concession
recommended to you, though proper, should be a means of drawing on you
further, but unreasonable claims,--why, then employ your force in
supporting that reasonable concession against those unreasonable
demands. You will employ it with more grace, with better effect, and
with great probable concurrence of all the quiet and rational people in
the provinces, who are now united with and hurried away by the
violent,--having, indeed, different dispositions, but a common interest.
If you apprehend that on a concession you shall be pushed by
metaphysical process to the extreme lines, and argued out of your whole
authority, my advice is this: when you have recovered your old, your
strong, your tenable position, then face about,--stop short,--do nothing
more,--reason not at all,--oppose the ancient policy and practice of the
empire as a rampart against the speculations of innovators on both sides
of the question,--and you will stand on great, manly, and sure ground.
On this solid basis fix your machines, and they will draw worlds towards
you.

Tour ministers, in their own and his Majesty's name, have already
adopted the American distinction of internal and external duties. It is
a distinction, whatever merit it may have, that was originally moved by
the Americans themselves; and I think they will acquiesce in it, if they
are not pushed with too much logic and too little sense, in all the
consequences: that is, if external taxation be understood, as they and
you understand it, when you please, to be not a distinction of
geography, but of policy; that it is a power for regulating trade, and
not for supporting establishments. The distinction, which is as nothing
with regard to right, is of most weighty consideration in practice.
Recover your old ground, and your old tranquillity; try it; I am
persuaded the Americans will compromise with you. When confidence is
once restored, the odious and suspicious _summum jus_ will perish of
course. The spirit of practicability, of moderation, and mutual
convenience will never call in geometrical exactness as the arbitrator
of an amicable settlement. Consult and follow your experience. Let not
the long story with which I have exercised your patience prove fruitless
to your interests.

For my part, I should choose (if I could have my wish) that the
proposition of the honorable gentleman[13] for the repeal could go to
America without the attendance of the penal bills. Alone I could al