1

was his idol. I mean the act of navigation.

He

has often profeffed it to be fo. The policy of that act is, I readily admit, in many respects well underftood. But I do fay, that if the act be suffered to run the full length of its principle, and is not changed and modified according to the change of times and the fluctuation of circumftances, it must do great mischief, and frequently even defeat its own purpose.

After the war, and in the laft years of it, the trade of America had increased far beyond the fpeculations of the moft fanguine imaginations. It swelled out on every fide. It filled all its proper channels to the brim. It overflowed with a rich redundance, and breaking its banks on the right and on the left, it fpread out upon fome. places, where it was indeed improper, upon others where it was only irregular. It is the nature of all greatnefs not to be exact; and great trade will always be attended with confiderable abuses. The contraband will always keep pace in fome measure with the fair trade. It should stand as a fundamental maxim, that no vulgar precaution ought to be employed in the cure of evils, which are clofely connected with the cause of our profperity. Perhaps this great perfon turned his eyes fomewhat lefs than was juft, towards the incredible increase of the fair trade; and looked with fomething of too exquifite a jealoufy towards the contraband. He

certainly felt a fingular degree of anxiety on the fubject; and even began to act from that paffion earlier than is commonly imagined. For whilft he was firft lord of the admiralty, though not strictly called upon in his official line, he prefented a very ftrong memorial to the lords of the treasury (my Lord Bute was then at the head of the board); heavily complaining of the growth of the illicit commerce in America. Some mischief happened even at that time from this over-earneft zeal, Much greater happened afterwards when it operated with greater power in the higheft department of the finances. The bonds of the act of navigation were straitened fo much, that America was on the point of having no trade, either contraband or legitimate. They found, under the conftruction and execution then ufed, the act no longer tying but actually ftrangling them. All this coming with new enumerations of commodities; with regulations which in a manner put a stop to the mutual coafting intercourfe of the colonies; with the appointment of courts of admiralty under various improper circumftances; with a fudden extinction of the paper currencies; with a compulfory provifion for the quartering of foldiers; the people of America thought themselves proceeded against as delinquents, or at beft as people under fufpicion of delinquency; and in fuch a manner, as they imagined, their recent fervices in

the

the war did not at all merit. Any of thefe innumerable regulations, perhaps, would not have alarmed alone; some might be thought reasonable; the multitude ftruck them with terrour.

But the grand manoeuvre in that bufinefs of new regulating the colonies, was the 15th act of the fourth of George III; which, befides containing feveral of the matters to which I have just alluded, opened a new principle: and here properly began the fecond period of the policy of this country; with regard to the colonies; by which the fcheme of a regular plantation parliamentary revenue was adopted in theory, and fettled in practice. A revenue not substituted in the place of, but fuperadded to, a monopoly; which monopoly was enforced at the fame time with additional strictness, and the execution put into military hands.

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This act, Sir, had for the first time the title of "granting duties in the colonies and plantations "of America ;" and for the first time it was afferted in the preamble," that it was just and neceffary that a revenue fhould be raised there." Then came the technical words of "giving and 'granting," and thus a complete American revenue act was made in all the forms, and with a full avowal of the right, equity, policy, and even neceffity of taxing the colonies, without any formal confent of theirs. There are contained alfo in the preamble to that act thefe very remarkable words -the

-the commons, &c.-" being defirous to make "fome provifion in the prefent feffion of parliament "towards raifing the faid revenue." By thefe words it appeared to the colonies, that this act was but a beginning of forrows; that every feffion was to produce fomething of the fame kind; that we were to go on from day to day, in charging them with fuch taxes as we pleased, for fuch a military force as we should think proper. Had this plan been purfued, it was evident that the provincial affemblies, in which the Americans felt all their portion of importance, and beheld their fole image of freedom, were ipfo facto annihilated. This ill prospect before them feemed to be boundlefs in extent, and endless in duration. Sir, they were not mistaken. The miniftry valued themfelves when this act paffed, and when they gave notice of the stamp act, that both of the duties came very short of their ideas of American taxation. Great was the applause of this measure here. In England we cried out for new taxes on America, whilft they cried out that they were nearly crushed with those which the war and their own grants had brought upon them.

Sir, it has been faid in the debate, that when the firft American revenue act (the act in 1764, impofing the port duties) paffed, the Americans did not object to the principle. It is true they touched it but very tenderly. It was not a direct attack.

tack. They were, it is true, as yet novices; as yet unaccustomed to direct attacks upon any of the rights of parliament. The duties were port duties, like thofe they had been accustomed to bear; with this difference, that the title was not the fame, the preamble not the fame, and the spirit altogether unlike. But of what fervice is this obfervation to the caufe of thofe that make it? It is a full refutation of the pretence for their prefent cruelty to America; for it fhews, out of their own mouths, that our colonies were backward to enter into the prefent vexatious and ruinous controverfy.

There is alfo another circulation abroad, (fpread with a malignant intention, which I cannot attribute to those who fay the fame thing in this house) that Mr. Grenville gave the colony agents an option for their affemblies to tax themselves,, which they had refused. I find that much ftrefs is laid on this, as a fact. However, it happens neither to be true nor poffible.. I will obferve first, that Mr. Grenville never thought fit to make this apology for himself in the innumerable debates that were had upon the subject. He might have proposed to the colony agents, that they fhould agree in fome mode of taxation as the ground of an act of parliament. But he never could have propofed that they should tax themselves on requifition, which is the affertion of the day. Indeed, Mr. Grenville

well