They tell you, Sir, that your dignity is tied to it.  I know not how it happens, but this dignify of yours is a terrible incumbrance to you; for it has of late been ever at war with your interest, your equity, and every idea of your policy.  Show the thing you contend for to be reason, show it to be common sense, show it to be the means of attaining some useful end, and then I am content to allow it what dignity you please.  But what dignity is derived from the perseverance in absurdity is more than ever I could discern.  The honorable gentleman has said well,—­indeed, in most of his general observations I agree with him,—­he says, that this subject does not stand as it did formerly.  Oh, certainly not!  Every hour you continue on this ill-chosen ground, your difficulties thicken on you; and therefore my conclusion is, remove from a bad position as quickly as you can.  The disgrace, and the necessity of yielding, both of them, grow upon you every hour of your delay.

But will you repeal the act, says the honorable gentleman, at this instant, when America is in open resistance to your authority, and that you have just revived your system of taxation?  He thinks he has driven us into a corner.  But thus pent up, I am content to meet him; because I enter the lists supported by my old authority, his new friends, the ministers themselves.  The honorable gentleman remembers that about five years ago as great disturbances as the present prevailed in America on account of the new taxes.  The ministers represented these disturbances as treasonable; and this House thought proper, on that representation, to make a famous address for a revival and for a new application of a statute of Henry the Eighth.  We besought the king, in that well-considered address, to inquire into treasons, and to bring the supposed traitors from America to Great Britain for trial.  His Majesty was pleased graciously to promise a compliance with our request.  All the attempts from this side of the House to resist these violences, and to bring about a repeal, were treated with the utmost scorn.  An apprehension of the very consequences now stated by the honorable gentleman was then given as a reason for shutting the door against all hope of such an alteration.  And so strong was the spirit for supporting the new taxes, that the session concluded with the following remarkable declaration.  After stating the vigorous measures which had been pursued, the speech from the throne proceeds:—­

“You have assured me of your firm support in the prosecution of them.  Nothing, in my opinion, could be more likely to enable the well-disposed among my subjects in that part of the world effectually to discourage and defeat the designs of the factious and seditious than the hearty concurrence of every branch of the legislature in the resolution of maintaining the execution of the laws in every part of my dominions.”