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SPEECH

OF

EDMUND BURKE, Efq;

ON

American Taxation.

APRIL 19, 1774

BR IS TO L:

Re-printed and fold by W. P1 N E, in Wine-ftreets.
Also fold by all the other Booksellers.

226. j. 34.

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PREFACE.

"HE following Speech has been much the fubject of conver fation; and the defire of having it printed was laft fummer very general. The means of gratifying the public curiosity were obligingly furnished from the notes of fome gentlemen, Members of the laft Parliament.

This piece has been for some months ready for the prefs. But a delicacy, poffibly over fcrupulous, has delayed the publication to this time. The friends of administration have been used to attribute a great deal of the oppofition to their measures in America to the writings published in England. The Editor of this Speech kept it back, until all the meafures of government have had their full operation, and can be no longer affected, if ever they could have been affected, by any publication.

Most Readers will recollect the uncommon pains taken at the beginning of the laft feffion of the laft Parliament, and indeed during the whole courfe of it, to afperfe the characters, and decry the measures of those who were supposed to be friends to America; in order to weaken the effect of their oppofition to the afts of rigour then preparing against the Colonies. This Speech contains a full refutation of the charges against that party with which Mr. Burke has all along acted. In doing this, he has taken a review of the effects of all the schemes which have been fucceflively adopted in the government of the plantations. The fubject is interesting; the matters of information various, and important; and the publication at this time, the Editor hopes, will not be thought unseasonable.

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D

S PE E C H, &c.

URING the laft feffion of the laft parliament, on the 19th of April, 1774, Mr. Rofe Fuller, member for Rye, made the following motion; That an act made in the 7th year of the reign of his prefent Majefty, intituled, "An act for granting "certain duties in the British colonies and plantations in Ameri "ca; for allowing a drawback of the duties of cuftoms upon the "exportation from this kingdom of Coffee and Cocoa Nuts, of "the produce of the faid colonies or plantations; for discontinu"ing the drawbacks, payable on China earthen ware exported "to America; and for more effectually preventing the clandef"tine running of goods in the faid colonies and plantations;" might be read.

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And the fame being read accordingly; He moved, "That this "houfe will, upon this day fevennight, refolve itself into a com"mittee of the whole house, to take into confideration the duty of "3d. per pound weight upon tea, payable in all his Majesty's "dominions in America, impofed by the said act; and also the "appropriation of the said duty."

On this latter motion a warm and interesting debate arose, in which Mr. Edmund Burke spoke as follows.

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SIR, Agree with the honourable Gentleman * who spoke last, that this fubject is not new in the house. Very disagreeably to this house, very unfortunately to this nation, and to the peace and prosperity of this whole Empire, no topic has been more familiar to us. For nine long years, feffion after feffion, we have been lafhed round and round this miferable circle of occafional arguments and temporary expedients. I am; fure our heads muft turn, and our ftomachs nauseate with them. We have had them in every shape; we have looked at them in every point of view. Invention is exhaufted; reason is fatigued; experience has given judgment; but obftinacy is not yet conquered.

The hon. Gentleman has made one endeavour more to diverfify the form of this disgusting argument. He has thrown out a speech compofed

* Charles Wolfron Cornwall, Efq; lately appointed one of the Lords of the Treasury.

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composed almoft of challenges. Challenges are ferious things; and as he is a man of prudence as well as refolution, I dare fay he had very well weighed thofe challenges before he delivered them. I had long the happiness to fit at the fame fide of the house, and to agree with the hon. Gentleman on all the American questions. My fentiments, I am fure, are well known to him ; and I thought I had been perfectly acquainted with his. Though I find myfelf mistaken, he will fill permit me to ufe the privilege of an old friendship; he will permit me to apply myself to the house under the fanction of his authority; and, on the various grounds he has measured out, to fubmit to you the poor opinions which I have formed, upon a matter of importance enough to demand the fulleft confideration I could bestow upon it.

He has stated to the house two grounds of deliberation; one narrow and fimple, merely confined to the question on your paper: the other more large and more complicated; comprehending the whole series of parliamentary proceedings with regard to America, their causes, and their confequences. With regard to the latter ground, he flates it as ufelefs, and thinks it may be even dangerous, to enter into fo extenfive a field of enquiry. Yet, to my furprize, he had hardly laid down this reftrictive propofition, to which his authority would have given fo much weight, when directly, and with the fame authority, he condemns it; and declares it abfolutely neceffary to enter into the most ample hiftorical detail. His zeal has thrown him a little out of his ufual accu racy. In this perplexity what fhall we do, fir, who are willing to fubmit to the law he gives us? He has reprobated in one part of his fpeech the rule he had laid down for debate in the other; and, after narrowing the ground for all those who are to speak after him, he takes an excurfion himself, as unbounded as the fubject and the extent of his great abilities.

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Sir, When I cannot obey all his laws, I will do the best I can. I will endeavour to obey fuch of them as have the sanction of his example; and to stick to that rule, which, though not confiftent with the other, is the most rational. He was certainly in the right when he took the matter largely. I cannot prevail on myself to agree with him in his cenfure of his own conduct. It is not, he will give me leave to fay, either ufelefs or dangerous. He afferts, that retrofpect is not wife; and the proper, the only proper, fubje&t of enquiry is, "not how we got into this difficulty, but "how we are to get out of it." In other words, we are, according to him, to confult our invention, and to reject our experience. The mode of deliberation he recommends is diametrically oppofite to every rule of reason, and every principle of good sense established

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