..
Can there be a more proper time to force them to maintain an army
at their expence, than when that army is necessary for their own
protection, and we are utterly unable to support it? Lastly, can
there be a more proper time for this mother country to leave off
feeding out of her own vitals these children whom she has nursed
up, than when they are arrived at such strength and maturity as
to be well able to provide for themselves, and ought rather with
filial duty to give some assistance to her distresses?"
Americans, after all, were not the only ones who might claim to
have a grievance!
It was upon a lighter note, not to end in anticlimax, that Mr.
Jenyns concluded his able pamphlet. He had heard it hinted that
allowing the colonies representation in Parliament would be a
simple plan for making taxes legal. The impracticability of this
plan, he would not go into, since the plan itself had nowhere
been seriously pressed, but he would, upon that head, offer the
following consideration:
"I have lately seen so many specimens of the great powers of
speech of which these American gentlemen are possessed, that I
should be much afraid that the sudden importation of so much
eloquence at once would greatly endanger the safety of the
government of this country.
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