degree with _obstinacy_. Obstinacy, Sir, is certainly a
great vice; and in the changeful state of political affairs it is
frequently the cause of great mischief. It happens, however, very
unfortunately, that almost the whole line of the great and masculine
virtues, constancy, gravity, magnanimity, fortitude, fidelity, and
firmness, are closely allied to this disagreeable quality, of which you
have so just an abhorrence; and, in their excess, all these virtues very
easily fall into it. He who paid such a punctilious attention to all
your feelings certainly took care not to shock them by that vice which
is the most disgustful to you.

That fear of displeasing those who ought most to be pleased betrayed him
sometimes into the other extreme. He had voted, and, in the year 1765,
had been an advocate for the Stamp Act. Things and the disposition of
men's minds were changed. In short, the Stamp Act began to be no
favorite in this House. He therefore attended at the private meeting in
which the resolutions moved by a right honorable gentleman were settled:
resolutions leading to the repeal. The next day he voted for that
repeal; and he would have spoken for it, too, if an illness (not, as was
then given out, a political, but, to my knowledge, a very real illness)
had not prevented it.

The very next session, as the fashion of this world passeth away, the
repeal began to be in as bad an odor in this House as the Stamp Act had
been in the session before. To conform to the temper which began to
prevail, and to prevail mostly amongst those most in power, he declared,
very early in the winter, that a revenue must be had out of America.
Instantly he was tied down to his engagements by some, who had no
objection to such experiments, when made at the cost of persons for whom
they had no particular regard. The whole body of courtiers drove him
onward. They always talked as if the king stood in a sort of humiliated
state, until something of the kind should be done.

Here this extraordinary man, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, found
himself in great straits. To please universally was the object of his
life; but to tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is
not given to men. However, he attempted it. To render the tax palatable
to the partisans of American revenue, he made a preamble stating the
necessity of such a revenue. To close with the American distinction,
this revenue was _external_ or port-duty; but again, to s