Besides, the
minister will recollect that the repeal of the Stamp Act had but just
preceded his repeal; and the ill policy of that measure, (had it been so
impolitic as it has been represented,) and the mischiefs it produced,
were quite recent. Upon the principles, therefore, of the honorable
gentleman, upon the principles of the minister himself, the minister has
nothing at all to answer. He stands condemned by himself, and by all his
associates old and new, as a destroyer, in the first trust of finance,
of the revenues,--and in the first rank of honor, as a betrayer of the
dignity of his country.
Most men, especially great men, do not always know their well-wishers. I
come to rescue that noble lord out of the hands of those he calls his
friends, and even out of his own. I will do him the justice he is denied
at home. He has not been this wicked or imprudent man. He knew that a
repeal had no tendency to produce the mischiefs which give so much alarm
to his honorable friend. His work was not bad in its principle, but
imperfect in its execution; and the motion on your paper presses him
only to complete a proper plan, which, by some unfortunate and
unaccountable error, he had left unfinished.
I hope, Sir, the honorable gentleman who spoke last is thoroughly
satisfied, and satisfied out of the proceedings of ministry on their own
favorite act, that his fears from a repeal are groundless. If he is not,
I leave him, and the noble lord who sits by him, to settle the matter as
well as they can together; for, if the repeal of American taxes destroys
all our government in America,--he is the man!--and he is the worst of
all the repealers, because he is the last.
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