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CHAP. consistencies in its legislation on the subject; and then entered upon a splendid eulogy of the colonies, 1775. whose rapid growth from families to communities, 22. from villages to nations, attended by a commerce, great out of all proportion to their numbers, had added to England in a single life as much as England had been growing to in a series of seventeen hundred years.

"As to the wealth which the colonies have drawn from the sea by their fisheries," he continued, speak ing specially of the bill then in its last stage before the house, "you had all that matter fully opened at your bar. And pray, sir, what in the world is equal to it? Pass by the other parts, and look at the manner in which the people of New England have of late carried on the whale fishery. Whilst we follow them among the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold them penetrating into the deepest frozen recesses of Hudson's Bay and Davis's Straits, whilst we are looking for them beneath the arctic circle, we hear that they have pierced into the opposite region of polar cold, that they are at the antipodes, and engaged under the frozen serpent of the south. Falkland Island, which seemed too remote and romantic an object for the grasp of national ambition, is but a stage and resting place in the progress of their victorious industry. Nor is the equinoctial heat more discouraging to them, than the accumulated winter of both the poles. We know that whilst some of them draw the line and strike the harpoon on the coast of Africa, others run the longitude, and pursue their gigantic game along the coast of Brazil. No sea but what is vexed by their fishe

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ries. No climate that is not witness to their toils. CHAP. Neither the perseverance of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dexterous and firm sagacity of 1775. English enterprise, ever carried this most perilous 22. mode of hard industry to the extent to which it has been pushed by this recent people; a people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood. When I contemplate these things; when I know that the colonies in general owe little or nothing to any care of ours, and that they are not squeezed into this happy form by the constraints of watchful and suspicious government, but that, through a wise and salutary neglect, a generous nature has been suffered to take her own way to perfection; when I reflect upon these effects, when I see how profitable they have been to us, I feel all the pride of power sink, and all presumption in the wisdom of human contrivances melt and die away within me. My rigor relents. I pardon something to the spirit of liberty.

"From six capital sources, of descent; of form of government; of religion in the northern provinces ; of manners in the southern; of education; of the remoteness of situation from the first mover of government; from all these causes a fierce spirit of liberty has grown up. It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to prosecute that spirit as criminal; to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest. I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.

"My idea, therefore, without considering whether we yield as matter of right, or grant as matter of favor, is to admit the people of our colonies into an

CHAP. interest in the constitution. A revenue from Amer

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22.

XXIV. ica! You never can receive it, no, not a shilling. 1775. For all service, whether of revenue, trade, or empire, my trust is in her interest in the British constitution. My hold of the colonies is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties, which though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights associated with your government— they will cling and grapple to you; and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them from their allegiance. But let it be once understood that your government may be one thing, and their privileges another; that these two things may exist without any mutual relation; the cement is gone; the cohesion is loosened; and every thing hastens to decay and dissolution. As long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of England worship freedom, they will turn their faces towards you. The more they multiply, the more friends you will have; the more ardently they love liberty, the more perfect will be their obedience. Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in every soil. But until you become lost to all feeling of your true interest and your natural dignity, freedom they can have from none but you. This is the commodity of price, of which you have the monopoly. This is the true act of navigation, which binds to you the commerce of the colonies, and through them secures to you the

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wealth of the world. Deny them this participation CHAP. of freedom, and you break the unity of the empire. It is the spirit of the English constitution, which, 1775. infused through the mighty mass, pervades, feeds, 22. unites, invigorates, vivifies every part of the empire, even down to the minutest member. Is it not the same virtue which does every thing for us here in England?

"All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical to the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians, who think that nothing exists but what is gross and material; and who, therefore, far from being qualified to be directors of the great movement of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine. But to men truly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master principles, which, in the opinion of such men as I have mentioned, have no substantial existence, are in truth every thing, and all in all. Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together. If we are conscious of our situation, and glow with zeal to fill our places as becomes our station and ourselves, we ought to auspicate all our public proceedings on America, with the old warning of the church, LIFT UP YOUR HEARTS! We ought to elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust to which the order of Providence has called us. By adverting to the dignity of this high calling, our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire; and have made the most extensive, and the only honorable conquests, not by destroying, but by promoting the

CHAP. wealth, the number, the happiness of the human

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race."

1775. For three hours, Burke was heard with atten

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22. tion;

tion; but after a reply by Jenkinson, his deep wisdom was scoffed away by a vote of more than three to one. It was the moment of greatest depression to the friends of liberty in England; their efforts in parliament only exposed their want of power. Ministers anticipated as little resistance in the colonies.