nds, and with the same
good effect. This is my model with regard to America, as far as the
internal circumstances of the two countries are the same. I know no
other unity of this empire than I can draw from its example during these
periods, when it seemed to my poor understanding more united than it is
now, or than it is likely to be by the present methods.

But since I speak of these methods, I recollect, Mr. Speaker, almost too
late, that I promised, before I finished, to say something of the
proposition of the noble lord[29] on the floor, which has been so lately
received, and stands on your journals. I must be deeply concerned,
whenever it is my misfortune to continue a difference with the majority
of this House. But as the reasons for that difference are my apology for
thus troubling you, suffer me to state them in a very few words. I shall
compress them into as small a body as I possibly can, having already
debated that matter at large, when the question was before the
committee.

First, then, I cannot admit that proposition of a ransom by
auction,--because it is a mere project. It is a thing new, unheard of,
supported by no experience, justified by no analogy, without example of
our ancestors, or root in the Constitution. It is neither regular
Parliamentary taxation nor colony grant. _Experimentum in corpore vili_
is a good rule, which will ever make me adverse to any trial of
experiments on what is certainly the most valuable of all subjects, the
peace of this empire.

Secondly, it is an experiment which must be fatal in the end to our
Constitution. For what is it but a scheme for taxing the colonies in the
antechamber of the noble lord and his successors? To settle the quotas
and proportions in this House is clearly impossible. You, Sir, may
flatter yourself you shall sit a state auctioneer, with your hammer in
your hand, and knock down to each colony as it bids. But to settle (on
the plan laid down by the noble lord) the true proportional payment for
four or five and twenty governments, according to the absolute and the
relative wealth of each, and according to the British proportion of
wealth and burden, is a wild and chimerical notion. This new taxation
must therefore come in by the back-door of the Constitution. Each quota
must be brought to this House ready formed. You can neither add nor
alter. You must register it. You can do nothing further. For on what
grounds can you deliberate either before or aft