The American consumption of teas is annually, I believe, worth 300,000_l._ at the least farthing.  If you urge the American violence as a justification of your perseverance in enforcing this tax, you know that you can never answer this plain question,—­Why did you repeal the others given in the same act, whilst the very same violence subsisted?—­But you did not find the violence cease upon that concession.—­No! because the concession was far short of satisfying the principle which Lord Hillsborough had abjured, or even the pretence on which the repeal of the other taxes was announced; and because, by enabling the East India Company to open a shop for defeating the American resolution not to pay that specific tax, you manifestly showed a hankering after the principle of the act which you formerly had renounced.  Whatever road you take leads to a compliance with this motion.  It opens to you at the end of every visto.  Your commerce, your policy, your promises, your reasons, your pretences, your consistency, your inconsistency,—­all jointly oblige you to this repeal.

But still it sticks in our throats, if we go so far, the Americans will go farther.—­We do not know that.  We ought, from experience, rather to presume the contrary.  Do we not know for certain, that the Americans are going on as fast as possible, whilst we refuse to gratify them?  Can they do more, or can they do worse, if we yield this point?  I think this concession will rather fix a turnpike to prevent their further progress.  It is impossible to answer for bodies of men.  But I am sure the natural effect of fidelity, clemency, kindness in governors is peace, good-will, order, and esteem, on the part of the governed.  I would certainly, at least, give these fair principles a fair trial; which, since the making of this act to this hour, they never have had.

Sir, the honorable gentleman having spoken what he thought necessary upon the narrow part of the subject, I have given him, I hope, a satisfactory answer.  He next presses me, by a variety of direct challenges and oblique reflections, to say something on the historical part.  I shall therefore, Sir, open myself fully on that important and delicate subject:  not for the sake of telling you a long story, (which, I know, Mr. Speaker, you are not particularly fond of,) but for the sake of the weighty instruction that, I flatter myself, will necessarily result from it.  It shall not be longer, if I can help it, than so serious a matter requires.

Permit me then, Sir, to lead your attention very far back,—­back to the Act of Navigation, the cornerstone of the policy of this country with regard to its colonies.  Sir, that policy was, from the beginning, purely commercial; and the commercial system was wholly restrictive.  It was the system of a monopoly.  No trade was let loose from that constraint, but merely to enable the colonists to dispose of what, in the course of your trade, you could not take,—­or