EQUITY OF TAXING THE COLONIES. tended that these regulations, however beneficial to the mother country, yielded any reciprocal advantage to the provinces upon which they were imposed. Such appears to me to be the true view of the question as it regards the equity of extending imperial taxation to the Colonies for the purpose of providing for their defence. I attach no weight to the fact of their having taxed themselves at the requisition of the Government, as an admission of the righteousness of such a claim. It is easy to understand that this people, proud of their British descent, and entertaining a sort of filial affection for the country from which they sprung, should willingly have submitted themselves to a share of her burden, when called upon to do so as an integral part of the British empire. Taxation, imposed through the channel of a representative assembly, was agreeable to the cherished tradition of English freedom, and a badge of that identity with their compatriots, the recognition of which they had asked in their earliest charters. But taxation, imposed by the mere authority of the central Government, was a badge of subjection and inferiority more suited to a conquered nation than to a race, the brothers and equals of the English people. Ch. 5. 1764 193 VOL. I. Reverence of the colonists Parliament. 6 ADDENDA TO CHAP. V. (A. p. 179.) They entered into general combinations to for the British eat no more lamb, and very few lambs were killed last year. They considered the Parliament as the great bulwark and security of their liberties and privileges, and always spoke of it with the utmost respect and veneration. Arbitrary ministers, they thought, might possibly at times attempt to oppress them; but they relied on it, that the Parliament, on application, would always give redress. They remembered, with gratitude, a strong instance of this, when a bill was brought into Parliament with a clause, to make royal instructions law in the colonies, which the House of Commons would not pass; and it was thrown out.'-FRANKLIN'S Examination, 1766. Their principal grievance. Authority of Mercantile system. (B. p. 185.) Franklin states the real grievance of these laws, It is not that Britain puts duties upon her own manufactures exported to us, but that she forbids us to buy the like manufactures from any other country.' Franklin was much pressed in his examination by questions having reference to the futility of the distinction between the right to impose external and internal taxation. At length he makes a significant reply,- Many arguments have been lately used here, to show that there is no difference, and that, if you have no right to tax them internally, you have no right to tax them externally. At present they do not reason so, but in time they may possibly be convinced by those arguments.' (C. p. 187.) The authority of Parliament was allowed to be valid in all laws, except such as should lay internal taxes. It was never disputed in laying duties to regulate commerce.'-FRANKLIN'S Examination. (D. p. 190.) The policy of Europe, therefore, has very little to boast of, either in the original establishment, or ADDENDA TO CHAP. V. far as concerns their internal government, in the subsequent prosperity of the colonies of America. 'The English Puritans, restrained at home, fled for freedom to America, and established there the four governments of New England. The English Catholics, treated with much greater injustice, established that of Maryland; the Quakers that of Pennsylvania. Upon all these different occasions, it was not the wisdom and policy, but the disorder and injustice, of the European governments, which peopled and cultivated America. When those establishments were effectuated, and had become so considerable as to attract the attention of the mother country, the first regulations which she made with regard to them had always in view to secure to herself the monopoly of their commerce; to confine their market, and to enlarge her own, at their expense; and, consequently, rather to damp and discourage than to quicken and forward the course of their prosperity. In the different ways in which this monopoly has been exercised consists one of the most essential differences in the policy of the different European nations with regard to their colonies. The best of them all, that of England, is only somewhat less illiberal and oppressive than that of any of the rest. In what way, therefore, has the policy of Europe contributed either to the first establishment or to the present grandeur of the colonies of America? In one way, and in one way only, it contributed a good deal. Magna virum mater? It bred and formed the men who were capable of achieving such great actions, and of laying the foundation of so great an empire; and there is no other quarter of the world of which the policy is capable of forming, or has ever actually and in fact formed such men.'-SMITH'S Wealth of Nations, Book iv. ch. 7. France. 195 (E. p. 192.) It began about the limits between Canada Origin of the and Nova Scotia, about territories to which the Crown, in war with deed laid claim, but were not claimed by any British colony; 1756. none of the lands had been granted to any colonist; we had 196 ADDENDA TO CHAP. V. therefore no particular concern or interest in that dispute.' -FRANKLIN's Examination, 1766. It would be of little moment to the English settlers already in possession of an ample territory with an extensive sea-board and navigable rivers, whether the vast continent of America was to be shared by another race, or to be monopolised by Great Britain. CHAPTER VI. THE STAMP ACT-ILLNESS OF THE KING-REGENCY BILL LIAMENT ON THIS QUESTION-ATTEMPT TO FORM Ch. 6. PARLIAMENT re-assembled on the tenth of January, and after some party skirmishing, the 1765 measure for levying taxes on the colonies, the Meeting of parliament. justice and expediency of which had hardly been disputed by any class of politicians, either in or out of Parliament, was laid upon the table of the House of Commons. Ever since the colonies had attained any degree of stability and importance, the idea of making them contribute to the support at least of the military establishment necessary for their protection had been entertained by successive statesmen. The project had been considered by the ministers of William the Third, of Anne, of George the First; and it was the sagacious prudence rather than the constitutional scruples of Walpole, that deterred him from stirring so dangerous a question.a a See Addenda A, p. 239. |