ssary for the satisfaction of the colonies
than for the dignity and consistency of our own future proceedings.

I have taken a very incorrect measure of the disposition of the House,
if this proposal in itself would be received with dislike. I think, Sir,
we have few American financiers. But our misfortune is, we are too
acute, we are too exquisite in our conjectures of the future, for men
oppressed with such great and present evils. The more moderate among the
opposers of Parliamentary concession freely confess that they hope no
good from taxation; but they apprehend the colonists have further views,
and if this point were conceded, they would instantly attack the trade
laws. These gentlemen are convinced that this was the intention from the
beginning, and the quarrel of the Americans with taxation was no more
than a cloak and cover to this design. Such has been the language even
of a gentleman[23] of real moderation, and of a natural temper well
adjusted to fair and equal government. I am, however, Sir, not a little
surprised at this kind of discourse, whenever I hear it; and I am the
more surprised on account of the arguments which I constantly find in
company with it, and which are often urged from the same mouths and on
the same day.

For instance, when we allege that it is against reason to tax a people
under so many restraints in trade as the Americans, the noble lord[24]
in the blue riband shall tell you that the restraints on trade are
futile and useless, of no advantage to us, and of no burden to those on
whom they are imposed,--that the trade to America is not secured by the
Acts of Navigation, but by the natural and irresistible advantage of a
commercial preference.

Such is the merit of the trade laws in this posture of the debate. But
when strong internal circumstances are urged against the taxes,--when
the scheme is dissected,--when experience and the nature of things are
brought to prove, and do prove, the utter impossibility of obtaining an
effective revenue from the colonies,--when these things are pressed, or
rather press themselves, so as to drive the advocates of colony taxes to
a clear admission of the futility of the scheme,--then, Sir, the
sleeping trade laws revive from their trance, and this useless taxation
is to be kept sacred, not for its own sake, but as a counter-guard and
security of the laws of trade.

Then, Sir, you keep up revenue laws which are mischievous in order to
preserve tra