“As the rising of this crisis above described forms precisely the object on which Government should be employed, so the taking leading measures towards the forming all those Atlantic and American possessions into one empire, of which Great Britain should be the commercial and political centre, is the precise duty of Government at this crisis.”[528]
This was his desire. But he saw clearly the resources as well as the rights of the Colonies, and was satisfied, that, if power were not consolidated under the constitutional auspices of England, it would be transferred to the other side of the Atlantic. Here his words are prophetic:—
“The whole train of events, the whole course of business, must perpetually bring forward into practice, and necessarily in the end into establishment, either an American or a British union. There is no other alternative.”[529]
The necessity for union is enforced in a manner which foreshadows our National Union:—
“The Colonial Legislature does certainly not answer all purposes,—is incompetent and inadequate to many purposes. Something, therefore, more is necessary,—either a common union amongst themselves, or a one common union of subordination under the one general legislature of the state.”[530]
Then, again, in another place of the same work, after representing the declarations of power over the Colonies as little better than mockery, he prophesies:—
“Such is the actual state of the really existing system of our dominions, that neither the power of government over these various parts can long continue under the present mode of administration, nor the great interest of commerce extended throughout the whole long subsist under the present system of the laws of trade.”[531]
Recent events may give present interest to his views, in this same work, on the nature and necessity of a paper currency, where he follows Franklin. The principal points of his plan were: That bills of credit, to a certain amount, should be printed in England for the use of the Colonies; that a loan-office should be established in each Colony, to issue bills, take securities, and receive the payments; that the bills should be issued for ten years, bearing interest at five per cent.,—one tenth part of the sum borrowed to be paid annually, with the interest; and that they should be a legal tender.[532]
When the differences had flamed forth in war, then the prophet became more earnest. His utterances deserve to be rescued from oblivion. He was open, almost defiant. As early as 2d December, 1777, some months before our treaty with France, he declared, from his place in Parliament, that “the sovereignty of this country over America is abolished and gone forever”; that “they are determined at all events to be independent, and they will be so”; and that “all the treaty that this country can ever expect with America is federal, and that, probably, only commercial.” In this spirit he said to the House:—