[325]: I rejoice that America has resisted; three millions of people so dead to all the feelings of liberty, as voluntarily to let themselves be made slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of all the rest.
Let the sacredness of their property remain inviolate; let it be taxable only by their own consent given in their provincial assemblies; else it will cease to be property.
This glorious spirit of whiggism animate three millions in America, who prefer liberty with poverty to gilded chains and sordid affluence, and who will die in defense of their rights as men, as freemen.... The spirit which now resists your taxation in America is the same which formerly opposed loans, benevolences, and ship money in England; the same spirit that called England on its legs, and by the bill of rights vindicated the English constitution; the same spirit which established the great, fundamental essential maxim of your liberties: that no subject of England shall be taxed but by his own consent.
As an Englishman by birth and principle, I recognise to the American their supreme inalienable right in their property, a right which they are justified in the defense of, to the last extremity.
[326]: Probablement Junius est Philip Francis.—1769-1772.
[327]: My lord, you are so little accustomed to receive any marks of respect or esteem from the public, that if in the following lines a compliment, or expression of applause should escape me, I fear you would consider it as a mockery of your established character, and perhaps an insult to your understanding.
[328]: There is something in both your character and conduct, which distinguishes you not only from all other ministers, but from all other men. It is not that you do wrong by design, but that you should never do right by mistake. It is not that your indolence and your activity have been equally misapplied, but that the first uniform principle, or, if I may call it, the genius of your life, should have carried you through every possible change and contradiction of conduct, without the momentary imputation or colour of virtue, and that the wildest spirit of inconsistency should never even have betrayed you into a wise or honourable action.
[329]: You have every claim to compassion that can arise from misery and distress. The condition you are reduced to would disarm a private enemy of his resentment, and leave no consolation to the most vindictive spirit, but that such an object, as you are, would disgrace the dignity of revenge.
For my own part I do not pretend to understand those prudent forms of decorum, those gentle rules of discretion, which some men endeavour to unite with the conduct of the greatest and most hazardous affairs; I should scorn to provide for a future retreat, or to keep terms with a man, who preserves no measures with the public. Neither the abject submission of deserting his post in the hour of danger, nor even the sacred shield of cowardice should protect him. I would pursue him through life, and try the best exertion of my ability to preserve the perishable infamy of his name and make it immortal.
[330]: Sir—It is the misfortune of your life, and originally the cause of every reproach and distress which has attended your government, that you should never have been acquainted with the language of truth till you heard it in the complaints of your people. It is not, however, too late to correct the error of your education. We are still inclined to make an indulgent allowance for the pernicious lessons you received in your youth, and to form the most sanguine hopes from the natural benevolence of your disposition. We are far from thinking you capable of a direct deliberate purpose to invade those original rights of your subjects on which all their civil and political liberties depend. Had it been possible for us to entertain a suspicion so dishonourable to your character, we should long since have adopted a style of remonstrance very distant from the humility of complaint.