The Americans will have no interest contrary to the grandeur and glory of England, when they are not oppressed by the weight of it; and they will rather be inclined to respect the acts of a superintending legislature, when they see them the acts of that power which is itself the security, not the rival, of their secondary importance.  In this assurance my mind most perfectly acquiesces, and I confess I feel not the least alarm from the discontents which are to arise from putting people at their ease; nor do I apprehend the destruction of this empire from giving, by an act of free grace and indulgence, to two millions of my fellow-citizens some share of those rights upon which I have always been taught to value myself.

It is said, indeed, that this power of granting, vested in American assemblies, would dissolve the unity of the empire,—­which was preserved entire, although Wales, and Chester, and Durham were added to it.  Truly, Mr. Speaker, I do not know what this unity means; nor has it ever been heard of, that I know, in the constitutional policy of this country.  The very idea of subordination of parts excludes this notion of simple and undivided unity.  England is the head; but she is not the head and the members too.  Ireland has ever had from the beginning a separate, but not an independent legislature, which, far from distracting, promoted the union of the whole.  Everything was sweetly and harmoniously disposed through both islands for the conservation of English dominion and the communication of English liberties.  I do not see that the same principles might not be carried into twenty islands, and with the same good effect.  This is my model with regard to America, as far as the internal circumstances of the two countries are the same.  I know no other unity of this empire than I can draw from its example during these periods, when it seemed to my poor understanding more united than it is now, or than it is likely to be by the present methods.

But since I speak of these methods, I recollect, Mr. Speaker, almost too late, that I promised, before I finished, to say something of the proposition of the noble lord[29] on the floor, which has been so lately received, and stands on your journals.  I must be deeply concerned, whenever it is my misfortune to continue a difference with the majority of this House.  But as the reasons for that difference are my apology for thus troubling you, suffer me to state them in a very few words.  I shall compress them into as small a body as I possibly can, having already debated that matter at large, when the question was before the committee.

First, then, I cannot admit that proposition of a ransom by auction,—­because it is a mere project.  It is a thing new, unheard of, supported by no experience, justified by no analogy, without example of our ancestors, or root in the Constitution.  It is neither regular Parliamentary taxation nor colony grant. Experimentum in corpore vili is a good rule, which will ever make me adverse to any trial of experiments on what is certainly the most valuable of all subjects, the peace of this empire.