of his faction for these four years, after all the vain expectations which they have held out to a deluded public, this their great advocate, after twisting the subject every way, after writhing himself in every posture, after knocking at every door, is obliged fairly to abandon every mode of taxation whatsoever in America.[84] He thinks it the best method for Parliament to impose the sum, and reserve the account to itself, leaving the mode of taxation to the colonies.  But how and in what proportion? what does the author say?  O, not a single syllable on this the most material part of the whole question!  Will he, in Parliament, undertake to settle the proportions of such payments from Nova Scotia to Nevis, in no fewer than six-and-twenty different countries, varying in almost every possible circumstance one from another?  If he does, I tell him, he adjourns his revenue to a very long day.  If he leaves it to themselves to settle these proportions, he adjourns it to doomsday.

Then what does he get by this method on the side of acquiescence? will the people of America relish this course, of giving and granting and applying their money, the better because their assemblies are made commissioners of the taxes?  This is far worse than all his former projects; for here, if the assemblies shall refuse, or delay, or be negligent, or fraudulent, in this new-imposed duty, we are wholly without remedy; and neither our custom-house officers, nor our troops, nor our armed ships can be of the least use in the collection.  No idea can be more contemptible (I will not call it an oppressive one, the harshness is lost in the folly) than that of proposing to get any revenue from the Americans but by their freest and most cheerful consent.  Most moneyed men know their own interest right well; and are as able as any financier, in the valuation of risks.  Yet I think this financier will scarcely find that adventurer hardy enough, at any premium, to advance a shilling upon a vote of such taxes.  Let him name the man, or set of men, that would do it.  This is the only proof of the value of revenues; what would an interested man rate them at?  His subscription would be at ninety-nine per cent discount the very first day of its opening.  Here is our only national security from ruin; a security upon which no man in his senses would venture a shilling of his fortune.  Yet he puts down those articles as gravely in his supply for the peace establishment, as if the money had been all fairly lodged in the exchequer.

American revenue                      L200,000
Ireland                                100,000

Very handsome indeed!  But if supply is to be got in such a manner, farewell the lucrative mystery of finance!  If you are to be credited for savings, without showing how, why, or with what safety, they are to be made; and for revenues, without specifying on what articles, or by what means, or at what expense, they are to be collected; there is not a clerk in a public office who may not outbid this author, or his friend, for the department of chancellor of the exchequer; not an apprentice in the city, that will not strike out, with the same advantages, the same, or a much larger plan of supply.