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Show I 23 ] [22] are f0 fond, and not the weight of the duty, that the Americans are unable and unwilling to bear. They tell you, Sir, that your dignity is tied to it. Iknow not how it happens, but this dignity of yours is a terrible incumbrance to you; It is then, Sir, upon the prirzczple of this for it has oflate been ever at war with your interef'c, your equity, and every idea ofyour policy. Shew the thing you contend for to be meafure, and nothing elfe, that we are at if- fue. It is a principle of political expediency. reafon; thew it to be common fenfe ; {hewit to be the means of attaining fome ufeful end; Your a€t of 1767 aflerts, that it is expedient and then I am content to allow it what dignity you pleafe. But what dignity is derived from the perfeverance in ablurdity is more than everI could difcern. The Hon. Gentleman to raife a revenue in America; your‘aé‘c of 1769, which takes away that revenue, co'n~tradiéls the ac't of 1767; and, by fomething much firo'nger than words, afierts, that it is not expedient. It is a reflexion upon your wifdom to perfif'c in a folemn parliamentary declaration of the expediency of any objeét, for which, at the fame time, you make-no fort ofprovifion. And pray, Sir, let not this has faid well-indeed, in molt of his general obfervationsl agree with him-he fays, that this fubjeét does not {land as it did formerly. Oh, certainly not! every hour you continue on this ill-chofen ground, your difficulties thicken on you ; and therefore my conclufion circumfrance efcape you ; it is very material; is, remove from a bad petition as quickly as that the preamble of this aét, which we Wifh you can. to repeal, is not dec/ammry ofzz right, as fome yielding, both of them, grow upon you every hour of your delay. gentlemen teem to argue it; it is onlya recital of the expert/c2124}! of a certain exercife of a right fnppoletl already to have been aflerted; an ex- erexfe you are now contending for by ways and means, which you confefs, though they were obeyed, to be utterly infuflicicnt for their pur- pofe. You are thereforeat this moment in the aukward lituation of lighting for a phantom ; a quiddity; a thing that wants, not only a fubltance, but even a name; The difgrace, and the neceflity of But will you repeal the aé'r, fays the Hon. Gentleman, at this inftant when Ame- rica is in open refiiltance to your authority, and that you have jull: revived your fyflem of taxation? He thinks he has driv n us into a corner. But thus pent up, I am content to meet him ; becaufe I enter the lifts fupported for a thing, by my old authority, his new friends, the mi- which is neither abfiraél right, nor profitable enjoyment. They nifiers themfelves. The Hon. Gentleman re- B 4 members, |