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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)




[A cry of "Go on, go on!"]

The first of the two considerations was, whether the repeal should be
total, or whether only partial,--taking out everything burdensome and
productive, and reserving only an empty acknowledgment, such as a stamp
on cards or dice. The other question was, on what principle the act
should be repealed. On this head also two principles were started. One,
that the legislative rights of this country with regard to America were
not entire, but had certain restrictions and limitations. The other
principle was, that taxes of this kind were contrary to the fundamental
principles of commerce on which the colonies were founded, and contrary
to every idea of political equity,--by which equity we are bound as much
as possible to extend the spirit and benefit of the British Constitution
to every part of the British dominions. The option, both of the measure
and of the principle of repeal, was made before the session; and I
wonder how any one can read the king's speech at the opening of that
session, without seeing in that speech both the repeal and the
Declaratory Act very sufficiently crayoned out. Those who cannot see
this can see nothing.

Surely the honorable gentleman will not think that a great deal less
time than was then employed ought to have been spent in deliberation,
when he considers that the news of the troubles did not arrive till
towards the end of October. The Parliament sat to fill the vacancies on
the 14th day of December, and on business the 14th of the following
January.

Sir, a partial repeal, or, as the _bon-ton_ of the court then was, a
_modification_, would have satisfied a timid, unsystematic,
procrastinating ministry, as such a measure has since done such a
ministry. A modification is the constant resource of weak, undeciding
minds. To repeal by a denial of our right to tax in the preamble (and
this, too, did not want advisers) would have cut, in the heroic style,
the Gordian knot with a sword. Either measure would have cost no more
than a day's debate. But when the total repeal was adopted, and adopted
on principles of policy, of equity, and of commerce, this plan made it
necessary to enter into many and difficult measures. It became necessary
to open a very largo field of evidence commensurate to these extensive
views. But then this labor did knights' service. It opened the eyes of
several to the true state of the American affairs; it enlarged their
ideas; it removed prejudices; and it conciliated the opinions and
affections of men. The noble lord who then took the lead in
administration, my honorable friend[6] under me, and a right honorable
gentleman[7] (if he will not reject his share, and it was a large one,
of this business) exerted the most laudable industry in bringing before
you the fullest, most impartial, and least garbled body of evidence that
ever was produced to this House. I think the inquiry lasted in the
committee for six weeks; and at its conclusion, this House, by an
independent, noble, spirited, and unexpected majority, by a majority
that will redeem all the acts ever done by majorities in Parliament, in
the teeth of all the old mercenary Swiss of state, in despite of all the
speculators and augurs of political events, in defiance of the whole
embattled legion of veteran pensioners and practised instruments of a
court, gave a total repeal to the Stamp Act, and (if it had been so
permitted) a lasting peace to this whole empire.

I state, Sir, these particulars, because this act of spirit and
fortitude has lately been, in the circulation of the season, and in some
hazarded declamations in this House, attributed to timidity. If, Sir,
the conduct of ministry, in proposing the repeal, had arisen from
timidity with regard to themselves, it would have been greatly to be
condemned. Interested timidity disgraces as much in the cabinet as
personal timidity does in the field. But timidity with regard to the
well-being of our country is heroic virtue. The noble lord who then
conducted affairs, and his worthy colleagues, whilst they trembled at
the prospect of such distresses as you have since brought upon
yourselves, were not afraid steadily to look in the face that glaring
and dazzling influence at which the eyes of eagles have blenched. He
looked in the face one of the ablest, and, let me say, not the most
scrupulous oppositions, that perhaps ever was in this House; and
withstood it, unaided by even one of the usual supports of
administration. He did this, when he repealed the Stamp Act. He looked
in the face a person he had long respected and regarded, and whose aid
was then particularly wanting: I mean Lord Chatham. He did this when he
passed the Declaratory Act.

It is now given out, for the usual purposes, by the usual emissaries,
that Lord Rockingham did not consent to the repeal of this act until he
was bullied into it by Lord Chatham; and the reporters have gone so far
as publicly to assert, in an hundred companies, that the honorable
gentleman under the gallery,[8] who proposed the repeal in the American
committee, had another set of resolutions in his pocket, directly the
reverse of those he moved. These artifices of a desperate cause are at
this time spread abroad, with incredible care, in every part of the
town, from the highest to the lowest companies; as if the industry of
the circulation were to make amends for the absurdity of the report.

Sir, whether the noble lord is of a complexion to be bullied by Lord
Chatham, or by any man, I must submit to those who know him. I confess,
when I look back to that time, I consider him as placed in one of the
most trying situations in which, perhaps, any man ever stood. In the
House of Peers there were very few of the ministry, out of the noble
lord's own particular connection, (except Lord Egmont, who acted, as
far as I could discern, an honorable and manly part,) that did not look
to some other future arrangement, which warped his politics. There were
in both Houses new and menacing appearances, that might very naturally
drive any other than a most resolute minister from his measure or from
his station. The household troops openly revolted. The allies of
ministry (those, I mean, who supported some of their measures, but
refused responsibility for any) endeavored to undermine their credit,
and to take ground that must be fatal to the success of the very cause
which they would be thought to countenance. The question of the repeal
was brought on by ministry in the committee of this House in the very
instant when it was known that more than one court negotiation was
carrying on with the heads of the opposition. Everything, upon every
side, was full of traps and mines. Earth below shook; heaven above
menaced; all the elements of ministerial safety were dissolved. It was
in the midst of this chaos of plots and counterplots, it was in the
midst of this complicated warfare against public opposition and private
treachery, that the firmness of that noble person was put to the proof.
He never stirred from his ground: no, not an inch. He remained fixed and
determined, in principle, in measure, and in conduct. He practised no
managements. He secured no retreat. He sought no apology.

I will likewise do justice--I ought to do it--to the honorable gentleman
who led us in this House.[9] Far from the duplicity wickedly charged on
him, he acted his part with alacrity and resolution. We all felt
inspired by the example he gave us, down even to myself, the weakest in
that phalanx. I declare for one, I knew well enough (it could not be
concealed from anybody) the true state of things; but, in my life, I
never came with so much spirits into this House. It was a time for a
_man_ to act in. We had powerful enemies; but we had faithful and
determined friends, and a glorious cause. We had a great battle to
fight; but we had the means of fighting: not as now, when our arms are
tied behind us. We did fight that day, and conquer.

I remember, Sir, with a melancholy pleasure, the situation of the
honorable gentleman[10] who made the motion for the repeal: in that
crisis, when the whole trading interest of this empire, crammed into
your lobbies, with a trembling and anxious expectation, waited, almost
to a winter's return of light, their fate from your resolutions. When at
length you had determined in their favor, and your doors thrown open
showed them the figure of their deliverer in the well-earned triumph of
his important victory, from the whole of that grave multitude there
arose an involuntary burst of gratitude and transport. They jumped upon
him like children on a long absent father. They clung about him as
captives about their redeemer. All England, all America, joined in his
applause. Nor did he seem insensible to the best of all earthly rewards,
the love and admiration of his fellow-citizens. _Hope elevated and joy
brightened his crest_. I stood near him; and his face, to use the
expression of the Scripture of the first martyr, "his face was as if it
had been the face of an angel." I do not know how others feel; but if I
had stood in that situation, I never would have exchanged it for all
that kings in their profusion could bestow. I did hope that that day's
danger and honor would have been a bond to hold us all together forever.
But, alas! that, with other pleasing visions, is long since vanished.

Sir, this act of supreme magnanimity has been represented as if it had
been a measure of an administration that, having no scheme of their own,
took a middle line, pilfered a bit from one side and a bit from the
other. Sir, they took _no_ middle lines. They differed fundamentally
from the schemes of both parties; but they preserved the objects of
both. They preserved the authority of Great Britain; they preserved the
equity of Great Britain. They made the Declaratory Act; they repealed
the Stamp Act. They did both _fully_: because the Declaratory Act was
_without qualification_; and the repeal of the Stamp Act _total_. This
they did in the situation I have described.

Now, Sir, what will the adversary say to both these acts? If the
principle of the Declaratory Act was not good, the principle we are
contending for this day is monstrous. If the principle of the repeal was
not good, why are we not at war for a real, substantial, effective
revenue? If both were bad, why has this ministry incurred all the
inconveniences of both and of all schemes? why have they enacted,
repealed, enforced, yielded, and now attempt to enforce again?

Sir, I think I may as well now as at any other time speak to a certain
matter of fact not wholly unrelated to the question under your
consideration. We, who would persuade you to revert to the ancient
policy of this kingdom, labor under the effect of this short current
phrase, which the court leaders have given out to all their corps, in
order to take away the credit of those who would prevent you from that
frantic war you are going to wage upon your colonies. Their cant is
this: "All the disturbances in America have been created by the repeal
of the Stamp Act." I suppress for a moment my indignation at the
falsehood, baseness, and absurdity of this most audacious assertion.
Instead of remarking on the motives and character of those who have
issued it for circulation, I will clearly lay before you the state of
America, antecedently to that repeal, after the repeal, and since the
renewal of the schemes of American taxation.

It is said, that the disturbances, if there were any before the repeal,
were slight, and without difficulty or inconvenience might have been
suppressed. For an answer to this assertion I will send you to the great
author and patron of the Stamp Act, who, certainly meaning well to the
authority of this country, and fully apprised of the state of that,
made, before a repeal was so much as agitated in this House, the motion
which is on your journals, and which, to save the clerk the trouble of
turning to it, I will now read to you. It was for an amendment to the
address of the 17th of December, 1765.

"To express our just resentment and indignation at the _outrageous
tumults and insurrections_ which have been excited and carried on in
North America, and at the resistance given, by _open_ and _rebellious_
force, to the execution of the laws in that part of his Majesty's
dominions; to assure his Majesty, that his faithful Commons, animated
with the warmest duty and attachment to his royal person and
government, ... will firmly and effectually support his Majesty in all
such measures as shall be necessary for preserving and securing the
legal dependence of the colonies upon this their mother country," &c.,
&c.

Here was certainly a disturbance preceding the repeal,--such a
disturbance as Mr. Grenville thought necessary to qualify by the name of
an _insurrection_, and the epithet of a _rebellious_ force: terms much
stronger than any by which those who then supported his motion have ever
since thought proper to distinguish the subsequent disturbances in
America. They were disturbances which seemed to him and his friends to
justify as strong a promise of support as hath been usual to give in the
beginning of a war with the most powerful and declared enemies. When the
accounts of the American governors came before the House, they appeared
stronger even than the warmth of public imagination had painted them: so
much stronger, that the papers on your table bear me out in saying that
all the late disturbances, which have been at one time the minister's
motives for the repeal of five out of six of the new court taxes, and
are now his pretences for refusing to repeal that sixth, did not
amount--why do I compare them?--no, not to a tenth part of the tumults
and violence which prevailed long before the repeal of that act.

Ministry cannot refuse the authority of the commander-in-chief, General
Gage, who, in his letter of the 4th of November, from New York, thus
represents the state of things:--

"It is difficult to say, from the _highest to the lowest_, who has not
been _accessory_ to this _insurrection_, either by writing, or _mutual
agreements_ to oppose the act, by what they are pleased to term all
legal opposition to it. Nothing effectual has been proposed, either to
prevent or quell the tumult. _The rest of the provinces are in the same
situation_, as to a positive refusal to take the stamps, and threatening
those who shall take them _to plunder and murder them_; and this affair
stands _in all the provinces_, that, unless the act from its own nature
enforce itself, nothing but a _very_ considerable military force can do
it."

It is remarkable, Sir, that the persons who formerly trumpeted forth the
most loudly the violent resolutions of assemblies, the universal
insurrections, the seizing and burning the stamped papers, the forcing
stamp officers to resign their commissions under the gallows, the
rifling and pulling down of the houses of magistrates, and the expulsion
from their country of all who dared to write or speak a single word in
defence of the powers of Parliament,--these very trumpeters are now the
men that represent the whole as a mere trifle, and choose to date all
the disturbances from the repeal of the Stamp Act, which put an end to
them. Hear your officers abroad, and let them refute this shameless
falsehood, who, in all their correspondence, state the disturbances as
owing to their true causes, the discontent of the people from the taxes.
You have this evidence in your own archives; and it will give you
complete satisfaction, if you are not so far lost to all Parliamentary
ideas of information as rather to credit the lie of the day than the
records of your own House.

Sir, this vermin of court reporters, when they are forced into day upon
one point, are sure to burrow in another: but they shall have no refuge;
I will make them bolt out of all their holes. Conscious that they must
be baffled, when they attribute a precedent disturbance to a subsequent
measure, they take other ground, almost as absurd, but very common in
modern practice, and very wicked; which is, to attribute the ill effect
of ill-judged conduct to the arguments which had been used to dissuade
us from it. They say, that the opposition made in Parliament to the
Stamp Act, at the time of its passing, encouraged the Americans to their
resistance. This has even formally appeared in print in a regular volume
from an advocate of that faction,--a Dr. Tucker. This Dr. Tucker is
already a dean, and his earnest labors in this vineyard will, I suppose,
raise him to a bishopric. But this assertion, too, just like the rest,
is false. In all the papers which have loaded your table, in all the
vast crowd of verbal witnesses that appeared at your bar, witnesses
which were indiscriminately produced from both sides of the House, not
the least hint of such a cause of disturbance has ever appeared. As to
the fact of a strenuous opposition to the Stamp Act, I sat as a stranger
in your gallery when the act was under consideration. Far from anything
inflammatory, I never heard a more languid debate in this House. No more
than two or three gentlemen, as I remember, spoke against the act, and
that with great reserve and remarkable temper. There was but one
division in the whole progress of the bill; and the minority did not
reach to more than 39 or 40. In the House of Lords I do not recollect
that there was any debate or division at all. I am sure there was no
protest. In fact, the affair passed with so very, very little noise,
that in town they scarcely knew the nature of what you were doing. The
opposition to the bill in England never could have done this mischief,
because there scarcely ever was less of opposition to a bill of
consequence.

Sir, the agents and distributors of falsehoods have, with their usual
industry, circulated another lie, of the same nature with the former. It
is this: that the disturbances arose from the account which had been
received in America of the change in the ministry. No longer awed, it
seems, with the spirit of the former rulers, they thought themselves a
match for what our calumniators choose to qualify by the name of so
feeble a ministry as succeeded. Feeble in one sense these men certainly
may be called: for, with all their efforts, and they have made many,
they have not been able to resist the distempered vigor and insane
alacrity with which you are rushing to your ruin. But it does so happen,
that the falsity of this circulation is (like the rest) demonstrated by
indisputable dates and records.

So little was the change known in America, that the letters of your
governors, giving an account of these disturbances long after they had
arrived at their highest pitch, were all directed to the _old ministry_,
and particularly to the _Earl of Halifax_, the Secretary of State
corresponding with the colonies, without once in the smallest degree
intimating the slightest suspicion of any ministerial revolution
whatsoever. The ministry was not changed in England until the 10th day
of July, 1765. On the 14th of the preceding June, Governor Fauquier,
from Virginia, writes thus,--and writes thus to the Earl of
Halifax:--"Government is set at _defiance_, not having strength enough
in her hands to enforce obedience to the laws of the community.--The
private distress, which every man feels, increases the _general
dissatisfaction_ at the duties laid by the _Stamp Act_, which breaks out
and shows itself upon every trifling occasion." The general
dissatisfaction had produced some time before, that is, on the 29th of
May, several strong public resolves against the Stamp Act; and those
resolves are assigned by Governor Bernard as the cause of the
_insurrections_ in Massachusetts Bay, in his letter of the 15th of
August, still addressed to the Earl of Halifax; and he continued to
address such accounts to that minister quite to the 7th of September of
the same year. Similar accounts, and of as late a date, were sent from
other governors, and all directed to Lord Halifax. Not one of these
letters indicates the slightest idea of a change, either known or even
apprehended.

Thus are blown away the insect race of courtly falsehoods! Thus perish
the miserable inventions of the wretched runners for a wretched cause,
which they have fly-blown into every weak and rotten part of the
country, in vain hopes, that, when their maggots had taken wing, their
importunate buzzing might sound something like the public voice!

Sir, I have troubled you sufficiently with the state of America before
the repeal. Now I turn to the honorable gentleman who so stoutly
challenges us to tell whether, after the repeal, the provinces were
quiet. This is coming home to the point. Here I meet him directly, and
answer most readily, _They were quiet_. And I, in my turn, challenge him
to prove when, and where, and by whom, and in what numbers, and with
what violence, the other laws of trade, as gentlemen assert, were
violated in consequence of your concession, or that even your other
revenue laws were attacked. But I quit the vantage-ground on which I
stand, and where I might leave the burden of the proof upon him: I walk
down upon the open plain, and undertake to show that they were not only
quiet, but showed many unequivocal marks of acknowledgment and
gratitude. And to give him every advantage, I select the obnoxious
colony of Massachusetts Bay, which at this time (but without hearing
her) is so heavily a culprit before Parliament: I will select their
proceedings even under circumstances of no small irritation. For, a
little imprudently, I must say, Governor Bernard mixed in the
administration of the lenitive of the repeal no small acrimony arising
from matters of a separate nature. Yet see, Sir, the effect of that
lenitive, though mixed with these bitter ingredients,--and how this
rugged people can express themselves on a measure of concession.

"If it is not now in our power," (say they, in their address to Governor
Bernard,) "in so full a manner as will be expected, to show our
respectful gratitude to the mother country, or to make a dutiful,
affectionate return to the indulgence of the King and Parliament, it
shall be no fault of ours; for this we intend, and hope shall be able
fully to effect."

Would to God that this temper had been cultivated, managed, and set in
action! Other effects than those which we have since felt would have
resulted from it. On the requisition for compensation to those who had
suffered from the violence of the populace, in the same address they
say,--"The recommendation enjoined by Mr. Secretary Conway's letter, and
in consequence thereof made to us, we shall embrace the first convenient
opportunity to consider and act upon." They did consider; they did act
upon it. They obeyed the requisition. I know the mode has been chicaned
upon; but it was substantially obeyed, and much better obeyed than I
fear the Parliamentary requisition of this session will be, though
enforced by all your rigor and backed with all your power. In a word,
the damages of popular fury were compensated by legislative gravity.
Almost every other part of America in various ways demonstrated their
gratitude. I am bold to say, that so sudden a calm recovered after so
violent a storm is without parallel in history. To say that no other
disturbance should happen from any other cause is folly. But as far as
appearances went, by the judicious sacrifice of one law you procured an
acquiescence in all that remained. After this experience, nobody shall
persuade me, when an whole people are concerned, that acts of lenity are
not means of conciliation.

I hope the honorable gentleman has received a fair and full answer to
his question.

I have done with the third period of your policy,--that of your repeal,
and the return of your ancient system, and your ancient tranquillity and
concord. Sir, this period was not as long as it was happy. Another scene
was opened, and other actors appeared on the stage. The state, in the
condition I have described it, was delivered into the hands of Lord
Chatham, a great and celebrated name,--a name that keeps the name of
this country respectable in every other on the globe. It may be truly
called

Clarum et venerabile nomen
Gentibus, et multum nostrae quod proderat urbi.


Sir, the venerable age of this great man, his merited rank, his superior
eloquence, his splendid qualities, his eminent services, the vast space
he fills in the eye of mankind, and, more than all the rest, his fall
from power, which, like death, canonizes and sanctifies a great
character, will not suffer me to censure any part of his conduct. I am
afraid to flatter him; I am sure I am not disposed to blame him. Let
those who have betrayed him by their adulation insult him with their
malevolence. But what I do not presume to censure I may have leave to
lament. For a wise man, he seemed to me at that time to be governed too
much by general maxims. I speak with the freedom of history, and I hope
without offence. One or two of these maxims, flowing from an opinion not
the most indulgent to our unhappy species, and surely a little too
general, led him into measures that were greatly mischievous to himself,
and for that reason, among others, perhaps fatal to his
country,--measures, the effects of which, I am afraid, are forever
incurable. He made an administration so checkered and speckled, he put
together a piece of joinery so crossly indented and whimsically
dovetailed, a cabinet so variously inlaid, such a piece of diversified
mosaic, such a tessellated pavement without cement,--here a bit of black
stone and there a bit of white, patriots and courtiers, king's friends
and republicans, Whigs and Tories, treacherous friends and open
enemies,--that it was, indeed, a very curious show, but utterly unsafe
to touch and unsure to stand on. The colleagues whom he had assorted at
the same boards stared at each other, and were obliged to ask,--"Sir,
your name?"--"Sir, you have the advantage of me."--"Mr. Such-a-one."--"I
beg a thousand pardons."--I venture to say, it did so happen that
persons had a single office divided between them, who had never spoke
to each other in their lives, until they found themselves, they knew not
how, pigging together, heads and points, in the same truckle-bed.[11]

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