ose? Is not reparation to be made to the
public for any injury which it may have sustained, as much
as to an individual? Is the welfare of the nation in
general, of less consequence than that of a single person?
Where then is the propriety of making such a bustle about
the malice or innocence of the intention? The injury done is
the only proper measure of the punishment to be inflicted,
as well as of the damage to be assessed. Since you cannot
plead the intention as a mitigation in the latter case,
neither can you in the former."[19]

[Footnote 19: 16 Parl. Hist. 1291, 1292, 1293.]

What followed? On the 23d of July, 1771, he was made Attorney-General.
His subsequent history did not disappoint the prophecy uttered above
by his former conduct and his notorious character. "In truth his
success was certain, with the respectable share he possessed of real
talents and of valuable requirements--strongly marked features,
piercing eyes, bushy eyebrows, and a sonorous voice, all worked to the
best effect by an immeasurable share of self-confidence--he could not
fail."[20] He hated America with the intense malignity of a low but
strong and despotic nature, and "took a most zealous part and uttered
very violent language against the colonists. He scorned the very
notion of concession or conciliation; he considered 'sedition' and
'treason,' (like _tobacco_ and _potatoes_,) the peculiar plants of the
American soil. The natives of these regions he thought were born to be
taxed."[21] He favored the Stamp Act, the Coercion Bill,--quartering
soldiers upon us, sending Americans beyond seas for trial,--the Boston
Port Bill, and all the measures against the colonies. "To say that we
have a right to tax America and never exercise that right, is
ridiculous, and a man must abuse his understanding very much not to
allow of that right;" "the right of taxing was never in the least
given up to the Americans."[22] On another occasion he said, that "as
attorney-general he had a right to set aside every charter in
America."[23] What followed? Notwithstanding his youthful profligacy,
the open profanity of his public and private speech, and his living in
public and notorious contempt of matrimony,--he was made Lord
Chancellor and elevated to the peerage in 1778! Him also we shall meet
again.

[Footnote 20: 5 Campbell, 398.]

[Footnote 21: 5 Campbell, 410.]

[Footnote 22: 17 Parl. Hist. 1313.]

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