as a moment
favorable to the king's arms, when, if any powers of concession had
existed on the other side of the Atlantic, even after all our errors,
peace in all probability might have been restored. But calamity is
unhappily the usual season of reflection; and the pride of men will not
often suffer reason to have any scope, until it can be no longer of
service.

I have always wished, that as the dispute had its apparent origin from
things done in Parliament, and as the acts passed there had provoked the
war, that the foundations of peace should be laid in Parliament also. I
have been astonished to find that those whose zeal for the dignity of
our body was so hot as to light up the flames of civil war should even
publicly declare that these delicate points ought to be wholly left to
the crown. Poorly as I may be thought affected to the authority of
Parliament, I shall never admit that our constitutional rights can ever
become a matter of ministerial negotiation.

I am charged with being an American. If warm affection towards those
over whom I claim any share of authority be a crime, I am guilty of this
charge. But I do assure you, (and they who know me publicly and
privately will bear witness to me,) that, if ever one man lived more
zealous than another for the supremacy of Parliament and the rights of
this imperial crown, it was myself. Many others, indeed, might be more
knowing in the extent of the foundation of these rights. I do not
pretend to be an antiquary, a lawyer, or qualified for the chair of
professor in metaphysics. I never ventured to put your solid interests
upon speculative grounds. My having constantly declined to do so has
been attributed to my incapacity for such disquisitions; and I am
inclined to believe it is partly the cause. I never shall be ashamed to
confess, that, where I am ignorant, I am diffident. I am, indeed, not
very solicitous to clear myself of this imputed incapacity; because men
even less conversant than I am in this kind of subtleties, and placed
in stations to which I ought not to aspire, have, by the mere force of
civil discretion, often conducted the affairs of great nations with
distinguished felicity and glory.

When I first came into a public trust, I found your Parliament in
possession of an unlimited legislative power over the colonies. I could
not open the statute-book without seeing the actual exercise of it, more
or less, in all cases whatsoever. This possession passe