He considered the Americans as standing at that time, and in
that controversy, in the same relation to England as England did to King
James the Second in 1688. He believed that they had taken up arms from
one motive only: that is, our attempting to tax them without their
consent,--to tax them for the purposes of maintaining civil and military
establishments. If this attempt of ours could have been practically
established, he thought, with them, that their Assemblies would become
totally useless,--that, under the system of policy which was then
pursued, the Americans could have no sort of security for their laws or
liberties, or for any part of them,--and that the very circumstance of
_our_ freedom would have augmented the weight of _their_ slavery.
Considering the Americans on that defensive footing, he thought Great
Britain ought instantly to have closed with them by the repeal of the
taxing act. He was of opinion that our general rights over that country
would have been preserved by this timely concession.[9] When, instead of
this, a Boston Port Bill, a Massachusetts Charter Bill, a Fishery Bill,
an Intercourse Bill, I know not how many hostile bills, rushed out like
so many tempests from all points of the compass, and were accompanied
first with great fleets and armies of English, and followed afterwards
with great bodies of foreign troops, he thought that their cause grew
daily better, because daily more defensive,--and that ours, because
daily more offensive, grew daily worse.
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