"The Americans may insist upon the same rights, privileges, and exemptions, as are allowed the Irish, because of the similarity, if not identity, of their connexions with us."

Surely the Americans deserve a little more. They never put you to the trouble and expense of conquering them, as Ireland has done three times over. They never were in rebellion. I speak now of the native Irish. The English families settled there lost no rights by their merit in conquering that country.

"But if any distinction were to be made, most certainly, of the two nations, the Americans are least entitled to any lenity on that score."

I wonder much at this "most certainly."

"The terms she may not think safe and proper to grant the Irish, she may judge full as dangerous and imprudent to grant the Americans.”

It is very imprudent to deprive America of any of her privileges. If her commerce and friendship are of any importance to you, they are to be had on no other terms, than leaving her in the full enjoyment of her rights.

"Long before we could send among them any considerable number of forces, they might do a great deal of mischief, if not actually overturn all order and government."

They will take care to preserve order and government for their own sakes.

"Several other reasons might be offered, why the same measures, in regard to both nations, might not be altogether alike convenient and advisable."

Where you cannot so conveniently use force, there you should endeavour to secure affection.

OBSERVATIONS

ON

PASSAGES IN A PAMPHLET,

ENTITLED

"THE TRUE CONSTITUTIONAL MEANS

FOR

PUTTING AN END TO THE DISPUTES

BETWEEN

GREAT BRITAIN AND THE AMERICAN COLONIES.

LONDON, 1769."*

Extract. "EVERY British subject must acknowledge, that the directive influence of the British state remains with the British legislature, who are the only proper judges of what concerns the general welfare of the whole empire."

Observation. The British state is only the Island of Great Britain; the British legislature are undoubtedly the only proper judges of what concerns the welfare of that state; but the Irish legislature are the proper judges of what concerns the Irish state, and the American legislatures of what concerns the American states respectively. By "the whole empire" does this writer mean all the King's dominions? If so, the British Parliaments should also govern the Isles of Jersey and Guernsey, and Hanover; but this is not so.

"But the land tax, which I have proposed, is in its very nature unoppressive, and is equally well suited to the poorest as to the richest province of the British empire."

* See above, 206, 211, 215, 281.

This writer seems ignorant, that every colony has its own civil and military establishment to provide for; new roads and bridges to make; churches and all public edifices to erect; and would he separately tax them, moreover, with a tax on lands equal to what is paid in Britain?

"The colonists must possess a luxuriant abundance to be able to double their inhabitants in so short a space."

How does this appear? Is not a mere competence sufficient for this purpose? If America will consent to pay thus its proportion of British taxes, will Britain pay out of the whole all the American taxes? Or is America to pay both?

"The produce of the planters purchases for them what others buy with gold and silver; but even several of the colonists of the rank of good livers have often been seen to pay the price of a negro with gold. As instances of Virginian luxury, I have been assured, that there are few families there without some plate; and that at some entertainments the attendants have appeared almost as numerous as the guests."

Was not the gold first purchased by the produce of his land, obtained by hard labor? Does gold drop from the clouds in Virginia into the laps of the indolent? Their very purchasing plate and other superfluities from England is one means of disabling them from paying taxes to England. Would you have it both in meal and malt? It has been a great folly in the Americans to entertain English gentlemen with a splendid hospitality ill suited to their circumstances; by which they excited no other grateful sentiments in their guests, than that of a desire to tax the landlord.

"It cannot be deemed exorbitant, considering their traffic with the French sugar islands, as well as with

our own; and this will make the whole of their importations four millions per annum."

This is arguing the riches of a people from their extravagance; the very thing that keeps them poor.

"The inhabitants of Great Britain pay above thirteen millions sterling every year, including turnpikes and the poor's rates, two articles which the colonists are exempt from."

A turnpike tax is no burden, as the turnpike gives more benefit than it takes. And ought the rich in Britain, who have made such numbers of poor by engrossing all the small divisions of land, and who keep the laborers and working people poor by limiting their wages, ought those gentry to complain of the burden of maintaining the poor that have worked for them at unreasonably low rates all their lives? As well might the planter complain of his being obliged to maintain his poor negroes, when they grow old, are sick, or lame, and unable to provide for themselves.

"For though all pay by the same law, yet none can be required to pay beyond his ability; and the fund from whence the tax is raised, is, in the colonies that are least inhabited, just as able to bear the burden imposed, as in the most populous county of Great Britain."

The colonies are almost always considered by these ignorant, flimsy writers, as unwilling to contribute to the general exigencies of the state; which is not true. They are always willing, but will have the granting of their own money themselves; in which they are right for various reasons.

"They would be content to take land from us gratuitously."

What land have they ever taken from you? The lands did not belong to the crown, but to the Indians,

of whom the colonists either purchased them at their own expense, or conquered them without assistance from Britain. The engagement to settle the American lands, and the expense of settlement, are more than equivalent for what was of no value to Britain without a first settlement.

"The rental of the lands in Great Britain and Ireland amounts to about twenty-two millions; but the rental of the same extent of lands in America is not probably one million sterling."

What signifies extent of unsettled lands, that produce nothing?

"I beg to know if the returns of any traffic on earth ever produced so many per cent, as the returns of agriculture in a fertile soil and favorable climate.”

How little this politician knows of agriculture! Is there any county where ten bushels of grain are generally got in for one sown? And are all the charges and advances for labor to be nothing? No farmer of America in fact makes five per cent of his money. His profit is only being paid for his own labor, and that of his children. The opulence of one English. or Dutch merchant would make the opulence of a hundred American farmers.

"It may, I think, be safely concluded, that the riches of the colonists would not increase so fast, were the inhabitants to leave off enlarging their settlements and plantations, and run eagerly upon manufactures."

There is no necessity of leaving their plantations; they can manufacture in their families at spare times. Depend upon it, the Americans are not so impolitic, as to neglect settlements for unprofitable manufactures; but some manufactures may be more advantageous to some persons, than the cultivation of land, and these will prosecute such manufactures notwithstanding your oratory.