Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 5.djvu/63

] of a class. All legislation, therefore, whatever, is the work of representation, and any other is impossible, any other is illegal, within this empire of Great Britain.



Again, the distinctions betwixt excise and customs duties is equally spurious. The land as well as the sea is ours, that is, the people's. We maintain order and safety on land as well as on sea. We expend our money for it, and therefore have a right to be reimbursed that outlay; but in either case, only by constitutional methods.

We had expended much to clear America of the French; to defend the colonists against the Indians. We had a right to repayment as much there as on the sea; but nobody disputed this. The Americans had discharged these debts through the true channel of representation through their provincial assemblies, and were ready to do it again. We might do anything but take the colonists’ money out of their pockets, said Pitt; but customs duties did this entirely as much as the excise. The colonists had to pay the amount of that duty in the augmented price of the imported goods; and we shall soon find Franklin himself coming to a clear perception of these facts, and assisting to arouse his countrymen to reject duties just as much as excise. In fact, it was on the question of import duties that the Americans finally rebelled; it was in fighting out that issue that we lost America. What an absurd notion was that, that you might do anything but take the money out of the colonists' pockets! On this principle you might crush their trade, destroy their liberty, and interfere with their religion; not one of which things they would have allowed you to do.

The declaratory act passed readily enough, for all parties agreed in it; but the repeal of the stamp act met with stout opposition. Grenville, with the pertinacity of a man who glories in his disgrace, resisted it at every stage. When he was hissed by the people, he declared that "he rejoiced in