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 Majesty's service, according to their abilities, when required thereto by letter from one of his Majesty's* principal secretaries 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 BURKE'S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION {;,«» 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 nothing but fact, authenticated by parliamentary record, and to build myself wholly on that solid basis.
[101] On the 4th of April, 1748, a committee of this House came to the following resolution: fieaolved, 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 island of Cape Breton and its dependencies.
These expenses were immense for such colonies. They were above £200,000 sterling; money first raised and advanced on their public credit.
[102] 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 vigor with which his faithful subjects of certain colonies in North America have exerted themselves in defense of his Majesty's just rights and possessions, recommends it to this House to take the same into their consideration, and to enable his Majesty to give them such assistance as may be a proper reward and encouragement."
[103] On the 3d of February, 1756, the House came to a suitable resolution, expressed in words nearly the same as those of the message; but with the further addition, that the money then voted was an encourage- ment to the colonies to exert themselves with vigor. It will not be necessary to go through all the testimo- nies which your own records have given to the truth ~of my resolutions: I will only refer you to the places in the journals: HO BURKE'S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION Vol. xxix. — January 22 and 26, 1762; March 14 and [104] Sir, here is the repeated acknowledgment of »> Parliament that the colonies not only gave, but gave to -satiety. This nation has formally 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 main- tenance-of troops, since the compensation is expressly given as reward and encouragement. Eeward is not bestowed for acts that are unlawful; and encourage- ment is not held out to things that deserve reprehension. My resolution therefore does nothing more than collect into one proposition what is scattered through your journals. I give you nothing but your own; and you can not refuse in the gross what you have so often ac- knowledged in detail. The admission of this, which will be so honorable to them and co you, will indeed be mortal to all the miserable stories by which the passions of the misguided people have been engaged in an un- happy system. The people heard, indeed, from the be- ginning 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. Gren- ville began to form his system of American revenue, he stated in 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 BURKE'S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION debt in four years. On 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 mistaken. 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 completed till some years after, and at different times in different col- onies. However, the taxes after the war continued too great to bear any addition with prudence or propriety; and when the burdens imposed in consequence of former requisitions 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.
[105] We see the sense of the crown and the sense of Parliament 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 page? What is the gross, what is the net produce? To what service is it applied? How have you appropriated its surplus? What! can none of the many skillful 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 bur- den and blot of every page.
[106] I think, then, I am, from those journals, jus- tified in the sixth and last resolution, which is — That it hath been found by experience that the manner of granting the said supplies and aids by the said General Assem- blies, hath been more agreeable to the said colonies, and more beneficial and conducive to the public service, than the mode of giving and granting aids in Parliament, to be raised and paid in • the said colonies.
112 BURKE'S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION /^[107] )This makes the whole of the fundamental part of the plan. The conclusion is irresistible. You can not say that you were driven by any necessity to an exei- : else of the utmost rights of legislature. You can not 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.
[108] The question now, on all this accumulated matter, is — whether you will choose to abide by a profit- able 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?
[109] 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 be proper to repeal an act made in the seventh year of the reign of his present Majesty, entitled, "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 o.r plantations; for dis- continuing the drawbacks payable on China earthenware ex- ported to America; and for more effectually preventing the clan- destine running of goods in the said colonies and plantations." And that it may be proper to repeal an act made in the four- teenth year of the reign of his present Majesty, entitled, " 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 merchandise, at the town and within the BURKE'S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION H3 harbor 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 year of the reign of his present Majesty, entitled, "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, entitled, " An act for the better regulating the government of the province of Massa- chusetts Bay, in New England." — And also, that it may be proper to explain and amend an act made in the thirty-fifth year of the reign of King Henry the Eighth, entitled, " An act for the trial of treasons committed out of the king's dominions."
[110] I wish, Sir, to repeal the Boston Port Bill, because (independently of the dangerous precedent of suspending the rights of the subject during the king's pleasure) it was passed, as I apprehend, with less regu- larity, 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. 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 punishment 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.
[Ill] Ideas of prudence and accommodation to cir- cumstances prevent you from taking away the charters of Connecticut and Khode Island, as you have taken away that of Massachusetts colony, though the crown has far less power in the 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 accommo- BURKE'S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION dation have weight with me in restoring the charter of Massachusetts Bay. Besides, Sir, the act which changes the charter of Massachusetts is in many particulars so exceptionable that, if I did not wish absolutely to re- peal, 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 others, 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 shameful to behold such a regulation standing among English laws.
[112] The act for bringing persons accused of com- mitting murder under the orders of government to Eng- land for trial is but temporary. That act has calculated the probable 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.
[113] 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 treasons (and the greatest treasons may be committed) in places where the jurisdiction of the crajoi does not extend.
H14] Having guarded the privileges of local legis- lature, I would next secure to the colonies a fair and unbiased 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 courts, it may be proper that the said chief justice and other judges of the superior courts of such colony shall hold his and BURKE'S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION H5 their office and offices during their good behavior; and shall not be removed therefrom, but when the said removal shall be ad- judged 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 chief justice and other judges have exercised the said offices.
[115] 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.
[116] 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 Navi- gation. The extent of its jurisdiction, indeed, has been increased; but this is altogether as proper, and is indeed on many accounts more eligible, where new powers were wanted, than a court absolutely new. But courts incom- modiously 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.
[117] These are the three consequential proposi- tions. I have thought of two or three more; but they come rather too near detail, and to the province of executive government, 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 building, tli.-iu very materially detrimental to its strength and stability.
116 BURKE'S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION [118] Here, Sir, I should close; but I plainly per- ceive 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, I prove too much; that the grievance from a want of representation, 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.
[119] To this objection, with all possible deference and humility, and wishing as little as any man living to impair the smallest 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 is true that Lord Chatham considered these preambles as declaring strongly in favor 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 pre- ambles are as favorable as possible to both, when prop- erly understood — favorable both to the rights of Parlia- ment, and to the privilege of the dependencies of this crown? But, Sir, the object of grievance in my reso- lution I have not taken from the Chester, but from the Durham Act, which confines the hardship of want of representation to the case of subsidies, and which therefore falls in exactly with the case of the colonies.
But whether the unrepresented counties were de jure, or de facto ', bound, the preambles do not accurately dis- BURKE'S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION H7 tinguish; 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.
[120] I do not know that the colonies have, in any general way or in any cool hour, gone much beyond the demand of immunity in relation to taxes. It is not fair to judge of the 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 specu- lative principle, either of government or of freedom, as far as it will go in argument and logical illation. We Englishmen stop very short of the principles upon which we support any given part of our Constitution, 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. AVe balance inconveniences; we give and take; we remit some rights that we may enjoy others; and we choose rather to be happy citizens than subtle dis- putants. As we must give away 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. Xone 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 118 BURKE'S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION dignity of human nature. None of us who would not risk his life rather than fall under a government purely arbitrary. But although there are some among 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 enter- prise, 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. 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 accuracy in moral arguments, as the most fallacious of all sophistry.
[121] 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 legis- lature, when they see them the acts of that power which is itself the security, not the rival, of their secondary importance. In this assurance, 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 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 'timght to value myself.
£-\ H.22] (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 BURKE'S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION H9 Wales, and Chester, and Durham were added to it.j 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. The very idea of subordination of parts excludes this notion of simple and undivided unityrfuEngland is the head; but she is not the head and the^members too. J Ireland has ever had from the beginning a separate, bur not ito iiidfo. pendent legislature; which, far from distracting, pro- moted the union of the whole. Everything was sweetly and harmoniously disposed- through Loili Islands for the conservation of English dominion and the communica- tion 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 model with re- gard to America, as far as the internal circumstances 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 understand- ing more united than it is now, or than it is likely to be by the present methods.
[133] But since I speak of these methods, I recol- lect, Mr. Speaker, almost too late, that I promised, be- fore I finished, to say something of the proposition of the noble lord on the floor, which has-been sQj.ately_re- erived, 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 troub- ling you, suffer me to state them in a very few words. I shall compress them into as small a body as I possibly can, having already debated that matter at large when the question was before the committee.
[124] First, then, I can not admit that proposition of a ransom by auction, because it is a mere project. It 120 BURKE'S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION is a thing new; unheard of; supported by no experience; justified by no analogy; without example of our ances- tors, or root in the Constitution. It is neither regular parliamentary taxation nor colony grant. Experimen- tum in corpore vili is a good rule which will ever make me adverse to any trial of experiments on what is cer- tainly the most valuable of all subjects — the peace of this empire.
[125] 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 natter 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) the true proportional payment for four or five and twenty governments, according to the absolute and the relative wealth of each, and ac- cording to the British proportion of wealth and burden, is a wild and chimerical notion. This new taxation must therefore1 come in by the back door of the Constitution. Each quota must be brought to this House ready formed. You can neither add nor alter. You must register it. You can do nothing further. For on what grounds can you deliberate either before or after the proposition? You can not hear the counsel for all these provinces quarreling each on its own quantity of payment, and its proportion to others. If you should attempt it, the committee of provincial ways and means, or by whatever other name it will delight to be called, must swallow up all the time of Parliament.
[l^G] Thirdly, it does not give satisfaction to the complaint of the colonies. They complain that they are taxed without their consent; you answer, that you BURKE'S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 12, 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 them- selves. I really beg pardon: it gives me pain to men- tion 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 know, too, that you would not suffer many other modes of taxation. So that, when you come to ex- plain yourself, it will be found that you will neither leave to themselves the quantum nor the mode; nor in- deed anything. The whole is delusion from one end to the other.
[127] Fourthly, this method of ransom by auction, unless it be universally accepted, will plunge you into great and inextricable difficulties.^- In what year of our Lord are the proportions of payments to be settled? To say nothing of the impossibility that colony agents should have general powers of taxing the colonies at their discretion, consider, I implore you, that the com- munication 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.
[128] If all the colonies do not appear at the out- cry, what is the condition of those assemblies who offers by themselves or their agents, to tax themselves up to your ideas of their proportion? The refractory colonies who refuse all composition will remain taxed only to your old impositions, which, however grievous in princi- ple, are trifling as to production. The obedient colonies 122 BURKE'S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION in this scheme are heavily taxed; the refractory remani* unburdened. What will you do? Will you lay new and heavier taxes by Parliament on the disobedient? Pray consider in what way you can do it. You 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 for- eign trade. If you tax the import of that rebellious colony, what do you tax but your own manufactures, or the goods of some 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 clew to lead you out of it? I think, Sir, it is impossi- ble 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, and burden 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 Mary- land, the central and most important of them all. f. [129] Let it also be considered that, either in the