The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II | Page 7

certainly not! Every hour
you continue on this ill-chosen ground, your difficulties thicken on you;
and therefore my conclusion is, remove from a bad position as quickly
as you can. The disgrace, and the necessity of yielding, both of them,
grow upon you every hour of your delay.
But will you repeal the act, says the honorable gentleman, at this instant,
when America is in open resistance to your authority, and that you have
just revived your system of taxation? He thinks he has driven us into a
corner. But thus pent up, I am content to meet him; because I enter the
lists supported by my old authority, his new friends, the ministers
themselves. The honorable gentleman remembers that about five years
ago as great disturbances as the present prevailed in America on
account of the new taxes. The ministers represented these disturbances
as treasonable; and this House thought proper, on that representation, to
make a famous address for a revival and for a new application of a
statute of Henry the Eighth. We besought the king, in that
well-considered address, to inquire into treasons, and to bring the
supposed traitors from America to Great Britain for trial. His Majesty
was pleased graciously to promise a compliance with our request. All
the attempts from this side of the House to resist these violences, and to
bring about a repeal, were treated with the utmost scorn. An
apprehension of the very consequences now stated by the honorable
gentleman was then given as a reason for shutting the door against all
hope of such an alteration. And so strong was the spirit for supporting
the new taxes, that the session concluded with the following
remarkable declaration. After stating the vigorous measures which had
been pursued, the speech from the throne proceeds:--

"You have assured me of your firm support in the prosecution of them.
Nothing, in my opinion, could be more likely to enable the
well-disposed among my subjects in that part of the world effectually
to discourage and defeat the designs of the factious and seditious than
the hearty concurrence of every branch of the legislature in the
resolution of maintaining the execution of the laws in every part of my
dominions."
After this no man dreamt that a repeal under this ministry could
possibly take place. The honorable gentleman knows as well as I, that
the idea was utterly exploded by those who sway the House. This
speech was made on the ninth day of May, 1769. Five days after this
speech, that is, on the thirteenth of the same month, the public circular
letter, a part of which I am going to read to you, was written by Lord
Hillsborough, Secretary of State for the Colonies. After reciting the
substance of the king's speech, he goes on thus:--
"I can take upon me to assure you, notwithstanding insinuations to the
contrary from men with factious and seditious views, that his Majesty's
_present administration have at no time entertained a design to propose
to Parliament to lay any further taxes upon America, for the purpose
of_ RAISING A REVENUE; and that it is at present their intention to
propose, the next session of Parliament, to take off the duties upon
glass, paper, and colors, upon consideration of such duties having been
laid contrary to the true principles of commerce.
"These have always been, and still are, the sentiments of _his Majesty's
present servants_, and by which their conduct _in respect to America
has been governed._ And his Majesty relies upon your prudence and
fidelity for such an explanation of his measures as may tend to remove
the prejudices which have been excited by the misrepresentations of
those who are enemies to the peace and prosperity of Great Britain and
her colonies, and to reëstablish that mutual confidence and affection
upon which the glory and safety of the British empire depend."
Here, Sir, is a canonical boot of ministerial scripture: the general epistle
to the Americans. What does the gentleman say to it? Here a repeal is
promised,--promised without condition,--and while your authority was
actually resisted. I pass by the public promise of a peer relative to the
repeal of taxes by this House. I pass by the use of the king's name in a
matter of supply, that sacred and reserved right of the Commons. I

conceal the ridiculous figure of Parliament hurling its thunders at the
gigantic rebellion of America, and then, five days after, prostrate at the
feet of those assemblies we affected to despise,--begging them, by the
intervention of our ministerial sureties, to receive our submission, and
heartily promising amendment. These might have been serious matters
formerly; but we are grown wiser than our fathers. Passing, therefore,
from the Constitutional consideration to the mere policy, does not this