in England, and false everywhere else?  Is it not true in Ireland?  Has it not hitherto been true in the Colonies?  Why should you presume that, in any country, a body duly constituted for any function will neglect to perform its duty and abdicate its trust?  Such a presumption [Footnote:  69] would go against all governments in all modes.  But, in truth, this dread of penury of supply from a free assembly has no foundation in nature; for first, observe that, besides the desire which all men have naturally of supporting the honor of their own government, that sense of dignity and that security to property which ever attends freedom has a tendency to increase the stock of the free community.  Most may be taken where most is accumulated.  And what is the soil or climate where experience has not uniformly proved that the voluntary flow of heaped-up plenty, bursting from the weight of its own rich luxuriance, has ever run with a more copious stream of revenue than could be squeezed from the dry husks of oppressed indigence by the straining of all the politic machinery in the world? [Footnote:  70]

Next, we know that parties must ever exist in a free country.  We know, too, that the emulations of such parties—­their contradictions, their reciprocal necessities, their hopes, and their fears—­must send them all in their turns to him that holds the balance of the State.  The parties are the gamesters; but Government keeps the table, and is sure to be the winner in the end.  When this game is played, I really think it is more to be feared that the people will be exhausted, than that Government will not be supplied; whereas, whatever is got by acts of absolute power ill obeyed, because odious, or by contracts ill kept, because constrained, will be narrow, feeble, uncertain, and precarious.

“Ease would retract Vows made in pain, as violent and void.”

I, for one, protest against compounding our demands.  I declare against compounding, for a poor limited sum, the immense, ever-growing, eternal debt which is due to generous government from protected freedom.  And so may I speed in the great object I propose to you, as I think it would not only be an act of injustice, but would be the worst economy in the world, to compel the Colonies to a sum certain, either in the way of ransom or in the way of compulsory compact.

But to clear up my ideas on this subject:  a revenue from America transmitted hither—­do not delude yourselves—­you never can receive it; no, not a shilling.  We have experience that from remote countries it is not to be expected.  If, when you attempted to extract revenue from Bengal, you were obliged to return in loan what you had taken in imposition, what can you expect from North America?  For certainly, if ever there was a country qualified to produce wealth, it is India; or an institution fit for the transmission, it is the East India Company.  America has none of these aptitudes.  If America gives you taxable objects on which you lay your duties