Their growth and their utility
has been owing to methods altogether different. Our ancient indulgence
has been said to be pursued to a fault. It may be so; but we know, if
feeling is evidence, that our fault was more tolerable than our attempt
to mend it, and our sin far more salutary than our penitence.
These, Sir, are my reasons for not entertaining that high opinion of
untried force by which many gentlemen, for whose sentiments in other
particulars I have great respect, seem to be so greatly captivated. But
there is still behind a third consideration concerning this object,
which serves to determine my opinion on the sort of policy which ought
to be pursued in the management of America, even more than its
population and its commerce: I mean its _temper and character_.
In this character of the Americans a love of freedom is the
predominating feature which marks and distinguishes the whole: and as an
ardent is always a jealous affection, your colonies become suspicious,
restive, and untractable, whenever they see the least attempt to wrest
from them by force, or shuffle from them by chicane, what they think the
only advantage worth living for. This fierce spirit of liberty is
stronger in the English colonies, probably, than in any other people of
the earth, and this from a great variety of powerful causes; which, to
understand the true temper of their minds, and the direction which this
spirit takes, it will not be amiss to lay open somewhat more largely.
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