Such is the merit of the trade laws in this posture of the debate.  But when strong internal circumstances are urged against the taxes,—­when the scheme is dissected,—­when experience and the nature of things are brought to prove, and do prove, the utter impossibility of obtaining an effective revenue from the colonies,—­when these things are pressed, or rather press themselves, so as to drive the advocates of colony taxes to a clear admission of the futility of the scheme,—­then, Sir, the sleeping trade laws revive from their trance, and this useless taxation is to be kept sacred, not for its own sake, but as a counter-guard and security of the laws of trade.

Then, Sir, you keep up revenue laws which are mischievous in order to preserve trade laws that are useless.  Such is the wisdom of our plan in both its members.  They are separately given up as of no value; and yet one is always to be defended for the sake of the other.  But I cannot agree with the noble lord, nor with the pamphlet from whence he seems to have borrowed these ideas concerning the inutility of the trade laws.  For, without idolizing them, I am sure they are still, in many ways, of great use to us; and in former times they have been of the greatest.  They do confine, and they do greatly narrow, the market for the Americans.  But my perfect conviction of this does not help me in the least to discern how the revenue laws form any security whatsoever to the commercial regulations,—­or that these commercial regulations are the true ground of the quarrel,—­or that the giving way, in any one instance, of authority is to lose all that may remain unconceded.

One fact is clear and indisputable:  the public and avowed origin of this quarrel was on taxation.  This quarrel has, indeed, brought on new disputes on new questions, but certainly the least bitter, and the fewest of all, on the trade laws.  To judge which of the two be the real, radical cause of quarrel, we have to see whether the commercial dispute did, in order of time, precede the dispute on taxation.  There is not a shadow of evidence for it.  Next, to enable us to judge whether at this moment a dislike to the trade laws be the real cause of quarrel, it is absolutely necessary to put the taxes out of the question by a repeal.  See how the Americans act in this position, and then you will be able to discern correctly what is the true object of the controversy, or whether any controversy at all will remain.  Unless you consent to remove this cause of difference, it is impossible, with decency, to assert that the dispute is not upon what it is avowed to be.  And I would, Sir, recommend to your serious consideration, whether it be prudent to form a rule for punishing people, not on their own acts, but on your conjectures.  Surely it is preposterous, at the very best.  It is not justifying your anger by their misconduct, but it is converting your ill-will into their delinquency.