Page:Journal of the First Congress of the American Colonies (1765).djvu/54

 fer with it. A due subordination on the part of the colonies is- essential to this union. I acknowledge, sir, that there must exist a power somewhere to superintend and regulate the movements of the whole, for the attainment and preservation of our common happiness; and this supreme power can be justly and adequately exercised only by the legislature of Great Britain. In this doctrime the Colonies tacitly and willingly acquiesced, and were happy. England has enjoyed from it all the advantages of an exclusive trade. Why, then, would you strain this authority so far as to render a submission to it impossible without 'a surrender of those liberties which are the most valuable to civil society, and which were ever acknowledged to be the birthright of an Englishman. While Great Britain derives from the Colonies the most ample supplies of wealth by her commerce, is it not an absurd fatuity to close up these channels for the sake of a claim of imposing such taxes as (though but a young member)I will dare to say, never have and never will defray the expense and trouble of collecting them.

The expediency of coercive measures 'is much insisted on by some, who, I am sorry to say, seem to consider more the distress and difficulty into which they may involve the Americans, than the benefits they can procure from such vindictive conduct to this country. Humanity, how. ever, will prompt the generous mind to weep over severities, even when they are necessary. And the prudent statesman will reflect that the Colonies cannot suffer without injury to the mother country. They are your customers-they consume your mamy"actures-and, by distressing them, if you do not drive them to foreign markets, you will at least disable them from taking your commodities, and from making you adequate re. tums for what 'they have taken.

Even should coercive measures reduce them to anacknowledegment of the equity of Parliamentary taxation, what are the advantages that will result from it? ` Can it be believed that Americans will be dragooned into a conviction of this right 'I Will severities increase their affection and make them more desirous of a connection with, and dependence on Great Britain ls it not, on the contrary, reasonable to conclude that the effect will be an increase of jealousy and discontent? That they will seek all occasions of evading laws imposed on them by violence 2 That they will be restless under the yoke and think themselves happy in any opportunity of dying to the protection of some other power, irom the subjection of a mother whom they consider cruel and vindictive? I would not be understood, sir, to deny altogether the good intentions of administration. The abilities of the minister, * it seems, 'are universally acknowledged. But, sir, I must add the maxim of ' humgnum est errari.” And though an American, I must applaud his zeal ibr the dignity of paiIa'¢lN0!t-lk