as an instrument in the rule of our colonies. Their growth and their utility has been owing to methods altogether different. Our antient indulgence has been faid to be pursued to a fault. It may be fo. But we know, if feeling is evidence, that our fault was more tolerable than our attempt to mend it; and our fin far more falutary than our peni tence. These, Sir, are my reasons for not entertaining that high opinion of untried force, by which many gentlemen, for whofe fentiments in other particulars I have great respect, feem to be fo greatly captivated. But there is ftill behind a third confideration concerning this object, which serves to determine my opinion on the fort 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 diftinguishes the whole and as an ardent is always a jealous affection, your colonies become fufpicious, reftive, and untractable, whenever they see the least attempt to wreft from them by force, or fhuffle 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 caufes; which, to understand the true temper of their minds, and the direction which this spirit takes, it will not be amifs to lay open fomewhat more largely. First, the people of the colonies are descendents of Englishmen. England, Sir, is a nation, which ftill I hope refpects, and formerly adored, her freedom. The colonists emigrated from you, when this part of your character was most predominant; and they took this biafs and direction the mo ment ment they parted from your hands. They are therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to Englith ideas, and on English principles. Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found. Liberty inheres in fome fenfible object; and every nation has formed to itself fome favourite point, which by way of eminence becomes the criterion of their happiness. It happened, you know, Sir, that the great contefts for freedom in this country were from the earliest times chiefly upon the question of taxing, Most of the contests in the antient commonwealths turned primarily on the right of election of magistrates; or on the balance among the feveral orders of the state. The queftion of money was not with them fo immediate. But in England it was otherwise. On this point of taxes the ableft pens, and most eloquent tongues, have been exercised; the greateft fpirits have acted and fuffered. In order to give the fullest fatisfaction concerning the importance of this point, it was not only neceffary for those who in argument defended the excellence of the English conftitution, to infift on this privilege of granting money as a dry point of fact, and to prove, that the right had been acknowledged in antient parchments, and blind usages, to refide in a certain body called an house of commons. They went much further; they attempted to prove, and they fucceeded, that in theory it ought to be fo, from the particular nature of a house of commons, as an immediate representative of the people; whether the old records had delivered this oracle or not. They took infinite pains to inculcate, as a fundamental principle, that, in all monarchies, the people muft in effect themfelves mediately or immediately poffefs the power of granting their own money, or no fhadow of liberty could fubfift. The colonies draw from you, as with their life-blood, thefe ideas and princi ples. ples. Their love of liberty, as with you, fixed and attached on this specific point of taxing. Liberty might be fafe, or might be endangered in twenty other particulars, without their being much pleafed or alarmed. Here they felt its pulfe; and as they found that beat, they thought themfelves fick or found. I do not fay whether they were right or wrong in applying your general arguments to their own cafe. It is not easy indeed to make a monopoly of theorems and corollaries. The fact is, that they did thus apply those general arguments; and your mode of governing them, whether through lenity or indolence, through wifdom or mistake, confirmed them in the imagination, that they, as well as you, had an intereft in these common principles. They were further confirmed in this pleasing error by the form of their provincial legislative assemblies. Their governments are popular in an high degree; fome are merely popular; in all, the popular reprefentative is the most weighty; and this fhare of the people in their ordinary government never fails to infpire them with lofty fentiments, and with a strong averfion from whatever tends to deprive them of their chief importance.. If any thing were wanting to this neceffary operation of the form of government, religion would have given it a complete effect. Religion, always a principle of energy, in this new people, is no way worn out or impaired; and their mode of profeffing it is also one main cause of this free spirit. The people are proteftants; and of that kind, which is the most adverse to all implicit fubmiffion of mind and opinion. This is a perfuafion not only favourable to liberty, but built upon it. I do not think, Sir, that the reafon of this averfenefs in the diffenting churches from all that looks like abfolute government is fo much to be fought in their religious tenets, as in their history. Every one knows, that the Roman Roman Catholick religion is at least coeval with most of the governments where it prevails; that it has generally gone hand in hand with them; and received great favour and every kind of support from authority. The church of England too was formed from her cradle under the nurfing care of regular government. But the diffenting interefts have sprung up in direct oppofition to all the ordinary powers of the world; and could justify that opposition only on a strong claim to natural liberty. Their very existence depended on the powerful and unremitted affertion of that claim. All protestantism, even the most cold and paffive, is a fort of diffent. But the religion moft prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principle of resistance; it is the diffidence of diffent; and the proteftantifm of the protestant religion. This religion, under a variety of denominations, agreeing in nothing but in the communion of the fpirit of liberty, is predominant in most of the northern provinces; where the church of England, notwithstanding its legal rights, is in reality no more than a fort of private fect, not compofing most probably the tenth of the people. The colonists left England when this spirit was high; and in the emigrants was the highest of all: and even that stream of foreigners, which has been constantly flowing into these colonies, has, for the greatest part, been compofed of diffenters from the establishments of their feveral countries, and have brought with them a temper and character far from alien to that of the people with whom they mixed. Sir, I can perceive by their manner, that some gentlemen object to the latitude of this defcription; because in the fouthern colonies the church of England forms a large body, and has a regular establishment. It is certainly true. There is however a circumstance attending these colonies, which, in my opinion, fully counterbalances this difference, and VOL. II. makes G makes the spirit of liberty ftill more high and haughty. than in those to the northward. It is that in Virginia and the Carolinas, they have a vast multitude of flaves. Where this is the cafe in any part of the world, those who are free, are by far the most proud and jealous of their freedom. Freedom is to them not only an enjoyment, but a kind of rank and privilege. Not feeing there, that freedom, as in countries where it is a common bleffing, and as broad and general as the air, may be united with much abject toil, with great misery, with all the exterior of fervitude, liberty looks, amongst them, like something that is more noble and liberal. I do not mean, Sir, to commend the fuperior morality of this fentiment, which has at least as much pride as virtue in it; but I cannot alter the nature of man. The fact is fo; and these people of the fouthern colonies are much more ftrongly, and with an higher and more stubborn fpirit, attached to liberty than those to the northward. Such were all the antient commonwealths; fuch were our Gothick ancestors; fuch in our days were the Poles; and fuch will be all mafters of flaves, who are not flaves themfelves. In fuch a people the haughtiness of domination combines with the fpirit of freedom, fortifies it, and renders it invincible. Permit me, Sir, to add another circumftance in our colonies, which contributes no mean part towards the growth. and effect of this untractable spirit. I mean their education. In no country perhaps in the world is the law fo general a study. The profeffion itself is numerous and powerful; and in moft provinces it takes the lead. The greater number of the deputies fent to the congrefs were lawyers. But all who read, and most do read, endeavour to obtain fome fmattering in that science. I have been told by an eminent bookfeller, that in no branch of his business, after tracts of popular devotion, were |