here, and gives you, at the same time, a surplus by a foreign sale of her commodities to pay the duties on these objects which you tax at home, she has performed her part to the British revenue.  But with regard to her own internal establishments, she may, I doubt not she will, contribute in moderation.  I say in moderation, for she ought not to be permitted to exhaust herself.  She ought to be reserved to a war, the weight of which, with the enemies [Footnote:  71] that we are most likely to have, must be considerable in her quarter of the globe.  There she may serve you, and serve you essentially.

For that service—­for all service, whether of revenue, trade, or empire—­my trust is in her interest in the British Constitution.  My hold of the Colonies is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection.  These are ties which, though light as air, [Footnote:  72] are as strong as links of iron.  Let the Colonists always keep the idea of their civil rights associated with your government,—­they will cling and grapple to you, [Footnote:  73] and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them from their allegiance.  But let it be once understood that your government may be one thing, and their privileges another, that these two things may exist without any mutual relation, the cement is gone [Footnote:  74]- -the cohesion is loosened—­and everything hastens to decay and dissolution.  As long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of England worship freedom, they will turn their faces towards you.  The more they multiply, the more friends you will have; the more ardently they love liberty, the more perfect will be their obedience.  Slavery they can have anywhere—­it is a weed that grows in every soil.  They may have it from Spain; they may have it from Prussia.  But, until you become lost to all feeling of your true interest and your natural dignity, freedom they can have from none but you.  This is the commodity of price of which you have the monopoly.  This is the true Act of Navigation which binds to you the commerce of the Colonies, and through them secures to you the wealth of the world.  Deny them this participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond which originally made, and must still preserve, the unity of the Empire.  Do not entertain so weak an imagination as that your registers and your bonds, your affidavits and your sufferances, your cockets and your clearances, are what form the great securities of your commerce.  Do not dream that your letters of office, and your instructions, and your suspending clauses, are the things that hold together the great contexture of the mysterious whole.  These things do not make your government.  Dead instruments, passive tools as they are, it is the spirit of the English communion that gives all their life and efficacy to them.  It is the spirit of the English Constitution which, infused through the mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies every part of the Empire, even down to the minutest member.