The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II | Page 6

will force the colonists to take the
teas. You will force them? Has seven years' struggle been yet able to
force them? Oh, but it seems "we are in the right. The tax is trifling,--in
effect it is rather an exoneration than an imposition; three fourths of the
duty formerly payable on teas exported to America is taken off,--the
place of collection is only shifted; instead of the retention of a shilling
from the drawback here, it is three-pence custom paid in America." All
this, Sir, is very true. But this is the very folly and mischief of the act.
Incredible as it may seem, you know that you have deliberately thrown
away a large duty, which you held secure and quiet in your hands, for
the vain hope of getting one three fourths less, through every hazard,
through certain litigation, and possibly through war.
The manner of proceeding in the duties on paper and glass, imposed by
the same act, was exactly in the same spirit. There are heavy excises on
those articles, when used in England. On export, these excises are
drawn back. But instead of withholding the drawback, which might
have been done, with ease, without charge, without possibility of
smuggling, and instead of applying the money (money already in your
hands) according to your pleasure, you began your operations in
finance by flinging away your revenue; you allowed the whole

drawback on export, and then you charged the duty, (which you had
before discharged,) payable in the colonies, where it was certain the
collection would devour it to the bone,--if any revenue were ever
suffered to be collected at all. One spirit pervades and animates the
whole mass.
Could anything be a subject of more just alarm to America than to see
you go out of the plain highroad of finance, and give up your most
certain revenues and your clearest interest, merely for the sake of
insulting your colonies? No man ever doubted that the commodity of
tea could bear an imposition of three-pence. But no commodity will
bear three-pence, or will bear a penny, when the general feelings of
men are irritated, and two millions of people are resolved not to pay.
The feelings of the colonies were formerly the 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 dignify 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,