mean the Act of Navigation. He
has often professed it to be so. The policy of that act is, I readily
admit, in many respects well understood. But I do say, that, if the act
be suffered to run the full length of its principle, and is not changed
and modified according to the change of times and the fluctuation of
circumstances, it must do great mischief, and frequently even defeat its
own purpose.

After the war, and in the last years of it, the trade of America had
increased far beyond the speculations of the most sanguine imaginations.
It swelled out on every side. It filled all its proper channels to the
brim. It overflowed with a rich redundance, and breaking its banks on
the right and on the left, it spread out upon some places where it was
indeed improper, upon others where it was only irregular. It is the
nature of all greatness not to be exact; and great trade will always be
attended with considerable abuses. The contraband will always keep pace
in some measure with the fair trade. It should stand as a fundamental
maxim, that no vulgar precaution ought to be employed in the cure of
evils which are closely connected with the cause of our prosperity.
Perhaps this great person turned his eyes somewhat less than was just
towards the incredible increase of the fair trade, and looked with
something of too exquisite a jealousy towards the contraband. He
certainly felt a singular degree of anxiety on the subject, and even
began to act from that passion earlier than is commonly imagined. For
whilst he was First Lord of the Admiralty, though not strictly called
upon in his official line, he presented a very strong memorial to the
Lords of the Treasury, (my Lord Bute was then at the head of the board,)
heavily complaining of the growth of the illicit commerce in America.
Some mischief happened even at that time from this over-earnest zeal.
Much greater happened afterwards, when it operated with greater power in
the highest department of the finances. The bonds of the Act of
Navigation were straitened so much that America was on the point of
having no trade, either contraband or legitimate. They found, under the
construction and execution then used, the act no longer tying, but
actually strangling them. All this coming with new enumerations of
commodities, with regulations which in a manner put a stop to the mutual
coasting intercourse of the colonies, with the appointment of courts of
admiralty under various improper circum