It applies to every case and resolves
every difficulty. But if taxation, or any thing else, be taken in
its room, there is no proportion between the object and the charge.
Nothing but the whole soil and property of the country can be placed
as a possible equivalent against the millions which the ministry
expended. No taxes raised in America could possibly repay it. A
revenue of two millions sterling a year would not discharge the sum
and interest accumulated thereon, in twenty years.
Reconciliation never appears to have been the wish or the object
of the administration; they looked on conquest as certain and
infallible, and, under that persuasion, sought to drive the
Americans into what they might style a general rebellion, and then,
crushing them with arms in their hands, reap the rich harvest of a
general confiscation, and silence them for ever. The dependents at
court were too numerous to be provided for in England. The market
for plunder in the East Indies was over; and the profligacy of
government required that a new mine should be opened, and that mine
could be no other than America, conquered and forfeited. They had no
where else to go. Every other channel was drained; and extravagance,
with the thirst of a drunkard, was gaping for supplies.
If the ministry deny this to have been their plan, it becomes them
to explain what was their plan. For either they have abused us in
coveting property they never labored for, or they have abused you in
expending an amazing sum upon an incompetent object.
Pages:
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150