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The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) by Edmund Burke

E >> Edmund Burke >> The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12)




On the 4th of April, 1748,[25] a committee of this House came to the
following resolution:--

"_Resolved_, That it is the opinion of this committee, _that it is just
and reasonable_, that the several provinces and colonies of
Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island be
reimbursed the expenses they have been at in taking and securing to the
crown of Great Britain the island of Caps Breton and its dependencies."

These expenses were immense for such colonies. They were above
200,000_l._ sterling: money first raised and advanced on their public
credit.

On the 28th of January, 1756,[26] a message from the king came to us, to
this effect:--"His Majesty, being sensible of the zeal and vigor with
which his faithful subjects of certain colonies in North America have
exerted themselves in defence of his Majesty's just rights and
possessions, recommends it to this House to take the same into their
consideration, and to enable his Majesty to give them such assistance as
may be _proper reward and encouragement_."

On the 3d of February, 1756,[27] the House came to a suitable
resolution, expressed in words nearly the same as those of the message;
but with the further addition, that the money then voted was as an
_encouragement_ to the colonies to exert themselves with vigor. It will
not be necessary to go through all the testimonies which your own
records have given to the truth of my resolutions. I will only refer you
to the places in the journals:--

Vol. XXVII--16th and 19th May, 1757.

Vol. XXVIII.--June 1st, 1758,--April 26th and 30th, 1759,--March
26th and 31st, and April 28th, 1760,--Jan. 9th and 20th, 1761.

Vol. XXIX.--Jan. 22d and 26th, 1762,--March 14th and 17th, 1763.


Sir, here is the repeated acknowledgment of Parliament, that the
colonies not only gave, but gave to satiety. This nation has formally
acknowledged two things: first, that the colonies had gone beyond their
abilities, Parliament having thought it necessary to reimburse them;
secondly, that they had acted legally and laudably in their grants of
money, and their maintenance of troops, since the compensation is
expressly given as reward and encouragement. Reward is not bestowed for
acts that are unlawful; and encouragement is not held out to things that
deserve reprehension. My resolution, therefore, does nothing more than
collect into one proposition what is scattered through your journals. I
give you nothing but your own; and you cannot refuse in the gross what
you have so often acknowledged in detail. The admission of this, which
will be so honorable to them and to you, will, indeed, be mortal to all
the miserable stories by which the passions of the misguided people have
been engaged in an unhappy system. The people heard, indeed, from the
beginning of these disputes, one thing continually dinned in their ears:
that reason and justice demanded, that the Americans, who paid no taxes,
should be compelled to contribute. How did that fact, of their paying
nothing, stand, when the taxing system began? When Mr. Grenville began
to form his system of American revenue, he stated in this House that the
colonies were then in debt two million six hundred thousand pounds
sterling money, and was of opinion they would discharge that debt in
four years. On this state, those untaxed people were actually subject to
the payment of taxes to the amount of six hundred and fifty thousand a
year. In fact, however, Mr. Grenville was mistaken. The funds given for
sinking the debt did not prove quite so ample as both the colonies and
he expected. The calculation was too sanguine: the reduction was not
completed till some years after, and at different times in different
colonies. However, the taxes after the war continued too great to bear
any addition, with prudence or propriety; and when the burdens imposed
in consequence of former requisitions were discharged, our tone became
too high to resort again to requisition. No colony, since that time,
ever has had any requisition whatsoever made to it.

We see the sense of the crown, and the sense of Parliament, on the
productive nature of a _revenue by grant_. Now search the same journals
for the produce of the _revenue by imposition_. Where is it?--let us
know the volume and the page. What is the gross, what is the net
produce? To what service is it applied? How have you appropriated its
surplus?--What! can none of the many skilful index-makers that we are
now employing find any trace of it?--Well, let them and that rest
together.--But are the journals, which say nothing of the revenue, as
silent on the discontent?--Oh, no! a child may find it. It is the
melancholy burden and blot of every page.

I think, then, I am, from those journals, justified in the sixth and
last resolution, which is,--"That it hath been found by experience, that
the manner of granting the said supplies and aids by the said general
assemblies hath been more agreeable to the inhabitants of the said
colonies, and more beneficial and conducive to the public service, than
the mode of giving and granting aids and subsidies in Parliament, to be
raised and paid in the said colonies."

This makes the whole of the fundamental part of the plan. The conclusion
is irresistible. You cannot say that you were driven by any necessity to
an exercise of the utmost rights of legislature. You cannot assert that
you took on yourselves the task of imposing colony taxes, from the want
of another legal body that is competent to the purpose of supplying the
exigencies of the state without wounding the prejudices of the people.
Neither is it true, that the body so qualified, and having that
competence, had neglected the duty.

The question now, on all this accumulated matter, is,--Whether you will
choose to abide by a profitable experience or a mischievous theory?
whether you choose to build on imagination or fact? whether you prefer
enjoyment or hope? satisfaction in your subjects, or discontent?

If these propositions are accepted, everything which has been made to
enforce a contrary system must, I take it for granted, fall along with
it. On that ground, I have drawn the following resolution, which, when
it comes to be moved, will naturally be divided in a proper
manner:--"That it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the seventh
year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled, 'An act for
granting certain duties in the British colonies and plantations in
America; for allowing a drawback of the duties of customs, upon the
exportation from this kingdom, of coffee and cocoa-nuts, of the produce
of the said colonies or plantations; for discontinuing the drawbacks
payable on China earthen ware exported to America; and for more
effectually preventing the clandestine running of goods in the said
colonies and plantations.'--And also, that it may be proper to repeal an
act, made in the fourteenth year of the reign of his present Majesty,
intituled, 'An act to discontinue, in such manner and for such time as
are therein mentioned, the landing and discharging, lading or shipping,
of goods, wares, and merchandise, at the town and within the harbor of
Boston, in the province of Massachusetts Bay, in North America.'--And
also, that it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the fourteenth
year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled, 'An act for the
impartial administration of justice, in the cases of persons questioned
for any acts done by them, in the execution of the law, or for the
suppression of riots and tumults, in the province of the Massachusetts
Bay, in New England.'--And also, that it may be proper to repeal an act,
made in the fourteenth year of the reign of his present Majesty,
intituled,' An act for the better regulating the government of the
province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England.'--And also, that it
may be proper to explain and amend an act, made in the thirty-fifth year
of the reign of King Henry the Eighth, intituled, 'An act for the trial
of treasons committed out of the king's dominions.'"

I wish, Sir, to repeal the Boston Port Bill, because (independently of
the dangerous precedent of suspending the rights of the subject during
the king's pleasure) it was passed, as I apprehend, with less
regularity, and on more partial principles, than it ought. The
corporation of Boston was not heard before it was condemned. Other
towns, full as guilty as she was, have not had their ports blocked up.
Even the Restraining Bill of the present session does not go to the
length of the Boston Port Act. The same ideas of prudence, which induced
you not to extend equal punishment to equal guilt, even when you were
punishing, induce me, who mean not to chastise, but to reconcile, to be
satisfied with the punishment already partially inflicted.

Ideas of prudence and accommodation to circumstances prevent you from
taking away the charters of Connecticut and Rhode Island, as you have
taken away that of Massachusetts Colony, though the crown has far less
power in the two former provinces than it enjoyed in the latter, and
though the abuses have bean full as great and as flagrant in the
exempted as in the punished. The same reasons of prudence and
accommodation have weight with me in restoring the charter of
Massachusetts Bay. Besides, Sir, the act which changes the charter of
Massachusetts is in many particulars so exceptionable, that, if I did
not wish absolutely to repeal, I would by all means desire to alter it;
as several of its provisions tend to the subversion of all public and
private justice. Such, among others, is the power in the governor to
change the sheriff at his pleasure, and to make a new returning officer
for every special cause. It is shameful to behold such a regulation
standing among English laws.

The act for bringing persons accused of committing murder under the
orders of government to England for trial is but temporary. That act has
calculated the probable duration of our quarrel with the colonies, and
is accommodated to that supposed duration. I would hasten the happy
moment of reconciliation, and therefore must, on my principle, get rid
of that most justly obnoxious act.

The act of Henry the Eighth for the trial of treasons I do not mean to
take away, but to confine it to its proper bounds and original
intention: to make it expressly for trial of treasons (and the greatest
treasons may be committed) in places where the jurisdiction of the crown
does not extend.

Having guarded the privileges of local legislature, I would next secure
to the colonies a fair and unbiased judicature; for which purpose, Sir,
I propose the following resolution:--"That, from the time when the
general assembly, or general court, of any colony or plantation in North
America shall have appointed, by act of assembly duly confirmed, a
settled salary to the offices of the chief justice and other judges of
the superior courts, it may be proper that the said chief justice and
other judges of the superior courts of such colony shall hold his and
their office and offices during their good behavior, and shall not be
removed therefrom, but when the said removal shall be adjudged by his
Majesty in council, upon a hearing on complaint from the general
assembly, or on a complaint from the governor, or the council, or the
house of representatives, severally, of the colony in which the said
chief justice and other judges have exercised the said offices."

The next resolution relates to the courts of admiralty. It is
this:--"That it may be proper to regulate the courts of admiralty or
vice-admiralty, authorized by the 15th chapter of the 4th George the
Third, in such a manner as to make the same more commodious to those who
sue or are sued in the said courts, and to provide for the more decent
maintenance of the judges of the same."

These courts I do not wish to take away: they are in themselves proper
establishments. This court is one of the capital securities of the Act
of Navigation. The extent of its jurisdiction, indeed, has been
increased; but this is altogether as proper, and is, indeed, on many
accounts, more eligible, where new powers were wanted, than a court
absolutely new. But courts incommodiously situated, in effect, deny
justice; and a court partaking in the fruits of its own condemnation is
a robber. The Congress complain, and complain justly, of this
grievance.[28]

These are the three consequential propositions. I have thought of two or
three more; but they come rather too near detail, and to the province of
executive government, which I wish Parliament always to superintend,
never to assume. If the first six are granted, congruity will carry the
latter three. If not, the things that remain unrepealed will be, I hope,
rather unseemly incumbrances on the building than very materially
detrimental to its strength and stability.

Here, Sir, I should close, but that I plainly perceive some objections
remain, which I ought, if possible, to remove. The first will be, that,
in resorting to the doctrine of our ancestors, as contained in the
preamble to the Chester act, I prove too much: that the grievance from a
want of representation, stated in that preamble, goes to the whole of
legislation as well as to taxation; and that the colonies, grounding
themselves upon that doctrine, will apply it to all parts of legislative
authority.

To this objection, with all possible deference and humility, and wishing
as little as any man living to impair the smallest particle of our
supreme authority, I answer, that _the words are the words of
Parliament, and not mine_; and that all false and inconclusive
inferences drawn from them are not mine; for I heartily disclaim any
such inference. I have chosen the words of an act of Parliament, which
Mr. Grenville, surely a tolerably zealous and very judicious advocate
for the sovereignty of Parliament, formerly moved to have read at your
table in confirmation of his tenets. It is true that Lord Chatham
considered these preambles as declaring strongly in favor of his
opinions. He was a no less powerful advocate for the privileges of the
Americans. Ought I not from hence to presume that these preambles are as
favorable as possible to both, when properly understood: favorable both
to the rights of Parliament, and to the privilege of the dependencies of
this crown? But, Sir, the object of grievance in my resolution I have
not taken from the Chester, but from the Durham act, which confines the
hardship of want of representation to the case of subsidies, and which
therefore falls in exactly with the case of the colonies. But whether
the unrepresented counties were _de jure_ or _de facto_ bound the
preambles do not accurately distinguish; nor, indeed, was it necessary:
for, whether _de jure_ or _de facto_, the legislature thought the
exercise of the power of taxing, as of right, or as of fact without
right, equally a grievance, and equally oppressive.

I do not know that the colonies have, in any general way, or in any cool
hour, gone much beyond the demand of immunity in relation to taxes. It
is not fair to judge of the temper or dispositions of any man or any set
of men, when they are composed and at rest, from their conduct or their
expressions in a state of disturbance and irritation. It is, besides, a
very great mistake to imagine that mankind follow up practically any
speculative principle, either of government or of freedom, as far as it
will go in argument and logical illation. We Englishmen stop very short
of the principles upon which we support any given part of our
Constitution, or even the whole of it together. I could easily, if I had
not already tired you, give you very striking and convincing instances
of it. This is nothing but what is natural and proper. All government,
indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent
act, is founded on compromise and barter. We balance inconveniences; we
give and take; we remit some rights, that we may enjoy others; and we
choose rather to be happy citizens than subtle disputants. As we must
give away some natural liberty, to enjoy civil advantages, so we must
sacrifice some civil liberties, for the advantages to be derived from
the communion and fellowship of a great empire. But, in all fair
dealings, the thing bought must bear some proportion to the purchase
paid. None will barter away the immediate jewel of his soul. Though a
great house is apt to make slaves haughty, yet it is purchasing a part
of the artificial importance of a great empire too dear, to pay for it
all essential rights, and all the intrinsic dignity of human nature.
None of us who would not risk his life rather than fall under a
government purely arbitrary. But although there are some amongst us who
think our Constitution wants many improvements to make it a complete
system of liberty, perhaps none who are of that opinion would think it
right to aim at such improvement by disturbing his country and risking
everything that is dear to him. In every arduous enterprise, we consider
what we are to lose, as well as what we are to gain; and the more and
better stake of liberty every people possess, the less they will hazard
in a vain attempt to make it more. These are _the cords of man_. Man
acts from adequate motives relative to his interest, and not on
metaphysical speculations. Aristotle, the great master of reasoning,
cautions us, and with great weight and propriety, against this species
of delusive geometrical accuracy in moral arguments, as the most
fallacious of all sophistry.

The Americans will have no interest contrary to the grandeur and glory
of England, when they are not oppressed by the weight of it; and they
will rather be inclined to respect the acts of a superintending
legislature, when they see them the acts of that power which is itself
the security, not the rival, of their secondary importance. In this
assurance my mind most perfectly acquiesces, and I confess I feel not
the least alarm from the discontents which are to arise from putting
people at their ease; nor do I apprehend the destruction of this empire
from giving, by an act of free grace and indulgence, to two millions of
my fellow-citizens some share of those rights upon which I have always
been taught to value myself.

It is said, indeed, that this power of granting, vested in American
assemblies, would dissolve the unity of the empire,--which was preserved
entire, although Wales, and Chester, and Durham were added to it. Truly,
Mr. Speaker, I do not know what this unity means; nor has it ever been
heard of, that I know, in the constitutional policy of this country. The
very idea of subordination of parts excludes this notion of simple and
undivided unity. England is the head; but she is not the head and the
members too. Ireland has ever had from the beginning a separate, but not
an independent legislature, which, far from distracting, promoted the
union of the whole. Everything was sweetly and harmoniously disposed
through both islands for the conservation of English dominion and the
communication of English liberties. I do not see that the same
principles might not be carried into twenty islands, and with the same
good effect. This is my model with regard to America, as far as the
internal circumstances of the two countries are the same. I know no
other unity of this empire than I can draw from its example during these
periods, when it seemed to my poor understanding more united than it is
now, or than it is likely to be by the present methods.

But since I speak of these methods, I recollect, Mr. Speaker, almost too
late, that I promised, before I finished, to say something of the
proposition of the noble lord[29] on the floor, which has been so lately
received, and stands on your journals. I must be deeply concerned,
whenever it is my misfortune to continue a difference with the majority
of this House. But as the reasons for that difference are my apology for
thus troubling you, suffer me to state them in a very few words. I shall
compress them into as small a body as I possibly can, having already
debated that matter at large, when the question was before the
committee.

First, then, I cannot admit that proposition of a ransom by
auction,--because it is a mere project. It is a thing new, unheard of,
supported by no experience, justified by no analogy, without example of
our ancestors, or root in the Constitution. It is neither regular
Parliamentary taxation nor colony grant. _Experimentum in corpore vili_
is a good rule, which will ever make me adverse to any trial of
experiments on what is certainly the most valuable of all subjects, the
peace of this empire.

Secondly, it is an experiment which must be fatal in the end to our
Constitution. For what is it but a scheme for taxing the colonies in the
antechamber of the noble lord and his successors? To settle the quotas
and proportions in this House is clearly impossible. You, Sir, may
flatter yourself you shall sit a state auctioneer, with your hammer in
your hand, and knock down to each colony as it bids. But to settle (on
the plan laid down by the noble lord) the true proportional payment for
four or five and twenty governments, according to the absolute and the
relative wealth of each, and according to the British proportion of
wealth and burden, is a wild and chimerical notion. This new taxation
must therefore come in by the back-door of the Constitution. Each quota
must be brought to this House ready formed. You can neither add nor
alter. You must register it. You can do nothing further. For on what
grounds can you deliberate either before or after the proposition? You
cannot hear the counsel for all these provinces, quarrelling each on its
own quantity of payment, and its proportion to others. If you should
attempt it, the Committee of Provincial Ways and Means, or by whatever
other name it will delight to be called, must swallow up all the time of
Parliament.

Thirdly, it does not give satisfaction to the complaint of the colonies.
They complain that they are taxed without their consent. You answer,
that you will fix the sum at which they shall be taxed. That is, you
give them the very grievance for the remedy. You tell them, indeed,
that you will leave the mode to themselves. I really beg pardon; it
gives me pain to mention it; but you must be sensible that you will not
perform this part of the compact. For suppose the colonies were to lay
the duties which furnished their contingent upon the importation of your
manufactures; you know you would never suffer such a tax to be laid. You
know, too, that you would not suffer many other modes of taxation. So
that, when you come to explain yourself, it will be found that you will
neither leave to themselves the quantum nor the mode, nor indeed
anything. The whole is delusion, from one end to the other.

Fourthly, this method of ransom by auction, unless it be _universally_
accepted, will plunge you into great and inextricable difficulties. In
what year of our Lord are the proportions of payments to be settled? To
say nothing of the impossibility that colony agents should have general
powers of taxing the colonies at their discretion, consider, I implore
you, that the communication by special messages and orders between these
agents and their constituents on each variation of the case, when the
parties come to contend together, and to dispute on their relative
proportions, will be a matter of delay, perplexity, and confusion, that
never can have an end.

If all the colonies do not appear at the outcry, what is the condition
of those assemblies who offer, by themselves or their agents, to tax
themselves up to your ideas of their proportion? The refractory
colonies, who refuse all composition, will remain taxed only to your old
impositions, which, however grievous in principle, are trifling as to
production. The obedient colonies in this scheme are heavily taxed; the
refractory remain unburdened. What will you do? Will you lay new and
heavier taxes by Parliament on the disobedient? Pray consider in what
way you can do it. You are perfectly convinced, that, in the way of
taxing, you can do nothing but at the ports. Now suppose it is Virginia
that refuses to appear at your auction, while Maryland and North
Carolina bid handsomely for their ransom, and are taxed to your quota,
how will you put these colonies on a par? Will you tax the tobacco of
Virginia? If you do, you give its death-wound to your English revenue at
home, and to one of the very greatest articles of your own foreign
trade. If you tax the import of that rebellious colony, what do you tax
but your own manufactures, or the goods of some other obedient and
already well-taxed colony? Who has said one word on this labyrinth of
detail, which bewilders you more and more as you enter into it? Who has
presented, who can present, you with a clew to lead you out of it? I
think, Sir, it is impossible that you should not recollect that the
colony bounds are so implicated in one another (you know it by your
other experiments in the bill for prohibiting the New England fishery)
that you can lay no possible restraints on almost any of them which may
not be presently eluded, if you do not confound the innocent with the
guilty, and burden those whom upon every principle you ought to
exonerate. He must be grossly ignorant of America, who thinks, that,
without falling into this confusion of all rules of equity and policy,
you can restrain any single colony, especially Virginia and Maryland,
the central, and most important of them all.

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