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Page 4
The Abbe likewise states the case exceedingly wrong and injuriously,
when he says, "that that _the whole_ question was reduced to the
knowing whether the mother country had, or had not, a right to lay,
directly or indirectly, a _slight_ tax upon the colonies." This was
_not the whole_ of the question; neither was the _quantity_ of the tax
the object, either to the Ministry, or to the Americans. It was the
principle, of which the tax made but a part, and the quantity still
less, that formed the ground on which America opposed.
The tax on tea, which is the tax here alluded to, was neither more or
less than an experiment to establish the practice of a declaratory law
upon; modelled into the more fashionable phrase _of the universal
supremacy of Parliament_. For until this time the declaratory law had
lain dormant, and the framers of it had contented themselves with
barely declaring an opinion.
Therefore the _whole_ question with America, in the opening of the
dispute, was, Shall we be bound in all cases whatsoever by the British
Parliament, or shall we not? For submission to the tea or tax act,
implied an acknowledgment of the declaratory act, or, in other words,
of the universal supremacy of Parliament, which as they never intended
to do, it was necessary they should oppose it, in its first stage of
execution.
It is probable, the Abbe has been led into this mistake by perusing
detached pieces in some of the American newspapers; for, in a case
where all were interested, everyone had a right to give his opinion;
and there were many who, with the best intentions, did not chuse the
best, nor indeed the true ground, to defend their cause upon. They
felt themselves right by a general impulse, without being able to
separate, analyze, and arrange the parts.
I am somewhat unwilling to examine too minutely into the whole of this
extraordinary passage of the Abbe, lest I should appear to treat it
with severity; otherwise I could shew, that not a single declaration
is justly founded; for instance, the reviving an obsolete act of the
reign of Henry the Eighth, and fitting it to the Americans, by
authority of which they were to be seized and brought from America to
England, and there imprisoned and tried for any supposed offenses,
was, in the worse sense of the words, _to tear them by the arbitrary
power of Parliament, from the arms of their families and friends, and
drag them not only to dreary but distant dungeons_. Yet this act was
contrived some years before the breaking out of hostilities. And
again, though the blood of martyrs and patriots had not streamed on
the scaffolds, it streamed in the streets, in the massacre of the
inhabitants of Boston, by the British soldiery in the year 1770.
Had the Abbe said that the causes which produced the revolution in
America were originally _different_ from those which produced
revolutions in other parts of the globe, he had been right. Here the
value and quality of liberty, the nature of government, and the
dignity of man, were known and understood, and the attachment of the
Americans to these principles produced the revolution, as a natural
and almost unavoidable consequence. They had no particular family to
set up or pull down. Nothing of personality was incorporated with
their cause. They started even-handed with each other, and went no
faster into the several stages of it, than they were driven by the
unrelenting and imperious conduct of Britain. Nay, in the last act,
the declaration of independence, they had nearly been too late; for
had it not been declared at the exact time it was, I saw no period in
their affairs since, in which it could have been declared with the
same effect, and probably not at all.
But the object being formed before the reverse of fortune took place,
that is, before the operations of the gloomy campaign of 1776, their
honour, their interest, their everything, called loudly on them to
maintain it; and that glow of thought and energy of heart, which even
distant prospect of independence inspires, gave confidence to their
hopes, and resolution to their conduct, which a state of dependence
could never have reached. They looked forward to happier days and
scenes of rest, and qualified the hardships of the campaign by
contemplating the establishment of their new-born system.
If, on the other hand, we take a review of what part great Britain has
acted, we shall find every thing which ought to make a nation blush.
The most vulgar abuse, accompanied by that species of haughtiness
which distinguishes the hero of a mob from the character of a
gentleman; it was equally as much from her manners as from her
injustice that she lost the colonies. By the latter she provoked their
principles, by the former she wore out their temper; and it ought to
be held out as an example to the world, to shew how necessary it is to
conduct the business of government with civility. In short, other
revolutions may have originated in caprice, or generated in ambition,
but here, the most unoffending humility was tortured into rage, and
the infancy of existence made to weep.
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