"[4]
A glorious and true character! which (since we suffer his ministers with
impunity to answer for his ideas of taxation) we ought to make it our
business to enable his Majesty to preserve in all its lustre. Let him
have character, since ours is no more! Let some part of government be
kept in respect!
This epistle was not the letter of Lord Hillsborough solely, though he
held the official pen. It was the letter of the noble lord upon the
floor,[5] and of all the king's then ministers, who (with, I think, the
exception of two only) are his ministers at this hour. The very first
news that a British Parliament heard of what it was to do with the
duties which it had given and granted to the king was by the publication
of the votes of American assemblies. It was in America that your
resolutions were pre-declared. It was from thence that we knew to a
certainty how much exactly, and not a scruple more nor less, we were to
repeal. We were unworthy to be let into the secret of our own conduct.
The assemblies had _confidential_ communications from his Majesty's
_confidential_ servants. We were nothing but instruments. Do you, after
this, wonder that you have no weight and no respect in the colonies?
After this are you surprised that Parliament is every day and everywhere
losing (I feel it with sorrow, I utter it with reluctance) that
reverential affection which so endearing a name of authority ought ever
to carry with it? that you are obeyed solely from respect to the
bayonet? and that this House, the ground and pillar of freedom, is
itself held up only by the treacherous underpinning and clumsy
buttresses of arbitrary power?
If this dignity, which is to stand in the place of just policy and
common sense, had been consulted, there was a time for preserving it,
and for reconciling it with any concession.
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