The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II | Page 9

do, repealed these taxes, then your strong operations would

have come justified and enforced, in case your concessions had been
returned by outrages. But, preposterously, you began with violence;
and before terrors could have any effect, either good or bad, your
ministers immediately begged pardon, and promised that repeal to the
obstinate Americans which they had refused in an easy, good-natured,
complying British Parliament. The assemblies, which had been publicly
and avowedly dissolved for their contumacy, are called together to
receive your submission. Your ministerial directors blustered like tragic
tyrants here; and then went mumping with a sore leg in America,
canting, and whining, and complaining of faction, which represented
them as friends to a revenue from the colonies. I hope nobody in this
House will hereafter have the impudence to defend American taxes in
the name of ministry. The moment they do, with this letter of attorney
in my hand, I will tell them, in the authorized terms, they are wretches
"with factious and seditious views," "enemies to the peace and
prosperity of the mother country and the colonies," and subverters "of
the mutual affection and confidence on which the glory and safety of
the British empire depend."
After this letter, the question is no more on propriety or dignity. They
are gone already. The faith of your sovereign is pledged for the political
principle. The general declaration in the letter goes to the whole of it.
You must therefore either abandon the scheme of taxing, or you must
send the ministers tarred and feathered to America, who dared to hold
out the royal faith for a renunciation of all taxes for revenue. Them you
must punish, or this faith you must preserve. The preservation of this
faith is of more consequence than the duties on red lead, or white lead,
or on broken glass, or _atlas-ordinary_, or _demy-fine_, or
_blue-royal_, or bastard, or fools cap, which you have given up, or the
three-pence on tea which you retained. The letter went stamped with
the public authority of this kingdom. The instructions for the colony
government go under no other sanction; and America cannot believe,
and will not obey you, if you do not preserve this channel of
communication sacred. You are now punishing the colonies for acting
on distinctions held out by that very ministry which is here shining in
riches, in favor, and in power, and urging the punishment of the very
offence to which they had themselves been the tempters.
Sir, if reasons respecting simply your own commerce, which is your

own convenience, were the sole grounds of the repeal of the five duties,
why does Lord Hillsborough, in disclaiming in the name of the king
and ministry their ever having had an intent to tax for revenue, mention
it as the means "of reëstablishing the confidence and affection of the
colonies?" Is it a way of soothing others, to assure them that you will
take good care of _yourself_? The medium, the only medium, for
regaining their affection and confidence is that you will take off
something oppressive to their minds. Sir, the letter strongly enforces
that idea: for though the repeal of the taxes is promised on commercial
principles, yet the means of counteracting the "insinuations of men with
factious and seditious views" is by a disclaimer of the intention of
taxing for revenue, as a constant, invariable sentiment and rule of
conduct in the government of America.
I remember that the noble lord on the floor, not in a former debate to be
sure, (it would be disorderly to refer to it, I suppose I read it
somewhere,) but the noble lord was pleased to say, that he did not
conceive how it could enter into the head of man to impose such taxes
as those of 1767: I mean those taxes which he voted for imposing, and
voted for repealing,--as being taxes, contrary to all the principles of
commerce, laid on British manufactures.
I dare say the noble lord is perfectly well read, because the duty of his
particular office requires he should be so, in all our revenue laws, and
in the policy which is to be collected out of them. Now, Sir, when he
had read this act of American revenue, and a little recovered from his
astonishment, I suppose he made one step retrograde (it is but one) and
looked at the act which stands just before in the statute-book. The
American revenue act is the forty-fifth chapter; the other to which I
refer is the forty-fourth of the same session. These two acts are both to
the same purpose: both revenue acts; both taxing out of the kingdom;
and both taxing British manufactures exported. As the forty-fifth is an
act for raising a revenue in America, the forty-fourth is an