he
bayonet? and that this House, the ground and pillar of freedom, is
itself held up only by the treacherous underpinning and clumsy
buttresses of arbitrary power?

If this dignity, which is to stand in the place of just policy and
common sense, had been consulted, there was a time for preserving it,
and for reconciling it with any concession. If in the session of 1768,
that session of idle terror and empty menaces, you had, as you were
often pressed to do, repealed these taxes, then your strong operations
would have come justified and enforced, in case your concessions had
been returned by outrages. But, preposterously, you began with violence;
and before terrors could have any effect, either good or bad, your
ministers immediately begged pardon, and promised that repeal to the
obstinate Americans which they had refused in an easy, good-natured,
complying British Parliament. The assemblies, which had been publicly
and avowedly dissolved for _their_ contumacy, are called together to
receive _your_ submission. Your ministerial directors blustered like
tragic tyrants here; and then went mumping with a sore leg in America,
canting, and whining, and complaining of faction, which represented them
as friends to a revenue from the colonies. I hope nobody in this House
will hereafter have the impudence to defend American taxes in the name
of ministry. The moment they do, with this letter of attorney in my
hand, I will tell them, in the authorized terms, they are wretches "with
factious and seditious views," "enemies to the peace and prosperity of
the mother country and the colonies," and subverters "of the mutual
affection and confidence on which the glory and safety of the British
empire depend."

After this letter, the question is no more on propriety or dignity. They
are gone already. The faith of your sovereign is pledged for the
political principle. The general declaration in the letter goes to the
whole of it. You must therefore either abandon the scheme of taxing, or
you must send the ministers tarred and feathered to America, who dared
to hold out the royal faith for a renunciation of all taxes for revenue.
Them you must punish, or this faith you must preserve. The preservation
of this faith is of more consequence than the duties on _red lead_, or
_white lead_, or on broken _glass_, or _atlas-ordinary_, or _demy-fine_,
or _blue-royal_, or _bastard_, or _fools cap_, which you have given up,
or the three-pence on tea wh