feelings of Great Britain.
Theirs were formerly the feelings of Mr. Hampden when called upon for
the payment of twenty shillings. Would twenty shillings have ruined Mr.
Hampden's fortune? No! but the payment of half twenty shillings, on the
principle it was demanded, would have made him a slave. It is the weight
of that preamble of which you are so fond, and not the weight of the
duty, that the Americans are unable and unwilling to bear.

It is then, sir, upon the _principle_ of this measure, and nothing else,
that we are at issue. It is a principle of political expediency. Your
Act of 1767 asserts that it is expedient to raise a revenue in America;
your Act of 1769, which takes away that revenue, contradicts the Act of
1767, and by something much stronger than words asserts that it is not
expedient. It is a reflection upon your wisdom to persist in a solemn
Parliamentary declaration of the expediency of any object for which at
the same time you make no sort of provision. And pray, sir, let not this
circumstance escape you,--it is very material: that the preamble of this
Act which we wish to repeal is not _declaratory of a right_, as some
gentlemen seem to argue it; it is only a recital of the _expediency_ of
a certain exercise of a right supposed already to have been asserted; an
exercise you are now contending for by ways and means which you confess,
though they were obeyed, to be utterly insufficient for their purpose.
You are therefore at this moment in the awkward situation of fighting
for a phantom, a quiddity, a thing that wants not only a substance, but
even a name; for a thing which is neither abstract right nor profitable
enjoyment.

They tell you, sir, that your dignity is tied to it. I know not how it
happens, but this dignity of yours is a terrible incumbrance to you; for
it has of late been ever at war with your interest, your equity, and
every idea of your policy. Show the thing you contend for to be reason;
show it to be common-sense; show it to be the means of attaining some
useful end: and then I am content to allow it what dignity you please.
But what dignity is derived from the perseverance in absurdity, is
more than ever I could discern. The honorable gentleman has said
well--indeed, in most of his _general_ observations I agree with him--he
says that this subject does not stand as it did formerly. Oh, certainly
not! Every hour you continue on this ill-chosen ground, your
difficulties thicken on yo