BITEKE'S SPEECH ON 
 CONCILIATION WITH AMEEICA
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITKD 
 
 LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO 
 DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTU 
 
 TOKONTO
 
 Burke's Speech 
 
 on 
 
 Conciliation with America 
 
 Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by 
 
 F. G. Selby 
 
 M.A. Oxon., lion. LL.D. Bombay 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 
 ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 
 
 1917
 
 COPYRIGHT. 
 
 First Edition 1912. 
 Reprinted 1917. 
 
 GLASGOW : PRINTKD AT THE UNIVKRSITY PRESF 
 BY ROBKRT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD.
 
 r LlDiiAAY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNU 
 SAiNTA BARBARA 
 
 B 
 
 lilt 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION vii 
 
 TEXT 1 
 
 NOTES 73 
 
 INDEX TO THE NOTES 124
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 EDMUND BURKE was born at Dublin, at the end of 1728 
 or the beginning of 1729. '.He was first returned to Par- 
 liament, as member for the borough of Wendover, at 
 the end of 1765, the year iii which George Grenville, 
 the author of the Stamp Act, was dismissed from office. 
 Grenville was succeeded by Lord Rockingham, the head 
 of a party which Burke regarded as the most honest 
 and patriotic party in the country, and which he was 
 largely instrumental in keeping together. Rockingham, 
 by whom the Stamp Act was repealed, remained in 
 office for one year and twenty days. After him came 
 the Chatham ministry. Before the end of the year 
 Chatham's health broke down. The Duke of Grafton 
 then led the ministry, and after him Lord North, who 
 remained at the head of affairs for twelve years, from 
 1770-1782. The opening years of the reign of George 
 III. were years of disturbance and difficulty. The ele- 
 vation of Bute to the premiership, after the disgrace of 
 Pitt and the dismissal of Newcastle, had produced a 
 violent prejudice against the Scotch. Then came the 
 troubles with America. There was, besides, the excite- 
 ment caused by the affair of Wilkes. It seemed likely
 
 viii BURKE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 that the majority of the House of Commons would 
 arrogate to itself the right of determining whom the 
 constituencies might elect to sit as their representatives. 
 There were violent riots in London, provoked by the 
 sympathy of the mob with Wilkes, and by general 
 detestation of the arbitrary conduct of the- House of 
 Commons. Burke's view of the period, his explanation 
 of the disorders, and the remedies which he proposed, 
 are set forth in his pamphlet on The Cause of the Present 
 Discontents, published in 1770. 
 
 Burke sat in the Parliament of 1774 as member for 
 Bristol, of which city he continued to be the representa- 
 tive for six years. He made himself unpopular with 
 his constituents by the support which he gave to the 
 abolition of restrictions on Irish trade, and to the re- 
 moval of unreasonable disabilities on Catholics. In this 
 year he made his speech on American taxation, and in 
 1775 the speech on Conciliation with America. In 1777 
 appeared his Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol on the 
 affairs of America. In 1780 matters were complicated 
 at home by the anti-popery Gordon riots. Burke was 
 endangered because he, as a Whig, had advocated a 
 milder treatment of Catholics. It was in this year that 
 he presented to the House his scheme of Economic Re- 
 form. His object was to abolish all the lucrative sine- 
 cures, by means of which the Court could corrupt the 
 House of Commons, and turn it into a mere tool of 
 despotism. This was Burke's substitute for those 
 schemes of organic reform which he always opposed. 
 In this year he lost his seat for Bristol, but was re- 
 turned as member for the borough of Malton. When 
 Lord North's government came to an end in 1782, the
 
 INTRODUCTION. ix 
 
 Rockingham party again came into power. Notwith- 
 standing the services which Burke had rendered to the 
 party, he was not admitted into the Cabinet. Lord 
 Rockingham died after three months of office. The 
 Ministry was split up. Some of them supported the 
 claims of Shelburne, others those of Fox, who was now 
 the head of the Rockingham section of the Whigs, to 
 the vacant premiership. The king preferred Shelburne. 
 It was unfortunate that the whole Whig party could not 
 act together. We must regret that Burke rendered the 
 party powerless by aiding to split it into two halves, 
 and that he offered a violent and factious opposition to 
 the Ministry. The Shelburne administration fell in the 
 spring of 1783, and Fox and Burke, to their disgrace, 
 went over to their old enemy Lord North. A Coalition 
 Ministry was formed, but was dismissed in December, 
 1783, on the rejection of Fox's India Bill. Pitt was 
 made prime minister, and the power of the Whigs was 
 at an end for half a century. Burke began by opposing 
 a measure brought forward by Pitt, which was practically 
 a proposal to give to Ireland complete commercial free- 
 dom, on condition that she paid a contribution from her 
 surplus revenue to the Imperial Treasury. Lord Morley 
 points out that Burke's conduct can only be justified 
 on the ground that Pitt's proposals "amounted to an 
 attempt to extract revenue from Ireland, identical in 
 purpose, principle, and probable effect with the ever me- 
 morable attempt to extract revenue from the American 
 colonies." In 1787 he opposed Pitt's proposed treaty of 
 commerce with France, " which enabled the subjects of 
 both countries to reside and travel in either without 
 license or passport, did away with all prohibitions of
 
 x BURKE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 trade on either side, and reduced every import duty." J 
 But, so far as Burke was concerned, the most remarkable 
 event of the session was, of course, the impeachment of 
 Warren Hastings. He opened the case in 1788, and the 
 verdict was delivered in 1 795. To the affairs of India, 
 generally, Burke really devoted the labour of fourteen 
 years, from 1781 to 1795. Burke next opposed Pitt's 
 Eegency Bill, the principle of which was that the Prince 
 of Wales could not claim to act as Kegent, but that it 
 lay with the Parliament to appoint the Kegent and to 
 define the terms on which he held office. During this 
 period, Burke appears, by his unreasonableness, to have 
 lost his influence in the country, and the confidence of 
 his party and his friends. But with the French Revolu- 
 tion all this was changed. On this subject he was at 
 variance with Fox from the first. In 1790 he supported 
 the bill for the increase of the English army, and he 
 took occasion to declare that he would not remain on 
 terms of friendship with any one who should in any way 
 further the introduction of a democracy like that of 
 France. Fox expressed in the "House his high sense of 
 the value of Burke's friendship. When Sheridan dis- 
 sented from the views expressed in Burke's speech, 
 Burke openly broke with him. In the same year, when 
 Fox proposed, what Burke had before advocated, namely, 
 a repeal of the Test and Corporation Act, Burke turned 
 round and opposed it, declaring that Dissenters were 
 disaffected citizens. It was in November, 1790, that he 
 published his Reflections on the Revolution in France. It 
 was hailed with delight by the Crown and the Tories. 
 In 1791 Burke openly broke with Fox on the subject of 
 1 Green's Short History of the English People, p. 772.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xi 
 
 the French Revolution. In August of the same year he 
 published his Appeal from the New to the Old IVhigs, in 
 which he explained and defended his views on the French 
 Revolution, and vindicated himself against the charge of 
 having abandoned, in his criticisms on that event, the 
 Whig principles which he had professed through life. A 
 few months after the publication of the Reflections, he had 
 issued his Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, 
 which was full of violent abuse of the Revolution and 
 its authors. In the same letter he hinted that a Euro- 
 pean intervention in favour of the French king might 
 become necessary. By the end of the year 1791 he had 
 himself become convinced that it was necessary. Hence- 
 forth he devoted himself to the advocacy of war against 
 the French, and of repressive measures at home to stop 
 the spread of Jacobin opinions. It was the murder of 
 the French king which roused opinion in England to 
 sympathy with Burke. In 1 794 he retired from Parlia- 
 ment. Arrangements were being made for creating him 
 a peer, but, in August of that year, he was completely 
 broken by the death of his son. The question of the 
 peerage was dropped, and a pension was granted to him. 
 His Letter to a Noble Lord is a vindication, at once 
 spirited and pathetic, of his right to a pension on the 
 score of his political services. In 1795 he wrote the 
 Letters on a Regicide Peace, which are, like the rest of his 
 writings on the subject, characterized by violent hatred 
 of all that was being done in France. The death of his 
 son threw a profound melancholy over his closing years, 
 and he died July 9th, 1797. 
 
 " Of all Burke's writings none are so fit to receive 
 unqualified and unanimous admiration as the speech on
 
 xii BURKE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 American taxation, the speech on Concilfation with 
 America, and the Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol. It 
 is no exaggeration to say that they compose the most 
 perfect manual in our literature, or in any literature, for 
 one who approaches the study of public affairs, whether 
 for knowledge or practice. They are an example with- 
 out fault of all the qualities which the critic, whether a 
 theorist or an actor, of great political situations should 
 strive, by night and by day, to possess. If the theme 
 with which they deal were less near than it is to our 
 interests and affections as free citizens, these three 
 performances would still abound in the lessons of an 
 incomparable political method. ... we should still 
 have everything to learn from the author's treatment; 
 the vigorous grasp of masses of compressed detail, 
 the wide illumination from great principles of human 
 experience, the strong and masculine feeling for the two 
 great political ends of Justice and Freedom, the large 
 and generous interpretation of expediency, the morality, 
 the vision, the noble temper." 1 
 
 The more carefully the pieces mentioned by Lord 
 Morley are studied, the truer does his verdict appear. 
 A teacher can do little more than repeat to his pupils 
 the advice of Fox, " to read the speech on Conciliation 
 by day, and meditate upon it by night : to peruse it 
 again and again, study it, imprint it on their minds, and 
 impress it upon their hearts." He who will do this will 
 be rewarded by attaining ' large and liberal ideas in 
 politics.' 
 
 It is not necessary to go minutely into contemporary 
 politics to appreciate these writings. I have not 
 1 Lord Morley.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xiii 
 
 attempted more in this Introduction than to give just 
 so much information as is necessary to enable the reader 
 to understand Burke. It is characteristic of Burke that 
 the permanent value of his work is independent of the 
 Tightness or wrongness of his judgment on a particular 
 question. The value of a set of principles is not affected 
 by an erroneous application of them. Even those, there- 
 fore, who disagree with Burke's American policy have 
 everything to learn from his American speeches and 
 writings. Burke did not really understand the French 
 Revolution, but his Reflections on it have a universal 
 and permanent value as a philosophical vindication of 
 society, and an exposition of the eternal conditions of 
 order. We go to Burke not so much for a history of 
 a particular crisis, as to learn how to approach and treat 
 political questions. Nowhere is his political method 
 more clearly explained than in his American writings. 
 Nowhere are the obligations of an Imperial power, and 
 the great principles which should control Imperial 
 policy, more luminously set forth. One explanation then 
 of Burke's lasting fame is this, that he always rises above 
 the particular incidents treated of, to the explanation of 
 them, and that he teaches those who will listen to him 
 to rise above the disturbing influences of private inter- 
 ests and passions, and to judge events and regulate 
 conduct calmly and dispassionately, from the point of 
 view of prudence and morality. 
 
 Another circumstance which places Burke high in the 
 esteem of philosophical students of politics is this, that 
 in his writings is to be found a treatment of many forms 
 of government. In the British constitution he saw ' a 
 nice equipoise' of monarchical, aristocratic, and demo-
 
 xiv BURKE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 cratic elements : and he believed that the safety of 
 English liberties depended on the preservation of that 
 equipoise. When he saw any one of these elements 
 unduly encroaching on the rest, he came to the rescue 
 of the weaker parts. So that, if we study his writings 
 through, we find an appreciation of all these elements, and 
 a determination of their proper limits. The pamphlet 
 on the Present Discontents points out the danger of an 
 absolute Crown and" Court, and advocates what we 
 should call ' liberal ' principles. In the Reflections on the 
 French Revolution, on the other hand, we find an apprecia- 
 tion of the merits of aristocracy and of monarchy. 
 
 Then, again, Burke influences by his language. In 
 other speeches and writings we find examples of the 
 most gorgeous rhetoric, of extravagant declamation, of 
 fierce denunciation. The speech printed in this volume 
 is a model of calm persuasive argumentation. There are 
 passages of striking eloquence, such as the description of 
 the American fisheries, but they are introduced naturally 
 and without effort. They are called forth by the subject 
 and the feelings which it necessarily excites. But, taking 
 the speech as a whole, the reader cannot fail to be struck 
 by the skill with which Burke gives to his arguments the 
 air of truisms, and to his policy the air of common sense. 
 He wants, not to threaten or to ridicule, but to conciliate 
 and to persuade. It is not meant by this that he is dull 
 or trite. Common sense, as applied to Burke, does not 
 mean commonplace. The speech, like all that he said 
 or wrote, is conspicuous for grasp of the subject, for 
 knowledge of human nature, for far-sighted prudence, 
 and wide experience. It was, indeed, owing precisely 
 to those qualities which have given to the productions
 
 INTRODUCTION. xv 
 
 of Burke a permanent value, and WOP for them a lasting 
 admiration, that they failed to produce an effect upon 
 the audience to which they were addressed. 
 
 For Englishmen, at any rate, the speeches and writings 
 of Burke derive an added interest from the patriotism 
 which inspires them. His fears for England called forth 
 the Reflections on the Revolution in France. They explain 
 his deep concern in the American question. In this 
 connection, the following passage from his Address to the 
 King l deserves careful study : " It is not, Sire, from a 
 want of^the most inviolable duty to your Majesty, not 
 from a want of a partial and a passionate regard to that 
 part of your Empire in which we reside, and which we 
 wish to be supreme, that we have hitherto withstood all 
 attempts to render the supremacy of one part of your 
 dominions inconsistent with the liberty and safety of 
 all the rest. The motives of our opposition are found in 
 those very sentiments which we are supposed to 
 violate. For we are convinced beyond a doubt that a 
 system of dependence, which leaves no security to the 
 people for any part of their freedom in their own hands, 
 cannot be established in any inferior member of the 
 British Empire, without consequentially destroying the 
 freedom of that very body, in favour of whose boundless 
 pretensions such a scheme is adopted. We know and 
 feel that arbitrary power over distant regions is not 
 within the competence, nor to be exercised agreeably 
 to the forms, or consistently with the spirit, of great 
 popular assemblies. If such assemblies are called to a 
 nominal share in the exercise of such power, in order to 
 screen, under a general participation, the guilt of des- 
 
 1 Published in vol. v. of Bohn's edition of Burke's Works.
 
 xvi BURKE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 perate measures, it tends only the more deeply to corrupt 
 the deliberative character of those assemblies, in training 
 them to blind obedience, in habituating them to proceed 
 upon grounds of fact, with which they can rarely be 
 sufficiently acquainted, and in rendering them executive 
 instruments of designs, the bottom of which they cannot 
 possibly fathom. 
 
 To leave any real freedom to Parliament, freedom 
 must be left to the Colonies. A military government is 
 the only substitute for civil liberty. That the establish- 
 ment of such a power in America will utterly ruin our 
 finances (though its certain effect) is the smallest part 
 of our concern. It will become an apt, powerful, and 
 certain engine for the destruction of our freedom here. 
 Great bodies of armed men, trained to a contempt 
 of popular assemblies representative of an English 
 people : kept up for the purpose of exacting impositions 
 without their consent, and maintained by that exaction ; 
 instruments in subverting, without any process of law, 
 great ancient establishments and respected forms of 
 governments ; set free from, and therefore above, the 
 ordinary English tribunals of the country where they 
 serve; these men cannot so transform themselves, 
 merely by crossing the sea, as to behold with love and 
 reverence, and submit with profound obedience to the 
 very same things in Great Britain which in America they 
 had been taught to despise, and had been accustomed to 
 awe and humble. All your Majesty's troops, in the 
 rotation of service, will pass through this discipline, and 
 contract these habits. If we could flatter ourselves that 
 this would not happen, we must be the weakest of men : 
 we must be the worst, if we were indifferent whether it
 
 INTRODUCTION. xvii 
 
 happened or not. What, gracious sovereign, is the Empire 
 of America to us, or the Empire of the world, if we lose 
 our own liberties ? We deprecate this last of evils 
 we deprecate the effect of the doctrines which must 
 support and countenance the government over conquered 
 Englishmen." 
 
 The four Colonies constituting New England, namely, 
 Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and 
 Rhode Island, owed their origin to the Puritans, the 
 first of whom went over in the May Flower in 1620. 
 New York was first colonized by the Dutch at the 
 beginning of the 17th century. It was ceded by them 
 to Cha,rles II., who granted it to his brother the Duke 
 of York, from whom it derives its present name. It 
 was originally called New Amsterdam. New Jersey, 
 which, at first, formed part of the Dutch settlement, 
 was separated from it by the Duke of York, and sold to 
 Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. The name was 
 given in honour of Carte re t's defence of the island of 
 Jersey against the forces of the Long Parliament. 
 Lord Berkeley sold his share to an association of 
 Quakers, and the district was divided between them 
 and Carteret. Under Queen Anne the heirs of Carteret 
 surrendered their rights to the Crown, and the two 
 districts were reunited under one government. Tha 
 plural name Jerseys was, however, still retained. Pen- 
 sylvania was opened out by the Quaker Penn, who in 
 1681 obtained from'the Crown a grant of forest (sylvan) 
 land beyond the river Delaware. The State of Delaware 
 was in some measure dependent on Pennsylvania. It 
 passed from Dutch to English hands along with New 
 York. The name is derived from an Englishman who 
 
 b
 
 xviii BURKE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 was Captain General of Virginia in the time of James I. 
 Maryland was named after the Queen of Charles I., who 
 made Lord Baltimore proprietary of the territory. His 
 name is preserved in that of the capital of the state. 
 Virginia, the earliest of the chartered colonies, was 
 named in honour of Queen Elizabeth. But it was not 
 really settled until the time of James I. The rights of 
 the company to which it was assigned passed to the 
 Crown in 1624. The territory of North and South 
 Carolina was granted by charter to a number of pro- 
 prietaries by Charles II. in 1663. Their rights reverted 
 to the Crown in 1729. Georgia, named after George 
 II., was established by some philanthropic Englishmen 
 who obtained a charter from the Crown in 1732. 
 
 At the time when the troubles with England began, 
 the population of these thirteen colonies was about two 
 millions of European blood, and half a million of others. 
 In each Colony there was an elected Assembly, a Coun- 
 cil, sometimes nominated, sometimes elected, and a 
 Governor nominated by the Crown, or when there 
 were proprietors, by them jointly with the Crown. 
 In Connecticut and Rhode Island alone the Governor 
 was elected. 
 
 Grenville conceived the idea of raising revenue in 
 America on the ground that the Americans should 
 help to defray the expenses of the Seven Years' War, 
 which had been undertaken partly in their defence. 
 His suggestion in 1764 to raise money by a Stamp 
 Duty, or by any other duty which the colonists might 
 prefer, reached them just when they were suffering 
 from a war with the Indians on their frontiers, and 
 when they were irritated by measures which England
 
 INTRODUCTION. xix 
 
 had recently taken to deprive them of the profits of their 
 large contraband trade. They were still further irritated 
 by certain extra duties which Grenville had just levied 
 on their foreign imports, though they did not deny the 
 right of Parliament to levy duties of that kind. 
 
 To Grenville's suggestion they replied that they would 
 not accept the Stamp Duty or any alternative to it, on 
 the ground that they could not lawfully be taxed by a 
 House of Commons in which they were not represented. 
 If they granted any supplies, it woujd only be through 
 a vote of their own Assemblies, on a requisition made 
 by the Crown through the Secretary of State. In the 
 session of 1765 Grenville simply proposed to levy the 
 Stamp Duties in America, hinting at the same time that 
 this was only a first instalment of the revenue which he 
 proposed to raise in that country. The Bill was passed 
 almost without opposition, the House even refusing to 
 look at petitions and remonstrances which some of the 
 Colonies had addressed to it. 
 
 When the news of the passing of the Act reached 
 America, Virginia set the example to the other Colonies 
 of addressing remonstrances and petitions for repeal 
 through the Assemblies to the Crown. At the same 
 time, the necessity of joint action being felt, several 
 Assemblies deputed delegates to a joint congress to be 
 held in October, a month before the Stamp Act was 
 to come into force. Delegates from nine Assemblies 
 met together. Resolutions were passed denying the 
 right of Parliament to tax America, and petitions to 
 the King and the Parliament were agreed upon. 
 Associations were also formed for discouraging the 
 importation and use of British manufactures until the 
 
 62
 
 xx BURKE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 Stamp Act should be repealed. In Boston there were 
 serious riots. 
 
 When the first of November came it was found practi- 
 cally impossible to administer the Act, either because 
 the people would not allow the stamped papers to be 
 landed, or because those who had been appointed to 
 distribute the papers resigned their posts when the 
 time came. The Rockingham Ministry, who had not 
 favoured the Stamp Act, were perplexed equally by 
 the difficulty of enforcing it and by the dangerous 
 precedent of conceding a 'repeal. There was an im- 
 portant debate when Parliament met in January, 1766. 
 Pitt urged that the right to legislate did not include 
 the right to tax, and he denied that the Americans 
 were in any sense represented in the House of Com- 
 mons. In reply, Grenville quoted precedents to show 
 that taxation and representation had not always or 
 necessarily gone together, and he said that the seditious 
 spirit of the Colonies was encouraged by factions in the 
 House. In reply, Pitt deprecated an appeal to obscure 
 precedents in such a case. He lauded the spirit which 
 the Americans had shown in resisting the Act, and 
 argued that a victory over America in such a cause 
 would be fatal to constitutional liberty in England. 
 He advised that England's unlimited power of legis- 
 lating for America should be affirmed, but that her 
 right to tax should be denied, and that the Stamp Act 
 should be immediately and totally repealed. Certain 
 correspondence with America was then laid before the 
 House, as were also petitions from the merchants of 
 large towns in England praying for a repeal of the 
 Act, on the ground that the interruption of American
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxi 
 
 trade, due to the disturbances caused by it, would 
 be the ruin of English merchants. At the same time 
 the evidence of Franklin and other Americans was 
 taken at the bar of the House as to the determina- 
 tion of the Americans to resist such taxation, and 
 to abstain from the use of English goods until it was 
 abandoned. After this interval proposals in accordance 
 with Pitt's speech were laid before the House. It was 
 found impossible to maintain the distinction between 
 legislation and taxation, and an Act Declaratory of the 
 absolute sovereignty of England over the Colonies was 
 passed. But the proposal to repeal the Stamp Act 
 met with a resolute opposition from the leaders of the 
 late Administration, from many country gentlemen, 
 who feared that concession to violence would consti- 
 tute a dangerous precedent, and from the King's friends. 
 Conway, on behalf of the Government, asked leave to 
 bring in a bill for the repeal of the Act, on the ground 
 of the loss to English commerce involved in a struggle 
 with America, and of the difficulties and dangers of a 
 war with that country, which would probably be aided 
 by France and Spain. After speeches from Grenville 
 and Pitt, his motion was carried by a majority of 108. 
 On the third reading of the Bill, there was a violent 
 debate. Pitt again deprecated a war with America. 
 But Grenville still insisted that the expense of the 
 Seven Years' War justified the taxation of America, and 
 that, therefore, the Act should be enforced. "If the 
 tax," he said, " was still to be laid on, I would lay 
 it on." The motion for repeal, however, was carried 
 by a larger majority than on the first reading. By 
 the aid of the independent Peers the Bill was passed
 
 xxii BURKE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 in the House of Lords by thirty-four votes. At the 
 same time, the obnoxious duties which had been im- 
 posed on the foreign trade of the colonists were altered 
 or removed, and the restrictions upon their trade with 
 some ports in Dominica and Jamaica were abolished. 
 On the whole, America received with expressions of 
 satisfaction and loyalty what had been done by 
 England. Massachusetts remonstrated against the pun- 
 ishment of the rioters, and New York positively refused 
 to obey the clause in the American Mutiny Act, which 
 required the colonists to supply the English troops 
 with some of the necessaries of life. For this act of 
 disobedience the New York Assembly was afterwards 
 temporarily suspended by Act of Parliament. 
 
 In 1767 Townshend, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 again attempted to raise a revenue in America by 
 imposing import duties on glass, paper, red and white 
 lead, painters' colours, and tea. He computed that 
 they would yield between 30,000 and 40,000 a year. 
 This Act passed both houses. The receipt of this news 
 provoked fresh opposition in America. In February, 
 1768, the Assembly of Massachusetts, in spite of the 
 opposition of the Governor, Bernard, sent a circular 
 letter to the Colonies urging resistance to these duties. 
 For this the Assembly was dissolved by the Colonial 
 Secretary, Lord Hillesborough, in the beginning of 
 July. At the same time there was a riot in Boston 
 owing to the attempt of the Custom House authorities 
 to exact the dues on the cargo of a ship called The 
 Liberty. A letter was also received from Lord Hilles- 
 borough stating that British troops and men-of-war 
 had been ordered to Boston to maintain order. Then,
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxiii 
 
 on the refusal of Governor Bernard to convene a new 
 Assembly without orders from home, a Convention of 
 deputies from the districts of Massachusetts met in 
 Boston. On the day of the dissolution of this Con- 
 vention, the troops landed in Boston. During this 
 time associations to prevent the use of English goods 
 were formed throughout the Colonies, and in many 
 places there were quarrels between the local Assembly 
 and the Governor. 
 
 Parliament met in November, 1768. The action of 
 the Assembly of Massachusetts and of the Boston 
 rioters was condemned, and an address was voted to the 
 King, urging that full information should be collected, 
 and that, if necessary, an obsolete statute of Henry VIII. 
 should be revived, which provided for the trial in 
 England of persons accused of treason outside England. 
 The alleged reason for this proposal was that verdicts 
 could not be obtained from an American jury. At the 
 same time, Bernard, who was a most unpopular Gover- 
 nor, was made a Baronet. 
 
 In May, 1769, eight days before the close of the 
 session, the Ministry decided that, whatever might be 
 done during the next session about the repeal of 
 the obnoxious duties, that on tea, at least, should not 
 be removed, and this decision was communicated to the 
 Colonies by Lord Hillesborough. 
 
 The next session commenced in January, 1770. In 
 the speech from the throne the term " highly unwarrant- 
 able" was applied to the proceedings in America. 
 Chatham deprecated this expression, again lauded the 
 spirit of the Americans, and advocated a conciliatory 
 policy towards them.
 
 xxiv BURKE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 The news that the Government meditated an enforce- 
 ment of the statute of Henry VIII. produced fresh 
 disturbances in America. The use of English imports 
 was prevented by violence, and all informers, and all 
 who in any way aided Government, were tarred and 
 feathered. In March, 1770, Lord North declared his 
 readiness to abolish all the duties except that on tea. 
 The decision of the Cabinet to make this concession 
 had been communicated by Lord Hillesborough in 1769 
 in a Circular Letter to the Colonial Governors. The 
 letter stated that the Government entertained no design 
 to propose to Parliament to lay any further taxes on 
 America for the purpose of raising a revenue. Lord 
 North said that, in the face of the violence of the 
 Americans, he could not go further in the way of 
 concession. He also urged that the cost of tea was 
 diminished to the Americans because, when it was im- 
 posed at threepence in the pound, a duty of nearly one 
 shilling a pound, which was formerly levied in England, 
 had been taken off in the interest of the East India 
 Company for a period of five years. This was in 1767, 
 and in 1772 the Act was renewed for another five years. 
 The Opposition advocated the total repeal of the duties 
 on the ground that it was foolish to irritate America 
 by continuing a duty which, partly by smuggling, partly 
 by the determination of America to import nothing 
 from England, had during the last year brought in 
 only .300, Burke spoke in this sense, but the motion 
 for a partial repeal was carried. On the same day there 
 was a violent affray between the town-people and the 
 English troops in Boston. It must be recorded, to the 
 credit of American justice., that Captain Preston and
 
 INTRODUCTION. Xxv 
 
 his soldiers were acquitted on trial. The concessions 
 made by Lord North were sufficient to restore tranquillity 
 throughout a great part of America for the three years 
 which followed. Commercial activity was restored, 
 except in the matter of tea, which the Americans refused 
 to buy. But it still rankled that the unprofitable tea 
 duty had been retained at the instance of the King, 
 as an assertion of England's right to levy taxes. As 
 before, so now, it was in Massachusetts that the dis- 
 content was most pronounced. Government should 
 have taken advantage of this period to restore the old 
 bonds of union with America. But George III. would 
 not renounce his right, and Lord North would not, or 
 could not, resist him. 
 
 In 1773 the East India Company applied to England 
 for a loan of one and a half millions sterling. The 
 illicit tea traffic of the Colonies had spoilt their sales of 
 tea, of which they had a large stock lying in their 
 warehouses. Lord North proposed to grant in per- 
 petuity a full drawback of the English duty on all tea 
 of the East India Company exported to America, and 
 also to allow the Company to export direct on their 
 own account. This proposal was carried, and in con- 
 sequence the Americans could purchase tea at a lower 
 price than they had paid before the colonial duty was 
 imposed. But the irritation caused by the presence of 
 the English revenue officers had not died away in 
 Massachusetts and Virginia. In Ehode Island, a 
 King's ship employed in the repression of smuggling 
 had been destroyed. The Assembly of Massachusetts 
 was irritated at the refusal of England to accede to its 
 request for the removal of Hutchinson and Oliver, the
 
 xxvi BURKE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 (governor and Lieutenant-Governor, some of whose 
 private correspondence had been made public, showing 
 that they were in favour of a repressive policy on the 
 part of England. When the ships with the East India 
 Company's tea on board arrived in Boston harbour, 
 they were boarded, and the tea was thrown into the 
 sea. When the news of this outrage reached England 
 Lord North proposed that from June 1st "it should 
 not be lawful for any person to lade or unlade, to ship 
 or unship, any goods from any quay or wharf within 
 Boston harbour." Power was to be reserved to the 
 King of restoring to Boston its privileges as a harbour, so 
 soon as order was restored there, and compensation 
 made to the East India Company for the tea destroyed. 
 Burke opposed this measure, but it was passed. At 
 the same time a Bill was passed making the Council 
 of Massachusetts nominative instead of elective, and 
 transferring to the Governor the power of appointing 
 and removing the judges and other officers of the law 
 who had previously been elected by the Council. A 
 Bill was also passed for quartering and billeting troops 
 throughout the Colonies. This attack on chartered 
 rights alarmed all the Colonies, who determined to 
 unite with Massachusetts for the defence of their 
 liberties. Burke delivered his speech on American 
 Taxation in support of a motion for the repeal of the 
 tea duty which obtained only forty-nine votes. This 
 was in April, 1774. 
 
 It was not only the Boston Port Bill and the attack 
 on the Charter of Massachusetts that irritated the 
 Colonies. By the misrepresentations of Governor Hutch- 
 inson and his successor, General Gage, public men in
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxvii 
 
 England were led to talk openly of the Americans as 
 cowards. At the instigation of the popular party in 
 Virginia, the first of June, on which day the Boston Port 
 Act was to come into force, was observed as a day of 
 national fasting and prayer. Subscription lists were 
 opened for the relief of the people of Boston. A 'solemn 
 league and covenant ' was entered into for the exclusion 
 of English manufactures. In Massachusetts the people 
 refused to give effect to the new constitution. General 
 Gage thought it prudent to fortify himself on a neck 
 of land connecting Boston with the open country. 
 Twelve Colonies agreed to send delegates to a General 
 Congress in Philadelphia early in September. Each 
 Colony, no matter how many delegates it sent, was to 
 have one vote. They met to the number of fifty-five, 
 mostly lawyers, in September, a deputy from Virginia 
 being chosen President. They drew up a Declaration 
 of Eights claiming that the privileges of Englishmen, 
 which they had never renounced, were still theirs. On 
 that ground they demanded the repeal of recent Acts 
 such as that which changed the government of Massa- 
 chusetts. Until their request was granted they de- 
 termined to import nothing from Great Britain after 
 Dec. 1st, 1774, and to export nothing thither after 
 September 10th, 1775. At the same time addresses 
 were forwarded to the people and the Sovereign of 
 Great Britain, and also to the inhabitants of Canada, 
 who were supposed to be discontented with a form of 
 Government recently created for them by Great Britain. 
 The Congress closed its sittings in October with a 
 resolution to reassemble in May, 1775. Meanwhile 
 there had occurred in Massachusetts the striking
 
 xxviii BURKE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 phenomenon noted by Burke. 1 " The time arrived for 
 appointing the Council according to the new law; but 
 of the members nominated by the Governor, though 
 amounting only to thirty-six, there were found only 
 twenty-four friends of British connection who were 
 willing to incur the odium of taking the necessary 
 oaths. The Council, therefore, could not be constituted. 
 In these circumstances, the Governor recalled the writs 
 for the new Assembly which was to meet in October ; 
 but the members already elected voted the proclamation 
 illegal, and in default of the Governor's appearance to 
 inaugurate the Assembly with the usual formalities, 
 they declared themselves a provincial Congress, and 
 proceeded forthwith to exercise, not only the functions 
 of a legislative body, but to assume the powers of the 
 Executive Government. They formed a Committee of 
 Safety, which organized a militia force, appointed the 
 officers, received reports, and directed the sheriffs and 
 collectors of taxes to retain the proceeds of the public 
 taxes, subject to their orders. General Gage issued 
 a proclamation, denouncing this Assembly and their 
 acts as seditious and treasonable. The proclamation 
 was treated with contempt, and the orders of the 
 Committee were implicitly obeyed." 2 The military 
 preparations of Gage excited the indignation of the 
 people, and it seemed as if a conflict might occur at 
 any moment. 
 
 After the dissolution of the English Parliament in 
 September, 1774, the Ministry returned to power with a 
 large majority. The people shared the feeling of the King 
 
 J P. 24. 
 
 2 Massey, History of England under Oeorge III., vol. ii., ch. 18.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxix 
 
 that a policy of concession had been tried and had failed, 
 and that nothing remained but to coerce America. 
 Parliament met in November, but business did not 
 really begin until after the Christmas holidays. On 
 January 20, Chatham urged, in the House of Lords, 
 that resistance to what was now a united America was 
 impossible. He therefore advised Parliament to con- 
 ciliate America while there was yet time, by yielding the 
 demands of the Philadelphia Congress. This proposal 
 was rejected. He then presented to the Lords a 
 " Provisional Bill for settling the troubles in America," 
 which he had drawn up in consultation with Franklin, 
 after the rejection of his first proposal. He proposed 
 to reaffirm the sovereignty of England in matters of 
 Imperial concern, and, if America recognized this sove- 
 reignty, to renounce the right of taxing for revenue. 
 He proposed, further, that a new congress of delegates 
 should meet at Philadelphia, and provide for the due 
 recognition of England's sovereignty, and for a spon- 
 taneous grant in perpetuity towards the reduction of 
 the English debt. The extraordinary jurisdiction of 
 Admiralty Courts was to be abolished, charges of murder 
 were to be heard in the province where the offence was 
 committed, and the Coercion Acts, passed since 1764, 
 were to be repealed. The Bill was immediately rejected, 
 but it was printed and circulated for the opinion of the 
 public. In February, Lord North proposed that if a 
 colonial legislature proposed a provision, which the King 
 and Parliament should approve, for the expenses of its 
 own government and of the common defence, Parliament 
 should abstain from taxing the province so long as that 
 provision lasted. This measure was passed. But what-
 
 XXX BURKE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 ever good effect it might have had was prevented by the 
 association with it of fresh measures for fettering the 
 trade of the Colonies, in revenge for the non-exportation 
 and importation agreement. Votes were at the same 
 time taken for an increase of the English military and 
 naval forces. Burke moved his resolution on March 
 22nd. The substance of his speech is as follows : 
 
 Pp. 2-8. The Commons had sent up to the Lords a bill for restraining 
 the trade of certain Colonies with Great Britain, Ireland, and 
 the British Islands in the West Indies, and for restricting their 
 right to carry on fisheries in Newfoundland. This bill was 
 returned to the Commons, who thus fortunately obtained an 
 opportunity of reconsidering their American policy. Burke 
 entered Parliament at a time when a policy of conciliation 
 towards America was in favour. He formed a theory of his 
 own on the subject, from which he has never wavered amid all 
 the unfortunate changes of Parliamentary opinion and policy. 
 It is now said that instead of finding fault with whatever the 
 Government does, he ought to propose a definite scheme of his 
 own. As a general rule, he thinks it unwise for private individ- 
 uals to draw up schemes of government. Public misfortunes, 
 however, justify individuals in doing what in ordinary times it 
 would be unbecoming for them to undertake. There is nothing 
 in Burke's position to command acceptance for his proposals, so 
 they will at least be judged on their own merits. He proposes 
 to restore peace and confidence by meeting America in a spirit 
 of conciliation. He does not think that Lord North's scheme 
 will work ; but at any rate that scheme is a confession that 
 England ought to grant something to America, and that her 
 mode of dealing with that country hitherto has been objection- 
 able. Concessions are always made, most properly, by the 
 stronger party. Before deciding what is best to be done, it will 
 be necessary to review the circumstances of America. For the 
 proper form of government for that country, as for all countries, 
 must be determined by its circumstances. 
 
 Pp. 8-17. Humanity and interest alike require us to treat with consider-
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxxi 
 
 ation a country possessing such a largo and growing population. 
 In little more than half a century the value of England's exports 
 to the Colonies increased twelvefold. In fact, at the time of 
 Burke's speech, England exported to the Colonies alone nearly 
 as much as at the beginning of the century she had exported to 
 the whole w r orld. In 1772, the exports to a single Colony had 
 risen to the value of what was exported in 1704 to all the 
 Colonies. There have been times when England would have 
 been starved if it had not been for the corn which she derived 
 from America. When we consider the spirit with which the 
 Americans have carried on their fisheries, we must rather admire 
 the spirit of a free people than complain of their occasional 
 excesses. Burke deprecates the use of force, because the effect 
 of a victory over America would at mo*t be temporary because 
 England might not gain the victory because a struggle would 
 in any case impoverish America, and weaken England and 
 because experience is in favour of a policy of conciliation, v 
 
 We must also consider the temper of the Americans. From Pp. 17-23. 
 their first settlement they have been jealous of freedom, and, 
 as descendants of Englishmen, they naturally understand by 
 freedom the right to tax themselves. The spirit of a free 
 people was strengthened in them by the popular form of their 
 government. Their natural feeling of independence is further 
 strengthened by their religion. All Protestants are averse from 
 arbitrary authority, and the North American colonists are 
 Protestants of the most extreme type. It is true that in the 
 Southern Colonies there is an Established English Church ; but 
 there the colonists are slave-owners, and as such are necessarily 
 haughty and independent. The study of law again is very 
 general in America, and it is apt to make people formidable to 
 government. Lastly, it has to be remembered that the control 
 of the English Government can never be so effectual at a distance 
 of 3000 miles as it is at home. 
 
 It is evident that the discontent of such a people is not to be Pp. 23-30. 
 treated lightly. It is somewhat alarming to think that America 
 shoujd discover, as she is now discovering, that she can disregard 
 our punitive measures, and can provide for the management of 
 her own affairs, and for the preservation of order in her own
 
 xxxii BURKE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 borders. It is equally important to remember that an English 
 attack upon the freedom of America must weaken the hold of 
 the English upon their own liberties. 
 
 It is impossible to change the spirit of the Americans by re- 
 moving its causes. We cannot limit their numbers. We may 
 exclude the growing population from the districts subject to our 
 authority, but that will only turn them into wandering savages 
 who would be a danger to our dominions. We can of course 
 impoverish them by fettering their trade. But in impoverishing 
 them we should impoverish ourselves too, and the poverty to 
 which we reduce them will but goad them to rebellion. Men of 
 English origin will never consent to be slaves. We cannot 
 change their religion or their education. We cannot substitute 
 a military despotism for their popular assemblies, nor would it 
 be profitable or safe to do so if we could. If it is proposed to 
 bring down the pride of the Virginians by enfranchising their 
 slaves, the answer is that the slaves might not wish for freedom, 
 and that the Virginians may anticipate us by freeing them 
 themselves, and arming them against us. Finally, America can- 
 not be brought nearer to us so as to be brought more directly 
 under our control. X 
 
 Pp. 30-33. But it may be said that, if we cannot change the Americans, 
 we can punish them. Burke says criminal procedure is not ap- 
 plicable on such a large scale. You cannot charge or bring to 
 trial millions of people. It is moreover an insult to a nation to 
 treat it as a criminal. A member of an Empire does not impugn 
 the imperial authority by claiming a privilege. Rather, in the 
 act of claiming it, he recognizes the power of the imperial 
 authority. If the subordinate communities of our Empire are to 
 have no privileges, they are slaves, and will soon refuse to belong 
 to such an Empire. In all quarrels between herself and her 
 dependents, England is the judge, and is likely to be too partial 
 to herself. She must remember that there are times when equity 
 requires her not even to exercise her undoubted rights. In this 
 case the right is not undoubted. England first decides that she 
 has the right to tax, and then punishes America for denying 
 the right. That we cannot take criminal proceedings against 
 America is proved by the fact that after charging Massachusetts
 
 INTRODUCTldN. xxxiii 
 
 with the crime of rebellion, instead of proceeding against the 
 rebels at law, we have dealt with the Colony as if it were a 
 hostile power. 
 
 If we can neither change the Americans nor punish them, we p p . 33-39. 
 must conciliate them by ceasing to tax them in a Parliament 
 where they are not represented. Whether we have the right to 
 tax them or not does not matter in the least. It is often in- 
 equitable, unwise, or imprudent to assert even an undoubted 
 right. Even if the ancestors of the colonists had contracted for 
 themselves and their descendants to be slaves, it would still be 
 advisable to grant freedom to those descendants when they de- 
 manded it, rather than to disturb the peace of the Empire. To 
 satisfy the Colonies and to protect ourselves against a temptation 
 to unconstitutional action in the future, we should declare once 
 for all that they are to have the benefit of English constitutional 
 principles. The opposition to Burke's scheme is prompted by an 
 unreasonable fear that, if the taxes are repealed, the Americans 
 will immediately cry out against the control of their trade 
 by England. Burke says that it is very unfair to punish ttie 
 Americans merely because you think that they are going to do 
 something. They quarrelled not with commercial restrictions 
 but with taxes. You cannot say what they will do when the 
 taxes are removed until you have removed them. Experience 
 would lead us to suppose that by removing grievances we make 
 not enemies but friends. 
 
 The policy which Burke recommends is in accordance with Pp. 39-46. 
 constitutional precedents, and, if England wishes to maintain 
 her Empire, she cannot do better than act on the principles by 
 which she acquired it. England has succeeded in making 
 Ireland loyal exactly in proportion as she has shared her own 
 privileges with her. Ireland has contributed generously because 
 she has been allowed to contribute freely. The same was the 
 case with Wales. It was a burden to England so long as we 
 treated it as we are now treating America. It became a peace- 
 able country as soon as we recognized the rights of its inhabi- 
 tants. The same policy was at the same time adopted and with 
 the same results towards the County Palatine of Chester, and 
 later with regard to Durham. In all cases England has recog-
 
 xxxiv BURKE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 nized the right of the subordinate provinces af the Empire to 
 tax themselves. Burke wishes to recognize the same right in 
 the Americans. They canno.t be represented in the English 
 Parliaments, but experience has shown that they both can and 
 will tax themselves for the benefit of the Empire, and that, 
 except by free grants, they cannot be made to contribute to the 
 support of the Empire at all. 
 
 Pp. 46-57. Burke wishes Parliament to record that the Americans though 
 unrepresented in the English Parliament have been grieved by 
 taxes imposed upon them by that Parliament, and have in 
 consequence disturbed the peace of the Empire that no means 
 have been devised for securing representation to the Americans 
 in England, but that the American Assemblies are competent 
 to make grants and have often shown themselves willing to 
 make them, and that attempts to get money from them in any 
 other way have failed. The truth of these propositions is 
 proved by facts, and by the records of Parliament itself. These 
 things being so, Burke proposes to repeal the Acts by which 
 duties are levied in America instead of in England to repeal 
 the Act depriving Boston of the privileges of a harbour to 
 annul the punitive measures passed against Massachusetts and 
 to restrict the operation of the statute of Henry VIII. Burke 
 further proposes to make properly appointed judges in America 
 irremovable except by the Sovereign in Council upon a formal 
 request from America. Lastly, he proposes to amend the 
 constitution and procedure of the Admiralty Courts charged 
 with the enforcement of the Law of Navigation. 
 
 Pp. 57-end. If it be objected that England can no more legislate for 
 unrepresented Colonies than she can tax them, Burke replies 
 (1) It is not he but Parliament that has asserted taxation 
 without representation to be a grievance. (2) This principle 
 has been recognized as compatible with an absolute or a limited 
 sovereignty on the part of England. (3) In the case of Durham 
 the grievance related solely to taxation without representation. 
 (4) In the case of Durham and Chester Parliament did not 
 trouble to define its sovereignty, but recognized that it could 
 not tax those who were not represented. We are not to judge 
 of what the Americans will do by expressions they may have
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxxv 
 
 used in the heat of passion, and, even if the abandonment of 
 the right to tax involves the abandonment of the right 
 to legislate, yet it does not follow that America will 
 rebel against our laws. Men act much more out of regard to 
 their own interests than to mere logical consistency. The 
 Americans will make some sacrifices in order to belong to the 
 Empire, because they gain in importance by belonging to it. 
 Englishmen must not think their Empire dissolved because 
 a relative independence is granted to different parts of it. 
 
 Burke deprecates Lord North's plan because such a plan has 
 never been tried because it will put power into the hands of 
 the Ministers because it is impracticable and because an 
 attempt to enforce it would lead to dissension and war. Burke 
 proposes to do what experience shows it to be safe to do^viz., 
 to trust to the voluntary liberality of America. People to whom 
 membership of the Empire is valuable will make sacrifices to 
 retain that membership. If England does her duty, her de- 
 pendents will not fail to do theirs. Moral forces are more 
 powerful than political regulations. 
 
 Burke's proposals were rejected by the Commons as 
 were those of Chatham by the Lords. " With the 
 rejection of these efforts at conciliation began the great 
 struggle which ended eight years later in the severance 
 of the American Colonies from the British Crown." l 
 1 Green.
 
 BUEKE'S SPEECH ON 
 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA
 
 SPEECH ON MOVING HIS RESOLUTIONS 
 
 FOR 
 
 CONCILIATION WITH THE COLONIES. 
 MARCH 22, 1775. 
 
 I HOPE, Sir, that, notwithstanding the austerity of the 
 Chair, your good-nature will incline you to some degree of 
 indulgence towards human frailty. You will not tliink it 
 unnatural, that those who have an object depending, which 
 strongly engages their hopes and fears, should be somewhat 
 inclined to superstition. As I came into the House full of 
 anxiety about the event of my motion, I found, to my in- 
 finite surprise, that the grand penal bill, by which we had 
 passed sentence on the trade and sustenance of America, 
 
 10 is to be returned to us from the other House. I do confess, 
 I could not help looking on this event as a fortunate omen. 
 I look upon it as a sort of providential favour ; by which 
 we are put once more in possession of our deliberative 
 capacity, upon a business so very questionable in its nature, 
 so very uncertain in its issue. By the return of this bill, 
 which seemed to have taken its flight for ever, we are at 
 this very instant nearly as free to choose a plan for our 
 American government as we were on the first day of the 
 session. If, Sir, we incline to the side of conciliation, we 
 
 20 are not at all embarrassed (unless we please to make our- 
 selves so) by any incongruous mixture of coercion and 
 restraint. We are therefore called upon, as it were by a 
 
 2
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 3 
 
 Superior warning voice, again to attend to America ; to 
 attend to the whole of it together ; and to review the 
 subject with an unusual degree of care and calmness. 
 
 Surely it is an awful subject ; or there is none so on this 
 side of the grave. When I first had the honour of a seat 
 in this House, the affairs of that continent pressed them- 
 selves upon us, as the most important and most delicate 
 object of parliamentary attention. My little share in this 
 great deliberation oppressed me. I found myself a partaker 
 'in a very high trust ; and having no sort of reason to rely 10 
 on the strength of my natural abilities for the proper 
 execution of that trust, I was obliged to take more than 
 common pains to instruct myself in everything which 
 relates to our colonies. I was not less under the necessity 
 of forming some fixed ideas concerning the general policy 
 of the British Empire. Something of this sort seemed to 
 be indispensable ; in order, amidst so vast a fluctuation 
 of passions and opinions, to concentre my thoughts ; to 
 ballast my conduct ; to preserve me from being blown about 
 by every wind -of fashionable doctrine. I really did not 20 
 think it safe, or manly, to have* fresh principles to seek 
 upon every fresh mail which should arrive from America. 
 
 At that .period I had the fortune to find myself in perfect 
 concurrence with a large majority in this House. Bowing 
 under that high authority, and penetrated with the sharp- 
 ness and strength of that early impression, I have continued 
 ever since, without the least deviation, in my original 
 sentiments. Whether this be owing to an obstinate perse- 
 verance in error, or to a religious adherence to what appears 
 to me truth and reason, it is in your equity to judge. 30 
 
 Sir, Parliament having an enlarged view of objects, made, 
 during this interval, more frequent changes in their senti- 
 ments and their conduct, than could be justified in a 
 particular person upon the contracted scale of private 
 information. But though I do not hazard anything 
 approaching to censure on the motives of former parliaments
 
 4 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 to all those alterations, one fact is undoubted, that under 
 them the state of America lias been kept in continual 
 agitation. Everything administered as remedy to the 
 public complaint, if it did not produce, was at least 
 followed by, an heightening of the distemper ; until, by a 
 variety of experiments, that important country has been 
 brought into her present situation ; a situation which I 
 will not miscall, which I dare not name ; which I scarcely 
 know how to comprehend in the terms of any description. 
 
 10 In this posture, Sir, things stood at the beginning of the 
 session. About that time, a worthy member of great parlia- 
 mentary experience, who, in the year 1766, filled the chair of 
 the American committee with much ability, took me aside ; 
 and, lamenting the present aspect of our politics, told me, 
 things were come to such a pass, that our former methods of 
 proceeding in the House would be no longer tolerated. That 
 the public tribunal (never too indulgent to a long and 
 unsuccessful opposition) would now scrutinize our conduct 
 with unusual severity. That the very vicissitudes and 
 
 20 shiftings of ministerial measures, instead of -convicting their 
 authors of inconstancy ariti want of system, would be taken 
 as an occasion of charging us with a predetermined discon- 
 tent, which nothing could satisfy ; whilst we accused every 
 measure of vigour as cruel, and every proposal of lenity as 
 weak and irresolute. The public, he said, would not have 
 patience to see us play the game out with our adversaries : 
 we must produce our hand. It would be expected, that 
 those who for many years had been active in such affairs 
 should show, that they had formed some clear and decided 
 
 30 idea of the principles of colony government ; and were 
 capable of drawing out something like a platform of the 
 ground which might be laid for future and permanent 
 tranquillity. 
 
 I felt the truth of what my hon. friend represented ; but 
 I felt my situation too. His application might have been 
 made with far greater propriety to many otlrer gentlemen.
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 5 
 
 No man was indeed ever better disposed, or worse qualified, 
 for such an undertaking, than myself. Though I gave so 
 far in to his opinion, that I immediately threw my thoughts 
 into a sort of parliamentary form, I was by no means 
 equally ready to produce them. It generally argues some 
 degree of natural impotence of mind, or some 'want of 
 knowledge of the world, to hazard plans of government 
 except from a seat of authority. Propositions are made, 
 not only ineffectually, but somewhat disreputably, when 
 the minds of men are not properly disposed for their 10 
 reception ; and for my part, I am not ambitious of ridicule ; 
 not absolutely a candidate for disgrace. 
 
 Besides, Sir, to speak the plain truth, I have in general no 
 very exalted opinion of the virtue of paper government ; 
 nor of any politics in which the plan is to be wholly 
 separated from the execution. . But when I saw that anger 
 and violence prevailed every day more and more ; and that 
 things were hastening towards an incurable alienation of 
 our colonies ; I confess my caution gave way. I felt this, 
 as one of those few moments in which decorum yields to a 20 
 higher duty. Public calamity is a mighty leveller ; and 
 there are occasions when any, even the slightest, chance of 
 doing good, must be laid hold on, even by the most incon- 
 siderable person. 
 
 To restore order and repose to an empire so great and so 
 distracted as ours, is, merely in the attempt, an undertaking 
 that would ennoble the flights of the highest genius, and 
 obtain pardon for the efforts of the meanest understanding. 
 Struggling a good while with these thoughts, by degrees 
 I felt myself more firm. I derived, at length, some confi- 30 
 deuce from what in other circumstances usually produces 
 timidity. I grew less anxious, even from the idea of my 
 own insignificance. For, judging of what you are by what 
 you ought to be, I persuaded myself that you would not 
 reject a reasonable proposition because it had nothing but 
 its reason to recommend it. On the other hand, being
 
 6 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 totally destitute of all shadow of influence, natural or ad- 
 ventitious, I was very sure, that, if my proposition were 
 futile or dangerous ; if it were weakly conceived, or im- 
 properly timed, there was nothing exterior to it, cf power 
 to awe, dazzle, or delude you. You will see it just as it is : 
 and you will treat it just as it deserves. 
 
 The proposition is peace. Not peace through the medium 
 of war ; not peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of 
 intricate and endless negotiations ; not peace to arise out of 
 
 10 universal discord, fomented from principle, in all parts of 
 the empire ; not peace to depend on the juridical determin- 
 ation of perplexing questions, or the precise marking the 
 shadowy boundaries of a complex government. It is simple 
 peace ; sought in its natural course, and in its ordinary 
 haunts. It is peace sought in the spirit of peacs ; and laid 
 in principles purely pacific., I propose, by removing the 
 ground of the difference, and by restoring the former un- 
 suspecting confidence of the colonies in the~ mother country, to 
 give permanent satisfaction to your people ; and (far from a 
 
 20 scheme of ruling by discord) to reconcile them to each other 
 in the same act, and by the bond of the very same interest 
 which reconciles them to British government. 
 
 My idea is nothing more. Refined policy ever has been 
 the parent of confusion ; and ever will be so, as long as the 
 world endures. Plain good intention, which is as easily 
 discovered at the first view, as fraud is surely detected at 
 last, is, let me say, of no mean force in the government of 
 mankind. Genuine simplicity of heart is an healing and 
 cementing principle. My plan, therefore, being formed 
 
 30 upon the most simple grounds imaginable, may disappoint 
 some people, when they hear it. It has nothing to recom- 
 mend it to the pruriency of curious ears. There is nothing 
 at all new and captivating in it. It has nothing of the 
 splendour of the project, which has been lately laid upon 
 your table by the noble lord in the blue riband. It does 
 not propose to fill your lobby with squabbling colony agents,
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 7 
 
 who will require the interposition of your mace, at every 
 instant, to keep the peace amongst them. It does not in- 
 stitute a magnificent auction of finance, where captivated 
 provinces come to general ransom by bidding against each 
 other, until you knock down the hammer, and determine a 
 proportion of payments beyond all the powers of algebra 
 to equalize and settle. 
 
 The plan which I shall presume to suggest, derives, how- 
 ever, one great advantage from the proposition and registry 
 of that noble lord's project. The idea of conciliation is 10 
 admissible. First, the House, in accepting the resolution 
 moved by the noble lord, has admitted, notwithstanding the 
 menacing front of our address, notwithstanding our heavy 
 bills of pains and penalties that we do not think ourselves 
 precluded from all ideas of free grace and bounty. 
 
 The House has gone further ; it has declared concilia- 
 tion admissible," previous to any submission on the part of 
 America. It has even shot a good deal beyond that mark, 
 and has admitted, that the .complaints of our former mode 
 of exerting the right of taxation were not wholly unfounded. 20 
 That right thus exerted is allowed to have had something 
 reprehensible in it ; something unwise, or something griev- 
 ous ; since, in the midst of our heat and resentment, we, of 
 ourselves, have proposed a capital alteration ; and, in order 
 to get rid of what seemed so very exceptionable, have insti- 
 tuted a mode that is altogether new ; one that is, indeed, 
 wholly alien from all the ancient methods and forms ef 
 parliament. 
 
 The principle of this proceeding is large enough for my 
 purpose. The means proposed by the noble lord for cany- 30 
 ing his ideas into execution, I think, indeed, are very in- 
 differently suited to the end ; and this I shall endeavour to 
 show you before I sit down. But, for the present, I take 
 my ground on the admitted principle. I mean to give peace. 
 Peace implies reconciliation ; and, where there has beea a 
 material dispute, reconciliation does in a manner always
 
 8 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 imply concession on the one part or on the other. In this 
 state of things I make no difficulty in affirming that the 
 proposal ought to originate from us. Great and acknow- 
 ledged force is not impaired, either in effect or in opinion, 
 by an unwillingness to exert itself. The superior power 
 may offer peace with honour and with safety. Such an 
 offer from such a power will be attributed to magnanimity. 
 But the concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear. 
 When such a one is disarmed, he is wholly at the mercy 
 
 10 of his superior ; and he loses for ever that time and those 
 chances, which, as they happen to all men, are the strength 
 and resources of all inferior power. 
 
 The capital leading questions on which you must this day 
 decide, are these two : First, whether you ought to concede ; 
 and secondly, what your concession ought to be. On the 
 first of these questions we have gained (as I have just taken 
 the liberty of observing to you) some ground. But I am 
 sensible that a good deal more is still to be done. Indeed, 
 Sir, to enable us to determine both on the one and the other 
 
 20 of these great questions with a firm and precise judgment, 
 I think it may be necessary to consider distinctly the true 
 nature and the peculiar circumstances of the object which 
 we have before us. Because after all our struggle, whether 
 we will or not, we must govern America according to that 
 nature, and to those circumstances ; and not according to 
 our own imaginations ; nor according to abstract ideas of 
 right ; by no means according to mere general theories of 
 government, the resort to which appears to me, in our 
 present situation, no better than arrant trifling. I shall 
 
 30 therefore endeavour, with your leave, to lay before you 
 some of the most material of these circumstances in as full 
 and as clear a manner as I am able to state them. 
 
 The first thing that we have to consider with regard to 
 the nature of the object is the number of people in the 
 colonies. I have taken for some years a good deal of pains 
 on that point. I can by no calculation justify myself in
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 9 
 
 placing the number below two millions of inhabitants of our 
 own European blood and colour ; besides at least 500,000 
 others, who form no inconsiderable part of the strength and 
 opulence of the whole. This, Sir, is, I believe, about the 
 true number. There is no occasion to exaggerate, where 
 plain truth is of so much weight and importance. But 
 whether I put the present numbers too high or too low, is a 
 matter of little moment. Suh is the strength with which 
 population shoots in that part of the world, that state the 
 numbers as high as we will, whilst the dispute continues, 10 
 the exaggeration ends. Whilst we are discussing any given 
 magnitude, they are grown to it Whilst we spend our time 
 in deliberating on the mode of governing two millions, we 
 shall find we have millions more to manage. Your children 
 do not grow faster from infancy to manhood, than they 
 spread from families to communities, and from villages to 
 nations. 
 
 I put this consideration of the present and the growing 
 numbers in the front of our deliberation ; because, Sir, this 
 consideration will make it evident to a blunter discernment 20 
 than yours, that no partial, narrow, contracted, pinched, 
 occasional system will be at all suitable to such an object. 
 It will show you, that it is not to be considered as one of 
 those minima [trifles] which are out of the eye and consider- 
 ation of the law ; not a paltry excrescence of the state ; not 
 a mean dependent, who may be neglected with little damage, 
 and provoked with, little danger. It will prove that some 
 degree of care and caution is required in the handling such 
 an object ; it will show that you ought not, in reason, to 
 trifle with so large a mass of the interests and feelings of the 30 
 human race. You could at no time do so without guilt; and 
 be assured you will not be able to do it long with impunity. 
 
 But the population of this country, the great and growing 
 population, though a very important consideration, will lose 
 much of its weight, if not combined with other circum- 
 stances. The commerce of your colonies is out of all pro-
 
 10 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 portion beyond the numbers of the people. This ground of 
 their commerce indeed has been trod some days ago, and 
 with great ability, by a distinguished person, at your bar. 
 This gentleman, after thirty-five years it is so long since lie 
 first appeared at the same place to plead for the commerce of 
 Great Britain has come again before you to plead the same 
 cause, without any other effect of time, than, that to the fire 
 of imagination and extent of erudition, which even then 
 marked him as one of the first literary characters of his age, 
 
 10 he has added a consummate knowledge in the commercial 
 interest of his country, formed by a long course of enlight- 
 ened and discriminating experience. 
 
 Sir, I should be inexcusable in coming after such a person 
 with any detail, if a great part of the members who now fill 
 the House had not the misfortune to be absent when he 
 appeared at your bar. Besides, Sir, I propose to take the 
 matter at periods of time somewhat different from his. 
 There is, if I mistake not, a point of view, from whence if 
 you will look at this subject, it is impossible that it should 
 
 20 not make an impression upon you. 
 
 I have in my hand two accounts ; one a comparative state 
 of the export trade of England to its colonies, as it stood in 
 the year 1704, and as it stood in the year 1772. The other a 
 state of the export trade of this country to its colonies alone, 
 as it stood in 1772, compared with the whole trade of Eng- 
 , land to all parts of the world (the colonies included) in the 
 year 1704. They are from good vouchers ; the latter period 
 from the accounts on your table, the earlier from an original 
 manuscript of Davenant, who first established the inspector- 
 
 30 general's office, which has been ever since his time so 
 abundant a source of parliamentary information. 
 
 The export trade to the colonies consists of three great 
 branches. The African, which, terminating almost wholly 
 in the colonies, must be put to the account of their com- 
 merce ; the West Indian ; and the North American. All 
 these are so interwoven, that the attempt to separate them,
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 11 
 
 would tear to pieces the contexture of the whole ; and if not 
 entirely destroy, would very much depreciate the value of all 
 the parts. I therefore colisider these three denominations to 
 be, what in effect they are, one trade. 
 
 The trade to the colonies, taken on the export side, at the 
 beginning of this century, that is, in the year 1704, stood 
 thus : 
 
 Exports to North America, and the West 
 
 Indies - - - 483,265 
 
 To Africa .- 86,665 10 
 
 569,930 
 
 In the year 1772, which I take as a middle year between 
 the highest and lowest of those lately laid on your table, the 
 account was as follows : 
 
 To North America, and the West Indies 4,791,734 
 To Africa - ... 866,398 
 To which if you add the export trade 
 from Scotland, which had in 1704 
 no existence 364,000 
 
 6,022,132 20 
 
 From five hundred and odd thousand, it has grown to six 
 millions. It lias increased no less than twelve-fold. This is 
 the state of the colony trade, as compared with itself at these 
 two periods, within this century ; and this is matter for 
 meditation. But this is not all. Examine my second ac- 
 count. See how the export trade to the colonies alone in 
 1772 stood in the other point of view, that is, as compared to 
 .the whole trade of England in 1704. 
 
 The whole export trade of England, in- 
 cluding that to the colonies, in 1704 6,509,000 ' 30 
 
 Export to the colonies alone, in 1772 - 6,024,000 
 
 Difference 485,000
 
 12 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 The trade with America alone is now within less than 
 500,000 of being equal to what this great commercial 
 nation, England, carried on at the" beginning of this century 
 with the whole world ! If I had taken the largest year of 
 those on your table, it would rather have exceeded. But, it 
 will be said, is not this American trade an unnatural pro- 
 tuberance, that has drawn the juices from the rest of the 
 body ? The reverse. It is the very food that has nourished 
 every other part into its present magnitude. Our general 
 
 10 trade has been greatly augmented, and augmented more or 
 less in almost every part to which it ever extended ; but 
 with this material difference, that of the six millions which 
 in the beginning of the century constituted the whole mass 
 of our export commerce, the colony trade was but one twelfth 
 part ; it is now (as a part of sixteen millions) considerably 
 more than a third of the whole. This is the relative pro- 
 portion of the importance of the colonies at these two 
 periods : and all reasoning concerning our mode of treating 
 them must have this proportion as its basis, or it is a 
 
 20 reasoning weak, rotten, and sophistical. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I cannot prevail on myself to hurry over this 
 great consideration. It is good for us to be here. We stand 
 where we have an immense view of what is, and what is 
 past. Clouds, indeed, and darkness rest upon the future. 
 Let us, however, before we descend from this noble eminence, 
 reflect that this growth of our national prosperity has hap- 
 pened within the short period of the life of man. It has 
 happened within sixty-eight years. There are those alive 
 whose memory might touch the two extremities. For 
 
 30 instance, my Lord Bathurst might remember all the stages 
 of the progress. He was in 1704 of an age at least to be 
 made to comprehend such things. He was then old enough 
 acta parentum jam leyere, et quce sit poluit coynoscere virtus 
 [to study the doings of his forefathers, and to learn the meaning 
 of virtue] Suppose, Sir, that the angel of this auspicious 
 youth, foreseeing the many virtues, which made him one of
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 13 
 
 the most amiable, as he is one of the most fortunate, men of 
 his age, had opened to him in vision, that when, in the fourth 
 generation, the third prince of the House of Brunswick had 
 sat twelve years on the throne of that nation, which (by the 
 happy issue of moderate and healing counsels) was to be 
 made Great Britain, he should see his son, Lord Chancellor 
 of England, turn back the current of hereditary dignity to 
 its fountain, and raise him to a higher rank of peerage, 
 whilst he enriched the family with a new one If amidst 
 these bright and happy scenes of domestic honour and 10 
 prosperity^ that angel should have drawn up the curtain, and 
 unfolded the rising glories of his country, and whilst he was 
 gazing with admiration on the then commercial grandeur of 
 England, the genius should point out to him a little speck, 
 scarce visible in the mass of the national interest, a small 
 seminal principle, rather than a formed body, and should tell 
 him "Young man, there is America which at this day 
 serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of 
 savage men, and uncouth manners ; yet shall, before you 
 taste of death, show itself equal to the whole of that com- 20 
 merce which now attracts the envy of the world. Whatever 
 England has been growing to by a progressive increase of 
 improvement, brought in by varieties of people, by succession 
 of civilizing conquests and civilizing settlements in a series 
 of seventeen hundred years, you shall see as much added to 
 her by America in the course of a single life ! " If this state 
 of his country had been foretold to him, would it not require 
 all the sanguine credulity of youth, and all the fervid glow 
 of enthusiasm, to make him believe it ? Fortunate man, he 
 has lived to see it ! Fortunate indeed, if he lives to see 30 
 nothing that shall vary the prospect, and cloud the setting 
 of his day ! 
 
 Excuse me, Sir, if turning from such thoughts I resume 
 this comparative view once more. You have seen it on a 
 large scale ; look at it on a small one. I will point out to 
 your attention a particular instance of it in the single pro-
 
 14 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 vince of Pennsylvania. In the year 1704, that province 
 called for 11,459 in value of your commodities, native and 
 foreign. This was the whole. What did it demand in 1772 ? 
 Why nearly fifty times as much ; for in that year the export 
 to Pennsylvania was 507,909, nearly equal to the export to 
 all the colonies together in the first period. 
 
 I choose, Sir, to enter into these minute and particular 
 details ; because generalities, which in all other cases are apt 
 to heighten and raise the subject, have here a tendency to 
 10 sink it. When we speak of the commerce with our colonies, 
 fiction lags after truth ; invention is unfruitful, and imagin- 
 ation cold and barren. 
 
 So far, Sir, as to the importance of the object in view of 
 its commerce, as concerned in the exports from England. 
 If I were to detail the imports, I could show how many 
 enjoyments they procure, which deceive the burthen of life ; 
 how many materials which invigorate the springs of na- 
 tional industry, and extend and animate every part of our 
 foreign and domestic commerce. This would be a curious 
 20 subject indeed but I must prescribe bounds to myself in a 
 matter so vast and various. 
 
 I pass therefore to the colonies in another point of view, 
 their agriculture. This they have prosecuted with such a 
 spirit, that, besides feeding plentifully their own growing 
 multitude, their annual export of grain, comprehending rice, 
 has some years ago exceeded a million in value. Of their last 
 harvest, I am persuaded they will export much more. At 
 the beginning of the century some of these colonies imported 
 corn from the mother country. For some time past, the Old 
 30 World has been fed from the New. The scarcity which you 
 have felt would have been a desolating famine, if this child 
 of your old age, with a tme filial piety, with a Eoman 
 charity, had not put the full breast of its youthful exuber- 
 ance to the mouth of its exhausted parent. 
 
 As to the wealth which the colonies have drawn from the 
 sea by their fisheries, you had all that matter fully opened
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 15 
 
 at your bar. You surely thought these acquisitions of value, 
 for they seemed even to excite your envy ; and yet the spirit 
 by which that enterprising employment has been exercised, 
 ought rather, in my opinion, to have raised your esteem and 
 admiration. And pray, Sir, what iu the world is equal to it? 
 Pass by the other parts, and look at the manner in which 
 the people of New England have of late carried on the whale 
 fishery. Whilst we follow them among the tumbling moun- 
 tains of ice, and behold them penetrating into the deepest 
 frozen recesses of Hudson's Bay and Davis's Straits, whilst 10 
 we are looking for them beneath the arctic circle, we hear 
 that they have pierced into the opposite region of polar cold, 
 that they are at the antipodes, and engaged under the frozen 
 serpent of the south. Falkland Island, which seemed too 
 remote and romantic an object for the grasp of national am- 
 bition, is but a stage and resting-place in the progress of 
 their victorious industry. Nor is the equinoctial heat more 
 discouraging to them, than the accumulated winter of both 
 the poles. We know that whilst some of them draw the line 
 and strike the harpoon on the coast of Africa, others run the 20 
 longitude, and pursue their gigantic game along the coast of 
 Brazil. No sea but what is vexed by .their fisheries. No 
 climate that is not witness to their toils. Neither the per- 
 severance of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the 
 dexterous and firm sagacity of English enterprise, ever 
 carried this most perilous mode of hardy industry to the 
 extent to which it has been pushed by this recent people ; a 
 people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not 
 yet hardened into the bone of manhood. When I contem- 
 plate these things ; when I know that the colonies in general 30 
 owe little or nothing to any care of ours, and that they are 
 not squeezed into this happy form by the constraints of 
 watchful and suspicious government, but that, through a 
 wise and salutary neglect, a generous nature has been 
 suffered to take her own way to perfection ; when I reflect 
 upon these effects, when I see how profitable they have been
 
 16 SPEECH ON" CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 to us, I feel all the pride of power sink, and all presumption 
 in the wisdom of human contrivances melt and die away 
 within me. My rigour relents. I pardon something to the 
 spirit of liberty. 
 
 I am sensible, Sir, that all which I have asserted in my 
 detail, is admitted in the gross ; but that quite a different 
 conclusion is drawn from it. America, gentlemen say, is a 
 noble object. It is an object well worth fighting for. Cer- 
 tainly it is, if fighting a people be the best way of gaining 
 
 10 them. Gentlemen in this respect will be led to their choice 
 of -means by their complexions and their habits. Those who 
 understand the military art, will of course have some pre- 
 dilection for it. Those who wield the thunder of the state, 
 may have more confidence in the efficacy of arms. But I 
 confess, possibly for want of this knowledge, my opinion is 
 much more in favour of prudent management, than of force ; 
 considering force not as an odious, but a feeble instrument, 
 for preserving a people so numerous, so active, so growing, 
 so spirited as this, in a profitable and subordinate connexion 
 
 20 with us. 
 
 "- First, Sir, permit me to observe, that the use of force alone 
 is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment ; but it does 
 not remove the necessity of subduing again ; and a nation is 
 not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered. 
 
 My next objection is its uncertainty. Terror is not always 
 the effect of force ; and an armament is not a victory. If 
 you do not succeed, you are without resource ; for, concilia- 
 tion failing, force remains ; but, force failing, no further 
 hope of reconciliation is left. Power and authority are 
 
 30 sometimes bought by kindness ; but they can never be 
 begged as alms by an impoverished and defeated violence. 
 
 A further objection to force is, that you impair the object 
 by your very endeavours to preserve it. The thing you 
 fought for is not the thing which you recover ; but depre- 
 ciated, sunk, wasted, and consumed in the contest. Nothing 
 less will content me, than whole America. I do not choose
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH 'AMERICA. 17 
 
 to consume its strength along with our own ; because in all 
 parts it is the British strength that I consume. I do not 
 choose to be caught by a foreign enemy at the end of this 
 exhausting conflict ; and still less in the midst of it. I may 
 escape ; but I can make no insurance against such an event. 
 Let me add, that I do not choose wholly to break the 
 American spirit ; because it is the spirit that has made the 
 country. 
 
 Lastly, we have no sort of experience in favour of force as 
 an instrument in the rule of our colonies. Their growth and 10 
 their utility has been owing to methods altogether different. 
 Our ancient indulgence has been said to be pursued to a 
 fault. It may be so. But we know if feeling is evidence, 
 that our fault was more tolerable than our attempt to mend 
 it ; and our sin far more salutary than our penitence. 
 
 These, Sir, are my reasons for not entertaining that high 
 opinion of untried force, by which many gentlemen, for 
 whose sentiments in other particulars I have great respect, 
 seem to be so greatly captivated. But there is still behind 
 a third consideration concerning this object, which serves to 20 
 determine my opinion on the sort of policy which ought to 
 be pursued in the management of America, even more than 
 its population and its commerce, I mean its temper and 
 character. 
 
 In this character of the Americans, a love of freedom is 
 the predominating feature which marks and distinguishes 
 the whole : and as an ardent is always a jealous affection, 
 your colonies become suspicious, restive, and untractable, 
 whenever they see the least attempt to wrest from them by 
 force, or shuffle from them by chicane, what they think the 30 
 only advantage worth living for. This fierce spirit of liberty 
 is stronger in the English colonies probably than in any 
 other people of the earth ; and this from a great variety of 
 powerful causes ; which, to understand the true temper of 
 their minds, and the direction which this spirit takes, it will 
 not be amiss to lay open somewhat more largely.
 
 18 SPEECItO'N CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 First, the people of the colonies are descendants of English- 
 men. England, Sir, is a nation, which still I hope respects, 
 and formerly adored, her freedom. The colonists emigrated 
 from you when this part of your character was most 
 predominant; and they took this bias aikl direction the 
 moment they parted from your hands. They are therefore 
 not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to 
 English ideas, and on English principles. Abstract liberty, 
 like other mere abstractions, is not to be. found. Liberty 
 
 Id-inheres in some sensible object; and every nation has formed 
 to itself some favourite point, which by way of eminence 
 becomes the criterion of their happiness. It happened, you 
 know, Sir, that the great contests for freedom in this 
 country were from the earliest times chiefly upon the ques- 
 tion of taxing. Most of the contests in the ancient 
 commonwealths turned primarily on the right of election of 
 magistrates ; or on the balance among the several orders of 
 the state. The question of money was not with them so 
 immediate. But in England it was otherwise. On this 
 
 20 point of taxes the ablest pens, and most eloquent tongues, 
 have been exercised; the greatest spirits 'have acted and 
 suffered. In order to give the fullest satisfaction concerning 
 the importance of this point, it was not only necessary for 
 those who in argument defended the excellence of the Eng- 
 lish constitution, to insist on this privilege of granting 
 money as a dry point of fact, and to prove, that the right 
 had been acknowledged in ancient parchments, and blind 
 usages, to reside in a certain body called a House of 
 Commons. They went much farther ; they attempted to 
 
 30 prove, and they succeeded, that in theory it ought to be so, 
 from the particular nature of a House of Commons, as an 
 immediate representative of the people ; whether the old 
 records had delivered this oracle or not. They took infinite 
 pains to inculcate, as a fundamental principle, that in all 
 monarchies the people must in effect themselves, mediately 
 or immediately, possess the power of granting their own
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 19 
 
 money, or no shadow of liberty could subsist. The colonies 
 draw from you, as with their life-blood, these ideas and prin- 
 ciples. Their love of liberty, as with you, fixed and attached 
 on this specific point of taxing. Liberty might be safe, or 
 might be endangered, in twenty other particulars, without 
 their being much pleased or alarmed. Here they felt its 
 pulse ; and as they found that beat, they thought themselves 
 sick or sound. I do not say whether they were right or 
 wrong in applying your general arguments to their own 
 case. It is not easy indeed to make a monopoly of theorems 10 
 and corollaries. The fact is, that they did thus apply those 
 general arguments ; and your mode of governing them, 
 whether through lenity or indolence, through wisdom or 
 mistake, confirmed them in the imagination, that they, as 
 well as you, had an interest in these common principles. 
 
 They were further confirmed in this pleasing error by the 
 form of their provincial legislative assemblies. Their govern- 
 ments are popular in a high degree ; some are merely 
 popular ; in all, the popular representative is the most 
 weighty ; and this share of the people in their ordinary 20 
 government never fails to inspire them with lofty sentiments, 
 and with a strong aversion from whatever tends to deprive 
 them of their chief importance./ 
 
 If anything were wanting to this necessary operation of 
 the form of government, religion would have given it a 
 complete effect. Religion, always a principle of energy, in 
 this new people is no way worn out or impaired ; and their 
 mode of professing it is also one main cause of this free 
 spirit. The people are Protestants ; and of that kind which 
 is the most adverse to all implicit submission of mind and 30 
 opinion. This is a persuasion not only favourable to liberty, 
 but built upon it. I do not think, Sir, that the reason of 
 this averseness in the dissenting churches, from all that looks 
 like absolute government, is so much to be sought in their 
 religious tenets, as in their history. Every one knows that 
 the Roman Catholic religion is at least coeval with most of
 
 20 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 the governments where it prevails ; that it has generally 
 gone hand in hand with them, and received great favour and 
 every kind of support from authority. The Church of 
 England too was formed from her cradle under the nursing 
 care of regular government. But the dissenting interests 
 have sprung up in direct opposition to all the ordinary 
 powers of the world ; and could justify that opposition only 
 on a strong claim to natural liberty. Their very existence 
 depended on the powerful and unremitted assertion of that 
 
 10 claim. All Protestantism, even the most cold and passive, 
 is a sort of dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our 
 northern colonies is a refinement on the principle of resist- 
 ance ; it is the dissidence of dissent, and the Protestantism 
 of the Protestant religion. This religion, under a variety of 
 denominations agreeing in nothing but in the communion of 
 the spirit of liberty, is predominant in most of the northern 
 provinces ; where the Church of England, notwithstanding 
 its legal rights, is in reality no more than a sort of private 
 sect, not composing most probably the tenth of the people. 
 
 20 The colonists left England when this spirit was high, and in 
 the emigrants was the highest of all ; and even that stream 
 of foreigners, which has been constantly flowing into these 
 colonies, has, for the greatest part, been composed of dis- 
 senters from the establishments of their several countries, 
 and have brought with them a temper and character far 
 from alien to that of the people with whom they mixed. 
 
 Sir, I can perceive by their manner, that some gentlemen 
 object to the latitude of this description ; because in the 
 southern colonies the Church of England forms a large body, 
 
 30 and has a regular establishment. It is certainly true. There 
 is, however, a circumstance attending these colonies, which, 
 in my opinion, fully counterbalances this difference, and 
 makes the spirit of liberty still more high and haughty than 
 in those to the northward. It is, that in Virginia and the 
 Carolinas they have a vast multitude of slaves. Where this 
 is the case in any part of the world, those who are free, are
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 21 
 
 by far the most proud and jealous of their freedom. Free- 
 dom is to them not only an enjoyment, but a kind of rank 
 and privilege. Not seeing there, that freedom, as in countries 
 where it is a common blessing, and as broad and general 
 as the air, may be united with much abject toil, with great 
 misery, with all the exterior of servitude, liberty looks, 
 amongst them, like something that is more noble and liberal. 
 I do not mean, Sir, I * commend the superior morality of this 
 sentiment, which has a v least as much pride as virtue in it ; 
 but I cannot alter the nature of man. The fact is so ; and 10 
 these people of the southern colonies are much more strongly, 
 and with a higher and more stubborn spirit, attached to 
 liberty, than those to the northward. Such were all the 
 ancient commonwealths ; such were our Gothic ancestors ; 
 such in our days were the Poles ', and such will be all 
 masters of slaves, who are not slaves themselves. In such a 
 people, the haughtiness of domination combines with the 
 spirit of freedom, fortifies it, and renders it invincible. ^ . 
 Permit me, Sir, to add another circumstance in our colonies, 
 which contributes no mean part towards the growth and 20 
 effect of this untractable spirit. I mean their education. In 
 no country perhaps in the world is the law so general a 
 study. The profession itself is numerous and powerful ; and 
 in most provinces it takes the lead. The greater number of 
 the deputies sent to the congress were lawyers. But all 
 who read, and most do read, endeavour to obtain some 
 smattering in that science. I have been told by an eminent 
 bookseller, that in no branch of his business, after tracts of 
 popular devotion, were so many books as those on the law 
 exported to the plantations. The colonists have now fallen 30 
 into the way of printing them for their own use. I hear 
 that they have sold nearly as many of Blackstone's Com- 
 mentaries in America as in England. General Gage marks 
 out this disposition very particularly in a letter on your 
 table. He states, that all the people in his government are 
 lawyers, or suiatterers in law ; and that in Boston they have
 
 22 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 been enabled, by successful chicane, wholly to evade many 
 parts of one of your capital penal constitutions. The smart- 
 ness of debate will say, that this knowledge ought to teach 
 them more clearly the rights of legislature, their obligations 
 to obedience, and the penalties of rebellion. All this is 
 mighty well. But my honourable and learned friend on the 
 floor, who condescends to mark what I say for animadversion, 
 will disdain that ground. He has heard, as well as I, that 
 when great honours and great emoluments do not win over 
 
 10 this knowledge to the service of the state, it is a formidable 
 adversary to government. If the spirit be not tamed and 
 broken by these happy methods, it is stubborn and litigious. 
 Abeunt studio, in mores. [Pursuits influence character^ This 
 study renders men acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in 
 attack, ready in defence, full of resources. In other countries, 
 the people, more simple, and of a less mercurial cast, judge of 
 an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance ; 
 here they anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of 
 the grievance by the badness of the principle. They augur 
 
 20 misgovernment at a distance ; and snuff the approach of 
 
 tyranny in every tainted breeze. 
 
 -V The last cause of thit, disobedient spirit in the colonies is 
 hardly less powerful than the rest, as it is not merely moral, 
 but laid deep in the natural constitution of things. .Three 
 thousand miles of ocean lie between you and them. No con- 
 trivance can prevent the effect of this distance in weakening 
 government. Seas roll, and months pass, between the order 
 and the execution ; and the want of a speedy explanation of 
 a single point is enough to defeat a whole system. You 
 
 30 have, indeed, winged ministers of vengeance, who carry your 
 bolts in their pounces to the remotest verge of the sea. But 
 there a power steps in, that limits the arrogance of raging 
 passions and furious elements, and says, " So far shalt thou 
 go, and no farther." Who are you, that should fret and 
 rage, and bite the chains of nature ? Nothing worse happens 
 to you than does to all nations who have extensive empire ;
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 23 
 
 and it happens in all the forms into which empire can be 
 thrown. In large bodies, the circulation of power must be 
 less vigorous at the extremities. Nature has said it. The 
 Turk cannot govern Egypt, and Arabia, and Curdistan, as 
 he governs Thrace ; nor has he the same dominion in Crimea 
 and Algiers, which he has at Brusa and Smyrna. Despotism 
 itself is obliged to truck and huckster. The Sultan gets such 
 obedience as he can. He governs with a loose rein, that he 
 may govern at all ; and the whole of the force and vigour of 
 his authority in his centre is derived from a prudent relaxa- 10 
 tion in all his borders. Spain, in her provinces, is, perhaps, 
 not so well obeyed as you are in yours. She complies too ; 
 she submits ; she watches times. This is the immutable 
 condition, the eternal law, of extensive and detached 
 empire. 
 
 Then, Sir, from these six capital sources ; of descent ; of 
 form of government ; of religion in the northern provinces; of 
 manners in the southern ; of education ; of the remoteness of 
 situation from the first mover of government ; from all these 
 causes a fierce spirit of liberty has grown up. It has grown 20 
 with the growth of the people in your colonies, and increased 
 with the increase of their wealth ; a spirit, that unhappily 
 meeting with an exercise of power in England, which, how- 
 ever lawful, is not reconcilable to any ideas of liberty, much 
 less with theirs, has kindled this flame that is ready to con- 
 sume us. 
 
 I do not mean to commend either the spirit in this excess, 
 or the moral causes which produce it. Perhaps a more 
 smooth and accommodating spirit of freedom in them would 
 be more acceptable to us. Perhaps ideas of liberty might 30 
 be desired, more reconcilable with an arbitrary and bound- 
 less authority. Perhaps we might wish the colonists to be 
 persuaded, that their liberty is more secure when held in 
 r trust for them by us (as their guardians during a perpetual 
 minority) than with any part of it in their own hands. The 
 question is, not whether their spirit deserves praise or blame,
 
 24 SPEBCH OX CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 but what, in the name of God, shall we do with it ? You 
 have before you the object, such as it is, with all its glories, 
 with all its imperfections on its head. You see the magni- 
 tude ; the importance ; the temper ; the habits ; the dis- 
 orders. By all these considerations we are strongly urged 
 to determine something concerning it. We are called upon 
 to fix some rule and line for our future conduct, which may 
 give a little stability to our politics, and prevent the return 
 of such unhappy deliberations as the present. Every such 
 
 1O return will bring the matter before us in a still more un- 
 tractable form. For, what astonishing and incredible things 
 have we not seen already ! What monsters have not been 
 generated from this unnatural contention ! Whilst every 
 principle of authority and resistance has been pushed, upon 
 both sides, as far as it would go, there is nothing so solid 
 and certain, either in reasoning or in practice, that has not 
 been shaken. Until very lately, all authority in America 
 seemed to be nothing but an emanation from yours. Even 
 the popular part of the colony constitution derived all its 
 
 20 activity, and its first vital movement,' from the pleasure of 
 the crown. We thought, Sir, that the utmost which the 
 discontented colonists could do, was to disturb authority ; 
 we never dreamt they could of themselves supply it ; know- 
 ing in general what an operose business it is to establish a 
 government absolutely new. But having, for our purposes 
 in this contention, resolved, that none but an obedient 
 assembly should sit ; the humours of the people there, 
 finding all passage through the legal channels stopped, with 
 great violence broke out another way. Some provinces have 
 30 tried their experiment, as we have tried ours ; and theirs 
 has succeeded. They have formed a government sufficient 
 for its purposes, without the bustle of a revolution, or the 
 troublesome formality of an election. Evident necessity, and 
 tacit consent, have done the business in an instant. So well 
 they have done it, that Lord Dunmore (the account is among 
 the fragments on your table) tells you, that the new institu-
 
 SPEECH Otf CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 25 
 
 tion is infinitely better obeyed than the ancient government 
 ever was in its most fortunate periods. Obedience is what 
 makes government, and not the names by which it is called ; 
 not the name of governor, as formerly, or committee, as at 
 present. This new government has originated directly from 
 the people ; and was not transmitted through any of the 
 ordinary artificial media of a positive constitution. It was 
 not a manufacture ready formed, and transmitted to them in 
 that condition from England. The evil arising from hence is 
 this ; that the colonists having once found the possibility of 10 
 enjoying the advantages of order in the midst of a struggle 
 for liberty, such struggles will not henceforward seem so 
 terrible to the settled and sober part of mankind as they had 
 appeared before the trial. 
 
 Pursuing the same plan of punishing by the denial of the 
 exercise of government to still greater lengths, we wholly 
 abrogated the ancient government of Massachusetts. We 
 were confident that the first feeling, if not the very prospect 
 of anarchy, would instantly enforce a complete submission. 
 The experiment was tried. A new, strange, unexpected face 20 
 of things appeared. Anarchy is found tolerable. A vast 
 province has now subsisted, and subsisted in a considerable 
 degree of health and vigour, for near a twelvemonth, without 
 governor, without public council, without judges, without 
 executive magistrates. How long it will continue in this 
 state, or what may arise out of this unheard-of situation, 
 how can the wisest of us conjecture ? Our late experience 
 has taught us that many of those fundamental principles, 
 formerly believed infallible, are either not of the importance 
 they were imagined to be ; or that we have not at all 30 
 adverted to some other far more important and far more 
 powerful principles, which entirely overrule those we had 
 considered as omnipotent. I am much against any further 
 experiments, which tend to put to the proof any more of 
 these allowed opinions, which contribute so much to the 
 public tranquillity. In effect, we suffer as much at home by
 
 26 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITS AMERICA. 
 
 this loosening of all ties, and this concussion of all established 
 opinions, as we do abroad. For, in order to prove that the 
 Americans have no right to their liberties, we are every day 
 endeaA T ouring to subvert the maxims which preserve the 
 whole spirit of our own. To prove that the Americans 
 ought not to be free, we are obliged to depreciate the value 
 of freedom itself ; and we never seem to gain a paltry 
 advantage over them in debate, without attacking some of 
 those principles, or deriding some of those feelings, for which 
 
 10 our ancestors have shed their blood. \^ 
 
 But, Sir, in wishing to put an end to pernicious experi- 
 ments, I do not mean to preclude the fullest inquiry. Far 
 from it. Far from deciding on a sudden or partial view, I 
 would patiently go round and round the subject, and survey 
 it minutely in every possible aspect. Sir, if I were capable 
 of engaging you to an equal attention, I would state, that, as 
 far as I am capable of discerning, there are but three ways 
 of proceeding relative to this stubborn spirit, which prevails 
 in your colonies, and disturbs your government. These are 
 
 20 To change that spirit, as inconvenient, by removing the 
 causes. To prosecute it as criminal. Or, to comply with it 
 as necessary. I would not be guilty of an imperfect enumer- 
 ation ; I can think of but these three. Another has indeed 
 been started, that of giving up the colonies ; but it met so 
 slight a reception, that I do not think myself obliged to 
 dwell a great while upon it. It is nothing but a little sally 
 of anger, like the frowardness of peevish children, who, when 
 they cannot get all they would have, are resolved to take 
 nothing. 
 
 30 The first of these plans, to change the spirit as incon- 
 venient, by removing the causes, I think is the most like a 
 systematic proceeding. It is radical in its principle ; but it 
 is attended with great difficulties, some of them little short, 
 as I conceive, of impossibilities. This will appear by examin- 
 ing into the plans which have been proposed. 
 
 As the growing population in the colonies is evidently one
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 27 
 
 cause of their resistance, it was last session mentioned in 
 both Houses, by men of weight, and received not without 
 applause, that in order to check this evil, it would be -proper 
 for the crown to make no further grants of land. But to 
 this scheme there are two objections. The first, that there 
 is already so much unsettled land in private hands, as to 
 afford room for an immense future population, although the 
 crown not only withheld its grants, but annihilated its soil. 
 If this be the case, then the only effect of this avarice of 
 desolation, this hoarding of a royal wilderness, would be to 10 
 raise the value of the possessions in the hands of the great 
 private monopolists, without any adequate check to the 
 growing and alarming mischief of population. 
 
 But if you stopped your grants, what would be the con- 
 sequence ? The people would occupy without grants. They 
 have already so occupied in many places. You cannot station 
 garrisons in every part of these deserts. If you drive the 
 people from one place, they will carry on their annual tillage, 
 and remove with their flocks and herds to another. Many 
 of the people in the back settlements are already little 20 
 attached to particular situations. Already they have topped 
 the Appalachian mountains. From thence they behold before 
 them an immense plain, one vast, rich, level meadow ; a 
 square of five hundred miles. Over this they would wander 
 without a possibility of restraint ; they would change their 
 manners with the habits of their life ; would soon forget a 
 government by which they were disowned ; would become 
 hordes of English Tartars ; and pouring down upon your 
 unfortified frontiers a fierce and irresistible cavalry, become 
 masters of your governors and your counsellors, your collec- 30 
 tors and comptrollers, and of all the slaves that adhered to 
 them. Such would, and, in no long time, must be, the effect 
 of attempting to forbid as a crime, and to suppress as an 
 evil, the command and blessing of Providence, " Increase and 
 multiply." Such would be the happy result of an endeavour 
 to keep as a lair of wild beasts, that earth, which God, by a.n
 
 28 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 express charter, has given to the children of men. Far 
 different, and surely much wiser, has been our policy hitherto. 
 Hitherto we have invited our people, by every kind of bounty, 
 to fixed establishments. We have invited the husbandman 
 to look to authority for his title. We have taught him 
 piously to believe in the mysterious virtue of wax and 
 parchment. We have thrown each tract of land, as it was 
 peopled, into districts ; that the ruling power should never 
 be wholly out of sight. We have settled all we could ; and 
 
 10 we have carefully attended every settlement with govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Adhering, Sir, as I do, to this policy, as well as for the 
 reasons I have just given, I ' think this new project of 
 hedging-in population to be neither prudent nor practicable. 
 To impoverish the colonies in general, and in particular to 
 arrest the noble course of their marine enterprises, would be 
 a more easy task. I freely confess it. We have shown a 
 disposition to a system of this kind ; a disposition even to 
 continue the restraint after the offence ; looking on ourselves 
 
 20 as rivals to our colonies, and persuaded that of course we 
 must gain all that they shall lose. Much mischief we may 
 certainly do. The power inadequate to all other things is 
 often more than sufficient for this. I do not look on the 
 direct and immediate power of the colonies to resist our 
 violence as very formidable. In this, however, I may be 
 mistaken. But when I consider, that we have colonies for 
 no purpose but to be serviceable to us, it seems to my 
 poor understanding a little preposterous, to make them 
 unserviceable, in order to keep them obedient. It is, in 
 
 30 truth, nothing more than the old, and, as I thought, ex- 
 ploded problem of tyranny, which proposes to beggar its 
 subjects into submission. But remember, when you have 
 completed your system of impoverishment, that nature still 
 proceeds in her ordinary course ; that discontent will increase 
 with misery ; and that there are critical moments in the 
 fortune of all states, when they who are too weak to contri-
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 29 
 
 bute to your prosperity, may be strong enough to complete 
 yo"ur ruin. Spoliatis arma supersunt. [The plundered ne l er 
 want arms.] 
 
 The temper and character which prevail in our colonies 
 are, I am afraid, unalterable by any human art. We cannot, 
 I fear, falsify the pedigree of this fierce people, and persuade 
 them that they are not sprung from a nation in whose veins 
 the blood of freedom circulates. The language in which 
 they would hear you tell them this tale would detect the 
 imposition ; your speech would betray you. An Englishman 10 
 is the unfittest person on earth to argue another Englishman 
 into slavery. 
 
 I think it is nearly as little in our power to change their 
 republican religion, as their free descent ; or to substitute 
 the Koman Catholic, as a penalty ; or the Church of England, 
 as an improvement. The mode of inquisition and dragoon- 
 ing is going out of fashion in the Old World ; and I should 
 not confide much to their efficacy in the New. The edu- 
 cation of the Americans is also on the same unalterable 
 bottom with their religion. You cannot persuade them to 20 
 burn their books of curious science ; to banish their lawyers 
 from their courts of laws ; or to quench the lights of their 
 assemblies, by refusing to choose those persons who are best 
 read in their privileges. It would be no less impracticable 
 to think of wholly annihilating the popular assemblies, in 
 which these lawyers sit. The army, by which we must 
 govern in their place, would be far more chargeable to us; 
 not quite so effectual ; and perhaps, in the end, full as diffi- 
 cult to be kept in obedience. 
 
 With regard to the high aristocratic spirit of Virginia and 30 
 the southern colonies, it has been proposed, I know, . to 
 reduce it, by declaring a general enfranchisement of their 
 slaves. This project has had its advocates and panegyrists ; 
 yet I never could argue myself into any opinion of it. 
 Slaves are often much attached to their masters. A general 
 wild offer of liberty would not always be accepted. History
 
 30 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 furnishes few instances of it. It is sometimes as hard to per- 
 suade slaves to be free, as it is to compel freemen to "be 
 slaves ; and in this auspicious scheme, we should have bo'th 
 these pleasing tasks on our hands at once. But when we 
 talk of enfranchisement, do we not perceive that the 
 American master may enfranchise too ; and arm servile 
 hands in defence of freedom ? A measure, to which other 
 people have had recourse more than once, and not without 
 success, in a desperate situation of their affairs. 
 
 10 Slaves as these unfortunate black people are, and dull as 
 all men are from slavery, must they not a little suspect the 
 offer of freedom from that very nation which has sold them 
 to their present masters ? from that nation, one of whose 
 causes of quarrel with those masters is their refusal to deal 
 any more in that inhuman traffic ? An offer of freedom 
 from England would come rather oddly, shipped to them in 
 an African vessel, which is refused an entry into the ports of 
 Virginia or Carolina, with a cargo of three hundred Angola 
 negroes. It would be curious to see the Guinea captain at- 
 
 20 tempting at the same instant to publish his proclamation of 
 liberty, and to advertise his sale of slaves. 
 
 But let us suppose all these moral difficulties got over. 
 The ocean remains. You cannot pump this dry; and as long 
 as it continues in its present bed, so long all the causes 
 which weaken authority by distance will continue. " Ye 
 gods, annihilate but space and time, and make two lovers 
 happy !" was a pious and passionate prayer ; but just as 
 reasonable, as many of the serious wishes of very grave and 
 solemn politicians. 
 
 30 If then, Sir, it seems almost desperate to think of any alter- 
 ative course, for changing the moral causes (and not quite easy 
 to remove the natural) which produce prejudices irreconcil- 
 ^ able to the late exercise of our authority ; but that the spirit 
 infallibly will continue ; and, continuing, will produce such 
 effects as now embarrass us, the second mode under consider- 
 ation is, to prosecute that spirit in its overt acts, as criminal.
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 31 
 
 At this proposition I must pause a moment. The thing 
 seems a great deal too big for my ideas of jurisprudence. It 
 should seem to my way of conceiving such matters, that 
 there is a very wide difference in reason and policy, between 
 the mode of proceeding on the irregular conduct of scattered 
 individuals, or even of bands of men, who disturb order 
 within the state, and the civil dissensions which may, from 
 time to time, on great questions, agitate the several com- 
 munities which compose a great empire. It looks to me to 
 be narrow and pedantic, to apply the ordinary ideas of 10 
 criminal justice to this great public contest. I do not know 
 the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole- 
 people. I cannot insult and ridicule the feelings of millions 
 of my fellow-creatures, as Sir Edward Coke insulted one 
 excellent individual (Sir Walter Raleigh) at the bar. I 
 hope I am not ripe to pass sentence on the gravest public 
 bodies, intrusted with magistracies of great authority and 
 dignity, and charged with the safety of their fellow-citizens, 
 upon the very same title that I am. I really think, that for 
 wise men this is hot judicious ; for sober men, not decent ; 20 
 for minds tinctured with humanity, not mild and merciful. 
 
 Perhaps, Sir, I am mistaken in my idea of an empire, as 
 distinguished from a single state or kingdom. But my idea 
 of it is this; that an empire is the aggregate of many states 
 under one common head ; whether this head be a monarch, 
 or a presiding republic. It does, in such constitutions, fre- 
 quently happen (and nothing but the dismal, cold, dead 
 uniformity of servitude can prevent its happening) that the 
 subordinate parts have many local privileges and immunities. 
 Between these privileges and the supreme common authority 30 
 the line may be extremely nice. Of course disputes, often, 
 too, very bitter disputes, and much ill blood, will arise. But 
 though every privilege is an exemption (in the case) from 
 the ordinary exercise of the supreme authority, it is no denial 
 of it. The claim of a privilege seems rather, ex vi termini^ 
 \by the meaning of the term] to imply a superior power. For
 
 32 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 to talk of the privileges of a state, or of a person, who has 
 no superior, is hardly any better than speaking nonsense. 
 Now, in such unfortunate quarrels among the component 
 parts of a great political union of communities, I can 
 scarcely conceive anything more completely imprudent, than 
 for the head of the empire to insist, that, if any privilege is 
 pleaded against his will, or his acts, his whole authority is 
 denied ; instantly to proclaim rebellion, to beat to arms, 
 and to put the offending provinces under the ban. Will not 
 
 10 this, Sir, very soon teach the provinces to make no distinc- 
 tions on their part ? Will it not teach them that the 
 government, against which a claim of liberty is tantamount 
 to high treason, is a government to which submission is 
 equivalent to slavery ? It may not always be quite con- 
 venient to impress dependent communities with- such an 
 idea. 
 
 We are indeed, in all disputes with the colonies, by the 
 necessity of things, the judge. It is true, Sir. But I con- 
 fess, that the character of judge in my own cause is a thing 
 
 20 that frightens me. Instead of filling me with pride, I am 
 exceedingly humbled by it. I cannot proceed with a stern, 
 assured, judicial confidence, until I find myself in something 
 more like a judicial character. I must have these hesita- 
 tions as long as I am compelled to recollect, that, in my 
 little reading upon such contests as these, the sense of man- 
 kind has, at least, as often decided against the superior as 
 the subordinate power. Sir, let me add too, that the opinion 
 of my having some abstract right in my favour, would not 
 put me much at my ease in passing sentence ; unless I could 
 
 30 be sure, that there were no rights which, in their exercise 
 under certain circumstances, were not the most odious of 
 all wrongs, and the most vexatious of all injustice. Sir, 
 these considerations have great weight with me, when I find 
 things so circumstanced, that I see the same party, at once 
 a civil litigant against me in point of right, and a culprit 
 before me ; while I sit as a criminal judge, on acts of his,
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 33 
 
 whose moral quality is to be decided upon the merits of that 
 very litigation. Men are every now and then put, by the 
 complexity of human affairs, into strange situations ; but 
 justice is the same, let the judge be in what situation he will. 
 
 There is, Sir, also a circumstance which convinces me, that 
 this mode of criminal proceeding is not (at least in the pre- 
 sent stage of our contest) altogether expedient ; which is 
 nothing less than the conduct of those very persons who 
 have seemed to adopt that mode, by lately declaring a re- 
 bellion in Massachusetts Bay, as they had formerly addressed 10 
 to have traitors brought hither, under an act of Henry the 
 Eighth, for trial. For though rebellion is declared, it is not 
 proceeded against as such ; nor have any steps been taken 
 towards the apprehension or conviction of any individual 
 offender, either on our late or our former address ; but 
 modes of public coercion have been adopted, and such as 
 have much more resemblance to a sort of qualified hostility 
 towards an independent power than the punishment of re- 
 bellious subjects. All this seems rather inconsistent ; but it 
 shows how difficult it is to apply these juridical ideas to our 20 
 present case. 
 
 In this situation, let us seriously and coolly ponder. What 
 is it we have got by all our menaces, which have been many 
 and ferocious ? What advantage have we derived from the 
 penal laws we have passed, and which, for the time, have 
 been severe and numerous ? What advances have we made 
 towards our object, by the sending of a force, which, by land 
 and sea, is no contemptible strength ? Has the disorder 
 abated? Nothing less. When I see things in this situa- 
 tion, after such confident hopes, bold promises, and active 30 
 exertions, I cannot, for my life, avoid a suspicion, that the 
 plan itself is not correctly right. 
 
 If then the removal of the causes of this spirit of Ajnerican 
 liberty be, for the greater part, or rather entirely, impracti- 
 cable ; if the ideas of criminal process be inapplicable^ or if 
 applicable, are in the highest degree inexpedient ; what way 
 
 O
 
 34 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 yet remains? No way is open, but the third and last to 
 comply with the American spirit as necessary ; or, if you 
 please, to submit to it as a necessary evil. 
 
 If we adopt this mode ; if we mean to conciliate and con- 
 cede ; let us see of what nature the concession ought to be : 
 to ascertain the nature of our concession, we must look at 
 their complaint. The colonies complain, that they have not 
 the characteristic mark and seal of British freedom. They 
 complain, that they are taxed in a parliament in which they 
 
 10 are not represented. If you mean to satisfy them at all, you 
 must satisfy them with regard to this complaint. If you 
 mean to please any people, you must give them the boon 
 which they ask ; not what you may think better for them, 
 but of a kind totally different. Such an act may be a wise 
 regulation, but it is no concession : whereas our present 
 theme is the mode of giving satisfaction. 
 
 Sir, I think you must perceive, that I am resolved this 
 day to have nothing at all to do with the question of the 
 right of taxation. Some gentlemen startle but it is true ; 
 
 20 I put it totally out of the question. It is less than nothing 
 in my consideration. I do not indeed wonder, nor will you, 
 Sir, that gentlemen of profound learning are fond of dis- 
 playing it on this profound subject. But my consideration 
 is narrow, confined, and wholly lijnited to the policy of the 
 question. I do not examine, whether the giving away a 
 man's money be a power excepted and reserved out of the 
 general trust of government ; and how far all mankind, in 
 all forms of polity, are entitled to an exercise of that right 
 by the charter of nature. Or whether, on the contrary, 
 
 30 a right of taxation is necessarily involved in the general 
 principle of legislation, and inseparable from the ordinary 
 supreme power. These are deep questions, where great 
 names militate against each other ; where reason is per- 
 plexed ; and an appeal to authorities only thickens the 
 confusion. For high and reverend authorities lift up their 
 heads on both sides ; and there is no sure footing in the
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 35 
 
 middle. This point is the* great Serb'onian bog, betwixt 
 Damiata and Mount Casius old, where armies whole have 
 sunk. I do not intend to be overwhelmed in that bog, 
 though in such respectable company. The question with 
 me is, not whether you have a right to render your people 
 miserable ; but whether it is not your interest to make 
 them happy. It is not, what a lawyer tells me I may do ; 
 but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to 
 do. Is a politic act the worse for being a generous one.? 
 Is no concession proper, but that which is made from your 10 
 want of right to keep what you grant ? Or does it lessen 
 the grace or dignity of relaxing in the exercise of an odious 
 claim, because you have your evidence-room full of titles, 
 and your magazines stuffed with arms to enforce them ? 
 What signify all those titles, and all those arms? Of what 
 avail are they, when the reason of the thing tells me, that 
 the assertion of my title is the loss of my suit ; and that I 
 could do nothing but wound myself by the use of my own 
 weapons ? 
 
 ' Such is stedfastly my opinion of the absolute necessity of 20 
 keeping up the concord of this empire by a unity of spirit, 
 though in a diversity of operations, that, if I were sure the 
 colonists had, at their leaving this country, sealed a regular 
 compact of servitude; that they had solemnly abjured all 
 the rights of citizens ; that they had made a vow to renounce 
 all ideas of liberty for them and their posterity to all gener- 
 ations ; yet I should hold myself obliged to conform to the 
 temper I found universally prevalent in my own day, and to 
 govern two millions of men, impatient of servitude, on the 
 principles of freedom. I am not determining a point of law ; 30 
 I am restoring tranquillity ; and the general character and 
 situation of a people must determine what sort of govern- 
 ment is fitted for them. That point nothing else can or 
 ought to determine. 
 
 My idea, therefore, without considering whether we yield 
 as matter of right, or grant as matter of favour, is to admit
 
 36 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 the people of our colonies into an interest in the constitution; 
 and, by recording that admission in the journals of parlia- 
 ment, to give them as strong an assurance as the nature of 
 the thing will admit, that we mean f9r ever to adhere to 
 that solemn declaration of systematic indulgence. 
 
 Some years ago, the repeal of a revenue act, upon its 
 understood principle, might have served to show, that we 
 intended an unconditional abatement of the exercise of a 
 taxing power. Such a measure was then sufficient to remove 
 
 10 all suspicion, and to give perfect content. But unfortunate 
 events, since that time, may make something further neces- 
 sary ; and not more necessary for the satisfaction of the 
 colonies, than for the dignity and consistency of our own 
 future proceedings. 
 
 I have taken a very incorrect measure of the disposition 
 of the House, if this proposal in itself would be received 
 with dislike. I think, Sir, we have few American financiers. . 
 But our misfortune is, we are too acute ; we are too exquisite 
 in our conjectures of the future, for men oppressed with 
 
 20 such great and present evils. The more moderate among 
 the opposers of parliamentary concession freely confess, that 
 they hope no good from taxation ; but they apprehend the 
 colonists have further views ; and if this point were con- 
 ceded, they would instantly attack the trade laws. These 
 gentlemen are convinced, that this was the intention from 
 the beginning ; and the quarrel of the Americans with taxa- 
 tion was no more than a cloak and cover to this design. 
 Such has been the language even of a gentleman of real 
 moderation, and of a natural temper well adjusted to fair 
 
 30 and equal government. I am, however, Sir, not a little 
 surprised at this kind of discourse, whenever I hear it ; and 
 I am the more surprised, on account of the arguments which 
 I constantly find in company with it, and which are often 
 urged from the same mouths, and on the same day. 
 
 For instance, when we allege, that it is against reason to tax 
 a people under so many restraints in trade as the Americans,
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 37 
 
 the noble lord in the blue riband shall tell you, that the 
 restraints on trade are futile and useless ; of no advantage 
 to us, and of no burthen to those on whom they are imposed ; 
 that the trade to America is not secured by the acts of navi- 
 gation, but by the natural and irresistible advantage of a 
 commercial preference. 
 
 Such is the merit of the trade laws in this posture of the 
 debate. But when strong internal circumstances are urged 
 against the taxes ; when the scheme is dissected ; when ex- 
 perience and the nature of things are brought to prove, and 10 
 do prove, the utter impossibility of obtaining an effective 
 revenue from the colonies ; when these things are pressed, or 
 rather press themselves, so as to drive the advocates of 
 colony taxes to a clear admission of the futility of the 
 scheme ; then, Sir, the sleeping trade laws revive from their 
 trance ; and this useless taxation is to be kept sacred, not for 
 its own sake, but as a counter-guard and security of the laws 
 of trade. 
 
 Then, Sir, you keep up revenue laws which are mischievous, 
 in order to preserve trade laws that are useless. Such is 20 
 the wisdom of our plan in both its members. They are- 
 sepai'ately given up as of no value ; and yet one is always to 
 be defended for the sake of the other. But I cannot agree 
 with the noble lord, nor with the pamphlet from whence 
 he seems to have borrowed these ideas, concerning the in- 
 utility of the trade laws. For, without idolizing them, I 
 am sure they are still, in many ways, of great use to us: 
 and in former times they have been of the greatest. They 
 do confine, and they do greatly narrow, the market for 
 the Americans. But my perfect conviction of this does 30 
 not help me in the least to discern how the revenue laws 
 form any security whatsoever to the commercial regula- 
 tions ; or that these commercial regulations are the true 
 ground of the quarrel ; or that the giving way, in any 
 one instance of authority, is to lose all that may remain 
 uucouceded.
 
 38 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 One fact is clear and indisputable. The public and avowed 
 origin of this quarrel was on taxation. This quarrel has 
 indeed brought on new disputes on new questions ; but 
 certainly the least bitter, and the fewest of all, on the trade 
 laws. To judge which of the two be the real, radical cause 
 of quarrel, we have to see whether the commercial dispute 
 did, in order of time, precede the dispute on taxation ? There 
 is not a shadow of evidence for it. Next, to enable us to 
 judge whether at this moment a dislike to the trade laws be 
 
 10 the real cause of quarrel, it is absolutely necessary to put 
 the taxes out of the -question 'by a repeal. See how the 
 Americans act in this position, and then you will be able to 
 discern correctly what is the true object of the controversy, 
 or whether any controversy at all will remain. Unless you 
 consent to remove this cause of difference, it is impossible, 
 with decency, to assert that the dispute is not upon what it 
 is avowed to be. And I would, Sir, recommend to your 
 serious consideration, whether it be prudent to form a rule 
 for punishing people, not on their own acts, but on your con- 
 
 20 jectures 1 Surely it is preposterous at the very best. It is 
 not justifying your anger, by their misconduct ; but it is 
 converting your ill-will into their delinquency. 
 
 But the colonies will go further. Alas ! alas ! when will 
 this speculating against fact and reason end ? What will 
 quiet these panic fears which we entertain of the hostile 
 effect of a conciliatory conduct ? Is it true, that no case 
 can exist, in which it is proper for the sovereign to accede to 
 the desires of his discontented subjects ? Is there anything 
 peculiar in this case, to make a rule for itself? Is all 
 
 30 authority of course lost, when it is not pushed to the 
 extreme ? Is it a certain maxim, that the fewer causes of 
 dissatisfaction are left by government, the more the subject 
 will be inclined to resist and rebel 1 
 
 All these objections being in fact no more than suspicions, 
 conjectures, divinations, formed in defiance of fact and 
 experience ; they did not, Sir, discourage me from enter-
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION- WITH AMERICA. 39 
 
 tainiug the idea of a conciliatory concession, founded on the 
 principles which I have just stated. 
 
 In forming a plan for this purpose, I endeavoured to put 
 myself in that frame of mind which was the most natural, 
 and the most reasonable ; and which was certainly the most 
 probable means of securing me from all error. I set out with 
 a perfect distrust of my own abilities ; a total renunciation 
 of every speculation of my own ; and with a profound rever- 
 ence for the wisdom of our ancestors, who have left us the 
 inheritance of so happy a constitution, and so nourishing an 10 
 empire, and what is a thousand times more valuable, the 
 treasury of the maxims and principles which formed the 
 one, and obtained the other. 
 
 During the reigns of the kings of Spain of the Austrian 
 family, whenever they were at a loss in the Spanish councils, 
 it was common for their statesmen to say, that they ought 
 to consult the genius of Philip the Second. The genius of 
 Philip the Second might mislead them ; and the issue of 
 their affairs showed, that they had not chosen the most 
 perfect standard. But, Sir, I am sure that I shall not be 20 
 misled, when, in a case of constitutional difficulty, I consult 
 the genius of the English constitution. Consulting at that 
 oracle (it was with all due humility arid piety) I- found four 
 capital examples in a similar case before me ; those of 
 Ireland, Wales, Chester, and Durham. 
 
 Ireland, before the English conquest, though never 
 governed by a despotic power, had no parliament. How far 
 the English parliament itself was at that time modelled 
 according to the present form, is disputed among anti- 
 quarians. But we have all the reason in the world to be 30 
 assured that a form of parliament, such as England then 
 enjoyed, she instantly communicated to Ireland ; and we are 
 equally sure that almost every successive improvement in 
 constitutional liberty, as fast as it was made here, was trans- 
 mitted thither. The feudal baronage, and the feudal knight- 
 hood, the roots of our primitive constitution, were early
 
 40 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 transplanted into that soil ; and grew and flourished there. 
 Magna Charta, if it did not give us originally the House of 
 Commons, gave us at least a House of Commons of weight 
 and consequence. But your ancestors did not churlishly sit 
 down alone to the feast of Magna Charta. Ireland was made 
 immediately a partaker. This benefit of English laws and 
 liberties, I confess, was not at first extended to all Ireland. 
 Mark the consequence. English authority and English 
 liberties had exactly the same boundaries. Your standard 
 
 10 could never be advanced an inch before your privileges. 
 Sir John Davis shows beyond a doubt, that the refusal of a 
 general communication of these rights was the true cause 
 why Ireland was five hundred years in subduing ; and after 
 the vain projects of a military government, attempted in the 
 reign of Queen Elizabeth, it was soon discovered, that 
 nothing could make that country English, in civility and 
 allegiance, but your laws and your forms of legislature. It 
 was not English arms, but the English constitution, that 
 conquered Ireland. From that time, Ireland has ever had a 
 
 20 general parliament, as she had before a partial parliament. 
 You changed the people ; you altered the religion ; but you 
 never touched the form or the vital substance of free govern- 
 ment in that kingdom. You deposed kings ; you restored 
 them ; you altered the succession to theirs, as well as to 
 your own crown ; but you never altered their constitution ; 
 the principle of which was respected by usurpation ; restored 
 with the restoration of monarchy, and established, I trust, 
 for ever, by the glorious Eevolution. This has made Ireland 
 the great and flourishing kingdom that it is ; and from a 
 
 30 disgrace and a burthen intolerable to this nation, has 
 rendered her a principal part of our strength and ornament. 
 This country cannot be said to have ever formally taxed her. 
 The irregular things done in the confusion of mighty 
 troubles, and on the hinge of great revolutions, even if all 
 were done that is said to have been done, form no example. 
 If they have any effect in argument, they make an exception
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 41 
 
 to prove the rule. None of your own liberties could stand 
 a moment if the casual deviations from them, at such times,' 
 were suffered to be used as proofs of their nullity. By the 
 lucrative amount of such casual breaches in the constitution, 1 
 judge what the stated and fixed rule of supply has been in 
 that kingdom. Your Irish pensioners would starve if they 
 had no other fund to live on than taxes granted by English 
 authority. Turn your eyes to those popular grants from 
 whence all your great supplies are come ; and learn to 
 respect that only source of public wealth in the British 10 
 empire. 
 
 My next example is Wales. This country was said to be 
 reduced by Henry the Third. It was said more truly to be 
 so by Edward the First. But though then conquered, it was 
 not looked upon as any part of the realm of England. Its 
 old constitution, whatever that might have been, was 
 destroyed ; and no good one was substituted in its place. 
 The care of that tract was put into the hands of lords 
 marchers a form of government of a very singular kind ; a 
 strange heterogeneous monster, something between hostility 20 
 and government ; perhaps it has a sort of resemblance, 
 according to the modes of those times, to that of commander- 
 in-chief at present, to whom all civil power is granted as 
 secondary. The manners of the Welsh nation followed the 
 genius of the government ; the people were ferocious, restive, 
 savage, and uncultivated; sometimes composed, never paci- 
 fied. Wales, within itself, was in perpetual disorder ; and 
 it kept the frontier of England in perpetual alarm. Benefits 
 from it to the state there were none. Wales was only known 
 to England by incursion and invasion. 30 
 
 Sir, during that state of things, parliament was not idle. 
 They attempted to subdue the fierce spirit of the Welsh by 
 all sorts of rigorous laws. They prohibited by statute the 
 sending all sorts of arms into Wales, as you prohibit by 
 proclamation (witli something more of doubt on the legality) 
 the sending arms to America. They disarmed the Welsh by
 
 42 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 statute, as you attempted (but still with more question on 
 the legality) to disarm New England by an instruction. They 
 made an act to drag offenders from Wales into England for 
 trial, as you have done (but with more hardship) with regard 
 to America. By another act, where one of the parties was 
 an Englishman, they ordained, that his trial should be always 
 by English. They made acts to restrain trade, as you do ; 
 and they prevented the Welsh from the use of fairs and 
 markets, as you do the Americans from fisheries and foreign 
 
 10 ports. In short, when the statute book was not quite so 
 much swelled as it is now, you find no less than fifteen acts 
 of penal regulation on the subject of Wales. 
 
 Here we rub our hands A fine body of precedents for 
 the authority of parliament and the use of it ! I admit it 
 fully ; and pray add likewise to these precedents, that all 
 the while, Wales rid this kingdom like an incubus ; that it 
 was an unprofitable and oppressive burthen ; and that an 
 Englishman travelling in that country could not go six yards 
 from the high road without being murdered. 
 
 20 The march of the human mind is slow. Sir, it was not, 
 until after two hundred years, discovered, that, by an eternal 
 law, Providence had decreed vexation to violence, and poverty 
 to rapine. Your ancestors did however at length open their 
 eyes to the ill husbandry of injustice. They found that the 
 tyranny of a free people could of all tyrannies the least be 
 endtired ; and that laws made against a whole nation were 
 not the most effectual methods for securing its obedience. 
 Accordingly, in the twenty-seventh year of Henry VIII. the 
 course was entirely altered. With a preamble stating the 
 
 30 entire and perfect rights of the crown of England, it gave to 
 the Welsh all the rights and privileges of English subjects. 
 A political order was established ; the military power gave 
 way to the civil ; the marches were turned into counties. 
 But that a nation should have a right to English liberties, 
 and yet no share at all in the fundamental security of these 
 liberties the grant of their own property seemed a thing
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 43 
 
 so incongruous, that, eight years after, that is, in the thirty- 
 fifth of that reign, a complete and not ill-proportioned re- 
 presentation by counties and boroughs was bestowed upon 
 Wales, by act of parliament. From that moment, as by a 
 charm, the tumults subsided, obedience was restored, peace, 
 order, and civilization followed in the train of liberty. 
 When the day-star of the English constitution had arisen in 
 their hearts, all was harmony within and without 
 
 Simid alba, nautis 
 
 Stella refulsit, 10 
 
 Defluit saxis agitatus /tumor ; 
 Concidunt venti, fugiuntque nubes, 
 Et minax (quod sic voluere) ponto 
 ., Unda recumbit. 
 
 [Soon as gleam 
 Their stars at sea, 
 
 The lash'd spray trickles from the steep, 
 The wind sinks down, the storm-cloud Jlies, 
 The threatening billow on the deep 
 
 Obedient lies.] 20 
 
 ' The very same year the county palatine of Chester re- 
 ceived the same relief from its oppressions, and the same 
 remedy to its disorders. Before this time Chester was little 
 less distempered than Wales. The inhabitants, without 
 rights themselves, were the fittest to destroy the rights of 
 others ; and from thence Richard II. drew the standing 
 army of archers, with which for a time he oppressed England. 
 The people of Chester applied to parliament in a petition 
 penned as I shall read to you : 
 
 " To the king our sovereign lord, in most humble wise 30 
 shown unto your excellent Majesty, the inhabitants of your 
 Grace's county palatine of Chester ; That where the said 
 county palatine of Chester is and hath been always hitherto 
 exempt, excluded and separated out and from your high
 
 court of parliament, to have any knights and burgesses 
 within the said court ; by reason whereof the said inhabi- 
 tants have hitherto sustained manifold disherisons, losses, 
 and damages, as well in their lands, goods, and bodies, as in 
 the good, civil, and politic governance and maintenance of 
 the commonwealth of their said country : (2.) And forasmuch 
 as the said inhabitants have always hitherto been bound by 
 the acts and statutes made and ordained by your said High- 
 ness, and your most noble progenitors, by authority of the 
 
 10 said court, as far forth as other counties, cities, and boroughs 
 have been, that have had their knights and burgesses within 
 your said court of parliament, and yet have had neither 
 knight ne burgess there for the said county palatine ; the 
 said inhabitants, for lack thereof, have been oftentimes 
 touched and grieved with acts and statutes made within 
 the said court, as well derogatory unto the most ancient 
 jurisdictions, liberties, and privileges of your said county 
 palatine, as prejudicial unto the commonwealth, quietness, 
 rest, and peace of your Grace's most bounden subjects in- 
 
 20 habiting within the same." 
 
 What did parliament with this audacious address ? Reject 
 it as a libel ? Treat it as an affront to government ? Spurn 
 it as a derogation from the rights of legislature ? Did they 
 toss it over the table ? Did they burn it by the hands of the 
 common hangman ? They took the petition of grievance, 
 all rugged as it was, without softening or temperament, 
 unpurged of the original bitterness and indignation of com- 
 plaint ; they made it the very preamble to their act of 
 redress ; and consecrated its principle to all ages in the 
 
 30 sanctuary of legislation. 
 
 Here is my third example. It was attended with the 
 success of the two former. Chester, civilized as well as 
 Wales, has demonstrated that freedom, and not servitude, is 
 the cure of anarchy ; as religion, and not atheism, is the true 
 remedy for superstition. Sir, this pattern of Chester was 
 followed in the reign of Charles II. with regard to the county
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 45 
 
 palatine of Durham, which is my fourth example. This 
 county had long lain out of the pale of free legislation. So 
 scrupulously was the example of Chester folio wed,' that the 
 style of the preamble is nearly the same with that of the 
 Chester act ; and, without affecting the abstract extent of 
 the authority of parliament, it recognises the equity of not 
 suffering any considerable district, in which the British 
 subjects may act as a body, to be taxed without their own 
 voice in the grant. 
 
 Now if the doctrines of policy contained in these preambles, 10 
 and the force of these examples in the acts of parliament, 
 avail anything, what can be said against applying them with 
 regard to America ? Are not the people of America as much 
 Englishmen as the Welsh ? The preamble of the act of 
 Henry VIII. says, the Welsh speak a language no way 
 resembling that of his Majesty's English subjects. Are the 
 Americans not as numerous ? If we may trust the learned 
 and accurate Judge Harrington's account of North Wales, 
 and take that as a standard to measure the rest, there is no 
 comparison. The people cannot amount to above 200,000 ; 20 
 not a tenth part of the number in the colonies. Is America 
 in rebellion ? Wales was hardly ever free from it. Have 
 you attempted to govern America by penal statutes ? You 
 made fifteen for Wales. But your legislative authority is 
 perfect with regard to America ; was it less perfect in Wales, 
 Chester, and Durham ? But America is virtually represented. 
 What ! does the electric force of virtual representation more 
 easily pass over the Atlantic, than pervade Wales, which 
 lies in your neighbourhood ; or than Chester and Durham, 
 surrounded by abundance of representation that is actual 30 
 and palpable ? But, Sir, your ancestors thought this sort of 
 virtual representation, however ample, to be totally insuffi- 
 cient for the freedom of the inhabitants of territories that 
 are so near, and comparatively so inconsiderable. How then 
 can I think it sufficient for those which are infinitely greater, 
 and infinitely more remote ?
 
 46 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 You will now, Sir, perhaps imagine, that I am on the 
 point of proposing to you a scheme for a representation of 
 the colonies in parliament. Perhaps I might be inclined to 
 entertain some such thought ; but a great flood stops me in 
 my course. Opposuit natura [Nature has barred the way~\ I 
 cannot remove the eternal barriers of the creation. The 
 thing, in that mode, I do not know to be possible. As I 
 meddle with no theory, I do not absolutely assert the im- 
 practicability of such a representation. But I do not see my 
 
 10 way to it ; and those who have been more confident have not 
 been more successful. However, the arm of public bene- 
 volence is not shortened ; and there are often several means 
 . to the same end. What nature has disjoined in one way, 
 wisdom may unite in another. When we cannot give the 
 benefit as we would wish, let us not refuse it altogether. If 
 we cannot give the principal, let us find a substitute. But 
 how ? Where ? What substitute ? 
 
 Fortunately I am not obliged for the ways and means of 
 this substitute to tax my own unproductive invention. I am 
 
 20 not even obliged to go to the rich treasury of the fertile 
 framers of imaginary commonwealths ; not to the Republic 
 of Plato ; not to the Utopia of More ; not to the Oceana of 
 Harrington. It is before me it is at my feet, and the rude 
 swain treads daily on it with his clouted shoon. I only wish 
 you to recognise, for the theory, the ancient constitutional 
 policy of this kingdom with regard to representation, as that 
 policy has been declared in acts of parliament ; and, as to 
 the practice, to return to that mode which an uniform ex- 
 perience has marked out to you, as best ; and in which you 
 
 30 walked with security, advantage, and honour, until the year 
 1763. 
 
 My resolutions therefore mean to establish the equity and 
 justice of a taxation of America, by grant, and not by imposi- 
 tion. To mark the legal competency of the colony assemblies 
 for the support of their government in peace, and for public 
 aids in time of war. To acknowledge that this legal com-
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 47 
 
 petency has had a dutiful and beneficial exercise ; and that 
 experience Ras shown the benefit of their grants, and the 
 futility of parliamentary taxation as a method of supply. 
 
 These solid truths compose six fundamental proposition!*. 
 There are three more resolutions corollary to these. If you 
 admit the first set, you can hardly reject the others. But if 
 you admit the first, I shall be far from solicitous whether 
 you accept or refuse the last. I think these six massive 
 pillars will be of strength sufficient to support the temple of 
 British concord. I have no more doubt than I entertain of 10 
 my existence, that, if you admitted these, you would com- 
 mand an immediate peace ; and, with but tolerable future 
 management, a lasting obedience in America. I am not 
 arrogant in this confident assurance. The propositions are 
 all mere matters of fact ; and if they are such facts as draw 
 irresistible conclusions even in the stating, this is the power 
 of truth, and not any management of mine. 
 
 Sir, I shall open the whole plan to you, together with such 
 observations on the motions as may tend to illustrate them 
 where they may want explanation. The first is a resolution 20 
 "That the" colonies and plantations of Great Britain in 
 North America, consisting of fourteen separate governments, 
 and containing two millions and upwards of free inhabitants, 
 have not had the liberty and privilege of electing and 
 sending any knights and burgesses, or others, to represent 
 them in the high court of parliament." This is a plain 
 matter of fact, necessary to be laid down, and (excepting the 
 description) it is laid down in the language of the constitu- 
 tion ; it is taken nearly verbatim from acts of parliament. 
 
 The second is like unto the first " That the said colonies 30 
 and plantations have been liable to, and bounden by, several 
 subsidies, payments, rates, and taxes, given and granted by 
 parliament, though the said colonies and plantations have 
 not their knights and burgesses, in the said high court of 
 parliament, of their own election, to represent the condition 
 of their country ; by lack whereof they have been oftentimes
 
 48 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 touched and grieved by subsidies given, granted, and assented 
 to, in the said court, in a manner prejudicial to the common- 
 wealth, 'quietness, rest, and pe,ace of the subjects inhabiting 
 within the same." 
 
 Is this description too hot, or too cold, too strong, or too 
 weak ? Does it arrogate too much to the supreme legisla- 
 ture? Does it lean too much to the claims of the people? 
 If it runs into any of these errors, the fault is not mine. It 
 is the language of your own ancient acts of parliament. 
 
 10 Non meus hie sermo, sed quce prcecepit Ofellus, 
 
 Rusticus, abnomiis sapiens. 
 
 [Ofellus shall set forth 
 
 ('Twas he that taught me it a shrewd clear wit, 
 T/iough country -spun, and fa," the schools unfit):"] 
 It is the genuine produce of the ancient, rustic, manly, home- 
 bred sense of this country. I did not dare to rub off a par- 
 ticle of the venerable rust that rather adorns and preserves, 
 than destroys, the metal. It would be a profanation to 
 touch with a tool the stones which construct the sacred altar 
 
 20 of peace. I would not violate with modern polish the in- 
 genuous and noble roughness of these truly constitutional 
 materials. Above all things, I was resolved not to be guilty 
 of tampering : the odious vice of restless and unstable minds. 
 I put my foot in the tracks of our forefathers, where I can 
 neither wander nor stumble. Determining to fix articles of 
 peace, I was resolved not to be wise beyond what was writ- 
 ten ; I was resolved to use nothing else than the form of 
 sound words ; to let others abound in their own sense ; and 
 carefully to abstain from all expressions of my own. What 
 
 30 the law has said, I say. In all things else I am silent. I 
 have no organ but for her words. This, if it be not ingeni- 
 ous, I am sure is safe. 
 
 There are indeed words expressive of grievance in this 
 second resolution, which those who are resolved always to be 
 in the right will deny to contain matter of fact, as applied to 
 the present case ; although parliament thought them true,
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 49 
 
 with regard to the counties of Chester and Durham. They 
 will deny that the Americans were ever "touched and 
 grieved " with the taxes. *If they consider nothing in taxes 
 but their weight as pecuniary impositions, there might be 
 some pretence for this denial. But men may be sorely 
 touched and deeply grieved in their privileges, as well as in 
 their purses. Men may lose little in property by the act 
 which takes away all their freedom. When a man is robbed 
 of a trifle on the highway, it is not tb^ two-pence lost that 
 constitutes the capital outrage. This is not confined to 10 
 privileges. Even ancient indulgences withdrawn, without 
 offence on the part .of those who enjoyed such favours, 
 operate as grievances. But were the Americans then not 
 touched and grieved by the taxes, in some measure, merely 
 as taxes 1 If so, why were they almost all either wholly re- 
 pealed or exceedingly reduced ? Were they not touched and 
 grieved even by the regulating duties of the sixth of George 
 II. ? Else why were the duties first reduced to one third in 
 1764, and afterwards to a third of that third in the year 
 1766? Were they not touched and grieved by the stamp 20 
 act ? I shall say they were, until that tax is revived. 
 Were they not touched and grieved by the duties of 1767, 
 which were likewise repealed, and which Lord Hillsborough 
 tells you (for the ministry) were laid contrary to the true 
 principle of commerce ? Is "not the assurance given by that 
 noble person to the colonies of a resolution to lay no more 
 taxes on them, an admission that taxes would touch and 
 grieve them ? Is not the resolution of the noble lord in the 
 blue riband, now standing on your journals, the strongest of 
 all proofs that parliamentary subsidies really touched and 30 
 grieved them ? Else why all these changes, modifications, 
 repeals, assurances, and resolutions ? 
 
 The next proposition is " That, from the distance of the 
 said colonies, and from other circumstances, no method hath 
 hitherto been devised for procuring a representation in par- 
 liament for the said colonies." This is an assertion of a fact. 
 
 D
 
 t 50 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 I go no further on the paper ; thoxigh, in my private judg- 
 ment, an useful representation is impossible ; I am sure it is 
 not desired by them ; nor ought ft perhaps by us ; but I ab- 
 stain from opinions. 
 
 The fourth resolution is " That each of the said colonies 
 hath within itself a body, chosen in part, or in the whole, by 
 the freemen, freeholders, or other free inhabitants thereof, 
 commonly called the General Assembly, or General Court ; 
 with powers legally to raise, levy, and assess, according to 
 
 10 the several usage of such colonies, duties and taxes towards 
 defraying all sorts of public services." 
 
 This competence in the colony assemblies is certain. It is 
 proved by the whole tenor of their acts of supply in all the 
 assemblies, in which the constant style of granting is, " an 
 aid to his Majesty ;" and acts granting to the crown have 
 regularly for near a century passed the public offices without 
 dispute. Those who have been pleased paradoxically to deny 
 this right, holding that none but the British parliament can 
 grant to the crown, are wished to look to what is done, not 
 
 20 only in the colonies, but in Ireland, in one uniform unbroken 
 tenor every session. Sir, I am surprised that this doctrine 
 should come from some of the law servants of the crown. I 
 say, that if the crown could be responsible, his Majesty 
 but certainly the ministers, and even these law officers them- 
 selves, through whose hands the acts pass biennially in Ire- 
 land, or annually in the colonies, are in an habitual course of 
 committing impeachable offences. A^hat habitual offenders 
 have been all presidents of the council, all secretaries of 
 state, all first lords of trade, all attornies and all solicitors 
 
 30 general ! However, they are safe ; as no one impeaches 
 them ; and there is no ground of charge against them, except 
 in their own unfounded theories. 
 
 The fifth resolution is also a resolution of fact " That the 
 said general assemblies, general courts, or other bodies 
 legally qualified as aforesaid, have at sundry times freely 
 granted several large subsidies and public aids for his
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 51 
 
 Majesty's service, according to their abilities, when .required 
 thereto by letter from one of his Majesty's principal secre- 
 taries of state ; and that their right to 'grant the same, and 
 their cheerfulness and sufficiency in the said grants, have 
 been at sundry times acknowledged by parliament." To say 
 nothing of their great expenses in the Indian wars ; and 
 not to take their exertion in foreign ones, so high as the 
 supplies in the year 1695 ; not to go back to their public 
 contributions in the year 1710 ; I shall begin to travel only 
 where the journals give me light ; resolving to deal in 10 
 nothing but fact, authenticated by parliamentary record ; 
 and to build myself wholly on that solid basis. 
 
 On the 4th of April, 1748, a committee of this House came 
 to the following resolution : 
 
 " Resolved, 
 
 " That it is the opinion of this committee, That it is just 
 and reasonable that the several provinces and colonies of 
 Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and 
 Rhode Island, be reimbursed the expenses they have been 
 at in taking and securing to the Crown of Great Britain the 20 
 island of Cape Breton and its dependencies." 
 
 These expenses were immense for such colonies. They 
 were above 200,000 sterling ; money first raised and ad- 
 vanced on their public credit. 
 
 On the 28th of January, 1756, a message from the king 
 came to us, to this effect : " His Majesty, being sensible of 
 the zeal and vigour with which his faithful subjects of 
 certain "colonies in North America have exerted themselves 
 in defence of his Majesty's just rights and possessions, re- 
 commends it to this House to take the same into their con- 30 
 sideration, and to enable his Majesty to give them such 
 assistance as may be a proper reward and encouragement." 
 
 On the 3rd of February, 1756, the House came to a suit- 
 able resolution, expressed in words nearly the same as those 
 of the message : but with the . further addition, that the
 
 52 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 money then voted was as an encouragement to the colonies to 
 exert themselves with vigour. It will not be necessary to 
 go through all the testimonies which your own records have 
 given to the truth of my resolutions, I will only refer you to 
 the places in the journals : 
 
 Vol. xxvii. 16th and 19th May, 1757. 
 
 Vol. xxviii. June 1st, 1758 April 26th and 30th, 1759 
 
 March 26th and 31st, and April 28th, 1760 
 
 Jan. 9th and 20th, 1761. 
 10 Vol. xxix. Jan. 22nd and 26th, 1762 March 14th and 
 
 17th, 1763. 
 
 Sir, here is the repeated acknowledgment of parliament, 
 that the colonies not only gave, but gave to satiety. This 
 nation has formerly acknowledged two things ; first, that the 
 colonies had gone beyond their abilities, parliament having 
 thought it necessary to reimburse them ; secondly, that they 
 had acted legally and laudably in their grants of money, and 
 their maintenance of troops, since the compensation is ex- 
 pressly given as reward and encouragement. Reward is not 
 
 20 bestowed for acts that are unlawful ; and encouragement is 
 not held out to things that deserve reprehension. My re- 
 * solution therefore does nothing more than collect into one 
 proposition, what is scattered through your journals. I give 
 you nothing but your own ; and you cannot refuse in the 
 gross, what you have so often acknowledged in detail. The 
 admission of this, which will be so honourable to them and 
 to you, will, indeed, be mortal to all the miserable stories, by 
 which the passions of the misguided people have been en- 
 gaged in an unhappy system. The people heard, indeed, 
 
 30 from the beginning of these disputes, one thing continually 
 dinned in their ears, that reason and justice demanded, that 
 the Americans, who paid no taxes, should be compelled to 
 contribute. How did that fact, of their paying nothing, 
 stand, when the taxing system began ? When Mr. Grenville 
 began to form his system of American revenue, he stated in
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 53 
 
 this House, that the colonies were then in debt two million 
 six hundred thousand pounds sterling money ; and was of 
 opinion they would discharge that debt in four years. Oil 
 this state, those untaxed people were actually subject to the 
 payment of taxes to the amount of six hundred and fifty 
 thousand a year. In fact, however, Mr. Grenville was mis- 
 taken. The funds given for sinking the debt did not prove 
 quite so ample as both the colonies and he expected. The 
 calculation was too sanguine ; the reduction was not com- 
 pleted till some years after, and at different times in different 10 
 colonies. However, the taxes after the war continued too 
 great to bear any addition, with prudence or propriety ; and 
 when the biirthens imposed in consequence of former requi- 
 sitions were discharged, our tone became too high to resort 
 again to requisition. No colony, since that time, ever has 
 had any requisition whatsoever made to it. 
 
 We see the sense of the crown, and the sense of parlia- 
 ment, on the productive nature of a revenue by grant. Now 
 search the same journals for the produce of the revenue by 
 imposition Where is it ? let us know the volume and the 20 
 page what is the gross, what is the net produce ? to what 
 service is it applied ? how have you appropriated its sur- 
 plus ? What, can none of the many skilful index-makers 
 that we are now employing, find any trace of it ? Well, let 
 them and that rest together. But are the journals, which 
 say nothing of the revenue, as silent on the discontent ? 
 Oh no ! a child may find it. It is the melancholy burthen 
 and blot of every page. 
 
 I think then I am, from those journals, justified in the 
 sixth and last resolution, which is " That it hath been found 30 
 by experience, that the manner of granting the said supplies 
 and aids, by the said general assemblies, hath been more 
 agreeable to the said colonies, and more beneficial, and con- 
 ducive to the public service, than the mode of giving and 
 granting aids in parliament, to be raised and paid in the said 
 colonies." This makes the whole of the fundamental part
 
 v of the plan. The conclusion is irresistible. You cannot say, 
 that you were driven by any necessity to an exercise of the 
 utmost rights of legislature. You cannot assert, that you 
 took on yourselves the task of imposing colony taxes, from 
 the want of another legal body, that is competent to the 
 purpose of supplying the exigencies of the state without 
 wounding the prejudices of the people. Neither is it true 
 that the body so qualified, and having that competence, had 
 neglected the duty. 
 
 10 The question now, on all this accumulated matter, is ; 
 whether you will choose to abide by a profitable experience, 
 or a mischievous theory ; whether you choose to build on 
 imagination, or fact ; whether you prefer enjoyment, or 
 hope ; satisfaction in your subjects, or discontent ? 
 
 If these propositions are accepted, everything which has 
 been made to enforce a contrary system, must, I take it for 
 granted, fall along with it. On that ground, I have drawn 
 the following resolution, which, when it comes to be moved, 
 will naturally be divided in a proper manner : " That it may < 
 
 20 be proper to repeal an act, made in the seventh year of the 
 reign of his present Majesty, intituled, An act for granting 
 certain duties in the British colonies and plantations in 
 America ; for allowing a drawback of the duties of customs 
 upon the exportation from this kingdom, of coffee and cocoa- 
 nuts of the produce of the said colonies or plantations ; for 
 discontinuing the drawbacks payable on China earthenware 
 exported to America ; and for more effectually preventing 
 the clandestine running of goods in the said colonies and 
 plantations. And that it may be proper to repeal an act, 
 
 30 made in the fourteenth year of the reign of his present 
 Majesty, intituled, An act to discontinue, in such manner, 
 and for such time, as are therein mentioned, the landing and 
 discharging, lading or shipping, of goods, wares, and mer- 
 chandise, at the town and within the harbour of Boston, in 
 the province of Massachusetts Bay, in North America. And 
 that it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the fourteenth
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 55 
 
 year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled, An act for 
 the impartial administration of justice, in the cases of persons 
 questioned for any acts done by them, in the execution of 
 the law, or for the suppression of riots and tumults, in the 
 province of Massachusetts Bay, in New England. And that 
 it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the fourteenth 
 year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled, An act 
 for the better regulating the government of the province of 
 Massachusetts Bay, in New England. And, also, that it 
 may be proper to explain and amend an act, made in the 10, 
 thirty-fifth year of the reign of King Henry the Eighth, in- 
 tituled, An act for the trial of treasons committed out of the 
 king's dominions." 
 
 I wish, Sir, to repeal the Boston Port Bill, because (inde- 
 pendently of the dangerous precedent of suspending the 
 rights of the subject during the king's pleasure) it was 
 passed, as I apprehend, with less regularity, and on more 
 partial principles, than it ought. The corporation of Boston 
 was not heard before it was condemned. Other towns, full 
 as guilty as she was, have not had their ports blocked up. 20 
 Even the restraining bill of the present session does not go 
 to the length of the Boston Port Act. The same ideas of 
 prudence, which induced you not to extend equal punish- 
 ment to equal guilt, even when you were punishing, induced 
 me, who mean not to chastise, but to reconcile, to be satisfied 
 with the punishment already partially inflicted. 
 
 Ideas of prudence and accommodation to circumstances, 
 prevent you from taking away the charters of Connecticut 
 and Rhode Island, as you have taken away that of Massa- 
 chusetts colony, though the crown has far less power in the 30 
 two former provinces than it enjoyed in the latter ; and 
 though the abuses have been full as great, and as flagrant, 
 in the exempted as in the punished. The same reasons of 
 prudence and accommodation have weight with me in re- 
 storing the charter of Massachusetts Bay. Besides, Sir, the 
 act which changes the charter of Massachusetts is in many
 
 56 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 particulars so exceptionable, that if I did not wish absolutely 
 to repeal, I would by all means desire to alter it ; as several 
 of its provisions tend to the subversion of all public and 
 private justice. Such, among oth'ers, is the power in the 
 governor to change the sheriff at his pleasure ; and to make 
 a new returning officer for every special cause. It is shame- 
 ful to behold such a regulation standing among English 
 laws. 
 
 The act for bringing persons accused of committing 
 
 10 murder under the orders of government to England for 
 trial is but temporary. That act has calculated the pro- 
 bable duration of our quarrel with the colonies ; and is 
 accommodated to that supposed duration. I would hasten 
 the happy moment of reconciliation ; and therefore must, 
 on my principle, get rid of that most justly obnoxious act. 
 
 The act of Henry the Eighth, for the trial of treasons, I 
 do not mean to take away, but to confine it to its proper 
 bounds and original intention ; to make it expressly for trial 
 of ti'easons (and the greatest treasons may be committed) in 
 
 20 places where the jurisdiction of the crown does not extend. *, 
 Having guarded the privileges of local legislature, I would 
 next secure to the colonies a fair and unbiassed judicature ; 
 for which purpose, Sir, I propose the following resolution : 
 " That, from the time when the general assembly or general 
 court of any colony or plantation in North America, shall 
 have appointed by act of assembly, duly confirmed, a settled 
 salary to the offices of the chief justice and other judges of 
 the superior court, it may be proper that the said chief jus- 
 tice and other judges of the superior courts of such colony, 
 
 30 shall hold his and their office and offices during their good 
 behaviour ; and shall not be removed therefrom, but when 
 the said removal shall be adjudged by his Majesty in council, 
 upon a hearing on complaint from the general assembly, or 
 on a complaint from the governor, or council, or the house of 
 representatives severally, or of the colony in which the said 
 chief justice and other judges have exercised the said offices."
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 57 
 
 The next resolution relates to the courts of admiralty. 
 
 It is this : " That it may be proper to regulate the courts 
 of admiralty, or vice-admiralty, authorized by the fifteenth 
 chapter of the fourth of George the Third, in such a manner 
 as to make the same more commodious to those who sue, or 
 are sued, in the said courts, and to provide for the more 
 decent maintenance of the judges in the same." 
 
 These courts I do not wish to take away ; they are in 
 themselves proper establishments. This court is one of the 
 capital securities of the act of navigation. The extent of 10 
 its jurisdiction, indeed, has been increased ; but this is alto- 
 gether as proper, and is indeed on many accounts more 
 eligible, where new powers were wanted, than a court abso- 
 lutely new. But courts incommodiously situated, in effect, 
 deny justice ; and a court, partaking in the fruits of its own 
 condemnation, is a robber. The congress complain, and 
 complain justly, of this grievance. 
 
 These are the three consequential "propositions. I have 
 thought of two or three more ; but they come rather too 
 near detail, and to the province of executive government ; 20 
 which I wish parliament always to superintend, never to 
 assume. If the first six are granted, congruity will carry 
 the latter three. If not, the things that remain unrepealed 
 will be, I hope, rather unseemly encumbrances on the build- 
 ing, than very materially detrimental to its strength and 
 stability. 
 
 Here, Sir, I should close ; but I plainly perceive some 
 objections remain, which I ought, if possible, to remove. 
 The first will be, that, in resorting to the doctrine of our 
 ancestors, as contained in the preamble to the Chester act, 30 
 I prove too much ; that the grievance from a want of re- 
 presentation, stated in that preamble, goes to the whole of 
 legislation as well as to taxation. And that the colonies, 
 grounding themselves upon that doctrine, will apply it to all 
 parts of legislative authority. 
 
 To this objection, with all possible deference and humility,
 
 58 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 and wishing as little as any man living to impair the small- 
 est particle of our supreme authority, I answer, that the 
 words are the words of parliament, and not mine ; and, that 
 all false and inconclusive inferences, drawn from them, are 
 not mine ; for I heartily disclaim any such inference. I 
 have chosen the words of an act of parliament, which Mr. 
 Grenville, surely a tolerably zealous and very judicious 
 advocate for the sovereignty of parliament, formerly moved 
 to have read at your table in confirmation of his tenets. It 
 
 10 is true, that Lord Chatham considered these preambles as 
 declaring strongly in favour of his opinions. He was a no 
 less powerful advocate for the privileges of the Americans. 
 Ought I not from hence to presume, that these preambles 
 are as favourable as possible to both, when properly under- 
 stood ; favourable both to the rights of parliament, and to 
 the privilege of the dependencies of this crown ? But, Sir, 
 the object of grievance in my resolution I have not taken 
 from the Chester, but from the Durham act, which confines 
 the hardship of want of representation to the case of sub- 
 
 20 sidies ; and which therefore falls in exactly with the case of 
 the colonies. But whether the unrepresented counties were 
 de jure [in law], or de facto [in fact], bound, the preambles 
 do not accurately distinguish ; nor indeed was it necessary ; 
 for, whether de jure, or de facto, the legislature thought the 
 exercise of the power of taxing, as of right, or as of fact 
 without right, equally a grievance, and equally oppressive. 
 
 I do not know that the colonies have, in any general way, 
 or in any cool hour, gone much beyond the demand of im- 
 munity in relation to taxes. It is not fair to judge of the 
 
 30 temper or dispositions of 'any man, or any set of men, when 
 they are composed and at rest, from their conduct, or their 
 expressions, in a state of disturbance and irritation. It is 
 besides a very great mistake to imagine, that mankind 
 follow up practically any speculative principle, either of 
 government or of freedom, as far as jt will go in argument 
 and logical illation. We Englishmen stop very short of the
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 59 
 
 principles upon which we support any given part of our con- 
 stitution ; or even the whole of it together. I could easily, 
 if I had not already tired you, give you very striking and 
 convincing instances of it. This is nothing but what is 
 natural and proper. All government, indeed every human 
 benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, 
 ,is founded on compromise and barter. We balance incon- 
 veniences ; we give and take ; we remit some rights that 
 we may enjoy others ; and we choose rather to be happy 
 citizens than subtle disputants. As w.e must give away 10 
 some natural liberty, to enjoy civil advantages ; so we must 
 sacrifice some civil liberties, for the advantages to be derived 
 from the communion and fellowship of a great empire. But, 
 in all fair dealings, the thing bought must bear some pro- 
 portion to the purchase paid. None will barter away the 
 immediate jewel of his soul. Though a great house is apt 
 to make slaves haughty, yet it is purchasing a part of the 
 artificial importance of a great empire too dear, to pay for it 
 all essential rights, and all the intrinsic dignity of human 
 nature. None of us who would not risk his life rather than 20 
 fall under a government purely arbitrary. But although 
 there are some amongst us who think our constitution 
 wants many improvements, to make it a complete system 
 of liberty ; perhaps none who are of that opinion would 
 think it right to aim at such improvement, by disturbing 
 his country, and risking everything that is dear to him. In 
 every arduous enterprise, we consider what we are to lose as 
 well as what we are to gain ; and the more and better stake 
 of liberty every people possess, the less they will hazard in a 
 vain attempt to make it more. These are the cords of man. 30 
 Man acts from adequate motives relative to his interest ; 
 and not on metaphysical speculations. Aristotle, the great 
 master of reasoning, cautions us, and with great weight and 
 propriety, against this species of delusive geometrical ac- 
 curacy in moral arguments, as the most fallacious of all 
 sophistry.
 
 60 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 The Americans will have no interest contrary to the 
 grandeur and glory of England, when they are not oppressed 
 by the weight of it ; and they will rather be inclined to 
 respect the acts of a superintending legislature, when they 
 see them the acts of that power, which is itself the security, 
 not the rival, of their secondary importance. In this assur- 
 ance, my mind most perfectly acquiesces : and I confess, I- 
 feel not the least alarm from the discontents which are to 
 arise from putting people at their ease ; nor do I apprehend 
 
 10 the destruction of this empire, from giving, by an act of free 
 grace and indulgence, to two millions of my fellow-citizens 
 some share of those rights, upon which I have always been 
 taught to "value myself. 
 
 It is said, indeed, that this power of granting, vested in 
 American assemblies, would dissolve the unity of the empire; 
 which was preserved entire, although Wales, and Chester, 
 and Durham were added to it. Truly, Mr. Speaker, I do 
 not know what this unity means ; nor has it ever been heard 
 of, that I know, in the constitutional policy of this country. 
 
 20 The very idea of subordination of parts, excludes this notion 
 of simple and undivided unity. England is the head ; but 
 she is not the head and the members too. Ireland has ever 
 had from the beginning a separate, but not an independent, 
 legislature ; which, far from distracting, promoted the union 
 of the whole. Everything was sweetly and harmoniously 
 disposed through both islands for the conservation of English 
 dominion, and the communication of English liberties. I do 
 not see that the same principles might not be carried into 
 twenty islands, and with the same good effect. This is my 
 
 30 model with regard to America, as far as the internal circum- 
 stances of the two countries are the same. I know no other 
 unity of this empire, than I can draw from its example 
 during these periods, when it seemed to my poor under- 
 standing more united than it is now, or than it is likely to 
 be by the present methods. 
 
 But since I speak of these methods, I recollect, Mr.
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 6i; 
 
 Speaker, almost too late, that I promised, before I finished, 
 to say something of the proposition of the noble lord on the 
 floor, which has been so lately received, and stands on your 
 journals. I must be deeply concerned, whenever it is my 
 misfortune to continue a difference with the majority of this 
 House. But as the reasons for that difference are my 
 apology for thus troubling you, suffer me to state them in a 
 very few words. I shall compress them into as small a Itody 
 as I possibly can, having already debated that matter at 
 large, when the question was before the committee, ,,*'~ 10 
 
 First, then, I cannot admit that proposition of a ransom 
 by auction ; because it is a mere project. It is a thing new; 
 unheard of ; supported by no experience ; justified by no 
 analogy ; without example of our ancestors, or root in the 
 constitution. 
 
 It is neither regular parliamentary taxation, nor colony 
 grant. Experimentum in corpore vili [Try experiments only 
 upon what is of no value], is a good rule, which will ever 
 make me adverse to any trial of experiments on what is 
 certainly the most valuable of all subjects, the peace of this 20 
 empire. 
 
 Secondly, it is an experiment which must be fatal in the 
 end to our constitution. For what is it but a scheme for 
 taxing the colonies in the antechamber of the noble lord and 
 his successors ? To settle the quotas and proportions in this 
 House, is clearly impossible. You, Sir, may flatter yourself 
 you shall sit a state auctioneer, with your hammer in your 
 hand, and knock down to each colony as it bids. But to 
 settle (on the plan laid down by the noble lord) tlie true 
 proportional payment for four or five and twenty govern- 30 
 ments, according to the absolute and the relative wealth of 
 each, and according to the British proportion of wealth and 
 burthen, is a wild and chimerical notion. This new taxation 
 must therefore come in by the back-door of the constitution. 
 Each quota must be brought to this House ready formed ; 
 you can neither add iior alter. You must register it. You
 
 62 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 can do nothing further. For on what grounds can you 
 deliberate either before or after the proposition? You 
 cannot hear the counsel for all these provinces, quarrelling 
 each on its own quantity of payment, and its proportion to 
 others. If you should attempt it, the committee of pro- 
 vincial ways and means, or by whatever other name it 
 will delight to be called, must swallow up all the time of 
 parliament. 
 Thirdly, it does not give satisfaction to the complaint of 
 
 10 the colonies. They complain, that they are taxed without 
 their consent ; you answer, that you will fix the sum at 
 which they shall be taxed. That is, you give them the very 
 grievance for the remedy. You tell them indeed, that you 
 will leave the mode to themselves. I really beg pardon : it 
 gives me pain to mention it ; but you must be sensible that 
 you will not perform this part of the compact. For, suppose 
 the colonies were to lay the duties, which furnished their 
 contingent, upon the importation of your manufactures ; you 
 know you would never suffer such a tax to be laid. You 
 
 20 know, too, that you would not suffer many other modes of 
 taxation. So that, when you come to explain yourself, it 
 will be found, that you will neither leave to themselves the 
 quantum nor the mode ; nor indeed anything. The whole is 
 delusion from one end to the other. 
 
 Fourthly, this method of ransom by auction, unless it be 
 universally accepted, will plunge you into great and inex- 
 tricable difficulties. In what year of our Lord are the pro- 
 portions of payments to be settled ? To say nothing of the 
 impossibility that colony agents should have general powers 
 
 30 of taxing the colonies at their discretion ; consider, I implore 
 you, that the communication by special messages, and orders 
 between these agents and their constituents on each variation 
 of the case, when the parties come to contend together, 
 and to dispute on their relative proportions, will be a 
 matter of delay, perplexity, and confusion that never can 
 have an end.
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 If all the colonies do not appear at the outcry, what is 
 condition of those assemblies, who offer by themselves or 
 their agents, to tax themselves up to your ideas of their pro- 
 portion ? The refractory colonies, who refuse all composition, 
 will remain taxed only to your old impositions, which, how- 
 ever grievous in principle, are trifling as to production. The 
 obedient colonies in this scheme are heavily taxed ; the 
 refractory remain unburthened. What will you do ? Will 
 you lay new and heavier taxes by parliament on the dis- 
 obedient ? Pray consider in what way you can do it. You 10 
 are perfectly convinced, that, in the way of taxing, you can 
 do nothing but at the ports. Now suppose it is Virginia 
 that refuses to appear at your auction, while Maryland and 
 North Carolina bid handsomely for their ransom, and 
 are taxed to your quota, how will you put these colonies 
 on a par ? Will you tax the tobacco of Virginia ? If you do, 
 you give its death-wound to your English revenue at home, 
 and to one of the very greatest articles of your own foreign 
 trade. If you tax the import of that rebellious colony, what j 
 do yo\i tax but your own manufactures, or the goods of someyW^ 
 other obedient and already well-taxed colony ? Who has 
 said one word on this labyrinth of detail, which bewilders 
 you more and more as you enter into it? Who has presented, 
 who can present you with a clue, to lead you out of it ? I 
 think, Sir, it is impossible, that you should not recollect that 
 the colony bounds are so implicated in one another, (you 
 know it by your other experiments in the bill for prohibiting 
 the New England fishery,) that you can lay no possible 
 restraints on almost any of them which may not be presently 
 eluded, if you do not confound the innocent with the guilty, 30 
 and burthen those whom, upon every principle, you ought 
 to exonerate. He must be grossly ignorant of America, who 
 thinks that, without falling into this confusion of all rules 
 of equity and policy, you can restrain any single colony, 
 especially Virginia and Maryland, the central and most 
 important of them all.
 
 64 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 Let it also be considered, that, either in the present con- 
 fusion you settle -a permanent contingent, which will and 
 must be trifling ; and then you have no effectual revenue : 
 or you change the quota at every exigency ; and then on 
 every new repartition you will have a new quarrel. 
 
 Reflect besides, that when you have fixed a quota for 
 every colony, you have not provided for prompt and punctual 
 payment. Suppose one, two, five, ten years' arrears. You 
 cannot issue a treasury extent against the failing colony. 
 
 10 You must make new Boston Port Bills, new restraining laws, 
 new acts for dragging men to England for trial. You must 
 send out new fleets, new armies. All is to begin again. 
 From this day forward the empire is never to know an hour's 
 tranquillity. An intestine fire will be kept alive in the 
 bowels of the colonies, which one time or other must con- 
 sume this whole empire. I allow indeed that the empire of 
 Germany raises her revenue and her troops by quotas and 
 contingents ; but the revenue of the empire, and the army 
 of the empire, is the worst revenue and the worst army in 
 
 20 the world. 
 
 Instead of a standing revenue, you will therefore have a 
 perpetual quarrel. Indeed the noble lord, who proposed 
 this project of a ransom by auction, seemed himself to be of 
 that opinion. His project was rather designed for breaking 
 the union of the colonies, than for establishing a revenue. 
 He confessed, he apprehended that his proposal would not 
 be to their taste. I say, this scheme of disunion seems to be 
 at the bottom of the project ; for I will not suspect that the 
 noble lord meant nothing but merely to delude the nation 
 
 30 by an airy phantom which he never intended to realize. 
 But whatever his views may be ; as I propose the peace 
 and union of the colonies as the very foundation of my plan, 
 it cannot accord with one whose foundation is perpetual 
 discord. 
 
 Compare the two. This I offer to give you is plain and 
 simple. The other full of perplexed and intricate mazes.
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 65 
 
 This is mild ; that harsh. This is found by experience 
 effectual for its purposes ; the other is a new project. This 
 is universal ; the other calculated for certain colonies only. 
 This is immediate in its conciliatory operation ; the other 
 remote, contingent, full of hazard. Mine is what becomes 
 the dignity of a ruling people ; gratuitous, unconditional, 
 and not held out as matter of bargain and sale. I have done 
 my duty in proposing it to you. I have indeed tired you by 
 a long discourse ; but this is the misfortune of those to 
 whose influence nothing will be conceded, and who must win 10 
 every inch of their ground by argument. You have heard 
 me with goodness. May you decide with wisdom ! For my 
 part, I feel my mind greatly disburthened by what I have 
 done to-day. I have been the less fearful of tiying your 
 patience, because on this subject I mean to spare it altogether 
 in future. I have this comfort, that in every stage of the 
 American affairs, I have steadily opposed the measures that 
 have produced the confusion, and may bring on the destruc- 
 tion, of this empire. I now go so far as to risk a proposal of 
 my own. If I cannot give peace to my cpuntry, I give it to 20 
 my conscience. 
 
 But what (says the financier) is peace to us without money ? 
 Your plan gives us no revenue. No ! But it does For it 
 secures to the subject the power of REFUSAL ; the first of all 
 revenues. Experience is a cheat, and fact a liar, if this power 
 in the subject of proportioning his grant, or of not granting 
 at all, has not been found the richest mine of revenue ever 
 discovered by the skill or by the fortune of man. It does not 
 indeed vote you 152,750 : 11 : 2|ths, nor any other paltry 
 limited sum. But it gives the strong box itself, the fund, the 30 
 bank, from whence only revenues can arise amongst a people 
 sensible of freedom : Posita luditur area. [The chest is 
 staked.] Cannot you in England ; cannot you at this time f>f 
 day ; cannot you, a House of Commons, trust to the principle 
 which has raised so mighty a revenue, and accumulated a 
 debt of near 140 millions in this country ? Is this principle 
 
 E
 
 66 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 to be true in England, and false everywhere else ? Is it not 
 true in Ireland? Has it not hitherto been true in the 
 colonies ? Why should you presume, that, in any country, a 
 body duly constituted for any function, will neglect to per- 
 form its duty, and abdicate its trust ? Such a presumption 
 would go against all governments in all modes. But, in 
 truth, this dread of penury of supply, from a free assembly, 
 has no foundation in nature. For first observe, that, besides 
 the desire which all men have naturally of supporting the 
 
 10 honour of their own government, that sense of dignity, and 
 that security to property, which ever attends freedom, has a 
 tendency to increase the stock of the free community. Most 
 may be taken where most is accumulated. And what is the 
 soil or climate where experience has not uniformly proved, 
 that the voluntary flow of heaped-up plenty, bursting from 
 the weight of its own rich luxuriance, has ever run with a 
 more copious stream of revenue, than could be squeezed from 
 the dry husks of oppressed indigence, by the straining of all 
 the politic machinery in the world. 
 
 20 Next we know, that parties must ever exist in a free 
 country. We know too, that the emulations of such parties, 
 their contradictions, their reciprocal necessities, their hopes, 
 and their fears, must send them all in their turns to him that 
 holds the balance of the state. The parties are the game- 
 sters ; but government keeps the table, and is sure to be the 
 winner in the end. When this game is played, I really think 
 it is more to be feared that the people will be exhausted, 
 than that government will not be supplied. Whereas, what- 
 ever is got by acts of absolute power ill obeyed, because 
 
 30 odious, or by contracts ill kept, because constrained, will be 
 narrow, feeble, uncertain, and precarious. " Ease would re- 
 tract vows made in pain, as violent and void." 
 
 J, for one, protest against compounding our demands : I 
 declare against compounding for a poor limited sum, the im- 
 mense, evergrowing, eternal debt, which is due to generous 
 government from protected freedom. And so may I speed
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 67 
 
 in the great object I propose to you, as I think it would not 
 only be an act of injustice, but would be the worst economy 
 in the world, to compel the colonies to a sum certain, either 
 in the way of ransom, or in the way of compulsory compact. 
 
 But to clear up my ideas on this subject a revenue from 
 America transmitted hither do not delude yourselves you 
 never can receive it No, not a shilling. We have experience 
 that from remote countries it is not to be expected. If, when 
 you attempted to extract revenue from Bengal, you were 
 obliged to return in loan what you had taken in imposition ; 10 
 what can you expect from North America ? For certainly, if 
 ever there was a country qualified to produce wealth, it is 
 India ; or an institution fit for the transmission, it is the 
 East India Company. America has none of these aptitudes. 
 If America gives you taxable objects, on which you lay your 
 duties here, and gives you, at the same time, a surplus by a 
 foreign sale of her commodities to pay the duties on these 
 objects, which you tax at horne^ she has performed her part 
 to the British revenue. But with regard to her own internal 
 establishments ; she may, I doubt not she will, contribute in 20 
 moderation. I say in moderation ; for she ought not to be 
 permitted to exhaust herself. She ought to bo reserved to 
 a war ; the weight of which, with the enemies that we are 
 most likely to have, must be considerable in her quarter 
 of the globe. There she may serve you, and serve you 
 essentially. 
 
 For that service, for all service, whether of revenue, trade, 
 or empire, my trust is in her interest in the British consti- 
 tution. My hold of the colonies is in the close affection 
 which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from 30 
 similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties, 
 which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. 
 Let the colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights 
 associated with your government ; they will cling and 
 grapple to you ; and no force under heaven will be of power 
 to tear them from their allegiance. But let it be once under-
 
 68 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 stood, that your government may be one thing, and their 
 privileges another ; that these two things may exist without 
 any mutual relation ; the cement is gone ; the cohesion is 
 loosened ; and everything hastens to decay and dissolution. 
 As long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign 
 authority of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the 
 sacred temple consecrated to our common faith, wherever the 
 chosen race and sons of England worship freedom, they will 
 turn their faces towards you. The more they multiply, the 
 
 10 more friends you will have ; the more ardently they love 
 liberty, the more perfect will be their obedience. Slavery 
 they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in everj r 
 soil. They may have it from Spain, they may have it from 
 Prussia. But, until you become lost to all feeling of your 
 true interest and your natural dignity, freedom they can 
 have from none but you. This is the commodity of price, of 
 which you have the monopoly. This is the true act of navi- 
 gation, which binds to you the commerce of the colonies, and 
 through them secures to you the wealth of the world. Deny 
 
 20 them this participation of freedom, and you break that sole 
 bond, which originally made, and must still preserve, the 
 unity of the empire. Do not entertain so weak an imagina- 
 tion, as that your registers and your bonds, your affidavits 
 and your sufferances, your cockets and your clearances, are 
 what form the great securities of your commerce. Do not 
 dream that your letters of office, and your instructions, and 
 your suspending clauses, are the things that hold together 
 the great contexture of the mysterious whole. These things 
 do not make your government. Dead instruments, passive 
 
 30 tools as they are, it is the spirit of the English communion 
 that gives all their life and efficacy to them. It is the spirit 
 of the English constitution, which, infused through the 
 mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies 
 every part of the empire, even down to the minutest member. 
 Is it not the same virtue which does everything for us 
 here in England ? Do you imagine then, that it is the land
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 69 
 
 tax act which raises your revenue ? that it is the annual vote 
 in the committee of supply which gives you your army ? or 
 that it is the mutiny bill which inspires it with bravery and 
 discipline ? No ! surely no ! It is the love of the people ; it 
 is their attachment to their government, from the sense of 
 the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which 
 gives you your army and your navy, and infuses into both 
 that liberal obedience, without which your army would be a 
 base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber. 
 
 All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimeri- 10 
 cal to the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical poli- 
 ticians, who have no place among us ; a sort of people who 
 think that nothing exists but what is gross and material ; 
 and who therefore, far from being qualified to be directors 
 of the great movement of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel 
 in the machine. But to men truly initiated and rightly 
 taught, these ruling and master principles, which, in the 
 opinion of such men as I have mentioned, have no substantial 
 existence, are in truth everything, and all in all. Magna- 
 nimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom ; and a 20 
 great empire and little minds go ill together. If we are 
 conscious of our situation, and glow with zeal to fill our place 
 as becomes our station and ourselves, we ought to auspicate 
 all our piiblic proceedings on America with the old warning 
 of the church, Sursum cwdal [Lift up your hearts.] We 
 ought to elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust to 
 which the order of Providence has called us. By adverting 
 to the dignity of this high calling, our ancestors have turned 
 a savage wilderness into a glorious empire ; and have made 
 the most extensive, and the only honourable conquests, not 30 
 by destroying, but by promoting the wealth, the number, 
 the happiness of the human race. Let us get an American 
 revenue as we have got an American empire. English privi- 
 leges have made it all that it is ; English privileges alone 
 will make it all it can be. 
 
 In full confidence of this unalterable truth, I now (quod
 
 70 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 felix faustumque sit) [and may it be lucky and fortunate] lay 
 the first stone of the temple of peace ; and I move you, 
 
 "That the colonies and plantations of Great Britain in 
 North America, consisting of fourteen separate governments, 
 and containing two millions and upwards of free inhabitants, 
 have not Bad the liberty and privilege of electing and 
 sending any knights and burgesses, or others, to represent 
 them in the high court of parliament." 
 
 Upon this resolution, the previous question was put, and 
 
 10 carried ; for the previous question 270, against it 78. The 
 
 second, third, fourth, and thirteenth resolutions had also the 
 
 previous question put on them. The others were negatived. 
 
 MR. BURKE'S PROPOSALS. 
 
 "That the colonies and plantations of Great Britain in 
 North America, consisting of fourteen separate governments, 
 and containing two millions and upwards of free inhabitants, 
 have not had the liberty and privilege of electing and sending 
 any knights and burgesses, or others, to represent them in 
 the high court of parliament." 
 
 20 "That the said colonies and plantations have been made 
 liable to, and bounden by, several subsidies, payments, rates, 
 and taxes, given and granted by parliament ; though the said 
 colonies and plantations have not their knights and burgesses, 
 in the said high court of parliament, of their own election, to 
 represent the condition of their country ; by lack whereof 
 they have been oftentimes touched and grieved by subsidies 
 given, granted, and assented to, in the said court, in a manner 
 prejudicial to the commonwealth, quietness, rest, and peace, 
 of the subjects inhabiting within the same." 
 
 30 "That, from the distance of the said colonies, and from 
 other circumstances, no method hath hitherto been devised 
 for procuring a representation in parliament for the said 
 colonies."
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 71 
 
 " That each of the said colonies hath within itself a body, 
 chosen, in part or in the whole, by the freemen, freeholders, 
 or other free inhabitants thereof, commonly called the 
 general assembly, or general court ; with powers legally to 
 raise, levy, and assess, according to the several usage of such 
 colonies, duties and taxes towards defraying all sorts of 
 public services." 
 
 " That the said general assemblies, general courts, or other 
 bodies, legally qualified as aforesaid, have at sundry times 
 freely granted several large subsidies and public aids for his 10 
 Majesty's service, according to their abilities, when required 
 thereto by letter from one of his Majesty's principal secre- 
 taries of state ; and that their right to grant the same, and 
 their cheerfulness arid sufficiency in the said grants, have 
 been at sundry times acknowledged by parliament." 
 
 " That it hath been found by experience, that the manner 
 of granting the said supplies and aids, by the said general 
 assemblies, hath been more agreeable to the inhabitants of 
 the said colonies, and more beneficial and conducive to the 
 public service, than the mode of giving and granting aids and 20 
 subsidies in parliament to be raised and paid in the said 
 colonies." 
 
 " That it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the 
 seventh year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled, 
 An act for granting certain duties in the British colonies and 
 plantations in America ; for allowing a drawback of the 
 duties of customs, upon the exportation from this kingdom, 
 of coffee and cocoa-nuts, of the produce of the said colonies 
 or plantations ; for discontinuing the drawbacks payable on 
 China earthenware exported to America ; and for more 30 
 effectually preventing the clandestine running of goods in 
 the said colonies and plantations." 
 
 "That it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the 
 fourteenth year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled, 
 An act to discontinue, in such manner, and for such time, as 
 are therein mentioned, the landing and discharging, lading
 
 72 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 or shipping of goods, wares, and merchandise, at the town, 
 and within the harbour, of Boston, in the province of Massa- 
 chusetts Bay, in North America." 
 
 I "That it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the 
 fourteenth year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled, 
 An act for the impartial administration of justice, in cases of 
 persons questioned for any acts done by them in the execu- 
 tion of the law, or for the suppression of riots and tumults, 
 in the province of Massachusetts Bay, in New England." 
 
 10 " That it is proper to repeal an act, made in the fourteenth 
 year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled, An act 
 for the better regulating the government of the province of 
 Massachusetts Bay, in New England." 
 
 " That it is proper to explain and amend an act made in 
 the thirty-fifth year of the reign of King Henry VIII., in- 
 tituled, An act for the trial of treasons committed out of the 
 king's dominions." 
 
 "That, from the time when the general assembly, or 
 general court, of any colony or plantation, in North America, 
 
 20 shall have appointed, by act of assembly duly confirmed, a 
 settled salary to the offices of the chief justice and judges of 
 the superior courts, it may be proper that the said chief 
 justice and other judges of the superior courts of such colony 
 shall hold his and their office and offices during their good 
 behaviour ; and shall not be removed therefrom, but when 
 the said removal shall be adjudged by his Majesty in council, 
 upon a hearing on complaint from the general assembly, or 
 on a complaint from the governor, or council, or the house 
 of representatives, severally, of the colony in which the said 
 
 30 chief justice and other judges have exercised the said office." 
 "That it may be proper to regulate the courts of admiralty, 
 or vice-admiralty, authorized by the fifteenth chapter of the 
 fourth of George III., in such a manner, as to make the same 
 more commodious to those who sue, or are sued, in the said 
 courts ; and to provide for the more decent maintenance of 
 the judges of the same."
 
 NOTES 
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 P. 2, 1. 1. the Chair, the position which you occupy as pre- 
 sident of this House. The strictness and severity which the 
 (Speaker has to exercise in the maintenance of order are supposed 
 t have rendered him impatient of human weaknesses. 
 
 1. 4. depending, hanging over them, imminent. When a 
 man is very anxious, the slightest circumstance is sufficient to 
 encourage or to depress him. 
 
 1. 7. the event, the result. 
 
 1. 8. the grand penal bill, the object of which was to restrict 
 the trade of the New England colonies with Great Britain, 
 Ireland, and the British Islands in the West Indies, and also to 
 prevent them, except under certain conditions and limitations, 
 from carrying on their fisheries in Newfoundland. To destroy 
 the trade of the Americans was to deprive them of the means of 
 subsistence. 
 
 1. 10. is to be returned, etc., the Lords returned it to the 
 Commons for reconsideration. They thought that its provisions 
 might be extended to other colonies. 
 
 1. 13. we are put once more, etc. The House of Commons has 
 finally committed itself to a bill which it has once sent up to the 
 Lords. In this case, Burke says, God Himself seems to have 
 intervened to prevent the disastrous results of the bill, by giving 
 the Commons tin opportunity of reconsidering it. 
 
 1. 21. coercion and restraint, by the coercion he means the 
 attempt to break the American resistance to the tea-duty : by 
 the restraint, the limitation placed on their trade. These two 
 things were different, but hardly incongruous. 
 
 P. 3, 1. 5. When I first, etc. In 1765, when Burke sat as 
 member for the borough of Wendover. 
 
 1. 7. delicate, requiring careful handling.
 
 74 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. [PAGES 
 
 1. 10. trust, Burke often insists that the power of a govern- 
 ment is not absolute, but given to it only to be exercised for the 
 good of the people and the empire. The interests of the nation 
 are committed to its charge, as the property of a ward is to a 
 trustee. This view, which is essentially Whig, is emphasized by 
 Locke, who traces the origin of government oack to a contract 
 entered into by peoples to make a conditional surrender of some 
 of their natural rights to government with a view to better 
 securing the rest. 
 
 1. 12. I was obliged, etc. Burke probably knew more about 
 America than any one in England. 
 
 1. 19. to ballast, to steady. Ballast means, literally, a weight 
 put in a ship to steady it. A man who has fixed opinions of his 
 own is not shaken by the changes in popular sentiment and 
 opinion, blown about, etc. The language throughout is in 
 harmony witli the comparison of the steadiness given to him by 
 fixed opinions and the steadiness given to a ship by ballast. He 
 did not profess whatever was the opinion of the majority for the 
 moment. The words are borrowed from St. Paul, Eph. iv. 14, 
 "That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, 
 and carried about with every :jyind of doctrine, by the sleight 
 of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to 
 deceive." 
 
 1. 21. manly, A man should be strong, and able to rely on his 
 own resources. Burke was ready with a standard by which to 
 judge of any events that might be reported from America. It 
 was just because Burke did look at events in the- light of con- 
 sistent principles that his works have value. His position must 
 be the position of any man who aspires to what can be called an 
 opinion on political matters. 
 
 1. 23. At that period, etc. It was the time of the repeal of the 
 Stamp Act. 
 
 1. 29. religious, scrupulous. 
 
 1. 30. it is in, etc. I leave it to your fairness to decide. 
 
 1. 31. Parliament having, etc. A change in feeling and conduct 
 can only be justified by a change in circumstances. Parliament 
 knows more of circumstances than an individual can do, and may 
 therefore reasonably change more frequently than a private 
 individual. 
 
 P. 4, 1. 1. to, joined with motives : their reasons for their 
 many changes in feeling and policy. 
 
 1. 4. complaint, Used in its common meaning of a disease. 
 
 1. 5. the distemper, disorder, derangement, disease. 
 
 1. 8. I will not miscall, etc. My regard for truth will not 
 allow me to represent the evil as being less than it really is. It
 
 3-5.] NOTES. 75 
 
 i" so appalling that I am afraid to call it by its proper name, even 
 if I could find a name adequate to describe it. 
 
 1. 11. a worthy member, Mr. Rose Fuller. 
 1. 12. filled the chair, etc., presided when the affairs of America 
 were being considered in Committee of the whole House. 
 
 1. 15. our former methods, viz., criticism of government 
 measures. 
 
 1. 17. never too indulgent, etc., an unsuccessful opposition is 
 apt to be regarded by public opinion as factious. 
 
 1. 21. inconstancy, levity, want of fixed principle. As the 
 Ministry proposed measures of every kind, and the Opposition 
 objected to all of them, it might seem as if they had made up 
 their minds beforehand not to be contented with anything that 
 came from the Government. To this, of course, Burke would 
 reply that he criticised the Government because they wavered 
 between conciliation and coercion, instead of sticking consistently 
 to one of them. 
 
 1. 26. out, to the end. 
 
 1. 27. our hand, literally, the cards in our hand, that is to say, 
 our own policy. The word, of course, is used because the 
 struggle between the Government and the Opposition has just 
 been compared to a game at cards. 
 
 1. 31. a platform, a ground plan. They would be expected to 
 give at least an outline of their own scheme. 
 
 1. 35. His application, his request for a scheme of government. 
 
 1*. 5, 1. 1. No man, etc. No one could be more willing than 
 myself, because no one could be more anxious than I was for 
 the welfare of America ; but it was not for a private individual 
 like myself to frame a scheme of government, because I should 
 have no power to give effect to it when it was framed. 
 
 1. 2. gave ... into, yielded to. 
 
 1. 5. argues, is a sign of the existence of, proves. 
 
 1. 9. disreputably, to the damage of the reputation of. The 
 word now carries the sense of positive disgrace. 
 
 1. 13. I have, etc. As a rule I have a very poor opinion of mere 
 schemes of government, and of any measure which is not to lie 
 enforced by the man who drafts it. When a man knows that he 
 is to be practically responsible for carrying out a measure which 
 he devises, he will, for his own sake, carefully inform himself as 
 to all the circumstances of the country to which it is to be 
 applied, and will propose nothing that does not appear to be 
 really practicable. A private individual, drawing up a scheme 
 of government, does so under no sense of responsibility. 
 
 1. 18. alienation, estrangement.
 
 76 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. [PAGES 
 
 1. 19. I felt this, etc. When the safety of a country is at stake, 
 it is the duty of private individuals to come forward and give 
 what help they can. Cf. "If the prudence of reserve and 
 decorum dictate silence in some cases, in others prudence of an 
 higher order may justify us in speaking our thoughts " (Reflec- 
 tions on the Revolution in France). 
 
 1. 21. is a mighty leveller, equalizes all, that is, in times of 
 danger all may help. 
 
 1. 27. would ennoble, etc. The loftiest efforts of genius would 
 be dignified by the cause in which they were made ; and every 
 man would be justified in doing his best, no matter how little it 
 might be, to help in such a crisis. 
 
 1. 32. I grew less anxious, Because as he goes on to explain, 
 he knew that his proposal would be judged on its merits. 
 
 P. 6, 1. 1. natural or adventitious. Natural describes the 
 influence which a man possesses owing to his own intrinsic 
 worth : adventitious describes that which comes to a man from 
 external circumstances, such as his rank or office. 
 
 1. 8. the labyrinth, a maze. The expression shows the diffi- 
 culty of arriving at an agreement by negotiation. 
 
 1. 9. to arise, etc. Burke is perhaps thinking of the Roman 
 principle of ruling by creating divisions amongst the ruled. 
 
 1. 11. not peace, etc. I do not wish peace to depend on the 
 answer which a lawyer may give to such a difficult question as 
 "What does sovereignty include?" 
 
 1. 13. shadowy, obscure, hard to discern. Burke is, of course, 
 referring to the question which had been raised as to the extent 
 of England's rights in the matter of taxation. 
 
 1. 14. in its ordinary haunts, literally in the places which it 
 ordinarily frequents. To seek it in such places means ' to take 
 the right way of getting it.' If you have quarrelled with a man 
 and want to make friends with him again, you must show your 
 anxiety to do so by removing the cause of offence. Then he will 
 meet you half way. 
 
 1. 17. former unsuspecting, etc. These words are in italics 
 because they were used by the congress at Philadelphia to 
 describe the state of feeling in America after the repeal of the 
 Stamp Act. Burke refers to them again in the letter to the 
 sheriffs of Bristol. 
 
 1. 23. Refined, opposed to simple. 
 
 1. 25. Plain good intention, etc. If you want your subjects to 
 obey you, let thefn see that you really mean them well. 
 
 1. 28. healing, It puts an end to discord, which is the disease 
 of the state.
 
 5-7.] NOTES. 77 
 
 1. 29. cementing, It binds the parts of the empire together, as 
 mortar binds bricks. 
 
 1. 32. pruriency, literally, itching ; and so curiosity, or in- . 
 quisitiveness. It is always used in a bad sense, signifying 
 generally a desire to hear something improper or indelicate. 
 
 1. 34. the project, "That when the Governor, Council, or 
 Assembly, or general Court, of any of his Majesty's provinces or 
 colonies in America shall propose to make provision, according to 
 the condition, circumstance*, and situation of such province or 
 colony, for contributing their proportion to the common defence 
 (such proportion to be raised under the authority of the general 
 Court, or general Assembly, of such province or colony, and 
 disposable by parliament), and shall engage to make provision 
 also for the support of the civil government, and the admini- 
 stration of justice, in such province or colony, it will be proper, 
 if such proposal shall be approved by his Majesty, and the tiro 
 Houses of Parliament, and for so long as such provision shall l>e 
 made accordingly, to forbear, in respect of such province or colony, 
 to levy any duty, tax, or assessment, or to impose any further 
 duty, tax, or assessment, except such duties as it may be 
 expedient to continue to levy or impose for the regulation of 
 commerce ; the nett produce of the duties last mentioned to be 
 carried to the account of such province or colony respectively " 
 (Resolution moved by Lord North in the committee, and agreed 
 to by the House, 27th February, 1775). 
 
 1. 35. the blue riband, the badge of the Order of the Garter. 
 It is very seldom that a Commoner is a Knight of the Garter. 
 Lord North sat in the House of Commons because he was only 
 the second son of the Earl of Guildford, and the younger sons of 
 peers, even when they bear courtesy titles, are, for all legal and 
 political purposes, commoners. Scotch and Irish peers are also 
 found in the House of Commons, because only sixteen Scotch, 
 and twenty-eight Irish peers are entitled to sit in the House of 
 Lords. The Scotch peers are elected, at the opening of a new 
 Parliament, by an assembly of peers at Holyrood. The Irish 
 peers are elected for life. 
 
 1. 36. your lobby, the anteroom of the House. Only members 
 are allowed within the actual precincts of the House : squabbling, 
 disputing as to the amount which eaeh colony should pay. Every 
 agent will try to ma-ke out that his own colony should pay least. 
 
 P. 7, 1. 1. your mace, the Sergeant-at-Arms, who is the 
 executive officer of the House of Commons. The mace (ch6b) is 
 the sign of his authority. 
 
 1. 3. auction of finance, Just as people bid for articles at an 
 auction, so the colonies would make a bid for exemption from 
 taxation by the British Parliament,
 
 78 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. [PAGES 
 
 1. 4. come to general ransom, free themselves from taxation by 
 a voluntary payment. To ransom means to redeem, or buy off. 
 
 1. 5. knock dowa the hammer, accept the contribution offered 
 by them. When at an auction no one will go beyond the last 
 offer, or bid, the auctioneer, saying 'Going, going, going gone,' 
 brings his hammer down on the table and declares that article 
 sold. 
 
 1. 6. beyond all the powers, etc. No amtmnt of knowledge of 
 the science of calculating could enable a man to decide the fair 
 contribution for each of a number of colonies so differently 
 situated. Cf. p. 61, 1. 25. 
 
 1. 9. the proposition and registry, its having been brought 
 forward and recorded in your journals. 
 
 1. 13. menacing front, its threatening appearance. The House 
 had promised to aid the Crown in putting down the rebellion in 
 Massachusetts. Our address : The address is the reply of 
 Parliament to the speech from the throne, or declaration of 
 ministerial policy, with which Parliament opens. It is moved 
 and seconded by two supporters of Government. Amendments 
 may be proposed to it, and the debate on the address is made an 
 occasion for challenging the policy of Government or the conduct 
 of particular ministers, our heavy bills, etc., referring to the 
 closing of Boston harbour and the suspension of colonial assemblies. 
 
 1. 18. It has even, etc., it has gone further ; it has done more 
 than this. 
 
 P. 8, 1. 4. either in effect, etc., it is not lessened, nor is it 
 thought to be lessened. 
 
 1. 11. are the strength, etc. The only chance which the weaker 
 party has of treating on equal terms with the stronger is to 
 catch the latter at a disadvantage. 
 
 1. 22. the object, America. Burke's meaning is this America 
 is too valuable a possession for us to run any risk of losing it. 
 It is too powerful a country for us to have any chance of sub- 
 duing it. 
 
 P. 9, 1. 9. shoots, a word used to describe the growth of a 
 tree. 
 
 1. 16. from families, etc., perhaps a reminiscence of Aristotle. 
 He said, and truly, that the social unit is the family. Families 
 form village communities, and these communities are consolidated 
 into states. Athens arose out of a union into one political 
 organization of a number of village communities. 
 
 1. 19. in the front of, etc. I mention it first. I give it the 
 most prominent place. 
 
 1. 21. pinched, confined : meagre.
 
 7-12.] NOTES. 79 
 
 1. 22. occasional system, It is of no use applying a system 
 adapted to the circumstances of to-day to a country in which 
 circumstances, e.g. the number of inhabitants, are changing. 
 
 1. 23. one of those minima, it is not one of those insignificant 
 objects which we can afford to neglect. Burke is alluding to the 
 maxim, De minimi* non curat lex, i.e. there are trifles of which 
 law takes no account. 
 
 1. 31. without guilt, it must always be wrong wantonly to 
 offend and damage numbers of men. The Americans will resist 
 any attempt which you make to harm them. 
 
 P. 10, 1. 1. This ground... has been trod, This subject has 
 been dealt with. 
 
 1. 3. at your bar, The bar is a rod drawn across the entry to 
 the chamber in which Parliament sits, and to which members 
 only are admitted. Witnesses, giving evidence before the 
 House, have to stand behind this bar. 
 
 1. 4. This gentleman, Mr. Glover. The planters of the West 
 Indies petitioned the House of Commons to make peace with the 
 colonies, supporting their petition by pointing out how they 
 would suffer if the Americans carried out their resolution to* 
 import nothing from English territories, after thirty-five years, 
 his former appearance was probably connected with the matters 
 that led to the war of England with Spain in 1739. Spain tried 
 to prevent England from trading witli Spanish America. 
 
 1. 9. the first literary characters, Glover's epics, Leonidas 
 and the Atheniad, and his tragedies, Boadicea and Medea, are 
 now forgotten. 
 
 1. 10. in, with regard to. 
 
 1. 21. state, statement. 
 
 1. 27. vouchers, authorities. To vouch is the Latin vocare, to 
 call as evidence. 
 
 1. 28. on your table, presented officially to the House. 
 
 1. 30. office, viz., of customs. 
 
 1. 33. terminating almost wholly, etc. Our trade with Africa 
 must be reckoned as a part of our colonial trade ; because with 
 what we export to Africa we buy African slaves, which are then 
 sent on and sold in the colonies. The English trade with Africa 
 was really a slave trade with the colonies. 
 
 P. 11, 1. 3. denominations, trades nominally distinct. 
 
 P. 12, 1. 6. protuberance, etc., has not our increased trade 
 with America been purchased at the cost of our trade with other 
 countries ? Have we not spent so much in America that we have 
 nothing left to spend in other countries ? A protuberance means, 
 literally, a bulging or swelling. The killing of one trade by
 
 80 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. [PAGES 
 
 another is compared to the death of a man from a tumour, which 
 absorbs the juices that ought to go to sustain the rest of his 
 body. 
 
 1. 8. It is the very food, The profits of our American trade 
 have enabled us to produce more, to sell more, and therefore to 
 buy more, than we could before. 
 
 1. 20. sophistical, false. The Sophists were teachers -who 
 appeared in Greece in the fourth century B.C. They professed 
 to teach the accomplishments, specially rhetoric, which were 
 required for practical success in a democratic city. They were 
 distrusted by orthodox conservatives as men who taught ' the art 
 of making the worst cause seem the better.' Plato and Aristotle 
 are specially responsible for the evil connotation which attaches 
 to the words sophist and sophistry. They regarded the Sophists 
 as vendors of spurious knowledge. Burke means that an object 
 of so much value must be dealt with carefully. 
 
 1. 22. It is good, etc., it is well that we should dwell upon it. 
 "And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, 
 and John, and leadeth them up into an high mountain apart 
 by themselves : and he was transfigured before them. And his 
 raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow ; so as no fuller 
 on earth can white them. And there appeared unto them Elias 
 with Moses : and they were talking with Jesus. And Peter 
 ans'./ered and said to Jesus, master, it is yoodfor us to be here " 
 (Mark, ix. 2-5). 
 
 1. 31. of an age, he was born in 1684. The quotation which 
 follows is slightly altered from Virgil, Eclogue, iv. 26. 
 
 1. 35. the angel, the belief that a guardian spirit is commis- 
 sioned by the Deity to watch over every man from life to death 
 was very ancient and widespread. The Romans called this 
 guardian spirit a man's Qenlm. Hence the use of the word in 
 p. 13, 1. 14. auspicious, favoured, fortunate. The word auspice 
 means lit. an omen taken from the flight of birds. 
 
 P. 13, 1. 2. fourth generation ... third prince, George III. was 
 the grandson of George II. 
 
 1. 5. healing counsels, because they put an end to the discords 
 between England and Scotland, was to be made Great Britain, 
 referring to the Act of Union between England and Scotland 
 in 1707. 
 
 1. 6. he should see his son. His son was made Lord Chan- 
 cellor with the title of Baron Apsley in 1771. 
 
 1. 7. turn back the current, etc., the sovereign is the fountain 
 of honour. In the ordinary course honours derived from him 
 descend from father to son. In this case the ordinary course was 
 reversed, The son received a barony in his father's lifetime,
 
 12-15.] NOTES. 81 
 
 and the father was raised to an earldom. This reversal of the 
 ordinary course is compared by Burke to a stream flowing back 
 to its source. 
 
 1. 16. seminal principle, compared to America, as it was in 
 Burke's day, it was then what a seed is to a tree. Semen is the 
 Latin for seed. 
 
 1. 20. you taste of death, " Verily I say unto you, There be 
 some standing here that shall not taste of death, till they see the 
 Son of Man coming in his kingdom " (Matt. xvi. 28). 
 
 1. 31. the setting of his day, the closing years of his life. 
 
 P. 14, 1. 10. to sink it, to convey an inadequate idea of it. 
 Very large figures only convey a very vague impression. 
 
 1. 16. deceive the burthen, lighten it, make men forget it. The 
 Latin word for to deceive, fallere, is used in this sense. 
 
 1. 17. invigorate the springs, etc. We receive from America 
 the materials for manufactured goods, which we sell either in 
 England or abroad. 
 
 1. 25. comprehending, including. 
 
 1. 31. child of your old age, the colonies are the children of the 
 mother-country. They are the children of her old age, because 
 it was not until after many years of England's existence that 
 Englishmen settled in America. 
 
 1. 32. piety, used like the Lat. pietas, to signify the affection 
 which binds a child to its father : a Roman charity, Roman 
 writers tell how one Cimon was condemned to death by starva- 
 tion in prison. His daughter Xanthippe was allowed to visit 
 him, and she kept her father alive by feeding him with the milk 
 from her own breast. 
 
 P. 15,1.8. tumbling mountains, etc., icebergs. The word berg 
 is the German word for a mountain. 
 
 1. 13. the frozen serpent, a small constellation within the 
 Antarctic circle. 
 
 1. 15. romantic, fanciful. It was so remote that the acquisition 
 of it by any nation seemed a dream. But though other nations 
 could not go so far, the Americans have gone beyond it. The 
 Falkland Islands are S.E. of South America. The student will 
 find an account of them in Mahon's Hist, of England, vol. v. 
 oh. 49. The word romance is used to denote any story of love 
 or adventure, because such stories were frequent in the literature 
 of those languages of South Europe which were derived from the 
 language of Rome. 
 
 1. 16. a stage and resting-place, like an inn on a journey. 
 
 1. 19. draw the line, etc. The harpoon, or spear with which 
 the whale is woxmded, is fastened to a rope which is wound round 
 
 F
 
 82 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. [PAGES 
 
 a tub in the whaling-boat. When the whale is struck, the un- 
 winding of the rope allows him to go clear of the boat, which he 
 would otherwise upset. 
 
 1. 20. run the longitude, sail southwards. 
 
 1. 21. game, the word is applied to all creatures that are 
 hunted. 
 
 1. 22. No sea but what, etc., there is no sea which is not 
 harassed by them. Burke had in mind similar uses of the word 
 vexare by Latin poets Lucretius, e.g. talks of mountains being 
 vexed by the wind. 
 
 1. 26. hardy, bold, adventurous. 
 
 1. 28. in the gristle, only half developed. Gristle is connected 
 with to grind, because it has to be crunched with the teeth if 
 eaten. 
 
 1. 34. generous, The word means literally of noble birth, and 
 so comes to denote the qualities which a man of noble birth 
 ought to possess. 
 
 P. 16, 1. 3. My rigour, etc. No government, however watchful 
 or however careful, could have produced these results. When I 
 think of this I feel no disposition to put any checks upon free- 
 dom. Seeing what good it can do, I am willing to pardon the 
 occasional evils for which it is responsible. 
 
 1. 8. Certainly it is, etc. Notice the skill with which Burke 
 refutes an argument by putting it in a way that exposes the 
 folly of it. 
 
 1..11. complexions, characters. The word complexion, which 
 we now use to describe the appearance of the face, formerly 
 signified either character or physical constitution. 
 
 1. 13. Those who wield, etc., the government who dispose of 
 the forces of the state. 
 
 1. 25. Terror is not, etc. You must not take it for granted 
 that the Americans will be intimidated by your threats, or that 
 your forces will necessarily be victorious. 
 
 1. 32. you impair, you diminish the value of. Life and money 
 must be expended in war. 
 
 P. 17, 1. 3. a foreign enemy.' France would have been glad to 
 find England at a disadvantage. 
 
 1. 5. no insurance, I cannot guarantee myself. The word sure 
 is the same as secure, i.e. free from anxiety. 
 
 1. 9. no sort of experience, This argument is characteristic of 
 Burke. 
 
 1. 14. our fault, what my opponents represent as the mistake 
 of over-indulgence. By our penitence he means our policy of 
 coercion.
 
 15-18.] NOTES. 83 
 
 1. 27. as an ardent, etc. Our hatred of those who would rob 
 us of a thing is great in proportion to the value which ^ - e set 
 upon the thing. 
 
 1. 28. restive, restless, disturl>ed. The word properly means 
 stubborn, unwilling to move : but it is confused with the word 
 restless : untractable, unmanageable. 
 
 1. 30. shuffle ... by chicane, to get from them by underhand 
 measures. 
 
 P. 18, 1. 2. England, etc. In his speech on American taxation 
 Burke indicated his opinion that the English did not guard their 
 freedom as watchfully as their ancestors did ; and in the Present 
 Discontent* he reproves them for sitting quietly by while the Court 
 perverted the popular house into an instrument of despotism. 
 
 1. 4. when this part, etc., when England was struggling for 
 freedom under the Stuarts. The Puritan emigrants wanted 
 freedom to worship according to their conscience. 
 
 1. 5. bias, literally, a slant ; and so, an inclination to one side, 
 in this case to the side of, or in the direction of, freedom. 
 
 1. 8. English ideas, etc. , as Englishmen understand it, viz., a 
 freedom to dispose of their own money ; and as Englishmen 
 justify it, viz., on the ground that a man who can be robbed of 
 his money is not free. Abstract liberty, liberty in general, i.e. 
 mere absence of control. There is no country in which every 
 one may do whatever he likes. 
 
 1. 9. Liberty inheres, etc. Freedom is freedom in some parti- 
 cular respect, or freedom to do some particular thing. 
 
 1. 11. by way of eminence, especially, pre-eminently. Burke's 
 words are a translation of the Greek phrase, *COT' l^ox^v. We 
 generally use the Frencli phrase, par excellence. 
 
 1. 15. the ancient commonwealths, Rome and the states in 
 Greece. Every student will remember the struggles between the 
 patricians and plebeians in Rome, and between the oligarchical 
 and democratic factions in Greece. 
 
 1. 22. to give ... satisfaction, to demonstrate. 
 
 1. 27. parchments, charters. The word is derived from Per- 
 gamus,a town in Asia Minor, where parchment was first invented : 
 blind, for which no good reason could be given. 
 
 1. 32. the old records, the parchments referred to above. 
 
 1. 33. This oracle, this truth. The word oracle means, literally, 
 an utterance of the deity. 
 
 1. 35. mediately or immediately, by themselves or their repre- 
 sentatives. They not only showed, as a matter of history, that 
 the sovereign had not taxed ; but they also argued a priori, or 
 deductively, that a people, whom a sovereign could deprive of 
 their money at his pleasure, could not be free.
 
 84 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. [PAGES 
 
 P. 19, 1. 3. fixed and attached, used intransitively. 
 
 1. 4. Liberty might be, etc. Burke means that men count 
 themselves free when they are free to do the particular things 
 that they care about doing. 
 
 1. 6. Here they felt, etc. Just as a doctor, when he wants to 
 find out whether a man is healthy (sound) or not, feels his pulse, 
 so the Americans, when they wished to know whether they were 
 free or not, asked whether they were taxed by themselves or by 
 England. 
 
 1. 10. It is not easy, etc. You must not expect to keep your 
 principles and all that follows from them to yourselves. If you 
 proclaim that only those who are self-taxed are free, why should 
 this be true of Englishmen in England only ? 
 
 1. 12. and your mode, etc. By granting them practical free- 
 dom, i.e. by the policy of non-interference which you have 
 adopted, you have strengthened their belief in their freedom. 
 
 1. 16. They were further, etc. If they were not to be free, 
 why did you give them the free institutions of England ? pleas- 
 ing error, they were pleased witli the belief in their own freedom, 
 but it now appears as if that belief was an illusion. 
 
 1. 18. merely popular, altogether popular. Merely is used in 
 its literal sense of purely. Merua is the Latin word for unmixed. 
 Burke means to say that in every colony there was a popular 
 assembly, summoned by the Governor, but that in New England 
 the colonies were pure democracies. In Massachusetts the 
 Upper Chamber, instead of being, as in most provinces, ap- 
 pointed by the Sovereign, was elected annually by the Lower 
 Chamber : every town officer was annually chosen ; all town 
 affairs were decided in public meetings ; the clergy were selected 
 by their congregations ; and with the exception of a few custom 
 house officers, the Crown officers were paid by the (State. The 
 Governor was appointed by the Crown, but his power was practi- 
 Ccilly very limited, because his salary and the salaries of the 
 whole Executive depended on the popular vote. In Rhode 
 Island and Connecticut the freemen elected all their officers from 
 the highest to the lowest, and they were not obliged to com- 
 municate the acts of their local legislatures to the king (Lecky). 
 
 1. 24. this necessary operation, the inevitable tendency of free 
 institutions to produce a spirit of independence in those who live 
 under them. 
 
 1. 26. a principle of energy, an active principle. A man will 
 do and suffer for his religion, if it is sincere. 
 
 1. 29. of that kind, viz. , dissenters from the Church of England. 
 The term dissenters is applied to all religious sects among English- 
 men outside the Established Church.
 
 19-20.] NOTES. 85 
 
 1. 32. built upon it, because, unless every man is free to 
 worship God in his own way, the existence of independent 
 religious sects is iinjustifiable. 
 
 1. 33. from, this is the right preposition to use after averse (cf. 
 above, 1. 22), though now we generally uSe to. 
 
 1. 35. in their history, Their dislike of absolute governments 
 is due to the fact that they or their ancestors were oppressed by 
 absolute governments. 
 
 1. 36. coeval with, as old as. 
 
 P. 20, 1. 3. The Church of England, etc. It was established by 
 Henry VIII. 
 
 1. 8. natural liberty, a natural liberty is one which is not 
 created by and cannot be token away by government. The ex- 
 pression state, of nature is used to denote the period anterior to 
 the existence of society and governments ; and natural liberties 
 are the rights which men were supposed to have enjoyed in that 
 period. The claim of the secular government to repress dissent 
 can only be resisted on the ground that the right of every man 
 to worship as he pleases is a right which he possessed before the 
 existence of governments, and which, therefore, no government 
 can abrogate. 
 
 1. 10. cold and passive, lukewarm and indifferent. A Pro- 
 testant must be a man who protests against something or some- 
 body. 
 
 1. 12. is a refinement, etc., it is the right to protest and dis- 
 sent carried to its extreme limits. It is Protestantism and 
 dissent in its extreme form. Englishmen in the 16th century 
 asserted their right to protest against the Romish corruptions of 
 primitive belief and worship. Dissenters assert the right to 
 differ from any church, and to protest against any belief or 
 practice whatsoever. 
 
 1. 15. denominations, the regular word used to denote a religious 
 sect : agreeing in nothing, etc. No two sects have exactly the 
 same creed or form of worship ; but they all agree in this, that 
 any man may believe what he pleases, and worship as he pleases. 
 
 1. 20. left England, during the struggle with the Stuarts. 
 
 1. 24. the establishments, the technical word for State churches. 
 Cf. below, 1. 30. There were in America Irish Presbyterians, 
 besides Germans, Swedes, Scotch, Welsh, and a few Dutch 
 immigrants (Lecky); 
 
 1. 25. far from alien to, very much akin to. 
 
 1. 28. the latitude, etc., they think that I am asserting of all 
 America what is only true of a part of it. If we attribute the 
 spirit of independence to the prevalence of dissent, how are we 
 to account for it where dissent is not prevalent ? Burke says that
 
 86 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. [PAGES 
 
 though the Southerners are not dissenters, they are slave owners, 
 and the ownership of slaves produces the same haughty spirit in 
 them that dissent does in the Northerners. 
 
 1. 30. has a regular establishment, In Virginia " the sixty or 
 seventy clergymen of the Established Church received, in addi- 
 tion to a house and to some glebe lands, an annual stipend in the 
 form of tobacco, which was delivered to them packed in hogs- 
 heads for exportation at the nearest warehouse " (Lecky). 
 
 P. 21, 1. 1. jealous of their freedom, Seeing as they do every 
 day the superiority of their own position as freemen to that of 
 their slaves, the value of freedom is constantly forced upon their 
 attention. They naturally cling to their freedom when they 
 have before their eyes every day examples of the misery of the 
 non-free. 
 
 1. 4. a common blessing, enjoj'ed by all. The words which 
 follow "as broad ...air," are from Macbeth, iii. 4. 23. In a free 
 country many of the poorer class seem little better than slaves. 
 They have to work as hard, if they can get work, and they are 
 not so well housed nor so well fed. Freedom does not seem 
 worth so much in a country where free men may be wretched. 
 
 1. 10. I cannot alter, etc. Burke wanted the English to 
 realize that they had to deal with America as it was. > What 
 was the xise of arguing that the spirit of independence in the 
 Americans of the Southern colonies, being simply a feeling of 
 pride arising out of a .comparison between themselves and their 
 dependents, had nothing in it that deserved respect ? The ques- 
 tion was not what made them independent, but was there any 
 chance that an independent people would submit tamely to an 
 arbitrary government ? 
 
 1. 14. ancient commonwealths, slavery prevailed in Rome and 
 in all the states of Greece : Gothic ancestors, Burke uses the 
 word Gothic loosely as equivalent to German. Goths is pro- 
 perly the name of a single Teutonic people who inhabited the 
 Southern shores and the islands of the Baltic. 
 
 1. 15. in our days, we need not go to ancient history for a 
 parallel. We have seen one in our own days. In Poland the 
 peasants were serfs attached to the soil. Burke uses the past 
 tense were, because the position of the peasantry was much 
 improved upon the partition of Poland in 1772 between Russia, 
 Prussia, and Austria. 
 
 1. 17. domination, the word is appropriate, because dominus 
 was the Latin term for an owner or master of slaves. 
 
 1. 23. The profession, the actual lawyers. 
 
 1. 25. the congress, viz., at Philadelphia. See Introduction.
 
 2U-2-J.J NOTES; 87. 
 
 1. 28. tracts, treatises. It is a short form of tractate. The 
 word is specially applied to short publications on religious 
 subjects. 
 
 1.32. Blackstone's Commentaries, Blackstone was born in 1723. 
 He wrote the famous Commentaries on the Laws of England, a 
 book which has profoundly influenced the opinions of English- 
 men upon the subject of the English law and constitution. 
 
 P. 22, 1. 1. chicane, a trick or subterfuge. 
 
 1. 2. your capital, etc., your chief punitive measures. Burke 
 refers to the prohibition of public meetings. The people evaded 
 the act, by calling every meeting an adjournment of a meeting 
 held before the act was passed. The smartness of debate will 
 say, Some clever man among my opponents will reply that the 
 study of the law must teach them to respect the law. 
 
 1. 5. All this is mighty well, It is easy enough to say this, but 
 plausible as it sounds, every one knows that there is nothing in it. 
 
 1. 6. friend on the floor, the Attorney-General Thurlow. The 
 benches in the House of Commons rise in tiers : the lowest 
 bench to the right of the Speaker is occupied by the members of 
 the Government, the corresponding bench on his left being 
 reserved for the leaders of the Opposition. Thurlow was making 
 notes of points in Burke's speech to be replied to. 
 
 1. 7. animadversion, means lit. attention or notice ; but gener- 
 ally signifies censure. 
 
 1. 10. this knowledge, the knowledge of law. The way to stop 
 the criticism of a lawyer is to give him a good appointment. 
 Every Indian student will appreciate the truth of Burke's remarks 
 about lawyers. 
 
 1. 13. Abeunt studia, etc., Ovid, Heroid. xv. 83. Cf.." His- 
 tories make men wise : poets witty : the mathematics subtle : 
 natural philosophy deep : morals grave : logic and rhetoric 
 able to contend. Abeunt studia in mores " (Bacon, Essay 60); and 
 "It is not without truth which is said, that studies have an 
 influence and operation upon the manners of those that are con- 
 versant in them" (Advancement of Learning, bk. i.). 
 
 1. 16. of a less mercurial cast, of a less lively temperament, 
 more stolid. Mercurial means, literally, like quicksilver : judge 
 of an ill principle, only decide that there is something amiss in 
 the Government when they have actually begun to suffer. 
 
 1. 18. judge of the pressure, They do not say that a policy is 
 bad because it is oppressive, but that it must be oppressive 
 because it is bad. 
 
 - 1. 19. They augur, etc., they can see it coming. The Latin 
 noun augur (properly aviyur, from avis, a bird) signified one who 
 foretold the future from observation of the flight of birds.
 
 88 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. [PAGES 
 
 I. 20. and snuff, etc., just as the dog's sense of smell enables 
 him to detect the presence of an animal before lie sees it, so the 
 ingenuity of these men enables them to anticipate the measures 
 of Government before they are passed. Snuff, scent. Tainted, 
 viz. , by the smell of the animal. 
 
 1. 23. it is not merely moral, etc., it is not a matter affecting 
 character, but is an unalterable physical circumstance. 
 
 1. 29. You have, indeed, etc., it is true that you have ships 
 which can carry your forces to the most distant parts of the earth. 
 The ships carrying troops are compared to birds carrying thunder- 
 bolts in their talons (pounces) with reference to the eagle who, in 
 the Roman mythology, had charge of the thunderbolts of the 
 god Jupiter. 
 
 1. 33. So far, etc., referring to the story 'of Canute ordering the 
 flow of the tide to cease. Burke means that England could not 
 possibly conquer the Americans in a war carried on on the 
 American continent. 
 
 1. 34. Who are you, etc. In what are you superior to other 
 men that you should expect nature to remove obstacles for you 
 alone ? The metaphor is from a horse champing his bit. 
 
 P. 23, 1. 1. in all the forms, whether the imperial power be a 
 despotism, or a constitutional monarchy, or a republic. 
 
 1. 2. In large bodies, etc., in large empires, the power of the 
 central government must be weak in the distant provinces. The 
 metaphor is from the circulation of the blood. Burke's statement 
 requires qualification. It is contradicted by the strength of the 
 British Government in India. Much less depends on distance 
 than on the character of the ruling government. 
 
 1. 3. Nature has said it, it is an unalterable law. 
 
 1. 5. Crimea and Algiers, Algiers is the capital of Algeria, a 
 district on the north coast of Africa, which since 1830 has been 
 under French rule. The Crimea, a peninsula of S. Russia, has 
 been in the hands of Russia since 1757. Brusa and (Smyrna are 
 on the coast of Turkey in Asia. 
 
 1. 6. Despotism itself, etc. Even a ruler with absolute power, 
 and much more a Government like yours, is obliged to higgle and 
 bargain with his subjects as to the amount of obedience he is to 
 get from them. Burke is thinking of a bargain between a 
 hawker and his customers. The hawker does not get all he 
 asks, but all he can. Similarly, the Government does not get as 
 much obedience as it would like, but as much as it can. To truck 
 means, literally, to barter or exchange. Huckster is the same 
 word as hawker, and means, literally, to stoop under a burden. 
 The hawker carries his pack on his back.
 
 22-24.] NOTES. 89 
 
 1. 8. with a loose rein, like a driver who allows his horse to go 
 his own pace. 
 
 1. 10. in his centre, at home. If he dispersed his forces through- 
 out his empire^ he would not have the means of enforcing his 
 authority at home. 
 
 1. 11. Spain, etc. You have nothing to complain of. You are 
 as well obeyed as other imperial powers, if not better. 
 
 1. 16. capital, chief: They are descended from Englishmen ; 
 their government is popular ; they are dissenters in the'North ; 
 they are slave owners in the South ; they study law and are far 
 from England. 
 
 1. 19. the first mover, Burke probably had in his mind the 
 primum mobile of the Ptolemaic astronomy. The heavenly 
 bodies, it was thought, were set in a series of spheres, having 
 the earth as their common centre. The outermost of these 
 spheres was called the ' primum mobile' or 'first moved.' It 
 completed its revolution in twenty- four hours, and communicated 
 its movement to the inner spheres. Bacon similarly compares 
 the sovereign to the primum mobile, Essay xv., "The motions of 
 the greatest persons in a government ought to be as the motions 
 of the planets under primum mobile (according to the old opinion), 
 which is, that every one of them is carried swiftly by the highest 
 motion, and softly in their own motion." 
 
 1. 24. much less with theirs, because, as already explained, 
 what they understand by freedom is freedom from arbitrary 
 taxation. ' A consuming fire ' is a Biblical expression. 
 
 1. 27. I do not mean, etc., the question is not whether the 
 American character is admirable or not, but how the Americans, 
 their character being what it is, are to be dealt with. Nobody 
 doubts that the task of governing them would be easier if they 
 were less independent. 
 
 1. 29. smooth, unresisting, accommodating, ready to meet our 
 wishes. 
 
 1. 30. Perhaps ideas, etc., it would be pleasanter for us if they 
 could think themselves free, though arbitrarily taxed. 
 
 1. 33. held in trust, etc., as property is held by a guardian for 
 his ward so long as the ward is under age. 
 
 P. 24, 1. 1. in the name of God, the words show how serious 
 the question is. 
 
 1. 3. with all its imperfections, etc. Hamlet's father relating 
 the circumstances of his death tells how he was 
 " Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin, 
 Unhousel'd, disappointed, unaneled, 
 No reckoning made, but sent to my account 
 With all my imperfections on my head " (Hand. i. 5. 79).
 
 90 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. [PACES! 
 
 1. 6. to determine something, Similarly in his speech on 
 American taxation Burke said, ' Let us, Sir, embrace some system 
 or other before we end this session. ' 
 
 1. 9. Every such, etc., because the discontent of the Americans 
 was naturally increasing. 
 
 1. 12. monsters, prodigies. He is referring, as he goes on to 
 explain,- to the upsettal of long accepted opinions. 
 
 1. 13. unnatural, the quarrel between England and her colonies 
 was like- a quarrel between parent and child. 
 
 1. 16. reasoning, theory. 
 
 1. 19. the popular part, the representative assemblies. They 
 were summoned by the Governors, who were nominated by the 
 Crown. 
 
 1. 24. operose, laborious. 
 
 1. 28. finding all passage, etc., being unable to give expression 
 to their grievances through their assemblies, because these 
 assemblies were suspended. 
 
 1. 33. Evident necessity, etc., the whole population have 
 quietly acquiesced in arrangements which they saw to be 
 necessary. 
 
 1. 35. Lord Dunmore, Governor of Virginia. 
 
 P. 25, 1. 2. Obedience, etc., the real government is the body 
 which is obeyed. 
 
 1. 7. artificial media, such, for instance, as royal charters or 
 Acts of Parliament : positive, as opposed to natural, signifies 
 anything which is accepted by convention. The English con- 
 stitution is positive in the sense that it is the one under which 
 the English have agreed to live. There was nothing to prevent 
 them from choosing a different one if they had liked ; nor is there 
 any reason in the nature of things why it should be accepted out 
 of England. 
 
 1. 9. The evil, etc. Here again the Student will notice how 
 Burke sees the permanent lessons taught by events. 
 
 1. 18. feeling, actual experience. 
 
 1. 28. fundamental principles, such, for instance, as the im- 
 portance of government to general well-being. 
 
 1. 33. I am much against, etc. This sentence is very char- 
 acteristic of Burke. He was so impressed with the value of 
 social order and with the difficulty of creating it, that he shrank 
 from any attack upon opinions, feelings, or even prejudices that 
 in any way tended to maintain it. When he considered how 
 naturally lawless, selfish, passionate, and violent man is, the mere 
 existence of society seemed to him, literally, a mystery. 
 
 P. 26, 1. 1. concussion, shaking.
 
 24-27.J NOTES. 91 
 
 1. 2. For, in order, etc. This is very important. The policy 
 pursued towards America was only a part of the general system 
 of arbitrary government to which Burke, in his Present Discon- 
 tent.?, had traced the existing discontent in England. Those who 
 favoured despotism in America could not logically object to it 
 when they themselves were made the object of it. If sovereignty 
 as such includes the right to tax, it must do so in England, as 
 well as in America. If the Americans were not justified in 
 defending their freedom, England would not be justified in 
 defending the very same freedom against the Crown. 
 
 1. 9. for which our ancestors, etc. So in his speech on 
 American taxation Burke said, "The feelings of the Colonies 
 were formerly the feelings of G reat Britain. Theirs were formerly 
 the feelings of Mr. Hampden when called upon for the payment 
 of twenty shillings. Would twenty shillings have ruined Mr. 
 Hampden's fortune ? No ! but the payment of half twenty 
 shillings, on the principle it was demanded, would have made 
 him a slave." 
 
 1. 24. giving up the colonies, Tucker, Dean of Gloucester, 
 an extreme Tory, had advocated the cession of the Colonies on 
 the ground that they were a source of weakness to England, and 
 that, so far as the profits of trade were concerned, even if 
 America were made independent, the cheap markets of England 
 would still attract American buyers. 
 
 1. 26. sally, an outburst. It is generally applied to a sudden 
 rush of a l>esieged garrison upon its besiegers. 
 
 1. 32. It is radical, etc., it goes to the root of the matter. 
 
 P. 27, 1. 6. unsettled, as yet unoccupied. 
 
 1. 10. hoarding, to hoard means to keep wealth unemployed : 
 royal, because the land belonged to the sovereign. 
 
 1. 12. private monopolists, individuals to whom grants had 
 been made, as distinguished from the royal monopolist, viz:, the 
 king. If the king refused to make further grants of waste land, 
 the individuals to whom such land had already been granted 
 would, of course, have a monopoly of it. They alone would have 
 it to let or to sell, consequently they could ask their own price 
 for it. 
 
 1. 18. they will carry on, etc., they would become nomads. 
 Burke probably had in mind a passage in Horace, in which the 
 words annual tillage occur. 
 
 " Happier the Scythians, wont o'er townless wilds 
 
 To shift the wains that are their nomad dwellings : 
 Or the rude Getae whose unmeted soil 
 
 Yields its free sheaves and fruits to all in common ; 
 Thus each man toils but for his single year," etc. 
 
 (Od. iii. 24. 9, Martin's Translation).
 
 92 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. [/AGES 
 
 1. 20. back settlements, those in the interior. 
 
 1. 28. hordes, from urdtl, the Tartar word for a royal camp. 
 They would degenerate into barbarians, and would overrun 
 civilized America, just as the Asiatic tribe of Tartars had, at 
 times, overrun and wasted, for instance, the eastern parts of 
 Europe, and the northern parts of India. The name Tartar 
 should be spelt Tatar. The r was introduced to make their 
 name describe them. They were- regarded as fiends from 
 Tartarus, the Greek word for hell. 
 
 1. 31. comptrollers, another spelling of controller, control being 
 short for counter-roll. A controller is one who keeps a duplicate 
 register by which to verify the original. 
 
 1. 34. blessing, the word signifies any gift, favour, or privilege 
 conferred by God. " So God created man in his own image, in 
 the image of God created he him ; male and female created he 
 them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruit- 
 fid and multiply, and replenish the earth, and sulxlue it," etc. 
 (Genesis, i. 27). Burke, as Mr. Payne points out, took the form 
 " Encrease and multiply" from Milton (P. L. x. 730). Milton 
 translated from the Vulgate, or Latin Bible. 
 
 P. 28, 1. 1. given to the children of men, " The heaven, even 
 the heavens, are the Lord's : but the eartli hath he given to the 
 children of men" (Psalm, cxv. 16). Cf. Locke's Treatise of 
 Government, bk. ii. ch. 5. 
 
 1. 5. his title, his right to his land. 
 
 1. 6. wax and parchment, legal documents, contracts. Deeds 
 of sale, etc., are written on parchment, because of its durability, 
 and are sealed with wax. Burke means that we have taught 
 men to regard contracts as sacred. The result of the policy 
 which Burke condemns would be to imbue men with the belief 
 that " those may take who have the power, and those may keep 
 who can." At the bottom of all Burke's thoughts about com- 
 munities and governments there lay a certain mysticism. It was 
 no irony, no literary trope, when he talked of our having taught 
 the American husbandman "piously to believe in the mysterious 
 virtue of wax and parchment." He was using no idle epithet 
 when he described the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, 
 ' ' moulding together the great mysterious incorporation of the 
 human race." To him there actually was an element of mystery 
 in the cohesion of men in societies, in political obedience, in the 
 sanctity of contract, in all that fabric of law and charter and 
 obligation, whether written or unwritten, which is the sheltering 
 bulwark between civilization and barbarism. When reason and 
 history had contributed all that they could to the explanation, it 
 seemed to him as if the vital force, the secret of organization,
 
 27-29.] NOTES. 93 
 
 the binding framework, must still come from the impenetrable 
 regions beyond reasoning and beyond history (Lord M or ley).. 
 See note on p. 25, 1. 33. 
 
 1. 14. hedging-in, confining. 
 
 1. 16. their marine enterprises, their fisheries, of which Burke 
 has already given so eloquent a description. 
 
 1. 20. we must grain, etc. It was a common fallacy that every 
 restriction on the trade of one country must mean a correspond- 
 ing gain to the trade of another country. Bacon says that 
 "whatsoever is somewhere gotten must be somewhere lost." 
 The right of England to control American trade being -allowed, 
 it was, as Burke, says, easy for them to punish America by 
 imposing restrictions. The restrictions were often continued 
 after the occasion for them had l>een removed under the idea 
 that England gained by them. It was forgotten that a country 
 can only buy with what it makes. To diminish American trade, 
 therefore, was to diminish America's power of buying English 
 goods. 
 
 1. 24. direct and immediate, etc. But the colonies would pro- 
 bably find allies amongst England's enemies. 
 
 1. 27. to my poor understanding, in my humble opinion. 
 There is a very effective irony in this affected apology for what 
 is plain common sense. 
 
 1. 31. exploded, rejected : obsolete. The word signified in 
 Latin "to drive a play off the stage by a noisy clapping of hands." 
 Tyrants attempt to enforce obedience by taking away the means 
 of resistance. 
 
 P. 29, 1. 2. Spoliatis. etc. From the Roman satirist Juvenal 
 (Satire, viii. 124). 
 
 1. 10. your speech would betray you, Your common language 
 would betray your common origin. When Jesus was put on His 
 trial before the Jewish high priest, Caiaphas, Peter, one of His 
 disciples, attempted to disavow any connection with Him, "and 
 after a while came unto him they that stood by, and said to 
 Peter, Surely thou also art one of them : for thy speech beivrayeth 
 thee" (Matt. xxvi. 73). 
 
 1. 11. is the unflttest person, etc., because he is so perfectly 
 free himself. 
 
 1. 15. as a penalty, This is said from the point of view of a 
 member of the English Church. 
 
 1. 16. The mode of inquisition, etc. It is no longer possible, 
 as it once was, to frighten heretics by the penalties of spiritual 
 courts or the employment of military force. The inquisition was
 
 94 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. [PAGES 
 
 a Catholic Court for the trial of heretics. It was formally con- 
 stituted in the middle of the thirteenth century. Dragoon signi- 
 fied originally a cavalry soldier armed with an infantry firearm, 
 and trained to fight on foot as well as on horseback. The name 
 was derived from the dragon's head worked upon the muzzles of 
 the short muskets first carried by Marshal Brissac's horsemen in 
 the year 1600 (Chambers). "In 1535 an Imperial Edict was 
 issued in Brussels condemning all heretics to death ; repentant 
 males to be executed with the sword, repentant females to be 
 buried alive, the obstinate of both sexes to be burned" (Motley's 
 Dutch Republic). Students will remember Milton's sonnet on 
 the massacre of the Protestants in Piedmont in 1655. 
 
 1. 20. bottom, basis, foundation. It is equally unalterable. 
 
 1. 21. their books of curious science, their law books. In the 
 Acts of the Apostles, xix. 19, where a victory of the Christian 
 Apostle Paul over some Jewish exorcists is described, it is said 
 that " many of them also which used curious arts brought their 
 books together, and burned them before all men." Curious 
 means magical. 
 
 1. 23. best read in, best acquainted with, through their study 
 of Acts of Parliament,- etc. 
 
 1. 27. chargeable, costly ; literally, burdensome. 
 
 1. 28. difficult to be kept, etc. Cf. "Fierce licentiousness 
 begets violent restraints. The military arm is the sole reliance; 
 and then, call your constitution what you please, it is the sword 
 that governs. The civil power, like every other that calls in the 
 aid of an ally stronger than itself, perishes by the assistance it 
 receives" (Present Discontents). 
 
 1. 30. high aristocratic spirit, the pride which comes of a sense 
 of superiority. The word aristocracy means, literally, govern- 
 ment by the best, that is, by the wisest and most virtuous. It 
 acquired its present sense of a government of wealth and rank 
 because the rich and the noble naturally arrogate to themselves 
 the title of the best. 
 
 1. 31. to reduce it, to bring it down, to lower it. 
 
 1. 33. panegyrists, eulogists. The Greek word panefiyris 
 meant a public assembly ; and a panegyric, is a complimentary 
 speech such as would be delivered in a public assembly. Dunmore, 
 in Virginia, had proclaimed " freedom to all indented servants, 
 negroes, or others, appertaining to rebels," if they would "join 
 for the reducing of the colony to a proper sense of its duty " 
 (Bancroft, vol. vii.). 
 
 1. 34. argue myself, etc. See any reasons for entertaining a 
 favourable opinion of it.
 
 29-30.] . NOTES. 95 
 
 1. 36. wild, morle without reflection. "To the African negroes 
 bondage in Virginia was not a lower condition of being than their 
 former one ; they had no regrets for ancient privileges lost ; their 
 memories prompted no demand for political change ; no struggling 
 aspirations of their own had invited Dunmore's interposition ; no 
 memorial of their grievances had preceded his offers " (Bancroft). 
 
 P. 30, 1. 3. auspicious, see on p. 12, 1. 35. It is ironical, 
 both these pleasing tasks, the task of compelling the slaves to 
 accept freedom, and of compelling the Americans to submit to 
 despotic rule. 
 
 1. 7. other people, Greek states and the Romans sometimes did 
 this, when the citizen population was not sufficiently numerous 
 to cope with a national enemy. 
 
 1. 10. dull, stupid. Long years of cruelty alone produce intel- 
 lectual torpor, but, besides this, there is nothing to stimulate 
 the ingenuity of a slave. However skilful his work might be, it 
 "would bring no advantages to himself. 
 
 1. 12. that very nation, England. As the slaves knew that 
 England forced them upon the Americans, they would not look 
 upon an offer of freedom from England as disinterested. 
 
 1. 15. An offer of freedom, etc. What Mill the slaves think of 
 an offer of freedom forwarded to them by the same English ship 
 which carries a cargo of fresh slaves whom the Americans are 
 unwilling to buy? Angola is on the west coast of Africa. 
 
 1. 19. the Guinea captain, the captain of a ship which sailed 
 from Guinea with a cargo of slaves. Guinea is an extensive 
 district on the west of Africa. It is north-west of Angola. 
 
 1. 22. moral, opp>sed to physical, as on p. 22, 1. 23. 
 
 1. 27. just as reasonable, that is, just as unreasonable. The 
 lover in the play, who was at a distance from his beloved, wished 
 that it might be possible for them to come together in a moment 
 of time. So English politicians complained of the distance which 
 separated America from England, and made the task of governing 
 it more difficult. The two lines quoted by Burke are given in 
 Martimis Scrihleru*, ch. xi., where this "modest request of two 
 absent lovers" is given as an example of the Hyperbole, or 
 Impossible. See Elwin and Courthope's edition of Pope, vol. x., 
 p. 381. " The memoirs of Scriblerus extend only to the first 
 book of a work, projected in concert by Pope, Swift, and 
 Arbuthnot, who used to meet in the time of Queen Anne, and 
 denominated themselves the tfcriblerns Chib. Their purpose was 
 to censure the abuses of learning by a fictitious life of an infatu- 
 ated scholar. They were dispersed ; the design was never com- 
 pleted ; and Warburton laments its miscarriage, as an event 
 very disastrous to polite letters " (Johnson's Life of Pope).
 
 96 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. [PACES 
 
 1. 30. alterative, which can change the Americans. 
 
 1. 31. not quite easy, absolutely impossible. In saying that 
 'there are difficulties in the way of removing the Atlantic,' 
 Burke is laughing at those who thought that America could l>e 
 governed as if the Atlantic did not exist. 
 
 1. 33. that, connected with if, on which the sentence depends. 
 " If it is desperate, and if it seems certain that the spirit will 
 continue." 
 
 P. 31, 1. 2. a great deal too big, You cannot take legal pro- 
 ceedings against a whole nation, or put a whole people in the 
 dock. 
 
 1. 3. should, we should say would. 
 
 1. 4. in reason and policy, common sense tells us that there is 
 a diffei'ence between a local riot and a general rebellion, and it 
 is unwise to make no difference between them. 
 
 1. 10. pedantic, Pedantry means the unreasonable ostentation, 
 or the- affectation, of knowledge supposed to characterise 'a 
 teacher (pedant). In a wider sense it denotes an absurd respect 
 for mere form, and a preference of the letter to the spirit. It 
 may of course be argued that a'general rebellion is an offence, 
 and that offences are punishable by law. The answer to this 
 must be that there are different kinds of offences. 
 
 1. 12. drawing up an indictment, framing a charge. 
 
 1. 14. Sir Edward Coke, When Raleigh was prosecuted for 
 complicity in plots against James I., Sir Edward Coke, then 
 Attorney General, conducted the prosecution. He disgraced 
 himself by the abusive epithets which he addressed to Raleigh, 
 calling him 'a monster,' 'a viper,' 'the rankest traitor in all 
 England,' 'a damnable atheist,' and 'a spider of hell.' Coke 
 .afterwards rose to be Chief Justice of the King's Bench and 
 Privy Councillor. From the time that he was first raised to the 
 Bench in 1606 he became one of the greatest champions of law as 
 against arbitrary government. He is one of the greatest of 
 English writers on law. 
 
 1. 15. at the bar, the part of the court where the prisoner 
 stands. 
 
 1. 16. ripe, ready, prepared : gravest public bodies, the 
 Colonial Assemblies. 
 
 1. 18. charged with, entrusted with the care of. 
 
 1. 19. upon the very same title, viz., as a popular representa- 
 tive. Title means a legal right. 
 
 1. 20. for sober men, etc., not becoming for moderate men. It 
 is a most extravagant proposal.
 
 30-32.] NOTES. 97 
 
 1. 22. Perhaps, Sir, etc. ^Notice once more how Burke sees in 
 particular events and proposals an occasion for general reflections 
 and an enunciation of general principles. The proposal to 
 punish America involves the assumption that every assertion of 
 a right or every request for a privilege on the part of a subject 
 country is criminal. This suggests to Burke a consideration of 
 the nature and limits of imperial authority. In his speech on 
 American taxation he had argued that the function of the 
 central government is to supervise, not to supersede, local 
 authorities. 
 
 1. 27. and nothing but, etc., when all the subjects are slaves 
 there will of course be no assertion of independence. But uni- 
 versal slavery is like universal death. In a slave population all 
 feeling and energy are dead. Who would wish to purchase 
 uniform submission at the cost of universal slavery ? 
 
 1. 32. ill blood, bad feeling. 
 
 1. 35. The claim of a privilege, etc., in the very act of asking 
 any one for a favour we allow that it rests with him to grant or 
 to refuse it. The Latin word prii~iit.c/imn meant a law against, or 
 an ordinance in favour of, an individual. 
 
 P. 32, 1. 8. to beat, because the drum gives the signal. 
 
 1. 9. under the ban, to proclaim them rebels. The word ban 
 (Low Latin, bannum, a proclamation) always signifies that it is 
 a punishment which is proclaimed. For instance, it is applied 
 to an interdict, or Papal sentence of excommunication. 
 
 1. 10. no distinction, viz., between different kinds of obedience. 
 They will argue that submission is in itself slavery. 
 
 1. 14. not . . . quite convenient, notice how the effect is heightened 
 by the ironical understatement. 
 
 1. 20. frightens me, I am afraid of deciding unjustly in my 
 own favour. 
 
 1. 23. judicial, impartial. 
 
 1. 26. as often decided, Cf. "In all disputes between the 
 people and their mlers the presumption is at least upon a par in 
 favour of the people. Experience may perhaps justify me in 
 going further. When popular discontents have been very pre- 
 valent, it may well be affirmed and supported that there has been 
 generally something found amiss in the constitution or in the 
 conduct of government " (Present Discontents). 
 
 1. 28. abstract, considered without reference to the fairness, 
 or expediency of exercising it in any given circumstanc'es. 
 
 1. 31. the most odious, etc. In his speech on American taxa- 
 tion Burke talked of ' the odious and suspicious summum his,'
 
 98 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. [PAGES 
 
 i.e. rigour of the law. There is a saying, smnmum i-iin snmma 
 iniuria : the utmost rigour of the law is the extreme of injustice. 
 Equity, or a regard to the spirit of the law, must temper the 
 administration of it. 
 
 1. 34. the same party, viz., the Americans. 
 
 1. 35. a civil litigant, a party to a suit in which a right is 
 the subject of dispute ; in this case, England's right to tax : a 
 culprit, etc., because, if I decide that England has the right, it 
 will follow that the Americans have been guilty in denying and 
 resisting the right. 
 
 P. 33, 1. 1. whose moral quality, their guilt or innocence. 
 - 1. 2. Men are every now, etc. A man may occasionally find 
 himself in the unusual position of having to decide in a cause 
 affecting his own Interests ; but, because the decision rests with 
 him, he is not free to decide as he pleases. 
 
 1. 5. There is, Sir, also, etc. If it is expedient to try Ameri- 
 cans as traitors, why have not those, who have pronounced them 
 traitors, brought them to trial ? 
 
 1. 10. addressed, presented an address to the Sovereign, asking 
 for the application of this statute. By the statute of Henry VIII. 
 persons accused of treasonable acts outside England could l>e 
 brought to trial in England. The statute was directed against 
 those whose offences were committed where England had no 
 jurisdiction, and Burke more than once urged the iniquity of 
 applying it to the Americans. The excuse offered for it was that 
 no jury in America would convict an American. 
 
 1. 16. modes of public coercion, the closing of Boston harbour 
 and the stoppage of the trade of the colonies with England were 
 really a blockade, which is an attempt to reduce a hostile power 
 by starvation. 
 
 1. 17. qualified, short of an absolute declaration of war. 
 
 1. 20. these juridical ideas, the plan of bringing the Americans 
 to trial for treason. 
 
 1. 25. for the time, considering how short the time is over 
 which they have extended. 
 
 1. 35. of criminal process, of bringing them to trial as rebels. 
 
 P. 34, 1. 2. if you please, if you prefer the expression. Burke 
 has already said that they would have preferred a more accom- 
 modating spirit in the Americans (p. 23, 1. 28). 
 
 1. 8. seal, from the Latin sigillum, a diminutive of signum, a 
 sign, or mark. 
 
 1.19. startle, start," show signs of astonishment. We now use 
 the word transitively. '
 
 3236.] NOTES. 99 
 
 1. 24. the policy, what it is expedient to do. 
 
 1. 26. a power excepted, this was Chatham's contention. 
 
 1. 28. polity, the Greek word for constitution, or form ot 
 government. 
 
 1. 29. the charter of nature, See note on p. 20, 1. 8. 
 
 1. 36. there is no sure footing, etc., it is not possible to decide 
 with certainty between them. 
 
 P. 35, 1. J. the great Serbonian bog, (Milton, P. L. ii. 592). 
 The Serbonian bog is the Lake Serbonis. Pamietta is a town 
 near the easternmost mouth of the Nile, and Mount Casius is on 
 the coast, further east. 
 
 1. 3. I do not intend, I shall not, as many men deserving of 
 respect have done, engage myself in the discussion of that 
 insoluble question. No reader can fail to be struck by the 
 sentences which follow. 
 
 1. 13. your evidence-room, the room in which a man keeps his 
 securities, and all legal documents proving his right to his 
 property. A title means a legal right. England's title* are of 
 course preserved in acts of parliament, charters, etc. 
 
 1. 14. magazines, storehouses, but used especially with reference 
 to military stores. 
 
 1. 17. my suit, what I am anxious to gain or keep, viz., 
 America. Burke has already said that the value of the object 
 would be diminished by a contest (p. 16, 1. 32). Here he 
 means that they might be beaten in the contest, and so lose 
 America altogether. 
 
 1. 21. by a unity of spirit, etc., our motive or policy should 
 be the same, whatever subordinate country we are dealing with, 
 viz., to make all contented. The mode of producing contentment 
 will differ from country to country, and will vary with times and 
 circumstances. Burke's language is a reminiscence of a passage 
 in St. Paul's \st Ep. to the Corinthians, xii. 4, " Now there are 
 diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differ- 
 ences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are 
 diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh 
 all in all." 
 
 1. 36. to admit . . . into an interest, etc. , to allow them to share 
 the benefits of it. 
 
 P. 36, 1. 6. upon its understood principle, as an act the 
 avowed object of which was revenue, and not control of trade. 
 A mere repeal of duties is not now sufficient, because the Ameri- 
 cans will not feel sure that it will not be followed by an imposi- 
 tion of other duties, just as the repeal of the Stamp Act was 
 followed by Townshend's Act, and all the acts of coercion which
 
 100 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. [PAGES 
 
 have been passed to enforce it. To give the Americans con- 
 fidence, and to protect yourselves against temptation in future, 
 you must give and record a formal promise that the policy of 
 taxing for revenue has been once and for all abandoned. 
 
 1. 8. an unconditional abatement, an absolute and unqualified 
 abandonment. To abate means, literally, to beat down. 
 
 1. 15. I have taken ... measure, I am mistaken as to what it is. 
 An equivalent expression is, "I have not gauged it correct!} 7 ." 
 
 1. 17. American financiers, men who form their opinions as to 
 what should be done on a consideration of what we shall gain or 
 lose in money. Burke's policy was not opposed on the ground 
 that the repeal of the taxes would diminish the English revenue, 
 and would throw upon the English charges which the Americans 
 ought to bear. It was opposed through fear that repeal might 
 lead to a demand for further concessions. 
 
 1. 18. too acute, too sharp, too clever. We see danger where 
 there is none : too exquisite, too careful or ingenious. A wise 
 man, when he is in danger, thinks first how he is to get out of it. 
 A drowning man would not refuse help for fear that, when he 
 got to land, his helper might ask for a reward. The word 
 exquisite means, literally, sought out. The ordinary meaning of 
 the word is excellent, because that which is excellent can only be 
 found by careful search. 
 
 1. 28. a gentleman, a Mr. Rice. 
 
 1. 32. the arguments, viz., that the commercial regulations are 
 neither oppressive to America nor profitable to England. 
 
 P. 37, 1. 1. the noble lord, etc. See on p. 6, 1. 35 : shall, we 
 should say will. The word shall connotes obligation or compulsion ; 
 so it was not unfrequently used to emphasize the conviction that 
 what was predicted was quite certain to happen. 
 
 1. 5. by the natural, etc. They trade with us because they 
 find it profitable to do so. 
 
 1. 7. in this posture of the debate, when it is necessary to 
 reply to the argument that it is unfair to add the burden of 
 taxation to the burden of the trade laws, and to enrich ourselves 
 by taxation as well as by commercial monopoly. 
 
 1. 10. experience, our having tried and failed : the nature of 
 things, the character of the Americans and their distance from 
 England. 
 
 1. 13. press themselves, they are so obvious that none can help 
 seeing them. 
 
 1. 16. trance, a temporary suspension of animation. 
 
 1. 17. as a counter-guard, etc., for fear that, if we repeal the 
 taxes, we shall have to repeal the trade laws too
 
 36-39.] NOTES. 101 
 
 1. 21. members, parts ; literally, limbs. 
 
 1. 24. the pamphlet, written by Dr. Tucker. See note on 
 p. 26, 1. 24. 
 
 1. 26. idolizing, To idolize means to worship. An idol is an 
 image worshipped as a god. 
 
 1. 27. still ... in former times, Now that our trade is so wide 
 and so firmly established, the trade of any one country is less 
 important to us than it was in earlier times. A firm that does 
 a large business is indifferent to the loss of an individual customer. 
 To a small trader every customer is of importance. 
 
 1. 29. the market, literally, the place where they can sell their 
 goods ; and so, the sale of them. If they might sell where they 
 liked, they could sell much more than they do at present. 
 
 P. 38, 1. 6. we have to see, etc. There are two very simple 
 tests to decide what the real grievance of the Americans is first, 
 see what they complained of first ; second, remove the taxes, and 
 see if their complaints cease. 
 
 1. 16. with decency, It is unseemly to charge them with 
 lying when you cannot support the charge. 
 
 1. 19. not on their own acts, etc., not for something which they 
 have really done, but for something which you suppose they are 
 going to do. 
 
 1. 22. converting your ill-will, etc. They are to be punished 
 on account of your ill-natured suspicions. 
 
 1. 23. But, The word introduces the objection of an imaginary 
 opponent. 
 
 1. 24. fact, because previous concessions have not been followed 
 by further demands : reason, because the natural tendency of 
 kindness is to beget contentment and goodwill. 
 
 1. 25. panic, unreasonable, ungrounded. The sudden fright 
 which sometimes seizes bodies of men was thought by the Greeks 
 to be inspired by the god Pan. 
 
 1. 29. to make a rule for itself? to make it an exception to the 
 general rule -that a sovereign may properly remove grievances. 
 Burke emphasizes the reasonableness of his own arguments by 
 showing the absurdity of their opposi.tes. 
 
 1. 35. divinations, guesses. 
 
 P. 39, 1. 6. I set out, etc. Listead of inventing a plan of my 
 own, I determined upon proposing to do what our ancestors had 
 already done in similar cases. 
 
 1. 17. consult the genius of, etc., do what they thought he 
 would have done. Philip II., son of the Emperor Charles V. and 
 Isabella of Portugal, ascended the throne of Spain in 1556. This 
 
 LIBRARY
 
 102 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. [PAGES 
 
 dynasty continued until the year 1700. Charles V. inherited the 
 throne of Spain from his mother. 
 
 1. 19. the most perfect standard, he was a stupid man and a 
 most intolerant bigot. He married Queen Mary of England. 
 
 1. 21. consult the genius of, etc., follow constitutional pre- 
 cedents. 
 
 1. 23. it was ... piety, that is, in the attitude of mind proper to 
 one who listens for the inspired utterances of Deity. See on 
 p. 18, 1. 33. 
 
 1. 24. capital, leading, chief. 
 
 1. 27. by a despotic power, it was split up into a number of 
 independent chieftainships. The basis of social organization 
 among the Irish Celts was the sept, corresponding to the Scotch 
 clan. The country was conquered by Henry II. in 1172. 
 
 1. 29. is disputed, it certainly did not exist according to the 
 present form. Even the Saxon Witangemote, or assembly of wise 
 men, sank very early into a gathering of temporal and spiritual 
 peers and royal officials. The Great Council of the Norman 
 kings was not any more representative than the Witangemote had 
 been. It was a royal court of feudal vassals. It had no power of 
 refusing grants demanded by the crown, and it was only summoned 
 at the pleasure of the crown. From the time of Henry II., how- 
 ever, its meetings became more regular, and its functions more 
 important. The great reforms which marked his reign were 
 carried in the Great Council, aud even financial matters were 
 suffered to, be debated there (Green, Short History of the Etxjlish 
 People, pp. 167-8). 
 
 1. 32. she instantly communicated, the Irish Parliament was 
 always subordinate to that of England. The famous Poynincfs 
 Act, passed in 1494, subjected Ireland to all laws passed by the 
 English Parliament, and deprived the Irish Parliament of all 
 power of initiating legislation. No measures could be submitted 
 to it which had not previously received the sanction of the King 
 and the English Privy Council. 
 
 1. 36. the roots, etc., our representative system has grown out 
 of the occasional assemblies of feudal vassals summoned by the 
 Norman kings. In process of time the crown found it necessary 
 to summon certain lesser barons and knights from each shire, be- 
 cause grants made in the Council were only binding on those 
 members who attended it. Theoretically, the knights represented 
 only the lesser barons, but as from the 13th century they were, 
 in practice, elected by the whole body of rural freeholders in the 
 shire from which they were sent, they became representative* of 
 the shire (Green). The word feudal is from feud, a fief, that is, 
 land held from a superior. Fief is from a German word rich, 
 signifying cattle, and thence property.
 
 3940.] NOTES. 103 
 
 P. 40, 1. 3. of weight and consequence, Not only did the 
 Great Charter regulate the form of the Great Council, but itfjrst 
 recognized the powers of the Council over taxation, and estab- 
 lished the principle that no burden beyond the customary feudal 
 aids might be imposed "save by the Common Council of the 
 realm" (Read Green, pp. 167-171). 
 
 1. 4. churlishly, boorishly. The word churl, applied to the 
 Saxon serf, naturally came to signify a rude fellow. 
 
 1. 7. to all Ireland, it was restricted to the district occupied by 
 the English settlers, which w^,s called "the English Pale." 
 
 1. 9. Your standard, your power, literally, your national flag. 
 
 1. 11. Sir John Davis, Chief -Justice under James I. He pub- 
 lished a book called Discovery of the true causes why Ireland ivas 
 never entirely subdiied (ill his Majesty's happy reign. 
 
 1. 1 3. was five hundred years, referring to the pacification of 
 the island in the time of King James. In the following sentences 
 he refers to the attempt made by the Earl of Essex, under 
 Elizabeth, to put down the rebellions which were caused mainly 
 by the attempt to force the Catholic religion on the people. At 
 the death of Elizabeth the flight.of the native leaders left the 
 island at the mercy of James. But the island was not subdued. 
 This was not effected until the terrible conquest of William III., 
 when " the conquered people, in Swift's bitter words of contempt, 
 beanie 'hewers of wood and drawers of water' to their con- 
 querors. From that time until the very eve of the French 
 Revolution Ireland ceased to be a source of terror and anxiety to 
 England " (Green). 
 
 1. 16. civility, civilization. 
 
 1. 18. It was not, etc., it was not conquered by force, but won 
 over by the benefits of English rule. 
 
 1. 19. From that time, that is, from the time of the settlement 
 of James I. By a general parliament he means one in which 
 Irishmen as well as Englishmen in Ireland could sit. 
 
 1. 21. You changed, etc., alluding to the occupation of great 
 part of the country by English settlers, and to the establishment 
 of the Protestant religion. 
 
 1. 23. kings, viz. , the English sovereigns. 
 -1. 26. by usurpation, viz., by Cromwell. 
 
 1. - 27. the restoration, viz., of Charles II. 
 
 1. 28. Revolution, that, namely, of 1688. It was ylorious to 
 Burke, because it was an assertion of Whig principles, which he 
 regarded as constitutional principles. It prevented the at- 
 tempted perversion by the Stuarts of the English government 
 into a despotism. Burke called it ' a revolution not made but 
 prevented. '
 
 104 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. [PAGES 
 
 1. 31. our strength and ornament, unfortunately Ireland was 
 rather a source of weakness and a discredit to England. The 
 political disabilities of the Catholic inhabitants, and the superior 
 privileges of the resident English Protestants were of themselves 
 sufficient to make Ireland disaffected. 
 
 1. 34. on the hinge of, when they were impending. He refers 
 to the treatment which the country experienced from Cromwell 
 and William III. 
 
 1. 36. they make an exception, The common saying that ' the 
 exception proves the rule ' is, literally, a contradiction in terms. 
 A rule is a statement of what always happens. If a thing 
 happens always, there are no exceptions to it. If there are 
 exceptions to it, it does not happen always. What the saying 
 means is that our belief in a rule is strengthened if we can see 
 why an apparent exception to it is not a real exception. We 
 must not argue to what the normal policy of a country is from its 
 policy in the exceptional circumstances of a revolution. 
 
 P. 41, 1. 1. None of your own, etc. If England is to have no 
 privileges which have not at some time and under some circum- 
 stances been suspended, she will have none at all. 
 
 1. 4. lucrative, ironical. If you had been in the habit of 
 taking money instead of receiving it, you would not have got so 
 much as you have got. Supply is a technical word for revenue. 
 The House of Commons, when considering the Budget, sits "in 
 Committee of Supply." 
 
 1. 6. Your Irish pensioners, all recipients of pensions who are 
 paid out of Irish revenues. 
 
 1. 10. that only source, viz. , free grants as opposed to exactions 
 of money. 
 
 1. 14. by Edward the First, Llewellyn, Prince of Wales, >vas 
 killed in a skirmish in 1282, and with his death the independence 
 of Wales expired (Green, p. 162). 
 
 1. 18. lords marchers, literally, lords of the boundaries. 
 
 1. 20. heterogeneous, comprising elements differing in kind. 
 It differed from an ordinary military occupation in being per- 
 manent. It differed from ordinary government in that it pre- 
 served order by military terrorism. 
 
 1. 23. all civil power, etc., this power is delegated to him. 
 During the occupation of a country by a hostile force, necessity 
 may justify the commander-in-chief in dealing with the civil 
 population according to military law. 
 
 1. 24. the genius, the character, or spirit. 
 1. 25. restive, see on p. 17, 1. 28. 
 1. 26. composed, quieted for a time.
 
 40-43.] NOTES. 105 
 
 1. 30. incursion, inroads, raids. 
 
 1. 35. with something more, etc., you have done by executive 
 order what perhaps required an Act of Parliament. 
 
 P. 42, 1. 2. an instruction, an order to General Gage, the 
 English commander in America. 
 
 1. 4. as you have done, viz., by reviving the statute of Henry 
 VIII. : with more hardship, because America is farther off. As 
 Burke points out in his Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, an 
 American, if put on his trial in England, could not call witnesses 
 in his favour. 
 
 1. 8. fairs, from the Latin ferice, literally, a holiday. A fair 
 combines business with amusement. When communications 
 were less perfect than they are now, it was the custom to hold 
 periodical markets in each district, which were called fairs. 
 
 1. 9. from fisheries, etc., referring to Che Act of Lord North. 
 
 1. 13. we rub our hands, a sign of being pleased. Burke's 
 opponents will argue that the coercion of Wales is a precedent 
 for the coercion of America. Burke replies that the ill success 
 of the policy in Wales should be a warning not to try the same 
 policy in America. 
 
 1. 16. rid, rode, oppressed : an incubus, a nightmare. 
 
 1. 20. The march, etc. , men are slow to learn. 
 
 1. 22. vexation to violence, "His mischief shall return upon 
 his own head, and his violent dealings shall come down upon his 
 own pate" (Psalm, vii. 16). 
 
 1. 24. the ill husbandry, the unthriftiness. You will get no 
 money from those whom you oppress. You will not enrich your- 
 1 selves by attempting to plunder your subjects. Husbandry, like 
 economy, means, literally, the management of a house. 
 
 1. 25. the tyranny, etc., cf. p. 29, 1. 10, 'An Englishman is 
 the unfittest person,' etc. 
 
 1. 30. the entire and perfect rights, etc. Burke means that it 
 corresponded entirely to the Declaratory Act passed by Bucking- 
 ham's government. 
 
 1. 33. the marches, P. 41, 1. 18. A march, in the sense of a 
 boundary, is the same word as mark. 
 
 P. 43, 1. 4. as by a charm, as if by a spell : as if by magic. 
 
 1. 7. When the day-star, etc. When they were cheered by the 
 light of British freedom. " We have also a more sure word of 
 prophecy ; whereunto ye do well that yc take heed, as unto a 
 light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the 
 day star arise in your hearts" (2 Peter, i. 19). 
 
 1. 9. Simul alba, etc., political disturbances subsided, as a 
 storm at sea subsides when the constellation of Castor and
 
 106 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. [PAGES 
 
 Pollux, or the Twins, rises. The quotation is from the Latin 
 poet, Horace, Od. i. 12. 27. 
 
 1. 21. the county palatine, this name was given to -the district 
 subject to the jurisdiction of a Frankish count. In England 
 these counties were governed by a temporal or spiritual peer. 
 The word palatine is from the Latin palatium, a palace. Chester 
 and Durham were no doubt made separate regalities on account 
 of their proximity to the frontiers of Wales and Scotland. 
 Chester and Durham became palatine under William I. Chester 
 had not merely its own courts, judges, constable, and steward, but 
 a parliament, and was not represented in the national Parlia- 
 ment till 1549. Cheshire was assimilated by Henry VIII. Dur- 
 ham ceased to be a county palatine under its bishop in 1836 
 (Chambers). 
 
 1. 30. in most humble wise, the order of the words is, ' The 
 inhabitants shew in most humble wise (fashion) unto,' etc. 
 Sltown is the 3rd person plural of show. Wine, in the sense of 
 manner, occurs in like-wise, otherwise. Another form of icise is 
 guise. 
 
 1. 32. where, whereas. 
 
 P. 44, 1. 1. to have, from having : knights and burgesses 
 correspond to our county and borough members. For knights see 
 p. 39, 1. 36. A burgess means, literally, one belonging to a 
 borough. 
 
 1. 3. disherisons, used in the general sense of deprivations. 
 
 1. 10. as far forth as, to the same extent as. 
 
 1. 13. ne, nor. 
 
 1. 21. audacious, this is the epithet which would be applied to 
 it by those who were zealous for the absolute powers of Parlia- 
 ment. 
 
 1. 22. a libel, a seditious publication. 
 
 1. 24. toss it over the table, refuse to receive it. In his speech 
 on American taxation Burke says of remonstrances from two 
 American colonies that " they were suppressed : they were put 
 under the table": Did they burn it, etc., an extreme mode of 
 marking its criminality. 
 
 1. 26. without softening, etc., without in any way toning it 
 down. 
 
 1. 29. and consecrated, etc. By adopting it as a preamble to 
 an Act of Parliament they made any violation of its principle 
 equivalent to an act of sacrilege. 
 
 1. 35. superstition, an irrational worship of what does not 
 deserve worship. The proper remedy for superstition is a true 
 religion, not no religion.
 
 43-47.] NOTES. 107 
 
 P. 45, 1. 2. the pale, the limits. The word signifies literally 
 a stake, and so a place fenced in. 
 
 1. 5. without affecting... equity, just as Burke wished now to 
 make a concession to the Americans as a matter of fairness, 
 leaving the question of right untouched. 
 
 1. 26. But, the word introduces the objection of an imaginary 
 opponent. What, marks a contemptuous rejection of such an 
 argument. 
 
 1. 27. electric, magnetic. It might with some plausibility be 
 argued that the Welsh were as good as represented, because the 
 English members knew their wants and would look after their 
 interests. But this could not be said of a distant country like 
 America, of which Englishmen knew nothing. 
 
 P. 46, 1. 5. Opposuit natura, Juvenal, Sat. x. 152, says that 
 Hannibal in his march towards Italy overcame the snowy Alps 
 with whicli nature barred his icay. Burke, of course, is referring 
 to the ocean which separated England and America. 
 
 1. 9. see my way to it, a common expression for, I do not see 
 how it is to be managed. 
 
 1". 11. the arm, etc., we are not unable to remove their griev- 
 ances, simply because we cannot give them representation in our 
 own Parliament. "The Lord's hand is not shortened, that it 
 cannot save" (Isaiah, lix. 1). 
 
 1. 19. unproductive invention, limited or barren ingenuity : 
 to tax, to call upon it to suggest a plan. When Parliament in 
 committee of supply has sanctioned the revenue to be raised in 
 the year, it goes into committee of ways and means to consider 
 by what taxation the revenue is to be raised. 
 
 1. 21. the Republic, an ideal commonwealth sketched by Plato, 
 the Greek philosopher. The Utopia of Sir Thomas More was 
 first published in 1516. It was really a criticism of English laws 
 and customs, just as the Republic of Plato was a satire on Greek 
 politics. The word Utopia has come to mean any impracticable 
 ideal. The Oceana in which Harrington set forth his ideal of a 
 commonwealth was published in 1656. Oceana is England. 
 
 1. 23. It is before me, etc., it is obvious : the rude swain, etc., 
 " and the dull swain Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon" 
 (Milton, Gornus, 633). Clouted shoou means patched shoes. 
 
 1. 25. for the theory, as regards the principle. 
 
 1. 33. by grant, by voluntary contributions fiom the American 
 Assemblies. 
 
 1. 34. the legal competency, this had been disputed. 
 
 P. 47, l.'l. dutiful, loyal. 
 
 1. 3. supply, see on p. 41, 1. 4.
 
 108 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. [PAGES 
 
 1. 8. I think, etc., I think that the adoption of my measure 
 will secure peace to the British Empire. The metaphor is sug- 
 gested by the temple which the Romans dedicated to Concord. 
 
 1. 12. with but tolerable, etc. , if you only avoid gross mistakes. 
 
 1. 17. management, skill. 
 
 1. 28. the description, the persons named in it. 
 
 1. 30. The second is like unto, etc., a reminiscence of Matt. 
 xxii. 37, "Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
 God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy 
 mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second 
 in like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." 
 
 1. 36. by lack whereof, for want of which representation. 
 
 P. 48, 1. 2. commonwealth, general well-being. Wealth is the 
 same as wc.al, prosperity. 
 
 1. 10. Non meus, etc., Horace, Sat. ii. 2. 1 ; imitated by Pope. 
 Sal. ii. 2 
 
 " Hear Bethel's sermon, one not versed in schools, 
 But strong in sense, and wise without the rules." 
 1. 18. It would be, etc., it would be an act of sacrilegtf to 
 tamper with that which is to produce peace. 
 
 1. 20. I would not violate, etc. , he still keeps up the metaphor 
 of a mason building an altar to Peace. The Latin word ingenuiw 
 is used in the sense of ' native to the country.' Lucretius applied 
 it in this sense to springs of water, and Juvenal to stone. In 
 plain English Burke's meaning is" I shrank from translating 
 into the polished phraseology of modern times the rough but 
 venerable diction of these ancient statutes." 
 
 1. 23. tampering, meddling. We generally speak of ' tamper- 
 ing with ' something : restless, who cannot be satisfied with 
 what they find ; always anxious for change. 
 
 1. 24. I can neither wander, etc., I cannot be at a loss or make 
 a mistake. 
 
 1. 26. not to be wise, etc., a possible rendering of a phrase 
 which occurs in Paul's Is? Epistle to the Corinthians, iv. 6. In the 
 English Bible it is rendered, "that ye might learn in us not to 
 think of men above that which is written, that 'no one of you be 
 puffed up for one against another.." Bisping's Catholic Com- 
 mentary gives as a possible rendering " that you may learn 
 from us not to think (of yourselves or your position) beyond what 
 is written " : and he says that by ' what is written ' may be 
 meant either Christ's exhortation to humility, or Scripture in 
 general, which often exhorts men not to extol themselves, or 
 particular passages gf Scripture, such as " The wisdom of this 
 world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the
 
 47-50.] NOTES. 109 
 
 wise in their own craftiness. And again, The Lord knoweth the 
 thoughts of the wise, that they are vain" (1 Cor. iii. 19, 20). 
 
 \. 27. to use nothing else, etc. Paul, in his 2nd Epistle to 
 Timothy, i. 13, says, "Hold fast the form of sound words which 
 thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus." 
 Burke means that it is as dangerous to deviate from the exact 
 words of Parliament as it is to tamper with the actual text of 
 divine revelation. 
 
 1. 34. those who are resolved, etc., those who are determined 
 always to find some weak point in what is said by others. 
 
 P. 49, 1. 17. of George II., The Act of George II. imposed a 
 duty on sugar, molasses, and rum imported by the Americans 
 from the French colonies in the West Indies. 
 
 1. 23. Lord Hillsborough, Secretary of State for the Colonies. 
 1. 28. the noble lord, p. 6, 1. '35. 
 
 P. 50, 1. 1. on the paper, in the resolution which I am sub- 
 mitting to you. 
 
 1. 7. freemen, the technical word to describe those who have 
 inherited the full rights of citizens : freeholders, freehold is the 
 name of a form of land tenure. Estates held for life and estates 
 of inheritance rank as freehold. "The freeholders of a county 
 were constitutent members of the ancient county court ; they had 
 formerly the right to vote in the election of county coroners : 
 and freehold property of the value required by modern statutes 
 is a qualification for jurymen and parliamentary electors, and for 
 certain public offices" (Chambers' Encyclopaedia, s. v. freehold). 
 
 1. 10. the several usage, the practice that prevails in each of 
 them. 
 
 1. 16. the public offices, those, namely, of the English Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 1. 17. paradoxically, a paradox means, literally, whatever runs 
 counter to commonly received opinion. Burke is thinking of 
 Grenville who held that the Colonies could not legally grant any 
 revenue to the Crown. 
 
 1. 22. the law servants, such as the Attorney-General and 
 Solicitor-General. 
 
 1. 23. if the crown could be responsible, whatever is nominally 
 done by the Sovereign is done by the Ministry who are his 
 responsible advisers. 
 
 1. 27. impeachable offences, impeachment is the technical name 
 for a charge of unconstitutional action against a Minister of the 
 crown. Burke regarded impeachment as the great safeguard of 
 the English constitution.
 
 HO SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. [PAGES 
 
 1. 32. their own unfounded theories, viz., that the colonial 
 assemblies cannot make grants to the crown. 
 
 P. 51, 1. 6. the Indian wars, the frequent wars with the North 
 American Indians on their frontiers. 
 
 1. 7. so high, so far back. They were engaged in wars with 
 Franco and Spain from 1690-7. In 1710 their struggle was with 
 France. 
 
 1. 10. the journals, the records of proceedings in Parliament. 
 Contributions made ' on requisition ' and voluntary contributions 
 did not, of course, appear in the journals. 
 
 1. 13. 1748, the year of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. Cape 
 Breton, which was colonized by the French, was then restored 
 to France. 
 
 1. 23. advanced, namely to England. They were obliged to 
 borrow in order to give England what she wanted. 
 
 1. 26. to us, to the House of Commons. 
 
 1. 33. 1756, the first year of the Seven Years' War. 
 
 P. 52, 1. 15. had gone beyond their abilities, had granted us 
 more than they could afford. 
 
 1. 26. honourable to them and to you, as showing their loyalty 
 and your gratitude. 
 
 1. 27. mortal, fatal : miserable, contemptible. 
 
 1. 28. the misguided people, the English. 
 
 1. 29. an unhappy system, viz., that of taxing America. With 
 all this evidence of the liberality of the Americans, it can never 
 again be asserted that they must be taxed because they will not 
 contribute. 
 
 P. 53, 1. 4. state, statement: those untaxed people, those 
 who were represented as paying no taxes were burdened with 
 the repayment of a debt which they had incurred on behalf of 
 England. 
 
 1. 7. sinking, extinguishing. It is a technical term for paying 
 off. A sum accumulated for the payment of debt is called ' a 
 Sinking Fund.' 
 
 1. 9. sanguine, hopeful. 
 
 1. 13. requisitions, Used in its technical sense of demands 
 addressed by the English Secretary of State to the colonies for 
 grants. 
 
 1. 14. our tone became too high, We became too imperious ; 
 we thought it beneath us to ask, and we resolved to take. 
 
 1. 17. the sense, what they felt and thought : the crown, 
 referring to the message from the King quoted on p. 51.
 
 50-56.] NOTES. m 
 
 1. 24. let them and that, etc. I will say no more about it. 
 
 1. 27. the melancholy burthen, etc., unhappily it fills and dis- 
 figures every page. The word burdqn means the refrain of a 
 song. It is the French word bourdon, which means a drone-bee, 
 and was probably intended to express its meaning by its sound. 
 
 P. 54, 1. 2. the utmost rights, etc., viz., taxation of the un- 
 represented. He uses the word utmost because it was doubtful 
 whether this was a ' right of legislature ' at all. 
 
 1. 13. imagination . . . fact . . . enjoyment . . . hope, Will you throw 
 away a certain revenue from voluntary grants on the chance of 
 getting one by taxation ? A bird in the hand is worth two in 
 the bush. 
 
 1. 18. to be moved, to be formally proposed to the House ; to 
 l>e voted on. 
 
 1. 22. plantations, The word was used where we should use 
 colonies or settlements. It no longer bears this sense. The 
 Latin word planta means a shoot : and a colony is an offshoot of 
 the mother country. 
 
 1. 23. drawbacks, a drawback is a total or partial refund of a 
 duty, paid either upon imported goods or upon home productions 
 subject to excise, when they were exported. The object was to 
 encourage exportation. Commercial regulations at that time 
 were made not so much with a view to the interests of trade as 
 with a view to the accumulation of money for the maintenance 
 of the country's military supremacy. The exporter M'as encour- 
 aged because to export is to sell to foreigners, that is, to bring 
 money into the country. 
 
 1. 28. clandestine running, smuggling. 
 
 P. 55, 1. 3. in the execution of the law, Massachusetts being 
 regarded as in a state of rebellion, it was thought that justice 
 would not lie done there to any who might be accused of com- 
 mitting acts of violence while upholding the law. Such persons, 
 therefore, were to be removed for trial either to another colony 
 or to England. 
 
 1. 8. the better regulating, See Introduction. 
 
 1. 16. during the king's pleasure, that is, until the Govern- 
 ment thinks proper to restore the rights. 
 
 1. 21. the restraining bill, the bill which is alluded to in the 
 opening paragraph of this speech. 
 
 1. 26. partially, unfairly, not impartially. 
 
 1. 30. though the crown, etc. See on p. 19, 1. 18. 
 
 P. 56, 1. 5. the sheriff, the officer whose business it is to see 
 that the judgments of the court are executed. It is corrupted 
 from shire-reeve, an officer of the shire.
 
 112 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. [PACKS 
 
 1. 6. returning officer, the officer who summoned the jury. 
 This duty was by the Act transferred to the sheriff. The object, 
 of course, was to obtain a jury unfavourable to any one charged 
 with an offence by Government. 
 
 1. 9. The act, etc. See on p. 55, 1. 3. 
 
 1. 19. the greatest treasons, etc. For instance, Englishmen 
 may organize a conspiracy against their own sovereign abroad. 
 In the year 1858 an attempt was made on the life of Napoleon 
 III. in Paris, and the French complained bitterly that the con- 
 spirators had been allowed to arrange their plans and manu- 
 facture their weapons in England. 
 
 1. 26. a settled salary to the offices, in the colonies in New 
 England where the salaries were very low and were only voted 
 from year to year, there were great complaints of the partiality 
 of the judges. 
 
 P. 57, 1. 2. the courts of admiralty, so called as having juris- 
 diction in the case of offences committed on the sea. 
 
 1. 6. the more decent maintenance, at that time they received 
 a part of the fines which they inflicted. 
 
 1. 10. the Act of Navigation, The original object of this Act, 
 as passed by Cromwell in 1651, was to transfer the profits of the 
 carrying trade from Holland to England. In Burke's day it was 
 an accepted principle that the mother country might regulate 
 the trade of her colonies for her own benefit. The trade of the 
 colonies was confined to ships built in England or America, and 
 manned by crews of whom two-thirds were British sailors. There 
 were certain 'enumerated' articles which they might sell to 
 England only. If they wanted to import many foreign products, 
 they were obliged to do it through England. They were for- 
 bidden to export, and, in some cases, even to produce commodi- 
 ties in which they could have undersold England. They were 
 forced to buy certain commodities which were of great importance 
 to them, sugar, molasses and rum, from English colonies, though 
 they could have bought them cheaper from French or Spanish 
 colonies. 
 
 1. 16. The congress, that which met at Philadelphia. See 
 Introduction. 
 
 1. 18. consequential, those ' corollary to ' (p. 47, 1. 5) his six 
 fundamental propositions. 
 
 I. 22. congruity, consistency. Those who accept the six can- 
 not logically refuse the three ; but Burke hopes that even the 
 rejection of the three will not prevent the establishment of 
 permanent peace between England and America. 
 
 1. 31. I prove too much, namely, that if we have no right to 
 tax the Americans, we have no right to legislate for them.
 
 56-59.] NOTES. 113 
 
 P. 58, 1. 1. wishing as little, etc., as he had shown by his 
 support of the Declaratory Act. 
 
 1. 6. Mr. Grenville, He had quoted the Act to show that there 
 had been taxation without representatioif. 
 
 1. 10. Lord Chatham, In his reply to Grenville, Chatham said, 
 " I come not here armed at all points with law cases and Acts of 
 Parliament, with the statute-book doubled down in dogs'-ears, to 
 defend the cause of liberty. If I had, I myself would have cited 
 the two cases of Chester and Durham. I would have cited them 
 to show that even under arbitrary reigns Parliament was ashamed 
 of taxing a people without their consent, and allowed them repre- 
 sentation " (Stanhope, v. p. 134). , 
 
 1. 11. no less, he supported the privileges of the Americans as 
 strongly as Grenville did the rights of Parliament. 
 
 1. 19. to the case of subsidies, and not of legislation. 
 
 1. 20. falls in exactly with, agrees with, resembles. Here again 
 Burke argues that the question of taxing those who are unrepre- 
 sented is, and has been acknowledged by Parliament to be, one 
 which is to l>e regarded from the point of view, not of right, but 
 of fairness. 
 
 1. 28. in any cool hour, when not under the excitement of anger. 
 
 1. 36. illation, inference. 
 
 P. 59, 1. 1 . any given part, the Crown and the two Houses of 
 Parliament are the three parts of the British constitution, which 
 is thus an organic balance of monarchical, democratical, and aristo- 
 cratic elements. When defending the House of Commons the 
 Englishman argues on democratic principles, but he does not 
 push them to the extreme, because he knows that the democratic 
 element in his constitution is combined with, and must, there- 
 fore, be limited by its other elements. Burke develops this 
 point at some length in his Appeal to the Old Whiys. 
 
 1. 2. or even the whole of it together, an Englishman may sub- 
 mit to many limitations of his freedom which it would be hard to 
 reconcile with his views of the English constitution. But he does 
 not kick against them. Provided that he gets the maximum of 
 advantage with the minimum of restraint, he is content. 
 
 1. 5. All government, in this life we are not to expect absolute 
 perfection or perfect happiness, but must be content with the 
 highest degree of either that is attainable under the circum- 
 stances. A compromise is an agreement arrived at by each party 
 surrendering something. We must not expect to get all that we 
 could desire, but must be prepared to give and take. Cf. " The 
 rights of men in governments are their advantages : and these 
 are often in balances between differences of good ; in compromises 
 sometimes between good and evil, and sometimes between evil 
 
 H
 
 114 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. [PAGES 
 
 and evil": and "one advantage is (by the English) as little as 
 possible sacrificed to another. We compensate, we reconcile, 
 we balance" (Reflections on the Revolution in France). 
 
 1. 7. We balance inconveniences, we weigh one against the 
 other and choose the least. As there must be some inconveniences 
 under any system, this is the only wise course. 
 
 1. 9. we choose rather, etc. It was a favourite idea with Burke 
 that a tendency to political criticism was a sign of discontent. 
 "The bulk of mankind are not excessively curious concerning 
 any theories, whilst they are really happy : and one sure symptom 
 of an ill-conducted state is the propensity of the people to resort 
 to them" (Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol). 
 
 1. 11. natural, see on p. 20, 1. 8. This is a point on which 
 Burke dwells at great length in his Reflections on the Revolution 
 in France. The revolutionists, who contended that governments 
 must respect the rights of man, appeared to him to be attempting 
 to reconcile two incompatible things, the freedom of nature with 
 the benefits of society. Burke's argument there is, that an 
 appeal to the rights of men would justify an attack upon all 
 governments. The real rights of men are those advantages 
 which society was instituted to secure, and society cannot sub- 
 sist without control. If men wish to abandon the state of nature 
 for the state of society, they must submit to those limitations of 
 their natural rights which social life requires. They cannot have 
 the advantages of society and the freedom of nature too. Govern- 
 ment is a limitation of man's natural rights for his own gcxxl. 
 The extent and the mode of the limitation must depend on 
 ci rcumstances. 
 
 1. 13. communion and fellowship, the words are from a prayer 
 in the English Church service beginning "O Almighty God 
 who hast knit together thine elect in one communion and/eMpto- 
 ship, in the mystical body of thy Son Christ." 
 
 1. 15. the purchase, the purchase money, the price : the im- 
 mediate jewel, etc., his freedom and self-respect. The phrase is 
 borrowed from Shakespeare's Othello, iii. 3. 156 
 
 " Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, 
 Is the immediate jewel of their souls." 
 
 1. 16. Though a great house, etc. The Americans will not 
 purchase the honour of belonging to the English empire at the 
 cost of being England's slaves. Cf . Juvenal, 5. 66, Maxima quaeque 
 domus servis est plena superbis all the great houses are full of 
 haughty slaves. 
 
 1. 20. None of us, there is not one of us who, etc. 
 
 1. 28. stake of liberty, a share of freedom which would be in 
 danger of being lost if any change were attempted. A stake
 
 59-60.] NOTES. 115 
 
 means anything hazarded. For instance, it is used to denote 
 the sum which a gambler risks. 
 
 1. 30. the cords of man, the considerations whicli influence 
 men. Mr. Payne points out that the phrase is from Hosea, xi. 
 4, " I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love." 
 
 1. 32. metaphysical, abstract. Burke detested the importation 
 of metaphysical arguments into practical politics. " I do not 
 enter into these metaphysical distinctions : I hate the very sound 
 of them." Men are ruled by considerations of prudence. They 
 act when some advantage is to be gained by acting. 
 
 1. 36. sophistry, See on p. 12, 1. 20. The reference to 
 Aristotle is to Ethics, bk. i. ch. 4. Elsewhere Burke says 
 "The excellence of mathematics and metaphysics is to have but 
 one thing before you ; biit he forms the best judgment in all 
 moral disquisitions who has the greatest number and variety of 
 considerations in one view before him, and can take them in 
 with the best possible consideration of the middle results of all." 
 
 P. 60, 1. 4. a superintending legislature, Cf. "I look on the 
 imperial rights of Great Britain, and the privileges which the 
 colonies ought to enjoy under these rights, to be just the most 
 reconcilable things in the world. The Parliament of Great 
 Britain sits at the head of her extensive empire in two capacities: 
 one as the local legislature of this island, providing for all things 
 at home, immediately, and by no other instrument than the 
 executive power. The other, and I think her nobler capacity, is 
 what I call her imperial character, in which, as from the throne 
 of heaven, she superintends all the several inferior legislatures, 
 and guides and controls them all without annihilating any. As 
 all these provincial legislatures are only coordinate to each 
 other, they ought all to be subordinate to her : else they can 
 neither preserve mutual peace, nor hope for mutual justice, nor 
 effectually afford mutual assistance. It is necessary to coerce 
 the negligent, to restrain the violent, and to aid the weak and 
 deficient by the overruling plenitude of her power" (Speech on 
 American Taxation). 
 
 1. 6. not the rival, when it does not attempt to supersede their 
 local legislatures. 
 
 1. 13. to value myself, to pride myself. 
 
 1. 16. which was preserved entire, etc. Why should the 
 empire be broken up by the concession to America of the same 
 privilege which was granted, without any evil effeets, to Chester 
 and Durham ? A united empire is not one of which every mem- 
 ber is absolutely subject to a single power. The suzerainty of 
 England is quite compatible with the existence of local privileges. 
 
 1. 23. not an independent, See on p. 39, 1. 32.
 
 116 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. [PAGES 
 
 1. 25. sweetly and harmoniously, perhaps a reminiscence of 
 Pope, Etsay on Man, iii. 293 
 
 "Till jarring int'rests of themselves create 
 Th' .according music of a well-mixed state/' 
 
 1. 31. no other unity, Burke means that his opponents, who 
 are fomenting discords, are more fairly chargeable with breaking 
 tip a united empire. 
 
 1. 33. poor, humble. 
 
 P. 61, 1. 11. a ransom by auction, See p. 7, 1. 3. 
 
 1. 16. It is neither, etc. It is not taxation because the money 
 is to be offered by them : it is not a grant because the sum is not 
 to be what they choose to give, but what we choose to take. 
 
 1. 27. a state auctioneer, etc. For the meaning of the expres- 
 sions in this sentence, see notes on p. 7, 11. 3-7 *eqq. 
 
 1. 32. the British proportion, Not only is the share of each 
 colony to be in proportion to its wealth, but the taxation of 
 America as a whole must be to the wealth of America as the 
 taxation of England is to the wealth of England. 
 
 1. 34. by the back-door, in an irregular manner. Properly all 
 matters relating to money must be introduced, debated, and 
 settled in the House of Commons. Under this proposal the con- 
 tribution of America would be fixed by the Ministry, and merely 
 submitted for formal sanction to the House. 
 
 P. 62, 1. 3. the counsel for, the agent or representative of. 
 Used in the same sense as when applied to the barrister who 
 appears for a man in court. 
 
 1. 6. ways and means, See on p. 46, 1. 19 : provincial, 
 because dealing with revenues to be raised in the colonies. The 
 Romans used the word provinces to denote their foreign pos- 
 sessions. 
 
 1. 7. it will delight, it may choose to call itself. Burke speaks 
 contemptuously of it a an innovation. 
 
 1. 14. I really beg pardon, etc. You must excuse my saying it 
 it is not a pleasant thing to say but you know that you are 
 not telling the truth. 
 
 1. 17. their contingent, their share of the imperial expendi- 
 ture. Cf. p. 64, 1. 2. 
 
 1. 18. the importation, into America. Such duties would 
 have diminished the sale of English commodities by raising the 
 price of them. 
 
 1. 22. the quantum, the amount. Quantum in Latin means 
 how much.
 
 60-64.] NOTES. 117 
 
 1. 29. general powers, powers which they could exercise with- 
 out specific reference to America. 
 
 P. 63, 1. 1. the outcry, the bidding at the auction. 
 
 1. 4. refuse all composition, to compound means to obtain 
 exemption from future payments by paying a lump sum down. 
 A debtor is said to compound with his creditors if they, finding 
 that he cannot pay the whole of his debts, agree to accept so 
 much in the pound as a final settlement. 
 
 1. 5. to, to the amount of. Cf. ' to your quota,' 1. 15. 
 
 1. 6. in principle, that is, as being imposed by the English 
 Parliament : as to production, as to the amount of revenue which 
 they yield. 
 
 1. 12. but at the ports, that is, you can only levy customs 
 duties. 
 
 1. 15. your quota, the share which you determine that they 
 ought to pay. 
 
 1. 17. you give its death-wound, England imposed a tax on 
 English tobacco when it was imported, and she re-exported for 
 sale in foreign countries much of what she imported. By taxing 
 the export in Virginia she would raise the price of it, and so 
 diminish her own import, and, consequently, her foreign sales 
 of it. 
 
 1. 19. the import, the goods imported by the colony. 
 
 1. 26. are so implicated, the colonies touch one another at so 
 many points, that a colony, which found its exports or imports 
 taxed, could easily export or import what it wanted through a 
 colony in which no tax was levied, and so evade the taxation. 
 The only way to avoid this would lie to levy the same tax in all 
 the colonies. But that would be very unjust, because it would 
 lay the same burden upon those who had, and those who had 
 not, made money contributions. 
 
 1. 27. the bill for prohibiting, etc. This bill was at first in- 
 tended to be applied only to the New England colonies, but it 
 was afterwards extended to Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Mary- 
 land, Virginia, and South Carolina. 
 
 1. 32. to exonerate, used in its literal sense of ' to relieve of a 
 burden. ' It is now commonly used in the sense of ' to free from 
 blame. ' 
 
 P. 64, 1. 4. at every exigency, whenever you are in need of 
 money. 
 
 1. 9. a treasury extent, if an individual owes money to the 
 Crown, a treasury extent may be issued, that is, his lands may 
 be valued for the recovery of the debt. But if the whole colony 
 owes a debt, whose lands are to be taken ?
 
 118 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. [PA<;KS 
 
 1. 10. new restraining laws, referring to Lord North's Fisheries 
 bill. 
 
 1. 11. new acts, etc. See on p. 55, 1. 3. 
 
 1. 14. An intestine fire, etc. There will always be the danger 
 of an outburst in America, just as there is always a danger of an 
 eruption of a volcano. The language is perhaps a reminiscence 
 of Milton's " combustible and fuelled entrails conceiving fire" of 
 ^Etna (P. L. i. 232). 
 
 1. 21. standing, constant. 
 
 1. 24. breaking the union, on the Roman principle of riding by 
 creating divisions amongst the ruled. If the colonies could only 
 be engaged in a quarrel with one another as to the fairness of 
 their respective contributions, there would be no chance of their 
 uniting against England. 
 
 1. 27. to their taste, palatable to them.- 
 
 1. 28. I will not suspect, etc., a Minister must have some 
 object in view when he introduces a measure into Parliament. 
 As Lord North could not have expected to raise revenue, he 
 must have hoped to produce discord. 
 
 P. 65, 1. 3. for certain colonies only, namely, for those who 
 elected to contribute in lieu of being taxed. 
 
 1. 5. contingent, not certain. 
 
 1. 9. to whose influence, etc. Cf. p. 5, 1. 30. 
 
 1. 10. win every inch, the metaphor is from a general fighting 
 his way through a hostile country. 
 
 1. 15. I mean to spare it, I have no further arguments by 
 which I could hope to convince you. 
 
 1. 23. No ! an expression of surprise that such a statement 
 should be made. 
 
 1. 24. of Refusal, of giving or not giving as he pleases. Grants 
 are large in proportion as they are given willingly. "Among the 
 many excellent parts of this speech, I find you have got many 
 proselytes by so cleverly showing that the way to get most revenue 
 is to let it come freely from them. This removes the only possible 
 or plausible ground our adversaries had " (Duke of Richmond, 
 Letter to Burke, June 16, 1775). 
 
 1. 28. It does not indeed, etc., Burke goes into farthings to 
 emphasize the pettiness of the views of his opponents. 
 
 1. 30. it gives, etc., loyal subjects will put the whole of their 
 revenues at your disposal. 
 
 1. 31. from whence only, only men with the instincts of slaves 
 will submit to have their money taken from them against their 
 will.
 
 6466.] ttOTES. 119 
 
 1. 32. Posita luditur area, Juvenal, Sal. i. 90, describing the 
 gambling prevalent in Rome, says that when men sat down to 
 play they risked their strong box, that is, their whole fortune, 
 on the game. Just as a gambler had the chance of winning the 
 whole fortune of his opponent, so England might look forward to 
 winning the whole wealth of America. Burke is fond of meta- 
 phors drawn from the card table ; cf. p. 4, 1. 27. 
 
 1. 33. at this time of day, with all your experience. 
 
 1. 34. a House of Commons, the House of Commons, which was 
 never obliged to employ force to raise revenue, and only contri- 
 buted what it pleased to the Crown, ought to be the last body in 
 the world to doubt the productiveness of the voluntary system. 
 
 1. 35. accumulated a debt, men of business would not have 
 lent this amount to government unless they had felt sure that 
 money would be voted for the repayment of the debt. 
 
 P. 66, 1. 5. its trust, see note on p. 3, 1. 10 : Such a pre- 
 sumption, etc. , he who suspects one government must suspect all 
 governments. 
 
 1. 7. penury of supply, deficient revenue. 
 
 1. 8. in nature, so long as men are what they are, governments 
 will not want money, for the reason given in the following 
 sentence. 
 
 1. 12. the stock, the accumulated wealth. We use the word 
 capital. The word slock will be familiar to readers of Adam 
 (Smith. When property is not safe there can be no motive for 
 accumulating it. 
 
 1. 17. could be squeezed, etc., let governments apply as much 
 pressure as they please, they can get nothing from them that 
 have nothing. The husk is the dry shell from which the grain 
 has been extracted : politic, political. 
 
 1. 24. holds the balance of the state, has supreme power in his 
 hands. Burke means that all parties will be anxious to conciliate 
 the government, because it is only through the government that 
 they can secure the ends which they are anxious to realize. The 
 parties, etc. , gamblers sit round a table, and each stakes a cer- 
 tain amount of money upon a given result. If the result is other 
 than that on which a man bets, his stake is forfeited to the pro- ' 
 prietor of the gambling house the man who keeps the table. 
 On the other hand, if a gambler wins, he receives so many times 
 his stake from the proprietor. Political parties are compared by 
 Burke to the players. Just as a player can only receive the 
 profits for which he plays from the keeper of the table, so parties 
 can only get their measures carried through the government. 
 
 1. 31. Ease would retract, etc., Milton, P. L. iv. 96. Burke has 
 substituted retract for recant. A man may, when in difficulties,
 
 120 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. [PAUES 
 
 make a promise ; but when the difficulties are over, he will refuse 
 to be bound by it, on the ground that it was made under 
 constraint. 
 
 1. 33. compounding 1 , see on p. 63, 1. 4. 
 
 1. 34. poor, contemptible. 
 
 1. 36. so may I speed, etc., a forcible mode of expressing his 
 sincerity ' if I da not think so, I pray that I may fail in my 
 object.' 
 
 P. 67, 1. 10. in loan, in the form of a loan. 
 
 1. 11. if ever, etc. , the country was rich ; the people were weak 
 and unwarlike : the company was absolute and unscrupulous. 
 
 1. 15. If America, etc. Goods were imported from America 
 into England to be re-exported for sale in other countries. The 
 profits of the foreign sales exceeded the amount of the customs 
 duties paid on importation. 
 
 1. 23. with the enemies, etc., viz., the French and the 
 Spaniards, who had settlements in America as well as England. 
 
 1. 32. light as air, 
 
 " Trifles light as air 
 Are to the jealous confirmation strong 
 As proofs of Holy Writ " (Othello, iii. 3. 332). 
 links of iron, Jul. Caesar, i. 3. 94. 
 
 1. 35. grapple to you, cling close to you. 
 
 " Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, 
 Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel " 
 
 (Hamlet, i. 3. 62). 
 under heaven, a common Biblical expression. 
 
 1. 36. let it be once understood, etc. , if they are once convinced 
 that they cannot be subject to England without losing rights and 
 privileges, they will revolt from you. 
 
 P. 68, 1. 3. the cement, a favourite metaphor with Burke. 
 He employs it again in his Reflections on the Revohition in France.. 
 
 1. 6. the sanctuary of liberty, literally, a place in which liberty 
 is safe in which it would be sacrilege to violate it. 
 ' 1. 7. our common faith, the worship of freedom. Englishmen 
 all over the world will respect the authority of England so long 
 as subjection to that authority means freedom. 
 
 1. 8. the chosen race, the privileged race. The expression is 
 commonly applied to the Jews, who regarded themselves as a 
 race specially favoured by God. " For thou art an holy people 
 unto the Lord thy God : the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to 
 be a special people unto himself, above all people that- are upon 
 the face of the earth " (Deut. vii. 6).
 
 66-68.] NOTES. . 121 
 
 1. 9. turn their faces towards you, Perhaps a reminiscence of 
 Daniel, vi. 10, " Daniel went into his house ; and his windows 
 l>eing open in his chamber towards Jerusalem, he kneeled upon 
 his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before 
 his God " ; and, ix. 3, " And I set my face unto the Lord God, 
 to seek by .prayer and supplication," etc. Cf. also ibid. 11, 17, 
 18, 19. 
 
 1. 15. natural dignity, not only do you gain by treating the 
 Americans as free men, because they contribute more liberally if 
 allowed to contribute freely, but it is unworthy of you to treat 
 men of your own race as slaves. 
 
 1. 17. of which you have the monopoly, which they can buy 
 from you only. This is the true act, etc. Burke means to say 
 that the Americans only allow themselves to be bound by the 
 Act of Navigation, because they love the power which imposes 
 the act. 
 
 1. 19. the wealth of the world, etc., because the act gave to 
 England the profits of the carrying trade, and also because 
 England made large profits by the resale of those commodities 
 which the colonies might export to England alone. 
 
 1. 22. weak an imagination, foolish an idea. 
 
 1. 23. your registers, etc., i.e. the regulations of your custom- 
 houses : affidavits, declarations on oath. 
 
 1. 24. sufferances, permits : cockets. the sealed document de- 
 livered as evidence that the proper dues had been paid on goods. 
 The word means, literally, the -custom -house seal: clearances, 
 the technical word for passing goods through the custom-house. 
 
 1. 26. letters of office, official letters written by English 
 Ministers : instructions, sent by the English government to the 
 colonial governors. 
 
 1. 28. the mysterious whole, perhaps a reminiscence of Pope's 
 Esaay on Man, 
 
 " All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
 Whose body nature is and God the soul." 
 
 These things do not make, etc. Cf. "Mr. Grenville conceived, 
 and many conceived along with him, that the nourishing trade 
 of this country was greatly owing to law and institution, and 
 not quite so much to liberty: for but too many are apt to believe 
 regxilations to be commerce, and taxes to be revenue" (Burke, On 
 American Taxation). 
 
 1. 32. infused through the mighty mass, The phraseology is 
 suggested by a passage in Vergil, " The whole world is nourished 
 by a spirit within it, and soul, diffused throughout its parts, ani- 
 mates the whole mass."
 
 122 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. [PAGES 
 
 P. 69, 1. 3. the mutiny bill, which enables the offences of ' 
 soldiers to be tried by military law. The Mutiny Bill is passed 
 afresh every year, and the money required for the support of the 
 army is also voted every year. The object of this is to make the 
 very existence of an army depend on the consent of Parliament. 
 If the Sovereign maintained or controlled the army, lie might 
 employ it against the Parliament or the people. 
 
 1. 6. the deep stake, etc., how much they would lose if the 
 government were altered or overthrown. The metaphor is a very 
 common one. For the literal meaning of stake see on p. 59, 1. 28. 
 
 1. 8. .liberal, worthy of freemen, opposed to servile. Burke 
 means obedience rendered from love, not from fear. Cf. Reflec- 
 tions on the Revolution in France. 
 
 1. 10. chimerical, fanciful, literally, as unreal as the chimcera, 
 a fabulous monster of the old Greek mythology. 
 
 1. 11. the profane herd, borrowed from Horace, Od. iii. 1'. 1 : 
 mechanical, because they think that everything can be effected 
 by the machinery of political regulations, and allow nothing for 
 the spontaneous action of human will and feeling. 
 
 1. 12. no place, no right to a place. 
 
 1. 13. gross and material, as opposed to what is spiritual, 
 viz., man's ideas and feelings. With the whole of this passage, 
 cf. "Nations are not primarily ruled by laws ; less by violence. 
 Whatever original energy may be supposed either in force or 
 regulation, the operation of both is, in truth, merely instru- 
 mental. Nations are governed by the same methods and on the 
 same principles by which an individual without authority is often 
 able to govern those who are his equals or superiors ; by a know- 
 ledge of their temper and a judicious management of it" (Present 
 Discontents). 
 
 1. 19. all in all, "that God may be all in all" (1 Cor. xv. 28). 
 
 1. 23. to auspicate, to begin. The word implies that if we 
 do not so begin, we cannot hope to succeed. For the meaning of 
 the word, see on p. 12, 1. 35. 
 
 1. 25. Lift up your hearts, In the English Church service this 
 is addressed by the priest to the people, and the people reply, 
 " We lift them up unto the Lord." Just as in an act of worship 
 we should lift our thoughts from earth to heaven, so in the busi- 
 ness of government we should endeavour to rise above all mean 
 and petty considerations to high ideas and worthy aims. 
 
 1. 26. that trust, that power which is to be used for the benefit 
 of those over whom it is exercised, just as the money of a minor 
 is to be administered by the guardian for' the benefit of his ward.
 
 69-70.] NOTES. 123 
 
 1. 28. this high calling. " I press toward the mark for the prize 
 of the hi<jh calliiiy of God in Christ Jesus " (Ep. Philipp. iii. 13). 
 
 P. 70, 1. 1. and may it, etc., words of good omen. 
 
 1. '2. lay the first stone, for the metaphor, cf. p. 47, 1. 8. 
 
 1. 9. the previous question, viz., whether Burke's motion 
 should be put to the vote at all. It was decided by a majority 
 of a hundred and ninety-two that it should not.
 
 INDEX TO THE NOTES. 
 
 Abate, to, 100. 
 
 Abstract, 97. 
 
 Acts of Parliament 
 
 For closing Boston Harbour, 
 
 78, 98. 
 
 For regulating the govern- 
 ment of Massachusetts, 
 
 111. 
 For restraining the trade of 
 
 the New England Colonies, 
 
 73, 98, 105, 117. 
 For trying persons accused 
 
 of crimes in Massachusetts, 
 
 111. 
 Of Union between England 
 
 and Scotland, 80. 
 Admiralty, Courts of, 112. 
 Affidavits, 121. 
 
 Africa, English trade with, 79. 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, peace of, 110. 
 Algiers, 88. 
 Alienation, 75. 
 Alterative, 96. 
 Americans, Established Church 
 
 of, 86. 
 
 Local Assemblies of, 84, 90. 
 
 mixed population, 85. 
 
 Protestantism of, 85. 
 Angel, an, 80, 
 Angola, 95. 
 
 Argue, to, 75. 
 Aristocracy, 94. 
 Aristotle, 115. 
 Attach to, intr., 84. 
 Augur, an, 87. 
 
 Augur, to, 87. 
 Auspicate, to, 122. 
 Auspicious, 80. 
 Averse from, 85. 
 
 B 
 
 Bacon, 87, 89, 93. 
 
 Ballast, 74. 
 
 Ban, a, 97. 
 j Bathurst, Earl, 80. 
 J ..Bias, 83. 
 
 i Blackstone, Commentaries of, 
 87. 
 
 Blue riband, the, 77. 
 
 Bottom, a, 94. 
 
 Breton, Cape, cession of, to 
 France, 110. 
 
 Brusa, 88. 
 
 Burgesses, 106. 
 
 Burke, method of, 97. 
 
 regard of for social order, 90. 
 
 regard of for contract, 92. 
 
 society a mystery, 92. 
 
 theory of the English con- 
 
 stitution, 113. 
 
 view of abstract rights, 113. 
 
 view of the causes of re- 
 
 bellion, 97. 
 
 view of^ government as a 
 
 trust, 74, 122. 
 
 view of large empires, 88. 
 
 view of liberty, 83. 
 
 view of the Revolution of 
 
 1688, 103. 
 Burthen, a, 111.
 
 INDEX TO THE NOTES. 
 
 125 
 
 C 
 
 Canute, 88. 
 Capital, adj. , 89. 
 Chargeable, 94. 
 Chicane, 83, 87. 
 Chimerical, 122. 
 Churlishly, 103. 
 Civility, 103. 
 Clandestine running, 111. 
 Clearances, 121. 
 Cockets, 121. 
 Coke, Sir Edward, 96. 
 Commons, House of, the, 
 
 arrangement of parties in, 
 
 87. 
 
 bar of, 79. 
 
 in Committee of Supply, 107. 
 
 lobbies of the, 77. 
 
 papers laid on the table of, 
 
 79, 106. 
 
 Sergeant-at-arms of, 77. 
 
 Speaker of, 73. 
 Commonwealth, 108. 
 Complaint, a, 74. 
 Complexion, 82. 
 Compound, to, 117, 120. 
 Comprehend, to, 81. 
 Compromise, a, 113. 
 Comptrollers, 92. 
 Concussion, 90. 
 Congruity, 112. 
 Contingent, 118. 
 County Palatine, a, 106. 
 Crimea, the, 88. 
 
 D 
 
 Damietta, 99. 
 Davis, Sir John, 103. 
 Deceive, to, 81. 
 Denominations, 79, 85. 
 Depend, to, 73. 
 Disherisons, 106. 
 Disreputably, 75. 
 Dissenters, 84. 
 Distemper, a, 74. 
 Domination, 86. 
 Dragoon, a, 94. 
 
 Drawback, a, 111. 
 Dunmore, Lord, 90. 
 
 E 
 
 Edward!., 104. 
 Eminence, by way of, 83. 
 Establishments, 85. 
 Event, an, 73. 
 Evidence room, an, 99. 
 Exonerate, to, 117. 
 Explode, to, 93. 
 Exquisite, 100. 
 
 F 
 
 Fair, a, 105. 
 
 Falkland Islands, the, 81. 
 Feudal, 102. 
 First mover, the, 89. 
 Fix, to, intr., 84. 
 France, hostility of to Eng- 
 land, 82. . 
 Freeholders, 109. 
 Freemen, 109. 
 Frozen serpent, the, 81. 
 Fuller, Mr. Rose, 75. 
 
 G 
 
 Garter, the, order of, 77. 
 Generous, 82. 
 Genius, 80, 104. 
 George II., Act of, 109. 
 Glover, Mr., 79. 
 Gothic, 86. 
 Grapple, to, 120. 
 Grenville, Mr., 113, 121. 
 Gristle, 82. 
 Guinea, 95. 
 
 H 
 
 Hammer, auctioneer's, the, 78. 
 
 Hampden, Mr., 91. 
 
 Hardy, 82. 
 
 Hedge in, to, 93. 
 
 Henry VIII., statute of, 98. 
 
 Hillsborough, Lord, 109. 
 
 Hoard, to, 91.
 
 126 
 
 BURKE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 Horace, 91, 106, 108, 122. 
 Horde, a, 92. 
 Husbandry, 105. 
 Husk, a, 119. 
 
 Icebergs, 81. 
 Idolize, to, 101. 
 Illation, 113. 
 Irtipeachment, 109. 
 Inconstancy, 75. 
 Incubus, an, 105. 
 Ingenuous, 108. 
 Inquisition, the, 93. 
 Insurance, 82. 
 Ireland, 102, 103, 104. 
 
 Juvenal, 93, 107, 114, 119. 
 L' 
 
 Labyrinth, a, 76. 
 Lecky, Mr., 84, 85, 86. 
 Libel, a, 106. 
 Liberal, 122. 
 
 Longitude, to run the, 82. 
 Lord, use of the title, 77. 
 Lords marchers, 104. 
 
 M 
 
 Mace, a, 77. 
 Magazine, a, 99. 
 March, a, 105. 
 Market, a, 101. 
 Martinus Scriblerus, 95. 
 Members, 101. 
 Mercurial, 87. 
 Metaphysical, 115. 
 Milton, 92, 99, 107, 118, 119. 
 Minimis, non curat lex de, 79. 
 Ministers, constitutional posi- 
 tion of, 109. 
 Miserable, 110. 
 Monsters, 90. 
 Moral, 95. v 
 
 Mortal, 110. 
 
 Mutiny Bill, the, 122. 
 
 N 
 
 Nature, state of, 85, 99. 
 Navigation Act, the, 112, 121. 
 Ne, 106. 
 North, Lord, 77, 109. 
 
 O 
 
 Oceana, 107. 
 Operose, 90. 
 Oracle, an, 83. 
 Outcry, an, 117. 
 
 Pale, 107. 
 Panegyrist, 94. 
 Panic, 101. 
 Paradoxically, 109. 
 Parchment, 83. 
 Parliament 
 
 Address by the, 78. 
 
 Imperial capacity of, 115. 
 
 Irish, the, 102. 
 
 Origin of, 102. 
 Partially, 111. 
 Pedantic, 96. 
 Pedantry, 96. 
 
 Philadelphia, Congress at, 112. 
 Philip II., 101. 
 Piety, 81. 
 Pinched, 78. 
 
 Pitt, view of, with regard to 
 taxation of America, 113. 
 Plantations, 111. 
 Platform, a, 75. 
 Plato, Republic of, 107. 
 Poland, condition of the pea- 
 santry in, 86. 
 Polity, a, 99. 
 Poor, 120. 
 Pope, 116, 12,1. 
 Positive, 90. 
 Pounce, a, 88.
 
 INDEX TO THE NOTES. 
 
 127 
 
 Previous question, the, 123. 
 Protuberance, 79. 
 Pruriency, 77. 
 
 Q 
 
 Quantum, 116. 
 Quota, 117. 
 
 R 
 
 Radical, 91. 
 
 Raleigh, trial of, by Coke, 96. 
 
 Religious, 74. 
 
 Requisition, 110. 
 
 Restive, 83. 
 
 Returning officer, the, 112. 
 
 Rice, Mr., 100. 
 
 Roman charity, 81. 
 
 Romantic, 81. 
 
 S 
 
 Sally, a, 91. 
 Sanctuary, a, 120. 
 Sanguine, 110. 
 Satisfaction, to give, 83. 
 Seal, a, 98. 
 Seminal, 81. 
 Serbonian bog, the, 99. 
 Seven Years' War, the, 110. 
 Shakespeare, 89, 1 14, 120. 
 Shall, for will, 100. 
 Sheriff, 111. 
 Shoot, a, 78. 
 
 Should, used for would. 96. 
 Sink, to, 81, 110. 
 Smyrna, 88. 
 Snuff, to, 88. 
 Sophistical, 80. 
 Sophists, the, 80. 
 
 Speaker, the, 73. 
 
 Stake, a, 114, 122. 
 
 Stamp Act, feeling of America 
 
 on the repeal of the, 76. 
 Startle, to, intr., 98. 
 State, a, 79, 1 10. 
 Stock, 119. 
 Sufferances, 121. 
 Supply, 104. 
 
 T 
 
 Tainted, 88. 
 
 Tamper, to, 108. 
 
 Tartars, the, 92. 
 
 That, use of with if, 96. 
 
 Throne, speech from the, 78. 
 
 Thurlow, Attorney- General, 
 
 87. 
 
 Title, a, 96, 99. 
 Tract, a, 87. 
 Trance, a, 100. 
 Treasury extent, a, 117. 
 Truck, to, 88. 
 Tucker, Dr., 91, 101. 
 
 U 
 
 Unsettled, 91. 
 Untractable, 83. 
 Utopia, 107. 
 
 Vouchers, 79. 
 
 W 
 
 Where, for whereas, 106. 
 Wild, 95. 
 Wise, 106. 
 
 GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AMD CO. LID.
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
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 STACK COLLECTION 
 
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 STAMPED BELOW. 
 
 MAR 1 1 1968 
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