There is also another circulation abroad, (spread with a malignant intention, which I cannot attribute to those who say the same thing in this House,) that Mr. Grenville gave the colony agents an option for their assemblies to tax themselves, which they had refused.  I find that much stress is laid on this, as a fact.  However, it happens neither to be true nor possible.  I will observe, first, that Mr. Grenville never thought fit to make this apology for himself in the innumerable debates that were had upon the subject.  He might have proposed to the colony agents, that they should agree in some mode of taxation as the ground of an act of Parliament.  But he never could have proposed that they should tax themselves on requisition, which is, the assertion of the day.  Indeed, Mr. Grenville well knew that the colony agents could have no general powers to consent to it; and they had no time to consult their assemblies for particular powers, before he passed his first revenue act.  If you compare dates, you will find it impossible.  Burdened as the agents knew the colonies were at that time, they could not give the least hope of such grants.  His own favorite governor was of opinion that the Americans were not then taxable objects.

“Nor was the time less favorable to the equity of such a taxation.  I don’t mean to dispute the reasonableness of America contributing to the charges of Great Britain, when she is able; nor, I believe, would the Americans themselves have disputed it at a proper time and season.  But it should be considered, that the American governments themselves have, in the prosecution of the late war, contracted very large debts, which it will take some years to pay off, and in the mean time occasion very burdensome taxes for that purpose only.  For instance, this government, which is as much beforehand as any, raises every year 37,500_l._ sterling for sinking their debt, and must continue it for four years longer at least before it will be clear.”

These are the words of Governor Bernard’s letter to a member of the old ministry, and which he has since printed.

Mr. Grenville could not have made this proposition to the agents for another reason.  He was of opinion, which he has declared in this House an hundred times, that the colonies could not legally grant any revenue to the crown, and that infinite mischiefs would be the consequence of such a power.  When Mr. Grenville had passed the first revenue act, and in the same session had made this House come to a resolution for laying a stamp-duty on America, between that time and the passing the Stamp Act into a law he told a considerable and most respectable merchant, a member of this House, whom I am truly sorry I do not now see in his place, when he represented against this proceeding, that, if the stamp-duty was disliked, he was willing to exchange it for any other equally productive,—­but that, if he objected to the Americans being taxed by Parliament, he might save himself the trouble of the discussion, as he was determined on the measure.  This is the fact, and, if you please, I will mention a very unquestionable authority for it.