the powers of Parliament limited may please themselves to talk of requisitions.  But suppose the requisitions are not obeyed?  What! shall there be no reserved power in the empire, to supply a deficiency which may weaken, divide, and dissipate the whole?  We are engaged in war,—­the Secretary of State calls upon the colonies to contribute,—­some would do it, I think most would cheerfully furnish whatever is demanded,—­one or two, suppose, hang back, and, easing themselves, let the stress of the draft lie on the others,—­surely it is proper that some authority might legally say, “Tax yourselves for the common Supply, or Parliament will do it for you.”  This backwardness was, as I am told, actually the case of Pennsylvania for some short time towards the beginning of the last war, owing to some internal dissensions in that colony.  But whether the fact were so or otherwise, the case is equally to be provided for by a competent sovereign power.  But then this ought to be no ordinary power, nor ever used in the first instance.  This is what I meant, when I have said, at various times, that I consider the power of taxing in Parliament as an instrument of empire, and not as a means of supply.

Such, Sir, is my idea of the Constitution of the British Empire, as distinguished from the Constitution of Britain; and on these grounds I think subordination and liberty may be sufficiently reconciled through the whole,—­whether to serve a refining speculatist or a factious demagogue I know not, but enough surely for the ease and happiness of man.

Sir, whilst we hold this happy course, we drew more from the colonies than all the impotent violence of despotism ever could extort from them.  We did this abundantly in the last war; it has never been once denied; and what reason have we to imagine that the colonies would not have proceeded in supplying government as liberally, if you had not stepped in and hindered them from contributing, by interrupting the channel in which their liberality flowed with so strong a course,—­by attempting to take, instead of being satisfied to receive?  Sir William Temple says, that Holland has loaded itself with ten times the impositions which it revolted from Spain rather than submit to.  He says true.  Tyranny is a poor provider.  It knows neither how to accumulate nor how to extract.

I charge, therefore, to this new and unfortunate system the loss not only of peace, of union, and of commerce, but even of revenue, which its friends are contending for.  It is morally certain that we have lost at least a million of free grants since the peace.  I think we have lost a great deal more; and that those who look for a revenue from the provinces never could have pursued, even in that light, a course more directly repugnant to their purposes.