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Show [3.8] if I can help it, than f0 ferious a matter requires, ' [39] that whole period, a parliamentary revenue from thence was never once in contemplation. Accordingly in all the number of laws pafl'ed Permit me then, Sir, to lead your atten. tion very far back; back to the act of navi~ with regard to the Plantations, the words which dillinguilh revenue laws, {pecifi- gation ; the corner-{tone of the policy .of this cally as flich, were, I think, premeditately country with regard to its colonies. 511', that policy was, from the beginning, purely com- avoided. ldo not lay, Sir, that a form of words alters the nature of the law, or mercial; and the commercial fyltem was wholly It was the fyl‘tem‘ofa monopoly, abridges the power of the lawgiver. It certainly does not. However, titles and formal No trade was let loofe from that conllramt, preambles are not always idle words; and but merely to enable the Colonif'ts to dilpofe ofwhat, in the courle of your trade, you could not take; or to enable them to difpofe oi the lawyers frequently argue from them.« I reflriétive. fuch articles as we forced upon them, and for which, without fome degree of liberty, they could not pay. Hence all your fpecific and detailed enumerations: hence the innumerable checks and counter-checks: hence that infinite variety of paper chains by which you Lind together this complicated fyfieni of the Colonies. {late thefe facts to lhew, not what was your right, but what has been your fettled policy. Our revenue laws have ufually a-t/t/e, purporting their being gram‘r, and the words give and gmm‘ ufually precede the enaéting parts. Although duties were impaled on America in Acts of King Charles the Second, and in Acts of King VVilli'am, no one title of giving " an aid to His h'lajefly," or any This principle of commercial other of the ulual titles to revenue acts, was monopoly runs through no lefs than twentynine Acts of Parliament, from the year 1660 to the unfortunate period of 1764, to be found in any of them till 1764; nor were the words " give and grant" in any preamble until the 6th of George the Second. However the title of this Act of George the In all thofe afts the fyf‘rem of commerce is eflablifhed, as that, from whence alone you Second, notwithlianding the words ofdonation, propofed to make the Colonies contribute (I mean directly and by the operation of your fuperintending legiflative power) to the firength of the empire, I venture to lay, that during t tat This Act was made on a compromile of all, confiders it merely as a regulation» of trade, " An Act for the better lecuring of the trade " of‘HisM-ajefiy's Sugar Colonies in America." and at the exprefs defire of a part, of the Co4 lonies |