3 your progress of eighteen hundred miles of continent, animated with the same spirit of liberty and of resistance? This universal opposition to your arbitrary system of taxation might have been foreseen; it was obvious from 2 the nature of things, and from the nature of man, and, above all, from the confirmed habits of thinking, from the spirit of whiggism, flourishing in America. The spirit which now pervades America, is the same which formerly opposed loans, benevolences, and ship money in this country; the same spirit which roused all England to action at the revolution, and which established at a remote era your liberties on the basis of that great fundamental maxim of the constitution, that no subject of England shall be taxed but by his own consent. What shall oppose this spirit, aided by the congenial 5 flame glowing in the breast of every generous Briton? To maintain this principle is the common cause of the whigs on the other side of the Atlantic and on this: it is liberty to liberty engaged. In this great cause they are immoveably allied: it is the alliance of God and nature, immutable, eternal, fixed as the firmament of heaven. As an Englishman, I recognize to the Americans their supreme, unalterable right of property. As an American, I would equally recognize to England her supreme right of regulating commerce and navigation. This distinction is involved in the abstract nature of things: property is private, individual, absolute; the touch of another annihilates it. Trade is an extended and complicated consideration: it reaches as far as ships can sail or winds can blow; it is a vast and various machine. To regulate the numberless movements of its several parts, and to combine them in one harmonious effect, for the good of the whole, requires the superintending wisdom and energy of the supreme power of the empire. On this grand practical distinction, then, let us rest: taxation is theirs; commercial regulation is ours. As to the metaphysical refinements,1 attempting to show that the Americans are equally free from legislative control and commercial restraint, as from taxation for the purpose of revenue, I pronounce them futile, frivolous, groundless. When your lordships have perused the papers transmitted us from America, when you consider the dignity, the firmness, and the wisdom with which the Americans have acted, you cannot but respect their cause. History, my lords, has been my favourite study; and in the celebrated writings of antiquity have I often admired the patriotism of Greece and Rome; but, my lords, I must declare and vow that, in the master-senates of the world, I know not the people, nor the senate, who in such a complication of difficult circumstances, can stand in preference to the delegates of America assembled in General Congress at Philadelphia. I trust it is obvious to your lordships that all attempts to impose servitude upon such men, to establish despotism over such a mighty continental nation, must be vain, must be futile. Can such a national principled union be resisted by the tricks of office or ministerial manœuvres ? Heaping papers on your table, or counting your majorities on a division,6 will not avert or postpone the hour of danger. It must arrive, my lords, unless these fatal acts are done away with: it must arrive in all its horrors; and then these boastful ministers, in spite of all their confidence and all their manœuvres, shall be compelled to hide their heads. But it is not repealing this or that act of parliament, it is not repealing a piece of parchment, that can restore America to your bosom: you must repeal her fears and resentments, and then you may hope for her love and gratitude. But now, insulted with an armed force, irritated with an hostile array before 8 her eyes, her concessions, if you could force them, would be suspicious and insecure. But it is more than evident that you cannot force them to your unworthy terms of submission—it is impossible—we ourselves shall be forced ultimately to retract: let us retract while we can, not when we must. I repeat it, my lords, we shall one day be forced to undo these violent acts of oppression; they must be repealed; you will repeal them. I pledge myself for it,1 that you will in the end repeal them. I stake my reputation on it;2 I will consent to be taken for an idiot if they are not repealed. Avoid then this humiliating, disgraceful necessity. With a dignity becoming your exalted situation, make the first advances to concord, to peace, and to happiness. Concession comes with better grace and more salutary effect from superior power; it reconciles superiority of power with the feelings of man, and establishes solid confidence on the foundations of affection and gratitude. On the other hand, every danger and every hazard impend to deter you from perseverance in the present ruinous measures: foreign war hanging over your heads by a slight and brittle thread; France and Spain watching your conduct, and waiting for the maturity of your errors, with a vigilant eye to America and the temper3 of your colonies, more than to their own concerns, be they what they may. To conclude, my lords, if the ministers thus persevere in misadvising and misleading the king, I will not say that they can alienate the affections of his subjects from the crown;5 but I affirm they will make the crown not worth his wearing. I will not say that the king is betrayed, but I will pronounce that the kingdom is undone. 1 je vous en suis (or, je m'en porte) garant; and leave out 'that.' Jy engage ma réputation. 3 sentiment; or, disposition. whatever they may be (page 133, note 13).' Once more, avoid this kind of constructions (see page 3, note 18, and page 258, note 9). The French call them janotismes, from janot, a 'simpleton ;' and, were writing more cultivated in England, as an art, English authors generally would not abound, as they do, in such awkward combinations of words. It should be, here, 'alienate from his crown the affections of his subjects.' THE SPECTRE GUEST'S COMING.1 "AH! poor Waldrich," exclaimed Frederika to her mother, as they sat chatting in the warm room, by the window, while in the open street the rain came down in torrents. "Ah! if he were only not away. It was the finest weather in the world before; and now he is away it is the worst." "A soldier must put up with everything," replied Frau Bantes; "and if you would become a soldier's wife, you must learn that a soldier belongs more to his sovereign than to his wife; to honour, more than love; to the camp, more than to home; and that when other men look forward to but one death, a soldier must look forward to a hundred; therefore, I should never be a soldier's wife." “Ah! but, mamma, don't you see how it rages aloft there; how black the heavens are? And do not you see the great hailstones between the rain-drops?" At Frau Bantes smiled; for there came an idea into her head, which at first she did not care to impart.2 length she said, "Frederika, do you know that to-day is the first Sunday in Advent, when3 the reign of the Spectre Guest begins? The evil power ever announces himself thus, in storm and rain." "I would wager, mamma, that this will make all Herbesheim no little anxious. They will bolt and bar the doors, lest the long white visage should venture in." At this very moment, Herr Bantes made his appearance4 in the apartment, with loud, and somewhat strange laughter. Strange it was, because one could not very well tell whether it was involuntary or otherwise. 66 Stupid stuff," and so forth,5 shouted Herr Bantes. 'Away into the kitchen, mamma, and bring the girls into some kind of order, else they will pitch the roast meat into the soup, the soup amid the vegetables, and the vegetables into the cream pot.” "What is wrong?" asked Frau Bantes, astonished. 3 "Don't you know that the whole town says the Spectre Guest has arrived? Two manufacturers came, breathless and dripping wet,2 across the street, to let me know what they had already heard said in more than ten places. I won't hear another word of such nonsense; so away to the kitchen. What an uproar they are keeping up! I put my head in to see what was the matter, and the silly wenches screamed out when they saw my black periwig, and made off, thinking that I was the Spectre Guest in proper person. 'Are you all mad?' said I. 'Ah, good gracious,' cried Kate, 'I will not deny, Herr Bantes, that I am 5 horribly frightened; my knees are bending under me; and I have no reason to be ashamed, though I am engaged to Mat, the tiler. But now, I wish I had never seen Mat in all my days.' Then she began to cry; and when she went to dry her eyes, she let the panful of eggs fall upon the ground. Susanna sits in the chimney corner, and weeps behind her apron. The old simple Lena, although she is past her fiftieth year, was so confused, that she has well nigh cut off her finger with the kitchen knife." "Did I not say so, mamma?" said Frederika, laughing immoderately. 66 Do bring them into order in the kitchen, mamma," 1 Qu'est-ce qu'il y a donc ('What is the matter then')? 2 et tout trempés (page 35, note 4); or, et trempés (or mouillés) jusqu'aux 08, 'wet through'-'wet to the skin' (literally, ... to the bones). 3 what the cause of it was,'not to repeat, at so short an interval, the same expression as at note 1 4 bonté du ciel! 5 Recollect that nier, as well as douter, craindre, &c., governs the subjunctive. Besides, when nier (and also douter) is used with a negation, ne must be repeated in It the subordinate proposition; and 6 qu'elle a failli (followed by the infinitive). |