But thus pent up, I am content to meet him; because I
enter the lists supported by my old authority, his new friends, the
ministers themselves. The honorable gentleman remembers that about five
years ago as great disturbances as the present prevailed in America on
account of the new taxes. The ministers represented these disturbances
as treasonable; and this House thought proper, on that representation,
to make a famous address for a revival and for a new application of a
statute of Henry the Eighth. We besought the king, in that
well-considered address, to inquire into treasons, and to bring the
supposed traitors from America to Great Britain for trial. His Majesty
was pleased graciously to promise a compliance with our request. All the
attempts from this side of the House to resist these violences, and to
bring about a repeal, were treated with the utmost scorn. An
apprehension of the very consequences now stated by the honorable
gentleman was then given as a reason for shutting the door against all
hope of such an alteration. And so strong was the spirit for supporting
the new taxes, that the session concluded with the following remarkable
declaration. After stating the vigorous measures which had been pursued,
the speech from the throne proceeds:--
"You have assured me of your _firm_ support in the _prosecution_ of
them. Nothing, in my opinion, could be more likely to enable the
well-disposed among my subjects in that part of the world effectually to
discourage and defeat the designs of the factious and seditious than the
hearty concurrence of every branch of the legislature in the resolution
of _maintaining the execution of the laws in every_ part of my
dominions.
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