made in the fourteenth year of the reign of his present Majesty,
intituled, 'An act to discontinue, in such manner and for such time as
are therein mentioned, the landing and discharging, lading or shipping,
of goods, wares, and merchandise, at the town and within the harbor of
Boston, in the province of Massachusetts Bay, in North America.'--And
also, that it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the fourteenth
year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled, 'An act for the
impartial administration of justice, in the cases of persons questioned
for any acts done by them, in the execution of the law, or for the
suppression of riots and tumults, in the province of the Massachusetts
Bay, in New England.'--And also, that it may be proper to repeal an act,
made in the fourteenth year of the reign of his present Majesty,
intituled,' An act for the better regulating the government of the
province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England.'--And also, that it
may be proper to explain and amend an act, made in the thirty-fifth year
of the reign of King Henry the Eighth, intituled, 'An act for the trial
of treasons committed out of the king's dominions.'"

I wish, Sir, to repeal the Boston Port Bill, because (independently of
the dangerous precedent of suspending the rights of the subject during
the king's pleasure) it was passed, as I apprehend, with less
regularity, and on more partial principles, than it ought. The
corporation of Boston was not heard before it was condemned. Other
towns, full as guilty as she was, have not had their ports blocked up.
Even the Restraining Bill of the present session does not go to the
length of the Boston Port Act. The same ideas of prudence, which induced
you not to extend equal punishment to equal guilt, even when you were
punishing, induce me, who mean not to chastise, but to reconcile, to be
satisfied with the punishment already partially inflicted.

Ideas of prudence and accommodation to circumstances prevent you from
taking away the charters of Connecticut and Rhode Island, as you have
taken away that of Massachusetts Colony, though the crown has far less
power in the two former provinces than it enjoyed in the latter, and
though the abuses have bean full as great and as flagrant in the
exempted as in the punished. The same reasons of prudence and
accommodation have weight with me in restoring the charter of
Massachusetts Bay. Besides, Sir, the act which changes the charter of
Ma