obras selectas. volumen i

8/12/2019 Obras Selectas. Volumen i

1/91

S E L E C T W O R K S O F E D M U N D U R K E

V O L U M E 1


2/91

S E L E C T O R K SO F E D M U N D U R K E

A NEW IMPRINT OFTHE PAYNE EDITION

VOLUME 1

TH O UG H TSN T H E C A U S E F T H EP R E S E N TD I S C O N T E N T S

THETwo S P E E C H E SN A M E R I C AVOLUME 4

R E F L E C T I O N SN T H ER E V O L U T I O NN F R A N C E

VOLUME 3L E T T E R SO N A R E G I C I D E E A C E

M I S C E L L A N E O U S R I T I N G S


3/91


4/91

S E L E C TW O R K SO F E D M U N D U R K EA NEW MPRINT OF THE P A Y N E EDITION

Foreword and Biographical Note by Francis Canavan

VOLUME 1

THOUGHTSN T H EPRESENT ISCONTENTS

THETwo SPEECHESO N AMERICA

faL I B E R T Y U N DI N D I A N A P O L I S


5/91

This book is published by Liberty Fund, Inc., a foundation established toencourage study of the ideal of a societyof free and responsible individuals.

laThe cuneiform inscription that serves as our logo and as the design motiffor our endpapers is the earliest-known written appearance of the word free-dom amagi), or liberty. It is taken from a clay document written about2300 B.C. in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash.

iggg by Liberty Fund, Inc.All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of AmericaFrontispiece is a mezzotint byJ. Jones of George Romneys portrait of EdmundBurke. By courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London.

gg 0 0 01 0 2 03 c j 4 3 z 1gg oo 01 02 03 P 5 4 3 2 1

Library of CongressCataloging-in-Publication DataBurke, Edmund, 1729-1797.

[Selections. 19991Select works of Edmund Burke a new imprint of the Payne edition /foreword and biographical note by Francis Canavan.

p. cm.Vols. 1-3 originally published: Oxford Clarendon Press, 1874-1878.Includes bibliographical references.Contents: v. 1 . Thoughts on the cause of the present discontents. The

two speeches on .4merica-v. 2 . Reflections on the revolution in France-v. 3.Letters on a regicide peace- [4] Miscellaneous writings.

I S B N 0-86597-162-5 (v. 1 hc : alk. paper).--rsm 0-86597-163-3 (v. 1 :pb alk. paper)

1. Great Britain-Politics and government- 18th century. 2 . GreatBritain olonies- America. 3. France History- Revolution, 1789-1799.4. Great Britain-Relations-France. I. Canavan, Francis, 1917- 11.Payne, Edward John, 1844-1904. 111.Title.

~ ~ 1 7 6 . ~ 8 2 6ggg320.9033-dC21 97-34325

I S B N 0-86597-253-2 (set hc alk. paper)I S B N 0-86597-254-0(set pb alk. paper)LIBERTYUND,NC.

8335 Allison Pointe Trail, Suite 300Indianapolis, I N 46250-1687


6/91

CONT E NT S

EDITOR'S OREWORDix

BIOGRAPHICALOTExv

EDITOR'SNOTExxi

INTRODUCTIONY E. J. PAYNE3

THOUGHTSN THE CAUSEOF THEPRESENTISCONTENTS(1770)

SPEECHN AMERICANAXATION( 774)

57SPEECH ON MOVINGRESOLUTIONSORCONCILIATIONITH THE C O L O N I E S

(1775)

NOTES291


7/91


8/91

EDITORSF O R E W O R D

T h e first three volumes of this set of Select ofEdmund Burke, fully edited by Edward John Payne 1844-1904), were originally published by the Clarendon Press,Oxford, from 1874 to 1878. Liberty Fund now publishesthem again, with a fourth volume of additional writings byBurke. The original set has been praised by Clara I. Gandyand Peter J. Stanlis as an outstanding critical anthology ofBurkes essential works on the American and French revolu-tions; and they went on to say: The scholarship and criti-cism is perhaps the best on Burke during the last quarter ofthe nineteenth century.

E. J. Payne was born in England to parents in humblecircumstances, as the Dictionary ofNational Bwgruphy phrasesit. No doubt for that reason, the Dictionary goes on to say thathe owed his education largely to his own exertions.2None-theless he was able at age twenty-three to matriculate at Mag-dalen Hall, Oxford, from which he transferred to CharsleysHall. He graduated B.A. in 1871,with a first class in classics.The following year he was elected to a fellowship in Univer-sity College, Oxford. He was married in 1899 and thereforehad to resign his fellowship, but was re-elected to a researchfellowship in 1900. To the end of his days he took an activepart in the management of College affairs.

He was called to the bar at Lincolns Inn in 1874, butdevoted himself mainly to research and writing, especially

1. Edmund Burke: A Bibliography of Secondary Studics to 1982 New York andLondon: Garland Publishing, 1983), o. 916.2.Second Supplement 1912),335.

ix


9/91

E D I T O R S O R E W O R Don English colonial history and exploration, on which sub-jects he published rather widely. He also wrote on music, andwas an accomplished violinist. His introductions and notes tothese Sekct Works show him also to have been well versed inEnglish, French, Italian, and classical literature as well as inhistory.

The first of these volumes contains Burkes great speecheson the crisis between Great Britain and her American colo-nies, On American Taxation (1774) and On Conciliation with theColonies (1775).They are preceded by his pamphlet Thoughtson the Cause o tk Present Discontents (1770)~which sets forththe political creed of the Whig faction led by the Marquis ofRockingham, for whom Burke acted as spokesman. The uni-fying theme of all three documents is Burkes fear of arbitrarypower divorced from political prudence. In the Present Dis-contents it was the power of the Crown and in the Americanspeeches it was the sovereignty of the Mother Country thathe argued were being exercised in an arbitrary and foolishmanner.

The second volume is devoted wholly to Burkes best-known work, R ejl ec ti m on the Revolution in France (1790); thethird, to his Letters on a Regicide Peace (between Great Britainand revolutionary France), which were written in 1796 and1797. In these volumes he again expresses a detestation ofarbitrary power, in this case of the sovereign people, whichin practice was really the power of an oligarchy posing as ademocracy.

The fourth volume contains writings that express Burkesviews on representation in Parliament, on economics, on thepolitical oppression of the peoples of India and Ireland, andon the enslavement of African blacks.

One of the attractive features of Burkes political thoughtis his keen awareness of the way in which reason operatesin political judgments. He so heavily emphasized the rolesof tradition, even to the point of calling it prejudice, and of


10/91

E D I T O R SF O R E W O R Dsentiment and emotion in politics that it is easy to overlookhis insistence that it was reason, not will, that should governin the affairs of men. Mere will was arbitrary; reason recog-nized and took into account the complexity of reality. But i twas practical, prudential reason, not abstract ideology, thatshould determine political decisions.

Thus, in his American speeches, while he did not denyGreat Britains right to tax the colonies, he severely ques-tioned the wisdom of trying to do so without the consentof the colonists. His objection to the French Revolution,and to the British radicalism that agreed with it was not todemocracy in the abstract (though he thought it unsuitedto any large country), but to the doctrine of the rights ofmen, which the new French government had stated early inthe Revolution in these terms: The Representatives of thepeople of France, formed into a National Assembly, consid-ering that ignorance, neglect, or contempt of human rights,are the sole causes of public misfortunes and corruptions ofgovernment, have resolved to set forth in a solemn declara-tion those natural imprescriptible, and unalienable rights.

Noble as that sentiment may be, it presumes that the pur-pose of politics and of the state can be reduced to a questionof rights. The end of all political associations is the preserva-tion of rights, and denying or ignoring them is the sole causeof public misfortunes. It follows that if a nation were to getits conception of rights straight, it would have solved all theproblems of society. Burke was a strong and sincere defenderof peoples rights in other contexts, but he was repelled bythe ideological simple-mindedness of the French Declarationof the Rights o Man and Citizen 1789).

Despite what Burke often seems to mean in his denun-ciations of theory and metaphysics, he did not rejectprinciples or an overarching natural moral order. On thecontrary, he often appealed to them, particularly in his argu-ments against political oppression in India and Ireland. His


11/91

[xii]E D TO R s Fo R E w oR D

objection was to the ideological mind that reasoned in poli-tics as if it were engaged in an exercise in geometry, proceed-ing from an initial principle to practical conclusions that fol-lowed with necessary logic, without regard to the wisdom ofour ancestors, present circumstances, and the nature of thepeople as conditioned by their history. For you know, Burkewrote to Sir Hercules Langrishe in 1792, that the decisionsof prudence (contrary to the system of the insane reasoners)differ from those of judicature; and that almost all of theformer are determined on the more or the less, the earlier orthe later, and on a balance of advantage and inconvenience,of good and evil.3 But the decisions of prudence were none-theless rational judgments that should not be considered ir-rational because they were not modelled on mathematics.

Burke believed in a common human nature created byGod as the supreme norm of politics. But he knew thathuman nature realizes itself in history through conventionalforms, customs, and traditions, which constitute what hecalled the second nature of a particular people. Conventioncan and often enough does distort our nature, but it is not ofitself opposed to i t . Burke would have agreed with the remarkof the late Sir Ernest Barker: Once oppose Nature to Con-vention, and the whole inherited tradition of the ages goes bythe b0a1-d.~ onvention, made as i t should be to satisfy theneeds of nature, is not natures enemy, but its necessary cloth-ing. The statesman must therefore frame his policies with apractical wisdom that understands his people, their history,their traditions, their inherited rights and liberties, and theirpresent circumstances. To do otherwise is to court disaster.

Burke thought that in the French Revolution it was theSational Assembly that was courting disaster; in the Ameri-

3 . Letter to Szr Hprculps Langrirhe in MisceUaneouc Wntings, the companionvolume to .Mer/ Works o Edmund Burke (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, iygg),p. 2 0 2 .4 . Greek Political Theory: Phto and His Pre&cessors New York:Barnes andNoble, 4th ed., 1951). p. jj


12/91

[xi i i ]E D I T O R SF O R E W O R D

can Revolution itfavored Americas

was the British government. He neverindependence from Britain, because he

always strove to be an enlightened imperialist for whom theBritish Empire could and should be a blessing to all its mem-ber countries. But when American independence came, hewas able to accept it gracefully, and he even praised the newConstitution of the United States. Or so, at least, he is re-ported as saying in the House of Commons on May 6, 1791:The people of America had, he believed, formed a constitu-tion as well adapted to their circumstances as they could. Itwas, to be sure, a republican constitution, but, given the cir-cumstances of the Americans, it had to be one: They had notthe materials of monarchy or aristocracy among them. Theydid not, however, set up the absurdity that the nation shouldgovern the nation; that prince prettyman should governprince prettyman: but formed their government, as nearly asthey could, according to the model of the British constitu-tion.5In regard to France, however, he was uncompromising.There he saw the Revolution as an attack not only on mon-archy and aristocracy, but on the religion, morals, and civili-zation of Christendom, inspired by a rationalistic ideology-rationalistic because it was founded not on reason, but onintoxication with abstract theory.

N o r did Burke divorce reason from emotion. On thecontrary, he held that our reason can recognize our naturethrough our natural feelings and inclinations. To cite butone example, he is reported to have said in the Commonson May 14, 1781, that the obligation of kings to respect theproperty even of conquered enemies is a principle inspiredby the Divine Author of all good; it is felt in the heart; it isrecognized by reason; it is established by consent.j Burke

5.The P a r l i u m t u r y Histmy of Enghnd London: Hansard, 1806-1820).6. bid., 22~230.

29~365-66.


13/91

[xiv]E D I T O R S O R E W O R D

was well aware, of course, that man is subject to disorderedpassions as well as to natural feelings. But for that reason hesaid that the wise Legislators of all countries [have] aimedat improving instincts into morals, and at grafting the virtueson the stock of the natural affections. Reason cultivatesrather than tries to exterminate natural affections, becauseit is through them that it recognizes our natural good.

Man of his times though he was and defender of a now-defunct aristocratic order of society, Burke still speaks to ustoday. Harold Laski was a Marxist who did not mourn thedemise of the aristocratic order; nonetheless he said thatBurke wrote what constitutes the supreme analysis of thestatesmans art and was the first of English political think-ers. Laski therefore concluded that Burke has endured asthe permanent manual of political wisdom without whichstatesmen are as sailors on an uncharted sea.8 This set ofBurkes Sehct Works offers a valuable introduction to thatwisdom.

F R A N C I S A N A V A NFosdham Universitj

7. First Letter on a Reptide Peace, in Select Waks of Edmund Burke, vol. 38. Political Thought in England from LA to Bentham (London: Thornton

(Indianapolis:Liberty Fund, iggg),p. 127.Butternorth, 1920 , pp. i j 26, 172.


14/91

B I O G R A P H I C A LOTE

S i n c e E. J. Payne does not furnish the details of Ed-mund Burkesbiography, it will be useful to the modernreader to include a brief sketch of Burkes life here. (See alsothe chronological table in volume 2 of this edition.)

He was born in Dublin on January 12, 1729, of a RomanCatholic mother and a father who, according to the mostlikely account, had conformed to the Established AnglicanChurch of Ireland (whose head, as in England, was the Kingof Great Britain and Ireland) in order to be able to prac-tice law, a profession forbidden to Catholics under the PenalLaws. Of the children of that marriage who lived to matu-rity, the boys, Garrett, Richard, and Edmund, were raised asProtestants; the one girl, Juliana, as a Catholic.Since Edmund was a somewhat sickly child, he was sentto live from 1735to 1740 with his mothers Catholic relatives,the Nagles, in the country air of County Cork. He maintainedcordial relations with them throughout his life. If Burke hada personal religious problem as a result of this mixed reli-gious family background, he solved it by maintaining thatall Christians shared a common faith which subsisted in dif-ferent forms in the several nations of the commonwealth ofChristendom. The points on which they differed were theless important ones which could be left for the theologicalschools to argue about. When the French Revolution came,Burke found it easy to insist that all Christian kingdoms andchurches must forget their quarrels and unite against what hecalled an armed doctrine hostile to all religion and civili-zation. (On a visit to France many years earlier, in 1773, hehad been shocked by the rationalism and even atheism thathe encountered in Paris.)

xv


15/91

[x v i ]B IO C, R A PH C A L NO TE

From 1741 to 1744, he attended a school in County Kil-dare that was conducted by a Quaker, Abraham Shackleton.Again, Burke maintained friendly relations with the Shackle-ton family for many years. In 1744, he entered Trinity Col-lege, Dublin, the intellectual stronghold of Irish Protestant-ism; he graduated with an A.B. degree in 1748 and receivedan M.A. degree in 1751.

By that time, he had gone to London to study law in theInns of Court. But although in later life he displaved a con-siderable knowledge and understanding of law, he found themethod of studv distasteful and, much to his father's annoy-ance, abandone'd the law for a literary career.

He began this with two books that attracted much atten-tion: A Vindication o Natural Society a satire on the Deismof the Enlightenment, in 1756; and a treatise on aesthetics,A Philosophical Enquiry into tht Origin of Our Ideas of the Sub-l i m and Beautiful in 17.57. In the latter year, he married JaneNugent, the daughter of a Catholic doctor; Jane herself mayor may not have been brought up as a Catholic and, if shewas, may or may not have continued to practice that religionafter her marriage to Burke. In any case, the two children ofthe marriage, Christopher and Richard (who alone survivedto maturity), were brought up in their father's religion.

In 17.58, Edmund became the editor of a yearly reviewof events and literature, the Annua l Register which continuespublication to the present day. He also became private sec-retary to William Gerard Hamilton and went with him toDublin in 1761 when Hamilton became Chief Secretary (apowerful post) to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. I t was therethat Burke began, but never finished, his Tracts Relative to theLaws against Popery in Ireland. He returned to London withHamilton in 1764 and, after a bitter break with him, becameprivate secretary to the Marquis of Rockingham in 1 7 6 5TheMarquis, one of the wealthiest men in both England and Ire-land, was the leader of a Whig faction that resisted the efforts


16/91

[xvii lB I O G R A P H I C A LO T E

of the new young king, George 111, to reassert the personalpower of the monarch.

In 1765, a reluctant King George appointed RockinghamFirst Lord of the Treasury (Prime Minister). In the same year,Burke was elected to the House of Commons from the nomi-nation borough of Wendover through the influence of LordVerney, with whom the Burke family had become friendly.Burke immediately made a reputation in the Commons as anorator. The Rockingham administration fell from power in1766, after it repealed the Stamp Act that had so outragedthe American colonies. Burke remained one of Rockinghamkfollowers, however, and so spent most of the rest of his parlia-mentary life in opposition. In 1768, Burke bought an estatein Buckinghamshire, which made him a country gentlemanbut kept him in debt to the end of his days.

In the Commons, he quickly became the intellectualspokesman for the Rockingham Whigs. In that capacity, hewrote the partys creed, Thoughts on the Cause o t ResentDiscontents. During the American crisis, he argued for theRockingham Whigs position and against the British govern-ments policies in his great speeches on American taxationand on conciliation with the colonies, and in other docu-ments, such as his Letter to t Sherzfs ofBristol.

Burke lost his seat in Parliament when Lord Verney,strapped for money, had to sell i t (a practice fully acceptablein that time). But, now well known, Burke was elected to theCommons from the city of Bristol, where he delivered his fa-mous speech on the role of a parliamentary representative(see Miscellaneous Writings, published with this set). Burkesdisagreements with his constituents on a number of issues(his Two Letters to Gentlemen in Bristol describe one of them)led him to withdraw from the Bristol election in 1780. TheMarquis kept him in Parliament, however, by having himelected from the Yorkshire borough of Malton, a seat thatBurke held until his retirement in 1794.


17/91


18/91

[ x i x ]B I O G R A P H I C A LO T E

Burke was also active in Irish affairs during this period,mostly through private correspondence, and he had a signifi-cant influence in the continued relaxation of the Penal Lawsagainst Catholics in Ireland. His Letter to Sir Hercules angrishis one piece of his writing on Irish affairs that was publishedin his lifetime.

Burke became a man without a party after his break in1791 with Charles James Fox over the attitude to be takentoward the French Revolution. Burkes last years were sad andbitter ones. Rejected by his own party, he was not receivedby the governing Tories except as an occasionally useful ally.The Prime Minister, William Pitt, dismissed ReJections on theRmolution in France as rhapsodies in which there is muchto admire, and nothing to agree with. Burke retired fromParliament in 1794, having completed the prosecution ofMarren Hastings, and was utterly disgusted, though not sur-prised, when the House of Lords acquitted Hastings in thefollowing year. In 1794, Burke also suffered the loss throughdeath of both his brother Richard and his son Richard, Jr.His son was the apple of his fathers eye and had been, Burkesaid, his main reason for continuing to live after the end ofhis parliamentary career.

But Burke did keep on living and writing. Abandonedpolitically at home, he became through his writings, as afriend of his said, a sort of power in Europe as well as inEngland. The aristocratic order he so strenuously defendedeventually died, and he can be praised or blamed only forhaving delayed its passing. But Burke lives on in his writings.Today i t would be too much to say, as Payne did in 1874,that the writings of Burke are the daily bread of statesmen,speakers, and political writers. Yet they are still reprinted,read, and quoted, because each new generation finds some-thing of lasting value in them.

1. P. 7 below.


19/91


20/91

EDITORSNOTE

I n his volume, the pagination of E . J . Paynes edition is.indicated by bracketed page numbers embedded in the text.Cross references have been changed to reflect the paginationof the current edition. Burkes and Paynes spellings, capital-izations, and use of italics have been retained, strange as theymay seem to modern eyes. The use of double punctuation(e.g., ,- has been eliminated except in quoted material.

All references to Burkes C o r r e s p d n c e are to the 1844edition.

x x i


21/91


22/91

S P E E C H F E D M U N DB U R K E , sQ. ,O N M O V I N GH I S RESOLUTIONSOR

C O N C I L I A T I O NITH THE C O L O N I E SMARCH2 1775

[Second Edition Dodslq, I 775, ]

[ArgumentISTROD~CTIOS,p. 221-28.PART , pp. 228-43. CONDITIONF AMERICA.. Po@lation, p. 228.2. Trade p. 229.Agriculture, p. 234.Fisheries, p. 234. Against theUse of Force, a passage properly belonging to Part 11, inserted to pre-pare for the description of American character, p. 235.) 3.AmericanChurackr traced to six different sources, p. 237.PART11 pp. 243-66. H o w TO DEAL WITH AMERICA.he question,p. 243. Three Alternatives, 1. To alter the Moral Causes of the characterof the Colonists, p. 246. 2.To prosecute them as Criminals, p. 250.3.Toyield to them, p. 253, iving up altogether the question of Right,p. 254.Such a concession would not lead to further demands, p. 256,and would be modelled on constitutional precedents, p. 258,whichprove England to be in the wrong, p. 264.PART111, pp. 266 89.THE RESOLUTIONS,. 267.Removal of ob-jections, p. 277.Lord Norths Plan of Conciliation Criticised, p. 280.CONCLUSION,. 284.11HOPE, SIR, hat notwithstanding the austerity of theChair, your good nature will incline you to some degree of

2 2 1


23/91

[ 4 2 2 1T H E T w o S P E E C H E SN A M E R I C A

indulgence [162]owards human frailty. You will not think itunnatural, that those who have an object depending, whichstrongly engages their hopes and fears, should be somewhatinclined to superstition. As I came into the House full ofanxiety about the event of my motion, I found, to my infinitesurprise, that the grand penal Bill, by which we had passedsentence on the trade and sustenance of America, is to be re-turned to us from the other House. I do confess, I could nothelp looking on this event as a fortunate omen. I look uponit as a sort of providential favour; by which we are put oncemore in possession of our deliberative capacity, upon a busi-ness so very questionable in its nature, so very uncertain in itsissue. By the return of this Bill, which seemed to have takenits flight for ever, we are at this very instant nearly as free tochuse a plan for our American Government as we were onthe first day of the Session. If, Sir, we incline to the side ofconciliation, we are not at all embarrassed (unless we pleaseto make ourselves so) by any incongruous mixture of coer-cion and restraint. We are therefore called upon, as it wereby a superior warning voice, again to attend to America; toattend to the whole of it together; and to review the subjectwith an unusual degree of care and calmness.

Surely it is an awful subject; or there is none so on thisside of the grave. When I first had the honour of a seat inthis House, the affairs of that Continent pressed themselvesupon us, as the most important and most delicate object ofParliamentary attention. My little share in this great delibera-tion oppressed me. I found myself a partaker in a very hightrust; and having no sort of reason to rely on the strength ofmy natural abilities for the proper execution of that trust, Iwas obliged to take more than common pains to instruct my-self in everything which relates to our Colonies. Iwas not lessunder the necessity of forming some fixed ideas [163] on-cerning the general policy of the British Empire. Somethingof this sort seemed to be indispensable; in order, amidst so


24/91


25/91

T H ETwo SPEECHESN A M E R I C Aerated. That the public tribunal (never too indulgent to along and unsuccessful opposition) would now scrutinize ourconduct with unusual severity. That the very vicissitudes andshiftings of Ministerial measures, instead of convicting theirauthours of inconstancy and want of system, would be takenas an occasion of charging us with a predetermined discon-tent, which nothing could satisfy; whilst we accused everymeasure of vigour as cruel, and every proposal of lenity asweak and irresolute. The publick, he said, would not havepatience to see us play the game out with our adversaries:we must produce our hand. I t would be expected, that thosewho for many years had been active in such affairs shouldshow, that they had formed some clear and decided idea ofthe principles of Colony Government; and were capable ofdrawing out something like a platform of the ground whichmight be laid for future and permanent tranquillity.I felt the truth of what my Honourable Friend repre-sented; but I felt my situation too. His application might havebeen made with far greater propriety to many other gentle-men. N o man was indeed ever better disposed, or worse quali-fied, for such an undertaking, than myself. Though I gave sofar into his opinion, that I immediately threw my thoughtsinto a sort of Parliamentary form, I was by no means equallyready to produce them. It generally argues some degree ofnatural impotence of mind, or some want of knowledge ofthe world, to hazard Plans of Government, except from a seatof Authority. Propositions are made, not only ineffectually,but somewhat disreputably, when the minds of men are [165not properly disposed for their reception; and for my part, Iam not ambitious of ridicule; not absolutely a candidate fordisgrace.

Besides, Sir, to speak the plain truth, I have in general novery exalted opinion of the virtue of Paper Government; norof any Politicks, in which the plan is to be wholly separatedfrom the execution. But when I saw that anger and violence


26/91

[2351

S P E E C H N C O N C I L I A T I O NI T H T H E COLONIESprevailed every day more and more; and that things werehastening towards an incurable alienation of our Colonies; Iconfess my caution gave way. I felt this, as one of those fewmoments in which decorum yields to a higher duty. Publiccalamity is a mighty leveller; and there are occasions whenany, even the slightest, chance of doing good, must be laidhold on, even by the most inconsiderable person.

To restore order and repose to an Empire so great and sodistracted as ours, is, merely in the attempt, an undertakingthat would ennoble the flights of the highest genius, and ob-tain pardon for the efforts of the meanest understanding.Struggling a good while with these thoughts, by degrees I feltmyself more firm. I derived, at length, some confidence fromwhat in other circumstances usually produces timidity. I grewless anxious, even from the idea of my own insignificance.For, judging of what you are, by what you ought to be, I per-suaded myself that you would not reject a reasonable propo-sition, because it had nothing but its reason to recommendit. On the other hand, being totallv destitute of all shadow ofinfluence, natural or adventitious, I was very sure, that, ifmyproposition were futile or dangerous; if it were weakly con-ceived, or improperly timed, there was nothing exterior toit of power to awe, dazzle, or delude you. You will see i t justas it is; and you will treat i t just as it deserves.The proposition is Peace. N o t Peace through the medium[i66] of War; not Peace to be hunted through the labyrinthof intricate and endless negociations; not Peace to arise outof universal discord, fomented, from principle, in all parts ofthe Empire; not Peace to depend on the Juridical Determi-nation of perplexing questions; or the precise marking theshadowy boundaries of a complex Government. It is simplePeace; sought in its natural course, and in its ordinary haunts.I t is Peace sought in the Spirit of Peace; and laid in prin-ciples purely pacific. I propose, by removing the Ground ofthe difference, and by restoring the former unsuspecting con$-


27/91

T H ETwo S P E E C H E SN A M E R I C Ame of the Colonies in the M o t k Country to give permanent

satisfaction to your people; and (far from a scheme of rulingby discord) to reconcile them to each other in the same act,and by the bond of the very same interest which reconcilesthem to British Government.My idea is nothing more. Refined policy ever has been theparent of confusion; and ever will be so, as long as the worldendures. Plain good intention, which is as easily discovered atthe first view, as fraud is surely detected at last, is, let me say,of no mean force in the Government of Mankind. GenuineSimplicity of heart is an healing and cementing principle. MyPlan, therefore, being formed upon the most simple groundsimaginable, may disappoint some people, when they hear it.It has nothing to recommend it to the pruriency of curiousears, There is nothing at all new and captivating in it. I t hasnothing of the Splendor of the Project which has been latelylaid upon your Table by the Noble Lord in the Blue Ribband.I t does not propose to fill your lobby with squabbling ColonyAgents, who will require the interposition of your Mace, atevery instant, to keep the peace amongst them. It does notinstitute a magnificent Auction of Finance, where captivatedprovinces come to general ransom by bidding against eachother, until you knock down the hammer, and determine aproportion of [1673 payments beyond all the powers of Alge-bra to equalize and settle.

The plan which I shall presume to suggest, derives, how-ever, one great advantage from the proposition and registryof that Noble Lords Project. The idea of conciliation is ad-missible. First, the House, in accepting the resolution movedby the Noble Lord, has admitted, notwithstanding the men-acing front of our Address, notwithstanding our heavy Billsof Pains and Penalties-that we do not think ourselves pre-cluded from all ideas of free Grace and Bounty.

The House has gone farther; it has declared conciliationadmissible,pev iou s to any submission on the part of America.


28/91

12271S P E E C H N C O N C I L I A T I O XI T H T H E C O L O N I E S

It has even shot a good deal beyond that mark, and has ad-mitted, that the complaints of our former mode of exertingthe Right of Taxation were not wholly unfounded. That rightthus exerted is allowed to have something reprehensible init; something unwise, or something grievous; since, in themidst of our heat and resentment, we, of ourselves, have pro-posed a capital alteration; and, in order to get rid of whatseemed so very exceptionable, have instituted a mode that isaltogether new; one that is, indeed, wholly alien from all theancient methods and forms of Parliament.The principle of this proceeding is large enough for mypurpose. The means proposed by the Noble Lord for carry-ing his ideas into execution, I think, indeed, are very indif-ferently suited to the end; and this I shall endeavour to showyou before I sit down. But, for the present, I take my groundon the admitted principle. I mean to give peace. Peace im-plies reconciliation; and, where there has been a materialdispute, reconciliation does in a manner always imply con-cession on the one part or on the other. In this state of thingsI make no difficulty in affirming that the proposal ought tooriginate from us. Great and acknowledged [ iSS] force is notimpaired, either in effect or in opinion, by an unwillingnessto exert itself. The superior power may offer peace with hon-our and with safety. Such an offer from such a power will beattributed to magnanimity. But the concessions of the weakare the concessions of fear. When such a one is disarmed, heis wholly at the mercy of his superior: and he loses for everthat time and those chances, which, as they happen to allmen, are the strength and resources of all inferior power.

The capital leading questions on which you must this daydecide are these two: First, whether you ought to concede;and secondly, what your concession ought to be. On the firstof these questions we have gained (as I have just taken the lib-erty of observing to you) some ground. But I am sensible thata good deal more is still to be done. Indeed, Sir, to enable us


29/91

T H E Two S P E E C H E SN A M E R I C Ato determine both on the one and the other of these greatquestions with a firm and precise judgement, I think it maybe necessary to consider distinctly the true nature and thepeculiar circumstances of the object which we have before us.Because after all our struggle, whether we will or not, we mustgovern America, according to that nature, and to those cir-cumstances; and not according to our own imaginations; noraccording to abstract ideas of right; by no means accordingto mere general theories of government, the resort to whichappears to me, in our present situation, no better than arranttrifling. I shall therefore endeavour, with your leave, to laybefore you some of the most material of these circumstancesin as full and as clear a manner as I am able to state them.

THEFIRST THING that we have to consider with regardto the nature of the object is-the number of people in theColonies. I have taken for some years a good deal of painson that point. I can by no calculation justify myself in [169]placing the number below Two Millions of inhabitants of ourown European blood and colour; besides at least 500,000others, who form no inconsiderable part of the strength andopulence of the whole. This, Sir, is, I believe, about the truenumber. There is no occasion to exaggerate, where plaintruth is of so much weight and importance. But whether Iput the present numbers too high or too low, is a matter oflittle moment. Such is the strength with which populationshoots in that part of the world, that, state the numbers ashigh as we will, whilst the dispute continues, the exaggera-tion ends. Whilst we are discussing any given magnitude, theyare grown to it. Whilst we spend our time in deliberating onthe mode of governing Two Millions, we shall find we haveMillions more to manage. Your children do not grow fasterfrom infancy to manhood, than they spread from families tocommunities, and from villages to nations.

I put this consideration of the present and the growing


30/91

SP E E CH N C O N C I L I A T I O NI T H T H E C O L O N I E Snumbers in the front of our deliberation; because, Sir, thisconsideration will make it evident to a blunter discernmentthan yours, that no partial, narrow, contracted, pinched,occasional system will be at all suitable to such an object. Itwill show you that it is not to be considered as one of thoseMinima which are out of the eve and consideration of the law;not a paltry excrescence of the state; not a mean dependant,who may be neglected with little damage, and provoked withlittle danger. I t will prove that some degree of care and cau-tion is required in the handling such an object; it will showthat you ought not, in reason, to trifle with so large a mass ofthe interests and feelings of the human race. You could at notime do so without guilt; and be assured you will not be ableto do it long with impunity.

BUT THE POPULATION of this country, the great andgrowing [1703 population, though a very important consider-ation, will lose much of its weight, if not combined with othercircumstances. The commerce of your Colonies is out of allproportion beyond the numbers of the people. This groundof their commerce indeed has been trod some days ago, andwith great ability, by a distinguished person, at your bar. Thisgentleman, after Thirty-five years-it is so long since he firstappeared at the same place to plead for the commerce ofGreat Britain as come again before you to plead the samecause, without any other effect of time, than, that to thefire of imagination and extent of erudition, which even thenmarked him as one of the first literary characters of his age,he has added a consummate knowledge in the commercialinterest of his country, formed by a long course of enlight-ened and discriminating experience.

Sir, I should be inexcusable in coming after such a per-son with any detail; if a great part of the members who nowfill the House had not the misfortune to be absent when heappeared at your bar. Besides, Sir, I propose to take the mat-


31/91

THETwo SP EECHESN A M E R I C Ater at periods of time somewhat different from his. There is,if I mistake not, a point of view, from whence if you will lookat the subject, it is impossible that it should not make an im-pression upon you.

I have in my hand two accounts; one a comparative stateof the export trade of England to its Colonies, as it stood inthe year 1704, and as it stood in the year 1772. The other astate of the export trade of this country to its Colonies alone,as it stood in 1772, compared with the whole trade of En-gland to all parts of the world (the Colonies included) in theyear 1704. They are from good vouchers; the latter periodfrom the accounts on your table, the earlier from an originalmanuscript of Davenant, who first established the Inspector-Generals office, which has been ever since his time so abun-dant a source of Parliamentary information.[171] The export trade to the Colonies consists of threegreat branches. The African, which, terminating almostwholly in the Colonies, must be put to the account of theircommerce; the West Indian; and the North American. Allthese are so interwoven, that the attempt to separate them,would tear to pieces the contexture of the whole; and if notentirely destroy, would very much depreciate the value of allthe parts. I therefore consider these three denominations tobe, what in effect they are, one trade.The trade to the Colonies, taken on the export side, at thebeginning of this century, that is, in the year 1704, stood thus:Exports to North America, and the West Indies f483,265To Africa 86,665

In the year 1772, which I take as a middle year betweenthe highest and lowest of those lately laid on your table, theaccount was as follows:


32/91

r2311

SPE E CHN C O N C I L I A T I O NI T H T H E C O L O N I E STo North America, and the West Indies f497919734To Africa 866,398To which if you add the export trade fromScotland, which had in 1704 no existence 364,000

6,022,132From Five Hundred and odd Thousand, i t has grown to

Six Millions. I t has increased no less than twelve-fold. Thisis the state of the Colony trade, as compared with itself atthese two periods, within this century; and this is matter formeditation. But this is not all. Examine my second account.See how the export trade to the Colonies alone in [172] 1772stood in the other point of view, that is, as compared to thewhole trade of England in 1704.The whole export trade of England, includingExport to the Colonies alone, in 1772that to the Colonies, in 1704 f6,509,0006,024,000

Difference, f485,oooThe trade with America alone is now within less than

5 0 0 0 0 0 ~ .f being equal to what this great commercial na-tion, England, carried on at the beginning of this centurywith the whole world If I had taken the largest year of thoseon your table, it would rather have exceeded. But, it will besaid, is not this American trade an unnatural protuberance,that has drawn the juices from the rest of the body? Thereverse. I t is the very food that has nourished every otherpart into its present magnitude. Our general trade has beengreatly augmented; and augmented more or less in almostevery part to which it ever extended; but with this materialdifference, that of the Six Millions which in the beginning ofthe century constituted the whole mass of our export com-merce, the Colony trade was but one twelfth part; it is now (as


33/91

r ngo1THE wo SPEECHESN A M E R I C A

a part of Sixteen Millions) considerably more than a third ofthe whole. This is the relative proportion of the importanceof the Colonies at these two periods: and all reasoning con-cerning our mode of treating them must have this proportionas its basis; or it is a reasoning weak, rotten, and sophistical.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot prevail on myself to hurry over thisgreat consideration. It is goodfor u to be here. We stand wherewe 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 thisgrowth of our national prosperity has happened [1731 withinthe short period of the life of man. I t has happened withinSixty-eight years. There are those alive whose memory mighttouch the two extremities. For instance, my Lord Bathurstmight remember all the stages of the progress. He was in 1704of an age at least to be made to comprehend such things. Hewas then old enough acta parentum ja m legme, et g u m sit potuitcognoscerevirtu.Suppose, Sir, that the angel of this auspiciousyouth, foreseeing the many virtues, which made him one ofthe most amiable, as he is one of the most fortunate, menof his age, had opened to him in vision, that when, in thefourth generation the third Prince of the House of Brunswickhad sat Twelve years on the throne of that nation, which (bythe happy issue of moderate and healing counsels) was to bemade Great Britain, he should see his son, Lord Chancellorof England, turn back the current of hereditary dignity to itsfountain, and raise him to a higher rank of Peerage, whilst heenriched the family with a new one-if amidst these brightand happy scenes of domestic honour and prosperity, thatangel should have drawn up the curtain, and unfolded therising glories of his country, and, whilst he was gazing withadmiration on the then commercial grandeur of England,the Genius should point out to him a little speck, scarcelyvisible in the mass of the national interest, a small seminalprinciple, rather than a formed body, and should tell him-


34/91

S P E E C H N C O N C I L I A T I O NI T H T H E C O L O N I E SYoung man, there is America-which at this day serves forlittle more than to amuse you with stories of savage men, anduncouth manners; yet shall, before you taste of death, showitself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attractsthe envy of the world. Whatever England has been growingto by a progressive increase of improvement, brought in byvarieties of people, by succession of civilizing conquests andcivilizing settlements in a series of Seventeen Hundred years,you shall see as much [ i 7 4 ] added to her by America in thecourse of a single life If this state of his country had beenforetold to him, would it not require all the sanguine credu-lity of youth, and all the fervid glow of enthusiasm, to makehim believe i t? Fortunate man, he has lived to see it For-tunate indeed, if he lives to see nothing that shall va ry theprospect, and cloud the setting of his day

Excuse me, Sir, if turning from such thoughts I resumethis comparative view once more. You have seen i t on a largescale; look at i t on a small one. I will point out to your atten-tion a particular instance of i t in the single province of Penn-sylvania. In the year 1704, that province called for 11,4591.in value of your commodities, native and foreign. This wasthe whole. What did i t demand in i772? Why, nearly Fiftytimes as much; for in that year the export to Pennsylvaniawas jos ,cjogl . , nearlv equal to the export to all the Coloniestogether in the first period.

I choose, Sir, to enter into these minute and particulardetails; because generalities, which in all other cases are aptto heighten and raise the subject, have here a tendency tosink it. When w e speak of the commerce with our Colonies,fiction lags after truth; invention is unfruitful, and imagina-tion cold and barren.

So far, Sir, as to the importance of the object, in view ofits commerce, as concerned in the exports from England. IfI were to detail the imports, I could show how many enjoy-ments they procure, which deceive the burthen of life; how


35/91

[ 2 3 4 1THETwo SPEECHESN A M E R I C A

many materials which invigorate the springs of national in-dustry, and extend and animate every part of our foreign anddomestic commerce. This would be a curious subject indeed:but I must prescribe bounds to myself in a matter so vast andvarious.

I PASS T H E R E F O R E to the Colonies in another point ofview, [1751 their agriculture. This they have prosecuted withsuch a spirit, that, besides feeding plentifully their own grow-ing multitude, their annual export of grain, comprehendingrice, has some years ago exceeded a million in value. Of theirlast harvest, I am persuaded they will export much more. Atthe beginning of the century some of these colonies importedcorn from the mother country. For some time past, the OldWorld has been fed from the New. The scarcity which youhave felt would have been a desolating famine, if this childof your old age, with a true filial piety, with a Roman charity,had not put the full breast of its youthful exuberance to themouth of its exhausted parent.

As TO THE WEALTH which the Colonies have drawn fromthe sea by their fisheries, you had all that matter fully openedat your bar. You surely thought those acquisitions of value,for they seemed even to excite your envy; and yet the spiritby which that enterprising employment has been exercised,ought rather, in my opinion, to have raised your esteem andadmiration. And pray, Sir, what in the world is equal to it?Pass by the other parts, and look at the manner in which thepeople of New England have of late carried on the WhaleFishery. Whilst we follow them among the tumbling moun-tains of ice, and behold them penetrating into the deepestfrozen recesses of Hudsons Bay and Daviss Streights, whilstwe are looking for them beneath the Arctic Circle, we hearthat they have pierced into the opposite region of polarcold, that they are at the antipodes, and engaged under the


36/91

[ 2 3 5 ]SPEECH N C O N C I L I A T I O NI TH T H E COLONIES

frozen Serpent of the south. Falkland Island, which seemedtoo remote and romantic an object for the grasp of nationalambition, is but a stage and resting-place in the progress oftheir victorious industry. Nor is the equinoctial heat morediscouraging to them, than the accumulated winter of boththe poles. We know that whilst some of them draw the lineE1761 and strike the harpoon on the coast of Africa, othersrun the longitude, and pursue their gigantic game along thecoast of Brazil. N o sea but what is vexed by their fisheries.N o climate that is not witness to their toils. Neither the per-severance of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dex-terous and firm sagacity of English enterprize, ever carriedthis most perilous mode of hardy industry to the extent towhich it has been pushed by this recent people; a peoplewho are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hard-ened into the bone of manhood. When I contemplate thesethings; when I know that the Colonies in general owe little ornothing to any care of ours, and that they are not squeezedinto this happy form by the constraints of watchful and sus-picious government, but that, through a wise and salutaryneglect, a generous nature has been suffered to take her ownway to perfection; when I reflect upon these effects, when Isee how profitable they have been to us, I feel all the prideof power sink, and all presumption in the wisdom of humancontrivances melt and die away within me. My rigour relents.I pardon something to the spirit of liberty.

I A M SENSIBLE, SIR, hat all which I have asserted in mydetail, is admitted in the gross; but that quite a different con-clusion is drawn from it. America, Gentlemen say, is a nobleobject. It is an object well worth fighting for. Certainly it is,if fighting a people be the best way of gaining them. Gentle-men in this respect will be led to their choice of means bytheir complexions and their habits. Those who understandthe military art, will of course have some predilection for it.


37/91

THETwo S P E E C H E SN A M E R I C AThose who wield the thunder of the state, may have moreconfidence in the efficacy of arms. But I confess, possibly forwant of this knowledge, my opinion is much more in favourof prudent management, than of force; considering force notas an odious, but a feeble instrument, [177] for preserving apeople so numerous, so active, so growing, so spirited as this,in a profitable and subordinate connexion with us.

First, Sir, permit me to observe, that the use of force aloneis but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does notremove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is notgoverned, which is perpetually to be conquered.My next objection is its uncertainty. Terror is not alwaysthe effect of force; and an armament is not a victory. If youdo not succeed, you are without resource; for, conciliationfailing, force remains; but, force failing, no further hopeof reconciliation is left. Power and authority are sometimesbought by kindness; but they can never be begged as alms byan impoverished and defeated violence.A further objection to force is, that you impair the object byyour very endeavours to preserve it. The thing you fought foris not the thing which you recover; but depreciated, sunk,wasted, and consumed in the contest. Nothing less will con-tent me, than whole America. I do not choose to consume itsstrength along with our own; because in all parts i t is theBritish strength that I consume. 1 do not choose to be caughtby a foreign enemy at the end of this exhausting conflict; andstill less in the midst of it. I may escape; but I can make noinsurance against such an event. Let me add, that I do notchoose wholly to break the American spirit; because it is thespirit that has made the country.

Lastly, we have no sort of experience in favour of force asan instrument in the rule of our Colonies. Their growth andtheir utility has been owing to methods altogether different.Our ancient indulgence has been said to be pursued to afault. It may be so. But w e know, if feeling is evidence, that


38/91

S P E E C H N C O N C I L I A T I O N I T H T H E COLONIESour fault was more tolerable than our attempt [178] to mendit; and our sin far more salutary than our penitence.

THESE, IR , A R E M Y REASONS for not entertaining thathigh opinion of untried force, by which many Gentlemen, forwhose sentiments in other particulars I have great respect,seem to be so greatly captivated. But there is still behind athird consideration concerning this object, which serves todetermine my opinion on the sort of policy which ought to bepursued in the management of America, even more than itspopulation and its commerce, I mean its Temper nd Character.

In this Character of the Americans, a love of Freedomis the predominating feature which marks and distinguishesthe whole: and as an ardent is always a jealous affection, yourColonies become suspicious, restive, and untractable, when-ever they see the least attempt to wrest from them by force,or shuffle from them by chicane, what they think the onlyadvantage worth living for. This fierce spirit of Liberty isstronger in the English Colonies probably than in any otherpeople of the earth; and this from a great variety of powerfulcauses; which, to understand the true temper of their minds,and the direction which this spirit takes, i t will not be amissto lay open somewhat more largely.

First, the people of the Colonies are descendants of En-glishmen. England, Sir, is a nation, which still I hope respects,and formerly adored, her freedom. The Colonists emigratedfrom you when this part of your character was most pre-dominant; and they took this bias and direction the momentthey parted from your hands. They are therefore not only de-voted to Liberty, but to Liberty according to English ideas,and on English principles. Abstract Liberty, like other mereabstractions, is not to be found. Liberty inheres in some sen-sible object; and every nation [1791 has formed to itself somefavourite point, which by way of eminence becomes the cri-terion of their happiness. I t happened, you know, Sir, that


39/91

12381THETwo SPEECHESN A M E R I C A

the great contests for freedom in this country were from theearliest times chiefly upon the question of Taxing. Most ofthe contests in the ancient commonwealths turned primarilyon the right of election of magistrates; or on the balanceamong the several orders of the state. The question of moneywas not with them so immediate. But in England it was other-wise. On this point of Taxes the ablest pens, and most elo-quent tongues, have been exercised; the greatest spirits haveacted and suffered. In order to give the fullest satisfactionconcerning the importance of this point, it was not only nec-essary for those who in argument defended the excellence ofthe English Constitution, to insist on this privilege of grant-ing money as a dry point of fact, and to prove, that the righthad been acknowledged in ancient parchments, and blindusages, to reside in a certain body called an House of Com-mons. They went much farther; they attempted to prove, andthey succeeded, that in theory i t ought to be so, from theparticular nature of an House of Commons, as an immediaterepresentative of the people; whether the old records haddelivered this oracle or not. They took infinite pains to in-culcate, as a fundamental principle, that in all monarchiesthe people must in effect themselves, mediately or immedi-ately, possess the power of granting their own money, or noshadow of liberty can subsist. The Colonies draw from you,as with their life-blood, these ideas and principles. Their loveof liberty, as with you, fixed and attached on this specificpoint of taxing. Liberty might be safe, or might be endan-gered, in twenty other particulars, without their being muchpleased or alarmed. Here they felt its pulse; and as theyfound that beat, they thought themselves sick or sound. I donot say whether they were [ i80] right or wrong in applyingyour general arguments to their own case. It is not easy in-deed to make a monopoly of theorems and corollaries. Thefact is, that they did thus apply those general arguments; andyour mode of governing them, whether through lenity or in-


40/91

[n391SPEECH N CONCILIATION I T H T H E C O L O N I E S

dolence, through wisdom or mistake, confirmed them in theimagination, that they, aswell as you, had an interest in thesecommon principles.They were further confirmed in this pleasing error by theform of their provincial legislative assemblies. Their govern-ments are popular in an high degree; some are merely popu-lar; in all, the popular representative is the most weighty; andthis share of the people in their ordinary government neverfails to inspire them with lofty sentiments, and with a strongaversion from whatever tends to deprive them of their chiefimportance.

If anything were wanting to this necessary operation ofthe form of government, religion would have given it a com-plete effect. Religion, always a principle of energy, in thisnew people is no way worn out or impaired; and their modeof professing it is also one main cause of this free spirit. Thepeople are Protestants; and of that kind which is the mostadverse to all implicit submission of mind and opinion. Thisis a persuasion not only favourable to liberty, but built uponit. I do not think, Sir, that the reason of this averseness in thedissenting churches, from all that looks like absolute govern-ment, is so much to be sought in their religious tenets, as intheir history. Every one knows that the Roman Catholick reli-gion is at least coeval with most of the governments where itprevails; that it has generally gone hand in hand with them,and received great favour and every kind of support fromauthority. The Church of England too was formed from hercradle under the nursing care of regular government. Butthe dissenting interests have sprung up in direct oppositionto all the ordinary powers of the world; [181]nd could jus-tify that opposition only on a strong claim to natural liberty.Their very existence depended on the powerful and unremit-ted assertion of that claim. All Protestantism, even the mostcold and passive, is a sort of dissent. But the relipon mostprevalent in our Northern Colonies is a refinement on the


41/91

T H ETwo SPEECHESN A M E R I C Aprinciple of resistance; it is the dissidence of dissent, and theProtestantism of the protestant religion. This religion, undera variety of denominations agreeing in nothing but in thecommunion of the spirit of liberty, is predominant in most ofthe Northern provinces; where the Church of England, not-withstanding its legal rights, is in reality no more than a sortof private sect, not composing most probably the tenth of thepeople. The Colonists left England when this spirit was high,and in the emigrants was the highest of all; and even thatstream of foreigners, which has been constantly flowing intothese Colonies, has, for the greatest part, been composed ofdissenters from the establishments of their several countries,and have brought with them a temper and character far fromalien to that of the people with whom they mixed.

Sir, I can perceive by their manner, that some Gentle-men object to the latitude of this description; because inthe Southern Colonies the Church of England forms a largebody, and has a regular establishment. I t 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 haughtythan in those to the North-ward. I t is, that in Virginia andthe Carolinas they have a vast multitude of slaves. Where thisis the case in any part of the world, those who are free, areby far the most proud and jealous of their freedom. Free-dom is to them not only an enjoyment, but a kind of rankand privilege. Not seeing there, that freedom, as in coun-tries where i t is a common blessing, and as broad and general[182]as the air, mav be united with much abject toil, withgreat misery, with all the exterior of servitude, liberty looks,amongst them, like something that is more noble and liberal.I do not mean, Sir, to commend the superior morality of thissentiment, which has at least as much pride as virtue in it;but I cannot alter the nature of man. The fact is so;and thesepeople of the Southern Colonies are much more strongly,


42/91

SPEECH N C O N C I L I A T I O NI T H T H E C O L O N I E Sand with an higher and more stubborn spirit, attached to lib-erty, than those to the North-ward. Such were all the ancientcommonwealths; such were our Gothick ancestors; such inour days were the Poles; and such will be all masters of slaves,who are not slaves themselves. In such a people, the haugh-tiness of domination combines with the spirit of freedom,fortifies it, and renders it invincible.

Permit me, Sir, to add another circumstance in our Colo-nies, which contributes no mean part towards the growth andeffect of this untractable spirit. I mean their education. Inno country perhaps in the world is the law so general a study.The profession itself is numerous and powerful; and in mostprovinces it takes the lead. The greater number of the Depu-ties sent to the Congress were Lawyers. But all who read,(and most do read,) endeavour to obtain some smattering inthat science. I have been told by an eminent Bookseller, thatin no branch of his business, after tracts of popular devo-tion, were so many books as those on the Law exported tothe Plantations. The Colonists have now fallen into the wayof printing them for their own use. I hear that they have soldnearly as many of Blackstones Commentaries in America asin England, General Gage marks out this disposition veryparticularly in a letter on your table. He states, that all thepeople in his government are lawyers, or smatterers in law;and that in Boston they have been enabled, by successful chi-cane, wholly to evade many parts of one of your capital penalconstitutions. The smartness of debate [1831 will say, thatthis knowledge ought to teach them more clearly the rightsof legislature, their obligations to obedience, and the penal-ties of rebellion. All this is mighty well. But my Honourableand Learned Friend on the floor, who condescends to markwhat I say for animadversion, will disdain that ground. Hehas heard, as well as I, that when great honours and greatemoluments do not win over this knowledge to the serviceof the state, it is a formidable adversary to government. If


43/91

[ z q z lT H E T w o S P E E C H E SN A M E R I C A

the spirit be not tamed and broken by these happy methods,it is stubborn and litigious. Abeunt studiu in mores. This studyrenders men acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack,ready in defence, full of resources. In other countries, thepeople, more simple, and of a less mercurial cast, judge ofan ill principle in government only by an actual grievance;here they anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of thegrievance by the badness of the principle. They augur mis-government at a distance; and snuff the approach of tyrannyin every tainted breeze.

The last cause of this disobedient spirit in the Colonies ishardly less powerful than the rest, as it is not merely moral,but laid deep in the natural constitution of things. Threethousand miles of ocean lie between you and them. No con-trivance can prevent the effect of this distance in weakeninggovernment. Seas roll, and months pass, between the orderand the execution; and the want of a speedy explanation ofa single point is enough to defeat a whole system. You have,indeed, winged ministers of vengeance, who carry your boltsin their pounces to the remotest verge of the sea. But therea power steps in, that limits the arrogance of raging pas-sions and furious elements, and says, Sofur shalt thou go andno further. Who are you, that you should fret and rage, andbite the chains of Nature? Nothing worse happens to youthan does to all nations who have extensive Empire; and ithappens in all the forms into which Empire can be [184]thrown. In large bodies, the circulation of power must beless vigorous at the extremities. Nature has said it. The Turkcannot govern Aegypt, and Arabia, and Curdistan, as he gov-erns Thrace; nor has he the same dominion in Crimea andAlgiers, which he has at Brusa and Smyrna. Despotism itselfis obliged to truck and huckster. The Sultan gets such obe-dience as he can. He governs with a loose rein, that he maygovern at all; and the whole of the force and vigour of hisauthority in his centre is derived from a prudent relaxation


44/91

S P E E C H N CONCILIATIONI T H T H E COLONIESin all his borders. Spain, in her provinces, is, perhaps, not sowell obeyed as you are in yours. She complies too; she sub-mits; she watches times. This is the immutable condition, theeternal Law, of extensive and detached Empire.

Then, Sir, from these six capital sources; of Descent; ofForm of Government; of Religion in the Northern Provinces;of Manners in the Southern; of Education; of the Remote-ness of Situation from the First Mover of Government; fromall these causes a fierce Spirit of Liberty has grown up. It hasgrown with the growth of the people in your Colonies, andincreased with the increase of their wealth; a Spirit, that un-happily meeting with an exercise of Power in England, which,however lawful, is not reconcileable to any ideas of Liberty,much less with theirs, has kindled this flame that is ready toconsume us.

I DO NOT M E A N TO C O M M E N D either the Spirit in thisexcess, or the moral causes which produce it. Perhaps amore smooth and accommodating Spirit of Freedom in themwould be more acceptable to us. Perhaps ideas of Libertymight be desired, more reconcileable with an arbitrary andboundless authority, Perhaps we might wish the Colonists tobe persuaded, that their Liberty is more secure when held intrust for them by us, as their guardians during a perpetual[if351minority, than with any part of it in their own hands.The question is, not whether their spirit deserves praise orblame; but-what, in the name of God, shall we do withit? You have before you the object, such as it is, with all itsglories, with all its imperfections on its head. You see themagnitude; the importance; the temper; the habits; the dis-orders. By all these considerations we are strongly urged todetermine something concerning it. We are called upon tofix some rule and line for our future conduct, which maygive a little stability to our politicks, and prevent the returnof such unhappy deliberations as the present. Every such re-


45/91

T H ETwo SPEECHES N A M E R I C Aturn will bring the matter before us in a still more untract-able form. For, what astonishing and incredible things havewe not seen already What monsters have not been generatedfrom this unnatural contention Whilst every principle of au-thority and resistance has been pushed, upon both sides, asfar as it would go, there is nothing so solid and certain, eitherin reasoning or in practice, that has not been shaken. Untilvery lately, all authority in America seemed to be nothingbut an emanation from yours. Even the popular part of theColony Constitution derived all its activity, and its first vitalmovement, 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 them-selves supply it; knowing in general what an operose businessit is, to establish a Government absolutely new. But having,for our purposes, in this contention, resolved, that none butan obedient Assembly should sit; the humours of the peoplethere, finding all passage through the legal channel stopped,with great violence broke out another way. Some provinceshave tried their experiment, as we have tried ours; and theirshas succeeded. They have formed a Government sufficientfor its purposes, without the bustle of a Revolution, or thetroublesome formality of an Election. [1861 Evident neces-sity, and tacit consent, have done the business in an instant.So well they have done it, that Lord Dunmore (the accountis among the fragments on your table) tells you, that the newinstitution is infinitely better obeyed than the antient Gov-ernment ever was in its most fortunate periods. Obedienceis what makes Government, and not the names by which itis called; not the name of Governor, as formerly, or Com-mittee, as at present. This new Government has originateddirectly from the people; and was not transmitted throughany of the ordinary artificial media of a positive constitution.I t was not a manufacture ready formed, and transmitted tothem in that condition from England. The evil arising fromhence is this; that the Colonists having once found the pos-


46/91

12451S P E E C H N C O N C I L I A T I O NI T H T H E C O L O N I E S

sibility of enjoying the advantages of order in the midst ofa struggle for Liberty, such struggles will not henceforwardseem so terrible to the settled and sober part of mankind asthey had appeared before the trial.

Pursuing the same plan of punishing by the denial of theexercise of Government to still greater lengths, we whollyabrogated the antient Government of Massachuset. We wereconfident that the first feeling, if not the very prospect ofanarchy, would instantly enforce a compleat submission. Theexperiment was tried. A new, strange, unexpected face ofthings appeared. Anarchy is found tolerable. A vast provincehas now subsisted, and subsisted in a considerable degree ofhealth and vigour, for near a twelvemonth, without Gover-nor, without public Council, blthout Judges, without execu-tive Magistrates. How long it will continue in this state, orwhat may arise out of this unheard-of situation, how can thewisest of us conjecture? Our late experience has taught usthat many of those fundamental principles, formerly believedinfallible, are either not of the importance they were imag-ined to be; or that we have not at all adverted to some otherfar more important and far more powerful [187] principles,which entirely overrule those we had considered as omnipo-tent. I am much against any further experiments, which tendto put to the proof any more of these allowed opinions, whichcontribute so much to the public tranquillity. In effect, wesuffer as much at home by this loosening of all ties, and thisconcussion of all established opinions, as we do abroad. For,in order to prove that the Americans have no right to theirLiberties, we are every day endeavouring to subvert the m a -ims, which preserve the whole Spirit of our own. To provethat the Americans ought not to be free, we are obliged todepreciate the value of Freedom itself; and we never seemto gain a paltry advantage over them in debate, without at-tacking some of those principles, or deriding some of thosefeelings, for which our ancestors have shed their blood.

But, Sir, in wishing to put an end to pernicious experi-


47/91

T H E T w o S P E E C H E SN A M E R I C Aments, I do not mean to preclude the fullest enquiry. Farfrom it. Far from deciding on a sudden or partial view, Iwould patiently go round and round the subject, and surveyit minutely in every possible aspect. Sir, if I were capable ofengaging you to an equal attention, I would state, that, asfar as I am capable of discerning, there are but three waysof proceeding relative to this stubborn Spirit, which pre-vails in your Colonies, and disturbs your Government. Theseare-To change that Spirit, as inconvenient, by removing theCauses. To prosecute it as criminal. Or, to comply with it asnecessary. I would not be guilty of an imperfect enumera-tion; I can think of but these three. Another has indeed beenstarted, that of giving up the Colonies; but it met so slight areception, that I do not think myself obliged to dwell a greatwhile upon it. I t is nothing but a little sally of anger; like thefrowardness of peevish children; who, when they cannot getall they would have, are resolved to take nothing.

[ iSS] THE I R S T OF T H E S E P L A N S , to change the Spirit asinconvenient, by removing the causes, I think is the most likea systematick proceeding. I t is radical in its principle; but itis 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 evidentlyone cause of their resistance, it was last session mentionedin both Houses, by men of weight, and received not with-out applause, that in order to check this evil, i t would beproper for the Crown to make no further grants of land. Butto this scheme there are two objections. The first, that thereis already so much unsettled land in private hands, as to af-ford room for an immense future population, although theCrown not only withheld its grants, but annihilated its soil. Ifthis be the case, then the only effect of this avarice of deso-lation, this hoarding of a royal wilderness, would be to raise


48/91

[ 2 4 7 1SPEECH N C O N C I L I A T I O NI T H T H E COLONIES

the value of the possessions in the hands of the great privatemonopolists, without any adequate check to the growing andalarming mischief of population.But if you stopped your grants, what would be the conse-quence? The people would occupy without grants. They havealready so occupied in many places. You cannot station garri-sons in every part of these deserts. If you drive the peoplefrom one place, they will carry on their annual Tillage, andremove with their flocks and herds to another. Many of thepeople in the back settlements are already little attached toparticular situations. Already they have topped the Appala-chian mountains. From thence they behold before them animmense plain, one vast, rich, level meadow; a square of fivehundred miles. Over this they would wander without a possi-bility of restraint; they would change their manners with thehabits of their life; would soon forget a government by whichthey were disowned; would become Hordes of [iSg] EnglishTartars; and pouring down upon your unfortified frontiers afierce and irresistible cavalry, become masters of your Gover-nors and your Counsellors, your collectors, 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 asa crime, and to suppress as an evil, the Command and Bless-ing of Providence, Encreme nd Multzply. Such would be thehappy result of the endeavour to keep as a lair of wild beasts,that earth, which God, by an express Charter, has given to thechildren of men. Far different, and surely much wiser, has beenour policy hitherto. Hitherto we have invited our people, byevery kind of bounty, to fixed establishments. We have invitedthe husbandman to look to authority for his title. We havetaught him piously to believe in the mysterious virtue of waxand parchment. We have thrown each tract of land, as it waspeopled, into districts; that the ruling power should neverbe wholly out of sight. We have settled all we could; and wehave carefully attended every settlement with government.


49/91

T H ETwo S P E E C H E SN A M E R I C AAdhering, Sir, as I do, to this policy, as well as for the rea-

sons I have just given, I think this new project of hedging-inpopulation to be neither prudent nor practicable.

To impoverish the Colonies in general, and in particularto arrest the noble course of their marine enterprizes, wouldbe a more easy task. I freely confess it. We have shown a dispo-sition to a system of this kind; a disposition even to continuethe restraint after the offence; looking on ourselves as rivalsto our Colonies, and persuaded that of course we must gainall that they shall lose. Much mischief we may certainly do.The power inadequate to all other things is often more thansufficient for this. I do not look on the direct and immediatepower of the Colonies to resist our violence as very formi-dable. In this, however, I may be mistaken. But when I con-sider, that we have Colonies for [1901 no purpose but to beserviceable to us, i t seems to my poor understanding a littlepreposterous, to make them unserviceable, in order to keepthem obedient. I t is, in truth, nothing more than the old,and, as I thought, exploded problem of tyranny, which pro-poses 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 dis-content will encrease with misery; and that there are criticalmoments in the fortune of all states, when they who are tooweak to contribute to your prosperity, may be strong enoughto complete your ruin. Spoliutis a m upersunt.

The temper and character which prevail in our Colonies,are, I am afraid, unalterable by any human art. We cannot, Ifear, falsify the pedigree of this fierce people, and persuadethem that they are not sprung from a nation in whose veinsthe blood of freedom circulates. The language in which theywould hear you tell them this tale would detect the impo-sition; your speech would betray you. An Englishman is theunfittest person on earth, to argue another Englishman intoslavery.


50/91

12491S P E E C H N C O N C I L I A T I O N I T H T H E COLONIESI think it is nearly as little in our power to change their re-

publican Religion, as their free descent; or to substitute theRoman Catholick, as a penalty; or the Church of England, asan improvement. The mode of inquisition and dragooning isgoing out of fashion in the Old World; and I should not con-fide much to their efficacy in the New. The education of theAmericans is also on the same unalterable bottom with theirreligion. You cannot persuade them to burn their books ofcurious science; to banish their lawyers from their courts oflaws; or to quench the lights of their assemblies, by refusingto choose those persons who are best read in their privileges.It would be no less impracticable to think of wholly annihi-lating the popular [191] ssemblies, in which these lawyerssit. The army, by which we must govern in their place, wouldbe far more chargeable to us; not quite so effectual; and per-haps, in the end, full as difficult to be kept in obedience.

With regard to the high aristocratick spirit of Virginiaand the Southern Colonies, it has been proposed, I know,to reduce it, by declaring a general enfranchisement of theirslaves. This project has had its advocates and panegyrists; yetI never could argue myself into any opinion of it. Slaves areoften much attached to their masters. A general wild offer ofliberty would not always be accepted. History furnishes fewinstances of it. It is sometimes as hard to persuade slaves tobe free, as it is to compel freemen to be slaves; and in thisauspicious scheme, we should have both these pleasing taskson our hands at once. But when we talk of enfranchisement,do we not perceive that the American master may enfran-chise too; and arm servile hands in defence of freedom? Ameasure to which other people have had recourse more thanonce, and not without success, in a desperate situation oftheir affairs.

Slaves as these unfortunate black people are, and dull asall men are from slavery, must they not a little suspect theoffer of freedom from that very nation which has sold them to


51/91

T H E T w o S P E E C H E SN A M E R I C Atheir present masters? from that nation, one of whose causesof quarrel with those masters is their refusal to deal any morein that inhuman traffick? An offer of freedom from Englandwould come rather oddly, shipped to them in an Africanvessel, which is refused an entry into the ports of Virginiaor Carolina, with a cargo of three hundred Angola negroes.It would be curious to see the Guinea captain attempting atthe same instant to publish his proclamation of liberty, andto 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 [ 92long as it continues in its present bed, so long all the causeswhich weaken authority by distance will continue. Ye gods,annihilate but space and time, And make two h e r s ham as apious and passionate prayer; but just as reasonable, as manyof the serious wishes of very grave and solemn politicians.

IF THEN, S I R , t seems almost desperate to think of anyalterative course, for changing the moral causes, and notquite easy to remove the natural, which produce prejudicesirreconcileable to the late exercise of our authority; but thatthe spirit infallibly will continue; and, continuing, will pro-duce such effects as now embarrass us; the second modeunder consideration is, to prosecute that spirit in its overtacts, as criminal.At this proposition I must pause a moment. The thingseems a great deal too big for my ideas of jurisprudence.It should seem to my way of conceiving such matters, thatthere is a very wide difference in reason and policy, betweenthe mode of proceeding on the irregular conduct of scat-tered individuals, or even of bands of men, who disturb orderwithin the state, and the civil dissensions which may, fromtime to time, on great questions, agitate the several commu-nities which compose a great Empire. It looks to me to benarrow and pedantic, to apply the ordinary ideas of crimi-


52/91

[ 0 5 1 1SPE E CH N C O N C I L I A T I O NI T H T H E COLONIES

nal justice to this great public contest. I do not know themethod of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.I cannot insult and ridicule the feelings of Millions of myfellow-creatures, as Sir Edward Coke insulted one excellentindividual (Sir Walter Rawleigh) at the bar. I hope I am notripe to pass sentence on the gravest public bodies, intrustedwith magistracies of great authority and dignity, and chargedwith the safety of their fellow-citizens, upon the very sametitle that I am. I really think, that for [1933 wise men, this isnot judicious; for sober men, not decent; for minds tincturedwith humanity, not mild and merciful.

Perhaps, Sir, I am mistaken in my idea of an Empire, asdistinguished from a single State or Kingdom. But my idea ofi t is this; that an Empire is the aggregate of many States underone common head; whether this head be a monarch, or apresiding republick. I t does, in such constitutions, frequentlyhappen (and nothing but the dismal, cold, dead uniformityof servitude can prevent its happening) that the subordinateparts have many local privileges and immunities. Betweenthese privileges and the supreme common authority the linemay be extremely nice. Of course disputes, often, too, verybitter disputes, and much ill blood, will arise. But thoughevery privilege is an exemption (in the case) from the ordi-nary exercise of the supreme authority, it is no denial of it .The claim of a privilege seems rather, ex vi termini o imply asuperior power. For to talk of the privileges of a State, or of aperson, who has no superior, is hardly any better than speak-ing nonsense. Now, in such unfortunate quarrels among thecomponent parts of a great political union of communities, Ican scarcely conceive anything more compleatly imprudent,than for the Head of the Empire to insist, that, if any privi-lege is pleaded against his will, or his acts, his whole authorityis denied; instantly to proclaim rebellion, to beat to arms,and to put the offending provinces under the ban. Will notthis, Sir, very soon teach the provinces to make no distinc-


53/91

T H E T W O S P E E C H E S N A M E R I C Ations on their part? Will it not teach them that the Govern-ment, against which a claim of Liberty is tantamount to high-treason, is a Government to which submission is equivalentto slavery? It may not always be quite convenient to impressdependent communities with such an idea.

We are indeed, in all disputes with the Colonies, by thenecessity of things, the judge. It is true, Sir. But I confess,[1941 that the character of judge in my own cause is a thingthat frightens me. Instead of filling me with pride, I a m ex-ceedingly humbled by it. I cannot proceed with a stern, as-sured, judicial confidence, until I find myself in somethingmore like a judicial character. I must have these hesitationsas long as I a m compelled to recollect, that, in my little read-ing upon such contests as these, the sense of mankind has,at least, as often decided against the superior as the subor-dinate power. Sir, let me add too, that the opinion of myhaving some abstract right in my favour, would not put memuch at my ease in passing sentence; unless I could be sure,that there were no rights which, in their exercise under cer-tain circumstances, were not the most odious of all wrongs,and the most vexatious of all injustice. Sir, these consider-ations have great weight with me, when I find things so cir-cumstanced, that I see the same party, at once a civil litigantagainst me in point of right; and a culprit before me, whileI sit as a criminal judge, on acts of his, whose moral qualityis to be decided upon the merits of that very litigation. Menare every now and then put, by the complexity of human af-fairs, into strange situations; but Justice is the same, let theJudge 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 thepresent stage of our contest) altogether expedient; which isnothing less than the conduct of those very persons who haveseemed to adopt that mode, by lately declaring a rebellionin Massachusets Bay, as they had formerly addressed to have


54/91

S P E E C H N C O N C I L I A T I O NI T H T H E C O L O N I E STraitors brought hither, under an Act of Henry the Eighth,for Trial. For though rebellion is declared, it is not proceededagainst as such; nor have any steps been taken towards theapprehension or conviction of any individual offender, eitheron our late or our former Address; but modes of public coer-cion have been adopted, and such as have much [195]moreresemblance to a sort of qualified hostility towards an inde-pendent power than the punishment of rebellious subjects.All this seems rather inconsistent; but it shows how difficultit is to apply these juridical ideas to our present case.In this situation, let us seriously and coolly ponder. Whatis it we have got by all our menaces, which have been manyand ferocious? What advantage have we derived from thepenal laws we have passed

obras selectas. volumen i

Documents