the Americans in the light of a great innovation.  The words of Governor Bernard’s ninth letter, written in November, 1765, state this idea very strongly.  “It must,” says he, “have been supposed such an innovation as a Parliamentary taxation would cause a great alarm, and meet with much opposition in most parts of America; it was quite new to the people, and had no visible bounds set to it.”  After stating the weakness of government there, he says, “Was this a time to introduce so great a novelty as a Parliamentary inland taxation in America?” Whatever the right might have been, this mode of using it was absolutely new in policy and practice.

Sir, they who are friends to the schemes of American revenue say, that the commercial restraint is full as hard a law for America to live under.  I think so, too.  I think it, if uncompensated, to be a condition of as rigorous servitude as men can be subject to.  But America bore it from the fundamental Act of Navigation until 1764.  Why?  Because men do bear the inevitable constitution of their original nature with all its infirmities.  The Act of Navigation attended the colonies from their infancy, grow with their growth, and strengthened with their strength They were confirmed in obedience to it even more by usage than by law.  They scarcely had remembered a time when they were not subject to such restraint.  Besides, they were indemnified for it by a pecuniary compensation.  Their monopolist happened to be one of the richest men in the world.  By his immense capital (primarily employed, not for their benefit, but his own) they were enabled to proceed with their fisheries, their agriculture, their shipbuilding, (and their trade, too, within the limits,) in such a manner as got far the start of the slow, languid operations of unassisted Nature.  This capital was a hot-bed to them.  Nothing in the history of mankind is like their progress.  For my part, I never cast an eye on their flourishing commerce, and their cultivated and commodious life, but they seem to me rather ancient nations grown to perfection through a long series of fortunate events, and a train of successful industry, accumulating wealth in many centuries, than the colonies of yesterday,—­than a set of miserable outcasts a few years ago, not so much sent as thrown out on the bleak and barren shore of a desolate wilderness three thousand miles from all civilized intercourse.

All this was done by England whilst England pursued trade and forgot revenue.  You not only acquired commerce, but you actually created the very objects of trade in America; and by that creation you raised the trade of this kingdom at least fourfold.  America had the compensation of your capital, which made her bear her servitude.  She had another compensation, which you are now going to take away from her.  She had, except the commercial restraint, every characteristic mark of a free people in all her internal concerns.  She had the image of the