The whole empire has reason to remember with eternal gratitude the wisdom and temper of that man and his excellent associates, who, to recover this confidence, formed a plan of pacification in 1766.  That plan, being built upon the nature of man, and the circumstances and habits of the two countries, and not on any visionary speculations, perfectly answered its end, as long as it was thought proper to adhere to it.  Without giving a rude shock to the dignity (well or ill understood) of this Parliament, they gave perfect content to our dependencies.  Had it not been for the mediatorial spirit and talents of that great man between such clashing pretensions and passions, we should then have rushed headlong (I know what I say) into the calamities of that civil war in which, by departing from his system, we are at length involved; and we should have been precipitated into that war at a time when circumstances both at home and abroad were far, very far, more unfavorable unto us than they were at the breaking out of the present troubles.

I had the happiness of giving my first votes in Parliament for that pacification.  I was one of those almost unanimous members who, in the necessary concessions of Parliament, would as much as possible have preserved its authority and respected its honor.  I could not at once tear from my heart prejudices which were dear to me, and which bore a resemblance to virtue.  I had then, and I have still, my partialities.  What Parliament gave up I wished to be given as of grace and favor and affection, and not as a restitution of stolen goods.  High dignity relented as it was soothed; and a benignity from old acknowledged greatness had its full effect on our dependencies.  Our unlimited declaration of legislative authority produced not a single murmur.  If this undefined power has become odious since that time, and full of horror to the colonies, it is because the unsuspicious confidence is lost, and the parental affection, in the bosom of whose boundless authority they reposed their privileges, is become estranged and hostile.

It will be asked, if such was then my opinion of the mode of pacification, how I came to be the very person who moved, not only for a repeal of all the late coercive statutes, but for mutilating, by a positive law, the entireness of the legislative power of Parliament, and cutting off from it the whole right of taxation.  I answer, Because a different state of things requires a different conduct.  When the dispute had gone to these last extremities, (which no man labored more to prevent than I did,) the concessions which had satisfied in the beginning could satisfy no longer; because the violation of tacit faith required explicit security.  The same cause which has introduced all formal compacts and covenants among men made it necessary:  I mean, habits of soreness, jealousy, and distrust.  I parted with it as with a limb, but as a limb to save the body:  and I would have