are found in all their school books. Mr. Pitt, in a speech which I have
quoted at length in a previous chapter, said expressly:

"Let the sovereign authority of this country over the colonies be
asserted in as strong terms as can be devised, and be made to extend to
every point of legislation whatsoever, that we may bind their trade,
confine their manufactures, and exercise every power except that of
taking their money out of their pockets without their consent."

Mr. Pitt therefore advocated the repeal of the Stamp Act with all his
fiery eloquence and energy, saying that he rejoiced that the colonists
had resisted that Act--not by riots or force of arms, but by every
constitutional mode of resistance, in the expression of public opinion
against an unjust and oppressive measure. Mr. Pitt's speech has been
quoted by American writers, and inserted in American school books, to
justify the resistance of America to England in the revolution which was
declared in 1776; but his speech was delivered, and the Act against
which it was delivered was repealed, ten years before. The United Empire
Loyalists were as much opposed to the Stamp Act as any other colonists,
and rejoiced as heartily at its repeal.

Edmund Burke was the appointed agent of the province of New York, and no
member of the House of Commons equalled him in the eloquent and
elaborate advocacy of the popular rights of the colonies. Extracts from
his speeches have been circulated in every form, and in unnumbered
repetition in American periodicals and school books; but what he said as
to the authority of Parliament over the colonies has not found so wide a
circulation in America. In advocating the repeal of the Stamp Act, in
his celebrated speech on _American taxation_, Mr. Burke said:

"What is to become of the Declaratory Act, asserting the entireness of
British legislative authority, if we abandon the practice of taxation?
For my part, I look upon the rights stated in that Act exactly in the
manner in which I viewed them on its very first proposition, and which I
have often taken the liberty, with great humility, to lay before you. I
look, I say, on the imperial rights of Great Britain, and the privileges
which the colonists ought to enjoy under those rights, to be just the
most reconcilable things in the world. The Parliament of Great Britain
sits at the head of her extensive empire in two capacities: one, as the
local Legislature of this island, providing for