SPEECH OF WILLIAM PITT,

THE ELDER,

(AFTERWARDS LORD CHATHAM,)

IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, JANUARY 16, 1776, ON THE RIGHT TO TAX AMERICA.

MR. SPEAKER,

I CAME to town but-to day. I was a stranger to the tenor of his majesty's speech, and the proposed address, till I heard them read in this house. Unconnected and unconsulted, I have not the means of information. I am fearful of offending through mistake, and therefore beg to be indulged with a second reading of the proposed address. I commend the king's speech, and approve of the address in answer; as it decides nothing, every gentleman being left at perfect liberty to take such a part concerning America, as he might afterwards see fit. One word only I cannot approve of an early, is a word that does not belong to the notice the ministry have given to parliament of the troubles in America. In a matter of such importance, the communication ought to have been immediate. I speak not with respect to parties. I stand up in this place single and independent. As to the late ministry, every capital measure they have taken, has been entirely wrong!

As to the present gentlemen, to those at least whom I have in my eye, I have no objection. I have never been made a sacrifice by any of them. Their characters are fair; and I am always glad when men of fair character engage in his majesty's service. Some of them did me the honor to ask my opinion before they would engage. These will now do me the justice to own, I advised them to do it; but, notwithstanding, to be explicit, I cannot give them my confidence. Pardon me, gentlemen, confidence is a plant of slow growth in an aged bosom. Youth is the season of credulity. By comparing

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events with each other, reasoning from effects to causes methinks I plainly discover the traces of an overruling influ

ence.

There is a clause in the act of settlement to oblige every minister to sign his name to the advice which he gives to his sovereign. Would it were observed!I have had the honor to serve the crown, and if I could have submitted to influence, I might have still continued to serve: but I would not be responsible for others. I have no local attachments. It is indifferent to me whether a man was rocked in his cradle on this side or that side of the Tweed. I sought for merit wherever it was to be found. It is my boast, that I was the first minister who looked for it, and I found it in the mountains of the North. I called it forth, and drew it into your service, a hardy and intrepid race of men! men, who, when left by your jealousy, became a prey to the artifices of your enemies, and had gone nigh to have overturned the state in the war before the last. These men in the last war, were brought to combat on your side; they served with fidelity, as they fought with valor, and conquered. for you in every part of the world. Detested be the nationa reflections against them! They are unjust, groundless, illiberal unmanly. When I ceased to serve his majesty as a minister, it was not the country of the man by which I was moved-but the man of that country wanted wisdom, and held principles incompatible with freedom.

It is a long time, Mr. Speaker, since I have attended in parliament. When the resolution was taken in this house to tax America, I was ill in bed. If I could have endured to have heen carried in my bed, so great was the agitation of my mind for the consequences, I would have solicited some kind hand to have laid me down on this floor, to have borne my testimony against it! It is now an act that has passed. I would speak with decency of every act of this house: but I must beg the indulgence of the house to speak of it with freedom.

I hope a day may be soon appointed to consider the state of the nation with respect to America, I hope gentlemen will come to this debate with all the temper and impartiality that his majesty recommends and the importance of the subject requires. A subject of greater importance than ever engaged the attention of this house! that subject only excepted, when, near a century ago, it was the question, whether you your selves were to be bond or free. In the mean time, as I can. not depend upon my health for any future day, such is the nature of my infirmities, I will beg to say a few words at

present, leaving the justice, the equity, the policy, the expedi-ency of the act, to another time. I will only speak to one point, a point which seems not to have been generally understood. I mean to the right. Some gentlemen seem to have considered it as a point of honor. If gentlemen consider it in that light, they leave all measures of right and wrong, to follow a delusion that may lead to destruction. It is my opinion, that this kingdom has no right to lay a tax upon the colonies. At the same time, I assert the authority of this kingdom over the colonies, to be sovereign and supreme, in every circumstance of government and legislation whatsoever. They are the subjects of this kingdom, equally entitled with yourselves to all the natural rights of mankind and the peculiar privileges of Englishmen ; equally bound by its laws, and equally partici pating of the constitution of this free country. The Americans are the sons, not the bastards of England. Taxation is no part of the governing or legislative power. The taxes are a voluntary gift and grant of the commons alone. In legislation the three estates of the realm are alike concerned, but the con currence of the peers and the crown to tax, is only necessary to close with the form of a law. The gift and grant is of the commons alone. In ancient days, the crown, the barons, and the clergy, possessed the lands. In those days, the barons and he clergy gave and granted to the crown. They gave and granted what was their own. At present, since the discovery of America, and other circumstances permitting, the commons are become the proprietors of the land. The church, God bless it, has but a pittance. The property of the lords, compared with that of the commons, is as a drop of water in the ocean; and this house represents those commons, the proprietors of the lands; and those proprietors virtually represent the rest of the inhabitants. When, therefore, in this house we give and grant, we give and grant what is our own. But in an American tax, what do we do? We your majesty's commons for Great Britain give and grant to your majesty, what? Our own property? No. We give and grant to your majesty, the property of your majesty's commons of America. It is an absurdity in terms.

The distinction between legislation and taxation is essentially necessary to liberty. The crown, the peers, are equally legis lative powers with the commons. If taxation be a part of simple legislation, the crown, the peers have rights in taxation as well as yourselves; rights which they will claim, which they will exercise, whenever the principle can be supported by

power.

There is an idea in some, that the colonies are virtually re

presented in the house. I would fain know by whom an American is represented here? Is he represented by any knight of the shire, in any county in this kingdom? Would to God that respectable representation was augmented to a greater number! Or will you tell him that he is represented by any representative of a borough-a borough which, perhaps, its own representatives never saw. This is what is called the rotten part of the constitution. It cannot continue a century. If it does not drop, it must be amputated. The idea of a virtual representation of America in this house is the most contemptible idea that ever entered into the head of a man. It does not deserve a serious

refutation.

The commons of America, represented in their several as semblies, have ever been in possession of the exercise of this, their constitutional right, of giving and granting their own money. They would have been slaves if they had not enjoyed it. At the same time, this kingdom, as the supreme governing and legislative power, has always bound the colonies by her laws, by her regulations, and restrictions in trade, in navigation, in manufactures, in every thing, except that of taking their money out of their pockets without their consent.

Here I would draw the line,

Quam ultra citraque neque consistere rectum.

Gentlemen, Sir, have been charged with giving birth to sedition in America. They have spoken their sentiments with freedom against this unhappy act, and that freedom has become their crime. Sorry I am to hear the liberty of speech in this house imputed as a crime. But the imputation shall not discourage me. It is a liberty I mean to exercise. No gentleman ought to be afraid to exercise it. It is a liberty by which the gentleman who calumniates it might have profited. He ought to have desisted from his project. The gentleman tells us, America is obstinate; America is almost in open rebellion. I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people, so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest. I come not here armed at all points, with law cases and acts of parliament, with the statute book doubled down in dog's ears, to defend the cause of liberty: if I had, I myself would have cited the two cases of Chester and Durham. I would have cited them, to have shown that, even under former arbi*rary reigns, parliaments were ashamed of taxing a people without their consent; and allowed them representatives. Why

did the gentleman confine himself to Chester and Durham! He might have taken a higher example in Wa.es, Wales, that never was taxed by parliament till it was incorporated. I would not debate a particular point of law with the gentleman. I know his abilities. I have been obliged to his diligent researches. But, for the defence of liberty, upon a general principle, upon a constitutional principle, it is a ground on which I stand firm; on which I dare meet any man. The gentleman tells us of many who are taxed, and are not represented;-the India company, merchants, stockholders, manufacturers. Surely many of these are represented in other capacities, as owners of land, or as freemen of boroughs. It is a misfortune that more are not equally represented. But they are all inhabitants, and as such are they not virtually represented? Many have it in their option to be actually represented. They have connexions with those that elect, and they have influence over them. The gentleman mentioned the stockholders. I hope he does not reckon the debts of the nation as a part of the national estate. Since the accession of king William, many ministers, some of great, others of more moderate abilities, have taken the lead of government.

He then went through the list of them, bringing it down till he came to himself, giving a short sketch of the characters of each of them. None of these, he said, thought or ever dreamed of robbing the colonies of their constitutional rights. That was reserved to mark the era of the late administration: not that there were wanting some, when I had the honor to serve his majesty, to propose to me to burn my fingers with an American stamp act. With the enemy at their back, with our bayonets at their breasts, in the day of their distress, perhaps the Americans would have submitted to the imposition; but it would have been taking an ungenerous, an unjust advantage. The gentleman boasts of his bounties to America! Are not these bounties intended finally for the benefit of this kingdom? If they are not, he has misapplied the national treasures. I am no courtier of America. I stand up for this kingdom. I maintain that the parliament has a right to bind, to restrain America.

Our legislative power over the colonies is sovereign and supreme. When it ceases to be sovereign and supreme, I would advise every gentleman to sell his lands, if he can, and embark for that country. When two countries are connected together like England and her colonies without being incorporated, the one must necessarily govern. The greater must rule the less; but so rule it, as not to contradict the fundamental principles that are common to both.