ich you retained. The letter went stamped
with the public authority of this kingdom. The instructions for the
colony government go under no other sanction; and America cannot
believe, and will not obey you, if you do not preserve this channel of
communication sacred. You are now punishing the colonies for acting on
distinctions held out by that very ministry which is here shining in
riches, in favor, and in power, and urging the punishment of the very
offence to which they had themselves been the tempters.

Sir, if reasons respecting simply your own commerce, which is your own
convenience, were the sole grounds of the repeal of the five duties, why
does Lord Hillsborough, in disclaiming in the name of the king and
ministry their ever having had an intent to tax for revenue, mention it
as the means "of reestablishing the confidence and affection of the
colonies?" Is it a way of soothing _others_, to assure them that you
will take good care of _yourself_? The medium, the only medium, for
regaining their affection and confidence is that you will take off
something oppressive to their minds. Sir, the letter strongly enforces
that idea: for though the repeal of the taxes is promised on commercial
principles, yet the means of counteracting the "insinuations of men with
factious and seditious views" is by a disclaimer of the intention of
taxing for revenue, as a constant, invariable sentiment and rule of
conduct in the government of America.

I remember that the noble lord on the floor, not in a former debate to
be sure, (it would be disorderly to refer to it, I suppose I read it
somewhere,) but the noble lord was pleased to say, that he did not
conceive how it could enter into the head of man to impose such taxes as
those of 1767: I mean those taxes which he voted for imposing, and voted
for repealing,--as being taxes, contrary to all the principles of
commerce, laid on _British manufactures_.

I dare say the noble lord is perfectly well read, because the duty of
his particular office requires he should be so, in all our revenue laws,
and in the policy which is to be collected out of them. Now, Sir, when
he had read this act of American revenue, and a little recovered from
his astonishment, I suppose he made one step retrograde (it is but one)
and looked at the act which stands just before in the statute-book. The
American revenue act is the forty-fifth chapter; the other to which I
refer is the forty-fourth of the same ses