Is it not the same virtue which does everything for us here in England?  Do you imagine, then, that it is the Land Tax Act which raises your revenue? that it is the annual vote in the Committee of Supply which gives you your army? or that it is the Mutiny Bill which inspires it with bravery and discipline?  No! surely no!  It is the love of the people; it is their attachment to their government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which gives you your army and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience without which your army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber.

All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical to the profane herd [Footnote:  75] of those vulgar and mechanical politicians who have no place among us; a sort of people who think that nothing exists but what is gross and material, and who, therefore, far from being qualified to be directors of the great movement of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine.  But to men truly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master principles which, in the opinion of such men as I have mentioned, have no substantial existence, are in truth everything, and all in all.  Magnanimity [Footnote:  76] in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.  If we are conscious of our station, and glow with zeal to fill our places as becomes our situation and ourselves, we ought to auspicate [Footnote:  77] all our public proceedings on America with the old warning of the church, Sursum corda! [Footnote:  78] We ought to elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust to which the order of providence has called us.  By adverting to the dignity of this high calling our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire, and have made the most extensive and the only honorable conquests—­not by destroying, but by promoting the wealth, the number, the happiness, of the human race.  Let us get an American revenue as we have got an American empire.  English privileges have made it all that it is; English privileges alone will make it all it can be.

In full confidence of this unalterable truth, I now, quod felix faustumque sit, [Footnote:  79] lay the first stone of the Temple of Peace; and I move you—­

“That the Colonies and Plantations of Great Britain in North America, consisting of fourteen separate governments, and containing two millions and upwards of free inhabitants, have not had the liberty and privilege of electing and sending any Knights and Burgesses, or others, to represent them in the High Court of Parliament.”

FOOTNOTES

[Footnote:  1. grand penal bill.  This bill originated with Lord North.  It restricted the trade of the New England colonies to England and her dependencies.  It also placed serious limitations upon the Newfoundland fisheries.  The House of Lords was dissatisfied with the measure because it did not include all the colonies.]