s_, and
_Husbulhookums_. For once, I will disappoint him in this part of the
dispute; and only in a very few words recommend to his consideration,
how he is to get off the dangerous idea of taxing a public fund, if he
levies those duties in England; and if he is to levy them in India, what
provision he has made for a revenue establishment there; supposing that
he undertakes this new scheme of finance independently of the Company,
and against its inclinations.

So much for these revenues; which are nothing but his visions, or
already the national possessions without any act of his. It is easy to
parade with a high talk of Parliamentary rights, of the universality of
legislative powers, and of uniform taxation. Men of sense, when new
projects come before them, always think a discourse proving the mere
right or mere power of acting in the manner proposed, to be no more than
a very unpleasant way of misspending time. They must see the object to
be of proper magnitude to engage them; they must see the means of
compassing it to be next to certain; the mischiefs not to counterbalance
the profit; they will examine how a proposed imposition or regulation
agrees with the opinion of those who are likely to be affected by it;
they will not despise the consideration even of their habitudes and
prejudices. They wish to know how it accords or disagrees with the true
spirit of prior establishments, whether of government or of finance;
because they well know, that in the complicated economy of great
kingdoms, and immense revenues, which in a length of time, and by a
variety of accidents have coalesced into a sort of body, an attempt
towards a compulsory equality in all circumstances, and an exact
practical definition of the supreme rights in every case, is the most
dangerous and chimerical of all enterprises. The old building stands
well enough, though part Gothic, part Grecian, and part Chinese, until
an attempt is made to square it into uniformity. Then it may come down
upon our heads altogether, in much uniformity of ruin; and great will be
the fall thereof. Some people, instead of inclining to debate the
matter, only feel a sort of nausea, when they are told, that "protection
calls for supply," and that "all the parts ought to contribute to the
support of the whole." Strange argument for great and grave
deliberation! As if the same end may not, and must not, be compassed,
according to its circumstances, by a great diversity of ways.