The following fact is of so much importance, that I cannot satisfy myself without laying it before the public.—In a Committee of the American Congress in June 1775, a declaration was drawn up containing an offer to Great Britain, “that the Colonies would not only continue to grant extraordinary aids in time of war, but also, if allowed a free commerce, pay into the Sinking-Fund such a sum annually for ONE HUNDRED YEARS, as should be more than sufficient in that time, if faithfully applied, to extinguish all the present debts of Britain. Or, provided this was not accepted, that, to remove the groundless jealousy of Britain that the Colonies aimed at Independence and an abolition of the Navigation Act, which in truth, they had never intended; and also, to avoid all future disputes about the right of making that and other Acts for regulating their commerce for the general benefit, they would enter into a covenant with Britain, that she should fully possess and exercise that right for one hundred years to come.”
At the end of the preceding Tract I have had the honor of laying before the public the Earl of Shelburne’s plan of Pacification with the Colonies. In that plan, it is particularly proposed, that the Colonies should grant an annual supply to be carried to the Sinking Fund, and unalienably appropriated to the discharge of the public debt.—It must give this excellent Peer great pleasure to learn, from this resolution, that even this part of his plan, as well as all the other parts, would, most probably, have been accepted by the Colonies. For though the resolution only offers the alternative of either a free trade, with extraordinary aids and an annual supply, or an exclusive trade confirmed and extended; yet there can be little reason to doubt, but that to avoid the calamities of the present contest, BOTH would have been consented to; particularly, if, on our part, such a revisal of the laws of trade had been offered as was proposed in Lord Shelburne’s plan.
The preceding resolution was, I have said, drawn up in a Committee of the Congress. But it was not entered in their minutes; a severe Act of Parliament happening to arrive at that time, which determined them not to give the sum proposed in it.
FINIS.
FOOTNOTES
[11] See a particular explanation of this assertion in the Second Tract, [Page 9].
[12] In Great Britain, consisting of near six millions of inhabitants, 5723 persons, most of them the lowest of the people, elect one half of the House of Commons; and 364 votes chuse a ninth part. This may be seen distinctly made out in the Political Disquisitions, Vol. 1. Book 2. C. 4. a work full of important and useful instruction.