eyond what was
written; I was resolved to use nothing else than the form of sound
words, to let others abound in their own sense, and carefully to abstain
from all expressions of my own. What the law has said, I say. In all
things else I am silent. I have no organ but for her words. This, if it
be not ingenious, I am sure is safe.

There are, indeed, words expressive of grievance in this second
resolution, which those who are resolved always to be in the right will
deny to contain matter of fact, as applied to the present case; although
Parliament thought them true with regard to the Counties of Chester and
Durham. They will deny that the Americans were ever "touched and
grieved" with the taxes. If they consider nothing in taxes but their
weight as pecuniary impositions, there might be some pretence for this
denial. But men may be sorely touched and deeply grieved in their
privileges, as well as in their purses. Men may lose little in property
by the act which takes away all their freedom. When a man is robbed of a
trifle on the highway, it is not the twopence lost that constitutes the
capital outrage. This is not confined to privileges. Even ancient
indulgences withdrawn, without offence on the part of those who enjoyed
such favors, operate as grievances. But were the Americans, then, not
touched and grieved by the taxes, in some measure, merely as taxes? If
so, why were they almost all either wholly repealed or exceedingly
reduced? Were they not touched and grieved even by the regulating duties
of the sixth of George the Second? Else why were the duties first
reduced to one third in 1764, and afterwards to a third of that third in
the year 1766? Were they not touched and grieved by the Stamp Act? I
shall say they were, until that tax is revived. Were they not touched
and grieved by the duties of 1767, which were likewise repealed, and
which Lord Hillsborough tells you (for the ministry) were laid contrary
to the true principle of commerce? Is not the assurance given by that
noble person to the colonies of a resolution to lay no more taxes on
them an admission that taxes would touch and grieve them? Is not the
resolution of the noble lord in the blue riband, now standing on your
journals, the strongest of all proofs that Parliamentary subsidies
really touched and grieved them? Else why all these changes,
modifications, repeals, assurances, and resolutions?

The next proposition is,--"That, from the distance of the sai