enemy,
warranted, by the sanction of his own courts and Parliament, to do
anything that can defraud its revenue. Perhaps this may be one of
the causes of the vulgar saying,--which all must have heard, but
which, thank God, I still hope is not warranted by the practice of
the native merchants of our country,--that custom-house oaths
have no validity. There is a feeling, but too prevalent, which
distinguishes between custom-house oaths and other oaths. It is
obvious that smuggling can not be carried on to any extent without
the commission of perjury. There must be false swearing; and it is
that false swearing which the British laws have sanctioned. None
of this bullion, of which Justice Buller speaks, could be smuggled
out of Spain and Portugal without false oaths; and you will find,
from the details of a case which I shall presently call to your
attention, that false swearing is at the bottom of the frauds which
this bill seeks to correct--frauds in consequence of which seven
eighths of all the woollens imported into New York escaped the
payment of the duty charged by law. These people do not hold
themselves bound to respect our revenue laws, and thus proceed
without scruples to the perpetration of perjury in order to carry
on with success the evasion of them."

In the conclusion of his speech Mr. Adams paid the following tribute to
the English nation, saying:

"That of the English nation he entertained sentiments of the most
exalted admiration; that he was proud of being himself descended
from that stock, although two hundred years had passed away, during
which all his ancestors had been natives of this country. He claimed
the great men of England of former ages as his countrymen, and could
say with the poet Cowper, in hearty concurrence with the sentiment,
that it is

'Praise enough
To fill the ambition of a common man,
That Chatham's language was his mother tongue,
And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own.'

"He believed that no nation, of ancient or modern times, was more
entitled to veneration for its exertion in the cause of human
improvement than the British. He thought their code of laws
admirable; but, in the discussion of the bill before the committee,
he had been compelled, in the discharge of his duty, to expose one