nificent auction of finance, where captivated provinces come to general ranfom by bidding against each other, until you knock down the hammer, and determine a proportion of payments, beyond all the powers of algebra to equalise and settle.

The plan, which I fhall presume to fuggeft, derives, however, one great advantage from the propofition and registry of that noble lord's project. The idea of conciliation is admiffible. First, the house in accepting the resolution moved by the noble lord, has admitted, notwithstanding the menacing front of our address, notwithstanding our heavy bill of pains and penalties-that we do not think ourselves precluded from all ideas of free grace and bounty.

The houfe has gone farther; it has declared conciliation admiffible, previous to any fubmiffion on the part of America. It has even fhot a good deal beyond that mark, and has admitted, that the complaints of our former mode of exerting the right of taxation were not wholly unfounded. That right thus exerted is allowed to have had fomething reprehenfible in it; fomething unwife, or fomething grievous; fince, in the midst of our heat and refentment, we, of ourselves, have propofed a capital alteration; and, in order to get rid of what seemed fo very exceptionable, have inftituted a mode that is altogether new; one that is, VOL. III. indeed,

D

indeed, wholly alien from all the ancient methods and forms of parliament.

The principle of this proceeding is large enough for my purpose. The means proposed by the noble lord for carrying his ideas into execution, I think indeed, are very indifferently suited to the end; and this I fhall endeavour to fhew you before I fit down. But, for the prefent, I take my ground on the admitted principle. I mean to give peace. Peace implies reconciliation; and where there has been a material difpute, reconciliation does in a manner always imply conceffion on the one part or on the other. In this state of things I make no difficulty in affirming, that the propofal ought to originate from us. Great and acknowledged force is not impaired, either in effect or in opinion, by an unwillingness to exert itself. The fuperiour power may offer peace with honour and with fafety. Such an offer from such a power will be attributed to magnanimity. But the conceffions of the weak are the conceffions of fear. When fuch a one is difarmed, he is wholly at the mercy of his fuperiour; and he lofes for ever that time and thofe chances, which, as they happen to all men, are the strength and refources of all inferiour power.

The capital leading queftions on which you muft this day decide, are thefe two. First, whether you

ought

ought to concede; and fecondly, what your conceffion ought to be. On the first of these queftions we have gained (as I have just taken the li berty of obferving to you) fome ground. But I am fenfible that a good deal more is still to be done. Indeed, Sir, to enable us to determine both on the one and the other of these great questions with a firm and precife judgment, I think it may be neceffary to confider diftinctly the true nature and the peculiar circumstances of the object which we have before us. Because after all our ftruggle, whether we will or not, we muft govern America, according to that nature, and to thofe circumftances; and not according to our own imaginations; not according to abftract ideas of right; by no means according to mere general theories of government, the resort to which appears to me, in our present situation, no better than arrant trifling. I fhall therefore endeavour, with your leave, to lay before you fome of the most material of thefe circumstances in as full and as clear a manner as I am able to ftate them.

The firft thing that we have to confider with regard to the nature of the object is the number of people in the colonics. I have taken for fome years a good deal of pains on that point. I can by no calculation justify myself in placing the number below two millions of inhabitants of our own European blood and colour; befides at leaft

500,000 others, who form no inconfiderable part of the ftrength and opulence of the whole. This, Sir, is, I believe, about the true number. There is no occafion to exaggerate, where plain truth is of fo much weight and importance. But whether I put the present numbers too high or too low, is a matter of little moment. Such is the strength with which population shoots in that part of the world, that ftate the numbers as high as we will, whilft the dispute continues, the exaggeration ends. Whilst we are difcuffing any given magnitude, they are grown to it. Whilft we spend our time in deliberating on the mode of governing two millions, we fhall find we have millions more to manage. Your children do not grow fafter from infancy to manhood, than they spread from families to communities, and from villages to nations.

I put this confideration of the present and the growing numbers in the front of our deliberation; becaufe, Sir, this confideration will make it evident to a blunter difcernment than yours, that no partial, narrow, contracted, pinched, occafional fyftem will be at all fuitable to fuch an object. It will fhew you, that it is not to be confidered as one of thofe minima which are out of the eye and confideration of the law; not a paltry excrefcence of the ftate; not a mean dependant, who may be neglected with little damage, and provoked with

little danger. It will prove, that fome degree of care and caution is required in the handling fuch an object; it will fhew that you ought not, in reason, to trifle with fo large a mass of the interefts and feelings of the human race. You could at no time do so without guilt; and be affured you will not be able to do it long with impunity.

But the population of, this country, the great and growing population, though a very important consideration, will lofe much of its weight, if not, combined with other circumftances. The commerce of your colonies is out of all proportion beyond the numbers of the people. This ground of their commerce indeed has been trod fome days ago, and with great ability, by a distinguished person,* at your bar. This gentleman, after thirtyfive years-it is fo long fince he first appeared at the fame place to plead for the commerce of Great Britain has come again before you to plead the same cause, without any other effect of time, than, that to the fire of imagination and extent of erudition, which even then marked him as one of the first literary characters of his age, he has added a confummate knowledge in the commercial interest of his country, formed by a long course of enlightened and difcriminating experience. Sir, I fhould be inexcufable in coming after fuch