a large portion of the peace 
 establishment, as it is called ; that is, a mass of warlike apparatus and expense, 
 which would be burdensome even in a season of war. How much the cost 
 amounts to of a small a<]ditional portion, not to speak of a large additional 
 portion, of army and navy, Englishmen have had experience to instruct them; 
 and how great the mischief which is done by every particle of unnecessary 
 expense, they are daily becoming more and more capable of seeing and un- 
 derstanding. 
 
 " That the colonies multiply exceedingly the causes and pretexts of war 
 is matter of history ; and might have been foreseen, before reaping the fruits 
 of a bitter experience. Whatever brings you in contact with a greater number 
 of states, increases, in the same proportion, those clashings of interest and 
 pride, out of which the pretexts for war are frequently created. It would 
 exhibit a result which probably would surprise a good many readers, if any 
 body would examine all the wars which have afflicted this country, from the 
 time when she first began to have colonies, and would show how very great a 
 proportion of them have grown out of colony disputes." * 
 
 I will not lon<jer detain your Lordship from a consideration 
 of the principles which are now heaving the social structure 
 of Canada from its basis, and which are so unanswerably 
 elucidated in the comprehensive argument of Bentuam, by 
 any discussion of the superficial " question" of Canada, as 
 the mere point upon which these principles are brought to 
 issue, is called, — whether the grievances now alleged by the 
 Canadians are or are not well-to!) ided, — whether the causes 
 
 Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 
 
^1^ 
 
 XI 
 
 of complaint do or do not justify the Colonists in their 
 struggle for national independence, — whether your Lord- 
 ship's government can or cannot succeed in coercing 
 Canada again to political submission. The Public Press 
 of Great Britain and Ireland, now penetrating every 
 crevice of society, will amply discuss these secondary 
 subjects. In the commencement of the American War the 
 whole country and the entire press supported the British 
 ministry. A reaction however speedily followed the national 
 fanaticism. And do not, my Lord, be misled by sinister or 
 subservient writers. The Daily Press of London, of any or 
 even every party, cannot long impose on the public mind 
 even captivating errors. Provincial Journals and cheap pub- 
 lications are instructors who have broken down the monopoly 
 and who share the influence of the self-styled National Press. 
 The last Sunday of the old year brought forth seven metropo- 
 litan weekly newspapers which dispersed in one day upwards of 
 one hundred thousand stamped copies of articles on Canada, — 
 all more or less exciting the sympathy of the People in favour 
 of the Colonists, and representing our colonial brethren as 
 " more sinned against than sinning."* This is not the age, 
 my Lord, to confine your observation exclusively to the votes 
 of the House of Commons or to the opinions of a defective 
 Electoral Body. Woe betide that British Statesmen, who, 
 in 1838, and ol such a question, blindly closes his eyes to 
 real Public Opinion. 
 
 Public Opinion, my Lord, when imminent affliction 
 challenges its judgment, will now penetrate the surface, and 
 both perceive and declare that no Colony is or can be well 
 governed, and that no Colonists are without real grievances. 
 A succession of Governors of a Colony, and of Commis- 
 sioners of Inquiry — alternately changed by parti/, and gene- 
 rally selected from aristocratic " conne.vion' — never can con- 
 sistently or wisely govern a far distant colony. As strangers 
 they will be always miserably ignorant of the character, 
 interests, habits, and manners of the governed ; and, thus 
 uninformed, they must be necessarily subject to the influence 
 of local caballists or the action of prejudiced colonial func- 
 lionaries. First-class public men of the mother country will 
 
 • 30th December, 1837. The Spectator, Examiner, Weekly True Sun, 
 Weekly Chronicle, Guide, London Dispatch, and Planet. 
 
Xll 
 
 seldom accept colonial appointments ; honest public men are 
 rarely ottered ^governorships. Is it possible for elective local 
 Legislative Assemblies to co-exist advantageously M^ith Su- 
 preme Councils self-elect or nominated in Downing-Street, 
 Westminster? Is your Lordship's " Colonial Department" 
 constructed so as to direct with unerring wisdom the political 
 administration of our vast Colonies — distant communities, 
 numbering ten times the population of the parent country, — 
 differing in climate, origin, language, religion, civil institu- 
 tions, and forms of local government! Can your present 
 Colonial Secretary of State, and two English Barristers pro- 
 moted to secretaryships, guide or assist your Lordship in the 
 present crisis of Canada? Your memor?ih\c Resolutions, trans- 
 mitted to Canada without means to enforce obedience, were 
 to satisfy and tranquillise the lower province. Burke said, 
 in his celebrated speech on conciliation with America, — 
 " Sir, to speak the plain truth, I have in general no very 
 exalted opinion of the virtue of paper government." Vour 
 Lordship, however, may yet follow the eloquent counsel of 
 Burke, on that occasion, — " Lay the Jirst stone of the 
 Temple of Peace ! " 
 
 My Lord, it would be grossly unjust to place to your 
 Lordship's account the " dead weight" of Colonies strangling 
 this country. It is not the creation of your Lordship's 
 Administration, but one of the precious legacies left us 
 by Toryism. Your Lordship is now, however, responsible 
 for the colonial administration of the existing system ; and 
 the Canadas, with two millions of human beings, are now 
 partially dependant on your personal decision, — for War 
 or for Peace. Your own countrymen have given you credit, 
 whatever your past political conduct or present views, for 
 sagacity to discern the " spirit of the age," and for moral 
 courage to conform to it. Will you, on this question, 
 sustain or irrevocably lose that character which alone upholds 
 you as a Statesman and Prime Minister? 
 
 On the 16th of January Parliament re-assembles. You 
 will then have to elect you'' course, which, once taken, 
 cannot be altered by your Lordship, however succeeding 
 Premiers may endeavour to retrace your Lordship's steps. 
 
 You may transport troops and munitions of war to the 
 Canadas ; you may spill torrents of human blood ; you may 
 succeed in partially arraying Upper Canada against the 
 
XIll 
 
 
 the 
 
 Lower Province; you may temporarily put down "insur- 
 rection " and •' revolt ;" but the ultimate consequences of 
 such vain and miserable policy will be Emancipation. 
 The blow is struck. The final result of the civil contest is 
 merely a question of time. Canada will be henceforth (as 
 was prophesied by Dean Tucker of our former Transatlantic 
 States) a charged cannon, ready for instant explosion when 
 the match should be applied. We taught the Pensylvanians 
 the use of arms in militias embodied against the Indians. The 
 Lower Canadians were instructed in the use of arms when they 
 were arrayed by Great Britain in the last war aga "nst the United 
 States. If your Lordship enrols the volunteers of Upper Ca- 
 nada against the Lower Province, will they be hereafter more 
 governable than at present, or the less liable to disaffection? 
 If you " put down " the insurrection to-day, will you sup- 
 press a second revolt to-morrow ? Will not the flame of 
 independence only smoulder for a time, and burst out with 
 redoubled fury ? Will not revenge and a rapidly-increasing 
 population eventually overcome the Mother Country? Your 
 temporary success, my Lord, will ensure only ultimate failure. 
 Combine, then, an enlightened and pronounced remedial 
 policy with every security for the rights and property of 
 British settlers. Call to mind the American War, and the 
 false influences which ruinously misled the North Admini- 
 stration. " The sanguine people of this country would do 
 well, though the retrospect cannot be pleasing, sometimes 
 to turn back their thoughts upon this unhappy contest, — 
 to recollect that measures, triumphantly voted wise and just, 
 and vigorous, proved -only wasteful folly, — that a spirit of 
 arrogant domination, and heedless indifference to the rights 
 of others, lost the wing of an empire, — that there may be 
 abounding loyalty, with very deficient prudence ; — and that 
 counsel called factious, because opposed to the wishes of the 
 Court, may, when misfortune shall have silenced both 
 sycophancy and prejudice, come to be acknowledged as the 
 oracles of wisdom."* Close your eyes and ears to the sinister 
 misrepresentations of" City merchants" and interested political 
 advisers. Lord Brougham, in a work which does honour to 
 his early years, sensibly pourtrays the two interests, — that of a 
 body of merchants, favoured by the aristocracy, and that of 
 
 • Edinburgh Review, vol. xiii. p. 153. Life of Washington. 
 
XIV 
 
 << 
 
 (i 
 
 <( 
 
 (( 
 
 il 
 
 <( 
 
 dn enlightened, unbiassed, and tax-paying public, — which are 
 still d'ametrically opposed on Colonial Policy : — " While the 
 ** Mercantile theory favoured the establishment of colonies 
 " by every possible means, and viewed them as a certain 
 " mine of wealth ; that of the Economists considered them 
 " as a drain to the resources, and a diversion to the force of 
 the mother country. Statesmen of the former school (as 
 almost all statesmen have been) encouraged them, as the 
 scene of rich and secure monopoly. The converts of the 
 latter doctrine (whose influence on public affairs has un- 
 fortunately been very slender) disapproved both of the 
 Colonies and of the colonial monopoly."* 
 The majority of the London merchants, my Lord, will hark 
 you on to war as they urged Lord North to conflict with the 
 Colonies in 1765. Bristol, one of the chief e?itre-p6ts of North 
 American commerce, in 1766 sent an energetic representation 
 to Parliament from her principal merchants and inhabitants that 
 the city would be infallibly ruined by the acknowledgement of 
 American independence. Separation, however, became a matter 
 of necessity ; and ten years had not elapsed when the Bristol 
 merchants petitioned Parliament for leave to enlarge and 
 deepen their port, which, instead of being deserted, as they 
 had apprehended, was incapable of receiving the influx of 
 additional shipping poured into its docks by the commerce 
 of the Americans. Liverpool has since numbered two hundred 
 thousand inhabitants created by American trade. 
 
 It is now haughtily said in regard to Canada, " What ! give 
 up the river St. Lawrence?" My Lord, it was demanded of 
 Lord North, — •' Will you then abandon to rebels the rivers 
 Delawere, Susquehannah, and Mississipi?" Have those great 
 feeders of the Atlantic Ocean subsequently proved less pro- 
 ductive sources of wealth to Great Britain? Lord Chatham 
 once declared in Parliament, " that the British Colonists had no 
 RIGHT to manufacture even a nail for a horse-shoe.'' More 
 nails, however, are now exported from Staffordshire to the 
 United States in one year than England then manufactured in 
 the same period. Lord Chatham afterwards implored the 
 Parliament to concede independence to the States, in the 
 memorable counsel — " Rectitude is dignity, oppression 
 
 • 
 
 * An Inquiry into the Colonial Policy of the European Powers, by Henry 
 Brougham, Esq. 1803, vol. i. p. 7. 
 
XV 
 
 ONLY IS MEANNESS, AND JUSTICE HONOUR." The general 
 cry in England in 1764 was, " The people of New-England 
 were a body of cowards, who would at once be humbled into 
 submission by a hostile look from our troops ; the appearance 
 of English troops would be sufficient, and all would be soon 
 over, sine glade."" Victory, however, declared for the new 
 Englanders. Thus your Lordship was told that " French 
 Canadians would not fight," when your despatches proclaimed 
 at the same moment that they fought " like tigers." 
 
 My Lord, you were warned in the preceding Session of the 
 certain effect of your memorable " Resolutions." You did 
 not listen to reason. Dr. Price records the temper of his 
 times, under similar circumstances ; a parallel to your present 
 situation : — 
 
 •• All who knew any thing of the temper of the Colonies saw that 
 the effect of all this sudden accumulation of vengeance, would probably 
 be not intimidating but exasperating them, and driving them into a general 
 revolt. But our ministers had different apprehensions. They believed 
 that the malecontents in the Colony of Massachusets were a small party, 
 headed by a few factious men ; that the majority of the people would take the 
 side of government, as soon as they saw a force among them capable of sup- 
 porting them ; that, at worst, the Colonies in general would never make a 
 common cause with this province ; and that, the issue would prove, in a few 
 months, order, tranquillity and submission. — Every one of these apprehen- 
 sions was falsified by the events that followed." * 
 
 The Ministerial Press tells us, that if the Canadians have 
 grievances, they have no cause for their declaration of inde- 
 pendence. It is now admitted that the United States in 1764 
 had such cause ; it was denied when they first cast off sub- 
 mission to Great Britain, and false motives were ascribed to 
 traitors :" Dr. Price wisely met the fallacy : — " I have 
 heard it said by a person in one of the first departments of 
 the state, that the present contest is for dominion on the 
 " side of the colonies, as well as on ours : and so it is 
 indeed ; but with this essential difference : we are strug- 
 gling for dominion over others ; tkey are struggling for 
 sELF-dominion — the noblest of all blessings.'' f 
 My Lord, I warn your Lordship that the War with 
 
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 u 
 
 i( 
 
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 (( 
 
 • Observations on Civil Liberty, &c. and the Justice and Policy of the 
 War with America, ed. 1766, pp. 91-92. 
 t Idem, p. 74. 
 
XVI 
 
 Canada may involve the fate of our entire Colonial 
 Systkm. Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, — 
 our colonial possessions in the East and the West Indies, — 
 may be revolutionized by its consequences. The democratic 
 spirit, engendered by this contest, will act and re-act 
 throughout Great Britain and our vast dependencies. And 
 bear in mind, my Lord, that in Canada, if the advice be not 
 now followed, yet necessity will, at no distant period, — it 
 may be through fields of blood and disgrace, — bring second 
 scorn upon a late obedience to Benthams great precept of 
 honour and of peace, — 
 
 " EMANCIPATE YOUR COLONIES !" 
 
 Philo-Bentham. 
 
 London, 1st Jan. 1838. 
 
 
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 EMANCIPATE YOUR COLONIES! 
 
 JEREMY B E N T H A M 
 
 TO THE 
 
 NATIONAL CONVENTION OF FRANCES 
 
 JANUARY 1793. 
 
 \i. 
 
 Your predecessors made me a French citizen : hear me speak like 
 one. War thickens round you : I will shew you a vast resource : — 
 Emancipate your Colonies. You start : Hear and you will be 
 reconciled. I say again, emancipate your Colonies. Justice, con- 
 sistency, policy, economy, honour, generosity, all demand it of you : 
 all this you shall see. Conquer, — you are still but running the race of 
 vulgar ambition : — £,:iancipate, — you strike out a new path to glory. 
 Conquer, it is by your armies : Emancipate, the conquest is your 
 own, and made over yourselves. To give freedom at the expense of 
 others, is but conquest in disguise : to rise superior to conquerors, the 
 sacrifice must be your own. — Reasons you will not find wanting, if 
 you will hear them ; some, more pressing than you might wish. What 
 is least pleasant among them, may pay you best for hearing it. Were 
 it ever so unpleasant, better hear it while it is yet time, than when it 
 is too late ; and from one friend, than from a host of enemies. If 
 you are kings, you will hear nothing but flattery ; if you are republi- 
 cans, you will bear rugged truths. 
 
 I begin with justice : it stands foremost in your thoughts. — And 
 are you yet to learn, that on this ground the question is already 
 judged? That you at least have judged it, and given judgment 
 against yourselves ? — You abhor tyranny : You abhor it in the lump 
 not less than in detail : You abhor the subjection of one nation to 
 another: You call it slavery. You gave sentence in the case of 
 Britain against her colonies : Have you so soon forgot that sentence ? 
 Have you so soon forgot the school m which you served your appren- 
 ticeship to freedom ? 
 
 You choose your own government : why are not other people to 
 choose theirs ? Do you seriously mean to govern the world ; and do 
 you call that liberty f What is become of the rights of men ? Are 
 you the only men who have rights ? Alas ! my fellow citizens, have 
 you two measures ? 
 
 * Written just before the departure of M. Talleyrand at the period of the Rupture 
 with Great Britain. A copy given to M. Talleyrand's Secretary, Gallois, who 
 talked of translating it. B. 
 
 c 
 
Oh ! hut they are hut a part of the empire, and a part must he 
 governed hj the whole. — Part of the empire, say you? Yes, in point 
 of fact, thoy certainly arc, or at least were. Yes : so was New- 
 York a |)art of the liritish empire, while the British army garrisoned 
 it : so were Longvvy and Verdun parts of the Prussian or the Austrian 
 (Mupire t'other day. That you have, or at least had possession of them 
 is out of dispute : the question is, whether yon now ought to have it? 
 
 Yes, yon have, or had it : but whence came it to you ? Whence, 
 but from the hand of despotism. Think how you have dealt by them. 
 One common Bastile inclosed them and you. You knock down the 
 jailor, you let yourselves out, you keep them in, and put yourselves 
 into his place. You destroy the criminal, and you reap the profit, 
 I mean always what seems to you profit, of the crime. 
 
 Oh, hut they lolll send deputies : and those deputies will govern vs, 
 as much as we yovern them. Illusion ! — What is that but doubling 
 the mischief instead of lessening it ? To give yourselves a pretence 
 for governing a million or two of strangers, you admit half a dozen. 
 To govern a million or two of people you don't care about, you admit 
 halt a dozen people who don't care about you. To govern a set of 
 people whose business you know nothing about, you encumber your- 
 selves with half a dozen starers who know nothing about your's. Is 
 this fraternity ? Is this liberty and equality ? Open domination would 
 be a less grievance. Were I an American, I had rather not be repre- 
 sented at all, than represented thus. If tyranny must come, let it 
 come without a mask. Oh, hut information — True, it must be had ; 
 but to give information, must a man possess a vote ? 
 
 Frenchmen, how would you like a Parliament of ours to govern 
 you, you sending six members to it ? London is not a third part so 
 far from Paris, as London from the Orkneys, or Paris from Per- 
 pignan. You start : — think then, what may be the feelings of the 
 colonists. Are they Frenchmen ? — they will feel like Frenchmen ? 
 Are they not Frenchmen ? — then where is your right to govern them ? 
 
 Is equality what you want ? I will tell you how to make it. As 
 often as France sends commissaries with fleets and armies to ":overn 
 
 O J 
 
 the colonies, let the colonies send commissaries with equal fleets and 
 armies to govern France. 
 
 What are a thousand such pleas to the purpose ? Let us leave 
 imagination, and consult feelings. Is it for their advantage to be 
 governed by you rather than by themselves ? Is it for your advantage 
 to govern them, rather than leave them to themselves ? 
 
 Is it then for their advantage to be governed by a people who never 
 know, nor ever can know either their inclinations or their wants ? 
 What is it you ever can know about them ? The wishes they enter- 
 tain ? — the wants they labour under? No such thing: but the 
 wishes they entertained, the wants they laboured under two months 
 ago : wishes that may have changed, and for the best reasons : wants 
 that may have been relieved, or become unrelievable. — Do they apply 
 to you for justice? Truth is unattainable for want of evidence : You 
 get not a tenth part perhaps of the witnesses you ought to have, and 
 

 those perliaps only on one side. — Do they ask suo(!onrs of* you ? 
 You put yourselves to inuncnse c\|)cns(' : You tit out an arnmuieut, 
 and when it arrives, it finds nothing; to be done ; tlu; party to whom 
 you send it are either con(jiier()n:i or conquered. — Do they want sub- 
 sistence ? Before your supply reaches thetn, they are starved. No 
 ne<;ligence could put them in a situation so helpless, as that in which, 
 so lontjj as they contiime dependent on you, the nature of things has 
 fixed them, in spite of all your solicitude. 
 
 Solicitude did I say .' How can they expect any such thinjj; ? 
 What care you, or what can you care about them t What do you 
 know about them ? What picture can you so much as form to your- 
 selves of the couiitry ? What conception can you frame to yourselves 
 of manners and modes of life so different from your own ? When 
 will you ever see them? When will they ever see you ? If they 
 suffer, will their cries ever wound your ears ? Will their wretchedness 
 ever meet your eyes ? What time have you to think about them ? 
 Pressed by so many important objects that are at your door, how 
 uninteresting- will be the tale that comes from St. Domingo or Mar- 
 tinique? ' 
 
 What is it you want to goveun thkm for? What? hut 
 
 TO MONOPOLIZE AND CKAMP THEIR TRADE. WhAT IS IT THEY 
 CAN WANT YOU TO GOVERN THEM FOR? — DEFENCE? — THEIR 
 ONLY DANGER IS FROM YOU. 
 
 Do they like to be governed by you ? ask them and you will know. 
 Yet why ask them, as if you did not know ? They may be better 
 pleased to be governed by you than by any body else ; but is it pos- 
 sible they should not be still better ]ileased to be governed by them- 
 selves ? — A minority among them might choose rather to be governed 
 by you than by their antagonists, the majority: but is it for you to 
 protect miuorities ? — A majority, which did not feel itself so strong 
 as it could wish, might wish to borrow a little strength of you : — but for 
 the loan of a moment, would you exact a perpetual annuity of servitude I 
 
 Oh, hut they are aristocrats — Are they so? — then 1 am sure you 
 have no right to govern them • then 1 am sure it is not their interest 
 to be governed by you ; then I am sure it is not your interest to 
 govern them. Are they aristocrats I they hate you. Are they aristo- 
 crats ? you hate them. For what would you wish to govern a people 
 who hate you ? Will they hate you the less for governing them ? 
 Are a people the happier for being governed by those they hate ? If 
 so, send for the Duke of Brunswick, and seat him on your throne. 
 For what can you wish to govern a people whom you hate I Is it for 
 the pleasure of making them miserable? Is not this copying the 
 Fredericks and the Francis's ? Is not this being aristocrats, and 
 aristocrats with a vengeance ? 
 
 But why deal in suppositions and put cases ? Two colonies, Mar- 
 tinique and Guadaloupe, have already pronounced the separation. Has 
 that satisfied you ? I am afraid lacher it has irritated you. They 
 have shaken off the yoke ; and you have decreed an armament to 
 fasten it on again. You are playing over again our old game. Demo- 
 
I ' 1 
 
 [ 
 
 i n 
 
 orats in Europe, you are aristocrats in America. What is this to end 
 in f If you will not be good citizens and good Frenchmen, be good 
 neighbours and good allies : — when you have conquered Martinique 
 and Guadaloupe, conquer the United States, and give them back to 
 Britain. 
 
 Oh, but the Capets will get hold of them?— ^o much the better. 
 Why not let the Capets go to America ? Europe would then be rid 
 of them. Are they bad neighbours ? rejoice that they are at a 
 distance. Why should not the Capets even reign, since there are 
 those that choose to be governed by them. Why should not even the 
 Capets reign, while it is in another hemisphere ? — Such aristocrats as 
 you do not kill, you yourselves talk of transporting. What do you 
 mean to make of them when transported? — Slaves? If you nmst 
 have slaves, keep them rather at home, where they will be more 
 outnumbered by freemen, and kept in better order. If you mean 
 they should be transported without being enslaved, why not let them 
 transport themselves ? 
 
 Does your delicacy forbid your communicating with the degraded 
 despots ? You need not communicate with them : your connuuni- 
 cation is with the people. You take the people as you find them : 
 you give them to themselves : and if afterwards they choose to give 
 themselves to any body else, it is their doing, you neither need, nor 
 ought to have any concern in it. 
 
 Oht hut the good citizens ! what will become of the good citizens? — 
 What will become of them ? — their fate depends upon yourselves. 
 Give up your dominion, you may save them; tight for it, 
 YOU destroy them. Secure, if you can do it without force, a fair 
 emission of the wishes of all the citizens : if what you call the good 
 citizens are the majority, they will govern : if a minority, they neither 
 will nor ought to govern, but you may give them safety if you please. 
 This you may do for them at any rate : whether those in whose hands 
 you find them submit to collect the sense of the majority or refuse it. 
 Conclude not, that if you cease to maintain tyranny, 
 YOU have no power to insure justice. Think not, that 
 those who resist oppression, must be deaf to kindness. 
 Set the example of justice, you who if you preferred destruction might 
 use force, set the example of justice ; the most perverse will be ashamed 
 not to follow it. How different are the same words from a tyrant and 
 from a benefactor ! Abhorrence and suspicion poison them in the one 
 case : love and confidence sweeten them in the other. 
 
 Would you see your justice shine with unrivalled lustre? Call in 
 commissaries from some other nation, and add them to your own. 
 Do this, do it of your own accord, it will be certain you can mean 
 nothing but justice. The cool and unbiassed sentiments of these 
 strangers will be a guide to the judgment, and a check upon the 
 affections, of your own delegates. They will be pledges and evidence, 
 to you and to the world, of the probity of their colleagues. Think 
 not that I mean to propose to you to crouch to the insolence of armed 
 mediation, or to adopt the abominations of the guaranteeing system : 
 
 
 you 
 
T^ 
 
 nor 
 
 think not that I am for acting over again the tragedies of Poland, 
 Holland, or (jcnova. The business to be settled is — not constitution 
 but adniinist'ation : not perpetual law but tcniponiry arrangenuuit. 
 The mediators come only because you bid them, sind they come 
 unarmed. 
 
 Thus you may save the good citizens : for you may save every body. 
 Keep to the ])lan of domination, you save nobody. The first victims 
 are the very ])ersons you are so solicitous to save : so at least it is in 
 two great islands : for then; they are already overpowered. Then comes 
 your armament, with doid)le destruction at its heels : if it is repulsed, 
 you are disa])pointed and disgraced ; if it conquers, then come behead- 
 ings and confiscations. Sucn are tiik two plans. Which 
 
 THHN DO YOU CHOOSE? UNIVERSAL SAFETY, OK RECIPROCAL 
 DESTRUCTION? AhHORRENCE, OR ADMIRATION? TllE CURSES 
 OF YOUR ERIENDS, OR THE BENEDICTIONS Oi" YOUR ENEMIES? 
 
 But suppose the Colonists unanimous, and unanimous in your 
 favour, ought you even then to keep them ? By no means : they are a 
 million or two : you are five or six-and-twenty millions. Think not that 
 because I mentioned them first, it is for their sake in the first ])laee that 
 I wish to see them free. No : it is the mischief you do yourselves by 
 maintaining this unnatural domination ; it is the mischief to the six- 
 and-twenty millions, that occupies a much higher place in my thoughts. 
 
 What if colonies, as they are called, are worth nothing to you ? 
 What if they are worth less than nothing ? — If you prefer injustice, 
 (pardon me the supposition) are you so fond of it, as to commit it to 
 your own loss ? 
 
 What then should they be worth to you, but by yielding a surplus 
 of revenue, beyond what is necessary for their own maintenance and 
 defence ? Do you, can you, get any such surplus from them ? If 
 you do, you plunder them, and violate your own principles. But 
 you neither do, nor ever have done, nor intend to do, nor ever can 
 do any such thing. 
 
 The expense of the peace establishment, you may know : and I 
 much question whether any revenue you can draw from them, can so 
 much as equal that expense. But the expense of defence in time 
 of war, you do not know, nor ever can know. It is no less than the 
 expense of a navy, capable of overawing that of Britain. 
 
 Ohj hut the produce of our colonies is worth so many millions 
 a-year : it has been, and, when quiet is restored, will be again: all this, 
 if we were to give vp our colonies, we should lose. — Illusion! — The 
 income of your colonies your income ? Just as much as that of 
 Britain is your income. Have colonists then no properties ? If they 
 are theirs, how are they yours ? Are they theirs and yours at the 
 same time ? — Impossible. — If out of a hundred millions, they spend 
 or lay up a hundred millions, pray how much is there left for you ? 
 Can you take a penny of that income more than they choose to give 
 you ? or would you if you could ? — We have no such pretension, 
 unless it be over conquered colonies, in our land of what you call 
 imperfect liberty. 
 
 I ! 
 
FTT 
 
 If I 
 
 f; 
 
 (J/i, but of tills income of theirs, a (/rmt part cfittri's here: It 
 comes to />in/ our f/oods : it co/istl tufts n i/rcat part of our trtnlc : — //// 
 this (it lidtit we should, lose. Another illusion — Must y*'" '^;>)V(Mii a 
 people in order to sell yotir i^uods to llieiii ! Is tlien^ that peopU; 
 upon earth who do not buy t;()ods of you? Yon sell uoods to iiritiiin, 
 don't you .' And do y(jn jvovtun lintain .' When ii colonist sends 
 you sui^ar, does he <;ive it yon for nothinin' ! Does not he make you 
 ^ive him value tor it .' — Give value lor it then, and yon will hav(; it 
 still. When ho is his ov.ii master, will the sui;ar he cannot use, be 
 less a burthen to him than it is now? Will ho be less in want of 
 whatever it is he now buys with sui;ar I What you now s(dl to him, 
 sup|)ose you were to sell it to him no longer, would you be the 
 poorer? Is there nobody else that would buy it.' Is it worth 
 nothing? — What is it to you to whom you sell your{j;oods? When 
 do you know before hand w hetber it is John or Thonjas that will buy, 
 or that will consume yom- !j,oods .'' and if yon did, what would you be 
 the better ? — Are you then really afraid of not finding any thing- to 
 produce that shall find purchasers ? Is it that what you can find to 
 sell is worth nothing, and what you want to buy worth every thing ? 
 If sucli be your danger, what is your colonist's ? What you want of 
 him is luxury, what he wants of you is existence. Sup])ose lie gets 
 the article, whatever it be, corn or any thing ; su|)pose he gets it for 
 the moment from some other shop instead of yours. Is there a grain 
 the more corn in the world to sell in consequence of this change of 
 his, or a single mouth the less that wants corn and has money or 
 money's worth to give for it ? By buying at that other shop, does not 
 he empty that shop of so mucli corn, which some otiier customer, 
 who would otherwise have got it at that shop, must now directly or 
 indirectly get of you ? 
 
 I will tell you a great and important, though too much neglected 
 truth. Thade is the child of caimtal; In proportion to the 
 quantity of capital a country has at its disposal, will, in every 
 country, be the quantity of its trade. While you have no more 
 capital employed in trade than you iiave, all the power on earth 
 cannot give you more trade : while you have the capital you have, all 
 the power upon earth cannot prevent your having the trade you have. 
 It may take one shape or another shape ; it may give you more 
 foreign goods to consume, or more home goods ; it may give you 
 more of one sort of goods; or more of another ; but the quantity and 
 value of the goods of all sorts it gives you, will always be the same, 
 without any diti'erence which it is possible to ascertain or worth while 
 to think about. — I am a merchant, I have a capital of £10,000 in 
 trade : Suppose the whole Spanish West Indies laid open to me, 
 could I carry on more trade with my £10,000 thai I do now ? Sup- 
 pose the French West Indies shut against me ; woald my £10,000 be 
 worth nothing ? If every foreign market were shut up against me 
 without exception, even then would my £10,000 be worth nothing ? 
 If there were no sugar to be bought, there is at any rate land to be 
 improved. If a hundred pounds worth of sugar be more valuable 
 
 
 than 
 
 J 
 
tlinji a hundred pounds worth of corn, hutchrr'rt nient, wi' i> n' «.il, 
 still com, butclu'i's meat, wine and oil an; not ahsoliit-ly \v;'.l.')Mt 
 tlu'ir value. II" article ulUa' aitii'le, you wero driven out of every 
 articl(! of y<>"»" li>i'ei|;n trade, the \v»)rst that eotdd happen to yt»u 
 would ho the l)ein>^ reduced to lay out so nnich more than otherwise 
 you would have laid out in the improvement of your land. The sujt- 
 position is inia«^inary and impossible : hut if it wciri; true, is there any 
 thin<j: in it so h.orrihle f 
 
 Yes — it is (/iKintlfi/ of rtipitiil, not extent of iiutrhct, that detcirmines 
 the (juantity of trade. Open a new market, you do not, unl{>ss hy 
 aeciuent, increase tin; sum of tra«'( . Shut up an old market, you do 
 not, unless l)y accident, or for the moment, dinunish the sum of 
 trad(!. In what ease tlum is thci sum of trade increased by a new 
 market I If the rate of clear profit upon the capital employed in the 
 new trade is greater than it would have been in any old one, and not 
 otherwise. But the existence of this extra profit is always taken for 
 granted, never |)roved. It may indeed be; true; by accident; but ano- 
 ther thiii<;' is taken for granted which is never true : it is, that the 
 ■whole of the profit made upon the caj)ital, which, instead of being 
 employed in some old trade is employed in this new one, is so much 
 addition to the sum of national profit that would otherwise have been 
 made : what is only transferred is considered as creuted. If after 
 making 12 ()er cent. nj)on a capital of €10,000 in an old trade, a nuui 
 made but 10 per cent, upon the same capital in a new trade, who docs 
 not sec, that instead of gaining f 1 !?00 a year, lie, and through him 
 the nation he belongs to, loses £200 by the change : and so it is, if 
 instead of one such merchant there were a hundred. Instead of this 
 £'200 a year loss, your comlfcs fie commerce and boards of trade set 
 down to the national account £1000 a year gain : especially if it be 
 to a very distant and little known jiart of the world, such as a southern 
 whale-fishery, a revolted Spanish colony, or a Nootka Sound : and it 
 is well if they do not set down the whole ca])ital of £10,000 as ga'a 
 into the bargain. 
 
 Oh, hut we give ourselves a monopoli/ of their produce, and so we 
 get it cheaper than we should otherwise, and so we mahe them pay us 
 for governing them. No^ you, indeed: not a penny: thr attempt is 
 iniquitous, and the profit an illusion. 
 
 The attempt, I say, is iniquitous : it is an aristocratical abomina- 
 tion : it is a cluster of aristocratical abominations : it is iniquitous 
 towards them ; but much more as among yourselves. 
 
 Abomination the 1st. Liberty, property, and equality violated on 
 the part of a large class of citizens (the colonists) by preventing them 
 from carrying their goods to the markets which it is supposed would 
 be most advantageous to them, and thence keeping from them so 
 much as it is supposed they would otherwise acquire. 
 
 Abomination 2d. One part of a nation, (the people of France), 
 taxed to raise money to maintain by force the restraints so imposed 
 upon another part of the nation, the colonists. 
 
 Abomination 3d. The poor, who after all are unable to buy sugar,— 
 
H» J.iHWpiu,,.-.. 
 
 IULII|W».«< 
 
 'WP!"» 
 
 IM; 
 
 H 
 
 the poor in France,— taxed in order to pay the rich for eating it. Ne- 
 cessaries abridged for tlie support of luxury. The burthen falls upon 
 the rich and poor in common : the benefit is shared exclusively by the 
 rich. 
 
 The injustice is not such in appearance only: as it would be, if 
 what is thus taken oi .neant to be taken from the colonists went to 
 make revenue : it would then be only a mode of taxation. In France 
 (it might then be said) people are taxed one way, in the colonies ano- 
 ther : the only question would then be about the eligibility of the 
 mode. But revenue is here out of the case: nothing goes to the 
 nation in common, every thing goes to individuals : if it is a tax, it is 
 a tax the produce of which is squandered away before collection ; it is 
 a tax the proa ace of which, instead of being gathered into the trea- 
 sury, is given away to sugar-eaters. 
 
 But even as to sugar-eaters the profit, I say, is an illusion. For 
 does the monopoly you give yourselves against the growers of sugar 
 so much as keep the price of sugar lower than it would be otherwise ? 
 — not a sixpence. Lower than the price at which the commoditv is 
 kept by the average rate of profit on trade in general, no monopoly 
 can reduce the price of this commodity any more than of any other, 
 for any length of time : you may keep your subjects from selling their 
 sugars elsewhere, but you cannot force them to raise it for you at a 
 loss. Lower than this natural price, no monopoly can ever keep it: 
 down to this price, natural competition cannot fail to reduce it, sooner 
 or later, without monopoly. Customers remaining as they were, with- 
 out increase of the numljer of traders there can be no reduction of 
 price. Monopoly, that is, exclusion of customers, has certainly no 
 tendency to produce increase of the number of traders : it may pinch 
 the profits of those whom it first falls upon, but that is not the way to 
 invite others. Monopoly accordingly, as far as it does any thing, 
 produces mischief without remedy. High prices, on the other hand, 
 the mischief against which monopoly is employed as a remedy, high 
 prices, produced by competition among customers, cannot in any 
 degree produce inconvenience, without laying a proportionate founda- 
 tion for the cure. From high profits in trade comes influx of traders, 
 from influx of traders competition among traders, from competition 
 among traders reduction of prices, till the rate ot profit in the trade in 
 question is brought down to the same level as in others. 
 
 Were it possible for monopoly to keep prices lower than they would 
 be otherwise, would it be possible for any body to tell how much 
 lower, and how many sixpences a year were saved to sugar-eaters by 
 so many millions imposed t pon the: people ? No, never : for since, 
 where the monopoly subsists against the producers, there is nothing 
 but the monopoly to prevent accession of, and competition among the 
 producers, competition runs along with the monopoly, and to prove 
 that any part of the effect is produced by the monopoly and not by the 
 competition, is impossible. 
 
 Oh, hut we have not done with them yet ? We give ourselves another 
 monopoly — we give ourselves the monopoly of their custom, and so we 
 
9 
 
 make them buy things dearer of vs than they would otherwise, besides 
 buying things of us ivhich otherwise they would buy of other people, 
 and so we make them pay us for governiv(j them. Mere illusion — In 
 the articles which you can make better and cheaper than foreigners 
 can, which you can furnish them with upon better terms than 
 foreigners can, not a penny do you get in consequence of the mono- 
 poly, more than you would without it. You prevent their buying 
 their goods of any body but your oA^n people: true: but what does 
 this signify? you do not force them to buy of any one or more of your 
 own people to the exclusion of the rest. Youii .;vvn people then 
 
 HAVE STILL THE FACULTY OF UNDERSELLING ONE ANOTHER 
 WITHOUT STINT, AND THEY HAVE THE SAME INDUCEMENT TO 
 EXEIinSE THAT FACULTY UNDER THE MONOPOLY AS THEY 
 
 WOULD HAVE WITHOUT IT. It >; Still the Competition that sets 
 the price. In this case as in the other, the monopoly is a chip in 
 porridge. It is still the proportion of the profit of these branches of 
 trade to the average rate of profit in trade that regulates this competi- 
 tion : it is still the quantity of the capital whicli there is to be em- 
 ployed in trade that regulates the average rate of profit in trade. 
 
 In the instance of such articles as you can not make better or 
 cheaper than foreigners can, in the instance of articles which you can 
 not furnish them with on better terms than foreigners can, it is still 
 the same illusion, though perhaps not quite so transparent. Not a 
 penny does the nation get (I mean the total number of individuals 
 concerned in productive industry of all kinds) not a penny does the 
 nation get by this preference of bad articles to good ones, more than 
 it would otherwise. In France, any more than any where else, people 
 do not get more by the goods they produce than if there were no such 
 monopoly: for if the rate of profit in the articles thus favoured were 
 higher one moment, competition would pull it down the next. All that 
 results from the monopoly you thus give yourselves of the custom of 
 your colonies is, that goods of all sorts are somewhat worse for the 
 money all over the world than they would be otherwise. People in 
 France are engaged to produce, for the consumption of the French 
 Colonies, goods in which they succeed not so well as England for 
 example, instead of producing for their own consumption, or that of 
 some other nation, goods in which they succeed better than England. 
 People in England, on the other hand, being so far kept from pro- 
 ducing the goods they could have succeeded best in, are in so far 
 turned aside to the production of goods in which they do not succeed 
 so well : and thus it is all the world over. The happiness of mankind 
 is not much impaired perhaps by the difference between wearing goods 
 of one pattern, and goods of another : but, though much is not lost 
 perhaps to any body by the arrangement, what is certain is, that no- 
 thing is gained by it to any body, and particularly to France. 
 
 Will you beheve experience ? Turn to the United States. Before 
 the separation, Britain had the monopoly of their trade : upon tlie 
 separation of course she lost it. How much less is their trade with 
 Britain now than then ? On the contrary, it is much greater. 
 
 D 
 
10 
 
 'i! 
 
 ) \ 
 
 
 ! 
 
 All this while, is not the monopoly against the colonists, clogged 
 with a counter-monDpoly ? To make amends to the colonists for their 
 being excluded from other markets, are not the people in France forbid- 
 den to take colony- produce from other colonies, though they could get 
 it ever so much cheaper I If so, would not the benefit to France, if 
 there were any, from the supposed gainful monopoly be outweighed 
 by the burthen of that which is acknowledged to be burthensome? 
 Yes — the benefit is imaginary, and it is clogged with a burthen which 
 is real. 
 
 Monopoly therefore and counter-monopoly taken together, sugar 
 must come the dearer to sugar-eaters, instead of cheaper : to a certain 
 degree for a constancy ; and nmch more occasionally, when the 
 dearness occasioned by a failure of crops in the French Colonies, is, 
 by the counter-monopoly against France, prevented from being re- 
 lieved by imports from other colonies, where crops have been more 
 favourable. 
 
 If monopoly favoured cheapness, which it does not, it would favour 
 it to the neglect of another object, steadiness of price, which is of 
 more importance. It is not a man's not having sugar to eat that 
 distresses him : Croesus, Apicius, Heliogabalus had no sugar to eat : 
 what distresses a man, is his not being able to get what he has been 
 used to, or not so much of it as he has been used to. The monopoly 
 against the French Colonies, were it to contribute ever so much to the 
 cheapness of the price, could contribute nothing to the steadiness of 
 it : on the contrary, in consequence of the counter-monopoly it is 
 clogged with, its tendency is to perpetuate the opposite inconvenience, 
 variation. Any monopoly which France gives herself against her 
 colonies, will not prevent any of those accidents in consequence of 
 which sugar is produced in lesr abundance in those colonies than in 
 others : and when it is scarce there, the monopoly against France will 
 prevent France from getting from other places where it is to be had 
 cheaper. 
 
 How much dearer is sugar in countries which have no colonies than 
 in those which have ? Let those inquire who think it worth the while. 
 They will then see the utmost which in any supposition it would be 
 possible for the body of sugar-eaters in France to lose. Not that this 
 loss could amount to any thing like the above difference : for, in as far 
 as those countries get their sugar from monopohzed Colonies, which 
 must be through the medium of some monopohzing country, the_) get 
 it loaded with the occasional dearth produced thus by the effects of 
 the counter nonopoly above mentioned, and loaded more or less with 
 constant import taxes, besides the expense of circuitous freight and 
 multiplied merchant's profit. 
 
 May not monopoly then force down prices ? Most certainly. Will 
 it not then keep them down ? By no means. If I have goods I can 
 make no use of, and there is but one man in the world that I can sell 
 them to, sooner than not sell them, though they cost me a hundred 
 pounds to make, I will sell them for sixpence. Thus monopoly will 
 beat down prices. — But shall I go on making them and selling them 
 
 
 
 
nsome I 
 11 which 
 
 IS, 
 
 ! 
 
 11 
 
 at that rate ? Not if I am in my senses. Thus monopoly will not 
 keep down prices. — Hence then comes all the error in favour of 
 monopolies— from not attending to the difference between forcing 
 down prices and keeping them down. 
 
 When an article is dear, it is by no means a matter of indifference, 
 whether it is made so by freedom or by force. Dearth which is natural, 
 is a misfortune : dearth which is created, is a grievance. Suffering 
 takes quite a different colour, when the sense of oppression is mixed 
 with it. Even if the effect of a monopoly is nothing, its inefficiency 
 as a remedy does not take away its malignity as a grievance. 
 
 What then do you get by the monopolizing system take it alto- 
 gether? You get the credit of this grievance : you get occasional 
 dearth : you get the loss you are at by the armaments you keep up 
 against smuggling : you get the expense of prosecution, and the 
 waste and misery attendant upon fine and confiscation. 
 
 Oh, hut the duties upon the Colony trade produce revenue to us. I 
 dare say they do, and what then I Must you govern a country in 
 Oivier to tax your trade with it I Is there that country that does not 
 produce revenue to you I You tax your trade with Britain, don't 
 you? and do you govern Britain J you tax British goods as high as 
 smuggling will permit : could you tax them higher if they came from 
 the Colonies i Would you if you could ? would you tux your own 
 subjects higher than you would strangers ? 
 
 1 will shew you how you may get revenue out of them : I will shew 
 you the way, and the only way in which, if you choose iniquity, you 
 may make it profitable. Tax none of their produce, tax none of 
 your imports from them ; of all such taxes every penny is paid by 
 yourselves. Tax your exports to them : tax all your exports to them : 
 tax them as high as smuggling will admit : of all such taxes every 
 penny is paid by them. 
 
 I will shew you how much more you could get in this way from 
 them than from foreigners. You could not, .. ust be confessed, get, 
 unless by accident, more per cent, on what they took from you, than 
 on what foreigners took from you : for smuggling, which limits the 
 rate per cent, you could thus levy upon foreigners, limits in like 
 manner the rate per cent, you could levy upon your vassals. Remote 
 countries like the colonies might indeed afford less facility for smug- 
 gling out of France than contiguous countries, and so the expense of 
 smuggling being the greater, the tax would admit of being set higher 
 without having the productiveness of it destroyed by smuggling: but 
 whatever latitude is thus given, is given you see not by alienship but 
 by distance. 
 
 You could not, I say, get more per cent, in this way from your 
 vassals, as such, than if they were foreigners ; but what you could 
 get from them, is that same rate of profit, with greater certainty as 
 to the extent of it. Foreigners might quit your market at any time : 
 and would quit it, if after the tax ihus levied upon them, they could 
 not get the goods they want, upon as good terms from you as else- 
 where. Your own vassals could not quit your market, except in as 
 
12 
 
 i, 
 
 •P 
 
 i 
 
 far ns smuggling would enable them, for by the supposition tliey have 
 no other. Upon foreigners the tax is an experiment, and what you 
 risk by the experiment is, the temporary distress to individuals pro- 
 portioned to the decrease, whatever it be, of that branch of trade : 
 for as to the absolute sum of trade, or to speak more distinctly, of 
 national wealth, it suffers nothing, as yo»i have seen, beyond the 
 amount of the relative and momentary decrease : so that the whole 
 produce of this tax is so much clear gain to the revenue, for which 
 nothing is paid or so much as risked, beyond the above-mentioned 
 momentary and contingent distress to individual traders. Upon your 
 own vassals there is nothing for experiment to ascertain : you have 
 them in a jail, and you set what price you please on their existence ; 
 only you must keep the door well locked, and if the jail be a large 
 one, this may be no such easy matter. In Guadaloupe, Martinique, 
 and St. Domingo, what coula the expense amount to t the prisoners 
 all refractory, and making holes and beating down doors and walls, 
 at every opportunity, with people on the outside to help them. — Let 
 those calculate who may think it worth their while. 
 
 In all this there are no figures — why { because nothing turns upon 
 figures. Figures might show what the incomes of your colonists 
 amount to ; and what the incomes of your colonists amount to is 
 nothing to you, for they are their incomes and not yours. — Figures 
 might shew the amount of your imports from your colonies ; and it 
 makes nothing to the question, for they do not sell it you without 
 being paid for it, and they would not be the less glad to be paid for it 
 for being free. — Figures might shew the produce of your taxes on 
 those imports ; and it makes nothing to the question, for you might 
 get it equally whether the producers of those articles were dependent 
 or independent, and it is your own people at home that pay it. 
 Figures might shew, what you sold in the way of exports to your 
 colonists in this and that shape : and it makes nothing to the ques- 
 tion ; for consumption not sale is the final use of production, and if 
 you did not sell it in that shape, you would sell it or consume it in 
 another. Figures might shew you the amount of the taxes you levy 
 on those exports: and nothing turns upon that amount; for if the 
 price of the article will bear the amount of the tax without the help 
 of such a monopoly as subjection only can ensure, you may get it 
 from them when independent as well as from other foreigners, and 
 if it will not, neither will they bear to see it raised so high, nor will 
 you bear to raise it so high, as to pay the expense of a marine capable 
 of blocking up all their ports, and defending so niu.iy vast and distant 
 countries against the rival powers, with the inhabitants on their side. 
 
 Oh, hut they are a great part of our power, — Say rather, the whole 
 of your weakness. In your own natural body you are impregnable : 
 in those unnatural excrescences you are vulnerable. Are you at- 
 tacked AT HOME? NOT A MAN CAN YOU EVER GET FROM 
 
 them: not a sixpence. Are they attacked? they draw 
 
 UPON YOU for fleets AND ARMIES. 
 
 If you were resolved to keep them, could you ? it may be worth 
 
 
13 
 
 your consideration. Is it not matter of some doubt, even now when 
 you have them to defend only against themselves : can there be a 
 moment's doubt, when tiie power of Britain is thrown into the scale ? 
 Five men of war, I think, or some such matter, you have ordered out 
 to defend them against one another. Ask your minister of the marine, 
 can he spare 50 more to defend them against their protectors ? Fifteen 
 thousand are bound for Martinique to fight aristocrats : ask your war- 
 minister whether Custine can spare 30,000 more of his best men to 
 fight Britons. 
 
 Do not feed yourselves with illusions. You cannot be every where : 
 you cannot do every thing. Your resources, great as they are, have 
 still their limits. The land is yours. But do ^ a think it possible for 
 you to keep it so, and the sea likewise? — the land against every body, 
 and at the same time the sea against Britain ? Look back a little. 
 Could Spain, Holland, and America together save you from the 10th 
 of April ? How will it be now ? America is neutral. Spain and Hol- 
 land are against you. Send as many ships as you can, England alone 
 can send double the number, and if that be not sufficient, treble. 
 
 Oh, hut times art changed. I dare believe it. — What superior 
 bravery can do will be done. But how little does that amount to on 
 such an element? Can bravery keep a ship from sinking ? With skill 
 any thing like equal, can any possible difference in point of bravery 
 make up for the difterence between two and one ? 
 
 Consider a httle : a ship is not a town, that you can bombard it 
 with orators, and decrees for the encouragement of desertion, and 
 declarations of the rights of men ; a ship is not a town, out of which 
 the lukewarm can slip away, or into which a few friends can give you 
 admittance. You are brave : but neither are English seamen remark- 
 ably deficient in point of bravery. If you have your lights, they have 
 their prejudices : they may find it not so easy as you may think to 
 comprehend the doctrine of forced liberty : they may prefer a made 
 constitution which gives tranquilhty, to an unmade one under which 
 security is yet to come : they may question the right of the thousands 
 who address you, to answer for the millions who are bid to abhor you : 
 they may prefer the George whom they know, to a Frost whom they 
 never heard of. 
 
 Hear a paradox, it is a true one. Give up your colonies, they are 
 yours : keep them, they are ours. This is what I most tremble at : 
 excuse me — I am an Englishman — it touches me the most nearly. 
 
 Oh, but the people of Bourdeaux. — Well — what of tbj people of 
 Bourdeaux ? Are the passions of one town to set at uoaght the inte- 
 rest of the whole nation ? Are justice, prjsperity, possibility to be 
 fought with for their sake ? — Think more honourably of their pa- 
 triotism. Address them, enlighten them, persuade them : and if you 
 find a difficulty in bridling that speck on your own continent, think 
 whether you will find it easier to master so many vast and distant 
 islands, with Britain on their side. 
 
 To YIELD TO JUSTICE IS WHAT MUST HAPPEN TO THE MIGH- 
 TIEST AND PROUDEST NATIONS. DlSGRACE OR HONOUR FOL- 
 
14 
 
 i: I 
 
 i 
 
 \ 
 
 LOWS, ACCORDING TO THE MODE. BillTAlN YIELDED TO AmH- 
 
 RicA r Britain yielded to Ireland. On which occasion 
 
 WAS HER DIGNITY BEST PRESERVED t 
 
 Sitting where you do, call it not couraye to drive on in the track of 
 war and violence. 
 
 There is nothing in such courage that is not compatible with the 
 basest cowardice. The passions you gratify are your own passions : 
 but the blood you shetl is the blood of your fellow-citi/ens. 
 
 Who can say what it costs you at present to guard colonies ? Who 
 can say what you might save by parting with them ? — I should be 
 afraid to say it— almost the whole of your marine? — What do you 
 keep a marine for but to guard colonies ? — Whom have you to fear 
 but the English ? — and why, but for your colonies l To defend your 
 trade, say you? — Do us justice, we are not pirates. We should not 
 meddle with your merchantmen, if you had not a single frigate : we 
 should not invade your coasts, if you had not a single fort. We have 
 ambition and injustice enough, but it does not shew itself in that shape. 
 Do we hurt the trade of Denmark, Sweden, Naples, any of the infe- 
 rior powers? — Never: except they carry your trade for you, when you 
 are at war with us for colonies. — What do I say ? If we ourselves have 
 a marine, it is not for trade, it is for colonies : it is because some of 
 us long to take your colonies, all of us fear your taking ours. 
 
 Is consistency worth preserving ? Is your boasted conquest-abjuring 
 decree, that decree which might indeed be boasted of if, it were kept ; 
 is that most beneficent of all laws to be any thing better than waste 
 paper? — I he letter, I fear, has been long broken: the spirit of it 
 may be yet restored, and restored with added lustre. Set free your 
 colonies, then every thing is as it should be. We incorporated Savoy 
 and Avignon, you may say, because it was their wish to join us : we 
 part with our distant brethren, because like us they choose to be governed 
 by themselves. — Mutual convenience sanctioned our compliance with the 
 wishes of our foreign neighbours : mutual inconvenience, the result of 
 unnatural conjunction, mutual inconvenience as soon "s it was under- 
 stood, made us follow and even anticipate the wishes of our distant 
 fellow -citizens. — Reduction of the exjioises of defence was the induce- 
 ment to our union with those whom we either bordered on or inclosed : 
 the same advantage, but in a much superior degree, rewards us for the 
 respect we show to the wishes and interests of the inhabitants of another 
 hemisphere. — To neutral powers we give much cause for satisfaction, 
 none for jealousy. Our acquirements are two small provinces : our 
 sacrifices are, besides continental settlements in every quarter of the 
 globe, a multitude of islands, the least of them capable of holding both 
 our acquisitions. — Were such your language, every thing would be ex- 
 plained, every thing set to rights. — While you take what suits you, 
 keeping what does not suit you, you aspire openly to universal domi- 
 nation : with fraternity on your lips, you declare war against mankind. 
 Shake off your splendid incumbrances, the sins of your youth are 
 atoned for, and your character for truth, probity, moderation, and 
 philanthropy built on everlasting ground. 
 
tmwmNS'u 
 
 Jf 
 
 15 
 
 In the event of a rupture with Spuin, you have designs, I think, in 
 favour of her colonics. With what view?— To keep them? Say so 
 boldly, and acknowledge yourselves worthy successors of Lewis XlV. 
 To give them independence ? Why not give it, then, where it is already 
 in your power to give it ? Will you put your constituents to an im- 
 mense expense for the chance of giving liberty, and refuse it where 
 you can give it for a certainty and for nothing ? — Compare the pictures 
 — liberty without bloodshed on the one hand, bloodshed with only a 
 chance for liberty on the other. Which is the best present ? Which 
 of the two is most congenial to your taste ? Is it the bloody one ? — 
 Go then to those colonists, go with liberty on your lips, and with 
 fetters in your hands, go and hear them make this answer, — French- 
 men, we believe you intend liberty for us strangers, when we have seen 
 you give it to your own brethren. 
 
 You who hold us so cheap ; who look down witli such con- 
 temptuous pity on our corruption, on our prejudices, on our imj)erfect 
 liberty; how long will you follow our example, and of all parts of it 
 those which are least defensible ? Is it a secret to you any more 
 than to ourselves, that ouu colonies cost us much, that 
 
 THEY YIELD US NOTHING — THAT OUR GOVERNMENT MAKES US 
 PAY THEM FOR SUFFERING IT TO GOVERN THEM — AND THAT ALL 
 THE USE OR PURPOSE OF THIS COMPACT IS TO MAKE PLACES, 
 AND WARS THAT BREED MORE PLACES? 
 
 You who look down with so much disdain on our corruption, on our 
 prejudices, on our imperfect liberty, how long will you submit to copy 
 
 A SYSTEM, JN WHICH CORRUPTION AND PREJUDICE ARE IN 
 LEAGUE TO DESTROY LIBERTY? — A COMPACT BETWEEN GOVERN- 
 MENT AND ITS COLONIES, OF WHICH THE MOTHER COUNTRY IS 
 THE SACRIFICE AND THE DUPE? 
 
 You have seen hitherto only what is essential — Collateral advantages 
 crowd in in numbers. Saving of the time of public men, simplification 
 of government, preservation of internal harmony, propagation of liberty 
 and good government over the earth. 
 
 You are chosen by the people : you mean to be so ; you are chosen 
 by the most numerous part, who nmst be the least learned of the 
 people. This quality, with all its advantages and disadvantages, you, 
 the children of the people, must expect more or less to partake of. 
 Inform yourselves as you can, labour as you will, reduce your business 
 as much as you will, you need not fear the finding it too light for 
 you. — What a mountain of arguments and calculations must you 
 have to struggle under, if you persevere in the system of colony- 
 holding with its monopolies and counter-monopolies ! What a cover 
 for tyranny and peculation ! — Give your commissaries insufficient 
 power, they are laughed at : give them sufficient, your servants 
 become dangerous to their masters. — All this plague you get rid of, by 
 the simple expedient of letting go those whom you have no right to 
 meddle with. Cleared of all this rubbish of mischievous and false 
 science, your laws will be free to put on their best ornament : then and 
 not till then you may see them simple as they ought to be, simple as 
 
"I 
 
 m 
 
 16 
 
 tboH;o who sent you, simple as yourselvt s. Yes, citizens : your time, 
 all the time you either have or can make, is the property of those who 
 know you and whom you know : you have none to bestow upon those 
 distant strangers. 
 
 Great diflerences of opinion, and those attended with no little 
 warmth, between the tolerators and proscribers of negro slavery: — 
 emancipation throws all these heart-burnings and difticulties out of 
 doors ; it is a middle term in which all parties may agree. Keep the 
 sugar islands, it is impossible for you to do right : — let go the negroes, 
 you have no sugar, and the reason for keeping these colonies is at end: 
 — keep the negroes, you trample upon the declaration of rights, and act 
 in the teeth of principle. — Scruples must have a term : how sugar is 
 raised is what you need not trouble yourselves about, so long as you 
 do not direct the raising it. Reform the world by example, you act 
 generously and wisely : reform the world by force, you might as well 
 reform the moon, and the design is fit only for lunatics. 
 
 The good you do will not be confined to yourselves. It will extend 
 to us : 1 do not mean to our ministry, who afiront you, but to the 
 nation, which you most wish to find your friend. — No, there is no end 
 to the good you may do to the world : there is no end to the power 
 that you may exercise over it. By emancipating your own colonies, 
 you may emancipate ours : by setting the example, you may open 
 our eyes and force us to follow it. By reducing your own marine 
 you may reduce our marine : by reducing our marine, you may reduce 
 our taxes : by reducing our taxes, you may reduce our places : by 
 reducing our places, you may reduce our corruptive influence. 
 
 By emancipating our colonies, you may thus purify our parliament : 
 you may purify our constitution. — You must not destroy it : excuse us, 
 we are a slow people, and a little obstinate : we are used to it, and it 
 answers our purpose. You shall not destroy it : but if purifying it in 
 that slow way will satisfy you, we can't help your purifying it. 
 
 A word is enough for your East India possessions. Affections 
 apart, which are as yet unknown, whatever applies to the West 
 Indies, appHes to the East with double force. The islands present no 
 difficulty : the population there is French : they are ripe for self-govern- 
 ment. There remains the continent : you know how things are changed 
 there : — the power of Tippoo is no more. — Would the tree of liberty 
 grow there if planted ? Would the declaration of rights translate into 
 Sanscrit? Would Bramin, Chetree, Bice, Sooder, and Hallachore 
 meet on equal ground ? If not, you may find some difficulty in giving 
 them to themselves. You may find yourselves reduced by mere 
 necessity to what we should call here a practical plan. If it is deter- 
 mined they must have masters, you will then look out for the least bad 
 ones that could take them : and after all that we have heard, I ques- 
 tion whether you would find any less bad than our Enghsh company. 
 If these merchants would give you any thing for the bargain, it would 
 be so much clear gain to you : and not impossible but they might. 
 You know better than to think of obtaining Ibr the quiet possession of 
 these provinces any thing like what would be spent at the first w^ord 
 
11 
 
 for the chance of taking them by force : the pleasure of rapine, 
 bloodshed and devastation, is not to be set at so low a price : but 
 something surely they would give you. Though to you the country is 
 a burthen, it does not follow that to them it might not be a benefit. 
 Though even the whole of their vast possessions were a burthen to 
 them, the burthen, instead of being encreased, might be diminished 
 by the addition : the expense of defence might be reduced : Pondi- 
 cherry might be to them what Savoy is to you. 
 
 But enough of suppositions and conjectures. — How you part with 
 the poor people who are now your slaves, is after all a subordinate 
 consideration : the essential thing is to get rid of them : You ought to 
 do so if nobody would take them without being paid for it. What- 
 ever be their rights, they have no such right as that of forcing you to 
 govern them to your own prejudice. 
 
 Oh, but you are a hireliny : You are a tool of your king, and of 
 his East India company : they have employed you to tell us a fine 
 story, and persuade us to strip ourselves of our colonies, not being 
 able to rob us of them themselves. — yes : 1 am all that : I have not 
 bread to eat, and no sooner is your decree come out, than I get 
 £60,000 from the company, and a peerage from the king. — / am a 
 hireling : — but will you then betray the interest of your constituents, 
 because a man has been hired to shew it you I — It would be of use to 
 England : — but are there no such things as common interests, and 
 are you never to serve yourselves but upon condition of not serving- 
 others at the same time i Is your love for your brethren so much 
 weaker than your hatred of your neighbours ? — It would be of use to 
 England. — But are England and king of England terms so perfectly 
 synonymous, and do you of all men think so ? — The king's interest 
 would be served by it : — but by knowing a man's interest, his true and 
 lasting interest, are you always certain of his wishes? Is consummate 
 wisdom among the attributes of his ministers ? Have they no passions 
 to blind, have they no prejudices to mislead them? Are you so 
 unable to comprehend your own interest, that it is only from the 
 opinion of others that you can learn it, and those your enemies ? — The 
 king of England is your enemy .'—but because he is so, will you put 
 yourselves under his command ? Shall it be in the power of an enemy 
 to make you do as he pleases, only by employing somebody to propose 
 the contrary? — See what a man exposes himself to by listening to such 
 impertinences !— / am hired : but are not advocates hired, as often as 
 a question comes before a court of justice? and is justice on neither 
 side, because men are paid on both sides ? — Legislators, suffer me to 
 give you a warning — this is not the only occasion on which it may 
 have its use. Those, if any such there be, who call attention off 
 from the arguments that are offered to the motives of him who offers 
 them, show how humble their conception is, either of the goodness of 
 their cause, of the strength of their own powers, or of the solidity of 
 your judgment, not to say of all three. If they practise upon you 
 by suggestions so wide from reason, it is because they either fear or 
 hope to find you incapable of being governed by it. 
 
 E 
 
18 
 
 m 
 
 
 A word of recapitulation, and I have done. — You WILL, 
 
 T SAY, GIVE UP YOUR COLONIES — BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO 
 RIGHT TO GOVERN THEM, BECAUSE THEY HAD RATHER NOT 
 BE GOVERNED BY YOU, BECAUSE IT IS AGAINST THEIR INTE- 
 REST TO BR GOVERNED BY YOU, BECAUSE YOU GET NOTHING BY 
 GOVERNING THEM, BECAUSE YOU CAN'T KEEP THEM, BECAUSE 
 THE EXPENSE OP TRYING TO KEEP THEM WOULD BE RUINOUS, 
 BECAUSE YOUR CONSTITUTION WOULD SUFFER BY YOUR KEEP- 
 ING THEM, BECAUSE YOUR PRINCIPLES FORBID YOUR KEEPING 
 THEM, AND BECAUSE YOU WOULD DO GOOD TO ALL THE WORLD 
 BY PARTING WITH THEM. In ALL THIS IS THERE A SYLLABLE 
 NOT TRUE ? — But though THREE-FOURTHS OP IT WERE FALSE, 
 THE CONCLUSION WOULD BE STILL THE SAME. — RiSE, THEN, 
 SUPERIOR TO PREJUDICE AND PASSION : THE OBJECT IS WORTH 
 THE LABOUR. SUFFER NOT EVEN YOUR VIRTUES TO PREJU- 
 DICE YOU AGAINST EACH OTHER: KEEP HONOUR WITHIN ITS 
 BOUNDS ; NOR SPURN THE DECREES OF JUSTICE BECAUSE CON- 
 FIRMED BY PRUDENCE. 
 
 To conclude. — If hatred is your ruling passion, and 
 
 THE gratification OF IT YOUR FIRST OBJECT, YOU WILL 
 STILL GRASP YOUR COLONIES. If THE HAPPINESS OP MANKIND 
 IS YOUR OBJECT, AND THE DECLARATION OF RIGHTS YOUR 
 GUIDE, YOU WILL SET THEM FREE. — ThE SOONER THE BETTER: 
 IT COSTS YOU BUT A WORD: AND BY THAT WORD YOU COVER 
 YOURSELVES WITH THE PUREST GLORY ! 
 
 Jeremy Bentham. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 VARCUANT, PRINTER, INORAM-COURT, FENCHURCH-STREET. 
 
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