n afforded them in the most
full and ample manner. The nation has run itself into an immense debt to
give it to them; and now that they are called upon to contribute a small
share towards an expense arising from themselves, they renounce your
authority, insult your officers, and break out, I might almost say, into
open rebellion.

"The seditious spirit of the colonists owes its birth to the factions in
this House. We were told we tread on tender ground; we were told to
expect disobedience. What was this but telling the Americans to stand
out against the law, to encourage their obstinacy, with the expectation
of support from hence? Let us only hold back a little, they would say;
our friends will soon be in power.

"Ungrateful people of America! When I had the honour to serve the Crown,
while you yourselves were loaded with an enormous debt of one hundred
and forty millions sterling, and paid a revenue of ten millions
sterling, you have given bounties on their timber, on their iron, their
hemp, and many other articles. You have restored in their favour the Act
of Navigation, that palladium of British commerce. I offered to do
everything in my power to advance the trade of America. I discouraged no
trade but what was prohibited by Act of Parliament. I was above giving
an answer to anonymous calumnies; but in this place it becomes me to
wipe off the aspersion."

When Grenville sat down, several members got up; but the House clamoured
for Pitt, who seemed to rise. A point of order was decided in favour of
his speaking, and the cry of "Go on, go on!" resounded from all parts of
the House. Pitt, addressing the Speaker, said:

"Sir, I have been charged with giving birth to sedition in America. They
have spoken their sentiments with freedom against this unhappy Act, and
that freedom has become their crime. Sorry I am to hear the liberty of
speech in this House imputed as a crime. But the imputation shall not
discourage me. It is a liberty I mean to exercise; no gentleman ought to
be afraid to exercise it. It is a liberty by which the gentleman who
calumniates it might and ought to have profited. He ought to have
desisted from his project. The gentleman tells us America is obstinate;
America is almost in open rebellion. I rejoice that America has
resisted." (At this word the members of the House were startled as
though an electric spark had darted through them all.) "I rejoice that
America has resisted. If its millions of inh