in this
House. This scheme was adopted with very general applause from all
sides, at the very time that, by your conquests in America, your danger
from foreign attempts in that part of the world was much lessened, or
indeed rather quite over. When this huge increase of military
establishment was resolved on, a revenue was to be found to support so
great a burden. Country gentlemen, the great patrons of economy, and the
great resisters of a standing armed force, would not have entered with
much alacrity into the vote for so large and so expensive an army, if
they had been very sure that they were to continue to pay for it. But
hopes of another kind were held out to them; and in particular, I well
remember that Mr. Townshend, in a brilliant harangue on this subject,
did dazzle them by playing before their eyes the image of a revenue to
be raised in America.

Here began to dawn the first glimmerings of this new colony system. It
appeared more distinctly afterwards, when it was devolved upon a person
to whom, on other accounts, this country owes very great obligations. I
do believe that he had a very serious desire to benefit the public. But
with no small study of the detail, he did not seem to have his view, at
least equally, carried to the total circuit of our affairs. He generally
considered his objects in lights that were rather too detached. Whether
the business of an American revenue was imposed upon him
altogether,--whether it was entirely the result of his own speculation,
or, what is more probable, that his own ideas rather coincided with the
instructions he had received,--certain it is, that, with the best
intentions in the world, he first brought this fatal scheme into form,
and established it by Act of Parliament.

No man can believe, that, at this time of day, I mean to lean on the
venerable memory of a great man, whose loss we deplore in common. Our
little party differences have been long ago composed; and I have acted
more with him, and certainly with more pleasure with him, than ever I
acted against him. Undoubtedly Mr. Grenville was a first-rate figure in
this country. With a masculine understanding, and a stout and resolute
heart, he had an application undissipated and unwearied. He took public
business, not as a duty which he was to fulfil, but as a pleasure he was
to enjoy; and he seemed to have no delight out of this House, except in
such things as some way related to the business that was to be done