Incredible as it may seem, you know that
you have deliberately thrown away a large duty, which you held secure
and quiet in your hands, for the vain hope of getting one three fourths
less, through every hazard, through certain litigation, and possibly
through war.
The manner of proceeding in the duties on paper and glass, imposed by
the same act, was exactly in the same spirit. There are heavy excises on
those articles, when used in England. On export, these excises are drawn
back. But instead of withholding the drawback, which might have been
done, with ease, without charge, without possibility of smuggling, and
instead of applying the money (money already in your hands) according to
your pleasure, you began your operations in finance by flinging away
your revenue; you allowed the whole drawback on export, and then you
charged the duty, (which you had before discharged,) payable in the
colonies, where it was certain the collection would devour it to the
bone,--if any revenue were ever suffered to be collected at all. One
spirit pervades and animates the whole mass.
Could anything be a subject of more just alarm to America than to see
you go out of the plain highroad of finance, and give up your most
certain revenues and your clearest interest, merely for the sake of
insulting your colonies? No man ever doubted that the commodity of tea
could bear an imposition of three-pence. But no commodity will bear
three-pence, or will bear a penny, when the general feelings of men are
irritated, and two millions of people are resolved not to pay.
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