an
event which gave him the greatest concern. America, he said, would never
again see such happy days as she had passed under the protection of
England. He observed, that ours was the only instance of a great empire
in which the most distant parts and members had been as well governed as
the metropolis and its vicinage, but that the Americans were going to
lose the means which secured to them this rare and precious advantage.
The question with them was not, whether they were to remain as they had
been before the troubles,--for better, he allowed, they could not hope
to be,--but whether they were to give up so happy a situation without a
struggle. Mr. Burke had several other conversations with him about that
time, in none of which, soured and exasperated as his mind certainly
was, did he discover any other wish in favor of America than for a
security to its _ancient_ condition. Mr. Burke's conversation with other
Americans was large, indeed, and his inquiries extensive and diligent.
Trusting to the result of all these means of information, but trusting
much more in the public presumptive indications I have just referred to,
and to the reiterated solemn declarations of their Assemblies, he always
firmly believed that they were purely on the defensive in that
rebellion. He considered the Americans as standing at that time, and in
that controversy, in the same relation to England as England did to King
James the Second in 1688. He believed that they had taken up arms from
one motive only: that is, our attempting to tax them without their
consent,--to tax them for the purposes of maintaining civil and military
establishments. If this attempt of ours could have been practically
established, he thought, with them, that their Assemblies would become
totally useless,--that, under the system of policy which was then
pursued, the Americans could have no sort of security for their laws or
liberties, or for any part of them,--and that the very circumstance of
_our_ freedom would have augmented the weight of _their_ slavery.

Considering the Americans on that defensive footing, he thought Great
Britain ought instantly to have closed with them by the repeal of the
taxing act. He was of opinion that our general rights over that country
would have been preserved by this timely concession.[9] When, instead of
this, a Boston Port Bill, a Massachusetts Charter Bill, a Fishery Bill,
an Intercourse Bill, I know not how many hostile bills, rus