al is promised,--promised without condition,--and while your
authority was actually resisted. I pass by the public promise of a peer
relative to the repeal of taxes by this House. I pass by the use of the
king's name in a matter of supply, that sacred and reserved right of the
Commons. I conceal the ridiculous figure of Parliament hurling its
thunders at the gigantic rebellion of America, and then, five days
after, prostrate at the feet of those assemblies we affected to
despise,--begging them, by the intervention of our ministerial sureties,
to receive our submission, and heartily promising amendment. These might
have been serious matters formerly; but we are grown wiser than our
fathers. Passing, therefore, from the Constitutional consideration to
the mere policy, does not this letter imply that the idea of taxing
America for the purpose of revenue is an abominable project, when the
ministry suppose none but _factious_ men, and with seditious views,
could charge them with it? does not this letter adopt and sanctify the
American distinction of _taxing for a revenue_? does it not formally
reject all future taxation on that principle? does it not state the
ministerial rejection of such principle of taxation, not as the
occasional, but the constant opinion of the king's servants? does it not
say, (I care not how consistently,) but does it not say, that their
conduct with regard to America has been _always_ governed by this
policy? It goes a great deal further. These excellent and trusty
servants of the king, justly fearful lest they themselves should have
lost all credit with the world, bring out the image of their gracious
sovereign from the inmost and most sacred shrine, and they pawn him as a
security for their promises:--"_His Majesty_ relies on your prudence and
fidelity for such an explanation of _his_ measures." These sentiments of
the minister and these measures of his Majesty can only relate to the
principle and practice of taxing for a revenue; and accordingly Lord
Botetourt, stating it as such, did, with great propriety, and in the
exact spirit of his instructions, endeavor to remove the fears of the
Virginian assembly lest the sentiments which it seems (unknown to the
world) had _always_ been those of the ministers, and by which _their_
conduct _in respect to America had been governed_, should by some
possible revolution, favorable to wicked American taxers, be hereafter
counteracted. He addresses them in this m