hem. Such would, and, in no long time, must be, the
effect of attempting to forbid as a crime, and to suppress as an evil,
the command and blessing of Providence, "Increase and multiply." Such
would be the happy result of an endeavor to keep as a lair of wild
beasts that earth which God by an express charter has given to the
children of men. Far different, and surely much wiser, has been our
policy hitherto. Hitherto we have invited our people, by every kind of
bounty, to fixed establishments. We have invited the husbandman to look
to authority for his title. We have taught him piously to believe in the
mysterious virtue of wax and parchment. We have thrown each tract of
land, as it was peopled, into districts, that the ruling power should
never be wholly out of sight. We have settled all we could; and we have
carefully attended every settlement with government.

Adhering, Sir, as I do, to this policy, as well as for the reasons I
have just given, I think this new project of hedging in population to be
neither prudent nor practicable.

To impoverish the colonies in general, and in particular to arrest the
noble course of their marine enterprises, would be a more easy task. I
freely confess it. We have shown a disposition to a system of this
kind,--a disposition even to continue the restraint after the
offence,--looking on ourselves as rivals to our colonies, and persuaded
that of course we must gain all that they shall lose. Much mischief we
may certainly do. The power inadequate to all other things is often more
than sufficient for this. I do not look on the direct and immediate
power of the colonies to resist our violence as very formidable. In
this, however, I may be mistaken. But when I consider that we have
colonies for no purpose but to be serviceable to us, it seems to my poor
understanding a little preposterous to make them unserviceable, in order
to keep them obedient. It is, in truth, nothing more than the old, and,
as I thought, exploded problem of tyranny, which proposes 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 discontent will increase with misery; and that there are
critical moments in the fortune of all states, when they who are too
weak to contribute to your prosperity may be strong enough to complete
your ruin. _Spoliatis arma supersunt_.

The temper and character which prevail in